Removing toxins from your body
is one of the most important things you can do for maintaining optimal health
and energy levels, or losing body fat (if that’s what you want).
Starting the year with a detox
is a great way to reboot your system, revitalize your body, and feel renewed
for the year ahead.
So here are my top 10 ways to
help get built up toxins out of your body.
1. Eat The Right Protein Levels For You
Most detox diets involve
reducing protein – I disagree! Amino acids from protein are essential for
liver function and detoxification – the argument for reducing protein is to
give the liver a rest from protein metabolism – considering that most people’s
livers are under stress from increased simple carbohydrate consumption. I
therefore feel eating the right level of protein and carbohydrate for you on a
daily basis is a better strategy for long-term liver function.
2. Eat Plenty Of Healthy Fat
One of the main pathways your
liver uses to get rid of the processed toxins is through your bile. Your
liver will store your bile in your gall bladder, eating fat triggers the
release of this bile. This bile release helps give you a bowel movement
(see tip #8), which helps move the toxins out of your body. Fat is
a nutritional minefield that I don’t have time to go into here, however try and
eat only clean, natural fats such as extra virgin olive oil, organic butter,
organic coconut oil, organic lard or dripping.
3. Drink Plenty Of Pure Water
The best detox agent is water, yes, WATER. If your body is dehydrated, all the detox systems will not be
able to perform optimally. Water is responsible for keeping the digestive
system flowing, and for the efficient filtration processes in the liver and
kidneys. Water is also extremely important for the function of the
lymphatic system. Aim to drink 0.033 Litres of pure water per KG of body
weight. You don’t want to be bringing in toxins (like fluoride and chlorine)
with your water and so I recommend you drink filtered or pure spring water.
4. Lymphatic Massage, And Exercise
The lymphatic system is
incredibly important and often overlooked. This system comprises three
glands (The spleen, the Thymus and the tonsils). Around all the cells of
the body there is fluid called interstitial fluid. The capillaries and
small blood vessels release nutrients into this interstitial fluid, which moves
around all the cells. The cells can then take up these nutrients and
release by-products into this fluid. This fluid has a one-way system
around the body where it is eventually collected in ducts and vessels, passes
through lymph nodes and lymph glands before eventually entering the blood
stream. You can stimulate the lymphatic system by massage (basically
stroking the skin in a direction towards the heart).
Rebounders (small
trampolines) are particularly beneficial for the lymphatic system, while any
type of exercise causing muscle contraction will also be of great benefit.
So, make sure you move your body!
5. Support Liver Function
The liver detoxes chemicals in
a two-stage process. The liver undertakes multiple mechanisms to deal
with groups of toxins such as water soluble toxins, fat soluble, drug
metabolism, estrogen detoxification, toxins from cellular metabolism, food
additives, toxins from bacteria and the environment. The liver requires
large amounts of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals and antioxidants) to be
able to perform it’s processes. The best way to support liver function is
by eating organic fruit, vegetables and meats.
6. Include These Foods Into Your Diet
Cruciferous vegetables like
Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, swede, turnips, kale, watercress. Which all
contain important phytochemicals that are released when they are chopped,
chewed, fermented, cooked or digested. The substances released then break down
into sulphorophanes, indole-3-carbinol and D-glucarate, which all have a
specific effect on Phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification. Onions, garlic and
leeks also contain many important sulfur compounds that increase
detoxification. Leafy greens are rich in a number of minerals, vitamins,
chlorophyll and flavonoids, which are essential to good detoxification.
7. Sauna Regularly
Having a sauna regularly is a
great way to mobilise and eliminate toxins. Infrared saunas have been
shown to produce sweat that is made up of 15-20% toxins (made up of heavy
metals, sulfuric acid, sodium ammonia, uric acid and fat soluble toxins.)
A number of years ago I bought
myself a sauna to help with mercury mobilisation and detoxification and I’m
pleased to say that the mercury is all gone now…but I still love to sauna…I try
and get in there for 25 minutes twice a week and it’s a great way to relax and
take time out. By the way, if you want to lose fat not only does saunaing
help get rid of fat soluable toxins, but a 30-minute session can burn upwards of
600 calories!
8. Have Great Bowel Movements
Getting your digestive system
working correctly is of paramount importance and our body’s ability to get rid
of the bye products of digestion is critical in an overall sense of
detoxification. You want to be passing 30 cm of fecal matter a day with a
transit time of 12 to 24 hours (transit time is the time it takes for your food
to pass through you). Primarily this is achieved through eating the right
foods for you.
9. Eat Organic Food
Eating organic food serves a
dual purpose for detoxing. Organic foods contain more nutrients due to better
nutrient availability in the soil, these nutrients support liver
detoxification. Secondly, due to the nature of organic food being
chemically spray free you are minimising the load on your liver to detox these
chemicals and in the process increasing your detoxification capacity for other
chemicals – a win/win! If you can’t afford to buy organic vegetables – I
highly recommend you grow your own.
10. Relax
Yes, relaxing, perhaps the
easiest, yet hardest thing to do…Many of the body’s detoxification pathways are
controlled by your autonomic nervous system and relaxing stimulates the
parasympathetic nervous system which is the dominant system for repair and ‘house
keeping duties’ like detoxing. So, make sure to set aside some time for
relaxing every day!
