Let's dive into one of the more controversial topics in functional medicine, and that is detox. Detoxification brings up one of two responses for people, either it sounds like the cure to everything and everyone needs to detox, or it sounds like complete hippie medicine and it's nonsense. And today I really want to bring my own perspective to you, which is from the perspective of being a physician who is trained conventionally and who values evidence based medicine, but also from a mom and a woman who just wants to take good care of my body and doesn't like the idea of too much building up inside my body. So I'm going to hopefully give you a really balanced approach and a really illogical approach to supporting detox in your body. The truth is, detoxification isn't a cleanse or a tea or a short term reset, but sometimes those things can be helpful. Detox means that you are supporting your body's constant process of breaking down and getting rid of what comes from the outside world and what the body produces itself. The issue most people are dealing with today isn't one massive toxin, it's just an abundance of small exposures every single day, all day. So today, we're going to reframe how you can think about detox in a way that's practical, physiological and evidence based, but also just talk about what we can do that makes sense to support our bodies. We'll also break down what's really clogging up the system to begin with, and what exposures matter most, and what you can realistically do to support detox without extreme protocols or fear based thinking. Let's get started
In this day and age, we hear a lot about different chemicals and different exposures that are not good for our bodies. And this is the first point that I want to hopefully bring up from a common sense perspective, there is a lot going on around us, right? We know that our vegetables and our plants are sprayed with a lot of chemicals. We know that we put a lot of chemicals and products on our face, in our hair, we're exposed to stuff in the air. I am here in Salt Lake City Utah, which is commonly known as some of the worst air around and so we know that we have a lot of exposure to pollution that can affect our health. So that's the first common sense. Point is, let's just acknowledge that there's a lot going on around us that may or may not interfere with our bodies.
We know that there is research that shows certain distinct chemicals are found in our bodies, in blood, urine, and even in the placentas of newborn babies. We know that these chemical substances are found in our bodies. These can be products from sources like the packaging for our foods, plastics, personal care products. There was one study that showed over 3600 food contact chemicals were detected in human biological substances. So we know that our bodies are exposed to lots of stuff, and we know that that stuff can stay in our bodies. These are the common sense factors that we just know at this point now. We also know that the body can detox itself. We know that the body has methods in place to get rid of stuff that's not supposed to be there. In general, I think of two main ways that the body is working to get rid of things. It works to get rid of stuff that is foreign to our bodies, that would be things like pesticides and air pollution and stuff that's in skin care, even if that stuff isn't going to cause cancer or cause major problems. We know that our bodies are exposed to things that are foreign to our bodies, and our bodies have pathways to get rid of that stuff. We also know that our bodies have ways to get rid of our own waste, and that can be food waste, that can be cellular breakdown products that can be the breakdown products from hormones. So the body is constantly working to get rid of stuff that it's exposed to outside of our bodies, as well as stuff that it's exposed to from inside of our bodies. These are all facts so far. Now where this starts to become a problem is when we overflow that tank. So if you are exposed to a whole bunch of things on the outside and you're not good at getting rid of those things, then that's going to lead to a build up. This all makes sense so far. Now before I dive into the nitty gritty, let me just get some terms and definitions straight. When we say toxins, that's actually a misnomer. So if you are going to look at what toxins are in our bodies. Toxins, from a scientific standpoint, or from a biological standpoint, are things that come from nature. So that would be things like snake venom and toxins from poisonous frogs, the toxins that come from mold, these would be things that are growing in nature that would be poisonous to our bodies. So that word is toxins. Now in the scientific literature, the word we're looking for is toxicants. And toxicants are harmful chemicals that are already around us in the outside world due to our industry. So that would be things like pesticides, plastics, solvents, flame retardants, PFAs or forever chemicals and heavy metals. Now both of these can.
