Special Episode: How I'm Going To Completely Detox My Body In 2018 (Detox Myths Busted, Detox...

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Howdy, howdy ho. This is a special podcast episode because it's a solo episode. A solo sod, A solo cast. This is actually how I used to podcast. How boring would that be? Honestly? No guests, no banter, no sidekick. Just me. Ben Greenfield, talking to you now. Like, almost 10 years ago, I think there were. There was maybe five or six health podcasts. When I started podcasting, there was like. I think Rob Wolf, the Paleo guy was podcasting. I want to say Jillian Michaels was out there as well. Not that many. Now there's like hundreds. Dare I say thousands. Anyways, it was just me sitting there at my office after I'd finished the day of training clients in the gym, and I would bust open, like, the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research or Research from the International Society of Sports Nutrition. I would just read to people. I'd be like, okay, here's a new way that they found a test VO2 max in judo athletes. And that was. That was pretty much the podcast for a while. And then I had my very first interview. I think it was with a pro triathlete, Angela Nath, I believe it was. She was a friend of mine. We'd been training on the bicycle. We did a podcast on triathlon training, and people were like, hey, you. We heard you talking to somebody. There were two voices on the podcast. That's way better. But ultimately today, no, just me. Sorry. Why? Well, this is a special episode because I've. I've been at it again, folks. I've been putting my mind and my muscles through a brutal ringer for the sake of science. You may have read the recent post over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I'll tell you a second how you can go read that. It was called Biohacking youg Manhood. The Proven Habits, Foods, Exercises, Workouts, nutrients, and Tools that Boost Testosterone in libido. And by the way, my social media team had a fit over me using the word libido in a post. Cause apparently that gets you banned by the Google gods. But I did it anyways. And in that post I talked about how Men's Health magazine recently sent me online, like this three month global expedition to do everything a fella possibly could do to increase testosterone and size and orgasm quality and libido. I did it again. And a host of other manhood related parameters including stem cell injections and acoustic sound wave therapy and red light blasting and beyond. Anyways, though, shortly after completing that article, I got my next riding assignment and that was to outfit my pantry with an arsenal of the latest trendy hangover cures from oriental raisin extract to prickly pear concentrate to self administered Myers Cocktails IVs. And then I was supposed to engage in extreme alcohol hedonism, which for me is basically like having anything more than two drinks and observing what happened in terms of hangover symptoms. And you can read the relatively surprising results in the show notes for this podcast that you're listening to right now, which I'll tell you how you can get in a second. Anyways, though, after all this brutality, I decided I'm Gonna Kick Off 2018, which is about the time you're listening to this. It's early 2018, by pushing the reboot button and cleaning up my entire system with a giant scientifically proven detoxification mop. And I'm inviting you to join me. So in this episode I'm gonna fill you in on why detoxing is definitely not a myth and and why you may want to consider detoxing even if you live an ultra clean lifestyle. You're like a monk on a Himalayan mountaintop. And even if you don't necessarily treat your body as an N equals one guinea pig like I do. Even if you haven't put any strange items into any orifices this year, you may still need detox, in other words. And I'll tell you how I'm personally going to pull off this detox. Okay, so before addressing this concept of whether or not detoxification is a myth, that let me say this show notes for this episode, research, articles, scientific things, all that's over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Detox2018 that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018 okay, so a few years ago, the Guardian, Guardian, wonderful website, they released this article said, and the article was entitled, you can't detox your body, It's a myth, so how do you get healthy? And that article claimed that detoxing is a pseudo medical concept designed to sell you things. So it's important to begin with an understanding of what toxins actually are. And honestly, no matter how clean anyone lives their life, just about everybody, upon urine testing or hair testing or any form of environmental chemical testing, they're found to contain chemicals. People are on average. The recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention, the CDC, they found 212 chemicals in people's blood and urine, 75 of which had never before been measured in the US population. And we're talking about things like acrylamide, which is byproduct of cigarette smoke and is also formed when foods are fried at high temperatures. Not that that has ever happened to you. Eating at a healthy restaurant, P F Chang's, Subway or beyond arsenic, which you find in home building products. And environmental phenols like bisphenol A, which you find in plastics and food packaging, even from so called paleo healthy vegan foods. And trick and perichlorate, which is used