A very thorough detox can be expensive and difficult, but with today’s lifestyle, detoxifying the body thoroughly is essential for good health. That said, people have a body that efficiently expels toxins effectively when they eat very well, exercise, sweat, and breathe heavily while exercising, drink lots of water, and stay away from medications. There are bound to be some chemicals in the body that will not be expelled on their own, and a thorough detox is still a good idea, but a healthy body always is detoxifying more toxins than it takes in and produces.
Toxins are so easy to accumulate. Here is an incomplete list of commonplace items or substances that can cause harmful toxic chemical accumulation. Some may surprise you!
It’s amazing how toxic our modern lifestyle has become. The human body becomes overwhelmed. Our bile becomes toxic. Our blood becomes toxic and sluggish. But the way one feels after detoxification is truly an amazing feeling! So alert, energized, focused, successful, intelligent, and the list goes on. Our bodies are amazing, but they are really amazing when they are not being slowed down by crap. Living with a toxic is like driving a car that needed an oil change, a new air filter, and new spark plugs about 60,000 miles ago.
There are a few detoxification diets that you’ve probably heard about. Below are some of the pros and cons with a few of the more well known detox diets and/or weight loss diets.
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Diet
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Description
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Pros
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Cons
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| Master Cleanse / Lemonade Diet |
The Master Cleanse is a modified juice fast that includes lemonade made with purified or spring water, fresh squeezed lemon juice, organic maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Laxatives are also part of the program as well. |
- Cheap
- Simple to do
- Reduces appetite, so it’s great for resetting the body’s desire for food
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- Muscle mass loss
- Very little nutrition
- Difficult to stick with for many people
- Fat loss is likely to be put right back on
- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
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| Raw Food Cleanse |
There are many variations to choose from. The diets consist of raw foods and fresh juicing. |
- Raw foods are the healthiest thing we can eat
- Plenty of nutrition
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- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
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| Diuretic Diet |
Diuretic foods or supplements will help the body to release fluid. There are certain herbs and foods that are natural diuretics, like celery, parsley, asparagus, and watermelon. |
- Relieves bloating
- Quick weight loss
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- Not enough nutrition
- Muscle loss
- Fat loss is likely to be put right back on
- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
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| The Body Ecology Diet |
The diet aims to restore and maintain a healthy ecology that your body needs to function optimally. |
- One of the healthiest diets there is
- Plenty of nutrition
- Does a very good job of establishing a healthy ecosystem within the colon
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- Not easy to follow
- Many of the recipes do not taste good in many people’s opinion
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| Living Foods Diet |
A diet program based on living plant foods , like a raw foods diet, but greater emphasis on foods that are still alive and as fresh as possible. |
- Lots of enzymes
- Lots of nutrition
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- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
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| Fruitarianism |
A diet that includes fruits, nuts and seeds, without animal products, vegetables or grains. |
- Lots of enzymes
- Lots of nutrition
- Fruits are very easy to digest
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- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
- Fruits can feed Candida
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| Juice Fast |
Raw vegetable and fruit juiceand water only |
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- Most people need supplements to thoroughly detoxify
- Fruit juice can feed Candida
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| Hallelujah Diet |
A heavily supplemented, low-calorie vegan diet, consisting of 85% raw organic foods and 15% cooked foods. |
- Should be easy to continue eating this way
- Lots of nutrition
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- Does not do a thorough job of removing toxins
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| Weight Loss Cure |
Based on Kevin Trudeau’s book which adheres to detoxifying the body as a means to weight loss. Involves a combination of injections, supplements, cleansing regimes and organic foods. |
- A very thorough detoxification diet
- Lots of nutrition
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Click here for a more extensive list of detoxification diets.
What to Look for in a Detox Diet
A good detox program addresses parasites, heavy metals, colon, liver and gallbladder, and nutrition. Usually when people attempt to detoxify, they fast. Reducing calories is ideal when detoxifying, but reducing nutrition can be dangerous. When your body is releasing chemicals, parasites, calcifications, heavy metals, and many other nasty toxins, your body needs nutrition!
Radical Detoxification
Anyone with diabetes, cancer, thyroid problems, or any serious, life altering health problem should consider doing a very serious and completely comprehensive detoxification program such as The Total Body Cleanse, or OLM’s own Full Body Detox.
While these detox diets are very comprehensive, and completely capable of ridding the body of serious disease, they are not easy to do. In fact, taking time off work may be necessary for those who are particularly sick. But then again, if you’re that sick, you’ll be taking time off of work soon enough.
Simple, Inexpensive Detoxification
For something a lot less expensive, intensive, and consequently, less effective, but still very beneficial, try this routine:
Stevia Lemonade with Cayenne
With distilled water, use fresh lemons and cayenne liquid extract. If the fresh lemons are not available, get organic lemon juice. You can use cayenne pepper in the form of powder if need be. Use as much cayenne as you can stand. Make the lemonade to taste, as many lemons, as much cayenne, as much stevia as you want. I prefer 3 lemons to a gallon of water, but it depends on how juicy the lemons are. Stevia has kind of a funny after taste, but it’s barely noticeable with lemon juice. Drink one gallon a day. I also like to add pure cranberry juice. This helps detoxify the kidneys.
