Lymph- The Missing Link in Detox, Immunity, and Weight Loss

Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Marta. Welcome, Samantha. Welcome, Amira. Okay, as you're tuning in, let me know what you're grateful for in the chat today. Can't believe November is almost over. I know it's Thanksgiving coming up in the US, and the holidays are right around the corner. Time is flying by. So as you're tuning in, let me know what you're grateful for in the chat. Martha says, "I had a great week at work and signed 2 new clients. Very excited to share this work. I am also steady at 138 pounds, 4 weeks into maintenance." Congratulations. Amira says, "Today is day 14. Night sweats and heartburn are gone, and I don't look 6 months pregnant anymore." Thank you, Amira, for sharing. That's really exciting. It's just amazing how quickly the body responds when we Give it the right inputs and put it in the right environment. Super excited for you. That's great. Okay, so I am gonna pull up my presentation here, and we'll get started in just a minute here. Okay, let me share my screen. And if you have any questions, um, feel free to type them in the chat. So today we're going to be talking about the lymph. Okay, the lymphatic system is a really important system that commonly gets overlooked in both conventional, uh, medical practice and medical system, and also in quote-unquote alternative medical medical space as well. Okay. And it really is the missing link in a lot of cases when it comes to detoxification, immune health, and weight loss. So we'll go through this today. And like I said, I'll share some tools with you as well, some things that you can take away and implement immediately after we do this. And we'll do a little exercise together as well to get our lymph moving. So Why the lymph matters. So when it comes to, you know, weight loss specifically and inflammation, when your lymph is stagnant, your body is going to hold on to a lot of fluid and waste. Okay. And this is going to cause a lot of inflammation in the body and it's going to signal to the body that it's unsafe to lose weight. So it really is important for us to restore our lymph flow. And when it's restored, then inflammation really decreases and our metabolism will start to, you know, work a little better and it will help us release fat again. Okay. So before we get into too many details, I want to just briefly talk about what the lymphatic system is. So your lymphatic system is a network of vessels and nodes. Okay, so think of it kind of like a river, right? And think of it as the nodes as certain purification stations. Okay, and the lymph basically is where a lot of waste is deposited into. And because it doesn't have a pump like the heart, right? So when we think of blood in our arteries, it has a pump, right? The heart pumps and it basically moves the blood through our arteries. Our veins. But with the lymph, there's no pump, so it has to be manually moved. Okay. And so because there's no pump, it really relies on breathing properly, relies on movement, and it relies on muscular contraction to help it flow. Okay. And, uh, a few organs that are part of the lymphatic system are the lymph nodes, the spleen, the thymus gland, the tonsils, and the bone marrow. Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about some of these manual ways that you can get this lymph moving. Some key functions of the lymphatic system is it helps with fluid balance. Okay, so it returns leaked plasma to blood circulation, so approximately 3 liters a day. Right? So it does way more than just detoxification. It does help with detoxification, as I said, it, it helps remove cellular waste, proteins, and toxins that build up over the day. It also is important with immunity, so it helps filter any pathogens, helps activate the immune system as well. And then it's also really important for fat transport. Okay, so the intestinal lymph absorbs fats and fat-soluble vitamins. Okay, so when it comes to the lymph system, slow detoxification and fat metabolism, both when they both stall, it can cause feelings of heaviness and water retention. Okay, so some signs of that could be at the end of the day, if you have a— if you take your socks off and you have like a line around your ankle, that could be a sign of water retention in the morning. If you wake up with, like, a puffy face, that could be signs of poor lymph drainage as well. And we'll get into that a little bit more as well. So when it comes to lymph and, you know, inflammation and weight, so chronic inflammation is going to increase certain cytokines or immune markers, which can then cause insulin resistance. And congested lymph is going to then have a really hard time from removing this inflammatory debris, which can then lead to bloating, fatigue, and stubborn weight gain. Okay, so when we clear the lymph, it's going to help reduce inflammation. It's going to result in better glucose metabolism, and it's going to help with more natural fat loss. Okay? It's also going to help your body's insulin and hormones regulate