Detox Basics

Detoxification means clearing the body of toxic congestion and regenerating cellular weaknesses.

Unfortunately, in today’s environment it’s pretty hard to avoid toxins. There are in our air, water, food, homes, offices, cars, lawn, etc. It can be overwhelming to contemplate, but it doesn’t mean you are doomed. It only means that you have to be aware of the sources of toxins and avoid as much as you can. While we can’t control every source of toxicity most of us of are fortunate enough to live in societies where the foods that naturally detoxify our bodies are widely available and accessible to most.

Here is a short run down on what you need to know:

1.     Main organs of detoxification: lymph, liver, kidneys, colon, and skin.  When any of these become over burdened or congested you experience a decrease in energy, a diminished immune system, discomfort, and damage to your cells (or disease). An acidic body chemistry over burdens these eliminatory systems. They have to work overtime to deal with acidic chemistry resulting in diminished capacity. You will then experience a decrease in energy, a diminished immune system, discomfort, and damage to your cells (or disease).

2.     Acid vs. Alkaline: A healthy body naturally maintains a pH between 7-7.5. Lower than 7 means your body is acidic. An acid environment develops over time mainly through a poor diet. The lymph system becomes congested with the chemical by-products of breaking acidic foods such as animal products, processed/fast-foods, dairy, grains, and starches. Then you introduce into the system the types of microbes whose purpose is to actually help by assisting in breakdown and decay, but that cause an acidic by-product themselves. The only solution is to take healing and cleansing foods and herbs that reintroduce an alkaline chemistry into the body.

3.     Fruits and vegetables are alkaline, where as meat, poultry, fish, dairy, breads, desserts, alcohol, processed foods, and negative emotions are acidic. Eating alkaline foods has a cleansing and healing effect on the body; and will therefore, help detoxify your organs. The astringent and alkaline nature of fruit speeds the detoxification process more than any other food group. You have to eat a lot more alkaline foods than acid foods in order to maintain your alkalinity. In reality, most people do not get enough of these foods to counter the harmful effects of the overly acidic foods. Further more, .

4.     Drinking Water: As you most likely already know – drinking water is a good thing. Even a great thing. It is a powerful detox all by itself. Our bodies run on water. It hydrates and flushes. However; not just any water will do. The water must be as clean as possible. Purified water or even better – alkaline and ionized water. If you don’t have purified, use distilled. If you don’t have distilled use natural spring water. If you don’t have anything but tap water – boil it first and let it cool down.

5.     Exercise: Moving the body is important. Not only to keep us strong and bring in fresh oxygen, but to help move lymphatic fluid (the collection of cellular waste and acidic chemistry by-products) and to stimulate the organs of elimination. Extreme or intense exercise isn’t required and in fact, may adversely affect your health if your immune system has already been compromised.  The point is to sweat, get those joints moving, build and tone the muscles, and move lymphatic fluid to the kidneys to filter and eliminate the cellular junk!