Video: How To Detoxify Right (and why juice cleanses are only 5% of the battle)

July 22, 2015 By Leanne Vogel October 6, 2018

I was naïve to think that a 3-7 day juice cleanse was enough to detoxify my body. Now, I’ve created a detoxification regime that I follow everyday that’s effortless, way less expensive in the long run, and I don’t have to starve on juices!

Toxicity affects all of us. From the moment we are conceived, we develop a toxic load from the toxins our moms carry with them. When we’re born, we continue to collect additional toxins into our adult life. Our toxic mattresses, the water we drink, chemicals in our homes, pollution, our environment, the list goes on. 

Think of our toxic load like filling up a glass of water, one drip at a time. While it may take awhile to “fill”, the cup will overflow leading to fluid retention, excess sweating, weight loss resistance, fatigue, autoimmunity, insomnia, and cravings… all symptoms of toxicity.

If we want to gain better health, we have to support our bodies in cleansing EVERYDAY – via @be_healthful

I have news for you: you don’t need to use juice cleansing to detoxify! Watch the video, then scroll down for details on what I’m doing to more powerfully cleanse my body without juicing.

For video transcription, scroll down.

Resources

• Start your 30-day keto journey, another approach to cleansing
• Details of my cleanse regime explained below
• Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Detoxify without Juice Cleansing

Our most powerful (and largest) detoxification organ is our skin – an organ that isn’t used in a juice cleanse. In a juice cleanse, we rely solely on our digestive and sadly, many of the toxins in our bodies are in hidden deep in our cells (fat cells) that remain untouched during a juice cleanse.

Even with a juice cleanse every 3 months for 3-7 days, my body recently tested positive for arsenic, mercury and lead. Clearly, what I was doing for detoxification wasn’t enough.

So, I got to work on researching detoxification options that would…

• Encourage detoxification on a cellular level
• Help heal my body, hormones specifically
• Normalize mood
• Improve my circulation to bring nutrients to all of my organs and tissues
• Not break the bank…

And, most importantly, use my skin as a detoxification pathway. It was a pretty clear choice: sauna was the way to go. But a quickly learned that there are a lot of “marketing words” out there and so many different options to boot.

Types of Saunas and Heat Therapy

Steam Room. A tiled room, filled with hot steam. Wet saunas create steam by utilizing steam generators or by throwing water on electrically-heated hot rocks. Concerns: additional toxicity from unfiltered water (chlorine, fluoride, etc), mildew, bleach-based cleaners to keep clean.

Heat Sauna/Hot Yoga. Where the room is heated by electricity or wood. This is a passive way of encouraging our body to sweat. Traditional saunas produce heat generated by electricity or less commonly wood burning. Concerns: generally use electric heaters that typically emit harmful levels of electromagnetic energy (EMF). A typical dry Finnish-type sauna operates at 180°F or greater and heats the body from the outside in, resulting in more time required in the sauna to get results.

Far Infrared. Uses heating elements that mainly emit light in the far-infrared range. Concerns: the heating elements typically emit harmful levels of EMF. To lower the EMF, metal shielding is used which increases cost and decreases far-infrared light emission into the sauna. Also, our bodies don’t have cell receptors for far infrared light, so these saunas only provide heat therapy.

Near Infrared. Uses incandescent near infrared heat lamps that combine the heat therapy of traditional saunas with the unique healing power and enhanced detoxification of near infrared light. The heat lamps produce the same visible red and near infrared that’s contained in natural sunlight. The cells in our bodies contain tiny receptors called “chromophores” which absorb the near infrared light that comes from these lamps. The heat lamps produce almost no EMF and gently heat the body from within. No concerns.

I discovered that near infrared was best for my health + budget

Benefits of Near Infrared Saunas

It’s pretty clear to see which sauna comes out on top, right? Near infrared!

Why did I choose infrared (NIR) and ultimately, a SaunaSpace Pocket Sauna? NIR lamp saunas combine synergistic light therapy to adjust mood and calm our system (other sauna options do not) in combination with hyperthermic (heat) therapy to provide…

Enhanced detoxification. Near infrared light penetrates deep within the body bathing internal organs with healing light unlocking even hard to reach toxins and heavy metals. The infrared heat penetrates up to 9 inches into your body to kill parasites, pull out toxins, kill weak or damaged cells, and increase circulation to boost oxygen, nutrient flow and strengthen immune cells. The red, orange and yellow colors of the infrared lamps activate the liver and intestine for deeper cleansing.

With frequent sessions, your skin gets activated to perform as a detox tool every day. The more you practice, the more efficient your body becomes at removing toxins through this powerful organ.

Wound and tissue healing. Muscle circulation and growth hormone is increased to boost muscle recovery and accelerate wound healing and other types of tissue injury.

