Spring Awakening: Naturally Detox Your Body

This is a recording of “Spring Awakening: Naturally Detox Your Body,” a Zoom presentation held on April 26, 2023.

Below is an excerpt of a presentation given by Jeanned’arc Haddad, RDN, LDN. Exceptionally passionate about healthy living, Jeanned’arc Haddad is a Registered Dietitian and Nutritionist whose strategic functional approaches treat varying health issues at their core. As the Founder of Rebalance 4 Health, Jeanned’arc brings to the table a flourishing history involving custom nutrition therapy planning, root cause investigation, functional nutrition practices, and rich gut health/gut microbiome knowledge, all of which positions her patients to live the prospering lives they deserve.

One of the things I want to go over before getting into the nutrition part of a detox is figuring out what the liver does right. Our liver is really the powerhouse and we’re constantly exposed to so many toxins and chemicals every single day, which puts a lot of burden on our bodies. For us to detox well we need our liver to be in top shape because we’re constantly being exposed to all these chemicals or toxins in different foods. The liver is not the only organ that is responsible for detox, but it’s one of the main organs and it has a big responsibility, and you’ll see what it does for us and all the things that are needed, in terms of nutrition, for it to function properly.

Food is a huge component for our liver to convert toxins out of our body. It takes some conversion, so we take these fat-soluble toxins, and our body will turn it into a water soluble and then it can get eliminated in the body. That sounds super easy, but it takes a lot of steps to do that. Again, unfortunately we’re constantly exposed, so even just being on the computer, there’s toxins coming out of the computer. There’s paint, carpet, hardwood floors. We’re constantly being exposed and unfortunately what ends up happening is our liver can become sluggish and it doesn’t remove a lot of those toxins out of our body. It builds up. And a lot of disease states are going to be caused by filling up. Your toxin bucket fills up, leading to disease. We’re filling up those buckets with allergies, toxins and the environmental allergies that are out there.

Now trauma genetics plays a role and then infections. The liver is not the only organ that helps with detox. You have your kidneys, your lungs, your gut, skin health, lymph nodes and blood. Maybe you’ve heard of our accesses – gut brain access, gut immune access, gut hormone, gut skin. With each one of these components, a liver is important and even hormones are important. We don’t think about our hormones and detox, but it’s such a huge component, especially when it comes to estrogen. So again, one of the biggest roots of most symptoms is going to be a sluggish liver, when our liver is not doing its job properly because it’s taxed. Some of the signs of a sluggish liver is food cravings, feeling nauseous, especially after eating a fatty meal, or emotions, whether it’s anger or brain fog. A lot of people I see will say they have brain fog or fatigue.

There’s also unexplained weight gain. Some people will say that they’ve gained some weight, but they can’t really pinpoint where it’s coming from. They say they don’t eat enough so it doesn’t make sense that they’re gaining weight. Again, it could be that their liver is not properly detoxing so they’re building up toxins which builds up inflammation and leads to weight gain. There’s also bad breath and chemical sensitivity. A lot of people will say that they can’t handle smells, so again that’s a component of that sluggish liver. Some people have digestive problems like IBS, gas, bloating or SIBO, which is small intestinal bowel overgrowth. Some people have Candida or UTIs, which again, is a component of that liver not doing its job.

To continue learning about detoxing your body, watch the full presentation.