No More Lackluster Livers – Time to Detox {Women’s Wellness GUEST Series}

This post is from guest writer Lori Valentine Rose, PhD, CNP, BCHN, FDN-P, RH (AHG), NBC-HWC of Lori Rose Holistic.

Let’s get rid of the toxins and “bad stuff” that’s messing up your hormones, ladies! It’s detox time!

With careful eating and the right lifestyle choices, you CAN balance your hormones and harness your feminine magic! Are you ready to learn the next step in the line-up?

First let’s review what we’ve covered so far (and remember that each of these steps takes longer than a week, so we’re dishing out the info and you can come back to these posts later as you feel you’ve mastered one step at a time – also print the printables to keep around for reminders):

1. The mitochondria are supported
2. Our blood sugar is balanced
3. Your adrenal glands are regulated

Now we focus on learning the steps for liver health and body detox regulation.

When our adrenal hormones and blood sugar are out of balance, our liver and detox systems take the back seat to constantly having to process blood sugar and deal with an over-abundance of stress hormones. This causes excess estrogen to circulate around the blood stream. And why is that bad? We’re talking about estrogen dominance causing PMS, PCOS and endometriosis, mood swings, cramps, and more.

Committing to liver/detox balance will lead to sex hormone regulation over time. But this detox isn’t some fad enema or long-term fast “cleanse”. Real detox is a daily process that supports our liver and other organs of elimination, and just like the other steps, food and lifestyle are going to be important to learn in order to master this step.

As always, let’s start with the most fun category first…food! Remember to continue with the food recommendations from the first three steps, adding these new moves in once you have the first steps down.

What to eat for Basic Liver Detox

• Continue eating soluble and insoluble fiber (fruits, veggies, legumes).
• Add in probiotics and fermented foods (these can be found in the refrigerated section of stores and include fermented pickles, sauerkraut, plain whole fat yogurt, plain whole fat kefir, cultured miso from South River Miso).

• Eat your root veggies – carrots, beets, turnips, sweet potatoes.
• Include healthy saturated fat – organic grass-fed pastured animal products raw, and coconut milk, oil, butter, and flesh.

• Add in foods that support the important detox antioxidant glutathione – carrots, broccoli, avocado, spinach, apples, asparagus, melon.
• Include other Phase I and II liver detox activators – orange, tangerine, caraway, dill, and citrus peel (except grapefruit).
• Other great liver-supportive foods you can try – artichoke, jicama, radish, burdock, beets, carrots, horseradish, black pepper, turmeric, dandelion, parsley, cilantro, leeks, garlic, onion, turnips, parsnip, rutabaga, asparagus, and yucca root.

How to eat Your Detox Foods

• Remember to eat antioxidant-rich foods every meal, including 1 cup of berries per day and herbs and spices at every meal.
• Challenge yourself to chew at least 20 times per mouthful to improve digestion. (This is so hard, y’all!).

A Detox Lifestyle for Liver Health and Balanced Hormones

Ok, now for the harder, lifestyle steps. To make sure our liver is able to detox our sex hormones efficiently, we have to make sure it isn’t being tied up with detoxing other environmental toxins from the environment.

Green your Home and Personal Products

Switching to toxin-free cleaning products, body care products, and foods, and decreasing toxic exposure from pharmaceuticals, smoking, pesticides and herbicides, and scented products is essential.

Remember, you don’t have to do these all at once. Choose one group of products to switch over to, and then once that becomes habit choose another group of products to clean up.

Katie’s baby steps approach makes this totally doable. Check out her green cleaner round up and list of natural personal products to help you get started.

Clean-up your environment

Toxic ingredients to avoid on product labels:

• parabens
• phthalates
• sodium lauryl sulfate
• bleach
• comet
• ajax
• windex
• Lysol
• air fresheners
• Glade
• toilet bowl cleaners
• talc-based powders
• formaldehyde
• petroleum
• synthetic fragrances
• perfumes

Great cleaner brands to switch to:

• Seventh Generation
• Orange Essential Oil
• BonAmi
• Arm and Hammer
• Hydrogen Peroxide + Vinegar
• or try DIY.

Great personal brands to switch to:

• AnneMarie Skincare
• MadeOn Hard Lotion
• or you can find DIY recipes for body care products to get creative with making your own!

Maximize Detox with Self-care

• Try 30-minute saunas.
• Try a 20-minute (or more!) Epsom salt bath with 1 quart Epsom salt daily.
• Drink at least 48 oz of water daily.
• Have fun stimulating lymph (immune system) detox with “jumping” exercises at least once per week (trampolines and Zumba, baby!).
• Torture yourself with hot/cold/hot/cold showers (in the same shower, switch from hot to cold multiple times to move the blood and the lymph).
• Do shower scrubs with non-toxic scrubs to get the blood and lymph moving. This recipe works great as a detox stimulant when you use ginger as the base herb.
• Try body oiling with ginger-infused oil to increase skin protection and detoxification.

Remember, you don’t have to do all of these all of the time or all at once. We don’t want to have to go backwards and re-learn those adrenal stress balancing steps!

You can start by incorporating one new strategy, and then add others as you develop the new habits. Try to make the changes and exciting and fun, get the kids involved, and get creative.

Incorporating Herbs for Detox

Once we are feeding our elimination organs with the right foods, removing likely toxic culprits, and working detox strategies into our daily self-care routines, then herbs can play a helpful role in daily detox support. There are many herbal categories that can be used for this step:

• Alteratives – like burdock, dandelion, and yellow dock, support different organs of elimination depending on the herb.
• Cholagogues – like artichoke leaf and gentian increase the release of bile.
• Immunomodulators – like astragalus, medicinal mushrooms, and holy basil support the balance of the immune system.

If you have leaky gut causing toxic responses to food, several classes of herbs can help as you adjust your diet and lifestyle to help heal your small intestines.

• Demulcents – marshmallow, plantain, aloe, cactus pad, slippery elm, rose hips, violet, Irish moss, corn silk.
• Anti-inflammatories – plantain, marshmallow, chickweed, meadowsweet, goldenrod, calendula, licorice.
• Astringents
• Liver tonics and restoratives like milk thistle and turmeric.
• Diuretics – to support elimination through the kidneys – dandelion, kudzu, corn silk, parsley root, yarrow, celery seed, nettle, horsetail, juniper, elderflowers.
• Circulatory stimulants and lymphatics to get your vessels moving.

Working with a trained herbalist can help you develop an herbal plan specific for your unique constitution and conditions. Increasing the chances that your herbal protocol will be successful.

One Final Hormone Balance Step…Coming Soon!

You are getting so close to learning all of the steps for hormone regulation!

There is only one step left, and it is by far my favorite. After getting all of your organs in balance, this step allows you to harness your feminine powers. The gift that was given to all females that we have been taught to view as a curse, but if we know the magic spell, we can use as designed to maximize our potential. To fulfill our destiny we were sent here to fulfill.

I can’t wait to show you how aligning your life with your cycle is the secret to having the most fun dance at the hormone balancing ball!

Find all the Women’s Wellness Series posts HERE.