Spring Liver Cleanse
Liver Detox Time is Now
Suddenly feeling heavier and more irritable than usual? Are your allergies or digestion acting up? These are signs your liver needs detox support. I am often asked about detox diets and cleanses. Some institutions, such as the Mayo clinic and Web MD, pooh pooh detox efforts, calling them at best, a waste of time and money, and at worst, harmful.
While it’s true that our livers, colons, kidneys and skin are detoxifying us all the time, we can help or hinder the process with our food and lifestyle choices. Liver enzymes and toxin-neutralizing actions plus the right gut bacteria, and a healthy colon help us eliminate excess hormones (e.g. estrogen, xenoestrogens), chemicals (e.g. pesticides, paints, formaldehyde), drugs (prescription, OTC and recreational), cleaning compounds (Mr. Clean, Clorox, Windex), and heavy metals such as lead and aluminum. A diet of canned or processed foods, smoking, excess alcohol, sugar, drugs, chemicals and bad fats interfere with our detox abilities.
In a perfect world, where toxin and daily stress levels are low, and fresh, chemical-free whole foods are the norm, our detox systems do their job and things work just like the Mayo clinic says: Our bodies detoxify without any special diet.
But we don’t live in a perfect world. Many of us are breathing in, swallowing, rubbing on and/or medicating ourselves with an overwhelming array of toxins. On top of that, our chemical-laden boxed cereal-Happy Meal-pizza-soda-heavy diet gums up an overwhelmed detox system.
You actually can optimize your body’s detox system with the right nutrition. Now is the time. Your liver is your main detoxification organ and spring is when it steps up operations. The good news is nature provides the perfect tools to help your liver do its own spring cleanse.
First, purge your diet and life of the most common liver challenges. These slow detox and require detoxification themselves: fructose, processed sugars, vegetable oils, fried foods, smoking, pollution, pesticides, unnecessary drugs, toxic body products, and chemicals.
Reassess Drugs. All drugs, prescription or recreational, pass through the liver and slow our detox abilities. Acetaminophen overuse is suspected as a leading cause of liver failure. A failed liver is not helping you detox. Email me for help with pain. I can show you effective, safe options.
Lay off sugar. Fructose, the GMO corn-based sweetener found in everything from soft drinks and candy to breakfast cereals, leads to fatty liver much like alcohol can. If you consume enough, any sugar can fatten your liver (and you), but fructose seems to do this fastest. Cut out refined sugars, especially fructose, high fructose corn syrup, agave syrup, sodas, candies and confections, fruit juice, and bakery products.
Cut the vegetable soils. Corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, soy, and canola oils tend to be overly processed, and oxidized (rancid) from time on the shelf, processing, light and heat, as well as contaminated with toxin residues such as hexane. Most vegetable oils are too high omega 6 fats, making them inflammatory and destructive.
Reduce the pesticides. When you breathe or eat pesticides, liver detox slows. Think twice about common Roundup-treated GMO products (corn, soy, canola, dairy), antibiotic and hormone-treated animal products and the dirty dozen produce items.
Exercise. Movement and perspiration enhance all detoxification pathways. Go take a walk.
Nourish your skin. Don’t put anything on your skin you wouldn’t eat. You absorb lotions, creams and make up.
Increase detox nutrients and botanicals. These stimulate and optimize your liver detox enzymes and pathways. Ideally choose organic foods, and when needed, use the appropriate supplements. The following are the main players.
Vitamin C: Citrus, berries, broccoli, leafy greens, peppers, tomato, kiwi, Brussels sprouts.
Carotenoids: Deep orange, red and green vegetables and fruits including carrots, winter squash, cantaloupe, apricots, dark leafy greens.
Magnesium: Dark leafy greens, nuts, avocado.
Vitamin E: Fresh nuts, especially almonds. Avoid synthetic E supplements.
Sulfur: Pastured eggs, meat and seafood, garlic, onions, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower.
Indoles: Cruciferous veggies.
Botanicals: dandelion root and greens, artichokes, lemon, garlic, milk thistle, turmeric (curcumin).
I do not recommend fasts or rapid weight loss without help. Since our fat stores many toxins (not the liver), quick weight loss or fasting can allow shrinking fat cells to dump their debris into the blood stream, leading to unpleasant detox symptoms such as headaches and fatigue.
Spring Liver Detox Special
For the next month, I am offering a Liver Detox Special with personalized support. Let me walk you through your spring cleanse with a 7 to 10 day liver flush plus a transition diet tailored to your needs. With email support, you can ask all the questions you need.
