Beauty Starts From Within - Easy Liver Detox
Your beautiful bod needs a lot to keep everything running perfectly. Water, vitamins, minerals, a daily sweat session and a seasonal spring cleaning!
Your Beauty Starts From Within.
Curious about why it is so important to sweat and give your body a seasonal spring cleaning?? Want to know what you can do to get the best sweat session possible?
Well these burning questions were also asked by one of my MHW community members.
One of my clients recently asked me about the correlation between liver health and sweating. So I decided to dive into the benefits of getting sweaty on the daily and maintaining a healthy liver so you make sure to get the very best post-workout glow & stay beautiful from the inside out!
It takes a lot for me to break a sweat. Where most people are cold and wearing a sweater, I am sitting in a tank top and happy as a clam. But after a while I started to wonder why other people could break a sweat after 5 minutes of exercising and I just got beet red!
I started looking into it, and everything pointed me in the direction of my liver.
So let's start there.
Liver Health
Did you know that besides your heart, your liver is probably the hardest working organ in your body?
The skin, lymph, lungs, kidneys and liver are all major pathways of the body for detoxifying, but the liver does the heavy lifting. Your liver has a dual role. It is both the main organ for detoxing (which your body is naturally doing all the time) as well as a digestive organ.
When the liver is over worked and over burdened by medications, alcohol, caffeine; poor food choices and environmental toxins proper digesting of the food you eat and detoxification of your bodily systems is much more difficult.
When you don’t digest properly you don’t get the nutrients from your food to nourish your body which not only leaves you feeling crummy (low energy, difficulty losing weight and in pain!) but also puts you at greater risk from invading pathogens. Anyone who frequently get sick with colds, flu, migraines, experiences nausea, constipation or diarrhea will most certainly benefit from cleansing the liver.
Ten Signs Your Liver Is Telling You It Needs Help
- overheating of the body and/or excessive perspiration
- abdominal bloating
- pain or discomfort over the liver – (right upper abdominal area under the rib cage)
- excessive abdominal fat; pot belly; or a roll around the upper abdomen
- trouble digesting fatty foods
- had your gallbladder removed
- acid reflux/heartburn
- dark spots on the skin commonly referred to liver spots
- acne/rosacea or itchy, blotchy skin
- unexplained weight gain and inability to lose weight even with calorie restriction
**Other signs to watch for include: anger, depression, irritability, nausea, stiff muscles, bruising, high blood pressure, fatigue, high cholesterol and triglycerides, sleep apnea or snoring and fatty yellowish lumps around eyes. These are signs you need to take action, detox and alter you diet and lifestyle to heal your liver.
Cherish The Skin Your In
Your skin is a major organ of elimination, but many people don't sweat on a regular basis.
I used to be one of them! Sweating or skin elimination can help reduce your toxic load quite significantly.
The use of sweating as a form of detoxification is downplayed by modern medicine, but it has been a highly valued form of cleansing since ancient times.
“Sweating has long been perceived to promote health, not only accompanying exercise but also with heat. Worldwide traditions and customs include Roman baths, Aboriginal sweat lodges, Scandinavian saunas (dry heat; relative humidity from 40% to 60%), and Turkish baths (with steam).”
You have two different types of sweat glands: eccrine sweat glands, which are distributed over your entire body, and apocrine sweat glands, located on your scalp, armpits, and genital area.
In my experience most people complain about how much they sweat; I have always been jealous wanting to sweat more! Sweating has numerous health + beauty benefits. Your skin is the largest organ of your body and serves important roles just like any other bodily organ.
Sweating Helps Your Body:
- Maintain proper temperature and keep you from overheating
- Expel toxins, which supports proper immune function and helps prevent diseases related to toxic overload
- Kill viruses and bacteria that cannot survive in temperatures above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit
- Clean the pores, which will help eliminate blackheads and acne
Interestingly, you’re born with anywhere between 2 million and 4 million sweat glands, and the number of such glands you have will determine, in part, how much you sweat. While women generally have more sweat glands than men, men’s glands tend to be more active and produce more sweat.
As your body temperature rises, your body will automatically perspire to release salty liquid from your sweat glands to help cool you down. This is controlled by your autonomic nervous system, which you cannot consciously control. However, certain emotions, such as anxiety, anger, embarrassment, or fear, can prompt you to sweat more.
Since exercise raises your body temperature, sweating associated with exercise is a sign that you’re exerting yourself and gaining the many benefits that exercise has to offer.
How To Safely Sweat More
Virtually any type of intense exercise will prompt you to sweat, although doing so in warm weather (or in a heated room, such as in Bikram yoga) will create even more sweating. You can also induce sweating via a sauna, either traditional or infrared. Infrared saunas are a great option and can significantly expedite the detoxification process. It heats your tissues several inches deep, which can enhance your natural metabolic processes. It also enhances circulation and helps oxygenate your tissues.
The difference between an infrared sauna and the traditional Finnish-style saunas is that the latter heats you up from the outside in, like an oven. The infrared sauna heats you from the inside out, raising your body’s core temperature and resulting in a deeper, more cleansing sweat. It’s said that using an infrared sauna will cause you to produce a sweat that is composed of 20 percent toxins, compared to only 3 percent toxins by using a traditional sauna.
I have been trying to increase my skin elimination by sitting in an infrared sauna 1-2 times a week. It slowly restores skin elimination, which helps reduce my toxic load and hopefully takes a little pressure off my liver. I have been using the Infared Sauna at my favorite fitness studio The Point Pilates and LOVING it!
** Keep in mind that sweating, especially heavy sweating, will cause your body to lose valuable fluids and electrolytes. So be sure to stay well hydrated if you’ve been sweating heavily and replace your electrolytes naturally by drinking coconut water or water mixed with Himalayan salt. You can mix a quarter teaspoon of Himalayan salt with a gallon of pure filtered water.
4. Spring Clean Your Body & Mind
Spring is not just a time to clean and refresh your home, but also a great opportunity to rejuvenate and cleanse your body. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), TCM values the liver as one of the most important organs in the body. The main job of the liver is to spread and regulate QI (energy flow) throughout the rest of the body. This is why the liver is one of the organs emphasized for spring. The liver absorbs everything our body takes in and ingests, being the holder and detoxifier of blood that is circulated throughout the body.
Spring is the perfect time to bring more self-awareness to your body and the toxins that are ingested on a daily basis. Paying closer attention to your diet and getting rid of processed foods and chemicals can help to detox your liver and diminish acute problems that may have formed.
Dietary suggestions for spring include:
eliminating alcohol, saturated fats, coffee, and chemical additives. On the other hand, natural and whole foods such as spinach, sesame seeds, strawberries and quinoa are encouraged and beneficial for the liver. These unrefined foods can improve the quality of our blood, therefore improving and strengthening the liver.
The liver is believed to be closely connected to the mind. Because of this, when your mind is at peace, your liver is able to function properly. Getting enough sleep on a regular basis and taking time to rest your mind can help your liver function at its best.
Let me know if you try any of these liver detox tips and how you feel!!