in airplane fuel. That stuff you smell when you're getting out of the plane? Yes. That winds up in your blood and your urine. Parafluorinated chemicals that you'll find in cookware. You go over to your friend's house, they don't cook using cast iron, they use nonstick cookware. Sorry, you're getting poor fluorinated chemicals in your blood. Polybrominated diphenylethyrs, those are used in fire retardants that we find in things like o, say the mattress that you spend a third of your life on. And then volatile organic compounds, what you might know as VOCs. You're gonna find those in air fresheners that your Uber driver might be hanging in their car. Or cosmetics, upholstery fabrics walking through the fragrance aisle at Macy's, wood preservatives from that wonderful cabinet in your home, etc. I'm not saying this to be like a fear monger. I'm just spelling out what the CDC has found. And so when you put all these together, you're getting kind of a toxic burden on the body. When all these toxins are accumulating in your blood and your urine and your tissue, they're just chemicals. They even refer to some of them as obesogens because many accumulate in fat tissue, causing you to need to create more fat cells to store them. And especially if your liver and your kidneys aren't supported or aren't functioning properly, or perhaps you had too many drinks over the holidays and they're a little bit beat up, this becomes even more of an issue. And the kidneys are an important filtration mechanism. But really it's the liver that does the most important job when it comes to detoxification. So just to lay this out for you, understand how your, your body would actually get rid of this stuff. Your liver has a couple, technically it has several three, I believe, different detoxification pathways. You have phase one and I say I believe because the whole phase three pathway is kind of a new thing. I'll tell you about that in a second. Anyways, though, phase one toxins are neutralized and they're broken into smaller fragments. Then in phase two, they get bound to other molecules creating this non toxic molecule that you then get rid of. You poop it out or you pee it out, or it's excreted in your bile. And so in order for that process to work properly, phase one and phase two, liver detoxification relies on specific nutrients like phase one relies on vitamin A and vitamin C and vitamin E, the full B vitamin complex. Glutathione is incredibly important. If you go back and you listen to podcast number 377@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 377We get deep into glutathione and liver detoxification, Branched chain amino acids, phospholipids, which we're gonna find in eggs and meats and fish and soybeans. And then you have your phase two detoxification and that's where you're again, remember you're binding some of those things so that they can get removed. So we're binding them to things that rely upon indole. 3 Carbinol, which you're gonna find in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and brussels sprouts and limonene, which you'll find in oranges and tangerines and caraway seeds and dill seeds and a lot of different herbs and spices. Glutathione once again we find in both phase 1 and phase 2 path pathways is important. Fish oil and omega 3s are important and even amino acids are important. And there's a host of studies and again I'll link to them over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018 that demonstrate the efficacy of the compounds I just described for supporting proper liver detox pathways. In other words, I'm not pulling this out my hat. Like this is stuff that they've actually shown assists with liver detoxification. Now, in addition, regarding this third, this phase three detox pathway, I will link in the show notes to a recent excellent podcast I listened to with Dr. Brian Walsh, who's been a guest on my podcast. But this is with the Nourish Balance Thrive folks over on the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast, where he actually has a really great podcast on everything you need to know about detoxification, which may go. May go well hand in hand with this solo episode you're listening to right now. So I'll link to that. So anyways, now you understand detoxification, let's delve into how these detox products are supposed to work. So and it is a problem. The Guardian article then goes on to talk about how there's all these products like dietary supplements and smoothies and shampoos, and not one of the manufacturers can actually define what they mean when they say detoxification on that label or even name the toxins those products are supposed to remove. Now this is where I disagree with this article. This is where I think it goes in the wrong direction. Because just because a manufacturer of, let's say, spirulina can't say how spirulina works for detoxification because they're a frickin supplement marketer. They're not a scientist. That doesn't mean there's not scientific evidence for spirulina's potential to remove toxins in the body. For example, cyanobacteria is a specific type of bacteria we find in spirulina that is an accumulator, also known as a biosorbent of heavy minerals. And it does that via a process called ion exchange binding. And this can significantly reduce heavy metal toxicity in tissue. And they've shown this in studies. A very small amount, 100 micrograms of spirulina extract has been shown to remove over 85% of arsenic and tissue at higher doses, you know, 250 to 500 