Get into our bodies, and our detox systems do have ways to process them. So this brings us to why this is a problem for us today. In our modern world, the number of these toxicants that we're exposed to has just continued to go up and up and up, and this will likely continue to be a problem. The industrial world doesn't seem to be in a hurry to make things without toxicants. The more things that we buy from Amazon and quick fixes and little things here and there that we just buy and put on our bodies without thinking of it, those start to expose us to more and more and more. So this load is really what we're talking about. Sometimes people want to know, what is the one toxin that I can avoid? And that's not really the question we should be asking. We should be saying, how do we decrease the burden on our body's detox system overall? How do we just expose ourselves to less bad things? What is detoxification? Actually, that's the next term I want to define detoxification is when our body transforms these products into a form that can be easily disposed of through the body. So the first thing that it's constantly doing is breaking these products down into a water soluble form, and then it adds a molecule onto that form that can chaperone it out of the body. I was trying to think of a metaphor that works for this, and there's a whole bunch of different ones. Probably that idea of packaging up a package is the way to go. So if you have something that is foreign to your body, your body will take it in, and it will break it down into pieces and shove it in a box, and then that box needs a shipping label on it, and that shipping label is going to then direct how that molecule gets out of the body. And those two phases are commonly known as phase one and phase two detoxification pathways in the liver. The bulk of what is happening to get stuff out of our bodies happens in the liver through chemical processes. And the chemical processes rely on various co factors or various nutrients or substances or molecules to make those things happen. So the first thing our body does is it breaks it down and it turns it into forms that can be eliminated. Now, once it's got its its, you know, Amazon package label on there, then what it will do is it will go out through one of a few main routes. One is sweat, urine, stool, breathing, lymphatic fluid. And then, in some ways, we think about sleep as one of our detox pathways. So let me go back first to sweat. When we sweat, we know that we are helping to excrete these molecules through our pores. We know this with heavy metals. We know this with other chemicals that they've detected on the skin after sweating. So this can be stimulated by heat, by movement, just the the way that you sweat. Now the second thing that our bodies will do is eliminate it through our kidneys. This means that the kidneys have to really work hard to filter and break down and package and then eliminate breakdown products of toxicants into our urine. The third pathway is through our stool. So this is where we see a lot happening in the liver. And the liver packages these things up. It also uses our gallbladder and the bile produced in our gallbladder to to break these things down, and then to act as a pathway for this to get out of the body in the stool. So if we are not evacuating well through our gut, if we're not drinking enough water through our kidneys, if we're not breaking a sweat, then this is where we start to see that we're just not getting rid of the things that we're supposed to get rid of in the ways that we're supposed to get rid of them in. Now the next path we think about is our lymphatic system. Our lymphatics are a network of drainage systems that run right alongside our blood vessels, but our blood vessels have a big motor that pumps them, so our heart, our lymphatics, don't necessarily have a pump. So what causes things to be pushed down our lymphatic network? That's our movement. We move our bodies. We can jump up and down. These are the things that make that lymphatic fluid move through our bodies and carried in that lymphatic fluid is a lot of waste products. That's our cellular waste product, proteins, other toxicants, as they're broken down, will sometimes be moved through lymphatics as well. So we want to make sure that we're moving on a regular basis to help our lymphatics. And then the last one we think about is not technically a detox pathway, but I do think it's important to recognize and that sleep when we sleep, that's when our brain some people describe it as like turning on the automatic cycle on a dishwasher. That's when our brain bathes itself in fluid that helps wash away dead cell parts, dead nerve endings. It helps wash away that waste so that our brain can clear and heal and recover. And so if we're not sleeping, then the brain can start to get foggy from not clearing things out. Now, this isn't some crazy off the wall topic. This is just how biology works. This is how our body gets rid of things. So if you think about things that we encounter on a on a somewhat.
Normal life circumstance. That might be something like taking some Advil.
