HOW TO DETOX
Don’t detox without planning. Keep an honest food diary for a couple of weeks beforehand. This is a good way of taking stock of exactly what you eat and how you feel afterwards – tired, bloated, still hungry or craving sugar half an hour later. It’s important too, not to take an extreme approach. Unless you’re in the hands of experts, a hardcore detox is no good whatsoever. A gradual, natural detox over, say, a four week period will be much more workable. You’re less likely to fall off the wagon and will be able to incorporate the good habits into your everyday life. If you really want a quick fix then your best bet is to go for a residential treatment where your progress is properly monitored.

You also need to balance the food groups you eat. A detox food-plan isn’t just about raw veg. You should include carbohydrate, protein and fat in every meal. Aim for equal portions of complex carbs and lean protein. This applies to snacks as well. By making sure you don’t go hungry, you’re more likely to stick to the programme.

Try to go organic. Pesticides and chemicals have to be broken down by the liver, so ease the strain by choosing organic whenever you can. The great complaint against organic, especially during these credit crunchy times, is that it is more expensive, but processed food contains so few nutrients you need to eat twice as much in order to fill and feed the body sufficiently.

And finally, don’t quit. After a two-day high at the beginning, you’re inevitably going to hit a wall after a while, but push through it. Think long-term gain versus short-term pain.

DETOX YOUR MIND
First of all: lose the negativity. Become an eternal optimist and you won’t just think you’re better off, you actually will be. So says the psychologist Martin Seligman, who has demonstrated that mildly deluded optimists have more successful careers, live longer, attract more friends and generally have more fun.

To feel good about yourself it’s important to play to your strengths. We all feel good when we’re doing something we’re good at. It’s obvious, really. Work out where you’re using your skills and explore how you can get more out of them in your everyday life by using them in different areas. And give whatever you’re doing your undivided attention; half measures don’t get anyone anywhere. Set aside a specific time to fulfil a task and, as the Nike slogan says, just do it. Forget the excuses and the moaning, it will mean you will finish what you’re doing in half the time.

And you’ll feel better if you succeed at a challenge. Get out of your comfort zone. Setting yourself realistic goals that are challenging and exciting can help with motivation and life-lot satisfaction. Just remember to hit the right level of goal as anything that’s too hard or too easy will just lead to frustration.

And finally, choose your direction. Only by deciding what your priorities are, will you achieve any sense of purpose. So, imagine yourself a year from now. What have you learnt? How do you feel? Where are you working? You can’t do everything, so choose what is most important to you and focus on it.

HEAD TO THE SPA
Once you’ve sorted the inner workings, it’s time to take care of the outer shell. Try a spa treatment to give the old bodywork the once over. One of the best spas for an all-over cleansing purge is St Brides Spa Hotel. Their D-Tox Spa Day is not only one of the most reasonable all-dayers around (£95 per person) it also has one of the most can’t-believe-your-eyes locations on the Pembrokeshire coast. The day includes use of their thermal suite to improve sluggish circulation, a draining and detoxifying body wrap, a healthy lunch, a dip in their infinity pool which melds with the sea at high tide, all topped off with some herbal tea in the cliff-top relaxation lounge where you can while away the hours looking at the stunning views of the harbour, beach, Sandersfoot village and Carmarthen Bay. In short, it’s detox with a touch of lux and, let’s face it, we could all do with a bit of that.
www.stbridesspahotel.com

CALLING IT QUITS
If your New Year’s resolution is to pack in the fags, you’re not alone. Of the UK’s 12 million smokers, three million attempt to quit each year but the bad news is only 3% manage to stay on the wagon long-term. As an ex-smoker, I know how hard kicking the habit to the curb is, because I’ve been off the nicotine for three years and I still get the occasional craving. If you want to take the sting out of stopping then smoking cessation programmes are becoming increasingly popular, primarily because they’re more likely to work. The late anti-smoking tsar Allen Carr’s much-vaunted course is probably the most famous. Spread over five hours of one day in groups of about twenty, it uses a psychotherapy/hypnotherapy double whammy approach and focuses on why smokers continue despite the obvious disadvantages as opposed to concentrating on why they should quit. It’s successful because it’s about cognitive behavioural therapy: changing your behaviour to change the way you think. The course costs £220 - private sessions are a couple of grand - which sounds a lot but is a mere drop in the ocean compared to how smoking dents your wallet over a lifetime - and this will actually prolong it - and if it doesn’t do the trick then there’s a money back guarantee to boot. For details of your local Allen Carr therapist log onto the website: www.allencarreasyway.com 10 WAYS TO BEAT THE WINTER BLUES
1. Don’t sheep-flock to the gym with the masses this January, take up a team sport instead. Try not to barf, but the camaraderie can be a real mood elevator
2. Take up a new interest. I know this sounds Simon Says simplistic, but sometimes simple is best
3. Lay off the drowning-your-sorrows approach, as alcohol is a potent depressant. You may feel a temporary lift but the high is soon goodbyed
4. Eat spicy food. The substance that makes chillies hot, capsicum, stimulates the release of feel-good endorphins in the brain. Think about it: have you ever seen a depressed Mexican?
5. Drink green tea. It contains high levels of antioxidants that help fight mild depression as well as protect against cancer and heart disease
6. Take vitamins. Zinc is especially effective at upping the brain’s good mood medicine, serotonin
7. Do a negativity edit. If you’ve got a whinger mate who’s always on the moan, limit the amount of time you spend together. Or, harsher still, hit the delete button
8. Change your routine. Experiment by chopping and changing the ingredients of your life to keep things fresh
9. Have a Thai massage. This is much more energising and rigorous than other forms of massage, literally extracting stress from the body
10. Remember winter doesn’t go on forever so enjoy some of its perks, like long walks on crisp, frosty days or having a Sunday roast in front of a crackling country pub fire

SPRING CLEAN

<<<BACK New Year is not the
time to break bad habits and shed weight – it’s now, in Spring, that our minds and bodies are primed for change, says Jason Jones