Ten Ways to Tell That Your Detox Diet Is Working
▶ Losing weight and gaining health
▶ Smelling, feeling, and looking better
▶ Watching food allergies, blood pressure, and digestion improve
▶ Experiencing better moods and higher quality of life
Say you’ve made the decision to start on a detoxification diet. You get the necessary equipment; clean the processed and toxin-filled food from your fridge and pantry; replace it with wholesome, natural, organic food; and work hard to improve your eating habits. These steps aren’t easy to take, so if you complete them successfully, congratulations are in order!
But enough with the congratulations — how do you know when this diet is really working? How do you know when the healthy choices you’re making start to have a positive effect on your body?
That’s the topic I tackle in this chapter. Read on to get the scoop on ten wonderful ways that you can tell your efforts to implement and stick to a detox diet are paying off and helping to create a healthier you.
You Lose Some Weight
When your body contains high levels of toxins, it relies on a natural process that isolates the toxic materials and tucks them away where they can’t do any harm to your important organs and tissues. That process involves toxins being absorbed and stored for long periods of time in fat cells. Many people don’t know it, but fat cells can be storehouses for toxins, particularly heavy metals and chemical toxins. After toxins end up in fat cells, another natural process takes place. That process causes fat cells to grow and expand in an effort to dilute the toxins. Put these two processes together, and toxins can not only result in an abundance of fat cells but also a growth in the size of those fat cells.
So what happens to those fat cells when you embark on a detoxification diet? When you drastically cut down on the amount of toxins you take in with your food and water, and when you also make a concerted effort to eat the kinds of foods that boost your body’s efforts to rid itself of toxins, the result is an over- all decrease in the amount of toxic materials present in your body. And when the toxin levels go down, your body no longer needs the multitude of growing fat cells necessary to sequester all those toxins, so your body begins to do away with them. This nifty sequence of events is one of the main reasons why detox dieting is such a great way to help you reach your ideal weight. (It also doesn’t hurt that detox diets focus on healthful, low-fat foods, which can only give you another step down the path of healthy weight management.)
You Don’t Get Sick as Often
With all the foreign substances that can end up in your body, it’s safe to say that your immune system, which your body relies on to fight infection and disease, has plenty to deal with. Even in the purest, cleanest environments, harmful materials end up in your bloodstream and in your body’s organs and tissues. When that happens, your immune system comes to the rescue. It’s an extremely complex and effective natural machine, and you want to keep it in the best possible condition so it can thwart the dangerous advances made by bacteria, parasites, viruses, and toxins.
The immune system is complex and kind of fragile. Its many unique parts must work together in order for you to enjoy maximum immunity, and these parts can be thrown out of whack or even destroyed if they’re exposed to certain materials, including toxins. In relatively low amounts, toxins can be a disruption to your immune system, and when toxic levels are high the effects can be devastating. Your body can quickly lose the ability to defend itself against foreign invaders.
You may not notice a huge effect on your immune system when you first start a detox diet, but after a while you may be pleasantly surprised by how resilient you are against infections. You may dodge the bullet when the rest of the people in your office catch a nasty cold, for example. The reason is that a decreased toxic load takes away a major threat to your immune system, and all those wonderful, efficient parts of your body are able to work together to keep you healthy and feeling great.
Okay, this one may catch you off guard. But it’s true! Sticking to a detox diet will go a long way toward preventing the creation of foul-smelling gas in your intestines. Allow me to explain.
When your intestines are at their healthiest, you have a balance of bacteria that features a normal amount of good, beneficial bacteria and only trace levels of bad bacteria. At their worst, the good bacteria don’t have any effect on you at all, and at their best they can help you digest certain foods that you wouldn’t be able to digest on your own. Bad bacteria, however, can do all sorts of nasty things to your body, including causing disease, robbing you of key nutrients, and even contributing to really bad-smelling gas.
How can you make sure your intestines contain the right amounts of good bacteria and very little amounts of bad bacteria? Go on a detox diet. Making wise food choices will help to create an environment in your intestines that helps good bacteria to succeed and makes it hard for harmful bacteria to get a foothold. And that will work wonders if you’re one of the many people who suffer from offensive, foul-smelling gas.
You Have More Energy
Want to put some pep in your step? Go on a detox diet. A noticeable (and extremely pleasant) increase in energy levels is one of the first things that my patients mention when they’ve been on a detoxification diet for a few weeks. Why does that happen? There are several reasons, but an important one is the ability of your thyroid gland to work as it’s supposed to. Your thyroid gland is responsible for regulating your metabolism, which is the root of your energy levels. The thyroid can be a fickle gland, and it’s prone to acting up when you have too many toxins — particularly mercury — in your blood- stream and elsewhere in your body.
When your thyroid goes on the fritz, it can do lots of bizarre and unpleasant things to your body, including wreaking havoc on the amount of energy you have. (Read all about that subject in Chapter 11.) If you want to enjoy healthy, comfortable amounts of energy — not too much, not too little — work toward detoxifying your body and put a detox diet at the very top of your priority list.
Your Skin Looks and Feels Better
Sweating is one of the most effective and important methods for detoxification. When your body is overrun with toxins and you sweat them out constantly, your skin can really improve. Sweat is good for your skin and can make you look and feel very healthy. Sweating also increases the natural oils on the skin that keep the skin soft and moist.
Slashing the amount of toxins in your body using a detox diet helps to limit the toxins that you sweat out onto your skin. When you combine that effort with a careful skincare regimen and a commitment to drinking plenty of purified water, you’re bound to end up with softer, healthier skin.
You can also use a sauna to help sweat out the toxins that are already in your body — see Chapter 18 for details. Just be sure that you take a good, long shower after you’re done so toxins go down the drain and don’t stay on your skin.
Your Food Allergies Improve
If you’re one of the millions of people who suffer from food allergies, you know how annoying, frustrating, and even dangerous they can be. Some food allergies are relatively easy to deal with — it’s pretty easy to avoid eating oysters if you’re allergic to shellfish, for example. But others are a real pain. If you’re allergic to gluten (a common substance in many grains), you know exactly what I’m talking about.
If certain foods give you fits and you want to improve the situation, get started on a detox diet right away. Dodging toxins and eating foods that help to flush them from your body will help to prevent a condition called leaky gut syndrome that can contribute to the occurrence and severity of food allergies. Leaky gut syndrome occurs when toxins irritate and inflame your intestines, and as a result the intestines accidentally allow dangerous materials to pass through your intestinal wall into your bloodstream. Many people believe that leaky gut syndrome can play a big part in causing food allergies. If you can cut way down on your toxicity, you’ll keep your intestines healthy and make leaky gut syndrome much less of an issue.
One out of every four Americans suffers from hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure. This condition contributes to stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure, among other problems, and the unhealthy diets and abundance of toxins that are so prevalent in our world today are only making matters worse.
If you or someone you’re close to suffers from hypertension, I strongly suggest a detoxification diet. It’s a little known fact that several toxins can have a harmful effect on your blood pressure. Lead is the worst of the bunch, and it also happens to be one of the most common toxins. Cut out those toxins and take an active approach to flushing them out of your body, and you’re almost certain to lower your blood pressure and help keep it down at a healthy, comfortable level.
Your Bowel Movements Are More Regular
People sometimes cringe when it comes time to talk about bowel movements, but the truth is that they’re an important part of your health and you need to pay attention to them. Regular, comfortable bowel movements are a sign that your digestive system is working as it should, and that should be a goal for everyone.
Toxins have a negative impact on your bowel movements. They can cause lots of intestinal problems from constipation to diarrhea and everything in between. The results can be malnutrition, dehydration, and increased toxic- ity, just to name a few.
A detox diet greatly reduces the amount of toxins that enter your body, which helps improve the quality and regularity of your bowel movements. Also, a detox diet provides you with plenty of fiber and other food sub- stances that contribute to healthy bowels and bowel function.
Quite a bit of evidence suggests that detoxification and the avoidance of toxins can help your brain and the rest of your nervous system operate on a higher, healthier level. Of course, some folks also like to refute that idea.
You could spend half a lifetime sorting through the studies and research results trying to figure out the exact, quantitative effect of toxins on your neurological system and your mental health. Before you go off and do that, consider this: Nearly every patient I’ve ever helped to start and follow through with a detoxification diet has reported that his or her mental state has improved by leaps and bounds. Detox diets make people feel calmer and more at ease, and they also help people think more clearly and avoid the “brain fog” that makes it hard to excel at work and enjoy personal time.
You Live a Long, Healthy Life
Okay, okay, so this one takes a little bit more time for you to see the results. But if you make the commitment to maintain a detox diet for life — and don’t be mistaken, that’s the kind of timeline we’re talking about here — you’ll be less likely to suffer from the diseases that now afflict so many people as they age. These diseases include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and many different forms of cancer. Going on a detox diet and following a detox protocol is probably the best chance you have to avoid facing these illnesses. And a detox lifestyle will positively affect every other aspect of your health in the meantime.
0 comments:
Post a Comment