Advil in large doses is very harmful, but in low doses, it can help, and our body will still want to get rid of that Advil. It will go through these processes, break it down, and send it out. Tylenol would be the same example. Tylenol can be really helpful for certain functions in our bodies, but our body still has to get rid of the Tylenol. So just because something needs to be broken down in our body does not mean that it's poison, but it still needs to be discarded from the body. Alcohol would be another example. We know that people can handle a glass of wine here and there with alcohol, but we also know that you can overwhelm your body's ability to get rid of alcohol. If you are drinking tons of alcohol in a day, we know that that will harm the body. Those are the examples that I think of when I think of detox. Is we know that there's stuff that needs to be removed from our bodies, and we know that we can overwhelm those pathways. So I like to think of this from the metaphor of a sink. If you think of your body as like the kitchen sink, there's a faucet that puts water in, and then there's the drain that allows that water to drain out. Think of the faucet and that water coming in as everything that our body needs to discard. That would be our own metabolic waste, and that would be things that we're exposed to on a regular basis, from putting lotion on our face that has little chemicals that then our body needs to get rid of, to pesticides on our fruits and vegetables. If that faucet is on just a tiny bit, then that drain is going to keep up. It's going to be okay. This is where it starts to become a personalized decision. We don't need to stress about every tiny thing that comes into our bodies, but we want to make sure that it's not coming in too fast or too heavy, and that it can get back out of the body. Now, that drain we think of as our liver, our kidneys, our intestines, our lymphatic system, sweating in our skin, and then our sleep systems. All of these are the things that allow our sink to drain that water. So again, if the faucet is pouring in faster than the drain can clear, then you're going to overflow, and when you get that overflow, that's when we see symptoms that can often go along with toxic burden. Is the easiest way to think about it. That might be things like fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, inflammation or puffiness, headaches, joint pain, hormonal imbalance, digestive sluggishness. I often think of that detox backing up as a feeling of constipation. But not just constipation in our gut, it's that everything is slow and sluggish and just doesn't feel like we're moving well when we're detoxing Well, I think that if we're in tune with our bodies, we can feel that the body feels more agile and more lubricated. It feels like our systems are working, our joints are working, our brains are working. I think that you can relate probably to this feeling if you've ever eaten a really heavy meal late at night and then gone on to have a big dessert, and you just go to bed feeling so full, and maybe you wake up. For me, that feeling is I feel puffy, even my mouth feels a little dry. Maybe I have a little headache. I just want to drink water. I might want to, you know, go take a shower and move my body something just to say, oh, I can tell my body is weighed down and stuck. That's kind of how I think it feels. It feels sluggish and slow and and just stuck. Just like there's there's too much stuff going on.
One of the questions I get asked all the time is, what supplements do you recommend Now, whether this is for daily essentials, sleep support, gut health, what to take during pregnancy? I know how overwhelming it can feel to choose the right products. I have spent hours myself combing through these brands and ingredients, trying to make sure that I can find things that I'm comfortable taking myself and that I'm comfortable recommending to my family and to my patients. I'm then able to get feedback from my patients and family to see, did these supplements actually accomplish what we were hoping that they would accomplish, and this is why I created a curated, fullscript storefront with the brands and supplements I trust most. These are the same ones I use in my clinic and in my own home. When patients say, what do you recommend for magnesium, or what do you recommend for fish oil, or what do you recommend as a fiber supplement, all of these supplements are listed in this storefront. If you're curious, just visit the link in the show notes. There's also a link on our website and through our Instagram account to explore all of my favorites in one place. When you purchase through the link, you get 15% off. Now back to the show. So what can clog that drain would be if our systems aren't working? So like constipation, dehydration, sedentary behavior, sitting. I think even oftentimes in our modern world, we sit frequently like I'm sitting right now. Would be with my legs crossed, maybe my arms are folded. And if you think about the lymphatic system, it has these big processing plants, so to speak. There are certain parts of the body where there's a lot more going on with our lymphatic system that would be at the base of our jaw and skull.
