Food Freedom Fridy Edition 206 - Daily Detox
The world is full of environmental toxins. It is estimated that there are over 80,000 toxic chemicals used regularly and on average, over 500 chemicals are stored in your body. It is vitally important to incorporate daily strategies into your l lifestyle to support your body’s detoxification systems in getting these unwanted toxins out of your system.
The most challenging toxins to get rid of are the hydrophobic or fat-soluble toxins and heavy metals. These are accumulated from industrial exposure, flame retardants and paint fumes as well as pesticides and herbicides. Toxic deposits can impact your health, contributing to multiple conditions including:
· Blurred vision
· Memory loss
· Weight gain
· Digestive concerns
· Hormonal imbalances
· Inflammation
· Increased risk of cancer
The Detoxification Process
The major detoxification organs of the body include the liver, kidneys, skin, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system, urinary tract, etc. The liver uses a enzymatically driven dual phased system to neutralize and prepare the majority of the toxins you encounter the require elimination from your body. Both of these steps must have adequate resources in order to function optimally and effectively remove these toxins.
In phase I detoxification, the liver takes fat soluble toxins and makes them more water soluble. In phase II detoxification the liver uses enzymes to inactivate the toxins binding them to bile and other molecules for elimination. Several lifestyle interventions can support the liver along with the rest of your body in eliminating these unwanted materials.
Major Detoxification Pathways
You have 4 major detoxification systems:
Perspiration
Sweating – the better you sweat the more effectively you move toxins out of the body. Sedentary lifestyles and staying indoors with air conditioning limits your ability to move toxins. Get outside, exercise regularly and use infrared or sweat sauna‘s.
Urination
The more you urinate, the more toxins we move out of the body. Lack of water intake and dehydration reduce your ability to remove water soluble toxins.
Respiration
The better you breathe (deep as well as often) the more you are able to mobilize the removal of toxins. Again, sedentary lifestyles reduce this form of detoxification and, combined with stress and forward head posture (created from sitting at a desk or continuous use of devices) forces you into short, shallow breathing habits that aren’t effective at removing unwanted debris.
Excretion
The more consistent your bowel movements the more you move waste and toxins out of your body. Constipation stagnates potent toxins that result in inflammation. Ideally you should have 1-3 bowel movements a day as your body should naturally eliminate what it consumed within 12-24 hours after eating it.
Any longer and the digested food putrefies and becomes a breeding ground for opportunistic, inflammatory microbes. These microbes then produce a rampant amount of toxic material that are destructive to your body, reducing your quality of life
Dietary Interventions
Foods to Eliminate
Implementing daily detoxification strategies should begin by incorporating them within your daily routine. Your first step is to eliminate toxins and inflammatory foods from your diet along with eliminating all sugars and grains. Sugars and grains stimulate an insulin release and a metabolic shift towards fat storage and increased inflammatory conditions. Without sugar and grains the body will be more effective at eliminating toxins. Build your meals around healthy fat sources, anti-oxidants, clean proteins and fiber.
Healthy fat sources include naturally occurring animal fats (tallow, lard, duck fat, butter/ghee) from well raised animals, coconut products, avocados, extra-virgin olive oil and sprouted flax, chia, hemp and pumpkin seeds. Anti-oxidants are found in abundance in berries, vegetables, herbs and raw cacao. Clean proteins are found in well raised, pastured poultry, wild caught fish, 100% grass-fed beef & bison and 100% grass-fed, fermented dairy.
Foods to Include
Certain foods are known to support your body eliminate toxins more effectively. These include foods that are rich in chlorophyll like wheat, barley and oat grasses, cilantro, parsley, spinach, spirulina and chlorella. Seeds including chia, hemp and flax are rich in anti-oxidants and fiber which help neutralize toxins and bind them for safe removal.
Other foods rich in sulfur containing amino acids help to boost your body’s stores of glutathione – your master anti-oxidant. Think of incorporating non-denatured grass-fed whey protein and 100% grass-fed raw cheese, organic eggs, avocados, red onions and cruciferous vegetables. Other great sources of glutathione boosting herbs include turmeric, milk thistle, garlic, rosemary, cinnamon and bilberry.
Drinking filtered, clean water with anti-oxidant extracts such as fresh squeezed lemon or herbal botanicals is especially helpful and should be done every day. Water helps flush the urinary and gastrointestinal system out and regulate the gut microenvironment. Adding in anti-oxidant extracts such as lemon, lime or various herbs helps the body neutralize the damaging free radical stress that toxins create.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting and time restricted eating strategies can be incorporated each day or every other day. This may include a 16-20 hour liquid fast each day where only clean water and herbal teas are consumed. Alternately, or in conjunction with a 16 hour daily fasting window, you could choose to fast for 24-36 hours once a week. Intermittent fasting allows the body to shed off inferior cells and dump toxins out of the fat cells and deep within organ tissues.
