It’s a new year and everyone is looking forward to a fresh start. If you are trying to jump start your heath or recover from over eating during the holidays you’ve come to the right place. In this article I’m going to go over the basics of safe and effective detox and which supplements you can take to support your detox journey.
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As a certified colon hydrotherapist nutritionist and health supportive chef detoxification is my specialty. I’ve been helping clients improve their health through eating detox diet for years with great results.
Despite this, I’m hesitant to write about detox or even use that word openly. The term “Detox” is associated with a negative stigma. When most people think about detox these days they associate them with quick fix diets, laxative teas, diuretics and disordered eating.
Detoxification as a healing practice has been around for a long time. Way before it was a fad, famous doctors like Dr. Kellogg, Arnold Ehret, Dr. Bernard Jenson and Dr. Woods others used detoxification to heal diseases naturally.
Table of Contents
- What are the Best Supplements for Detox? The Quick Answer:
- What is Detox?
- What Detox is Not
- Safe Methods of Detox
- Unsafe Methods of Detox
- Which Supplements are Best for Detox?
- Activated Charcoal
- Liquid Chlorophyll
- Digestive Enzymes
- Sun Chlorella Tablets
- What about Probiotics for Detox?
What are the Best Supplements for Detox? The Quick Answer:
In short the best supplements for detoxification I’ve compiled based off of working as a detox nutritionist, health supportive chef and certified colon hydrotherapist over 15 years. I recommend reading below this section to learn why these supplements work, how to use them properly and which brands I recommend.
- Charcoal
- Digestive Enzymes
- Liquid Chlorophyll
- Magnesium Powder
- Sun Chlorella
- Probiotics
What is Detox?
Detox isn’t a fad or a diet. Detoxification is a natural process that our bodies go through every day. Our body’s ability to detoxify and regenerate it’s self is what keeps us alive. For example, every night when we got to sleep our kidney’s filter our blood for us. If this process didn’t happen we would die from going septic pretty quickly. That’s why people with advanced kidney disease need dialysis to live.
Eating a detox diet or consuming supplements that support detoxification should do nothing more than support your own body’s natural detoxification process.
Intelligently applied detox amplifies your body’s ability to cary out it’s own detox process without negatively impacting your health by applying stress to the body.
What Detox is Not
Detoxification is not dehydrating your body by taking stimulant laxatives. Most detox programs are a combination of herbs and a stimulant laxative that causes you to move your bowels.
Stimulant laxatives are not effective for detox for two reasons:
- Because they don’t provide a long term solution.
- They cause dependency which leads to a sluggish digestive system in the form of constipation which slows down your body’s natural ability to detoxify itself.
Safe Methods of Detox
I teach a whole class on this topic. I could literally fill books with information. But here I just want to quickly glance over my three recommendations for detoxifying safely.
- Follow a food combining diet that focuses on easy to digest foods that have a high water content.
- Intermittent fast by only consuming your first meal in the morning when you’re hungry for it. This gives your body a few extra hours to turn over new cells instead of putting all of it’s energy into digesting your breakfast.
- Drink vegetable juice: Drinking vegetable juice is a great way to hydrate your body while filling it up with an endless supply of vitamins, minerals and live enzymes. Drinking vegetable juices (not fruit juices which are full of sugar) will allow you to consume less food, move the bowels and purify the blood without depleting your body.
Unsafe Methods of Detox
Here are some methods of detox that I don’t believe are safe for average people. Especially if you are not under medical supervision!
- Water fasts
- Salt flushes
- Detox Teas
- Stimulant Laxatives with Senna or Swiss Kris
Which Supplements are Best for Detox?
If only we could bottle health and sell it. Taking supplements will not fully detoxify your body. However certain supplements will help facilitate the detoxification process if you’re eating right and moving your bowels every day.
Magnesium Powder
Magnesium powder is a helpful supplement you can use when you are on a detox diet. For many people constipation is a symptom of detoxification. When you start eating more fiber in the form of vegetables it can lead to constipation. This comes from two sources.
- The cellulose kicking up old waste in the intestine like a broom. When this happens your stomach gets distended as it prepares to move stagnant waste out of the body.
- As you hydrate your body you reconstitute old mucus that has dried out in the intestine. Since mucus is sticky as it moves through the colon it can gum up your stool.
- If you have a weaker intestinal tract and suffer from chronic constipation or diarrhea your body may simply not be used to consuming all of this fiber and can have some trouble moving the mass out of the body.
That’s where magnesium powder comes in! Magnesium is a safe mineral that has been shown to lowering the risk of diabetes, improve bone health, reducing the symptoms of depression, help improve sleep and reducing blood pressure.
