After Christmas Detox I

Keys for a Good Depuration.

What can we do to detox our body with no risks?

After Christmas, hospitals and health centres are crowded with people with multiple health problems like severe colds, flu, gastroenteritis, or heart attacks. Could be that our body is overloaded? We eat and drink too much and the body gets full of toxins. Here you are the bases for a good body depuration.

Our elimination organs (liver, kidney, intestine) get filled with toxins and the body cannot get rid of. We can even reach a metabolic acidosis.

For all that, it’s good to take a break to stop and “reset” the body.

Frequent Signals of Toxicity

Liver with Toxins

Too much fat, alcohol or processed food can block hundreds of complex and biochemical processes of the liver. When the liver is blocked, the flow of energy in the liver stops and produces not only digestive symptoms but also skin elimination or eye problems.

It’s convenient to make a specific diet to protect the liver, which includes:

Consume acid flavoured vegetables, such as some drops of lemon juice with water every day to actívate bile production.
Sour taste vegetables properly cooked.
Fermented veggies.
Grated daikon radish for good digestion.

Heartburn and Stomach Acidity

Heartburn

People with poor digestive secretions, few gastric juices get the food they eat ferment in the stomach. It usually appears after eating.

Acidity

It occurs in people who secrete too much hydrochloric acid in the stomach. It usually appears on an empty stomach and improves when eating. It’s known also as reflux.

Treatment: Fresh food, rich in fruits and vegetables. Avoid alcohol, chocolate, coffee, cow’s milk, excess of fat, orange juice, spicy foods, tea, tomato juice. Tobacco also worsens gastroesophageal reflux.

Kidney Problems

A very frequent symptom of renal overload is gout. When you eat a lot of seafood or foods that contain purines, these toxins accumulate in the kidneys in the form of uric acid.

Uric acid deposits accumulate in the form of sharp crystals in the soft parts of the joints of the lower limbs of the body, especially (feet and legs). These deposits cause inflammation of the joints and consequently a strong pain that in many cases prevents movement.

Diet to protect the kidneys.

A plant-based diet, especially eliminating animal protein.
Take cleansing broths that include seaweed, root vegetables and green leaves.
Diet rich in green leafy vegetables and whole grains.
Azuki beans provide us with an alkaline effect on the kidneys.

Obesity

The Christmas period it’s a time when many people gain weight. A few years ago standard weight-loss diets were based on lowering the calories ingested per day. Here there’s a big mistake, and it’s to consider that all types of obesity have to be treated in the same way.

According to fat distribution

Abdominal or android obesity (apple shape): the location of fat is in the upper part of the body, the stomach area, chest and face. It‘s associated with diabetes and heart disease. It’s usually due to the consumption of meat and animal protein. It’s a yang type of obesity and the way to be treated is to eat more yin type foods such as vegetables, cereals, vegetable protein …
Peripheral or gynoid obesity (pear shape): the excess of fat is found in thighs and hips. It occurs especially in women and is related to problems such as varicose veins and osteoarthritis in the knees. It’s more yin obesity, due to the consumption of sugar, raw vegetables, cold drinks, sodas…and this food créate humidity that is retained in the lower part of the body. It requires a more yang diet, root vegetables, longer cooking times and foods that warm us and activate our metabolism.

Strong Colds

Many times, having abused food and alcohol makes our defences go down, and when temperatures drop, we can easily be infected. The best to recover is to stay in bed, resting, but many time this is not possible as we have to go to work.

Recommendations:

Drink hot energetic broths.
Kuzu and umeboshi preparation.
Herbal teas such as thyme, rosemary, eucalyptus …

How do we begin? Basic points

It´s important to follow a diet rich in vitamins and minerals. We need to assimilate what we eat. For that it’s necessary:

Relaxation: the digestive system is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system (which is what works when we relax). It’s responsible for secreting digestive juices. It also regulates the movement of organs responsible for digestion.
Mastication: is responsible for breaking the food down, but also, saliva contains mucin (a lubricating mucus) and ptyalin, which is responsible for hydrolyzing carbohydrates. Besides, when we eat very dry foods such as bread, for example, it’s responsible for hydrating the food, moisturizing all and facilitating digestion.
Avoid drinking during meals or immediately after.
Do not eat very cold food.
Avoid mixing many foods in the same meal.
Avoid raw fruits and sweet cakes, since they slow down digestion and cool the body.
Eating vegetables with a bitter taste, according to traditional Chinese medicine, promotes bile secretion and causes food to descend through the digestive tract.
Do not do activities that take a lot of effort after eating.
A diet not too restrictive, but soft for the body at the same time.