In this blog, we’re going to discuss transforming your lifestyle and touch on detoxification. Before we get to detoxing though, it’s important to understand lifestyle transformation and its significance. Let us begin with a brief background as we believe education is crucial for success!
Lifestyle transformation began in the social sector when government sought to market optimal approaches to social structure for the wellbeing of society. The construct has since been adopted and conceptualized across many other platforms. Lifestyle Medicine was born less than a decade ago, yet it’s making waves across the medical and health and wellness communities quickly.
The purpose of lifestyle medicine is to stop and change unhealthy habits and behaviors (such as unhealthy eating and extended lack of physical activity) that could ultimately result in disability and death. There is an urgency to teach lifestyle medicine to the medical school classrooms.
The best way to implement a lifestyle transformation occurs when the plan is looked at from every angle. Multiple factors may need to be adjusted or changed altogether in order to reach the end goal of stable overall good health. Modifying behaviors toward health means replacing bad habits with good ones (e.g. exercising rather than being a couch potato).
The Cornerstone Of Lifestyle Transformation
Detoxification is a cornerstone of lifestyle transformation. The reason for this is simple: the process of detoxification provides us with a period of time during, in which we cleanse our bodies. In that time, we flush out toxins and prepare our bodies for a new and improved approach to fueling them. Lifestyle transformation and detoxification have shown benefits within such metrics as weight, blood pressure and blood sugar.
The process of detoxification removes toxic waste from our body and moves us toward improved health. Toxins enter our bodies through our skin, GI tract and lungs. Toxins are in the air we breathe (i.e. car exhaust), the lotions and chemicals we put on our skin (many contain formaldehyde derivatives as preservatives) and in the foods and drinks we consume.
The liver and kidneys are the two main organs that detox our entire body. Most foods and drinks are absorbed through the small intestine. They then pass through the liver for the cleansing and removal of harmful substances before entering the blood stream and ultimately, our cells. All of our blood passes through the kidneys for filtration and removal of toxins. As the body’s largest organ, our skin functions as the protective barrier against toxins that come into contact with us.
Detox & Eating Habits
Now that you have some background on the subject matter, let’s discuss reasons behind why you should detox. If you do decide to detox, how will that lifestyle change make you healthier?
Many of us have an unhealthy relationship with food. In fact, we are addicted to unhealthy foods, primarily sugar, unhealthy fats and processed food. Eating these foods leads to the development of stomach fat (central adiposity) and makes us sick. Our cells become less sensitive to insulin over time, which creates a problem with storing energy. Our fuel storage compartment becomes our fat cells. We add on pounds of fat. This process, if left unabated, leads to the metabolic syndrome consisting of:
- Large waist circumference
- High triglyceride levels
- Reduced HDL cholesterol
- Increased blood pressure
- Elevated fasting blood sugar
Three or more of these criteria constitute the metabolic syndrome which, in turn, predisposes one to cardiovascular disease and heart attack.
The good news is the metabolic syndrome is preventable by, you guessed it, lifestyle transformation! The initial step toward preventing the metabolic syndrome is known as detoxification. Perhaps in a future blog, we can dive further into detoxification. Suffice it to say that a simple 1-2 week detox can reverse your unhealthy food habits, improve your body’s insulin sensitivity, lower your blood pressure and help you to lose weight. Moreover, once unhealthy eating habits have been transformed to healthy eating habits, the process of continued health improvement becomes simpler.