A Week-long Walk through our Functional Medicine Detox

Day 1:

Myself and my husband are doing a functional medicine detox, and I have decided that I will share each day about why we are doing this, because honestly most people need this!

The liver is super underrated in terms of organs we talk about - not many of us think about giving it what it needs to function properly! It is a vital organ, because it is constantly filtering your blood and removing toxins. If it isn’t functioning optimally, it can lead to a host of issues within your body because toxicity is building up (these symptoms can include anything from brain fog, anxiety, and hormone issues, all the way up to cancer).

It is very common for our livers to not be functioning optimally, considering all of the outside toxins we get from personal care items, pesticides, poor food choices, man-made chemicals, etc.

This is why it is vital to do a functional medicine detox quarterly during the year - it provides support for our liver so we can clean out all the toxins out of our body and help it reset!

Day 2:

One thing we need to do during the FM detox is fast for the first 2.5 days. Now it’s not a complete fast; we are still able to drink protein shakes. These shakes provide us with all of the nutrients we need.

Fasting for this amount of time gives every cell in our body the opportunity to do a deep spring cleaning, which is called autophagy. Without the constant borage of things coming in, our body can focus on cleaning out the toxins that have been building up over time. When your body is in autophagy, it makes your body look for new food and fuel sources - this means your immune system literally eats up dead diseased tissue and kills pathogens in your body. Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Peace prize for discovering and defining autophagy.

Day 3:

On days 3-7, we are on an elimination diet.

This is a pretty restrictive diet, however it is one that will bring much healing. This diet removes the most common food sensitivities. This, in turn reduces the risk of us eating something that we might be sensitive to, because we don’t yet know our food sensitivities.

If you eat something you are sensitive to, you can experience low energy, or low mood/crankiness, up to 3 days after you eat the food! Keep in mind a food sensitivity is very different from a food allergy!

Also, eating these foods helps balance our blood sugar levels, which keeps us out of the insulin resistance stage. It also provides anti-aging effects (high blood sugar spikes are known to cause premature aging)! It also helps keep our energy consistent throughout the day.

Day 4: Nightly Fast

Every night after dinner, we are done eating until the next morning at 8am. This 14 hour fast means more autophagy. It’s the perfect amount of time, because anything more could put our bodies into fight or flight mode, causing more harm than good. This evening fast also helps us reset our sleeping patterns so we can have more true rest. If you eat late in the night, your body has to digest food well into the night, possibly causing disrupted sleep.

Day 5:

Every day on the detox, our breakfast consists of a nutritional protein shake . It includes all of the vitamins and minerals we need. It is easy to digest, which is best for breaking our fast (not bogging us down first thing in the morning digesting food). Also the 20oz of water in each shake helps every cell in our body get hydrated after the work it’s done all night detoxifying our bodies. We also take 2 easy supplements that provide the liver with all of the nutrients it needs to function optimally and filter out toxins!

Day 6:

Here are some additional perks we will get from doing our Functional Medicine Detox, while reducing our toxic load:

-Reduced inflammation levels

-Healthy blood sugar levels

-More balanced hormones

-Relief from joint pain

-Reduced cortisol levels

-Allergy relief

-Increased metabolism

-Weight loss

-Improved digestion

-Less brain fog

-Increased energy

-Better mood

-Higher libido

-Improved sleep

-Improved skin texture

Day 7:

This concludes our walk through of a functional medicine detox. I’ve shared above what it can do for your body, and it is truly an amazing way to push the reset button on your total health.

Today I took this Toxicity quiz to see where I was at before our initial detox back in October, and where I’m at now.

I went from 64 points down to 16!

Just think of all that suffering I had before, and I had considered myself “healthy”!