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We may still be picking bits of confetti out of our hair, but that hasn't stopped the rest of the world from moving quickly into peak diet and detox season. Of course, you know that any diet that severely restricts your calories isn't a good move for your body (that's called starvation). But the potentially more damaging underlying issue with so-called detoxes — even short-term ones — is the way they mess with the way you think about food.
Like all diets, restrictive detoxes and juice cleanses force you to think of everything you put into your body as "good" or "bad." There are no shades of grey or any value given to, you know, the pure pleasure of nourishing your body by eating a thing you enjoy. Plus, there's no science-backed reason to believe that you're ridding your body of toxins anyway — your liver and kidneys do a great job of that already.
So, rather than taking you through an endless list of things not to eat (and a shorter, barely-pronounceable list of things you're allowed to eat) we decided to go a little deeper and try to "cleanse" our lives of things we actually would be better off without: toxic thoughts and toxic people.
Ahead, we go through techniques for addressing five persistent negative thought patterns and endless black holes of stress and anxiety. These are things that continue to mess with your mental health, making it harder to actually find a form of fitness you really enjoy or a way of eating that fuels your body and your soul.
You don't have to do every technique and you don't have to do them forever. Pick the ones that sound the most relevant to you, tweak them as needed, and give 'em a try. And then get ready to start 2017 with only the best vibes.
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