“Detox” is a popular word… But what does it mean?
It normally involves following a specific diet or using special products that are supposed to rid your body of toxins and improve your health (and probably provide weight loss).
First, you should know that your body is able to eliminate toxins on its own. It shouldn’t need special diets or expensive supplements to do so…
However, in order to be able to detox itself, your body’s detoxifying organs must be healthy.
So you might need a little help to enhance your body’s natural detoxification system.
This article explains what detoxing is all about along with nine evidenced-based ways to help your body’s detoxification system.
What’s a toxin?
Detox diets are said to eliminate toxins from your body, improve health, and promote weight loss. And they do…
Whenever you decide to stop eating all the junk and eat a healthy diet, you are helping your body big time!
Why? Because your body is finally able to detox from the “toxins”.
The term “toxin” usually refers to pollutants, synthetic chemicals, and heavy metals that are found in processed and non-organic food, which all negatively affect your health.
Your body is continuously working to eliminate toxins to maintain good health. The organs involved are the liver, the kidneys, the digestive system, the skin, and the lungs.
But as I mentioned earlier, only when these organs are healthy, can they function optimally and effectively eliminate toxins.
So, even though detox diets don’t do anything that your body can’t do on its own, they can certainly help your body’s natural detoxification system…
Here’s a list of the first things you should do if you want to detox your body from toxins, be in good health, and lose weight.
1. Limit Alcohol
Did you know that more than 90% of alcohol is metabolized in your liver?
Because whether you like it or not, alcohol is a toxin!
First, your liver enzymes metabolize alcohol to acetaldehyde, a known cancer-causing chemical.
When your liver recognizes acetaldehyde as a toxin, it converts it to acetate, a harmless substance that can be eliminated from your body later.
Drinking too much alcohol can severely damage your liver and impair its function… This includes filtering waste and toxins from your body!
For that reason, limiting or avoiding alcohol completely is one of the best ways to keep your body’s detoxification system healthy.
I myself have not had a sip since January 2017 and I feel awesome! I have no intention to drink alcohol again.
2. Get Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep at night is a must if you want to support your body’s natural detoxification system.
During your sleep, your brain is able to recharge and remove toxic waste by-products that have accumulated throughout the day.
When you are sleep deprived, your body doesn’t have time to do so and consequently, toxins can build up.
We should all get at least seven to nine hours of sleep per night if we want to be healthy.
Click here to read about insomnia.
3. Drink More Water
Water does so much for your body.
It not only regulates your body temperature, lubricates your joints, maintain brain function, and supports digestion, but it also detoxifies your body by removing waste products.
As you probably know, many processes in your body produce wastes (in the form of urea and carbon dioxide), which cause harm if they build up in your blood.
And it’s water that transports these waste products. It removes them through urination, breathing, and sweating.
So that being said, you’ll understand that staying hydrated is very important for detoxification.
Women should drink about 2.7 litres of water per day while men should aim for about 3.7 litres.
4. Eat less Sugar and Processed Foods
Sugar and processed foods are probably one of the main causes of today’s health problems.
Eating lots of sugary and highly processed foods is linked to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
When you suffer from one of these diseases, your detoxifying organs such as your liver and kidneys are also affected.
For example, one can suffer from a non-alcoholic fatty liver, a condition that impairs liver function.
Consuming less sugar and processed food is another effective way to keep your body’s detoxification system healthy.
5. Eat Antioxidant-Rich Foods
Antioxidants are known to protect your cells against damage caused by free radicals.
You may have heard of “oxidative stress”… This is a condition caused by too many free radicals in the body.
While your body goes through cellular processes such as digestion, it naturally produces these free radicals.
However, consuming alcohol, smoking, eating an unhealthy diet, and being exposed to pollutants can all be the cause of excessive free radicals in the body.
Eating lots of antioxidants can help your body fight the damage caused by free radicals and other toxins.
It’s always best to get antioxidants from food and not supplements…
Examples of antioxidant-rich foods are berries and other fruits, nuts, cacao, vegetables, spices, hibiscus tea, and green tea.
6. Eat Prebiotics
Your gut health is very important for keeping your detoxification system healthy. Your intestinal cells have a detoxification and excretion system that protects your gut and your body from toxins.
Probiotics are a type of fiber that feeds the good bacteria living in your gut (probiotics). When they are well fed, your healthy bacteria are able to produce short-chain fatty acids, which are beneficial for health.
When your gut flora becomes unbalanced with bad bacteria (from antibiotics, drugs, alcohol, sugar, stress), it starts to affect your health.
Consequently, your immune and detoxification systems are weakened, there’s more inflammation in your body, and you are more susceptible to get sick.
Eating foods that are rich in prebiotics can keep your immune system and detoxification system healthy.
Good food sources of prebiotics are found in the plant kingdom, like tomatoes, artichokes, bananas, asparagus, onions, garlic, and oats.
7. Avoid animal products
Animal products such as meat and dairy contain no fiber at all! NONE!
This results in putrefaction in your gut.
Animal flesh doesn’t move efficiently in the digestive system, which doesn’t help the process of detoxification…
When my clients sign up for my 7-day detox, they are encouraged to eat a 100% plant-based diet 1 to 2 weeks before they start the actual program. This is to ensure that the animal products are out of the body before we start the fast.
When omnivores do a colon cleanse (at a clinic or at home), they can see that a lot of what they eat doesn’t come out as it should. The colour and the smell of their enema can be quite intense!
If you’re trying to detox your body, it’s best to stay away from all animal products. Even dairy increases the production of mucus in the body, which doesn’t help your detoxification system.
8. Stay away from chemicals
To detox your body, you must stop intoxicating yourself! This is why it’s important to stay away from all chemicals!
The most obvious are the pesticides used in agriculture… Being organic food is a wise investment for your health!
Avoiding fish products is also part of my recommendations. Fish are known to contain tons of heavy metals like mercury, and other chemicals like PCBs and microplastics.
Avoiding seafood is the only way to detox from those harmful substances.
Switching to natural cleaning products and beauty products is also a great idea… To clean, you can use vinegar or baking soda over toxic commercial cleaning products.
You can also use natural deodorants, makeups, creams, and shampoos to reduce your exposure to chemicals…
9. Fasting to cleanse at a cellular level
Fasting means that you don’t eat at all for a certain period of time.
By doing so, you encourage a process in your body called autophagy. This process involves cell regeneration…
This sounds crazy but it’s true.
When there is no food, your body starts to literally eat itself. It’s sounds bad but it’s not…
Dead cells, old cells, damaged cells, cysts and other unwanted growth get “recycled” into new material and energy. This is quite amazing!
This process helps rebuilding your immune system and making you stronger and younger… because autophagy also slows down aging!
When you’re fasting, you are also eliminating old waste and toxins from your body. When there are no more sugar reserves, your body turns to fat for energy!
When the fat cells are burnt, the toxins that were wrapped in them get liberated and then eliminated. (Toxins are wrapped in fat cells to protect your body.)
A good detox should go on for at least 5 to 7 days. I have created the best detox system for the removal of toxins. You will find it right here.
