So here's a raw truth -- balancing your hormones, supporting your womb health and recovering your body with diet alone might not get you the results you really need. You're probably already learning that after trying every diet trend.
That's why a holistic detox is really important!
Different to a normal detox, holistic detoxes incorporate more than just your diet and nutritional intake.
If you are experiencing reproductive issues like irregular, painful or missing periods, hormonal headaches, symptoms of estrogen dominance, have a thyroid condition, struggle with adrenal dysfunction or other signs of a hormone imbalance you may need a holistic detox to help balance your hormones. It's also helpful to support your entire detox system months before trying to become pregnant. In fact, I recommend you do.
How do you know if you're in need of an holistic hormone focused detox?
If you experience any of the following symptoms, you'd likely benefit from pushing the reset button on your body and creating a little more internal hormonal harmony holistically:
- Low Energy
- Mood Swings
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Irritability
- Low mood
- Painful, heavy, or irregular periods
- Breast tenderness
- Bloating
- Acne, rashes, or dry skin
- Weight gain
- Low libido
- Vaginal dryness
- Hot flashes and night sweats
- Infertility or miscarriage
- Ovarian cysts or uterine fibroids
- Endometriosis
- Hair loss or excess body hair
- Muscle aches
- Joint pain
- Estrogen dominance
How does a holistic detox balance hormones?
Doing a holistic detox involves more than just changing and eliminating certain food — it also must account for other lifestyle factors like reducing your environmental exposures, reducing your stress and enhancing your body’s natural pathways of elimination.
However, the most common definition of detox that most are taught and that media markets is a period when you stop taking unhealthy or harmful foods, drinks, or drugs into your body for a period of time, in order to improve your health.
And don't get me wrong, all that's good. But more often than not there's more work we need to do when addressing the root cause of our issues.
What I'm referring to when I say “holistic detox” is not only the reduction of incoming toxins, but also the body’s basic physiological process of metabolizing chemicals, hormones, toxicants, and other environmental compounds to a less toxic or harmful form.
The basic premise is to support your organs of elimination, those organs which detox and remove waste from the body — liver, kidneys, gut, lymphatic system, lungs, skin, and sweat glands.
By supporting the liver and other organs of elimination, your body can effectively excrete excess hormones, metabolic waste and environmental toxins.
GO GRAB MY 9 STEPS TO HAPPY BALANCED HORMONES & WOMB HEALTH COMPREHENSIVE HORMONE EBOOK TO BALANCE YOUR HORMONES HOLISTICALLY & NATURALLY
How to do a holistic detox to balance hormones:
An holistic detox which includes nutrition, lifestyle and quality supplements. This is the most effective way I've found to reset hormones and ditch bothersome symptoms like brain fog, bloating, and period problems for myself and women in my practice.
1. Improve Your Diet
Diet plays a big role in balancing your hormones. It's one of the key parts of any holistic detox. Here are some of the foods you should be like to incorporate into your daily meals:
Vegetables: 3-6 cups daily is the minimum. Get those greens in, along with beets, carrots, garlic, onions, broccoli and artichokes.
Protein: Your liver requires protein to run those mighty detox pathways. Eat organic, pasture raised meats, eggs…or if you don’t eat meat, focus on your legumes, nuts and seeds.
Healthy Fats: Avocado, cold pressed olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, olives, etc. Keeping your blood sugar balanced and supplying your body with the fuel it needs to create hormones is why healthy fats are crucial to your health.
Water: If you’re not already getting half your bodyweight in ounces of fluid daily, definitely start there. A good rule is to up your intake of water by about 20 extra ounces per day during a detox.
Limit your consumption of toxins and other unhealthy foods
Because of the symptoms that you may be experiencing there may be foods that are not working for you right now. You need to test how foods are affecting you by elimination diet to understand the best way to bring your hormones back into balance. These are some of the foods that may be upsetting your ability to complete a holistic detox.
Sugar - It increases inflammation, disrupts blood sugar, stresses your hormones, and is addicting…which is plenty of reason to ditch it!
Alcohol: You probably knew that one was coming, but yes, no alcohol while you’re showing your liver some love. Let it take a break from processing alcohol and other toxins…trust me, you’ll be happy you did.
Inflammatory Fats: Canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed, peanut, etc. You build hormones from fat, so if you want awesome hormones, you can’t be eating these fats. These fats drive hormones and the immune system wild. Cut them out! And leave them out!
Hormone Disrupting Foods: Soy, dairy, wheat, corn, and all grains.
2. Consider Natural Detox Supplements
Detox specific supplements support the natural function of the body. A quality detox supplement should contain antioxidants like glutathione and alpha lipoic acid. It should also provide nutrients to support all phases of detoxification, including B-vitamins, Milk Thistle, Burdock and Vitamin C.
You probably know by now that not all supplements are created equal.
As a practicing holistic herbalist I am super picky about the supplements I recommend in my practice and wouldn't stand behind anything that I wouldn't take myself or give to my family. It's why I formulate my own quality herbal supplements. Make sure if you're using a detox supplement that it is gluten-free, non-GMO, and does not contain sugar, hydrogenated fats, or food coloring.
The detox cleanse I use in my practice (and sell in my apothecary store) are made with the highest quality herbal ingredients and provide comprehensive detox support. The Gentle Cleanse Combo is made with gentle liver filtering, blood cleansing and extra digestive supporting herbs for maximum absorption. The Cleanse also contains herbs that increase blood oxygen which works to support your energy while cleansing. Learn more here.
3. Cut Toxin Out
4. Exercise
5. Get Support & Accountability Partner
6. Meditate, Practice Mindfulness
7. Take Deep Breaths
Aim for 50-100 deep cleansing breaths. Set an alarm to take these breaths every hour or at the start and end of every day. This will relax your mind and help your lungs release metabolic waste. Deep breathing also slows heart rate and helps you control your mood.
8. Journal
9. Sleep
10. Visualization
You can certainly make a vision board, but you don’t need a special board on a wall to take a mini-vacay in your mind to future you. Just close your eyes, think about your goals and then envision what it feels like to reach those goals. What will you feel? What will your life look like?
This practice will not only help keep you motivated, but it will also decrease your stress and help you get organized — 2 little things your hormones happen to love!