Detox 101

1) Choose :

If you are reading this then you must be thinking something is not quite right. You should have more energy, or not be so angry, or emotionally distressed. So choose one thing you either already KNOW is harming you (alcohol, bread, pasta, heroine, sugar….), or something you think might be harming you (mercury in tuna, switching deodorant for non aluminium based,  a negative friend, etc ).

2) Eliminate :

Take it out of your life for 30 days and see if you feel better. If you should already see a difference. If you don’t, then…

3) Reintroduce :

Try and reintroduce it into your life and see how you feel after a week or two.

4) Decide :

Once you looked at “before” and “after” effects of “it”, make a conscious decision of whether you want “it » in your life or not. If it’s something you love, but you felt it harms you, then do it once in a while (every month, quarter, year, special events… you choose). If it isn’t something you love and it harms you, eliminate it from your life. If you didn’t feel any difference, then that was not the issue and you can move on to the next one.

Try to only remove one thing at a time, as it will be easier to figure out what is good or bad. Or just go cold-turkey on everything, and try reintroduce things to see if they are the culprit. The style depends on your personality, but the method stays the same.

For things you can’t control :

Some thing you can’t get rid of because they are either in the water, the environment, at work, in your family, or in food you haven’t carefully selected. We don’t live in secure bubbles, and being exposed to harmful substances is a daily issue. So here are a few things you can do to keep those levels of toxic load down, and the energy up.

Detox your mind :

« The world is a nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it” – Rocky Balboa in Rocky Balboa

So you can’t control what people say to you. Sometimes things don’t go your way. You may get sad, angry, frustrated, depressed, but you can ease those feelings with a little meditation, or mindfulness. Just do something to clear your head, take a step back and see things from a different perspective.

5 minutes of silent breathing will do wonders. A walk in the woods with your dog. Yoga. Stretching.

If that doesn’t work, punch a pillow for a three minute round. Kick and scream on the floor and let those demons out. Go and sprint some hills while crying. Do a set of 20 deadlifts at 70% of your max. Let it all out. Just don’t harm yourself by keeping it all in your head.

Whatever the method, harmful thoughts should be flushed out. If your mind isn’t into it, you just won’t feel like doing the rest.

What you should stay away from : Loud places, shopping neon lit shopping malls, negative people, aggressive people, gossipy people, unreliable people, liars.

Detox you body :

So this is the one everyone talks about. There’re skeptics on the actual benefits of “detoxing », but I just go with how I feel on these. I am not an extremist of detoxing, but I have tried a few things and here is what works for me.

1) Sweating :

If you haven’t broken a sweat in a while, then go for a fast walk with lots of clothes on, then come home and have a hot bath and scrub all that goo off. Yes, get some coffee grinds and scrape your skin after the sweat. The skin the the third great detoxifying organ of your body after the kidneys and the liver. You’ll sweat out extra BPA, heavy metals (such as lead), alcohol, excess urea, and lactic acid, as well as excess salt, calcium, and potassium.

2) Heavy Metal Detox :

Why? because between fish, air pollution, water pollution, aluminium in pesticides, deodorants, and dental fillings, you probably have some degree of heavy metal intoxication. If it is mild, then just ingest lots of Vitamin C and cilantro for a week and see how you feel. If you suffer from chronic fatigue, poor recovery from exercise, brain fogginess, memory loss, aches and pains, and you are less than 60 years old, maybe you should consider chelation therapy… it involves going to see a doctor who injects you with a solution of EDTA to helps to bind these heavy metal molecules and take them out of your system. But if you are felling down, give it a shot.

30 day No alcohol Challenge :

Give your liver and kidneys a chance to recover from the extra hard work alcohol puts them through.

Herbs, Spices and Garlic:

If you aren’t already, you should have some herbs with most of your meals. My go-to are parsley, cilantro, oregano, basil and estragon. As for spices and garlic, which are more potent both for tastebuds and as antioxidants, I only have them with two to three meals a week.

Fasting :

Now this one is tricky. I like to not eat for periods of 12 to 18 hours, but no more. My point of view on this one is that if you feel like it is time to not eat, then don’t. I figure my body either needs to process something or I’ve been eating too much over the past few weeks. In either case I’m listening to whatever my body is trying to tell me. But I never go for more than 18 hours because my strength and muscle mass gains are more important to me than the hypothetical protective effects for the moment.

Extra supplements :

I use Trans-resveratrol, Pterostillbene, AlphaLipoic Acid, and Vitamin B12. I usually take a pill of each for 1 week on my reload weeks which are once every six weeks. I do this because I know i accumulate a lot of oxidation through training, and taking a week

What you should stay away from :

As a general rule for your body, stay away from polluted cities, tap water, predatory and farmed fish (tuna, shark, swordfish, some maker, etc…), fluoride, moisturising cream, low end soaps, cleaning products other than bicarbonate-lemon-vinagre-black soap, air fresheners, processed food.

And BOOM that’s all folks!

Take it easy,

Morgan.