Do you really need to do a liver detox or is it just a trendy way to ignore your body’s needs?
If the following describes YOU, your detoxification system might be trying to tell you something!
- History of alcohol/drug use or hepatitis
- Long term prescription drug use
- Sensitive to chemicals (tobacco smoke, fumes, perfume, cleaning agents, etc.)
- Pain between the shoulder blades
- Stomach upset by greasy foods
- Greasy or shiny stools
- History of nausea, motion sickness, or morning sickness
- Light or pale colored stools
- Headache over the eyes
- Gallbladder attacks
- Bitter taste in the mouth (especially after meals)
- Become sick or easily intoxicated if drinking wine
- Easily hung over
- Pain under right side of rib cage
- Hemorrhoids or varicose veins
- NutraSweet (aspartame) consumption
- Chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia
So if this is you– read on, learn how your detoxification system works, and how to support it!
Just as nature intended, your body has the ability to “spring clean” naturally on a daily basis if your diet adequately supplies for the process (no special juice cleanse needed)! Natural liver detox (without powders and supplements) is much safer, effective and gentler than a supplemental detox diet. WHY? Because eating whole foods, rather than supplements and powders gives your body well-rounded nutrition with a wide spectrum of nutrients to DRIVE detoxification flawlessly!
An analogy: Liver detoxification is like cleaning your laundry
- FILTRATION. First a good baseline of nutrients allow the liver the ability to filter the blood; identifying good things (food and nutrients) and bad things (toxins and harmful substances). This is similar to finding stains in your laundry.
- PHASE 1 DETOXIFICATION. Next the body uses enzymes and nutrients to transform the bad guys (toxins, used hormones, RX drugs, food additives, etc). The goal of this phase is to begin neutralizing a toxin and start to make it into a water-soluble compound that is able to leave the body. However at this half way point, toxin reactivity actually increases, and can cause problems if it does not continue to phase 2 right away. Think of phase 1 detoxification as a pre-wash cycle.
- PHASE 2 DETOXIFICATION. Phase 2 acts upon phase 1 as the final transformation stage on the toxin, making it water-soluble for removal from the body. Amino acids (building blocks of protein) DRIVE this stage, as they attach to the toxins to further neutralize and escort them out of the body. Phase 2 is like the main wash cycle that removes dirt and debris leaving your clothes clean.
- ELIMINATION. Lastly, the toxins are eliminated out the digestive track via bile, or via the kidneys in urine. Much like the drain and spin cycle.
[keep reading] 7 Signs of impaired detoxification
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