Also around the bottom part of our head and then along our neck, right at the top of our clavicle, in our armpits, and then in our groin. And so if you think about sitting in a chair like I described, legs crossed, arms folded, that's a big site for for processing, for the lymphatics, the opposite of that would be Imagine holding your arms above your head and maybe parting your legs a little bit and doing a squat or doing a lunge. Then you start to see where those lymphatic processing sites, if you will, start to get opened up. And in our modern world, where we're sitting so much, even if we are doing some exercise, how much of the day do we actually lift our arms above our head and have this big, open, physical movements, where that lymphatic fluid can drain. So that's another thing, where that sink can get too full. Now we also think about this with chronic stress. Chronic stress uses up some of the same nutrients and ingredients and parts in our bodies that the detoxification pathways need, so they're competing for resources a little bit. So if you are under chronic stress, remember, with stress, we think of that as running from saber toothed tigers, right? If there's something that is life threatening for you, then that's what stress is in the body. So you can imagine, if your body has the choice between detoxifying chemical from exposures or running from a tiger, it's going to divert those resources towards stress management 100% of the time, it's never going to prioritize getting rid of the byproducts of Tylenol in our bodies if there's a saber toothed Tiger out there. And so really, we have to understand that if we are chronically in this state of stress, it's going to be really difficult to optimize these other pathways, simply from the perspective of resources, there are other reasons that we may not have those nutrients to support our detoxification pathways as well just lacking certain nutrients. We're going to go into this a little more and say, Well, what nutrients do we need? One of them, for example, is B vitamins. If your B vitamins are too low in the body, then your liver will not have the ingredients it needs to go through some of those pathways. One, for example, is called methylation. So imagine, I said, you put a toxicant into the body, the body breaks it down and shoves it in a box, and then it wants to slap a label on that. One of those labels is the idea of methylation. That's slapping on a methyl group, and that allows the body to know how to get rid of that toxicant. But if B vitamins are where you get that methyl group, so in the analogy, if B vitamins are where you get that label, and you used up all of your B vitamins, or you're not eating enough B vitamins, then you're not going to be able to put that label on that box, so to speak, you're not going to get rid of that thing. It's going to go into the gut, and then it's going to get reabsorbed and back into the body. It goes into the circulation, and this is why we have such a big problem in our hands. Now let me go back to that idea of why this this concept is so controversial, because hopefully I've made it seem pretty straightforward, like this all sounds like it makes a lot of sense. So why would anyone think that this was like hippie or nonsense? Part of the problem is we're not very good at measuring this kind of thing. We're not very good at measuring what actually is happening in your body. Can we actually measure how many toxins are in your body? Can we actually measure how your body is detoxifying? I want to go to that packaging company that I mentioned in terms of sticking it in a box and putting a label on. I want to see how that's working. We don't really have great biomarkers for that. We can measure B vitamins and so we can see, do you have enough B vitamins? We can measure other nutrients. We can measure some things, but we don't have great lab tests to just tell you, Hey, how are you detoxing? I do think some people can tell and feel you might see this too in acne or oily skin, or, like I said, puffiness, weight gain, that doesn't feel like you've been eating too much, but you just feel like you're puffing up. Some people might notice this with their socks, you know, at the end of the day, where the sock makes a line on your ankle, or maybe your rings are fitting too tightly, but it's fluctuating up and down. I do think you may get a good feel for if you're not detoxifying well. I also think, for example, if you drink alcohol and you feel terrible the next day after only a small amount of alcohol, that can be a good indication. But we don't have great tests now, there are a couple tests out there that say that they can measure total body toxic burden. I think that those are not fully reliable. In my opinion, at this point, they can be a nice starting point. They they can have a price associated with them, and so that might be somewhere you want to start if you have the funds to do that. But honestly, when I am helping patients through this, I just think this is something we all need to be paying attention to. We all want to be making sure that we're decreasing what our body is exposed to where possible, and that we're optimizing our body's pathways where possible to get rid of stuff because we can't measure it, then we also don't have a ton of data on this. We.
