Pre-Pregnancy Detox Plan

  • Topic Info:There's never a more important time to be in optimal health than prior to conception and during pregnancy.

    Those nine months shouldn't be used as an excuse to eat whatever you want, or "eat for two." So, cleansing the body prior to pregnancy is one of the best things you can do to keep yourself and your baby healthy.

    Detoxing is not a new concept. But, most of the detox programs that are popular (fasting, herbal cleanses, juice cleanses) aren't really sustainable and many aren't safe.

    Rea Frey is a nutrition specialist who wanted to devise a plan that people could keep up with year-round, safely, using whole, unprocessed foods. 

    In her book, Detox Before You're Expecting: A Cleansing Program to Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy, she goes over three different levels for detoxing: beginner (someone who eats fast food and drinks soda), intermediate (someone who eats healthy about 50 percent of the time), and super-advanced (someone who eats healthy 95 percent of the time, but still needs a little help).

    Frey also discusses her concept of "toggling" calories. Not everyone likes to count calories, but she has found this method to work for individuals who have failed again and again on diet plans.

    It works like this: find your baseline caloric intake (the number of calories you ingest without gaining or losing weight). For example, if your baseline is 1800 calories, you reduce that by 25 percent (450 calories for a net of 1350) for two or three days. You can do this every three weeks or so and it will jump-start your metabolism each time.

    By reducing your calories in this way, your body won't adapt to that lower number; something that often happens with most traditional diets.

    Listen in as Frey joins Lisa to share more about her detox methods, why it's so important to detox pre-pregnancy, and ways you can detox and stay in optimal shape whether you're planning to get pregnant or not.
  • Book Title: Detox Before You're Expecting: A Cleansing Program to Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy
  • Guest Website:Rea Frey
  • Host: Andrea Donsky, RHN and Lisa Davis, MPH