Detoxing or Cleansing – Cleaning out the body!

Posted on 20th July 2011 in detoxification

So over a year ago, the nutritional counselor I saw recommended that I do some sort of cleanse focusing on my large intestine (colon) and then my liver. She recommended Dr. Schultz stuff to help the process along. I’ve heard wonderful things about it. What I’ve read on the website has also excited my health conscious hippie self. However, it’s not cheap because the ingredients are all organic and wild crafted where possible. That’s awesome, but it has to wait for now.

Since I’m not using Dr. Schultz stuff now, it’s become necessary to adapt to my circumstances and learn how to do my own version. I am reading a lot of what he has on his site. Through this I have learned a few things and want to follow the basic guidelines for his colon and liver cleanse. I’ll be trying to replicate some things, like a detox tea,as well as the colon cleansing blends, and picking up a local echinacea tincture. I’m just in the beginning so it’s all a fuzzy idea and no concrete plans have been made yet. However, I have taken a few steps, as an experiment of course, to see just what it takes to detox my body.

The first thing I did was to replace a solid lunch with a nutrient rich freshly juiced lunch. The basic ingredient has been beets, with carrots until I ran out a couple of days ago. I’ve read and heard that just juicing can send your body into a detoxing or cleansing state. Honestly, I didn’t expect anything to happen. I was pleasantly surprise. But I’ll save the “gory” details for later. Today’s post is just a precursor to the crazy.

Currently, until I figure out my plan – which I am writing up today and over the weekend – I’ll keep lunch as juice. It’s not bad, feels almost indulgent – though it’s a very healthy feeling which doesn’t have the sinful indulgent feelings. But hey, who wants to feel sinful all the time?

Until next time. Feel free to share your own detoxing stories!

~ the B’ham Hippie

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New Wave Enviro Fresh Water Works Filter

Fresh Water Works Filter

Fresh Water Works Filter

     For the last few months we’ve been contemplating a water filter. The original reason was to filter out fluoride. Then I learned that Bellingham does not have fluoride added to the water. Yay! Excellent! So I felt less pressured to get a filter, I still wanted one, but wanted to buy one that I felt was high quality, though not super expensive. I did a little research and found that one brand had several good reviews, New Wave Enviro. Our co-ops and Terra Organica, another local healthy grocery store, both carried one of their filters. But the one I was looking at was listed at about $115, which for us, is kind of a large amount of money. I agonized over it. I could buy it, but could I afford it? Then a friend mentioned that Terra Organica carried a much less expensive one by the same company, priced around $32. Interesting. I wanted to know the difference between the two, so I put off buying it until I figured it out. And true to form, I forgot and didn’t pursue it further. Procrastinating and forgetting is what I do, very well.

     Recently, I volunteered to become a “practice client” for someone I know whom has been going through nutritional therapy training. I answered a few questions, gave a thorough health history and discussed the things I wanted resolved. One of the things that I might be having trouble with is my liver, it may be over taxed. It fits with my increasing sensitivity to artificial scents, cleaners, cigarette smoke, alcohol, and much more. I’m not really surprised, I’ve been wondering if there was something up with it. Anyway, she recommended that I stop drinking tap water. In fact she was very surprised that I did, considering I eat fairly healthy and avoid all sorts of other nasty things. If nothing else I should use a Brita filter, she said. At least that will take out the chlorine, which is a poison and no one should ever ingest. Haha, yup, that’s right. It’s used to clean water and no one should ingest it. Oh the crazy things we’ve done while “progressing”.

     I told Rick about it once I got home and he urged me to get that $32 filter and not “settle” for the Brita(nothing wrong with the Brita, it just doesn’t take as much out). Plus having the little spout that hooks up to the faucet that doesn’t have to be refiled like a Brita was going to make my life of cooking, kombuchaing, etc. much easier.

     Well, I have it now. Rick and I noticed the change in the taste of the water right away. It tastes cleaner. The funny thing is, I thought our water tasted clean before. Now it’s pristine. Yup, I’m very happy with it. I’m making plans as to what needs filtered water, the kombucha, the humidifier, tea pot, drinking water of course, the animals drinking water, soaking grains and legumes, soups when I decide to make some, rinsing any foods – I wish I had one for the shower. Perhaps we’ll get that in the future. For now, I’m very pleased with my nifty cool “Fresh Water Works Filter”.