Where we can have data is where they actually measure in the urine or in the blood, and they do in research labs and measure a specific chemical, but those lab tests are not typically commercially available, so we just don't know now. What we do know is that there has been data showing that certain dietary patterns do have support for the body's natural detoxification pathways. So we do know there are some ways that can help support the liver in its normal detoxification pathways. For example, there was a randomized control trial showing that a whole food nutritional intervention increased key antioxidant enzymes by double digit percentages, and that is a big part of the second half that putting a label on the box, so to speak, that's a big part of getting things out of the body. So we do know that food can help, and there are other things that can help at the same time, we also know that there's no one magical detox diet. A lot of people will say, Should I do a cleanse? Should I buy one of these things online that says, Do this detox for a week or two weeks or a month. Those cleanses and detox kits, I do use them sometimes, and I'll tell you how I use them. But those detox kits, if you imagine, go back to what I just said, in our world, we're exposed all the time to different toxicants, and we also, a lot of us, have kind of a plugged drain if we're constipated, if we don't have the nutrients we need to make these things happen, our sink is often overflowing. So when you do a detox kit, that would be the equivalent of taking a big bucket and going to that overflowing sink and scooping all the water out, but leaving the faucet running and the drain clogged right, you might feel better for a minute, but it's not going to last, because you didn't actually change anything. You just gave a big relief. You just kind of took a bucket and dumped all the water out, but now it's still filling up right after so you may feel better for a little while. Now, where I like to use them sometimes is as a little bit of a science experiment to say, how does your body feel when you do take that big bucket out, if you feel significant improvement, then I do think that that tells you that you probably need to work on your detox systems. More generally, you need to be working on getting toxicants out of your system and getting more support in for your detox pathways. So that's where I do find it can be helpful. I also think sometimes it does feel good to get ahead of the game. Imagine if you have that faucet on and it's not on super, super high, but it's just this consistent stream of water coming in your sink, and your drain isn't super clogged, but a little bit clogged. You can have that be running and starting to accumulate, and you're going to feel okay overall. But sometimes it might feel good to do sort of a clean out for that sink to say, Ah, okay, now I'm going to go back and slowly work on my drain and slowly work on my foods and exposure to toxicants. But overall, I feel better. So those are the two times that I use it when we need a jump start or as an experiment to say, how much are your symptoms a detox issue, and if you do feel better, then we know that we need to double down on the next things that I'm going to tell you, if we want to let's start with opening that drain. How do we support mainly our liver? Because so much of this happens in the liver, also our gut and our kidneys. But if we're going to focus mostly on the liver, what are some foods that we can eat that really helps support that important work going on in the liver. One of the main ones you'll hear over and over and over is cruciferous vegetables. If you don't know what a cruciferous vegetable is, I think of it as any of the vegetables that have a flower on them that you eat. So think of like Brussels sprouts are the flower. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, bok choy is the flower. So any of those that have that flower involved, there's a good chance that's a cruciferous vegetable. Same thing would be like cabbage and kale, where that's the flower as well. These contain compounds, the main one being sulforaphane. You'll hear that word a lot if you ever dive into the functional medicine world of detox. Sulforaphane is the the compound that comes from these cruciferous vegetables that helps to stick that label on the package and tell it where to go and how to get out of the body. Sulforaphane. You can can get from cruciferous vegetables, and you can also get it from sprouts. So especially broccoli sprouts can be high in sulforaphane. And you can also take sulforaphane. So there are different supplements that have sulforaphane involved, and that can be a really helpful way. But you can imagine, if you eat a whole head of broccoli by yourself one day, what is that actually going to do for your system? Well, you might have certain negative, negative effects as a result of that, but also your your pathways can only handle as much help as they can handle. So you really can't rush this process as you're eating things like cruciferous vegetables. You need to eat them every day. And I tell patients who are really focusing on supporting detoxification, specifically two servings of cruciferous vegetables a day, one at lunch, one at dinner. You could do one at breakfast if you want. But really.
Trying to get two servings a day of cruciferous vegetables. The other ones that we think about are vegetables or herbs like garlic and onions. Berries are high in antioxidants, which can be supportive to the detoxification process. Citrus fruits with vitamin C and then the other elements that make the citrus fruits colorful can be very good for our antioxidant systems. Green tea, bright red. Fruits and vegetables, like like I said, berries and beets, the beet greens can be very helpful for you. Other leafy greens, like spinach and chard, fiber rich vegetables, and then also high quality proteins can have what they need in it. As the body breaks down the proteins to the level of the amino acid, those amino acids can also be supportive in helping the liver package up that toxicant and send it out of the body.
