WHAT ARE DETOX AND FREE RADICALS, AND WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THEM?
After reading this far, you are probably pumped to start your weight loss plan. Not so fast! You need to know a few other things before you start losing those unwanted pounds.
We’ve talked about flushing your kidneys with water to remove toxins. Another thing you may want to consider before you start dieting is the process of detoxing your entire body. But what is detoxing?
Take a look at the ingredient lists on the processed cookies, candy, and cakes that you eat. You’ll see stuff that you can’t even pronounce! This is because manufacturers infuse processed foods with additives and preservatives to keep them fresh for longer periods of time. Our bodies aren't meant to consume these things. Also, many products contain artificial sweeteners like aspartame, some of which can cause nasty illnesses like cancer. Free radicals are dangerous. Nothing unnatural should be in your body, period.
The best way to protect yourself is to avoid putting free radicals in your body. Most of us have eaten processed foods and taken toxic medications, so you probably have a build-up of unhealthy toxins in your body. The good news is that you can cleanse your body of these toxins and prepare it for healthy eating and weight loss!
You may be wondering why your body doesn't detox itself. Actually, it does! The liver rids your body of nasty toxins and bad stuff that we take in, both from the foods we eat and the chemicals our skin absorbs. The liver converts your body’s waste products into urine so that waste can leave your body and you remain healthy. However, because we are exposed to so many toxins and chemicals on a daily basis, our livers can’t keep up, so we must regularly cleanse them.
Many methods are available to detox your liver. You can buy detox systems online or in the drug store. Or you can detox your liver through the use of certain foods, as well as through a lifestyle change. You can also take various herbs that will help your liver detox itself.
One herb that aids in liver detoxification is milk thistle seed. This herb promotes digestion and liver tissue regeneration. It also stimulates the production of bile, which helps digest food. Peppermint tea is another effective detoxification agent. Not only does peppermint tea freshen your breath and promote oral health, it also helps your liver efficiently break down toxins. Other herbs that promote healing and liver support include organic yellow dock root, turmeric, dandelion root tea, borototu bark, chicory root, and chanca piedra.
Appetite suppressants are a great way to ease into your weight loss. Lichi fruit is known to suppress appetite, as are a number of other foods and herbs. Water will also fill you up and suppress your appetite. Appetite suppression is important because if you feel like you are starving yourself while you are trying to eat better, you’ll fall off the wagon and eat unhealthy foods again.
What should you do once you have detoxified your body? To lose weight, can you simply change your diet and suppress your appetite? The short answer is no. I hate the term “diet” because it implies that if you do something or follow someone’s plan for a short period of time, you will be thin and beautiful the rest of your life. In fact, you must pursue a new way of living. You must love yourself more. Are you demonstrating love for yourself when you eat food that kills you from the inside out? Keep in mind that big companies care only about mass production, not food quality. These companies strip away nutrients so that their food maintains a longer shelf life and generates greater profits. They don’t care that their greed harms others. These production companies also have ties to pharmaceutical companies, so when you get sick off their food, they make bigger profits by offering poison in the form of “medication.”
What we don’t know or care to look into is the fact that doctors are people just like us. They go into the medical field because they want to make a change and help people, but they don’t fully understand who funds their schools. The truth is that pharmaceutical companies pay millions of dollars every year to ensure that their medications appear in medical school textbooks. Then when students become doctors they assume their only options are to prescribe medication or perform surgery.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has this to say. “On average, students received 23.9 contact hours of nutrition instruction during medical school (range: 2–70 h). Only 40 schools required the minimum 25 h recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. Most instructors (88%) expressed the need for additional nutrition instruction at their institutions.”
Now let’s try to grasp this. When you get sick and go to your doctor, what happens? You receive a prescription. But wait. According to the FDA, that medication is not meant to cure your illness, but merely treat its symptoms. This means that when your pancreas isn’t functioning properly (in other words, when you have diabetes), instead of treating the pancreas, the medical establishment lets it die off, then replaces its natural insulin with a synthetic version that you inject every day. Ask your doctor about treating the underlying disease or cause. He or she won’t have an answer because your doctor has not received training in this area.
This is why you must familiarise yourself with what’s really happening around you. As an example, imagine that you’re driving your car and the engine light blinks on. Instead of taking your car to the mechanic to discover the problem that caused the light to turn on, you rip out the dashboard, cut the cord, and put the dashboard back together. The light is no longer on, but does that mean the engine has been fixed? No. Instead, the engine will only get “sicker” and “sicker.”
The next time you have a headache, ask yourself, ‘What is it that I’m doing that’s causing these headaches?’ Instead of taking Tylenol or ASA, determine whether dehydration, stress, processed foods, or lack of sleep are causing the problem. Then take action. If you choose to make weight loss a part of your life, educate yourself, not only about the methods you can use to lose weight, but also about the factors that caused the weight gain. Ask yourself, ‘What else can I do to live a healthier, longer life?’
I suggest that you visit a naturopathy doctor. Don’t stop taking your medications, but find alternatives that provide a more natural approach to healing illnesses, instead of merely treating symptoms.