For this week’s update on improving energy levels, we’re focusing on simple ways to detoxify your body. In a nutshell, toxins are chemicals that interfere with optimal cellular function. Detoxification is the process by which you remove toxins from your body.
All of the processes that create energy and keep you alive are ultimately regulated at the level of your cells. Cells form the basis of your organs, and these organs form the basis of your systems (immune system, cardiovascular system, nervous system, ECT…). When cellular function is impaired, the organs and systems comprised by your cells suffer, and your body as a whole becomes less well. A variety of synthetic substances used to flavor and preserve food, treat manufactured products ranging from clothing to carpets to plastics, and many of the byproducts of energy production (aluminum in car exhaust, etc…) represent toxins. We ingest these foreign substances in our food, absorb them through our skin, and inhale them in the air we breathe. All of these toxins that we are exposed to from the external environment are collectively known as “exotoxins”
In addition, our bodies produce toxins internally (so called “endotoxins”) as a part of normal metabolism. Urea is an example of an endotoxin – a noxious substance that the body makes during protein metabolism, which must be excreted in urine (urine gets its name from the toxin urea) before level become too high and damage cells. There are many other toxins besides urea created during normal metabolism, and over time, these internally produced “endotoxins” can accumulate and undermine health.
A person’s “toxic burden” is a combination of all of the exotoxins and endotoxins in their body at any given time. A high toxic burden compromises organ function, and contributes to a wide variety of symptoms including low energy levels, headaches, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, skin blemishes or loss of skin luster, and premature aging. In addition, a high toxic burden contributes substantially to weight gain and makes it harder to lose weight. A very toxic body will begin to store toxins in fat cells as a way of protecting itself. Many natural practitioners believe that a good bit of weight gain is actually an effort by the body to clear toxins from circulation by sticking them in fat cells. Once fat cells are full of toxins, the body resists reducing fat stores to prevent a flood of toxins back into circulation. In addition, burning fat actually places metabolic stress on the body and generates endotoxins that need to be neutralized by the liver and other Detox organs. An already toxic body cannot handle the additional load created by burning fat, and, as a result, fat burning is inhibited. Carrying excess body weight is a tremendous energy drain on the body as well.
How Detox Works
By Vaughn Gray MA, CHC
Detoxification or “Detox” refers to any processes which assist your body in clearing exotoxins and endotoxins from your system. Our bodies are actually detoxing all of the time. The reason so many of us have overly toxic bodies is that our natural detoxification mechanisms can’t keep up with the level of toxic stress we subject our bodies to. However, understanding a bit about how your body detoxifies, and taking some basic steps to assist your body in detoxing can help you begin reducing your toxic burden today. With continued practice, you may notice positive changes in energy levels and body weight in weeks to months.
For starters, detox happens naturally whenever you don’t eat. For instance, your body detoxifies every night while you sleep as long as you don’t eat too much too late for dinner. In a way, digestion of food and detoxification are opposing processes. Digestion is actually very hard work for the body. In general, between 30% and 70% of the energy you get out of food goes into digesting that food. From the creation of all the necessary fluids and chemicals, the energy to move the stomach and gut, and all of the molecular processing and molecular transport involved in assimilating nutrients, digestion is a demanding process. Taking a break from eating actually allows your body to take a break from the hard work of digesting, and to use its energy and resources to go to work cleaning house.
Many of the enzymes and other chemicals in our bodies that break food down are as effective for detoxifying and cleaning the GI tract, liver, and other organs and cellular systems as they are for digesting our meals. When we don’t eat for a while, these chemicals turn to the accumulated undigested food gumming up our intestines and the metabolic waste inside of and between our cells. In addition, the immune system is intimately involved in digestion, and when we take a break from eating, the GALT (Gut Associated Lymphatic Tissue – 80% of all immune tissue in the body is in the gut) turn its attention from surveying incoming food for microbes, and also turns to cleaning up the gut and the rest of the body.