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Spirulina has been shown to prevent metal toxicity in rodent models when rodents were given fluoride. It's been shown to reduce lead accumulation in brain tissue, protect against heavy metal cadmium buildup, and attenuate mercury accumulation, especially in men, and especially in men's testes. Believe it or not, you can accumulate mercury in your testes. That's bad news, bears. Now granted, spirulina is one of the few molecules in existence that actually does have a pretty decent body of evidence to support its detoxifying activity. But there are others we can look at. Dandelion extract, ginseng, zinc. All of those have been clinically studied and proven to reduce heavy metal buildup. And when the article in the Guardian guffaws at the idea of using superfoods such as spirulina because there is scant material on a manufacturer's label that it works, or scant material that goes into scientific references, that doesn't mean the science doesn't exist. Or we could look at milk thistle extract, right? Which we find a lot of good detox or cleansing supplements. I mean, I'll come right out and say it. I have a product on my website. If you go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com there's something called cleanse there. And it's this host of different botanical nutrients that I personally market for cleaning up the gut or helping out with the gut lining or detoxification. And while the article in the Guardian would have you to believe there is no value in consuming milk thistle extract, studies show that milk thistle actually protects and promotes the growth of liver cells. And it fights oxidation in liver tissue. And it blocks toxins from entering the cell membrane in the liver. And that's because silymarins, which are a group of antioxidants you get from the seeds of milk thistle, have antioxidant properties that beat out pretty powerful, potent antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin E. Siloben is the active ingredient as that, that's especially effective in promoting liver health. And we've also shown that milk thistle, I mean, we haven't. When I say we, I mean like science man, modern man, has shown that milk thistle helps to enhance detoxification by preventing the depletion of glutathione, which is necessary for that phase two liver detox that I talked about to be completed. So we've got spirulina and milk thistle and zinc and ginseng and dandelion extract. And there are others that actually work. So just because, like detox evidence doesn't exist for, say, cayenne and maple syrup, that doesn't mean that detoxifications are completely bunk. And then the article in the Guardian goes on to address colon cleanses too. It says proponents will tell you that mischievous plaques of impacted poo can lurk in your colon for months or years or pump disease causing toxins back into your system. And if you pay folks a small fee, they'll put a hose up your butt and wash it all away. And when you think about it, the idea of toxins somehow being reabsorbed by your body as they sit in your colon, it does kind of make sense. I mean, you look at rectal suppositories used to rapidly administer drugs. If drugs can enter your bloodstream from your colon, it's possible that toxins could be entering too. But at the same time, your colon is indeed equipped with a lot of natural mechanisms to keep toxins from building up. Like natural bacteria in the colon can detoxify food waste, and mucous membranes in the colon can keep unwanted substances from re entering the blood and the tissues. And the colon, furthermore, sheds its old cells about every three days, which means your colon isn't going to build up all these nasty old cells because it's just constantly shedding them. And that even allows for things like the expulsion of. Of parasites. Cute little critters. So I personally suspect that if colon cleansing or enemas have an effect in making you feel like you have more energy or enhancing some sort of a cleanse process, it's actually likely not working via the mechanism that a lot of these folks claim that it works. But I do think it works by activating, and I've found studies on this, they activate specific reflexes in your gut that cause your nervous system relax. They stimulate bile production by your liver that improves digestion. It has a little bit of a laxative effect. It relieves constipation. It allows you to pass things through the system more quickly so the toxins are not resorbed. And so I even think when we look at things like enemas and colon cleanses, that there is some evidence for that, too. So the big picture is here. You don't want to get on a detoxification program or get a bunch of fancy supplements if you're not already taking care of your liver and also your kidneys to a certain extent. I mean, your kidneys filter blood and they remove excess water, and they pass urea, which is a toxin that builds up as a byproducts of protein breakdown. And they send all this out of your body via your urine. Okay, so the idea is, if you eat foods that support your liver and your kidneys, or avoid foods that stress your liver and your kidneys, you're kind of theoretically detoxing every day. And you know that would mean, like, for your liver, you can do things like avoiding a lot of omega 6 polyunsaturated fats. We know those are bad news bears for the liver. You know, canola oil and french fries. We know fructose and alcohol are not that great for your liver. We know that