That’s powerful AND empowering to me, because it means you have a choice! You don’t simply have to live your life as dictated by your genes with thoughts like,  “my parents had high blood pressure or heart disease or breast cancer,  therefore, I’m going to get it as well.” We know that is no longer the case. Instead, we can be aware of the disease(s) our parents or grand parents had and choose to do something differently for the health of my body, the one and only body that I get in this lifetime, in order to ensure that my cells do not trigger those genes to turn on.

How Do We Do That?

Well, there’s many factors here that I want to talk to you about today. The biggest factor is inflammation in the body. It is the inflammation in the body that triggers our cells to turn on those genes. Yes, the body needs some inflammation, as it is part of the healing process. You’ve experienced that yourself with a sprained ankle or cut to your finger.    We don’t want to be living in a place of chronic inflammation. Yet unfortunately, because of our lifestyle factors, that is where so many of us are living today.

Inflammation is caused by a higher toxic load as a result of the myriad of toxins in our world today getting inside our body. They are so small, we don’t see  them, but they get inside our body via our skin, our mouth, our nose.   They get stored in our body and over time that causes inflammation. Inflammation can also be triggered by us eating foods that we have sensitivities to as that triggers an immune response. When we do that day in and day out,  that causes an inflammatory response.

Inflammation can be caused simply because of an imbalance between the number of Omega 3s and Omega 6s that we are getting in our diet. Our body doesn’t make them, so we have to get them through our diet. That’s why they’re called essential fatty acids. However, Omega 6 is the inflammatory one and it is in everything, so it’s very easy to get through our diet. Omega 3s are the anti-inflammatory ones, this essential fatty acid is harder to get through our diet today. As a result, we can become out of balance and become inflamed.

Omega 3s are best sourced through our fatty wild fish like salmon and mackerel and anchovies, and sardines and oysters. However, if you’re not eating those four times a week, you are probably not getting enough to counter the Omega 6s that you’re so easily getting through your diet. This imbalance can leave our bodies inflamed. Poor sleep can also leave us inflamed.

Digestive struggles and issues with poor stomach acid caused by high stress, can also cause inflammation. There are other issues that can cause inflammation, such as your body is fighting a virus, there could be a parasite in your belly, or perhaps you’ve got bacterial overgrowth, or Candida or yeast overgrowth. All of these issues cause inflammation as the body tries to heal. When we have all of this going on all at the same time, on an ongoing basis, it causes our inflammatory levels to be higher, and it increases our risk of our cells triggering those genes to turn on disease.

Many people have been diagnosed with chronic illnesses and told that they have to take a prescription drug for the rest of their life in order to mask the symptoms and have them feeling better. The reality is that “dis-ease” of the body doesn’t have to be a life sentence, we can undo “dis-ease” by bringing the body back into balance and lowering the inflammation levels. I want people to know that this is possible. Yes, it takes some effort. Yes, it might take some dietary changes. Yes, it might take some lifestyle changes. If you want to heal, and you want to get off the drugs, and you want to get back to living life fully, feeling amazing again, you can do it.  If you don’t ever want to be diagnosed with a chronic illness, you can choose that too. Remember, 90 to 95% of that equation is triggered by the environment you choose to create inside your body. You probably haven’t ever been taught that before.

Another factor, is that we can’t see what’s going on inside our body. We don’t necessarily pay attention to the symptoms that our body is giving us. As a society, we’re very quick to write off symptoms as ‘aging’ or ‘genetics’ or ‘seasonal allergies’ and keep pushing through. Whereas those symptoms are our body’s way of asking us to do something differently. The sooner we tune into those symptoms and try to discover what our body’s trying to tell us and understand that it’s asking us to do something differently, the sooner that we can take action to bring our body back into balance, and lower the inflammation level on the body.

A Little History

I want to dive into some history here that I learned recently. I thought this was very interesting. I hadn’t actually realized the numbers were as drastic as they are. When we look at heart disease. By 2010, it was already the cause of 32% of the deaths in North America, that’s one in three people were dying of heart disease. When we go back to the 19th century, only eight people worldwide were ever reported to have had heart disease or died of heart disease! Eight people in the 19th century!  Now, in the 21st century, it’s 32% of the entire North American population. It wasn’t until the 1930s that it became the leading cause of death. What changed between the 19th century to the 1930s to 2010, that triggered heart disease to become the number one cause of death?