more naturally, and it's going to make weight loss a lot more effortless. Okay? And so, you know, your body is always trying to protect you, right? So when it senses any type of internal stress or toxicity, it's going to hold on to fat as a buffer, right? And so once detox pathways and lymph flow opens up, your body then can relax and shift into that parasympathetic state and therefore signals to your body that it's safe to release. Okay, so we really want to support lymph flow and get, get it moving because for a lot of people it's very stagnant, right? Especially with our modern-day lifestyles where we sit a lot. We're not really contracting the muscles very much. We're not moving as much as we used to. So this is all going to lead to that inflammation and toxin buildup if the lymph is not flowing. Okay. There's also a connection between the liver, the lymph, and hormones. So the liver filters lymph-borne waste. So all those toxins. And cellular waste, and it also filters hormones. Okay? A lot of hormones are actually activated in the liver. And so if the liver is overloaded, then estrogen and other hormones start to build up, and this can lead to PMS, bloating, or slow metabolism. Okay? This is why on the program, during the release phase, one of the reasons why fats are omitted is because we really want to decrease the burden on the liver because most people's livers overloaded and overburdened. Okay, so the fat is removed from the release phase for multiple different reasons. Number one is to decrease the burden on the liver. Number two is to really eliminate exogenous fat so that we can tap into your body's own fat stores as a source of energy. Okay, so there's different reasons why we avoid fats on the release phase, and it's not that fats are bad for you. It's just that temporarily we want to reduce fats for those two reasons, and then we slowly introduce the healthy fats back in. Okay, so when we have healthy lymph, when we have a healthy liver, we're going to be able to clear out our hormones more efficiently, and we're going to be able to balance our metabolism more efficiently as well. Okay, so one, one sign of, I guess, poor estrogen clearance is if you gain a lot of weight in your hips, thighs, and buttocks area. If you experience things like fibroids, endometriosis, PMS, heavy periods, a lot of the times that can be due to something called estrogen dominance. Which estrogen dominance can be due to high estrogen and/or it can be due to progesterone being too low, which then makes it artificially perceive the estrogen as being high, right? So estrogen and progesterone have to be in balance. And like I said, if the estrogen's too high, that's going to be perceived as an imbalance. And if the progesterone's too low, then it's going to be perceived as an imbalance as well in estrogen. Okay, so, you know, clearing out the liver, giving the liver a little bit of a break, right? On the release phase, there's no alcohol either, right? So that significantly decreases the burden on the liver as well. And then other things that we would encourage you to do, of course, you know, we don't want you to make too many changes all at once, but, you know, we're really eliminating a lot of the processed foods, a lot of the refined oils and sugars. That's going to reduce the burden on the liver and then also cleaning eventually you know, as you kind of get used to implementing small little changes over time, is switching out your personal care products and cleaning products to more natural products. That's going to reduce the toxin burden on our lymph and our liver. And then a newer phenomenon that's been happening in the recent years. So, you know, I would say maybe 20, 30+ years ago, the number one cause of fatty liver used to be overconsumption of alcohol. And now the number one cause of fatty liver is actually due to refined carbohydrate intake. So what we've seen with this program is that, over time, for a lot of people who have a diagnosis of fatty liver, that improves as well because we're really reducing the intake of the refined carbohydrates and really optimizing the health of the liver. So one of the main— we're going to talk about the different areas in the body where the lymph nodes are the most concentrated. But one of the most important areas is the diaphragm. The diaphragm has a lot of the largest lymph nodes and it is considered the lymph pump. And the diaphragm sits above the largest lymph vessel, lymph reservoir. Okay. And so really focusing on the breath can really help pump that lymph, right, and get that lymph moving and shallow breaths. Right. So most of us, you know, something that we need to be more aware of is about 47% of the population breathes through their nose. And because so many of us are in fight or flight, we don't breathe properly, right? When we're in fight or flight, we breathe through our mouth, we breathe shallow, we breathe fast, and that's not going to pump that diaphragm to move up and down, which is then going to help with optimizing lymph flow. So we really got