Toxins are all around us: our food supply, cookware, carpet, water supply, the air we breathe, and even furniture! They build up in our bodies and can adversely affect our health and longevity.
First of all, what is detox?
A lot of people talk about detoxing, but it seems to mean different things to different people: juicing, fasting, or eating lots of cruciferous vegetables and drinking lots of lemon water with cayenne pepper. Others detox by simply stopping their alcohol intake. Nonetheless, lifestyle gets less recognition than food when we talk about toxins.
Detoxification encompasses the metabolism of drugs, metabolites from the gut bacteria, pollutants, metabolic byproducts, and even toxic experiences, relationships, and thoughts.
Dr. Deanna Minich wrote a wonderful book titled “Whole Detox.”
In her book, she discusses the different toxins that affect our health. She recommends a whole-self detox program. Another interesting book on the topic is “Clean, Green & Lean”, by Dr. Walter Crinnion. He writes about how to eat clean and clean up your environment.
Common chemicals that weigh us down include Dioxins, produced when chlorine-containing compounds are made in chemical plants; volatile compounds – solvents including styrene, xylene, dichlorobenzene and ethylphenol; halogenated compounds like DDT, PCBs, PBDE or flame retardants; organophosphate pesticides, phthalates in plastic, naphthalenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PCBs from combustion sources, heavy metals including lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic, and Bisphenol-A.
Some of the leading sources of chlorinated pesticides are non-organic beef, non-organic dairy products, farm-raised fish (especially salmon and catfish), and non-organic butter just to name a few.
You may think you’re safe with the vegetables, but beware: some of them can also be filled with toxins — the fruits and veggies that have the highest pesticide residues include: apples, bell peppers, carrots, celery, cherries, imported grapes, kale, lettuce, nectarines, peaches, pears, and strawberries.
To get rid of them, you can soak and scrub with 10% vinegar or simply wash your fruits and vegetables.
A study by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland found that farmed salmon has an average of four times more PBCs, dioxins, and other persistent chlorinated contaminants than wild salmon.
That’s because the feed pellets are made from small fish that have been contaminated with PBCs.
Here are some common symptoms of toxicity:
Fatigue, depression, brain fog, balance problems, poor memory, headaches, tremors, allergies, asthma, chemical sensitivity, diabetes, fibromyalgia, autoimmunity, infertility, chronic infections.
Detoxing Your Lifestyle
Lifestyle toxicities include going to a toxic job every day, having toxic emotions stored within us, thinking recycled toxic thoughts, and being exposed to environmental toxins in our homes, schools, and workplaces. We need to approach detoxing as a lifestyle change rather than a temporary deprivation.
This also includes our gadgets: EMF exposure is a type of energy emitted from electronic devices such as cell phones, cordless phones, routers, and any electronic devices that can be connected without a cord. EMF exposure has been associated with certain types of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, male infertility, headaches, poor concentration, depression, sleep problems, and fatigue. So make it a point to reserve some time to turn off your smartphone, iPad, and laptop, and unplug the Wi-Fi altogether.
Physical toxins like heavy metals can create psychological effects and psychological toxins, like stress, can have a physical manifestation. This toxic burden contributes to many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and neurodegeneration.
Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were given medical foods with specific nutrients to enhance detoxification pathways in combination with a clean, low allergy, calorie-controlled diet, and they had a greater reduction in health complaints.
Detox and Weight Loss
Many of my patients are looking for ways to lose weight, increase their energy, and feel great. Patients struggle with brain fog, anxiety, achy joints, insomnia, depression, and fatigue.
Simply adhering to strict dietary programs may not be the answer.
An American’s average toxic burden is higher than it’s ever been, and so is our rate of obesity. Coincidence?
In order to succeed in your diet detox, choose clean foods, eliminate trans fats, eat less refined sugar, reduce your daily cereal and bread habit, and eliminate dairy.
Next to wheat, dairy and sugar are the most common reactive food. The goal is to eat plenty of lean protein, berries, green tea, broccoli, fish oil, and olive oil.
“You are what you eat” can be easily translated into “avoid junk food”.
Don’t simply focus on the body — focus on the whole self.
Your body affects your feelings and your feelings affect your body. A happy, relaxed person is biochemically different from an angry, sad, or fearful person. And fear, grief, and anger are harder to measure than one’s blood pressure or cholesterol level.