In essence, effective detox involves little more than giving your body a break from digestion for a while and allowing this house cleaning process to take place. The simplest way to do this is to start eating lighter, smaller dinners and making lunch your biggest meal of the day. Try not to eat within 3 or 4 hours of bed, and let your liver, pancreas, and gut detoxify during the night, rather than be burdened with digesting a large dinner. Another very simple way to detox is to fast for a day or two at a time a few days each month. Whenever you give your body a break from eating it jump starts your system into detox. Think about trying a 24 hour fast this week. Have a moderate dinner one night, and then simply don’t eat again until dinner the next night. Have a very light meal after your 24 hour fast – vegetables and brown rice are best. If you don’t find it too difficult to fast for 24 hours, try a 36 hour fast – have dinner one night, and then go a full day without eating, go to sleep on an empty stomach, and break your fast with breakfast (break – fast is where we get the word breakfast from!) the next day. Doing a 36 hour fast every other week or so is a great way to start reducing your body’s toxic burden
If fasting sounds too intense for you, you can also detox by setting aside a day or two each week to only consume very easy to digest foods. The following foods are so easy to digest that your system will detoxify even while you eat them:
- Brown Rice
- Non-Starchy Vegetables eaten raw, steamed, or lightly stir fried with soy sauce. These include salad greens, cucumber, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, spinach, squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, and most veggies other than potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, butternut squash, and turnips.
- Mung Beans – an Indian bean that you can easily Google recipes for Quinoa
- Berries (one of the only fruits that is OK for detox, because they don’t raise blood sugar much
- Papaya – a detox superstar that actually helps cleanse your gut because of its rich enzyme content
Once or twice a week try building a menu around these foods. Eliminate all meats, sugar, oils, processed foods, alcohol, and any non Rx drugs. With consistent practice, this simple detoxification regimen will begin to lower your toxic burden and improve your energy levels and general health.
Part 2: Breathing Tutorial
Poor Breathing Also Distorts Posture
By Vaughn Gray MA, CHC
If you’re not yet convinced that you need to learn to breathe right, here’s another good reason: Since the muscles of your shoulders aren’t built to work as breathing muscles all of the time, using them this way overstresses them. Overstressed muscles develop knots, and get short and tight. In addition to being painful, short tight shoulder muscles can also distort your posture. When your upper back and shoulder muscles get tight, they rotate your arms inward and pull your shoulders forward. This causes your upper spine to bend forward. Your head follows along, and also moves forward. These patterns of postural distortion can then contribute to neck and back pain, in addition to just plain looking bad. Poor posture is endemic these days, and bad breathing technique is a big part of the cause. Changing the way you breathe won’t immediately improve your posture in and of itself, but it will help prevent your posture from getting worse. Once you start breathing properly, most postural distortion patterns you do have can be easily corrected with exercise. Check out our Improving Posture and Alignment tutorial for more.
Breathing seems like such a simple, innocuous thing that it’s hard to believe improper breathing techniques can cause so many problems. But, ultimately, everything our bodies do depends on oxygen, so it isn’t really surprising that our bodies should be so sensitive to blood oxygen levels. In addition, we take over 25,000 breaths per day. With so many repetitions, it makes sense that any problems with the mechanics of breathing can have profound effects on the health of the muscles involved. (Imagine what doing 25,000 improper biceps curls each day would do to yoru arm muscles)
Hopefully we’ve convinced you that learning how to breathe properly is worth your while. So how do you get started?
Learning to Breathe Right
As discussed, a proper breath is taken into the stomach using the muscles of the diaphragm. The first step to learning how to breathe into your stomach is to gain control over the diaphragm and the other muscles of your abdominal wall. You can begin practicing controlling your abdominal wall with an exercise called the tummy vaccum.
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Position 1 |
Position 2 |
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Perform the tummy vaccum on all four with your wrists held directly under your shoulders and your knees directly under your hips. Keep your spine straight, being careful not to arch your lower back. Begin the tummy vaccum by letting your abdominal wall fall towards the ground. Try to expand your abdomen as much as possible, like kids do when making a "big belly".