The best way to begin fasting is by giving your body a minimum of 12 hours between dinner and breakfast every single day. This allows 4 hours to complete digestion and 8 hours for the liver to complete its detoxification cycle. After this is a standard part of your daily life (you’ve created a habit) try taking one day a week and extending the fast to 16-18 hours. Eventually, you may choose to do a full 24 hour fast each week.
Exercise and Sunshine
Healthy movement patterns including exercise and movement that force deeper breathing and sweating help to remove toxins. Exercise also helps improve circulation in both the cardiovascular system and the lymphatic system and improves the anti-oxidant production. Good circulation and intracellular anti-oxidants are critical for healthy detoxification processes.
Infrared saunas or appropriate sun exposure can also be very effective for stimulating toxin removal through sweat. Getting adequate sunshine adds the benefit of increasing vitamin D3 synthesis which boosts the intracellular anti-oxidant glutathione as well.
Make it one of your instrumental daily detoxification strategies to get a good sweat each day through exercise or sauna usage. Doing so will accelerate your health results as you will be eliminating toxins with each sweat. Ensure to remain well hydrated, include mineral rich foods such as celery, sea vegetables, seafood, pickles, olives, green leafy veggies, lemons, limes and restore electrolytes with the inclusion of pink salts.
Strategies for Daily Detoxification
Detoxification strategies you can be incorporated into your daily life with relative ease. As you develop the habit of doing these, they get easier and become something you enjoy and look forward too. Begin by focusing on one of these detoxification strategies each week until you feel like you it is second nature, has become a habit and then add in one more of the strategies.
Certain strategies are simpler and more cost effective than others. Do the best you can with the resources available to you and gradually progress to the ones that take more time and cost as you are able too.
Hydrate
Be sure to drink at least half your body weight in ounces of clean, filtered water daily. Adding lemon/lime or apple cider vinegar to your water enhances the detoxifying effects.
Anti-Inflammatory Diet
Keep grains, sugars, bad fats and commercialized meat out of your diet. Load up on non-starchy veggies, low-glycemic fruit (lemons/limes, grapefruit, berries), pastured meats and proteins, good fats (coconut, grass-fed butter/ghee, olives, olive oil and avocados). Use herbs in abundance and fermented foods and tonics like apple cider vinegar
Fast
Doing a liquid fast for 16-24 hrs daily or even a few days a week can be an incredible practice to improve detoxification pathways. Many people enjoy doing 16-18 hour fasts daily, eating meals within a 6-8 hour eating window (12-7pm for example).
Exercise
Moving your body improves your respiration and perspiration outlets. It also helps mobilize body fat stores where many toxins reside and gets these toxins into our circulation. Try incorporate low intensity movement such as walking, light bicycle riding, dancing, recreational sports as much as possible each and every day.
Add in high-intensity strength training several times per week to build strength, resilience and lean body mass.
Remember Your Greens
Eat as many anti-oxidant rich dark leafy greens as possible, raw, cooked or even in the form of a high-quality greens powder. Juicing greens provides a tremendous amount of chlorophyll and phytonutrients that enhance the detoxification process.
InfraRed Sauna
Red light therapy is a fantastic way to boost your detoxification processes.
Support the Oral Microbiome
Your mouth is your first line of defense for ingested toxins. Oil pulling is an effective means to remove unwanted and possibly harmful microbial debris from the mouth and body on a regular basis.
Improve Gut Motility
Improving bowel movement frequency and consistency is a key detoxification concept. Consuming an anti-inflammatory diet with good fiber sources such as chia seed and flax seed, using bone broths, fermented foods and probiotics will improve bowel motility.
Activated Charcoal
Activated charcoal has millions of tiny pores that capture and bind materials in an absorbent manner, much like a sponge. Due to the absorbent qualities they can grab over 100 times their own weight in toxins. Charcoal also helps to disrupt protective biofilms that bad bacteria, yeast and parasites will develop to protect themselves.
Your body has always had the incredible capacity to remove the foreign substances that you are exposed to. Unfortunately, the amount of toxins that you come into contact with on a daily basis has grown so exponentially fast, that you might find yourself struggling with some level of toxicity in the body which can cause a multitude of symptoms and eventually lead to disease. The good news is that by incorporating simple detoxification practices into your daily routine, you can greatly assist your overworked body. This will have a profound impact on your wellbeing and future health. It has become essential in modern times to become proactive by making healthier choices and practicing self-care. It is so much easier to keep a body healthy then it is to heal from chronic illness.