Are You Toxic?
15 Dec 2025 · 15 min
J.J. Virgin breaks down where toxins hide in your home and food, and what they do to your body: endocrine disruption, insulin resistance, weight gain. She covers liver detox basics like sulfur foods, milk thistle, and glutathione, plus sweating and fiber to move toxins out.
Questions this episode answers
Try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts (promotion mentioned in ad read).
50% off the first year with code 'Virgin' (Monarch promo).
Monarch is said to be rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025 (statement in ad read).
Text 58885 and enter 'JJDetox1' followed by your first name and email address (format: JJDetox1 [first name] [email]).
Vitamin C: as much as 5,000–10,000 mg; Magnesium: 500–1,000 mg (ranges stated in the episode).
Chapters
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Welcome to the Virgin Diet lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York times bestselling author, J.J. virgin.
Do you need to detox? I mean, doesn't it seem like every week there's another celebrity on the COVID of a magazine who just did a cleanse? So what's the deal? Should you do a cleanse, also known as a detox, and if so, what should you do? I mean, cleanses run the gamut from all out fasting to juicing and everything in between. In this show, I'm going to give you the lowdown on cleanses. Why to do them and then what to do to get the best results. And more importantly, what you should never do that so many cleanses promote that can actually make you more toxic. Now first of all, do you need to detox? Are you toxic? The deal is we were never created to handle the level of toxins we have now. I mean think about it. Your liver is really 10,000 years old, okay? Not like in your body 10,000 years old, but it was designed a long time ago and hasn't been upgraded since. We are being hit with toxins everywhere we turn. The air, the water, the food. And these are things that like are new to our environment in the last one 10, 500 years. I mean think about it. Gas, dry cleaning fluids, personal care products, household cleaning products. We are bombarded. And if you're hit with more than you can handle, which means you can't excrete them as fast as they're coming in, guess what? You store these toxins. And the biggest place you store the toxins is in your fat. Because that's your body's way to go. Woo. We gotta protect you. So we're gonna put this into your fat cells and hang on tight to them. Now, a higher toxic burden creates a host of symptoms and issues. Symptoms like hits to your endocrine system, thyroid problems, insulin problems, diabetes. Do you know this is so industry? In the NHANES study, they found that we all think that obesity causes diabetes. Turns out that it wasn't the obesity that's causing the diabetes. The NHS study showed that the obese people with a high toxic burden were the ones getting the diabetes. So perhaps it is that you're obese, have more fat cells, and those fat cells have got the toxins in them, and that's driving the problems with insulin and thyroid and estrogens. Other big issues, cancer, neurological diseases, and big, big one, weight gain. Because here's the deal. When you store a lot of toxins in your fat cells, your body is not stupid. It says, oh, my gosh, I need to protect myself. So it's going to cool you off and hang on tight. So it makes it really hard for you to burn the fat off. And if you are finding, as you're starting to lose weight, that you're feeling really rotten, it's probably because of a lot of the toxicity. Toxicity? The toxins you're releasing. Which means that anytime you're losing weight, it's really a detox program because you're freeing up fat and you're freeing up toxins. So you better be doing stuff that gives you good antioxidant support and good liver support. Some other big signs of. Are you toxic fatigue, GI issues? You know, people who are intolerant to food, and it's just every type of food, classic sign of too high of a toxic burden. And, of course, immune issues. Now, how toxic you are depends on a couple things. It depends on your exposure. And this, for the most part, this for us, is not acute exposure. Oh, my gosh. We got hit with like a big mercury bomb. This is chronic exposure. That tuna you're eating, maybe the fillings that you had, the vaccine that you had, you know, it's the exposure over time that's accumulating. And that's why this is such a big deal. Because studies aren't done on accumulated toxins. They're done on acute exposure, not chronic buildup of different types of toxins. Right.
