by Dr Don Colbert

The long days of Summer are often filled with more activities than the cold and dark days of winter. This year you want to be feeling and looking your best so you can fully enjoy all that the season has to offer.

That’s why you need to detox for the Summer!

It is an unfortunate fact that the modern world is inundated with toxins in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Common toxins include pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, halogens, xenoestrogens, plasticizers, and pharmaceuticals, among many others. These toxins slowly poison the body over the course of many years eventually leading to conditions like cancer and autoimmune disease. A detox program will cleanse your body of these pollutants and keep your metabolism humming along so that your body and and mind can function at an optimal state straight through to the fall.

If that’s not enough to convince you, here are 7 reasons to detox for Summer:

Lose Weight

Everyone wants to feel confident in a swimsuit! By eliminating fattening foods such as grains and refined sugar a detox can help balance your blood sugar and improve insulin sensitivity which can lead to weight loss.

Increase Energy

You’ll need all the energy you can get to chase the kids around the backyard this summer! A detox not only avoids energy-draining toxins but is also full of nutrient dense foods that will supercharge your cells and substantially increase your energy!

Improve Sleep

Sleep is vitally important for optimal health. To make the most of your long summer days you want to make sure your sleep is deep and nourishing! A summer detox will balance out your body’s systems and allow the nervous system to relax so that you can reach the deeply restorative REM stage of sleep and wake up feeling like a champ!

Enhance Skin Health

Although sun exposure is essential for vitamin D synthesis, circadian rhythm signaling, and supercharging the mammalian battery, excess sun exposure can also damage the skin and accelerate aging. Fortunately, a detox diet is rich in phytonutrients like polyphenols and antioxidants which help protect the skin from the oxidative stress caused by sun exposure.

Alleviate Allergies

Detoxing clears the body of toxins and allows the immune system to calm down and reset. This means that your body will not be so hyper-sensitive to environmental allergens such as pollen or pet dander.

Curb Cravings

As grains, refined sugar, and other various toxins are eliminated from the diet, the body’s metabolism resets and the blood sugar balances. With balanced blood sugar comes reduced cravings. This means that you can get through the day without reaching for the candy drawer!

Feel Your Best!

A detox diet eliminates foods that cause cravings and inflammation while encouraging the consumption of bioavailable nutrients that will heal and balance the body. When the body is in balance you will feel your best and be able to make the most of your long summer days!

Many detox programs are extreme, however, and some can even be dangerous. That is why it is important to understand the detoxification process so you can choose a program that is both safe and effective for you.

Detoxification

The human body is a miraculously intelligent and adaptive system that is continually detoxifying itself. However, when the body is overloaded with too many toxins, the detoxification pathways become congested, lymph flow begins to stagnate, the liver becomes overwhelmed, and the digestive system can even malfunction.

The goal of a good detoxification program is to remove the toxic and inflammatory foods to de-congest the detoxification pathways so as to allow the body’s own innate intelligence to detoxify and heal itself.

Pretty much everyone can safely perform some version of a detox. For those who are pregnant or nursing, have serious illness, or are on medication, it is necessary to consult a doctor who can supervise the process.

Now that you know why you need to detox, where do you start?

Which Detox is Right for You?

With so many detoxes, fasts, and cleanses available, it can be confusing trying to figure out which one is right for you.

Before you decide, it is important to realize that not all detox programs are the same.

Some detox protocols work better than others and some detoxes can actually be harmful to certain individuals!

Types of Detox:

Juice Fast-

This has become very trendy in recent years with dozens of juice shops now in most urban centers. Typically done between 3-7 days (though some people can maintain for many months), juice fasts can be beneficial for some people but there are definite dangers to be aware of. The idea is that by consuming a liquid only diet you can give the digestive system a break. Combined with the nutrient density of the vegetables, on the surface this seems like a reasonable proposition.

However, many juices are loaded with high sugar fruits. When juiced and removed from their associated fiber, fruit juice becomes a high glycemic sugar bomb that can spike the blood sugar levels and lead to inflammation. Even while low sugar vegetable juice can be a great source of dense nutrition, it still removes all the fiber from the vegetables which is essential in escorting toxins from the body and maintaining a healthy microbiome.

Master Cleanse-

If you think juice fasting is extreme, then the Master Cleanse will make you think twice. This detox program involves consuming nothing but a concoction of water with lemon, cayenne, and honey for 1-10 days. With a similar goal as juice fasting, the Master Cleanse aims to give the digestive system a rest so that the body can focus on detoxification.

Although there are many people who report favorable results with the Master Cleanse, it is an extreme cleanse that may be too dramatic for most. A cleanse of this nature can cause such a large release of toxins from the body that it can lead to what is called a Herxheimer Reaction. A Herxheimer Reaction consists of symptoms associated with a considerable release of toxins from the body into the blood.

This happens because during this type of cleanse the body will eventually switch over to burning body fat for fuel. Most toxins are fat soluble which means they are stored in the body fat. As your metabolism begins to consume your body fat for energy these toxins are released causing havoc on their way out.

Additionally, it utilizes cayenne pepper, which is a nightshade, and inflammatory for a subset of the population and this cleanse completely lacks fiber which is essential for effectively escorting toxins out of the body.

Bone Broth Fast-

As bone broth has exploded in popularity, many people have turned to using this nourishing food as a tool to cleanse. The idea here is similar in that a liquid diet allows the digestive system to rest as the myriad of nutrients in the broth help heal the gut and nourish the body.

Bone broth fasts work well for those with conditions such as leaky gut, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and candida.

However, for the majority of people this diet can also be too extreme. It also lacks fiber which, again, is crucial to the effective elimination of toxins.

Suero Cleanse by Gail Bowman

SueroViv is a probiotic water product made from the whey of the raw cheese. It is extremely high in probiotics, calcium, electrolytes, and potassium. It is a tonic elixir that is perfect as a sports drink and similar to kombucha, but as healthy, or more healthy, than coconut water.

The Right Minerals electrolytes are defined as substances, usually minerals, which contain free ions that make them electrically conductive. Our bodies are finely tuned electrical systems, and electrolytes are depleted when you perspire. It’s important for anyone who leads an active lifestyle to replace those electrolytes.

However, you want to make sure you are replacing them with the right electrolyte minerals. The minerals in liquid whey are bound to organic substances in the whey itself and they are literally a part of the whey. Contrast this with minerals taken from rocks or are found in their salt forms, which are inorganic and not bound to any organic substance. Jordan believes these inorganic minerals are not the best form of electrolytes for the body since they are not a normal part of our food chain.

Whey contains H20 and a balance of Sodium and Potassium. Sodium is essential for hydration because it pumps water and nutrients into your cells. Potassium functions by pumping waste products out of the cells.

A major reason so many Americans are unable to cleanse properly is the over consumption of Sodium and the under consumption of Potassium. Your body needs approximately 500mg of Sodium per day, but many American’s consume upwards of 5,000mg per day—10x more than needed!

Conversely, Americans should be consuming 4,700mg of Potassium, but fall short consuming approximately 1/10th the Potassium necessary for optimal health.

By  consuming  cultured  whey  every  day  your  cells   will  begin  to  bring  new  water  and  nutrients  into your cells and start flushing toxic waste out.

Also,   cultured   whey   contains   live   probiotics.    Probiotics  are  “good  bacteria”  that   line   your   digestive   tract   and   support   your   body   in  cleansing.

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