Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Spring Cleaning

Now that April has begun, spring is surely upon us.

It is the season of cleansing, renewal, and in many medicinal traditions, the absolute time to tend to our livers. Your liver has bore the brunt of Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas cookies, New Years' champagne, Valentine's Day chocolates, and now it's time to help out a bit and give the liver a chance to detox and regenerate.

Did you know that your liver performs over 500 different tasks in regulating your metabolism every single day? It works hard to take poisons, neutralize them, and what it cannot make harmless, it stores in your fat cells. The liver is the ONLY filter for our bloodstream, and like any filter, it is important needs to be cleaned out from time to time.

If we don't clean out now, our liver will have to workout twice as hard through the Easter candy and Memorial Day BBQs, leaving it no choice but to continue storing toxins in our fat cells. And thus our bodies will hold onto fat for protection from these substances, rather than burning it. By summertime, we shall be holding onto toxin-brimmed excess fat, and become overheated as we literally bake our own fat in the sun.

So what can we do? The easiest and simplest way to gently flush your liver for spring, without weird lemonade fasts or pharmaceuticals, is to go all natural with your diet!
Think green. The more green vegetables and salads you can eat, the better. It would behoove you to eat only the most natural, unprocessed foods you can find. These are easier for your body to break down, and the less work your liver has to do in terms of digestion, and therefore can work on more important functions.

Natural and unprocessed means nothing that comes in a box! Stay away from the inner aisles of the grocery store and instead turn to organic fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, whole grains (brown rice, oats, millet, quinoa), and beans. Dairy, eggs, fried foods, and meat tend to be acidic and mucus producing. And we want to clean out the mucus during springtime. Think again of your fat and mucus baking in the summertime. Yuck. You're just asking for weight gain and blemishes.

To support your liver, besides the cleansing food choices, Dr. Elson Haas gives these 5 tips:

1. Avoid toxins such as household and industrial chemicals, alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, and many prescription drugs.
2. Drink lots of fluids and use fresh lemon in your water for liver cleansing.
3. Fresh organic cold-pressed olive oil is the best for the liver.
4. Exercise and sweat regularly to help with liver detoxification.
5. Milk thistle herb (silymarin) and olive leaf extract support and disinfect the liver.

Also consider fresh vegetable juices, or greens powders. Cell-nique is a great detoxifying beverage that actually tastes delicious. Check the fridges at your local Whole Foods or health food store, or check cell-nique.com.


By following these simple tips, you'll be a few steps closer to a healthier liver, and a successful spring detox!

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