The fact that we need to detox means we have toxins. To have toxins, we need to be taking in more than we can filter out. So, reducing the amount of incoming toxins and increasing the rate in which we can filter them out, will help our health and the things we do to improve it, like slowly pushing out a ton of toxins with iodine.
When we eat real food that isn’t processed with chemicals and loaded with toxins, our body is able to switch into healing mode and sometimes this causes somewhat of a detox. As I learned more about this stuff, I looked back and realized I was going through detox phases when I started eating vegan temporarily, mainly just to learn how it is or isn’t done. So just by eating cleaner foods, we are able to reduce the burden on our system and switch into detox. Once we get cleaned up a bit with real food, we can start pushing more toxins out with things like iodine.
The more iodine we take in, the more chance it has of knocking toxins loose, if the biochemical pathways of our liver and kidneys are still too hungry for that toxic load, we might feel it in the form of fatigue, anxiety, brain fog, overthinking or flu like symptoms. If we ever push our detox too far, we can attempt alleviating the symptoms by reducing the amount of toxins being knocked loose and supporting our organs with the proper nutrients.
Some of these toxins can bypass standard detox methods, like when someone uses Salt Loading. But this does not work all the time and I only be use it sparingly. A few doctors, group admins, and book authors recommend salt loading a lot even without noticing symptoms. I’ve had a handful of people say this caused them an electrolyte imbalance. But this gets into the general idea of going slow and allowing our body to adjust. Read more about going slow and finding a good balance here whyiodine.com/pulse-dosing
Anytime I push detox too hard, I back off of anything that can push more detox and make sure I’m supporting my pathways the best I can.
Most of our toxins can come from our diet
The first step in all of this is learning how to eat real food. This is a combination of removing the really bad things and learning how to properly balance the good things. By simply removing the really bad things, we feel better, save money and gain a little traction in the battle of taking our health back.
Making our body run properly
Our body requires 0 grams of refined sugar, zilch, nada. This stuff provides us with a tiny amount of energy and the rest is mainly converted into fat. Even if you are a skinny person, this small amount of fat has the ability to start transmitting hormones that may not have an effect now, but could in the future when you try to get rid of them. Netflix has a few good sugar documentaries and the net is loaded with good info. If you assume you don’t consume much sugar, start reading labels, its in everything.
Once we understand sugar is everywhere, we can treat ourselves to some without an issue. But it’s very easy to consume massive amounts of sugar today without even realizing it. And the zero calorie sweeteners work a lot like antibiotics in our gut.
We apply shampoo, an unknown concoction directly to our thinking cap without even thinking about it, ironic. Simple stuff like deodorant and toothpaste could have drastic effects on our health, but we’ve been using them forever so we just continue to do so. The warm steam of our shower could have chlorine and fluoride gassing off depending on our water source and filters.
Eating less toxins
When we blindly shop the grocery store, we’ll end up with products that are based mainly on low quality animal products, “enriched” ground grass seed(bread, crackers, etc), and sugar. Unless the animal products are organic, they are most likely loaded with growth hormones(and similar substances that mess with our hormones) which continue to do their work after we consume them(stop and think about that for a second if you are having issues with weight loss). Extra hormones from our diet do not play well with our insides, look into the health of animals grown on these hormones, along with the intended weight gain, they also have increased health issues, another reason to avoid eating them.
That is step 1, eat food that adds to our health, instead of junk that takes away from it. Although this concept may be easy to grasp, it includes difficulties such as learning how to store and cook this new fangled food stuff. Another tough one is killing our sugar dragon, some studies suggest sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Depending how much sugar we consume regularly, killing our dragon may be intense and include some interesting detox effects(warn your household if you decide to cut the sugar, maybe even attempt getting others to quit this drug at the same time). But, this experience can also be a great one. I’ve enjoyed many extra hours with my wife as we’ve explored this awesome world of real food.
Give it some time, its been how many years eating who knows what?
Give it about a month of eating real food before moving to the next step. If you are interested in more info on getting started with real food, here is a great book that actually sent me down this rabbit hole years before even finding iodine. This is a great resource for people new to this idea.