Then if we look at Type II diabetes, in the 19th century, it was rare. In 1935, 0.37% of the population was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. Now it is over 10% of the population that’s diagnosed, but insulin resistance is impacting 90% of the US population and many people just haven’t been diagnosed.  They don’t realize that they’re on that path to Type II diabetes. When we look at obesity, in the 19th century, 1.2% of the population was obese. By 1960, that was up to 13% by 1999, another 39 years later, it was at 30.5%. By 2021, another 22 years later, the numbers are at 42.4% . Obese isn’t just overweight, it’s morbidly overweight.

Then we look at cancer in the 19th century, around 1811, one out of 188 people died of cancer. By 1900, it was one in 17. And by 2010, it was one in three. All of this research shows us that from the 19th century until now, our health has been declining rapidly. We have this incredible medical system that is amazing when it comes to acute health needs, but it doesn’t seem to be helping us when it comes to these lifestyle, chronic diseases.

What’s Changed During This Time Frame?

Well, let’s talk about toxins. 144,000 manmade chemicals have been introduced into our world since World War Two. The human body was never designed to have to deal with that level of toxic burden. Toxic burdens didn’t exist in the 19th century, at least not to that degree. In today’s world, our babies are being born toxic, here is a 20-minute documentary by the Environmental Working Group, called 10 Americans. They did a study on only 400 Toxins, not even close to the 144,000 toxins, and found that of the 400 toxins they were testing for that on average babies were being born with over 200 of them, because they’re traveling through the placenta from Mom. It’s sad to say but in today’s world, our babies are being born toxic.

With 144,000 manmade chemicals getting into our body, through our waterways, our airways and being put on our skin, (and when we put them on our skin, they get into our bloodstream in 26 seconds), our bodies are toxic and our liver is getting bogged down.   The average woman is usually putting approximately 200 toxins onto her skin every morning before she goes out the door to work. Just using personal care products that you can buy in the local drugstore and pharmacy, that you believe are safe because they are there for you to buy.

Our liver was never designed to have to deal with this toxic load. Our daily life is literally overloading the liver.  The liver is charged with over 500 reactions in our body, in order to help us stay clean and healthy on the inside, including cleansing our blood every six minutes. When the liver gets overloaded and bogged down, it can’t do its job as well.

What Else Is Bogging Down Our Liver?

Let’s talk about other things that are bogging down our liver:

• alcohol intake
• excessive workload
• smoking
• prescription drugs
• over the counter medicines
• infection and illness
• acute or chronic stress (psychological and emotional)
• processed foods (sugar and white flour products GMO foods, chemicals to extend the shelf life of those processed foods)
• environmental toxins (heavy metals, pesticides, etc.)
• allergies and food intolerances
• poor nutrition
• poor eating habits, (eg. eating on the run)
• coffee and energy drinks

As you can see, our liver is really overburdened in today’s world.

Our liver has two phases of detoxification. During phase two,  it is converting the toxins to being water soluble so that we can excrete them through our skin, through our bowels, through our urine and even through exhalation. When the liver can’t convert them to being water soluble, it can’t excrete them from the body. In that case, it will store them in our adipose tissue, (our ‘fat closets’), to prevent those toxins from getting into our bloodstream. It’s simply doing the best it can with what we’ve given it to work with.

Part of the reason that our livers don’t function properly, or struggles to convert our toxins to being water soluble,  is that it takes very specific nutrients for the liver to be able to do that well. Guess what, we also live in a time of nutrient deplete soils. As a result, the nutrients that the liver needs are not in our soils, therefore they’re not grown into our food, therefore, they’re not getting into our body. Basically, we have an under nourished and overburdened liver, trying to cope with what we are doing to it. Is it any wonder that there are so many people with fatty liver disease, or liver cirrhosis,  or chronic illnesses?   These toxins are building up inside our body causing inflammation, and then causing our cells to turn on our genes and triggering disease.

Here’s the great news there is something you can do about this; you can support your liver by helping your liver remove the toxins. This is what I talk about a lot. I truly believe that when we support our liver and it’s doing what it’s supposed to do, then we can create a body that is inhospitable to disease, our liver just needs more support. We need the education to reach people, so they know what they need to do to heal their liver before the body becomes diseased.

It’s not taught through public health. It’s not taught through our mainstream education system. We’ve been taught that we need to shower and wash our outer body for good health and good hygiene. We haven’t been taught how to look after our inner body. We aren’t “looking under the hood” so to speak.  Detoxing is still something that is practiced to this day through Ayurvedic medicine in India, traditional Chinese medicine, and in Latin American cultures.

Where Do You See Most Of The Chronic Illness In The World Today?

