Support Your Detox with Nutrition & Awareness

I’ve been studying and experimenting with health and nutrition for nearly two decades, with a particular focus and passion on detox. I moved to Koh Samui, Thailand in 2009 to research all of the detox programs, offered at the health resorts, in order to share my research to fasters looking to select the right program for their needs.

After trying nearly all 12 detox and fasting programs in my research I saw and experienced what was missing: the emphasis and education on how to properly support your body in the detoxification process.  The end result of many unsupported fasts left me with poor digestion and an overburdened, sluggish liver contributing to the uncomfortable Buddha-belly bloat.  Listening to my body and signs along the way I began a new search to understand the liver and the actual detoxification process.  My new awareness lead me to doctors, nutritionists and many books that provided me with the answers and the protocol that I was looking for.

The detox programs offered on Koh Samui do touch on the importance of following a “pre-cleanse” and “breaking the fast” but fail to explain why these are so important.  Before you embark on a fasting program, or just stop eating on your own, know what you are dealing with.  Is your liver already weak from years of toxic abuse and negative emotions?  Is your colon clogged with undigested food, chemicals, drugs, parasites and yeast?  Will they support you in your detox? What habits and behaviors caused your current state?

Before you stop eating, at least a week of liver and colon preparation is an essential part of any fast, you can’t skip that.  If you do, you risk health problems, unpleasant symptoms, and the likelihood of gaining back all the weight you lost during your fast. I like to think of the protocol as a Liver Care Plan.  The word liver comes from an Old English word for “life”.  The liver is your key to life, even possessing the unique ability to regenerate itself.  You can rebuild this vital organ with the right diet and detox plan. The liver breaks down everything that enters the body through our mouth, skin and lungs.  It’s your liver’s job to distinguish between the nutrients you need to absorb and the toxins that must be filtered out of your bloodstream. If your liver is already bogged down from pesticides, chlorinated shower water, alcohol, medication, coffee, cigarettes, cosmetics, and unnatural, processed foods it will be overwhelmed with a sudden fast accelerating a “toxic dump”.  Also, if your liver doesn’t complete the second stage of it’s detoxification process, where the toxic compounds are converted to an even more toxic substance to be broken down, your efforts at detox have just had the opposite effect: overloading your system with extra toxins.

All too often, your liver doesn’t finish phase 2, because highly refined carbs (like white flour, white sugar, colas and candies), nitrates, hormones and preservatives interrupts the detox process.  And you’ll get major disruption from liver stressors like caffeine, alcohol, smog, secondhand smoke, medications, hormone supplements (including the Pill and HRT), and an excessive use of antibiotics.  Any of these elements can interrupt the two-phase detox process, causing toxins to build up in your system.

That’s why, if you are asking your liver to do extra work, such as during a fast, it’s crucial to give your liver heavy-duty nutritional support, supplying it with the liver-loving foods it needs while protecting it from toxic liver stressors.  You liver is your major detox organ and needs a high-functioning colon to expel waste from your body, keeping you and your blood healthy.  If your colon is clogged and toxic, as so many of our colons are, you’re likely to encounter health problems as well as weight issues.  That is why it is also important to clean the colon starting with a colonic and continuing by loading up on fiber daily while preparing for a fast.

A healthy detox – the kind supported by adequate nutritional preparation for the liver and sufficient fiber for the colon – is the best-kept secret I know to good health, long-term weight loss, and an overall feeling of well-being.

Emotions and the Liver

More than any other organ, the liver is affected by negative thoughts and feelings.  Anger, resentment, depression, fear and all of the emotions that accompany them do more harm to the liver than anything else.  So during this Liver Care Plan it is just as important to know which thoughts are “feeding” your emotions.

Before and during a fast is the optimal time to begin to understand and release the negative thoughts, feelings, and habits, which have caused poor health, unhappiness and failure in your life.

You can support your release and new awareness by keeping a journal; writing down your feelings, reflections and desires.  Journaling can support you in all areas of your life and is available free of charge anytime you need support, clarity and change.

1^st Step: Know The Condition of Your Body & Soul

Before you begin a cleansing program, know what’s going on in your body (and soul) and the root cause of the stress in order to know how to properly heal. Out of all of the medical and holistic health assessments I’ve done I believe the most accurate was the one I’ve received from Laura Bruno, a medical intuitive, who answered my health and life questions by scanning and “reading” me on a metaphysical level. A medical intuitive is not a doctor so she cannot legally give “medical” advice. Laura works on intuitive levels, and will help guide you to what sorts of things to research, follow-up on or explore on the physical level.  If you like, she will “read” all of the energetic, soul, emotional and mental awareness that also factor into your equation.

