For the love of Pete! Some of you need to stop detoxing already! So many people so often feel like they are stuck in a rut and the first thing they want to do is detox. How can I lose weight the cheapest, fastest way? Detox? It’s the buzzword that’s out there- detox.
I’m not saying detoxing is bad. Detoxing is something our body does every day. It does it naturally to help us get rid of the toxins that we encounter every day. Sometimes, however, our toxic load gets too high and our body can only handle so much before it can’t detox properly anymore. A detox is when you spend a period 10-30 days abstaining from unhealthy foods and drinks while supporting your body with supplements and activities that draw toxins out of your tissues to eliminate them from the body.
A detox with a proficient healthcare professional (proficient is the key word there!) can help your body that has been burdened with too many toxins. Going about it all willy-nilly can cause your body some harm especially if you fall into these 6 categories.
Stop Detoxing! 6 Reasons Not to Detox
You Haven’t Been Tested Properly
Do you feel crappy? You need to be tested properly to get to the bottom of why you feel crappy. A detox can be part of the healing process, but you might be feeling crappy because of other variables that are going on. A detox can make you feel crappier.
Before joining up with the team at The Wellness Way, I didn’t know that I had the MTHFR gene which was making me feel like crap when I detoxed because I didn’t methylate properly. I thought I was just very toxic because of how bad I felt. I kept cleaning up my life but every time I detoxed it hurt. Really hurt. When I came to The Wellness Way they tested me properly and taught me how to detox properly for my body.
Get your allergies tested and talk to a proficient health care professional about what other tests your body may need. That will help to determine the best detox protocols to support it- when your body is ready.
Hormones Are Out of Balance
A lot of women will go on detox to lose a few pounds. Whether it’s to lose a few pounds for a wedding, beach season or to fit in that dress. It’s not worth it. If your hormones are drained and you try to detox it is going to make you feel even worse. If you go to detox you are going to pull all your remaining hormones.
It hurts a lot of women, and they have no idea why their hormones are blown out. Then they try to figure out how to get their health pieced back together. They feel like crap and something they thought was beneficial to their health is actually harming them.
Your Gut is a Mess
Your gut is very important to your detox. It is one of the ways your body gets rid of toxins. When you go to the bathroom you can get rid of toxins. You want to make sure you don’t have inflammation and a leaky gut. A lot of people don’t realize they can have allergies to “healthy” foods they eat every day that can cause them inflammation in their gut.
Think of your gut like an attic where you store all your crap. You want the walls, floor and ceiling of that attic to be well insulated and sealed. If you have a holey attic with weak boards do you put more crap in it? No! All your crap will start falling on you when you are in the rooms below and it will make your attic full of more holes. When you are detoxing hard you are pulling all the toxins from fat tissues and organs. If your gut is leaky, all those toxins will dump back into your system and make you very sick. Don’t do a detox if your gut is a mess. Get your allergies tested to find out what is triggering the inflammation in your gut.
You Aren’t Pooping Well
It takes time for that gut to heal. A sign that your gut is inflamed and leaky is that you aren’t pooping good. Remember your poop is a way to get toxins out of your body. If you’re constipated or have diarrhea you are not up for a detox. If the digestive tract is not moving stuff through, then it will be absorbed back into the body and it will be a horrible detox. When your poop looks like a smooth torpedo and you are pooping 2-4 times a day then you are ready for a detox.
You Have Cancer
If you have cancer you should absolutely not be doing a detox without being properly assessed before detoxing. About 100% of my patients with cancer have some sort of destroyed GI tract be it yeast, bacteria, or chemo damage from the cellular lining. So, they need to be prepped after analysis to be cleared for detox. Unfortunately, this group is often targeted for detox before their bodies are ready. Let me say this again because it’s important, cancer patients should not be doing detoxes without proper assessment.
Cancer patients on cleanses I ask you, before your fancy juice cleanse detox, have you tested your allergies? You might be eating foods that are harming you. Have you tested your stool? Your gut flora, or probiotics, might be down in the pits. Chemo radiation ruins your guts. If you have been treated for cancer your body needs to be prepped to do a real detox. Another thing to remember is 90-95% of cancers come from a poor environment and if you have a poor environment your body can’t handle all this extra stuff you are going to throw in it from a detox. Make sure your body is ready.
Your Body is Under Stress
Make sure your body isn’t under too much stress. What is a detox to the body? It’s stress. So, don’t be an idiot and add more stress to a stressed body. First off, you’re not going to be very successful. You will get off track and eat foods that don’t support the detox. It’s a lot of work to detox. You want to make sure it’s effective.
More importantly, if your body is under stress it will not be able to handle the toxins you are pulling from it. Your stressed body already has enough to deal with. Wait until your body is prepared so you can continue the rebuilding process properly.
Prep Your Body then Detox
I can’t stress enough how important it is to prep the body before detox. Having a proficient health care provider’s support is key to getting your body ready and having a successful detox. I have had patients get upset with me when I told them that their body wasn’t ready for a detox. It’s not my fault you brought me this mess of a body and you read somewhere that if you have this condition that you can get rid of it by detoxing. No! Don’t detox unless your body is absolutely ready to detox.
Get your allergies tested, find a proficient provider and check out some of our detoxing tips. I want to hear your detox success story but don’t rush it if your body isn’t ready!
Inflammation is something many people have. Want to know more? Check out The Dr. Patrick Flynn Show on Inflammation.