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Buenos dias. Cafe Bustelo Espresso styled iced coffee is hitting refrigerators with a cold front that'll sweep through your senses. So keep the coffee pours long and the cold sip slow. Cafe Bustelo Estaqui now there's that part, your exposure. And then the other piece of it is how well do you detoxify? So obviously the first goal here is to minimize your exposure. I'm going to tell you right off the bat that it is impossible not to be exposed. I mean, even in the most pristine places in the world, you're going to find toxins even if we've never made it there yet. However, you can minimize that exposure by by making sure you're eating the clean when you go to the store. Clean 15 Dirty Dozen Environmental Working Group EWG.org, make sure that you're getting organic. At least in that Dirty Dozen you're buying organic mycotoxin free coffees. You're doing clean lean protein. So make sure you're minimizing your exposure and what you eat and what you drink that you're purifying your air and your water and not just the water you drink. Remember, your skin is a sieve, so you want to purify all the water cleaning supplies. Again, your skin's a sieve. So make sure everything that you are using, laundry detergents, dishwashing detergents, all of those are organic, non toxic and big important one gals Beauty supplies Personal care. So important. Okay, so anywhere you can think of, you are going to work on minimizing your risk. Then you want to improve detoxification. Here's where those cleanses really can mess things up and as I talked about earlier, make you more toxic because we detox in two Basic phases. Phase one is the free up phase. And this is what gets sped up if we fast. Now, fruits and vegetables are great here. This helps speed up phase one. But for a lot of us, phase one's not our issue. And phase one is where we free the toxins up and get them ready to go. But then phase two is where we get them gone. And now phase two is dependent on amino acids. You need amino acids, and the easiest place to get those, the key place is protein. You need amino acids to jump onto the toxins and help get them out of your body. And by the way, if you don't have enough amino acids and you have these toxins around, your body's going to steal from your muscles. So careful with that. So those juice cleanses and they fast. Those are the problems that they can create. And a big sign of this is if you feel worse when you're doing this for more than a day, you're probably becoming more toxic. More toxic. Okay, so listen to your body. You shouldn't feel bad. I've heard so many people do. Well, I'm doing a cleanse. I feel rotten. It must be working. No, that's your body saying, hey, hey, hello out there. Stop it. So here's some important things that you should be doing when you're cleansing. And by the way, just a little heads up on the whole detox, cleaning, cleanse thing, which I've kind of already hinted at. You're never not going to be assaulted by toxins. You should be detoxing every single day. Now. I love focused cleanses. One week, two weeks, three weeks, where you really just take time to go, okay, let's regroup. Let's really pay attention to everything I'm eating, touching, wearing, breathing, right? And let's intensify the detox and let's take some time and space right now. But in reality, all of these things I talk about right here are things we should be doing on a daily basis to support good detoxification. Because let's face it, in the end, he who detoxifies best wins a better high quality life, right? So water, huge one, lots of water. And I teach people, I actually have a water schedule in both the virgin diet and the sugar impact diet. Because I want you to drink water when you wake up. Lots of clean water in between your meals. Minimize your water during the meals because you don't want to dilute your digestive enzymes that you need to break up the process protein that is going to help you pull the toxins out of the body. So water's big fiber is huge. Because fiber, you've got two types, remember soluble, insoluble, soluble helps soak up some of those toxins and create more bulk to your stool. And insoluble helps get things moving around. Plus those soluble fibers and then some of the resistant starch actually can feed the bacteria and feed short chain fatty acids in the colon and that are going to be like your warrior force against a lot of that bad bacteria. Now liver support is critical. My top all time for liver support is milk thistle. Amazing. I'm going to do a glutathione. Shout out to bulletproof Dave Asprey upgraded Glutathione tastes nasty. Amazing for your liver. So those are my two favorites for liver support. Milk thistle and glutathione. And then sulfur containing foods because you use sulfur in that phase two of detoxification. So if you're not intolerant to eggs, if you've done the virgin diet and discovered that eggs of course are great, but you want to have pastured eggs, you are what you eat. 8. And then onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, garlic, cabbage, you know, all the stinky vegetables, those are the goodies. Digestive support, again, I talked about this a little earlier about making sure that you're not drinking a bunch of water with your meals. You need to make sure that you're digesting your protein. I find for a lot of people that if they take some digestive