Reset Your Body After An Indulgent Weekend With These 5 Tips

So you’ve spent the weekend indulging in sticky buns, frozen pizzas, wings, and more. You might be tempted to counteract all that bingeing with a day of deprivation, but here’s what: don’t! While tabloids may tell you that “detoxing” by sipping cayenne pepper water all day can give you a body like Beyoncé, there are healthier, more practical ways to get back on track after some wreckless calorie spending. (And trust me, we’ve all been there.) Here’s our foolproof plan to naturally cleanse your body and get back on track after an indulgent weekend.

Your Step-By-Step Guide To Resetting Your Body Today

By starving yourself, you’re quite literally forcing your body to go into starvation mode. And what happens in starvation mode? Your body clings to fat. No thank you! (This is why we’re not huge fans of intermittent fasting either; it essentially tells your metabolism to slow down.) The key to getting back on track after an indulgent weekend is not to go from one extreme to the other, but to adopt these five simple tips. Ease back into a healthy week by following these guidelines from morning until night:

1. Drink Water with Lemon Or Apple Cider Vinegar

First thing’s first: it’s time to go into hydration mode. If you overindulged, chances are you consumed at least a few treats that were high in sodium. (Or maybe just one too many margaritas!) To counteract that, start your day with a big glass of room temperature water with fresh squeezed lemon in it. It will balance your pH levels and stimulate the natural enzymes in your liver, which helps your body flush out toxins. You can also choose to dilute a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar in your water. Both of these methods will help hit “reset” on your bod!

2. Sweat It Out With A Short Workout

You can’t go from overindulging all weekend straight to running a marathon, so today just focus on sweating it out in a simple way. Ease back into your healthy routine by doing one of the following:

Alternating between jogging half a mile and walking half a mile, for as long as you like
Trying one of these no-fuss 10-minute workouts
Doing 10 minutes of yoga, like this 10-Minute Yoga Flow

All of these options can help you sweat out toxins and give you a much-needed boost of energy after a weekend of carbo-loading. A short but sweet workout at the beginning of the week also helps you get into a good routine so you’ll be ready for more exercise throughout the week. If you’re doing yoga, try to incorporate some twists as well. (Our 10-Minute Yoga Flow has a few!) Twists help wring out the organs and are a natural method of detoxification.

Related: How To Use Yoga To Detox

3. Eat A Bountiful Breakfast

Remember: today is not about skipping meals, it’s about eating clean and taking care of your body. Breakfast is the most important meal of day, so make it your biggest. Be sure to get some protein which will help keep you full, and if you can, add some probiotic-rich foods like greek yogurt or kombucha. (You can also take probiotics in supplement form.) These will help re-establish a healthy gut flora, which can be thrown off balance by a weekend of binge-eating. Our sample 24-hour meal plan at the end of this blog has great ideas for how to start your morning off right and incorporate probiotic-rich foods throughout your day.

4. Choose Fiber-Rich Snacks When You’re Hungry

After a weekend of binge-eating, your body will want to eat as much as you have been eating. To keep yourself full and satisfied, allow yourself to fill up on fiber. Many fruits and veggies naturally have fiber in them, as do oats and legumes. While juicing is never a bad idea, eating fruit in its whole form maintains more of the fiber. You get the natural sugars from the fruit (which we think are just fine!) paired with the natural fiber it produces; this makes your body absorb the sugar more slowly so you don’t get an insulin spike. So if you find yourself extra hungry today, choose a fiber-rich snack that will make you feel full while still being healthy. Here are some great ideas:

5. Skip The Cocktails And Get A Solid 7-8 Hours Of Sleep

You’ve made it through your day of healthy detox-ing! You might be tempted to unwind with a glass of wine, but for tonight, treat yourself to a solid night’s sleep instead of Chardonnay. Alcohol can mess with your sleep, and when you don’t get enough sleep, levels of two key hormones that control your appetite—leptin and ghrelin—get thrown out of whack. This hormonal fluctuation makes you naturally hungrier the next day and can cause you to crave saltier, fattier foods than you normally would. So it’s safe to say that one of the best things you can do to reset your body is to get enough sleep.

24-Hour Sample Meal Plan

So what’s the best plan to reset your body after a few days of indulgences? You can’t just go from tons of rich calorie-laden foods all weekend to a sad desk salad that’s supposed to last you the entire day. Luckily, we’ve created a handy (downloadable!) plan for you to follow! Get your meal plan here and use it as a guide to get back on track with your food choices. You’ve got this!

Click here to get your printable meal plan!