The Benefits of Detoxing
From pills to drinks, hundreds of products promise to detox your body of toxins in the form of a cleanse. But Dr. Heather Auld, an integrative medicine physician with Lee Health, says a true detox is not a colon cleanse. “In fact, that could have the opposite affect because you rid your body of natural probiotics.”
She says there is a healthy way to give your body the detox it needs. “You really want to try to buy organic during this detox because you don’t want to feed more toxins into your liver,” said Dr. Auld.
She encourages a natural ten day detox once a year. “The reason it’s ten days is because it takes that long for the detoxification to really take full effect. At the end of those 10 days you add back some of that food that you’ve missed, like eggs, because eggs aren’t allowed on this, and then you see how you feel,” said Dr. Auld.
During a natural 10 day detox, you’re giving your body a break from certain foods, including dairy, meat, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine. “Your body accumulates these toxins over time and so sometimes people can’t lose weight, or they feel tired, and they feel sluggish, or they build up so much that they get chronic disease. So the idea is to avoid chronic disease,” said Dr. Auld.
By taking out certain foods for a period of time, your body is allowed to take a break from processing toxins. “You’re eating as much as you want to of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, primarily a lot of beans. You can have wild caught fish, as I mentioned. You can have some ancient grains. You should not be hungry on this,” said Dr. Auld.
In addition to weight loss, patients will also notice a difference in how they feel. “This really does help your body and you feel marvelous afterward,” said Dr. Auld.
A natural way to help jump start your health.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Lee Health – Caring People. Inspiring Care.
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