How To Detox Your Way To Renewed Skin

There are a variety of ways your skin suffers from toxic attacks on a daily basis. It could come from your environment, poor eating habits, or an excessively stressful lifestyle. What we end up seeing is that our face becomes dry, or full of acne, or hypersensitive.  Even if we are doing all of the things we are supposed to do in order to care for our skin, our internally high levels of toxicity could be undermining our skin care regimen. So it may be time to break out another weapon in our arsenal of skin care strategies: Doing a cleanse. No, we are not talking about the extreme versions of internal cleansing that you may have heard about (i.e. colonics). 

​What we are after is a diet simplification that will give your internal system a chance to re-balance itself. This is done by taking time off from processed foods and switching to whole, unprocessed foods for a period of time. The goal is to simplify the tasks your digestive system has to deal with in order for it to release excess energy for healing other parts of the system. A good cleanse does two things for the body: 1. Allows the system to crank up toxin removal and 2. Release energy to revivify the entire system including your skin. One recommended path is to ramp up your diet to as high a percentage of the following items as you can including:

• Fruits
  
• Vegetables
  
• Whole grains
  
• Nuts
  

There are some studies that show that you can intensify the cleanse effect more If you can find these items in an organic format.  This makes logical sense as reducing our dietary pesticide load should also leave more energy to apply towards the cleansing process.
BUT...Be Warned:

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If you have had a diet high in red meat, caffeine, and refined sugars and refined foods, the body will often go through a rough period of withdrawal at the beginning phase of any dietary cleanse. Often, people who abruptly jump into a cleansing diet will see the effects of systematic toxin release that will decrease energy, cause headaches, or temporarily show up in increased skin problems. Depending on the amount of toxins stored, a proper cleanse may need to last from a week to even a month. One might see symptoms such as eczema, blemishes, or rashes. These will pass, but it can be alarming to see.  However, it is your body's way of communicating the work that is being done to return to balance. Those who persist through the discomforts of their first toxicity release often are rewarded with drastic skin (and health) quality improvements that could not have been otherwise gained no matter the quality of the topical products applied or the skill of the esthetician.

HOW TO DETOX
Be sure to work with your esthetician if you want to start a detox regimen so that the treatments offered align with your state.

Go Slow At First
Most of us are not operating at our peak health due to toxicity issues that we are not aware of.  So unless you are already on an organic whole food plant based vegan diet drinking more than 8 cups of filtered water per day, it is VERY likely that your body is carrying a heavier toxicity load than you’d like.
So ease into your cleanse by taking a week to gradually reduce sugars, caffeine, and junk food from your diet. For some people, even just this small amount of restraint will trigger withdrawal symptoms.  Be careful though, some migraine fighting medications contain, you guessed it, caffeine!  Big Pharma knows why many of us get headaches, and caffeine withdrawal is near the top of the pile. The next week, slowly start eliminating refined flour products, alcohol, and milk. Once you get through this phase relatively unharmed, then the cleanse can really begin.

GET MORE WATER 
In order to help your skin, intestines, liver, spleen, heck---everything with the task of your internal cleaning, you’ve got to rev up the system for flushing the rush of toxicity out of your body.  So focus on getting at least 50% more water than you normally intake with a goal of going  for 100% more per day. You’ll be doing your body and your comfort level a huge favor in exchange for significantly more trips to the bathroom. To alleviate boredom try getting the water in the form of herbal teas and fresh vegetable juices.

SUPPLEMENT YOUR HEALTH

Most cleanses include the addition of probiotics and herbs to help the liver with detoxification.  Ask your skin care professional what they’d recommend in your specific situation. However, everyone can benefit from adding additional walks to their routine as well as calming meditations to help center the self.

EAT TO SUPPORT THE PROCESS

Many professionals recommend that you do the dietary portion of the cleanse in phases where the first phase is strictly fruits and vegetables. The second phase re-introduces whole grains, seeds, and nuts. The last phase involves adding proteins including tofu, beans, and certain fish. So there you have it. Going through a diet based cleanse doesn’t have to involve drastic, invasive, often painful outcomes.  However, it will require planning, patience, and perseverance that many of us have lost in the quest to get everything done in our lives as of yesterday while more and more demands are placed on us. A properly executed cleanse is a true gift you can give to yourself that will pay you back many fold.

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