A natural symptom of taking magnesium is that it acts like a laxative. Magnesium doesn’t remove waste by irritating the nervous system like stimulant laxatives. It acts like a battering ram that pushes any poop that is stuck in the large intestine out gently.
One tablespoon of magnesium powder in 8 ounces of water at night will help you sleep and have a healthy pain free bowel movement in the morning.
I always recommend magnesium to my clients who suffer with chronic constipation.
Activated Charcoal
Activated charcoal is another one of my favorite detoxification supplements. When I tell people that they can take charcoal as a dietary supplement for detox they look at me like I’m crazy. No one believes that they can consume charcoal!, they think that charcoal is for the grill. They don’t realize that charcoal is the active ingredient in most gas medications like Gas-X and Beano.
How does charcoal help with detox?
Charcoal is non-toxic and highly absorbent. So if you have symptoms like gas, acid reflux or a sour stomach you can take charcoal. The charcoal will absorb some of the gas and acid which will reduce the internal pressure your stomach.
Liquid Chlorophyll
What is Chlorophyll
If you’ve never heard of liquid chlorophyll then let’s start with what chlorophyll is. Chlorophyll is essentially the blood of plants. It’s the pigment that makes the leaves and stems of plants green. Chlorophyll is responsible for synthesizing sunlight and turning it into energy. So chlorophyll is a great source of energy for both plants and humans.
So what are the benefits of liquid chlorophyll in a nut shell?
Liquid chlorophyll provides the human body with energy, hydration and enzymes. The chlorophyll also has a soothing inflammatory response to muscle tissue. So using liquid chlorophyll will help you build muscle and speed up digestion.
Chlorophyll act as like intestinal soap. It hydrates the waste in the intestine and scrubs the walls of the colon. It hydrates waste better than water does since the colon is a dehydrator. Its job is to suck water out of waste to compact stool. The chlorophyll will help the body detox and rid itself of stuck waste.
In short, chlorophyll helps you go to the bathroom. Which will speed up your body’s natural detoxification process.
Which is the best liquid chlorophyll brand?
My favorite liquid chlorophyll brand is the Now Liquid Chlorophyll Brand. It’s available in large quantities. Whole Foods sells liquid chlorophyll in a dropper so that you can add it to your water. These doses are too low to be effective. You should consume 1-2 ounces of liquid chlorophyll at a time to receive the benefits.
Watch out, liquid chlorophyll turns your mouth green
The best time to take liquid chlorophyll is in the morning or at night before you brush your teeth. The intense green pigmentation of the chlorophyll will turn your whole mouth green. You should drink it with a straw to avoid letting it touch your teeth.
Digestive Enzymes
Our bodies are full of digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes help break down food into smaller molecules that our bodies can use as energy. Many people are deficient in digestive enzymes. So supplementing digestive enzymes can help make your digestion faster and the process itself more complete.
By taking additional enzymes with your meals you can help facilitate this process even more. Consuming digestive enzymes after a meal can reduce gas and bloating.
What is the best brand of digestive enzymes?
There are tons of great digestive enzymes on the market but I really like Digestive Enzymes by E3 Live.
Sun Chlorella Tablets
The benefits of sun chlorella are similar to liquid chlorophyll. Unlike liquid chlorophyll which comes from plants, sun chlorella comes from algae. This algae is very powerful. It reproduces itself four time an hour and has tons of protein and potent energy from the sun. Consuming sun chlorella helps the body build muscle and eliminate waste.
Additional benefits of sun chlorella include:
- Immune system support
- Vitamin D, B and Iron
- Works as an antioxidant
- Supports detoxification and digestive health
What is the best brand of sun chlorella
The most important factor to consider when buying sun chlorella is how it’s processed. Some companies simply puncture the cellular wall of the algae while others pulverize it.
It’s important to buy brands that pulverize the algae instead of perforating. Sun chlorella is so strong that the human body cannot break down the algae’s cellular wall. Pulverizing makes it easier to digest.
Two companies I’ve had success with are Sun Chlorella company and Chloroenergy.
What about Probiotics for Detox?
While these are the best supplements for detox in my opinion. There are lots of other supplements that can aid detoxification including bentonite clay, probiotics, fermented foods and more. I just wanted to cover the absolute best supplements for detox that most people are not aware of.
Everyone recommends taking probiotics for detox. However probiotics are not enough. If your body is acidic then the probiotics will often die before they reach the large intestine. If you do want to take probiotics to help with detox make sure to take a probiotic with a double shelled capsule. The double shell will fortify the probiotics, preventing them from being broken down by stomach acid before they can reach the colon.
A meal plan designed to jump start whole body healing and support digestive health...
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