Laura is offering a great deal on her one-hour medical/soul reading for friends of Samui Healing for $111 (discounted from $175).  To learn more about her, contact her and read some interesting insights please visit her blog.

Support your detox with awareness,  nutrition, information, tolls and resources in Samui Healing’s Conscious Cleanse Guidebook,  sign-up to be notified of release.

Is your body trying to tell you something? Listen to the signs and look to the cause.

“Disease symptoms are an effort of the body to eliminate waste, mucus, and toxemia. This system assists Nature in the most perfect and natural way. Not the disease but the body is to be healed; it must be cleansed, freed from waste and foreign matter, from mucus and toxemia accumulated since childhood.” – Professor Arnold Ehret

You clean out your home, you clean out your car, but it is far more important and helpful to your well-being to clean out yourself. When you do an internal cleanse you get rid of the things you don’t need. Take for instance “spring cleaning”; cleaning your home of junk, dirt, and useless accumulations helps you feel better. Once the clutter is out of your house it also clears out of your head.

Cleansing is nature’s way of allowing our bodies to get rid of unwanted toxins and foreign substances. A speck of dust gets in your eye, and your start tearing – it’s a way to cleanse out the dust. A virus invades your system and you get a cold or fever – it’s your immune system at work to drive out the virus. Rejoice when you notice your body cleansing, it always results in a higher level of health and vitality! The worse thing you can do is take something to stop the cleansing like medicine and drugs, these just drive the foreign invaders deeper and contribute to stress in your body.

“The bowel feeds every organ, every tissue, and every cell in our bodies. When the bowel environment and function has become contaminated or inefficient, the cells and organs in the rest of the body will reflect that contamination and dysfunction. A toxic and acid bowel means toxic blood and lymph, toxic liver and other organs and cells, and poor health.” Dr. Rich Anderson

Most all health conditions and complaints are a result of an over acidic and toxic environment from stress, drugs (prescription, over the counter and illegal), alcohol, proceeded, fried and overcooked food, pesticides, chemicals, mercury fillings, artificial additives, sugar, repressed emotions, excess meat and dairy, improper food combining, over-eating, under-chewing, and not eating enough raw fruits and vegetables.

The body tries to protect itself from over-acidity to maintain the proper pH balance in order to digest and assimilate nutrients. This protection changes our clear and watery lymph fluid to a thick mucous, making it less able to carry toxins out of our body and candida (yeast fungus) does its job of eating the excess sugars. When we are too acidic most of the time this causes many problems. Too much mucous forms a hardened layer of muciod plaque around the digestive system that traps drugs, heavy metals, yeast, pathogentic bacteria, parasites and more that prevent nutrient assimilation and normal bowel function. An overgrowth of candida overwhelms the immune system, digestion and liver with toxic by-products and also leads to many cravings (in the form of sugar, alcohol and starch) to feed it. If you don’t clean your colon you won’t be able to loose weight and it will eventually cause a deathly disease.

“We live not by what we eat, but what we digest, absorb and assimilate.” Dr. Deschauer

Even if you change your diet and improve your lifestyle you won’t be able to absorb all of the nutrients and your body will remain toxic until you clean out your digestive system of the hardened plaque. You can address this at home or take a wellness vacation where you can relax, reflect and release in one of the many health spa resorts that offer detox programs. A cleansing program (also referred to as a detox or fasting retreat) is designed to assist in and encourage the removal of built-up internal toxins and to help you move towards a state of bettered health.

A good detox retreat and cleansing program will include:
• pH test and health assessment to see what level of cleanse your body is ready for (juice fast or a light cleansing diet)
• Pre & post cleanse diet guidelines
• Organic vegetable juices, green powder drinks, coconuts and broth to nourish and assist in the cleanse
• Bentonite clay, psyllium and colon cleanse herbs to pull, grab and release toxins and congestion
• Colon irrigation with organic coffee and water enemas or colonics (as needed)
• Probiotics to replenish healthy intestinal flora
• Supporting services: meditation, yoga, massage, herbal steam, far-infrared sauna, healing resources, education and support

Cleaning the inside of your body clears up your skin, energy and mind. It also reconnects you to your inner knowing and guidance. Once you start cleansing you are more in tune with what you actually need. It’s an important time to write your insights down and reflect on what choices you want to make to feel and look your best.

You are the doctor that knows best so be sure to do the things that make sense to you and question the things that cause you confusion.