Hey, everyone. I wanted to hop on here and share a quick update with you, as many of you know, creating this podcast has been such a meaningful part of what we do here, and we are incredibly grateful for every single listener who has tuned in, shared an episode or sent us a message along the way that said we're going to be taking a little break from releasing new podcast episodes for now. This isn't a forever goodbye, just a pause, and before we step back, we wanted to say thank you, truly. If you have enjoyed our conversations, learned something new, or felt supported by any of our episodes, it would mean the world to me if you would send us a quick message and let us know hearing from our listeners never gets old and reminds us why we do this. If you feel called, leaving a rating or a review wherever you watch or listen to the podcast is another wonderful way to support the show. And of course, we're always so appreciative when you share episodes you loved with friends or family. And one more thing, if you or your company are interested in partnering with us or sponsoring future episodes when we return, we would love to connect. You can email us at Hello at uplift for her.com or fill out the podcast sponsorship form on our website, also linked below in the show notes, thank you again for being here, for listening and for being part of this amazing community. We'll see you soon. Now let's speak specifically about supplements, because I think the tricky part about using food as medicine is that it's tricky to know the dose, and I find a lot of people will bail. They'll say, I'm eating lots of fruit and vegetables. It didn't help. I'm not doing it anymore. If we knew exactly what to tell someone in terms of dose of fruits and vegetables and then the timeframe, and be able to do a prescription of food, then I do think it would be a little more effective, but I think it's tricky now. That being said, I still think we should eat that way. I think we should regularly be getting fruits and vegetables to support all of our body's functions, but when we're talking specifically about supporting our body's detox pathways, sometimes it will be helpful to temporarily add supplements on. There are lots out there, and I do recommend working with a practitioner so that we can first better understand where you're starting from, what your goal is. Do we want to go slow? Or can your body handle fast? If you are trying to detox, then you really do have to pay attention to the rate at which your body is willing to detox. So I won't give specific supplement instructions, but there are some that I really like, things like modified citrus pectin is frequently used. Chlorella is frequently used. You'll often hear supplements that support liver health with sulforaphane milk thistle can be really helpful. Dandelion greens, so those are sort of the supplements you'll hear that can be really beneficial. And I do think there's something to be said for them, but again, they're just one part of the puzzle. It's not usually enough to say, I know what I'll do, I'll go take this supplement. That'll be fine, then I'll be perfectly fine. You really want to make sure that you are opening the pathways. What are some other ways that we can support our body's natural detox pathways? I mentioned staying hydrated so that our kidneys can do what they're supposed to do. Getting plenty of fiber so that you can have regular bowel movements can be really helpful. Eating a variety of plants and vegetables is a huge way to boost your body's ability to do what it needs to do, regular movement. I think even when I am feeling really overburdened, I may not have a time to do some sort of rebounder routine or bouncing routine that can be good for lymphatic drainage. But one of the things I always try to do is, as I'm walking to the bathroom, when I get up from my desk and I'm walking down the hallway, I try to lift my arms above my head, swing them around, do some turns at the waist, maybe do some lunges. Anything that just gets your body opened up can be really beneficial. So don't feel like you have to go to this fancy routine. Just open your body, just move your body. And that can be helpful. Now, that being said, you can use those little trampolines rebounders. You can get those fairly inexpensively and do that for one to five minutes a day even can be a really nice way to support that lymphatic drainage and circulation quality sleep can be really beneficial more so to the brain, but I am just a believer that sleep helps everything in the body. So sleep is one of the ways that is really important for the body to reset and get rid of what shouldn't be there and and to have it functioning.