I’m sure you guessed it. It’s in the first world countries where we don’t have these practices anymore. I love how responsive our human body is when we create an environment in which it can heal. When we create that environment, it starts healing so quickly. When I guide people through a 21-day detox, every single one of them see results and health improvements within three weeks. For some of them, it’s been long standing issues they’ve been dealing with. Then they realize, “Wow, there is something to this. I’m on the right path and my body is finally starting to heal.”

That’s so empowering for them. They notice that joint pain, muscle pains, headaches go away. They’re sleeping better, sleeping more deeply. They no longer need daytime naps to keep the brain fog away. Improved mental clarity comes from lowering the inflammation on the body, too. I had one lady recently that couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and walk barefoot on her bedroom floor. It hurt so much, she had to put special shoes on to walk on her hardwood floor and now she doesn’t have to. Another lady said it felt like she was walking on rocks, when walking barefoot, and now the pain of walking on rocks has gone away, in just 21 days!  As the inflammation decreased in their body, the body started to heal, and they are regaining movement and regaining their life as a result.

Is it any old detox that you can do? Well, if you want the best results, I highly recommend that you do a functional medicine detox that’s created by a functional medicine doctor or a naturopathic doctor, and that’s what I offer. It’s specifically designed so that people can do it in their average, everyday life. You don’t have to take vacation to do this. Instead of doing a six- or seven-day water fast that leaves you struggling by the end of day two, not really functioning well enough to be at an optimal level to be at work!  In my program, we fast but we fast for only 2.5 days each week,  for a total of 7.5 fasting days over three weeks. This is long enough to get the body into a state of autophagy, or ‘deep cleaning’, so that it can clear out those toxins. After about 18 hours,  the body starts to get rid of dead cells and damaged cells and then at the 48 hour mark,  the human growth hormone kicks in and starts to generate new healthy young cells from which you get new vibrant energy.

By supporting phase two of liver detoxification with very specific herbs and supplements, the body can start detoxing. When I guide people through this program, we talk about poop,  because we need to make sure those toxins are coming out. Past clients have noticed the difference in their poop and how it changes during the 3 week program.  They’re fully aware of their body releasing toxins. Fasting is an important part of this, but doing it in a way where the body is still nourished, so that you can still go about your daily life.

In my program we use a shake powder, so that you’re getting some protein, and you’re getting a lot of vitamins and minerals, everything that your body needs, when not having any food so that you won’t starve.  You might have a little bit lower energy, because you do have a lower caloric intake. Using shakes and sipping them slowly allows us to keep the body in that state of autophagy, by not turning on digestion. As it’s very diluted, the body can just easily absorb all that goodness without having to turn on digestion. The moment we start turning on digestion, the body comes out of that deep cleaning mode.

Where Do You Spend Most of Your Time These Days?

Do you go to the refrigerator more often than normal? Especially, if you’re working from home and have done so for the last two years?   The refrigerator is just over there, and we’re constantly grazing all day long. On average, it takes two hours for a meal to be digested. If it’s a steak or something that’s harder to digest, it could take three hours or if you have slow motility, it could take even longer.

When you’re putting more food in before the last food is fully digested, your body never gets to go into that ‘deep cleaning’ state between meals and do what it’s supposed to do. So, it’s just more food and more toxins constantly going in and no time to clean up. Yes, the body is supposed to detox overnight. But are you allowing it enough time to do that? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you going to sleep with your dinnertime meal fully digested so that digestion isn’t happening when you’re going to bed? Or are you eating right up until bedtime and your body is still in digestion mode and not able to get into detox mode to properly detox overnight?

If you are allowing your body to properly detox overnight, that’s awesome, but if you’re not getting the right nutrients, for phase two of detoxification, the body still has a harder time getting those toxins out of the body. When teaching a 21-day detox to my clients, I have seen the detox provide profound benefits for everyone that I’ve ever guided through it. I love this program because when I guide you through it, I also support you with recipes and meal plans and show you how to be set up for success and support you throughout the program. When you have questions, you can get them answered.

Yes, you can go to a store and buy a detox kit and start doing it and then your brain starts going, what are you doing? This is different. Why are you eating these foods? Why aren’t you eating those foods? Why don’t you have some ice cream or whatever it is that you normally like to have. Often, we give into those voices in our head because it does feel hard, and we don’t even know if what we’re doing it right. Is it actually going to benefit us? We don’t really know, so it’s easy to give up.

Why Is It So Important To Be A Part Of A Guided Detox Program?

When you’re on a guided detox program, you will start to understand all the benefits and have a clear plan for how the program works. You can get answers to your questions like “Can I have this?” or  “I’m going to this restaurant, how do I go to the restaurant and have a nice time with family and friends that still works within what I’m allowed on this detox program?”

