Have you been considering doing a Spring Detox this year?
Doing a detox can help increase energy levels, balance hormones, improve digestion, rest your adrenals, help stop cravings and simply make you feel great all over.
This week I will share some fantastic tips to help you shed the old and herald in the new you! Be sure to check my upcoming emails. We will talk about detoxing our homes, detoxing our minds, and how we can truly live a holistically positive life.
Today let’s explore if detoxing is safe for thyroid patients, and why some people feel no different at all after a detox.
Example Food Plan for a simple DYI Detox
Start your day with:
2 glasses of warm water with lemon juice followed by
- A green smoothie or
- Chia pudding or
- Buckwheat porridge or
- Whole grain bread or rice crackers with avocado, tomato, hummus, cucumber
Lunch
- A simple vegetable salad
- Homemade soup
Snacks
- Nuts and Seeds
- Fruit
- Smoothies or juices
Dinner
- Roasted veggies
- Salads
- Stir fries
- Buckwheat, chick peas, beans and steamed veggies
Water – be sure to drink filtered water to flush the body 33 ml per kg weight is the goal.
Eating a light meal plan like the one above gives the digestive system a rest, the liver a break and you more energy.
It is suitable for any healthy person to undertake for an added health boost.
!!!! However, it may not be suitable if you have a hormone imbalance.
Depending on the actual hormones in questions, many people will need to add in extra easily digestible protein to support healing.
If there is fatty liver, or sluggish liver clearance (standard issues in thyroid patients), nutrients and herbs will support the liver to detox appropriately. The diet above will take pressure off the liver, but may not actually facilitate detoxification above normal functions of the liver. This means you feel better whilst on the detox, but once you start eating normally again you feel the same as before.
If you have adrenal fatigue – or HPA dysfunction – then you will need more protein and some more fats to support your recovery. Severe adrenal fatigue can be worsened with fasting or incorrect diet, so if you have fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest, don’t do a detox without more information.
For those with metabolic syndrome or blood sugar regulation problems, this diet could affect energy negatively, result in drops in blood sugar in the second half of the day, and make them feel worse. Again, usually they will need more easily digestible protein and some fats to keep blood sugars in line and sweet cravings at bay.
Detoxing is a very trendy things to do amongst not only health buffs, but the average person is quite aware that detoxing can help you feel healthier. Unless it doesn’t.
If you have a pre-existing health condition, you should detox with individualised treatment plans in place to ensure that you are really making a benefit to your wellness, and not causing a deeper imbalance.
If you aren’t sure that a detox is right for you, then simply eliminating certain foods will be a safe and beneficial start.
STOP:
- Alcohol
- Sugar
- All refined food
- Caffeine
These foods all contribute to adrenal fatigue and inflammation, so avoiding them will help you feel better pretty quickly.
Heavy Metals
If you are holding onto dangerous levels of common heavy metals, detoxing can actually endanger you if it is done incorrectly, or too quickly. The most common heavy metals are; antimony, aluminum, mercury, cadmium, silver, lead and arsenic.
These substances are extremely dangerous to our DNA, cause oxidative damage, and tax our anti-oxidant system.
Releasing them due to detox stimulated by food restriction can result in a re-uptake of the liberated toxin, and the toxin goes to work damaging the body all over again until the body can either eliminate it, or immobilize it in a fatty membrane.
Therefore, people with heavy metal loads need to detox slowly whilst always eating protein and fats in the diet, because proteins and fats can catch liberated metals. Many popular detox plans don’t account for this, and put people at risk by cutting out fat and protein from the diet.
How to do it right
If you fall into any of these categories then working with a health practitioner experienced in hormone imbalance and detoxification is the best way to improve your health.
Pathology should be performed to understand the function and state of imbalance in the body. Guessing can be perilous to your health, waste time and money, and get you nowhere fast, the best results happen for those who invest in thorough functional pathology before diving into a detoxification protocol.
A great practitioner will factor in your history, genetics, current pathology and your goals to formulate a program that will detox your body in a safe and steady manner with minimal reactions.
The end result?
Great health!