eating liver is good for your liver along with eating egg yolks and cruciferous vegetables. And we Know that for the kidneys, you can limit your intake of high fructose corn syrup and again limit alcohol intake, and if you're predisposed to renal issues, even limit excessive protein intake, meaning not eating more than about 200 grams of protein per day. But still the plot kind of thickens. It basically turns out that in our modern, post industrial, radiated, metal laden, polluted glyphosate sprayed, GMO concentrated era that we're all living in, we may still need to use some of these extracts, some of these supplements. When we see animals self medicate, we see our ancestors use things like mortar and pestle and oil extracts and all sorts of methods to actually derive nutrients, concentrated nutrients from soil. I mean, my kids and I will go out and harvest organ grape root extract and boil that in tea and make a supplement of that. That actually does have a little bit of a liver detoxification aspect to it. So not only do we see some aspect of detoxification in ancestral societies, but we also know that we need it more than ever as a human race. So I found a lot of this out when I interviewed my friend Dr. Dan Pompa, and it was in a podcast episode called the most effective detox you've never heard of and exactly how to do it. And in that episode he describes cellular toxicity and how that's an underlying cause of gut problems and thyroid issues and sluggish metabolism and brain fog and a whole lot more. And it is not based on, you know, woo woo or non quantifiable toxins, but rather measurable physical compounds. You know, the things I talked about before. Plastic and phytoestrogens and metals and pharmaceuticals and herbicides and pesticides and all these things that can overwhelm our liver and our kidneys and our built in detoxification systems, even if we're like, whatever, eating broccoli and drinking ginger juice. So.

Like I alluded to, it's unfair that you and me, even when we're living a clean lifestyle, at least I'm assuming everybody listening to this podcast is just like on top of things, you're wearing your tinfoil hat and you're checking underneath your car for excessive brake dust and you're wearing a mask whenever you get on an airplane. But anyways, regardless of this clean orthorexic lifestyle that we're living, we still get exposed to toxins on like the gym, dumbbells at the gym. I was reading this in a, in a recent article. They have one of the highest levels of microbes and bacteria on them than like anything aside from a toilet seat. Herbicides on the, you know, healthy apples at our friend's house, or estrogens in the shampoo at the hotel, or mercury from electronic equipment like a treadmill. I mean, the list goes on and on. So it's not like you, you're, you have to be eating a McDonald's Happy Meal every day to get exposed to this stuff. So the fact is, to make matters even worse, the world's largest study on air pollution, which was just published recently in the European Heart Journal, found the average air in the average city that we're all breathing in develops in people a huge risk for high blood pressure because of the number of pollutants and the local and systemic inflammation and the oxidative stress and the imbalance and the correct functioning of the nervous system that all of that creates. And so not many of us are walking around with massive HEPA air filters blasting our body all day long. So ultimately, you get the idea, right? Between what I learned from Dr. Dan Pompa about cellular toxicity and what I learned while researching whether or not there was real science in that Guardian article, to a lot of the things that I've learned, even creating cleansing supplements like that one that I mentioned, I'm definitely a fan of doing more than just some intermittent fasting and eating my vegetables to detox. And again, I'll put all the research over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox 2018 so why am I telling you all this? Well, frankly, everything that you've just heard about is exactly why I'm personally going to detox my entire body and my neural tissue, my brain, beginning February 12th this year, February 12th, 2018. And I am asking you to join me. I'm not just going to do any old detox like putting cayenne pepper into a smoothie, are pushing giant grocery shopping carts full of cilantro and kale through the supermarket. Because what happens is when you're like, okay, I'm just going to deactivate charcoal and cilantro, what that does is it releases toxins. And I talk about this in the podcast with Dan Pompa releases toxins and metals from cells and shoves them into the brain across the osmotic gradient. And that causes even more damage and can even lead to permanent brain fog and mood disorders and skin breakouts and a lot of nasty issues. That's why people feel worse on an incomplete or a non scientifically created detoxification program. So with Dr. Pompa, what he has done is he's created what's called a true cellular detox challenge, where first you detox via a prep phase, then you move into a body phase, then you move into a brain phase. And he has basically a whole diet spelled out for each phase that I personally kind of modify with my own little recipes. And he has a bunch of detoxification training PDFs on his website. And he sends out free toxicity tests that you can measure your progress in your urine as you go. And then basically each of the different supplements that you