Stress, for instance, is toxic. The stress hormone, cortisol, cues your body to put on the pounds, disrupts your sleep, and raises your blood pressure. Ultimately, this can lead you down the path of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, autoimmune conditions, and cancer.
Detox is not simply nutritional advice. We need to minimize life toxins, too.
In a nutshell, here are some areas to contemplate and implement: improve your diet, drink more water, and identify any limiting beliefs. Diet, supplements, hormone balancing, lifestyle, self-exploration, and journaling are all effective measures to detoxify.
Identify your own personal toxins. Mind, body, and emotions all affect one another.
Finding purpose, eliminating toxic food, and removing toxic thoughts can all improve your wellbeing.
We can all detox through food, movement, new thought patterns, and emotional expression.
Detoxing is a personal approach. It requires self-reflection. What aspects of your life and your body need cleansing, healing, and rejuvenation? Although we are all different, we need sound nutrition, emotional stability, and letting go of limiting beliefs and toxic self-talk — toxins that impede our growth. Let’s not ignore the role of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions in our health.
Diet tweaks
Did you know that losing weight and staying healthy has more to do with getting rid of toxins in your diet, in your body, and in your environment than with following the latest weight loss diet? Clean up your diet, clean out your body, clean out your house and you will eliminate toxins.
A good diet detox begins with eliminating sugar, white flour, unhealthy fats, and caffeine.
Consider buying a water filter, an air purifier, blackout curtains in your bedroom, and eliminating light and EMF pollution in the bedroom.
Remember that your body and mind are part of the same system. Your cells go everywhere. We need to address both health and life issues, and It is crucial to identify all toxic impediments in addition to the nutritional ones.
Consider cleaning your home environment and reorganize your food pantry
Did you know that allergies and sensitivities to the food that we eat can lead to seasonal migraines, arthritis, eczema, asthma, and heart disease? These conditions can improve (and in many cases, disappear) with dietary and environmental changes.
Everyone one of us is living in a toxic world. We are born with a body burden of chemicals we inherit while in the womb because chemicals in our mother’s body cross the placenta into the child. We breathe in toxins when we walk down the soap aisle of the grocery store, inhale car exhaust, when we do our laundry with scented detergent and fabric softener, when we have our clothes dry cleaned and when we cook with Teflon pans.
People around the world use nonstick pots and pans for their everyday cooking, but there’s controversy around nonstick coatings, such as Teflon.
Nonstick cookware, such as frypans and saucepans, has been coated with a material called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), commonly known as Teflon, which is a synthetic chemical made up of carbon and fluorine atoms. Be safe and buy ceramic cookware.
We can also absorb toxins from carpeting, paint, and cabinets in our homes and workplaces, and from meals microwaved in plastic. In other words, just by living in this day and age, we silently (and without doing anything alarming) build up a toxic load.
We can’t escape toxic exposure altogether, but we can cut it way back.
Some basic lifestyle adjustments and some all-natural supplements to our diets can do the trick.
Detox Goals
Stop new toxins from coming into the body
Get accumulated toxins out of the body.
Clean up your diet, clean up your home environment, use toxin fighting supplements, and improve elimination
The top three reactive foods in our diet are wheat, sugar, and dairy. Buy organic foods, and be careful about which foods you eat. Increase the amount of nutrient-dense foods in your diet and use certain all-natural supplements that help your body get rid of fat.
The key is to reduce our toxic burden
When we begin to reduce the toxic burden, our organs start to work much better.
Make your pantry a chemical-free zone, and buy organic foods.
We are rapidly entering into a new chapter in the history of medicine. In the old medicine, most diseases were caused by acute problems stemming from infections, acute exposure to toxins, and physical injuries. Today, healthcare workers spend most of their time caring for patients with chronic illnesses that last for years.
Today, we are exposed to thousands of chemicals that simply did not exist 50 years ago. We are also exposed to massive amounts of EMF that did not exist 50 years ago. We are continually exposed to all kinds of heavy metals, chemical pollutants, and radiation, in amounts and varieties never before encountered in the history of humankind.
If you’re concerned about the consequences of such exposure and would like more guidance, contact OC Sports and Wellness today at 949-460-9111.