A guided detox program helps you stick with the detoxing process, so you get the best results! Those results I mentioned earlier, are from people that love, love, love how they feel when they finish the detox. They start loving how they feel part way through the detox, and then we make it a lifestyle factor. You can’t just detox once in today’s world and think “I’m all done.” The reality is the toxins are here to stay. We must recognize that and just accept it and ask, “What more can I do to help my body get these toxins out, since I can’t avoid them?”  The answer is,  you can support my liver. You can give it added nourishment, to help get those toxins out. You can do it on a regular basis so that it’s not getting bogged down.

I recommend people doing a quarterly seven-day detox because those toxins are always coming in and we want to always get them out. Detoxing makes such a difference to your health outcomes. When we get those toxins out, we’re significantly lowering the inflammation in the body, and then we are not having our cells trigger our genes to turn on disease. It’s in fact a complete reset for the body.

Detoxing and Hormones

A detox like this is important, because our liver is also charged with detoxing excess estrogen in the body. It starts to rebalance our hormones, which can be important for so many women out there today who are struggling with symptoms of PMS and menopause, because they have too much estrogen in their body.

Having too much estrogen in our body happens very easily in today’s world because we have toxic xeno-estrogens coming in, and we get estrogen through our food, and our body makes estrogen.  When the liver can’t get rid of all that excess estrogen, our hormones get out of balance. Our estrogen is too high relative to our progesterone, which can be lower because of high stress levels. We have symptoms of PMS and menopause, that we simply tolerate thinking it’s our lot in life. It’s not our lot in life, we can do something about this, we just need to know how.

Detoxing: Losing Weight and Resetting Our Metabolism

A lovely benefit of a detox for many people is losing some weight and resetting our metabolism. By understanding the timing of the way that we eat so that we can eat and digest and have time to deep clean and eat  before our next meal, we can help our body detox naturally. When we eat nutrient dense foods, foods full of nutrients instead of our processed foods that have very few nutrients in them, we can sustain ourselves from one mealtime to the next mealtime without having to snack and graze in between. We lose some weight. We can maintain that weight loss because of these newfound habits coming out of the program.

The Wins of Detoxing Our Bodies Regularly

There are so many wins from clear skin to the aches and pains going away, more mental clarity, which means we can be more productive because when we’ve got that focus, we can get more things done, to clearing out our body and just feeling lighter as a result, better sleep because the body doesn’t have to struggle so hard to detox during the night because all our systems are working better, to releasing of symptoms of hormonal imbalances, etc. etc. etc.

It’s a win, win, win.

I’m sharing this information with you today because I want you to know you have the power within your own body to heal yourself. When we respect our body, when we understand how it functions, when we create a good environment, our body can heal.

• Is something going on with your health right now?
• Are you looking to feel better?
• Do you want to optimize your health?
• Maybe you’re of the mindset that you want to live as long as you can, and not spend 10 years in a nursing home at the end of your life, which is how long the average North American spends in a nursing home. To me, that’s not living longer, they might say, we’re living longer, but you’re not really living,  if you’re in a nursing home, unable to truly care for yourself.

I love to help people. When we start to pay attention to the insides of our body, keep the insides of our body clean, respect our health, our body becomes one of our greatest assets.

What Do You Do For Your Body?

Well, I know most of us take showers several times a week, and we eat three times a day for food and energy, right? What is it that we’re putting inside our body in that food, if it’s processed food, it has only 17 of the 90 nutrients that are needed for optimal health? Right there we’re lacking. Even if you’re eating well, because of our nutrient depleted soils, your body might not be getting everything that it needs. That’s where supplementation comes in. Again, something we can’t avoid in today’s world. Giving our body what it needs for supplementation, and helping our liver do its job to rid the toxins, is the best way to put ourselves on a path of longevity.

If this is something you’d like to know more about, feel free to reach out to me. I run regular detox programs. I love guiding people through this critical piece of our health journey. I want to continue getting this message out. When you know this information, then you have a choice, you have a choice to say ‘you know what, I think I might need that’, and then you take the first step.

Don’t just accept the way you’re feeling as normal and keep going. Because the symptoms will build. I’ve said time and time again, initially, the body whispers to you gently in the touch of a feather. When you don’t listen, it might come along and thump you with a brick, and if you still don’t listen, it might show up and whack you with a wrecking ball. I don’t want anyone to get to that state I would much rather work with people at the whispering of the feather or the thumping of the brick stage. We can be empowered in our health.

Health Is Your True Wealth.

 

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