Boosts metabolism. Increases ATP production in our mitochondria to boost metabolism naturally (at the cellular level). This process regulates of our energy product centers. Think: less fatigue, fmore natural energy and drive to do our bodies good, leading to healthier choices and passive weight loss.

Begin healing your body and improving your health with NIR

Rejuvenates skin, reduces body fat and cellulite. With its deep penetration, NIR unlocks toxins that are deeply stored in the skin to heal condition like acne scars, eczema, rosacea and more. The visible red and NIR light energizes and repairs damaged cells by boosting collagen and elastin production and returning the skin to a more youthful look. Regular sauna use can reduce overall body fat and decrease cellulite [source].

My Sauna of Choice, SaunaSpace

When I decided on near infrared over far infrared, I was intrigued by SaunaSpace Pocket Sauna for a couple of reasons… the price (it’s cost effective compared to other saunas), usability (small enough to fit in our bedroom), the 3-year warranty and money back guarantee.

When I received my hypoallergenic Pocket Sauna, I was impressed with how easy it was to setup. No tools required, plug and play. It took me about 1.5 hours to set up by myself while I watched a Netflix movie on my iPad.

The sauna is basically 4’ wide front x 2’ wide rear x 4’ deep x 5’ tall, constructed with 10 poles locked together into a trapezoid shape and draped with canvas. The heat lamps are in metal cages, to prevent contact burns and injury if the bulbs break, and attached to a wooden panel. The panel will plug into any standard plugin, worldwide… which is so much more handy than the other sauna options out there.

Start detoxifying daily with your own Pocket Sauna

My SaunaSpace Pocket Sauna Practice

I received my Pocket Sauna 4 weeks ago and have already created a solid NIR practice that I know my body is thanking me for. About 1 hour before bed, I turn my near infrared sauna on to let it preheat for 20 minutes. While it’s warming up, I drink some warm water to encourage sweating, jump in and work up a sweat during a 25 minute session. Right before I jump out to take a cold shower, I towel off in the sauna. I do this once a day. Some resources say you only need to do it a couple of times a week, but I look forward to it every night – it’s improved my sleep immensely and has lowered the amount of stress I deal with when my head hits the pillow.

I’m so impressed with my SaunaSpace experience that I’ll be sharing more about this low EMF detoxification option in the weeks and months to come including tips on how I use my Pocket Sauna, the changes I’ve experienced and an interview with SaunaSpace CEO, Brian Richards who knows EVERYTHING about saunas and detoxification.. we could (and have) geeked out on it a couple of times.

Begin a daily detoxification practice for balanced health

I did not receive monetary compensation for this post. I did receive this sauna in exchange for my honest review. I receive a lot of product and much of it never makes it to the blog because I know that you put trust in what I recommend. It’s in my best interest to share products with you that I firmly stand behind because if I recommend something that sucks, our community looses you. If you chose to purchase a Pocket Sauna, I will receive a small percentage of the sale (at no cost to you). This compensation; known as an affiliate program, is how I generate an income to support my family and pay the operating costs of running my blog.

Video Transcription

Holy moly! I’m so excited. I have something really awesome to share with you, and I think I tell you that at the beginning of every single video. Usually, my head is so full of so much content that I want to share with you. The thing that I’m most passionate about right now is cleansing. For years, I did quarterly cleanses, 3-7 days every 3 months, totally rocked it. I’m known as the juice girl with my friends. Usually, these are the common 3 goals that people want to achieve by doing a juice cleanse. The first is to rid your body of toxins. The second one is to start fresh with your eating, and the third one is to boost nutrient intake. Here’s the thing: juice cleanses kind of suck.

Juice cleansing served me really well, and crazily helped me get on track with my health. It was one amazing step that helped me get to where I am now. Since adapting a high-fat, low-carbohydrate, ketogenic eating style, I haven’t been that interested in doing cleansing. Toxicity affects all of us: our mattresses, our water, our food. It all builds up in our body. Really, I was naïve to think that a 7-day cleanse of just like, hey, every 3 months, I’m going to drink some juice for 7 days, and then all the toxins will be out of my body. We’re surrounded with them every day, so we need to do something every day that helps us remove the toxins from our body. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

I firmly believe that we can attack these three goals: removing toxins, getting back on track, and boosting your nutrient intake without having to do a juice cleanse. This will save us money, this will save us time. Now, I’ve created a cleanse program that I follow every day that basically takes no time at all, that’s highly enjoyable, that’s pretty effortless, and I don’t have to be hungry. Let’s go back to the three goals of why we do juice cleansing, and I’ll tell you exactly how I do it without juice cleansing.