would need for each of the phases. The prep the body and the brain phase. Then he has like an FAQ board and online support and everything that you need to kind of walk you through with no guesswork. Every step of the detox, you don't lay awake at night wondering if anything that you're doing is actually working. It's all scientifically proven and it's all quantified. I did this last year and levels of things like my mercury and my lead just plummeted to rock bottom. I mean, it cleans you out. And I mean, your head's like clear as a bell. Once you finish this detox program, it's not short. I mean, it's a 90 day detox, but at the same time, it's not like you're having diarrhea and doing enemas every day, right? It's sustainable. It's like, okay, I take this supplement with breakfast, this one with dinner. I avoid these foods. I eat these ones on the meal plan. And then furthermore, what I'm doing is I partnered with Dr. Pompa to work in all my biohacks, okay? So in his program, he let me modify the whole thing to add in things like infrared therapy and don't laugh. Dry skin brushing and coconut oil pulling and special teas and bras that heal the lining of the gut and breath work and hypoxia, and yes, the occasional coffee enema and yes, the occasional longer fast. Like each week you do one 24 hour fast. I know if you've always wanted to do this, the fasting thing, it's sustainable. Doing one 24 hour fast for three months, do you not believe the difference that that makes? Just that alone in terms of cellular apoptosis and longevity benefits too, and even meditation. So he let me modify the program to add in all that so that as I go through the detox, I can do all of my little biohacks and also maintain my fitness. Because I don't want to do just yoga and lose my muscle or lose my VO2 max over the course of three months. So he's letting me work in things like Tabata sets and foundation training for decompression of the spine and super slow training and, you know, a whole host of things that are going to allow me to engage in. I'm doing things like handstand practice and some gymnastics kind of routines and all sorts of things. I have it all spelled out in a training plan that both you and I get when we're going through this detox program that starts in February. So basically it's just a complete reboot for the body. And I'm combining Dr. Pompa's clinical expertise with my kind of like in the trenches biohacks. And we've put together this thing. It's called the true Cellular Detox. The true cellular detox. So here's how it works. We're gonna start on Monday, February 12th. Everything's spelled out for you. You got your downloadable PDFs with your meals, your downloadable PDFs with your supplements, your downloadable PDFs with your, your exercises and your, and your little hacks. And it's not like if you don't have a frickin infrared lamp, you can't do the whole thing right. Like you can, you can totally like mix and match as you see fit. But I've laid it out so that you can do the full meal deal. If you really truly want to do the best detox on the face of the planet, this is it. So the deadline to sign up is February 8th. They're going to close it on February 8th. And then we start on February 12th. And you get all the instructions that you need. And then Dr. Pompa and I are doing webinars each month that kind of allow us to reply to your questions. Like, hey, I've got white strands of what seems to be parasitic material in my stool. Is that normal? I don't know why that was the first thing I thought of. Weird poop or.

For example, you know what? I, I've decided that I want to like compress all, taking all my supplements in like one meal. Are there any that that food intake would limit the absorption of, you know, things like that? Just like little practical questions. So you get the webinars with Dr. Pompa and I, all the, the FAQ board, the online support, we doing all the PDFs, handouts, the free toxicity testing, all the supplements that you need, all the recipes, the biohacks, the training plan, and the, you know, we're even working in, you know, things like intermittent fasting and diet variation and ketosis and more advanced strategies for people who want to do that. So how do you get in? Well, first of all, you could just go to the shownotes for this episode. BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018.

Honestly, I'm just. Let's just leave it at that. I mean, because the link's there to go. Sign up. BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018 I believe we are limiting this, same as we did last year, to 200 people. And last year it filled up fast. So especially once this podcast comes out and 90, 000 people listen in, it's probably gonna fill up. So. BenGreenfieldFitness.com Detox 2018 BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018 why do I repeat it 8 billion times? Because I know human psychology. Forget if I don't. Okay, so. BenGreenfieldFitness.com detox2018 I'll put all the research over there. You can go sign up for the True Cellular Detox. We kick things off February 12th. It's gonna be a blast. Thanks for listening in too. I appreciate you bearing with me during this solo cast. And if you have questions, you can also leave them over in the show notes at say it with me now. BenGreenfieldTheNNIS.com detox2018 all right, have an amazing day, an amazing week. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield. Have a healthy week.

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Sam.