     If you don’t feel like going to their site and reading the unpronounceable names and where they come from I’ll condense it for you. Organic mercury(sounds like an oxymoron right?), which we know is very bad for us, can cause kidney damage and I think brain damage in those very young kiddos. Some crazy things such as acrylamide that are added to water for sewage treatment. Apparently, we have to use nasties to clean out the other nasties. Things like dioxin, which run off of chemical plants – can cause reproductive problems and make you more likely to get a cancer. There are many more that end in “ide”, “zine”, and “chlor” that come from pesticides, herbicides, chemical plants, refineries and much more. The last one I will mention is organic arsenic. People used to kill each other with in back in the day – very bad, increases your cancer risk. And all these nasty things your liver has to filter out, while filtering through the residues in your food, the shower steam you inhale, the alcohol drank on weekends, the exhaust from cars, anything else artificial or organic that isn’t actually safe to breathe or ingest. Give you liver a break, because it works hard enough before you even drink a glass of water. Getting a water filter is a good first step to take if you are planning a detox in the near future.

     As far as installation it’s very easy. It is a counter top unit with a hose, it’s own little “faucet” coming off the filter. It has an attachment that connects to your faucet. It will work for any faucet (unless it’s really old and doesn’t have threading) whether your faucet has inward or outward threads. It comes with an adapter in case your faucet has an “innie”, so that it will fit onto the connector which requires an “outie”. I know that is overly technical. Kidding of course, just at the moment I can’t remember the official name of the types of threading etc. Anyway, all you do is screw everything together and turn it on! Let it run for about five minutes to help clear out any sediment. Ours ran grey – it was the charcoal – for a few minutes. It is recommends that you don’t use hot water because it will wear out the filter sooner. So in the morning, I fill the kettle with filtered water and wait for it to start steaming, so I can have warm lemon water(it’s good for you, keeps you regular).

     One last thing, there is a slight difference in the $32 filter and the more expensive one. It appears to be that it filters out lead, cysts(?), and something called cryptosporidium. Eventually, we’ll upgrade to take out those things, until then I’m hoping there isn’t a lot of lead in our water. It the little steps that count. My liver will be much happier for now. When I do a detox later in the year it will be more thorough because all the water I’ll be drinking will be less toxic.

Fresh Water Works Filter Faucet Adapter

Fresh Water Works Filter Faucet Adapter

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Detox For Better Health

Posted on 10th February 2010 in Green/eco-friendly, Health Related, Life, Opinions, detoxification

     Among my home health experiments detoxing is climbing the priority ladder. The more reading I do the more it seems like a prudent idea. Much of the reading I’ve been doing says eat organically. It seems perfectly logical to decrease the amount of toxins in the form of pesticides you place into your body.

     As frugally as possible I am switching our foods to mostly organic. Eventually we will be entirely organic. But as cost is a major factor in any life change, it’s going slowly. By eating organic foods I’m cutting out several toxins that would otherwise add to the crap already stored in my body. I decide what to choose to buy organically by referring to the list provided by The Environmental Working Group. Here they are by rank. Feel free to check out the full list here.

1. Nectarines
2. Apples
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Kale
9. Lettuce
10. Grapes – Imported
11. Carrots
12. Pears
     Potatoes make the list at #15. I’ve read that anything that grows in the ground like potatoes or peanuts should be organic because they are sitting in a mire of chemicals and dead dirt – they end up absorbing quite a lot of disgusting bits. I want my potatoes to live in a dark chocolate loam of purity until they get picked up for the co-op or other natural food store.
     I have been following this for a couple of weeks. Lots of organic apples and lettuce can be found in our fridge at the moment. Honestly, what I’ve found in the last couple of years of buying more organic foods – they usually taste better. I’m all about taste. Food should taste yummy – not only a visual picture of yummy.

     Organic foods are important to help eliminate the ways toxins get into your body. Wonderful. How do I get rid of the toxins I already have? That’s a little more complicated. There are a million things out there claiming to help detox. What I do, when researching things is to view everything logically, then pick the things that seem to fit together like a puzzle. Synergy is the idea. The logical things I’ve found, that are helping me shape what I’ll be doing to detox my body, short and long term are:

Eliminate processed foods – There is no way around this!
Cut out ways toxins get in – i.e. in food and personal care products
Drink enough water – you have to pee these nasty things out!
Drink filtered water – same idea behind eating organic foods!
Rest – it’s hard work for your body to clean itself!
Cut out things that aren’t beneficial for detoxing or are harder for your body to process – red meat, dairy, coffee etc.
Get enough vitamins – supplements or fresh fruit and veggie juices, preferably organic
Give your digestive system a break – do a water or juice fast. I’ll be trying a juice fast in the near future.
Exercise – It increases all sorts of good hormones, increases circulation which helps to get the nasty stuff out!
Add a probiotic – Miso, kombucha, keffir or yogurt, though the latter two do break the dairy rule
Colon cleanse – I’ve read something that compared your colon to your sink – if you never cleaned your kitchen sink imagine to horrible possibilities!
Drink some teas that promote detoxing – you can find them boxed, or make some lovely loose leaf blend!
Use milk thistle – a friend of mine mentioned that her mother’s naturopath said if she wanted to do a little detoxing buy a bottle of milk thistle, take double or so of the dose until the bottle is empty. (I’ve tried it, it’s amazing how it can help!)