5 simple tips to boost your health and happiness:

1) Smile
2) Practice deep breathing
3) Live simple
4) Eat natural
5) Raise your awareness

Don’t wait till you are sick to take care of yourself, detox your body and feed it with an organic plant-based diet to prevent and cure dis-ease.

Elicia Woodford is a Detox Consultant, Intuitive Healer, Wellness Mentor, Spiritual Life Coach and Business Consultant. She is the creator of ePowerMe LLC and Samui Healing and is releasing an eGuidebook on the various detox retreats offered on Koh Samui, Thailand. You can sign up here to be notified when the eGuidebook is released and follow her on twitter and facebook for updates.

Wat Kow Tahm

Samui Healing is dedicated to help you cleanse the mind, body and spirit in order to heal and become whole and fully alive. I chose to start this blog on the subject of mental cleansing for awareness because, like Dr Chopra says in the quote above, in order to change anything we must change our awareness first. Developing awareness requires an internal relationship with our mind, thoughts and feelings. When you become aware you have the power to choose what thoughts you react to, let go, and which ones you want to explore deeper. With this mature relationship with your mind you can then make positive changes and develop peace of mind.

In December of 2009 I went away to Wat Kow Tahm on Koh Pahngan, Thailand, for a 10-day silent meditation retreat (also called a Vipassana or “Insight”). This was to study my mind, learn more about Buddhism and put the teachings into practice. I like the way the Buddhists think, or rather not think, about things. They enjoy being instead of achieving. I’ve dipped my feet into the study of Buddhism over the years but now, after the retreat, I feel fully emerged and I am staying in!

The silent retreat was the next step to my healing and mental development. It’s an experiential course of what the Buddha taught (and “The Power Of Now”) by putting awareness/mindfulness into practice. I now understand why the Karate Kid was instructed to focus his concentration on “wax on wax off”. With a silent, focused concentration on what you are doing (walking, breathing, raking leaves, eating, etc) you are faced with the thoughts that cause stress, suffering and unhappiness. This insight allows you to see them for what they are, past conditioning from your environment, and let them go bringing you back into the present moment. This was done for 12 hours everyday for 10 days; giving me a better understanding of myself and a strong desire and commitment to develop my mind.

retreat schedule

The movie line “You read all these books and you don’t know?!” from Rain Man comes to mind from this experience. I’ve read many books, as well as taken some weekend workshops, on the subject of mindfulness. I have never actually experienced and really understood it until now. Just because you intellectually understand something that you read doesn’t mean you know it until you’ve actually experienced it. Mind development is the actual study of the mind and not cramming more intellectual book knowledge into it. Practicing wise reflection on your thoughts and actions brings truth, compassion and wisdom.

Into the second half of the retreat I was noticing that a lot of my hair was coming out and my mind’s first reaction was “Oh no why is this happening?! I better write to my hairdresser, Danica, back home to see what I can do about this. I need to remember to write this down so that I don’t forget”. So reflecting on this new source of stress I came to realize the attachment I had to my hair, my physical beauty and image. During the retreat I learned about the impermanence of everything and what really matters in life. When you are on your deathbed all that matters is how you lived, how you interacted with others (with compassion and lovingkindness) and your peace of mind.

I also reflected on why it was coming out. Back in the US I was fortunate to have been introduced to Danica Winters who created The Plum Organic Beauty, one of the first organic hair salons in Atlanta and San Francisco. I have been consciously trying not to put chemicals in and on my body now for years but this was overlooked do to ignorance when I move to Thailand. My hair is naturally light brown and wavy but I like wear it dark and straight. A friend of mine, who has lived in Bali for 5 years, advised me to get it chemically straightened once I moved to Asia’s tropical, humid climate. I rationalized that the chemicals once every 5 months would be worth it to not have to blow dry it or straighten it with a flat iron. After a month of living in Thailand my hair started to lighten from the blazing sun, and I prefer it dark, so not knowing any organic colorists I chose to have it colored with chemicals at a salon. Every month since I was unhappy with the new growth (my natural hair) coming in and either touched up the color or the waves. I knew this wasn’t good for me, or my hair, but I chose it anyway for vanity. This vanity can cause unneeded stress emotionally and physically in the body.

physical detachment

With this reflection I’ve decided to shave my head. I wrote a blog on the reasons why I shaved my head and posted the video as a reminder and inspiration to others of what is really important in life and the true source of happiness.

growth

When you choose to cleanse your body start by writing the reasons why and then reflect on those looking at your past lifestyle (the thoughts, behaviors and actions) that were the cause of the stress, toxins and congestion that you are wanting to release. My next post will be on the cause and physical toxicity of mucoid plaque and why it is important to do a fasting program to get it out.