Detox drinks

Detox Drinks: The Guide to Better Health and Weight Loss

Detox drinks have become very popular in recent years thanks to their numerous health benefits. Many doctors and nutritionists praise detox drinks as one of the easiest ways to rid your body of toxins, flush your liver, boost your energy, give your digestive system a break, and improve your overall health.

In a 2011 survey of 196 naturopathic doctors, 92% of the doctors reported using clinical detoxification therapy to treat a range of conditions from environmental exposures, general cleansing, digestive disorders, and autoimmune diseases. (1)

If you’re looking to use detox drinks for weight loss and better health, or just want to kick sugary drinks, you don’t need a doctor to help you get started, just keep reading below! You’ll learn the benefits of detox drinks, types of detox drinks, and how to incorporate them into your diet

What is a Detox Drink?

A detox drink is a drink recipe that helps your body rid itself of toxins, promote weight loss, boost energy, cleanse the liver, or any combination of these. They’re also known as detox cleanse drinks or cleansing drinks. They usually contains some combination of water with fruit, vegetables, herbs or other natural ingredients that boosts your body’s ability to eliminate toxins from your system.

Some of the more popular detox drinks include detox water, detox tea, detox juice, and detox smoothies.

Why Detox?

The world is full of pollutants – from the air we breathe, to the food we eat, and the water we drink. All around us, there are things that we ingest that our bodies can’t use or worse, do harm to our system.

When you detox, you’re giving your body, especially your liver, a chance rid itself of these toxins and get some recovery time in. If you constantly keep eating, drinking, and breathing these toxic substances without flushing them from your system, they build up over time and you risk health issues including cancer, reproductive, metabolic, and mental health effects. (2)

Other health benefits of detox drinks include:

• Reduces inflammation (3)
• Helps weight loss (4)
• Improves skin health (5)
• Boosts energy and alertness (6)

Try my FREE  Detox Diet Week: The 7 Day Weight Loss Cleanse for an effective 7 day detox diet plan including detox recipes.

Detox Water

At the top of the detox drinks list is detox water thanks to its simplicity and inexpensive ingredients. It contains very few calories because it is not derived from juice or blending. Detox regimens like “lemon detox” or “master cleanse” are based on detox water recipes.

Research has shown that drinking water is one of the best things you can do for better health. It helps fill your stomach so you don’t feel as hungry, and studies have even shown that just drinking water raises your metabolism! (7)

A basic detox water recipe consists of fruit, vegetables or herbs mixed with water. It’s literally that simple.

Popular detox water ingredients include:

• Lemon
• Lime
• Orange
• Strawberries
• Cucumber
• Mint
• Watermelon
• Mango
• Berries
• Grapefruit
• Cinnamon
• Rosemary
• Cilantro

How to Make Detox Water

It’s easy to make delicious detox water, just follow these steps:

1. Set ingredients into the bottom of a pitcher or infuser bottle.
2. Cover with ice about 4-5 inches, then fill the rest with water.
3. Set in the fridge for 1 hour then serve.

You can refill the container 2-3 times before it begins to lose flavor.

For a full list of 25 delicious detox water recipes, check out my Detox Water: The Top 25 Recipes for Fast Weight Loss post!

Detox Tea

The next most popular type of detox drink are detox teas. People have been using detox tea for thousands of years to help detox their bodies and improve their overall health.

Different herbs like ginger, lemongrass, dandelion, and milk thistle contain ingredients said to support a healthy liver, which is one of the main organs in charge of detoxifying your body.

One important note when it comes to detox teas, be sure to get organic ingredients and organic teas. When non organic tea companies dry and process the herbs they do not typically wash off the pesticides, so yep… you guessed it you are ingesting all those nasty chemicals. And if you are looking to detoxify your body those will only hinder your efforts.

Here are the most popular types of Detox Teas:

Green Tea

This very popular detox drink is believed to have been originated in China over 3000 years ago, and since then has spread to become one of the most popular beverages in the world. It’s especially popular in Asian countries, particularly Japan.

It contains powerful antioxidants that help reduce inflammation, blood pressure, and heart disease. (8)

Benefits of Green Tea include:

• Boosts your metabolism (9)
• Helps burn fat, especially belly fat (10)
• Improves immunity (11)
• Helps prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia (12)

Dandelion Tea

Dandelions are those little yellow flowers that pop up in your yard that you fight off all year. Few people realize that these pesky little plants actually contain a lot of health benefits and have been used as a detox drink for centuries.

Benefits of Dandelion Tea include:

• Helps cleanse the liver (13)
• High in antioxidants (14)
• Fights urinary tract infections (15)
• Natural diuretic (16)

Benefits of Ginger Tea include:

• Effective against nausea (18)
• Helps reduce muscle pain and soreness (19)
• Potent anti inflammatory (20)
• Helps lower cholesterol (21)

Milk Thistle Tea

Milk thistle has been used for by people in the Mediterranean for over 2000 years. The early Greeks wrote about its healing properties as far back as 40 A.D.

It’s been shown to be a powerful detox ingredient for symptoms and diseases, including cancer, high cholesterol, chemotherapy, diabetes, alcoholism, kidney stones, and more. (22)

Benefits of Milk Thistle Tea include:

• Powerful antioxidant (23)
• Natural liver detoxifier and damage healer (24)
• Helps lower cholesterol (25)
• Boosts skin health (26)

For more information on the benefits of Detox Tea, see my Detox Tea for Weight Loss and Beautiful Skin post.

Detox Smoothies

I love detox smoothies. When I feel bloated and need to flush my system out, nothing beats the effectiveness of a smoothie cleanse. They’re not only easy to make, they taste amazing, too!

A typical detox smoothie recipe is full of vitamins, antioxidants, fiber, and other nutritious ingredients that provide your body a detoxifying flush. They also contain large amounts of water, which helps to hydrate your body and boost metabolism. (27)

Here are my Top 20 Detox Smoothie Ingredients:

• Spinach
• Celery
• Lemons
• Limes
• Ginger
• Mango
• Cranberries
• Cilantro
• Fennel
• Watermelon
• Almonds (or almond butter)
• Dandelion greens
• Kale
• Green tea
• Watercress
• Arugula
• Wheatgrass
• Avocado
• Spirulina
• Beets

I recommend you use fresh ingredients, but you can also use frozen fruits and vegetables if fresh isn’t available.

How to Make a Detox Smoothie

Detox smoothie recipes are simple to make:

Step 1 – add all ingredients to blender

Step 2 – blend until creamy and smooth

Step 3 – drink!

If you want to make the smoothie colder, try these two options:

Option 1 – Freeze the fruit, or buy frozen fruit.

Option 2 – Add 1/2 a cup of ice.