While expanding your abdomen towards the floor try not to move your lower back. When you've expanded your abdomen as far as you can (Position 1), reverse this motion, and suck your stomach in as far as you can. When you've drawn your stomach in as far as possible (Position 2), switch directions again, dropping your abdominal wall back towards Position 1, Repeat this sequence for a few minutes a few times per day to gain better control over your abdominal muscles.
It's best to perform the tummy vaccum in front of a mirror so you can watch your form. Do this exercise shirtless or in a sports bra so you can see your stomach and back in the mirror. Try to focus on letting your abdomen fall down towards the ground without moving your back in any way. Most people initially have a tough time dropping their abdomen down without moving their lower back (if you look closely, our model arched her lower back in the photo in Position 1 - try not to!!!). You don’t have to get it perfect the first time, but you should concentrate on moving your lower back as little as possible.
In addiiton, try to make the movement in the tummy vaccum as smooth as possible. At first, your abdominal wall may move up and down in fits and starts. Try to keep the motion slow and even. Once you've got the hang of moving your abdominal wall in and out smoothly, you're ready to integrate this motion with breathing.
This class will be continued next week! Stay tuned.
Submit your questions for Garey and Vaughn by writing to: Garey@OptimalHealthRSQ.com
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Q and A: How Much Can I expect My Cholesterol to Decrease with Healthy Changes?Q - “My cholesterol is 248, and my doctor wants me to go on medication, which I do not want to do. I eat organic and healthy as much as I can, exercise regularly, and have begun taking RSQ 1250 – how much of an improvement can I expect in 3 months?” - Anonymous A – I was delighted to receive this question this week because it is so pertinent to the topic at hand. Cholesterol levels are about so much more than the genes you inherit, your diet, and your exercise behavior. Cholesterol is – first and foremost – a precursor to hormone production in your body. Your body uses cholesterol to make critical hormones that drive the processes of life. Hormones like testosterone, aldosterone (which functions in water and salt balance in your body), and – most importantly, cortisol are all made from cholesterol. Without cholesterol flowing through your blood stream you could not make these hormones and you could not live. Cortisol is the most relevant hormone product of cholesterol because of its role in stress and inflammation. Whenever your body is stressed, you release cortisol to help deal with the stress. This is true in the face of psychological stress like a work deadline or a life crisis, and in the face of physiological stress like a traumatic injury or a food allergy. Cortisol gets your body fired up, gives you a surge of energy, and reduces the inflammation associated with stress. Of course to make cortisol, your body needs cholesterol. Your liver naturally produces cholesterol, and the more chronically stressed your body is, the more cholesterol your liver produces as a response to your chronic need for cortisol production. Stress is a massive contributor to elevated cholesterol levels, and too seldom highlighted as a target for action for people with high cholesterol. I’m not just talking about psychological stress – physiological stress demands excess cortisol production and chronic physiological stress thus leads to elevated cholesterol levels. Physiological stress comes from a number of sources including chronic infection, poor sleep environment, poor air quality, noise pollution, etc… One of the biggest sources of physiological stress is a high toxic burden. Toxins degrade the function or every body system, create inflammation, tax your liver, and demand excess cortisol production. Beginning to reduce your toxic burden is a great way to gradually lower your cholesterol levels by decreasing the physiological stress on your body. If you’re willing to take a day or two each week to detoxify, keep exercising and eating healthy, take RSQ 1250, and deal with the psychological stressors in your life (a whole other can of worms, I know, but dealing with psychological stress is critical to the success of any program. We’ll do more mailers in the future on effective techniques, but breathing exercises and meditation are a good place to start – email me at info@vaughngray.com for more free resources) you could reduce your cholesterol numbers by 20, 30,or 50 points in 3 months – maybe even more. You also might want to consider a diet program specifically designed to lower physiological stress from inflammation. I’ll be doing a weekly update on anti-inflammatory eating within the next month or two, but if you’d like more information now, simply email me at info@vaughngray.com. Quick Tip: Foods and Supplements to Aid Detox
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