The holistic detox diet is rooted in the centuries-old Indian traditions of healthy eating, in the ancient science and wisdom of Ayurvedic medicine – and in both Eastern and Western approaches to ‘orthodox’ medicine. To this already rich mixture has been added a wide variety of healing philosophies and practices from all over the world. My search for my unique body detox formula (and its subsequent maintenance detox program) has been conducted over many years and has taken me on numerous quests and journeys.

Although I was brought up in London, I was always fed a Brahmin Indian vegetarian diet. My mother had strict ideas about what we should eat and, much to my embarrassment, even campaigned for my school to provide vegetarian meals. Despite my friends constantly nipping down to the chippie or McDonalds, I never remember being tempted to join them. I actually looked forward to my mother’s lentil stew, bean-curd tandoori and lemon-grass tikka. We drank plenty of water and were rarely given bread or dairy products. Generations of my family have been looked after by a family of spiritual guides – our gurus as I call them – who use Ayurvedic medicine to treat everyday ailments.

So I grew up with a mother who treated my sore throats and headaches with a cocktail of herbs. I became fascinated by holistic medicine even though I grew up with a Western philosophy, and without really realizing I was already eating a Holistic Detox Diet.

Nonetheless, the two ‘D’ words – ‘Diet’ and ‘Detox’ – were furthest from my mind when I completed my medical degree in Mumbai. I thought I would be an orthodox medic practicing Western medicine in some capacity. It wasn’t until I found myself clinical tutor at the British School of Osteopathy, with a client base made up mostly of dancers, that I grew really frustrated at the lack of response from my patients to conventional medicine.

The concept of a more traditional approach, based on Ayurveda and especially on a healthy eating plan, began to loom large. These fragile creatures would hobble in to see me resembling nothing more than pipe cleaners with clothes on. It was clear that their diet of tissue paper and low-calorie drinks may have been keeping their weight down (not too many calories in tissue paper) but it provided no nutritional element whatsoever. Some of these dancers were suffering brittle bones at a terrifyingly young age and were forcing their bodies to move in ways they were neither designed nor strong enough to do.

That was when I started to crystallize the concept of a Holistic Detox Diet. I didn’t want it to be about giving up foods and sacrificing the good things in life, but about getting rid of bad eating habits – like those of my dancers. Having had the good fortune to be able to spend a lot of time in my home country of India – where fresh fruit and vegetables drop from the trees, and Ayurvedic and herbal medicine are widely practiced -1 began to think about how these elements could be brought together in reprogramming the body to feel more energized. I also knew that ridding the body of the poisons it accumulates is not enough: mental and emotional toxins have to be flushed out too.

I asked my patients to think of their bodies as bank accounts. If you start on a lavish shopping spree – spending your body’s resources heavily without putting anything back – then you find your account goes way out of balance and becomes starved of funds. If you then (like some of my dancers) start to binge on the quick-fix additives and stimulants of a very high-interest credit card, you are digging yourself into a very deep hole. This vicious splurging/bankruptcy cycle – of eating the wrong foods, craving and then bingeing – results in an emptying out of all your reserve funds and a very unhealthy body. Don’t worry, however; using the Holistic Detox Diet I will show you how to get your balance back into credit.