What a Liver Detox Can Do
Optimize spring liver detoxification
Jump start sluggish weight loss
Reduce depression, anger, irritability (signs you need a liver detox)
Improve energy
Reduce PMS signs
Reduce spring allergies
Clear redness & yellow from eyes
Improve digestion, including bloating, reflux, constipation or diarrhea
Here’s what you get:
Morning liver cleanse cocktail recipe & guidelines
Liver cleanse tea recipe & guidelines
Recommendations for a 7 to 10 day liver cleanse, based on your constitution
Appropriate supplement guidelines for your needs
Tools for boosting glutathione (your master detoxifier)
Tasty spring recipes and cooking tips you and your liver will love
Guidelines for transition to a naturally cleansing diet year round
14 Days of personal email check in and support, with me
Hi Linda!
I am going to do your liver cleanse again. Can’t remember…nightshades off of the menu? Thank you!
Liver cleansing is not one specific “diet.” You can eat in a liver cleansing way all year by including lots of leafy greens, drinking citrus in water in the mornings, taking dandelion-milk thistle and other liver herbs and purging your diet of vegetable oils, sugar, alcohol and most flour. Nightshades can, in some, increase or cause pain, calcify joints and deplete tissues of minerals (they can!), so it’s ideal to take a break from them when not their season.
Thank you, Linda! Do you recommend taking Dandelion Milk thistle come in capsule form?
I just did a very comprehensive blood test panel ordered by a Naturapath. All of my numbers were excellent. The only issue was my ferritin levels, hence arriving at the conclusion that I am anemic. I continue to experience for most of the days, puffy hands and swollen feet. It is the feeling I get when I eat too much salt. (I used to be affected by eating too much salt years ago, that went away and is now back again.) It is nagging and a bit uncomfortable. Just not sure what that could be.
The things that I eat that ‘contain’ salt are mac nuts and almonds (roasted (not in oils) and with sea salt) and sunflower seed butter-no sugar, but with salt.
So annoying!
Thank you for your insight:)
A
Years ago I would try to sleuth out where the excess salt was coming from to address this. Not now! Now I suggest a homeopathic remedy for the swelling, especially since I believe it was also an issue with summer heat for you, no? We NEED sodium and the trace minerals in sea salt. Be sure you are getting sea salt, not processed. On ferritin, yes, you want to correct this. If you are unable to work in more beef and lamb, which I recommend, consider taking ferrum phos and calc phos, both cell salts (take each one twice a day, at least 15 minutes apart) to increase your assimilation of iron.
Hi Linda,
Why are night shades not a part of the flush? Thanks!
They tend to de-mineralize the body. Minerals are essential to detox and health.
Ok thank you. I felt so awesome after the flush. Trying to figure out what I took out of my diet during the flush that made me feel so great. I want to do it again!
Hi Linda! You continue to inspire. If anyone has never worked with Linda in the past, I highly recommend her. She is not a fad diet nutritionist. Her insight and advice will stick with you well beyond the ‘time’ you spend with her. I have been a client of hers for 15 years:)
I feel that credit is due to those who truly deserve it.
…just my two cents:)
Anyway, my question is…..i know that most cleaners at the supermarket are harmful. Can you advise on any brands that are ok to use? thank you!!
Thank you for the kind words Andria. I clean my whole house with distilled white vinegar, orange essential oil and baking soda. Research shows vinegar kills germs as effectively as antimicrobial cleaners (the toxic kind!). Baking soda is also anti-microbial and works like a powdered-type cleanser. You can mix rubbing alcohol and vinegar for a window cleaner (google recipes), or just use dishsoap and water. A pumice stone works on toilet bowl rings. For laundry, I use unscented products like Planet or Ecover. Hope that helps!
Thank you! I will try a mixture of that!
I have been off if wheat for almost two months and I feel great in terms of energy & clear-mindedness.
Although I have been feeling heavy in the leg/thigh area.
I may hit you up for help if I can not take care of it on my own:)
I do think wheat is a particular problem for you. It is “damp” according to Chinese medicine, so can leave you feeling sluggish, and with brain fog. Keep up the clean eating! I’m here. You could do a liver cleanse to speed things up and feel lighter.
Thank you! Wheat is not tantalizing at all. I don’t miss it and I know how it makes me feel so deep down I am turned off by the sight and taste.
I’m tempted for your liver cleanse. Accountability works for me and definitely helps me to tighten the reins:) Hawaii vacation in a little less than 3 weeks:)….
I am interested in doing this, and I am also unsure of how well I could manage a fast. How long does one actually fast?
thanks!
Eliza
This is not a fast. I do not recommend a fast, which can cause release of too many toxins into the body at one time. Plus if you have overeating or craving issues, a fast can make that worse. This is a cleanse. You eat! I modify things a bit depending one’s health issues. If you email me, I will send you a questionnaire to help me customize this a bit.
That sounds awesome!
I am interested in the liver cleanse. I did a bowel cleanse since I am getting a colonoscopy today – would you recommend a liver cleanse soon afterward?
I suggest you wait until bowel movements return to normal, which shouldn’t be long. I will make sure guidelines are appropriate for your situation. The good news is stimulating the colon to cleanse helps the liver.