enzymes, especially to sp with fat and protein digestion, proteases and lipases, betaine, that really helps. And then antioxidants, you create a ton of oxidative stress when you're detoxifying. So antioxidants and green vegetables and chlorella, very, very helpful here. Clean lean protein, so critical. That's why I see so many of these cleanses out there a week long with no real protein. Make sure that you get a good detox support. Protein shake can be plant based, it can be defatted beef, but it's got to have clean lean protein with glutamine and glycine, taurine and cysteine in there. Those amino acids are critical. And if you're getting good clean protein, you're getting those. And now I'm going to say one that is just crazy because I like to be bold and controversial. And I'm going to talk about coffee because so many people on a cleanser are like, you've got to stop the coffee. I'm going to say, you know what, you don't have to stop the coffee. You have to stop, stop the bad coffee if you are doing good. Mycotoxin free organic coffee like bulletproof and actually bulletproof's the only one I know bulletproof upgraded coffee that does this. It can lower your liver enzymes and so and support elimination. So I'm pro coffee, just, you know, don't have five pots. I'm going to tell you though, alcohol during a cleanse should be pulled out because you don't need to put extra stress and burden on the liver. You're already pushing it and and for good elimination if you are having any trouble. People I see that detoxify poorly are the people who don't sweat well and don't poop well. And I just had someone post on one of my Facebook pages that you don't need to poop every day.
Wrong.
Yes you do. Not just once, a couple times a day. So if you are not fiber, water, exercise, vitamin C and magnesium, those are the two keys that are going to help you poop well. Vitamin C, magnesium, just keep bumping them up. You might need as much as like 5,10,000 milligrams of vitamin C and you might need 500 to 1,000 milligrams of magnesium. Do it. It'll work for you, Promise. Now a couple other things that are really good for detoxification. Fermented foods and drinks. Body ecology. Donna Gates has some amazing stuff and I love the Kavita coconut water. Fermented coconut water. Oh my gosh, so good. But if you can do sauerkraut or kimchi a plus for you, do that dry brushing, so good for getting your circulation going and exfoliating and people go, what's dry brushing? You take a dry brush, your dry body and you brush before you get in the shower. Sweating is great. I just got a far infrared. Actually it's not a far, it's a far near and medium infrared sauna. This is my new favorite thing on the planet. And infrared saunas by far. If I had to pick one thing besides, you know, not putting more in infrared sauna is probably the most effective thing that you can do because it is the only way I really know of to get effectively get rid of the toxins stored as fat. It is the single best way to do this. And these sunlight and saunas, the one that I have, that I love, has the highest effectiveness of emitting thermal energy through infrared rays which penetrate the body deeply at a cellular level where the toxins are stored. So, so these infrared rays and I'm not saying far. Because again, in this sauna it's near, medium and far. They resonate with the fat cells within the body. And again, this is where a lot of the toxins are stored. And guess what? They make them burst. And that means then that the toxins can get released through perspiration. So I have this sauna not only this is now my favorite thing to do, especially if I'm going to go get a massage, I go have a sauna first and that really warms you up for it. But the infrared is a totally different deal. So I cannot speak highly enough about this sunlight and sauna. Check it out. The holidays are almost here, but there's still time to score great gifts at Dick's Sporting Goods. Find everyone's must have gifts from Nike, FP Movement, Adidas, and more. Need your gifts fast? Stop by your local Dick's or shop Dick's.com for fast shipping, curbside pickup or same day delivery. Every holiday starts at Dick's and exercise because two great things for detoxification. When you exercise, you both sweat it out and you also improve your circulation, which is critical. Massage. Again, circulation. It's critical. And yoga because it helps start to really move you around. Get some circulation, get some pressure throughout the body. All right, now for a list because I know I've just spouted all these things I love so much. So for a list of my favorite Detox products, text 58885 and enter JJDetox1. That's the number one, by the way. Space, your first name Space and your email address. Again you text to 58885 and enter jjdetox1space, your first name space and your email address. In the Sugar Impact diet, I help you clear up the confusion around sugar and take back the control that sugar has over your life. And in just two weeks you'll lose your sweet tooth and shrink your waistline. Why wait? Start those two weeks today.
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Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And, of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now, wherever you're listening to this podcast, and Visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.
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