5 Reasons to Detox

People choose to detox for many reasons, most of them related to looking and feeling better. In fact some of the most popular detox diets serve no other purpose than to help people lose weight quickly. But the reasons to detox you should be looking into serve a more internal purpose.

There are many health benefits associated with detoxifying the body, the primary benefit being to prevent or treat diseases and illnesses. Many chronic illnesses, diseases and sicknesses can be traced to poor bowel health, which translates to a body filled with too many toxins. The detoxification process, combined with the body’s natural filtration systems, can help evacuate as many toxins as possible to return the body back to optimal health.

While it is true that there are many beauty benefits of detoxing, the internal and long term benefits are why many detox dieters choose this lifestyle.

Eliminate Chronic Illness

The body is a well-honed machine, and like any machine, when one component isn’t working properly the entire machine will perform inefficiently. The human body performs dozens of functions every minute of every single day; processes oxygen, digests food, pumps blood and rids the body of toxins. If our bodies are not working properly—due to illness or mistreatment—we cannot expect to get or stay healthy.

A regular detox diet and a natural lifestyle can help not just heal the body of chronic illnesses, but can prevent them altogether. Detoxing the body can eliminate chronic illness because it helps ensure that there are very few toxins in the body that can lead to illness. Consider that the American Cancer Society indicates that it takes approximately 20 years for cancer to develop; that’s twenty years you could have been detoxifying your body and eliminating the toxic elements inside your body slowly developing into this deadly disease.

According to Dr. Bernard Jensen it is estimated that about 80% of patients who visit doctors suffer from some type of chronic illness. This can be anything from arthritis, high blood pressure, heart or lung disease, insomnia or diabetes just to name a few. Chronic illnesses build up over time, with very few if any symptoms initially.

A regular detox diet, plus a diet filled with fresh raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes can aid the body’s own detoxification system with flushing out toxins that lead to chronic illness. Furthermore detoxing can be a preventive or healing measure. Getting rid of toxins can help reverse the effects of many chronic illnesses, without the help of modern medicine.

Cleanses Natural Detoxification System

One of the best reasons to detox is that it gives the body’s natural elimination channels—the kidneys, skin, bowels, liver, skin and lymphatic systems—a healthy boost. Everything we eat or drink is pushed out through one of these systems, but also the toxins we absorb through the skin. The body works very well to get rid of these things, but if you suffer from an illness that is causing the body to work harder to perform basic tasks, detoxing can help get those systems in working order.

If one or more of your natural detoxification components isn’t functioning properly your body will be susceptible to the buildup of toxins that can lead to chronic illnesses. When all of these systems are performing optimally, toxins are not given a chance to settle into important organs.

These systems can be aided not just by detox dieting but also by adopting a healthy diet. High fiber foods such as fresh raw vegetables and fruits are a great way to help expel unwanted toxins from the body. Other healthy diet staples include whole grains (not refined grains like white bread) and non-animal proteins such as legumes. This is why fruit and vegetable drinks are a staple of many healthy detox diets.

Bad Food

While it is true that a poor diet will require detoxification if the person ever hopes to be healthy, it is not exactly what I mean here. If you have a poor diet filled with processes, chemical-heavy foods and your body is not working property to get rid of those foods…what happens?

The same thing that happens when you leave food to sit too long in the fridge or in the pantry: it goes bad. This is the reason most people need to detox and it is also one of the primary causes of chronic illnesses. Food that is left too long, even in the stomach and bowels, will spoil or ferment. If your detox system isn’t working properly and you are eating too much or too much of the wrong thing, that food is sitting in your body and leaking into other important systems to ruin your health.

The body’s detoxification system does work quite effectively, but if you are giving the body too much of the stuff it doesn’t need in abundance—like animal proteins—then you are actually working against your body’s efforts to eliminate itself of toxins. This is where a detox diet can be quite effective for most people.

Reduce Drug Reliance

Modern medicine has done a lot to help humankind treat many illnesses. Unfortunately, as Dr. Jensen says, much of modern medicine relies heavily on treating symptoms of illnesses and diseases rather than treating the underlying causes of these symptoms. This is why chronic illnesses are, well, chronic. And this is yet another reason to detox the body through diet and lifestyle.

It is common for most of us to rely on over the counter or prescription medication to help alleviate pain, bloating, constipation or any other ailment we find ourselves struggling with. By using a detox diet to flush toxins out of the body, you won’t need ineffective drugs such as laxatives that expel more water than toxins from the body.

This over-reliance on medicine to help us do what the body does naturally seems to be an easy fix for many medical problems, but treating the symptoms is only temporary relief. The underlying cause of most illnesses is some form of toxin attacking the body, but regularly detoxifying the body can ensure those toxins get releases on a regular basis.

Healthy Inside=Healthy Outside

Have you ever wondered why some people always look great—glowing skin, shiny hair and a bright eyes—and they have attitude that reflect their appearance? That is because when your body is healthy inside, it is reflected on the outside as well. In his book, Dr. Jensen refers to Hering’s Law of Cure, which says all cure starts from within out, from the head down, and in the reverse order as the symptoms appeared.

This is yet another of the great reasons to detox. You see, by removing the toxins from your body that cause restless sleep or sleeplessness you feel better, function better and look better. Consider how one thing such as a restful night of sleep can affect your day: you wake up refreshed and in a good mood, your brain has razor sharp focus when you’re on the road and at work, you feel energized at the end of the day so you socialize with friends and family and you don’t have those telltale dark circles under your eyes.

And that is just one benefit of a detox diet. Imagine how you’ll look and feel when you’ve lost excess weight, reverse the effects of high blood pressure or arthritis and feel more relaxed from day to day. These effects all conspire to make you look as good on the outside as your body feels on the inside.

Getting Started

You can start taking advantage of each of these reasons to detox immediately, even before you begin your first detox.

1. Get rid of avoidable toxins like cigarettes & alcohol
2. Stop all recreational drug use
3. Add more natural raw foods to your diet
4. Eat high fiber foods such as whole grains
5. Replace animal proteins with legumes
6. Monitor your bowel movements daily; this will give you an idea of just how badly your body needs to be detoxified

The more you know about your body and how it works, the better prepared you will be when you start your first detox diet.