Welcome to episode 73. Thanks for joining me. I am super grateful you all have stuck with me for 73 episodes.
Please send me your questions to helpforhashimotos@gmail.com or head over to my website outofthewoodsnutrition.com and fill out the contact form putting in the subject line, podcast and then ask away. I’m here to help so you can live your best life and feel fantastic even while dealing with chronic illness and thyroid disease. This disease does not have to make or break you and let me remind you that you are not your disease. You are a person who deserves love and kindness and to feel good. It isn’t going to magically appear just because you know you deserve it though. You do have to make choices day by day that are going to bring you out of dis-ease and in to wellness. What you put in and on your body and what you have going on in your head all do play a role in your health and in disease. Those small and seemingly insignificant choices we make on a daily basis add up to a lot over time. Cutting 125 calories of crap from our diet over 2 ½ years can result in significant weight loss. Reading 10 pages a day of a book can result in you reading more books than you ever imagined over that same period of time. The point here is with a little change here or there you can and you will start to feel better. It is all up to you. Are you in?
Okay. Now let’s get down to business. This is another show about detoxification because I want you to be really clear what it means and what it does in your body. Again, this is not a discussion about cleanses or water fasting or any sort of fad type of detox. This is what is happening on a daily basis in your body and how you can provide your body with the tools it needs to work optimally for you to feel your best.
Detoxification can be defined as giving the body what it needs to break down and excrete the toxic compounds we take in through our day to day life and to break down and excrete the toxic compounds created by our own body and it breaks down external compounds we have been exposed to. At the same time detoxification is about taking the steps we need to do to reduce our exposure.
Detoxing or cleansing has been around for 100’s and 100’s of years as part of a healing practice. Think about the season of lent in the catholic church. You are giving up something and bringing something else in to your life. The point of it is to look at your life with curiosity and self examination. When you change the kind of food you put in to your body to something more healing, your life will change too. This can also be called detox but biotransformation is a better name in my opinion. It is access to greater change and healing.
We have three phases of detoxification within the body. Phase I, Phase II and Phase III. Phase I & II have been studied a lot in conjunction with pharmaceutical drugs and how they are metabolized in the body. Phase III is elimination of toxins in your cells but also elimination from the body via urine, sweat, feces and so on.
There was a study done on women with chronic fatigue syndrome- possibly some of you have been diagnosed with that in addition to Hashimoto’s? These women took a detox supplement powder along with doing an elimination diet. So they took this powder that had all the nutrients your body needs and it was mixed with water or something. Along with the powder they consumed an elimination diet that was loaded with phytonutrients (a component of plants that are beneficial to our health). They took the Medical Symptom Questionnaire from the Institute For Functional Medicine before the program and then again when the program was done. This specific detox program which is food based reduced the participants medical symptoms significantly. There is a clear benefit here but I want to stress that you should not do this on your own. Get support from a practitioner because you may need to heal your gut before doing something like this or you may need to make sure you are pooping regularly etc.
A program like this can help you get rid of brain fog, pain, help you understand what foods you should avoid, give you more energy, clear up your skin, reduce medications and stress and inflammation and can help you recover or go in to remission. This is kind of a big deal. Is it worth it to you to do the work to get to this place? If so, I am your girl. These are my favorite kinds of clients to work with.
The work you may need to do to get to this feeling is not only clean up your diet, but your home, your personal care products, your mind and even your relationships. Your results will all depend on how much work you put in as with anything. There is no magic and I am sorry to say that because I too wish there was a magic pill here.
So where do you begin if you want to do something like this? First make sure you are pooping 1-2 times a day. This is really really important. You don’t want to go to the work of cleaning up the body and then not be able to get rid of all the garbage because it will just go right back in to circulation and make you sick. Not good. You also need some energy to get through something like this so if you are low on energy as many of us with hypothyroidism are, you will need to do some work on that first. You may need to do some supplementation to support your body through this as well.
Your gut needs to be in good shape before detoxing so working on healing your gastrointestinal tract is important. If you have intestinal permeability you have a good chance that these external toxins are escaping in to the blood stream along with proteins that have not been broken down etc. We need to have a very acidic stomach- not usually the case in hypothyroidism and as we get older so we need to possibly supplement with stomach acid in order to break down our foods. Your liver needs to be working well because much of the breakdown of toxins happens there. You need good bile flow which means you need to have a proper functioning gallbladder. If you have referred pain in your shoulder blades or if you put some pressure on the area under your right rib cage and it is painful or uncomfortable, then you have some healing to do there too before implementing a detoxification program.
We know that mercury is a big player in autoimmune disease and Hashimoto’s right? Well 80% of the mercury in our body comes out in our stool. If we have leaky gut and are not pooping regularly this can be a real problem. You can be pooping daily but if you are not pooping out what you ate the day before that means you have slow motility and that is not good either. You might want to do a transit time test- eat some beets or like a half a cup of organic corn or take 5-7 activated charcoal tablets in the morning. Write down what time you take it, then watch your stool. Write down what time you first see one of those things in your stool (you will likely see red in your stool with beets) and then write down the date and time you last see them. The time between when you first ingested the stuff and the last time you see it in your stool is your transit time. This should be around 16-24 hours. Anything longer than that, there is a good chance you are reabsorbing some toxic materials. Anything less than that and it is likely you are missing out on absorption of nutrients. If your poops are not perfect you likely need to do a gut healing program before you begin. Again, this is something you should do with a practitioner- it requires some diet change and supplementation but is so worth it.
