I believe to have good health you need to be able to have fun, engage with the community around you and avoid monotony by doing new things. That’s why I fully participate in holiday activities even if it means some of my usual health habits take a back seat. I do my best to stay on track but truth be told at the end of each holiday season I always feel in need of a little tune up! My long term patients know that several times a year, especially to start a new year, I like to do a short detox and I encourage my patients to do the same. A detox plan helps me get back on track with my good eating habits and it assists my body in doing it’s important job of detoxification. We live in a toxic world. Since man made chemicals began being pumped into our environment in the mid 1800’s our air, water, soil and food have become contaminated. A sad fact is that when I was delivering babies in the 1980’s and 1990’s the average baby already had 50 toxins in their cord blood – today a baby has over 200 toxins in their blood at birth!
You can’t be automatically healthy when surrounded by toxins. Our poor bodies are aware of this and work 24/7 in a valiant effort to help us out!. The least we can do is assist by avoiding toxins and adopting health habits that help our body detoxify. Let’s be clear -AVOIDANCE OF TOXINS IS KEY – so I will cover what we can do to reduce our toxin exposure with my newsletter NEW YEAR NEW YOU PART 2. What I want to cover this month is adopting a detox lifestyle as part of our everyday health strategies.
So how does the body detox naturally? The body has mechanisms for removing toxins – both toxins produced inside our bodies and toxins we are exposed to in our environment. So let me review them for you and point out what you can do to improve toxin removal.
1. Good circulation – Fluids in the body need to flow to deliver nutrients needed for detoxification to the tissues and organs and to remove the toxins and waste from the body. What you can do to assist this process is exercise/movement, avoid sitting, do rebounding (bouncing) and dry brushing (see online video’s).
2. Hydration – “Dilution is the solution to pollution.” Plenty of clean water (I will recommend water filters in NEW YEAR NEW YOU Part 2) is needed for adequate fluid circulation, to run important detox pathways, to keep important organs lubricated and to help toxins exit our bodies.
3. Excretion of toxins through the colon, kidneys, lungs and skin – That’s why it’s important to avoid constipation, stay hydrated, avoid smoke/air pollution (I will cover air purifiers in NEW YEAR NEW YOU PART 2) and participate in exercise/sauna that helps us sweat.
4. Detoxification pathways – Your liver is the main detoxification organ and it has detoxification pathways that help tag and eliminate toxins. We can show our liver some love and help it do this important job by avoiding alcohol and other ingested toxins that impair it’s function. There are also many foods/supplements that improve liver function (you will see these included in the detox I recommend).
This month your Health Yourself action is to consider a detox. There are long and complicated detox plans to treat disease that should be done under the supervision of a practitioner well versed in detoxification. The type of detox I am going to recommend and that I like to do several times a year is short and sweet. It is also what I call a universal detox -toxins can be water soluble or fat soluble so I prefer a detox that helps eliminate both kinds of toxins.
HEALTH YOURSELF ACTION – DO XYMOGEN’S 6 DAY DETOX MICRO KIT which can be ordered at www.wholescripts.com
This kit contains liquid drops that help eliminate toxins from the lymphatic system, 2 products to help toxins exit through the GI tract and a protein shake that contains many ingredients that assist the liver and kidney in eliminating toxins and has ingredients to reduce inflammation (you can pack a lot of beneficial ingredients into a shake). A booklet comes with the kit which outlines the instructions for the detox and the type of clean diet that should be followed when doing a detox. Do not do a detox if pregnant, breastfeeding or in ill health. Always consult your physician before doing a detox.
Wishing you a healthy New Year,
Dr Brenda Smith MD
