Authors: Mark Hyman
Tags: #Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Diets, #Health & Fitness / Body Cleansing & Detoxification
The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet: Activate Your Body's Natural Ability to Burn Fat and Lose Weight Fast (30 page)
Chapter 21
for recipes):
Breakfast: Detox Shake
Midmorning Snack (optional): 10 to 12 nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts)
Lunch:
Core Plan: Soup with protein or Dr. Hyman’s Super Salad Bar with protein
Adventure Plan: Walnut Pâté with Fresh Tomato Salsa
Midafternoon Snack (optional): Dip or spread of your choice with fresh vegetables
Dinner:
Core Plan: Asian-Flavored Chicken Skewers with Wilted Leafy Greens
Adventure Plan: Grilled Salmon or Tofu Vegetable Kebabs
Day 3: Oh happy day! I’m awake and my ankles aren’t swollen, nor are my calves. It also appears that my tummy is shrinking. I believe I will become the incredible shrinking woman! I am hopeful my blood sugar will follow suit and drop into normal range soon. This new lifestyle is working. Keep up the race; we are all going to make the finish line!
—WENDY FREEMAN
Day 3 brings us to everyone’s favorite topic. Yes, that’s right: pooping.
It’s essential to remove the toxins from your body as you go along. You need to make sure you move your bowels, pee a lot, and sweat. You can detox your diet and your thoughts, but you’ve also got to clean house, so to speak.
Your body has certain detox systems built in, but if they’ve grown sluggish, you’ve got to activate them. This is particularly true of our bowels, which many of us never completely empty. If you are holding on to lots of poop, it can make you toxic, causing everything from gas and puffiness to skin rashes and eruptions.
Even if you are relatively healthy, there may be a surprising (and unhealthy) amount of poop built up in your gut that needs to get flushed out. Here’s why: As you detox, your body mobilizes toxins from your cells and tissues and sends them to your liver. Then they get packaged up and excreted through your bile and into your digestive system, and from there, it’s your job to make sure they exit your body. Otherwise, they get reabsorbed in a concentrated form, and that can make you feel very sick indeed.
Constipation can make you sluggish, tired, bloated, cranky, and irritable, and can even cause headaches. If you want to feel great, make sure your bowels are moving every day, at least once a day, and preferably more.
Many people have problems with constipation and don’t even realize
it. I see it routinely: people who go every other day and think that’s normal. But it’s
not
normal! One woman came to my practice saying that she went regularly… regularly meaning once a week. But if you’re moving your bowels any less than once per day, you’re constipated. Even if you go every day, and you go incompletely, you are at risk. People who are constipated have higher risks of cancer and even Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is well known to be caused by toxins, be they pesticides or poop!
Constipation is a clue that something’s gone wrong in your system. The cause can be diet, especially if you eat a lot of dairy and too little fiber. Dairy can cause lactose intolerance and diarrhea for some, but for others, it causes constipation. In fact, it is the number one cause of constipation in babies. Constipation can happen if you’re magnesium deficient, if your gut flora is unbalanced (yeast overgrowth is very common in people with sugar problems), or if you’re stressed. Dehydration is a huge cause of constipation, which is why I recommend at least eight glasses of water a day. If you eat fiber like PGX and don’t take in enough water, you can get constipated because the fiber turns to a cement-like consistency in your gut. Regardless of the cause, the art and science of moving your bowels is essential for health.
During the detox, you want to be especially vigilant about emptying your bowels at least once a day. These tips and strategies will work for just about anyone. Don’t do them all; just start with the first three and then, if you are not going every day and feeling empty afterward, work your way down the list.
Make sure you drink plenty of water,
to clean out your bowels and flush your kidneys.
Add two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds
per day to your salads, soups, or Breakfast Detox Shakes. Flaxseeds absorb a lot of water and are rich in fiber.
Take two 100- to 150-milligram capsules of magnesium citrate
twice a day. You can increase the magnesium dose safely (unless you have kidney disease) to as many as six capsules taken twice per day until you go to the bathroom easily. This is the best way to go regularly. Cut down or stop taking the magnesium if your bowels become too loose.
Take 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams of buffered vitamin C
once or twice a day.
Take an herbal laxative.
Though this is rarely needed if you follow the strategies above, if you’re really clogged up, you can take an herbal laxative such as cascara, senna, or rhubarb (try Senekot or Laxablend by Vitanica, my favorite) before bedtime. Please note: I don’t recommend using these regularly, as they create a lazy colon. But it is perfectly fine and safe to use them for these ten days if you need them.
If you are really constipated, try liquid magnesium citrate.
Often used to flush out the bowel before a colonoscopy, it’s available at your local drugstore, but it’s powerful and can really make you go, so be ready and don’t leave the house. It usually works in less than four hours.
Use a suppository or enema.
If the above methods don’t produce results, you can try a Dulcolax or Bisacodyl suppository or a Fleet Enema, available at your drugstore.
Get moving to get moving.
Exercise is a powerful bowel stimulant. Daily exercise (see Day 4: Move,
here
) stimulates the colon to do its thing. This is just one of the many benefits of exercise!
Sweat profusely at least once a day.
In addition to stimulating the colon, intense exercise allows your body to release toxins through your skin. If your daily exercise routine doesn’t cause you to sweat profusely, take a steam or infrared sauna, if possible.
If none of the strategies do the trick,
it’s time to check in with your doctor to see what else might be going on.