How It Should
managing stress I mentioned earlier, also reducing your exposure to things that just are burdensome for your body. When I am helping someone really prioritize detox, one of the first things I have them do is cut out alcohol completely. Now that doesn't mean we have to cut it out completely forever, but it is a known burden on the body, and we can cut it out fairly easily. So that's one of the first things I would do, is cut out alcohol for a time. The second thing that I would do is cut out medications that you don't really need. If you have a little mild headache and you're taking a bunch of Tylenol or ibuprofen, can we cut those out now? Maybe not for you, but if you can, you want to limit those as well, not because they're poison, but because they are burdening the body. The next thing I would consider is trying to go organic as much as possible, getting rid of pesticides, at least for a time, or washing your fruits and vegetables in a baking soda bath, something that can help to get rid of some some burden of those pesticides and just lower the burden on your body. Those would be three of the things that I would start with, the next thing that I would consider adding would be a water purifier, some sort of water purification system that's really doing a good job. I hear a lot of people say, Oh, we drink filtered water because we have the fridge filter. We have the filter in our fridge. I would be sure to look at your manufacturer and to find out how good that filter is, because some of them are not actually doing a whole lot. You can also look on the EWG website to look at they have a water lookup list by zip code that can help you understand what the water in your zip code has in it. So do you have really terrible things in your water, or is your water actually pretty clean? And that can help you understand what level of water purification system you need. And then the next thing that I would add on to that is an air filtration system. This too is going to depend on where you live and what kind of air pollution you are exposed to. If you live near a bigger industrial center, if you live near a freeway where you're surrounded by a lot of exhaust fumes, if you live in Salt Lake City, there are certain places where you really want to make sure you are filtering your air because you're breathing it in all day every day. Now you don't have to feel like you have to do all of this at once, but there's pros and cons to doing it all at once or not. For some people who are just working towards a healthy lifestyle, I would not do it all at once. I would just keep layering these things on. Maybe you're going to start with trying for some more organic fruits and vegetables. Maybe you're going to try to add in a little rebounder routine. Maybe you're going to start with a water purifier. The circumstances where I would go a little bit heavier are number one, if you can. So if you are not feeling good, and you want to feel great, and you have a bigger capacity to go and make big changes, then you can do it all at once, if you want. If we're working with fertility, that's one area where, even though it's frustrating, we do want to do things a little bit more intensely, just because we're on a time limit. We don't want to be messing around with this for years. We want to get it done and get moving forward. I do think that exposure to toxicants and having our detox pathways be all gummed up and backed up, is especially important infertility, because there are so many effects that these toxicants can have on our reproductive system, our hormones and healthy pregnancy in general. So I do like to do a pretty good detox support journey with people who are working on their fertility. So if you can go all in all at once. That's okay, but if you can't, then don't stress about that. Just start chipping away and do one thing after the other after the other. You just want to make a list. Maybe you even do it one month at a time. So maybe in January you say, Okay, I'm going to get a water purifier and drink filtered water, and that's it. And then in February, I'm going to get a rebounder and start doing one minute a day. And then in March, I'm going to get an air purifier so you can really break it down like that. Now the next step that I would add would be sweating. Sweating can be really beneficial. The only downside to sweating is it can be a little bit inconvenient, right? If you're working out and sweating regularly, that can be a great way to do it. Saunas can be a really great way to get a good amount of sweating and to do it in more of a prescribed way. Same thing with exercise. I'll have patients tell me, Oh, I sweat all the time when I'm exercising, and I just don't know. As a physician, if that's enough, I can't tell. Does that mean a lot of sweat, a little sweat. With sauna, we have just a little more data, although not on detox, but we have some data on good outcomes that come from about four to five days a week, 20 minutes a day, in a sauna. So I feel a little bit better recommending that, because I can have a better idea of if someone's doing a lot or a little, but sweating in general, some people will substitute a warm bath. Some people will substitute Epsom salt baths or an Epsom salt foot soak. I'm fine with all of those things. Now, beyond that, you can start to get into some things with questionable results. And the way that I think about this, going back, I am a physician who wants evidence based recommendations, and there are some of these things that, because we can't measure detox very well, we just don't.