The concept of this book is cut all foods that might cause a person digestive issues for 30 days, it’s referred to as Whole 30
- added sugar(natural sugar from whole fruits is ok)
- grains(including corn)
- beans, legumes(sprouted are ok)
- alcohol
- chemicals, food additives
- dairy
Within that 30 days, most people feel drastic changes in mood, energy and mind clarity. It actually kinda sucks at first but that’s our body going through withdrawal of sugar and chemicals from bad stuff we’ve been eating. Once the 30 days is up, we decide if we want to continue eating very strictly, or reintroducing certain foods slowly in an attempt to see which ones cause digestive discomfort.
You’d have to see it to believe it
My wife and I had a couple very funny experiences after our first whole 30. I was ready to dive back into my regular beer drinking habit and she was excited to get her hands on a home made funnel cake. Within minutes of consuming things we used to consume without even thinking about it, we were hurtin. Her belly hurt right away and she said it tasted like chemical crap that was way to sweet(rofl just imagine a once sugar addict saying this, I was in heaven).
I’ve had allergies my whole life, I’ve had to resort to using paper towel to blow my nose because tissues disappear unless I use half a box at once. I noticed on whole30 that I was able to breathe better, but I didn’t realize how much better till I took a sip of beer again. Within about 20 seconds, I had watery stuff dripping out of my nose, after about my 3rd beer, my nose was all snotted up and the usual head pressure I had previously been used to, had returned. Wow, my lifelong allergies that have caused me who knows how many restless nights, are somehow related to grain, yeast or a chemical that helps brings them to market, all so common in food today. Even non-gmo foods can be sprayed with glyphosate in order to kill the plants and get them to market. There are a lot of weird tricks being played.
Join us in Whole30 for Beginners on Facebook.
Okay, eat real food, check. Next
Learn about the toxins we take in or are subject to daily. Hairspray, deodorant, shampoo, fresh paint, pest control, air fresheners, new car smell, and just about anything.. Cooking releases unknown chemical compounds into the air, where its trapped for days. Food storage leaches (aluminum foil, non stick pans, low quality plastic). It seems like a lot at first but if we slowly make better choices, we’ll eventually be in better shape.
Learn how to eat clean, most of our food is grown very poorly with lots of chemicals. Not only are we adding a bunch of work for our liver, we’re not adding all the fancy minerals and compounds our body requires in order to filter this stuff out.
Look into fermented foods, these can repair our gut by eating them once a day or with each meal. I felt my gut repair itself after about 3 weeks of eating ferments. Reducing animal product to as low as 1-2 servings per week helps repair our gut, our gut loves fiber unless we have something like SIBO. Learning how to eat for a few days without depending on animal products is a good thing to do, then I think it’s best to aim for the cleanest products we can find and eat as much as we need to feed our system properly. Quality animal products contain a lot of beneficial nutrients.
Homemade sauerkraut is easy to make and has a couple good vitamins we don’t usually get, plus billions of live bacteria ready to fight off the invasion of sugar loving bad guy gut bacteria that have built their way up over time. A digestive system full of good bacteria has a better chance of sending more of the right chemicals to our brain and more efficiently processing toxins. I have a feeling this is a huge missing piece of our diet, up till about 100 years ago, refrigeration was not common and people relied on fermentation to get each year’s crop through the winter. We should pay attention to histamine responses if we eat a lot of ferments. I use a few supplements to support histamines and only add small amounts of ferments to my meals.
Look into foods that support our liver and kidneys, any detox we attempt will require these guys to be functioning well. A lot of people’s liver and kidneys are already stressed out, minor support will only allow them to keep up, barely ever getting ahead. This is why it’s important to reduce as much toxic input as possible and keep up on the foods and supplements that help these organs.
Cooked beets, asparagus, high quality eggs, parsley, Apple Cider Vinegar, fresh lemon, dandelion greens and dandelion tea are great at supporting these organs.
Here are some of the supplements I use to help get things started a little quicker. But this situation can get into a lot depending on how our body is running. My other site sickoftired.com helps lay out a decent starting path.
Ancestral Supplements grassfed kidney powder https://amzn.to/3ENu8ZF
Histamine supporting probiotic https://bit.ly/2K3w97m
Histamine Block Plus https://bit.ly/3zOCY5r and HistamineX https://bit.ly/2XyZbDU if we are very sensitive to histamines or want to enjoy histamine foods.