What kinds of nutrients do you need to help your body detoxify?
Fiber- most of us don’t get enough of it. Get your fiber from a variety of plant foods and avoid supplementation if you can. Fiber is in veggies, nuts, legumes (beans), fruit and grains. The more fiber you eat the more toxins you will naturally pull out of your body. If you need help through supplementation you can take psyllium which works great but be aware that taking it for too long can result in developing an intolerance. It will reduce transit time, it can help lower blood sugar and LDL cholesterol and it is pretty safe. Biotics Research makes a really nice psyllium product called Colon Plus that works well. When I first started doing this, I was still in school and had a practice client who had not pooped for a month. She started on this product which I tested her for and she called me up to tell me she pooped 5 times in one day and she was feeling fantastic. So it really gets things moving.
Aloe vera can be used for up to 2 weeks to stimulate your eliminations but it doesn’t really taste great. It is anti-inflammatory and can be cooling to our system.
Prebiotics- you can get those from fiber containing foods. They reduce inflammation and IBS symptoms, they are good for your colon and allow our body to assimilate vitamins and minerals. They can also promote feeling full and weight loss. Prebiotics feed the beneficial bacteria in our gut allowing for the population to remain strong and healthy.
Probiotics- many strains help our body detoxify things naturally so building up a good, strong healthy gut is important.
What organs are involved in detoxification?
The liver- the super detoxifier. So much goes on in our liver and detoxification is one of the really important and big jobs it has. We need to support the liver with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and herbs. Milk thistle is well known to be supportive of the liver and helping it eliminate toxins from the body. It is an antioxidant and supports the production of our master antioxidant, glutathione. N-Acetyl Cysteine is a powerhouse of a nutrient too. It has been studied in the prevention of the flu. It prevents or combats oxidative stress, protects the liver and is what is given to people who OD on acetaminophen. You can take 1000-1500mg per day depending on your needs.
Just like in constipation, when stools sit in our colon too long, toxins can be reabsorbed. The same thing happens in the kidneys. We have these tubules in our kidneys where resorption of toxins can happen and it is all dependent upon a more alkaline pH in the body which we get by consuming a ton of fruits and veggies.
We also detox through our lungs just by breathing. So deep breathing practices can be very helpful. Avoid perfumes, even essential oils can be problematic for some people, and incense.
We detox through our skin too. Emotionally you can think about whether or not you feel good in your own skin but in addition to that- what are you putting on your body? We talked about what to put in your body but what goes on your skin is equally important. You want to avoid aluminum in your deodorant and clean up your make-up and skin care. Think about shampoo, conditioner, hand soaps, dish soap, laundry soap. Household cleaners and on and on. It gets overwhelming for sure but start with one area and clean that up and then move on to other areas. Little by little.
If you have access to a sauna to sweat that is really helpful in moving toxins out quickly. Use a dry brush on your body before getting in the shower and start working on self love.
The limiting thoughts and beliefs we have about ourselves and our ability to heal can be a real thing. What are you thinking about most of the time? For me, for years, it was how much I hated this disease and how it made me feel so terrible. I had a lot of toxic thoughts, still do in some areas. It is a daily practice to work on changing those thoughts in to something good. What kinds of thoughts are controlling you? Take a moment to think about that. Our thoughts are powerful. The toxicants that we take in, like actual chemicals, can change our mood and behavior making us angry, irritable or moody. Toxic thoughts can do that too.
We need meaning and purpose. We need to believe in something greater than us- whatever that is for you. We need to feel peace. This is all part of the functional medicine model. Having purpose is good for our health. My dad lost all sense of purpose once he couldn’t drive anymore. Once his car was sold- that was it for him. He now spends most of his time sleeping. It is really sad.
Anyway, starting some kind of spiritual practice can be really helpful- whether it is prayer, meditation, saying a mantra or even just journaling your gratitude. When I am feeling really terrible I will go for a walk and just say out loud as I am walking: “I am grateful for these feet that can move on the ground, I am thankful for my eyes that can see, I am grateful for my hands that can feel the breeze, I am thankful for ears that can hear the birds…”. You get the idea. Just small things to be grateful for and about halfway in to the walk- about 20 minutes- I start to feel lighter and much better. Little things. Find some time to just be quiet for a minute or two even if it has to be while you are on the toilet.
Who needs to do a detoxification program?
Pretty much everyone these days. If you are obese or overweight, been on a diet your whole life, if you eat processed foods at all, if you use any kind of personal care products, if you have inflammation, live in a city or the country, if you are a Vietnam vet- actually any veteran could use a detox and if you travel a lot. These are just a few of the reasons someone should consider a detoxification program. If you have symptoms of fatigue, fibromyalgia, diabetes, brain fog or other brain/cognition issues, neurological issues, asthma, allergies, chemical sensitivities, autoimmune disease, chronic infections, infertility or hormone imbalance. The list really goes on and on.
Do you think you need to clean things up in your body? Shoot me an email and we can discuss it. Just go to the contact form on my website and fill that out. You can also just schedule a free 15 minute consult under Book An Appointment on the bar at the top of my webpage. While you are there, sign up for my newsletter and get recipes sent directly to your inbox.
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I’m going to leave you with this mantra: I let go of everything that I no longer need.