Know as a mom, though, and as a woman, I want to know for my body if there's anything more I can do, and that's where I would put something called castor oil packs. So castor oil is an oil that, when placed over the liver or over the uterus, some people tend to have really great outcomes. The way that I think about that is, can I recommend that based on data and evidence? No, not really. But is it safe? Yes. Is it affordable? Yes. Is it something you can do? Yes. So for someone who's just really feeling intuitively that they are just feeling like they really need to increase their detox, you could try a castor oil pack. You can buy them on Amazon. They're their piece of fleece with a waterproof layer with strings that tie around your belly, and then a bottle of castor oil. I like the brand called queen of thrones, and we have a link to that on our website under resources, so you can see the one. I think that some people will have a noticeable difference. Other people don't. So take it with a grain of salt. But where I tend to if we don't have evidence, I like to know that it's safe and affordable, and if so, try it and see that. One in particular takes a little while. It takes probably six weeks before you really start to see the difference. And that's going to be true with most of these detox supports, because they're slowly unclogging that drain and slowly turning down the faucet and letting that water drain out slowly, and if that water has already overflowed and you've got a big puddle on the floor, it's going to take a little longer. Now, there are some other questions that come up, things like red light. Does red light help with detox? My answer would be probably, I certainly don't think it harms anything when when used appropriately. And I think that it helps cellular regeneration, it helps the body work better in a lot of different ways. So could it help with detox maybe. So I don't have any problem with that. It wouldn't be my first go to if someone said, Look, I have limited funds. I have limited time. What should I do? I would say, make sure you're pooping, make sure you're sweating, make sure you're eating vegetables. Another maybe that I would put in that category would be more of the cleanses and the detoxes, I would be a little more cautious with that, because when we use that metric of, are they affordable and are they safe, some of them don't meet either one of those criteria. If they're super pricey, I really think you can make better progress without it. If they are not healthy, and you're going to be on very low calories during a time, or you start getting really terrible headaches or things like that, I would probably avoid those. I do use a detox kit at times, and it is a seven day supplement that goes along with seven days of eating clean, so to speak. And a lot of people will feel quite a bit better on that. And again, where I take that is great. Then we need to do more of this every single day, not you should now take this supplement every day for the rest of your life. So overall, this can be kind of a heated subject. I think some people make it sound like it's completely, complete nonsense, and your liver will do its job, and you don't ever need to think about what chemicals you put on your body or anything like that. And other people make it feel like we are all going to die tomorrow because of toxins that we're exposed to all around us, and that can be really anxiety provoking, because the fact is, all of us in our world right now are going to be exposed to things that the body's not thrilled about, and what we can do then is just help the body get rid of things as as well as possible and minimize exposure, but I would do it in that order. I would support our body's ability to get rid of things as the priority, and then, where possible, I would lessen our exposure to these chemicals. One of the things that I get asked frequently is I don't know what to do, because I can't afford organic produce, so I am not really eating produce at all because I'm afraid of the pesticides that are on the produce, and that, for me, is an example of your priorities are mismatched. We want vegetables for the nutrients, for the fiber, for their ability to help the liver get rid of toxicants. We know we're exposed to toxicants, so if we're cutting out vegetables, we're cutting ourselves off at the knees in the ability to get rid of stuff that's not supposed to be there. So focus first on what's going to get things out of the body. And I put vegetables in that category. If you can't afford to do organic produce, then just eat more vegetables that are going to help your body work better. If you can afford organic produce, then that's going to help both sides of the detox equation. You're going to be putting less stuff into your body and supporting your body's ability to get stuff out. This is a complicated and confusing conversation. Honestly, I have many colleagues in this space, in the functional medicine space, who are physicians and practitioners, and I don't know if there's a single one that would tell you how to do it the same two ways everyone is going to give you their different approach. And so if you're hearing something over and over and over, like sweating, then that's that's a good place to start. But where you find the person who's telling you the one off, perfect thing that's going to detox you perfectly, I would be a little more hesitant to that. Now there's one example out there right now, circulating on social media.
About eating a carrot salad. Now I would go back to that metric. Is it safe? Yeah, it's probably safe to eat a carrot a day. Is it affordable? Yeah, it's affordable. So if you want to try that to see if that helps metabolize your estrogen, and they call it detoxing your hormones. That's not quite right, because hormones aren't a toxin, but if it helps get the toxins through your body, if it helps get your hormones rather metabolize through your body, then fine, but don't glom onto only that. Make sure that you're moving, make sure you're eating a healthy, plant based diet, make sure that you're getting sleep. And with that, I will leave you to try some of these things out on your own. I hope you'll report back if there's something that you notice and let me know how it went. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform. You can find us on our website, uplift for her calm YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And if you found value here today, please share this episode with someone who would benefit from it. Leave us a comment or give us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you. Thank you for being part of our community. Stay tuned for our next episode. Lastly, this information is for educational purposes only and not intended to be medical advice. You.
