Do We Really Need To Detox?
All ancient cultures fast for at least 1 week each year on simply water, or liquids. With my medical training this started me thinking about whether we as more modern cultures could learn a few things from our ancestors. Do We Really Need To Detox?
Our biggest health problems today come from inflammation, stress and insulin resistance. Inflammation is an underlying cause of all chronic health conditions and obesity. When we eat too many sugary or high carbohydrate foods our insulin hormone (that controls blood sugar levels) increase. If we continue to eat foods like this over many years we develop type 2 diabetes where our insulin doesn’t work well and our blood sugar levels increase causing heart disease, strokes and weight gain.
Our bodies are now exposed to an increasingly alarming number of chemicals in our environment. These chemicals include heavy metals and pollution in our atmosphere, pesticides and chemicals in our food and plastics that are everywhere in our lives to name just the tip of the iceberg. Our cells also manufacture toxic waste products every moment as part of the usual chemical reactions that keep us alive and this increases the more stressed we are and bad bacteria and organisms in our gut also produce many toxic waste products. If these toxic waste products are not removed at the same rate that they are produced or we are exposed to them then they build up in our bodies causing inflammation and slow down the efficiency of our bodies functioning. Toxic inflammatory symptoms can present as skin conditions, aches and pains or an inability to lose weight.
Detoxifying when incorporating a low calorie diet (<20% of our body’s requirements), healthy bacteria and anti-inflammatory foods (organic fermented foods and simple liquids) provides many benefits to the body. It forces our body’s insulin to go back to functioning better improving insulin resistance and stabilising blood sugar levels so that we can burn fat for energy. It increases the number of good bacteria in our gut and it also switches on powerful anti-inflammatory mechanisms due to improving insulin function and triggering the production of own antioxidants and detoxification enzymes such as glutathione that quickly reduce inflammation in the body and remove the build up of toxic and inflammatory waste products in our cells.
As our bodies were never designed to be exposed to the number of chemicals and toxins from our environment or the amount of stress that is it today I find that in order to keep toxicity under control our bodies do need the assistance of regular detoxification periods of 7-10 consecutive days annually or regular short periods monthly with potent programs such as the FFDetox program incorporating all the essential elements of detoxification such as calorie restriction, potent good bacteria and organic fermented foods. These programmes can be an important tool to return our bodies to a more healthy efficient functioning state that helps reduce inflammation, toxic symptoms and insulin resistance to dramatically stabilise blood sugar levels, improve fat burning and assist weight loss.