Detoxify the Blood
Dr. Shillington has a wonderful herbal tincture (purchase here) that helps to detoxify the blood. Ingredients include Red Clover, Chaparral, Poke Root, Periwinkle Flower, Lobelia, Cayenne, Garlic, Mullein, Burdock Seed & Root, Yellow Dock Root, Goldenseal Root, Oregon Grape Root, and Blood Root.
Liver and Gallbladder Detoxification
The cheapest, easiest, and, well, most unpleasant (at least for most people) way to clean the liver and gallbladder is with a coffee enema. Read our Coffee Enema article. And to learn more about the gallbladder read Gallbladder Bile, How the Gallbladder Works.
Kill the Yeast
Undecylenic acid kills fungus better than anything. Thorne SF 722 is the best we know of, but it’s not vegan. Take 20 a day (ten twice a day) until the bottle is empty. If it must be vegan, there are other options for undecylenic acid.
Remove Heavy Metals
HM Complex by Pure Encapsulations is an easy, and gentle way to pull heavy metals out of the body without removing beneficial minerals.
Eat
Vegetables, whole coconuts, avocados, and granny smith or crab apples are on the diet. Avocados are a great source of protein, too! And coconut and avocado fat will not make you fat. In fact, they will help you lose weight if needed.
Cook nothing. Get lots of enzymes. Eat as much of these foods whole and raw as you want. Provided your appendix has not been removed, the best way to build up a healthy eco system with beneficial bacteria in your colon is with vegetables. Most probiotics (like yogurt) are killed in stomach acid.
If you’ve had your appendix removed, it’s harder to build back up your beneficial bacteria. If you have never done a serious colon cleanse, you need to. While this makes our inexpensive program a bit more expensive, for those in need of serious colon cleansing or those without an appendix, consider adding Dr. Shillington’s Intestinal Cleans and his Intestinal Detox to the program.
Juice
Juicing is not totally necessary for this particular diet, but juice all the vegetables you want and add ginger to all juices. But limit your carrots and beets as they are higher in sugar. No fruit except granny smith, crab apples, lemons, and limes. A juice press is ideal, as centrifugal juices heat up the juice and kill enzymes.
Exercise and Breathe
Sweat. Breathe heavily. And breathe properly. You should be getting enough nutrition to exercise strenuously. And breathing heavily and properly for long periods of time detoxifies the body. Read How to Breathe.
Turbocharge any Detox with Niacin
Niacin, otherwise known as B3, is a very inexpensive way to boost the efficacy of a detox. You want the flush kind, not the no flush. Most doctors recommend people start with 100 mg, but up to 5,000 a day has been used for serious drug detoxification and other urgent detox needs (such as chemical poisoning). I weigh 220 pounds and I took 1,500 mg for three days. Don’t take niacin for too long, it can damage the liver in high doses and it can also put your b vitamin balance out of whack. This Niacin is the kind that provides the “flush.”
Take it in the morning, and then, in about 30 to 45 minutes when it kicks in, get some exercise or do the sauna. Try some hot tea. Drink lots of fluid (like the cranberry lemonade) and sweat out the toxins. Niacin won’t do you much good if you aren’t flushing out the junk while you do it. It’s powerful. You’ll be itchy, hot, and flush red all over.
Most people without damaged seriously livers can easily handle 500 mg for a few days. The effects last about an hour.
Perhaps 15 – 25 mg would keep first timers from screaming bloody murder, and allow for a more gentle, beneficial experience.
A word about the process might also be appropriate, as in the patients where I worked for seven years did not appear to have a clue about how to best utilize this vitamin as a cleanse. (Take a small amount to start, if no effects, i.e., the flush, observed, up the dose by the same increments, until it occurs. Then stay at that dose until no more effects felt, followed by upping the dose until next flush. Maintain until no more effect, then up the third time, repeating this process. Three times through should then be put on hold for weeks to a month or two depending upon health status, before starting again.) Hopefully, a side note or a foot note, will save beginners that pain and frustration from overdosing the first time around, i.e., a simple word of strong caution. This note of concern is from one who has used this cleanse for many decades, as well as assisting others through the process.” – Richard
Things to Consider Before and After Detoxification
If you are very sick, you are very toxic. If you are not sick, you may still be very toxic , and being very sick is just a matter of time. But a highly toxic body can be overburdened with detoxification.
Even those who seem perfectly healthy can get detox symptoms such as headaches, nausea, irritability, inability to focus, and fatigue. Consider starting slowly. Eat healthy for a few weeks and exercise before starting your detox diet. Drink tons of water, or better yet, drink a gallon of the stevia cayenne lemonade a day for a month before you detoxify.
And after you detoxify, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU EAT! For instance, eating a bunch of mashed potatoes after you fully clean your colon and detox for a few weeks can actually kill you! After detoxifying, introduce foods slowly back into your diet. And focus on raw fresh produce, which is what you should always do anyway.
If you can only do one supplement, I recommend the SF722. Nothing is better at killing fungi (yeast, Candida) and almost everyone in today’s modern society has an abundance of it. Most people, with even diets considered to be healthy, need this supplement regularly.
Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:
