In this episode, you will learn the common detox mistakes and how to overcome them.  You will also learn the signs you may need to detox and how to ensure that you are doing more good than harm for your body.

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

7 Day Spark

Eating with Intention

Wellness Tribe

Submit a Question for the Show

Fall 2018 Nourishing Detox

Food Addiction Fact or Fiction Episode 051

Sluggish Liver Episode 050

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Recap: What is a Detox? Cleanse? Why Would I recommend it?  

You might be wondering what the difference is between a detox and a cleanse. The words "detox" and "cleanse" are generally used interchangeably. Basically, a detox is a  process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances. You also might know of detoxes happening when people are getting off of addictive substances. Now clearly it’s not possible in this day and age to abstain from toxins, or really even fully rid your body of toxins, it is possible to give your body a BOOST and help it get rid of toxins all on its own.

Cleansing, again, is often used interchangeably, and in this instance and neither is right or wrong. Both are all the rage right now, so you have surely heard of them before.

Cleansing is defined in the dictionary as making something clean, but when thinking in terms of bodily function, the term cleanse is used more often when a program is specifically targeted toward cleaning out and toning certain organs in the body, and most often the digestive system. Some people say that a cleanse eliminates junk and strengthens your body’s detoxification process and a detox is super restrictive...but NO not accurate, they are the same thing, the resticitveness is completely up to the prescriber.

For our purposes, I’ll be using the terms interchangeably.

Why is it important to detox?

The reality is that we live in an increasingly toxic world. Now, we have a choice to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening or we have a choice to pay attention and do what we can to keep ourselves as healthy as possible.

We’re exposed to toxins on a daily basis, and our bodies are built to process a certain toxic load each day. I go into pretty in-depth detail about that in Episode 055, Detox 101. It does this by flushing out chemicals and toxic substances through our colon, our lungs, our kidneys, and even our skin.

We run into problems when we’re over-exposed to toxins and our bodies can’t keep up. Our livers are responsible for organizing the toxins that enter our system and then distributing them to one the channels of detoxification. In fact, if you notice that you have dull skin or breakouts, you’re likely in need of a detox because the skin is the body’s last-resort, and least efficient, detox organ. When things start coming out through the skin it’s because the body is starting to get desperate.

When the liver gets overloaded, its primary job is to keep you safe from the overflow of toxins because those, as you likely know, cause all kinds of damage to our bodies. The way the liver KEEPS you safe, however, is not so awesome: it actually wraps up those toxins in a ball of mucus and stores it in a fat cell. YUCK! The reason so many people have trouble getting rid of fat in certain places is because the fat cells can’t be burned while they are holding a toxin inside.

I am frequently seeing, now more than ever it seems, clients with sluggish livers and borderline kidney troubles too. And unfortunately I also see lots of detoxes/cleanses on the market that claim to help these issue...