DeTox Your Body with Diet

As part of a 9-day yoga intensive workshop, we eliminated sugar, alcohol, and caffeine from our diets. I decided to go a step further and stay away from dairy and gluten as well, since I know my digestive system is sensitive to these foods. After a week on the “diet”, I notice more energy overall and that my muscles and connective tissue are much more supple. That led me to wonder, how do sugar and gluten make muscles and connective tissue sticky, and how does a good diet make fascia healthy?

According to the 20-Day Rejuvenation Diet Plan, when the body can’t fully digest food, it creates toxins that travel through the blood stream to other parts of the body. Also, when the body does not have optimal nutrition, its ability to eliminate waste is diminished, so the byproducts of muscle contraction like acids and calcium build up in the connective tissue.

Detox diets and regimens have become very popular lately, with wild promises and bizarre combinations. My father-in-law claims the best detox is to eat nothing but grapes for a day. I don’t think that you have to resort to coffee enemas or intestinal insult to clean your insides. Instead, I propose that there are two parts to a plan that reduces the load on our internal organs and allows them to function more optimally. Step one: eliminate foods that are hard to metabolize. Step two: make sure that the body is getting what it needs for optimal health.

It’s just common sense to avoid environments that are harmful, such as cigarette smoke, pollution, and noxious chemicals. Eating hard-to-digest food can clog up your system in the same way. According to Wikipedia, some foods to avoid when detoxing include caffeine, processed foods, sugar, and fried foods.

One of the advantages of eliminating junk is that you replace empty calories with more nutrient-rich food, but your body may need even more support. Water is essential for any cleansing process; the body depends on it for everything. Also, even with nutrient-rich food, many people need a vitamin and mineral supplement. Some people have found taking an enzyme supplement helps with digestion, making the nutrients in food more available. And, we can’t forget fiber, the colon’s vacuum cleaner. Dr. Weil gives reasonable diet advice, including an anti-inflammatory diet.

One more thing: if you’re asking your body to detox, it needs the energy to do it, and that means a good balance between activity and rest. Exercise enough to flush the waste products out of your muscles and stimulate your lymph system, as I outlined in a previous post, Detox Your Body with Movement. But also make sure you get enough rest, because that is when your body is best able to heal.

The liver, lungs, kidneys, intestines, skin, and lymph system are designed for daily detox. We can help them do the job with sensible eating habits. Be wary of extravagant promises though, as noted in the article from WedMd. The idea is to get healthier, not to deplete your system.

DeTox Your Body with Movement

Thoughts of detox usually relate to the liver or colon or old industrial plants, but muscles accumulate nasty chemicals, too. Do some of your muscles, maybe around your shoulders, sound crunchy when they move? A pattern of underuse or overuse—like holding tension—will cause waste products including calcium to accumulate in the surrounding connective tissue and sometimes even in the joint spaces.

What’s needed is a flow of fluid to bring in nutrients and carry away toxins. If you think that a dip in hot tub or massage would help, you’re right. You can also get this benefit with gentle movement: a do-it-yourself rinse.

When a muscle contracts, it squeezes fluid out. That’s why a chronically contracted muscle can get dehydrated like beef jerky. When a muscle relaxes, fresh fluid and nutrients can flow in. Muscles that don’t get used also miss out on this vital exchange.

Here’s an exercise to revitalize the tissues in your upper back. Wiggle a shoulder blade and feel it slide over your ribs. First make several shoulder cirlces in the traditional manner: forward and back so you feel your shoulder blades move up and down on the back of your ribs.

Don’t do anything that hurts. You may feel some crunching or popping, which is OK as long as it’s pain free. Rest for a bit before you continue to allow muscles to rest and fluid to flow.

Now do it differently. With one shoulder at a time, draw tiny circles clockwise across your back. Try to create freedom between the shoulder blade and ribs; make it slippery with your movement. Rest briefly before going counter clockwise and then repeat with the other shoulder.

Make different shapes and movements to work all around the edges of the hard spots so they eventually dissolve. It may take months of consistent practice, but you can soften the knots in your muscles. (This is a variation of Undulation #9, Snake Arms, from Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation.)

This simple, but perhaps not easy, exercise activates the muscles' internal cleansing mechanism. The key is to alternate movement with rest, creating a regular contract and relax cycle that flushes waste and toxins out of the muscles, joints, and connective tissue to the blood stream where it can be eliminated.