     I’m a firm believer in finding things that fit your life. It’s a westernized ideal to find the one magic treatment that will detox your body fully. My opinion is that detoxing will start to happen naturally after making certain life changes, i.e. cutting out processed foods or coffee. To further detox it seems that the idea of finding synergistic things to use will help you to cleanse your body the most effectively. It’s like clutter – clutter attracts clutter – the problem are habits and choices. I’ll use myself as an example.
     I’ve cut out processed foods. Almost no coffee – only twice or so monthly. I’m cutting down on sugar – I do make fabulous gluten free baked goods so it’s hard. Switching to organic stuff. Cutting down on dairy. I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t drink milk, but I loooooove cheese and yogurt. However, these still create phlegm in the body – the idea is to not create more phlegm. From what I’ve been reading it’s a better idea to use goats milk products like cheese and yogurt instead. I haven’t tried that yet. I’ve done the milk thistle thing. I drink a decent amount of tea that either supports my immune system or helps to boost detoxing. (There are things that detoxing herbs will do that you might not expect. I’ll explain later.) I’ve started exercising at least twice a week. In the grand scheme of things that isn’t much, but it’s way better than what I was doing. I’ve added some needed vitamins such as B12 (I don’t eat a lot of red meat at the moment), D3 (we live in Washington and I know the lack of sunshine affects me profoundly) and minerals such as calcium and magnesium (necessary for proper muscle and nerve health). I’m doing more research to help me figure out what else is important and may need supplementation. I’ve started drinking Kombucha, which I love. I choose only the stuff at the store that has herbs added, no artificial or “natural” flavors or other additives. (Soon I’ll be making my own!) I drink a ridiculous amount of water in a day. I’ve adopted a system of drinking water 30 minutes before or after a meal. I’ve read many times over that drinking water with a meal will dilute the digestive juices and subsequently not allow food to be broken down properly. Thus improper digestion. I’m also planning on doing a juice fast, either using organic juices from the store or ones I prepare myself. Problem, I don’t have a juicer at the moment so I might just have to buy stuff from the store. I figure that one day, doing a fast won’t hurt me – as long as I use juice and teas. Just water will probably make my blood sugar drop too far. Also, a plan for further future would be the colon cleanse. I’m also thinking about adding a more broad vitamin B complex supplement as well. And I’ll be learning how to make keffir from both milk (cow and goat) and coconut milk (crazy I know!).

     From what I’ve seen so far, each change is beneficial in a different way I didn’t know mattered. Not drinking anything 30 minutes before or after a meal has made a HUGE difference in my indigestion problem – I was getting uncomfortably farty.
I’m also trying to sweat out some of these nasty things through taking hot bathes at home and hopefully soon using the YMCA’s sauna.

     A note on using detoxing herbs. Some herbs are laxatives. Laxatives shouldn’t be used long term as your body can become addicted to them. Stop using them and your body may have the opposite problem – not going enough. However, there are some that have a laxative-like effect, but are not true laxatives. Milk thistle is one of the ones I think falls in the last category, but I can’t find definite literature on that. Just be cautious. Aside from laxatives, sometimes detoxifying herbs will make you sweat, which I have found out the hard way several times. Peppermint, lemon, and ginger induce sweating. Since I’m making my own teas and using fairly fresh items I got the crazy sweats a few times and didn’t know why. Also, please understand that the fresher the herb or whatever, often the stronger the effect. So if you have a box of peppermint tea in the cupboard that has been there for awhile, chances are it won’t have the same effect. My advice, experiment on an day that doesn’t matter or be prepared for some entertaining times.

     Also, remember that if you are taking any sort of prescription consult a trained professional. Though most herbs you’ll find are safe, many prescriptions drugs are not safe with herbs. On a little side note: many of the articles that are written by allopathically focused people tend to phrase their sentences to make it sound like the medicines are safe and the herbs are risky. (This makes me very angry.) Hands down, prescription medicines have more side effects and have a higher chance of having a negative reaction with another prescription, food, or herb. Herbs rarely have side effects. Almost all medications have side effects or things you must consider and/or change in order to “safely” take those medications.

Any suggestions on what to do to help clean myself out are always welcome!

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