In a nutshell, detoxification is removal of harmful toxins and poisons from your body.
Harmful substances include chemicals, prescription drugs, heavy metals, alcohol overload, refined sugar, hormones, or even overdoses of things we think may help our body. Even an overload of things we think are ‘good’ can become toxic (eg vitamins, asprin, tylenol, etc).
Remember, your body must eliminate or excrete all the extra if it does not need it, whether it perceives it from a harmful source, or purely overload and excessive. See the last paragraphs in my post here on balance or homeostasis.
Understanding this fact was life-changing for me, as I thought I just had to pump more and more ‘good’ into my body so it would have enough to work with. This is not necessarily true.
First, Stop the “Bad”
Eliminating or stopping the ‘bad’ is the first step in detoxification.
For example, you work in an environment with fumes, oils, exhaust, sprays, and cleaners. Maybe you spread toxic cream or makeup on your face every day. You spread triclosan on your hands because you have to use toxic hand sanitizer? Or you are obsessed with some softdrink or sugar snack. It’s all bad. Here’s my info on Toxicity and How you Get it.
You start with headaches, skin outbreaks, allergies, more flu’s and colds, and after a while or years you complain of some nerve disorder (ED, MS, diabetes, etc). Dr. Clark believed all ill-health began with something toxic.
Even the accumulation of poisons you can control is enough to push your body over the disease edge. Stop the fumes, toxins, poisons you do to yourself, and BEGIN recovering.
Symptoms are your Wake-Up Call
Years of exposure to toxins build up over the years. The symptoms develop, and it’s your body’s way of saying “Hello….wake up!”.
Symptoms are actually your friend. It’s your second chance. You can stop the poisons and through the process of detox and rebuilding, your body can make new cells and start to revive. But you can’t get better if the root cause is still continuing or sitting there.
It’s hard, requires discipline and serious intention. Detoxification is an effort to wake up, turn back the clock, stop your body from collapsing physically, and extend your life.
Must Detox be a traumatic Event?
What if you don’t even know you have some toxic chemical lurking in your body?
Is your body unable to remove harmful substances on its own? Is it possible to merely avoid toxic chemicals and if you are exposed, hope they will disappear on their own? Or is it ONLY able to resurrect itself through a “liver cleanse”, “kidney cleanse”, or “colon cleanse” or a fast?
Dr. Clark’s theory was that your body wants to heal itself. You must stop the poison, and remove it from the body. The body cleanses such as the Liver Cleanse, Kidney Cleanse, Bowel Cleanse are the ways to clear those pathways in order to detox. But I believe it doesn’t have to be a traumatic event for everyone.
Here’s the bottom line…. fuel matters
Flushing out poisons can come with all the ‘cleanses’ that Dr. Clark recommends.
But keeping your body clean is found in avoiding the “bad” referred to above, and avoiding the processed and junk food, fried food, soda, sugar-laden pastries, foods with additives, and sticking with a plant-based diet.
Fresh raw vegetable juices and fresh raw fruit juices are the real cleansers that our body needs.
Whole foods as in fruits and vegetables are superior to fragmented isolated minerals like multi-vitamin pills. The more whole plant foods you get, the more vital minerals and nutrients you will absorb, and the less your body needs to do all the extra cleansing. It will begin to cleanse automatically.
Detoxing becomes a way of life, through the improved choices you make and the good foods you eat. Here’s my personal detox program in a nutshell.
Go ahead and eat your way to good health and detoxification. Have a great day!
Lyn