The first one, removing toxins from our body. I got a [02:00] blood test a little while ago, and it told me that I was pretty high in mercury to the point where I am no longer eating fish for the time being, until I can remove the mercury from my body. Yeah, sure, you can go on a juice cleanse and do it for oodles and oodles of weeks and potentially harm your digestive system. I’m not a huge advocate of doing long periods of juice cleansing. Or, today on Healthful Pursuit, I’m sharing how I’m ridding my body of mercury without having to rely on juices and removing as many toxins as I can as possible. This is backed up by actual evidence that the body can cleanse and detoxify naturally. Down to the cellular level. On HealthfulPursuit.com today, I’m going through how I do this. I’ve included a link in the corner right here. Unlike juicing, it’s actually proven to work, down to the cellular level, you’re getting rid of the toxins. You don’t have to check out from your life for 7 days, and for all of you battling with cellulite, this is a perfect solution. Link right here and check it out. I’ve gone through it all.

The second one, wanting to start fresh with your eating habits. Here’s the thing: I’ve done a lot of different eating styles with a ton of different rules. The only one that I’ve been able to stick to with 100% confidence, and it just comes so naturally to me in my body is eating keto. Eating high-fat, low-carbohydrate, keto. Of course, the best way to know if this works for you is to give it a shot and make sure you clear it with your doctor first just to make sure that this is safe for you and your health. For myself, I have never gone on such a long, epic cleanse than with keto. Really, all I’m eating is high-fat, grass-fed meats, a lot of vegetables, a tiny bit of fruit, and glorious fats. That’s a cleanse for life. There’s no sugar, very minimal fructose, no products. I don’t purchase any products, other than my collagen and [04:00] hemp seeds and nuts and things like that. It’s so clean and pure, and encourages detoxification because we’re eating nutrient-dense foods. We aren’t bogging our systems down with sugar and impacting our immune system.

By following the program I outline in my book, The Keto Beginning, after 30 days, many readers say, “I’m no longer addicted to sugar, so I’m just going to not eat sugar anymore.” By eating keto, you’re really starting this lifelong process of taking care of your body and eating more fats, getting comfortable with eating fats, and eating more whole foods. The third goal with juice cleansing is boosting your nutrient intake. One thing is just to eat whole foods and then you’ll boost it every day and just fall in love with kale and spinach and all your greens. Use parsley, not just as a garnish, but take a head of parsley, chop it up, put it at the bed of meats, sauerkraut and eggs, and mash it all up and eat it. It’s just about becoming more comfortable with whole foods to boost your nutrient intake every day.

Another thing you could do if you’re first getting started in the keto, high-fat, low-carbohydrate eating style and you want to juice is yeah, juice. There’s lots of resources out there that use green juices, where all it is is greens, or very, very, minimal bit of fruit just to make it a little bit easier to drink for those people that green is just a bit too green for them. Perhaps, if you want to boost your nutrient intake that way, you’re doing it 2, maybe 3 times a week, with dinner you’re having your juice, before bed treat to help you sleep.

There you have it. The three reasons why we do juice cleansing in the first place can be achieved by not doing a juice cleanse. Of course, there’s people out there who will say, “Oh, but juice cleansing brings all these digestive benefits and all these other things.” Totally. I’m not here to debate that [06:00], I’m just saying that if juice cleansing’s not your thing and you’re more interested in detoxifying, boosting your nutrients, and gaining a healthy relationship with your food, you can do that without having to juice cleanse. In the case of the toxicity, being able to do a practice that takes 15 minutes every day so that I can make sure that the toxins I soaked up during the day are taken out at night, helps me sleep better at night knowing that I’m doing my body a service by doing this small little practice every day, probably for the rest of my life. Lifelong health is about lifelong practice. We can’t just expect to do one thing for 7 days and then be good for a year. This is every day, what are you doing to improve your health so that you can live a long, healthy, prosperous life?

From what I know now, a couple day juice cleanse is not going to make a huge, drastic, change in your health. Those little tiny practices that we’re doing every day that are effortless, easy, inexpensive, and very accessible, will make the biggest amount of change. We’ll do them every day because it makes us feel good. If you are looking to rid yourself of toxins, head on over to Healthful Pursuit and I’ll tell you how I do it with my new cleansing regime that doesn’t require juicing or fasting of any kind. If you’re looking to gain a healthy relationship with your food, why not try eating a whole food based approach to ketogenic eating, which I include in my book, The Keto Beginning. I’ve linked to it below, and also above, so you can check it out. See if it’s right for you.

I hope that was super helpful. If you enjoy this video and you want to hear more from me, please subscribe to my channel. I’ve included a link right here in front of this bubbly, weird lamp thing that I enjoy so much. Click that, subscribe, and I will see you next week. I hope you have a beautiful day. Bye!

This entry was tagged: cleanse, cleanse program, detox, eating high-fat, eating keto, eating low-carb, fat-adapted, juice cleanse, juicing, keto, keto basics, keto diet, keto life, ketosis, low-carb paleo, video, what is keto