to focus on nasal breathing. We got to focus on slowing the breath down. We got to focus on breathing more from the rib cage and the abdomen versus the chest and up these upper intercostal muscles. Okay, so we really got to focus on proper breath as well to get the lymph moving. Okay. Because when the diaphragm can move through its full range of motion, we're going to be able to move that lymph properly as well. Okay. Other thing to note is that emotional tension can lock the diaphragm, which is then going to limit lymph flow and detox. Okay. So this is why emotional release, laughter, experiential breathwork can instantly restore flow. For any of you who have not done Sachin's breathwork experience, I would highly, highly encourage you to do it, whether you think you have emotions to release or not. As adults, I think we all have some sort of emotions that we need to release, whether it's some sort of microtrauma or even macrotrauma that we've experienced. A lot of that can get stuck in the diaphragm. And So I'll share a link in terms of where you can— he does it through Zoom. He does do it live occasionally as well. He is definitely going to be doing it live on January 1st, so mark your calendars. I don't have the time as of yet. It's usually probably, you know, usually does it around 10 AM, but that's something you don't want to miss because it can be profoundly healing. Okay, so The big 6 lymphatic points are— this is what Dr. Perry Nicolson refers to, refers to them as the big 6. And these big 6 lymphatic points are the foundation for flow. So the first point is above the collarbone. So both the left and the right, behind the angle of your jaw. Okay, so just like around here, shoulder joint and armpit region. So around here, the abdomen. So basically it's from the sternum to the navel. So around here, inguinal lymph nodes are basically going to be the groin area. I know you probably can't see, but the groin area and then behind your knees. So why don't we all, if you can, I know some of you watch this at work or You know, you might be driving, but if you can, I invite you to stand up and you're just going to— this is something that you can do daily. And this is something that I try to do daily in the shower. Right. I find that like habit stacking, trying to get a couple of things done at the same time can be really effective. This takes no more than 2 to 3 minutes. So you just start off with just some bouncing and shaking. Okay, just a few seconds of that. And then what you're going to do is you can go a little longer, but for demonstration purposes, what you, what you're going to do is you're going to start on the left side of your body. So you're going to start with the left collarbone and you're going to rub it 5 to 10 times. Okay. And then you're going to tap it 5 to 10 times. Okay, and then you're going to do the right side. So once again, rub 5 to 10 times and tap 5 to 10 times. Okay, and then you're going to do behind the angle of the jaw. So you can do both at the same time, right and left. Rub 5 to 10 times. Okay, and then tap 5 to 10 times. Okay, and then you're going to do the armpit shoulder joint area. So rub 5 to 10 times. This is really important for women. You know, sometimes we wear bras. You know, I would highly recommend not wearing a bra with an underwire because it traps the ability for the lymph to flow. And then you're going to tap 5 to 10 times. Do the other side and tap. Okay. And then you're going to do the abdomen. So rub 5 to 10 times and then tap gently 5 to 10 times. Okay, groin area. So that's right here. So rub 5 to 10 times and then tap 5 to 10 times. And then you're gonna go behind the knees. So rub 5 to 10 times. And tap 5 to 10 times. Okay. So this is a great little thing that you can do when you feel like you're sitting a lot. You know, if you're traveling and in an airport and, you know, you're sitting a lot, this, this is a great little exercise you can do. For some people, when they first do this, they may experience some mild detox reactions. So make sure you're well hydrated. You know, you might just start like 2 or 3 times initially and then build up to 5 to 10 times, and then you can do it more than once a day if you feel like you need to, once you kind of build yourself up. Okay, so great little exercise or, uh, manual way to help move the lymph. So these are some signs that your lymph might need some support. So as I mentioned, puffy face or hands in the morning. So if you feel like your rings are really tight in the morning, sock marks or leg heaviness, persistent bloating or cellulite, brain fog, fatigue, poor immune response. So this is a great little routine that you can do, right? Simple, powerful habits which help reduce inflammation, reset your metabolism. So hydrate with minerals or even— so one thing you can do in the morning is, and especially when you're on the release phase where, you know, you may be eating your first meal a little bit later in the day, is drinking, you know, at least I would say start with a liter, but you could do about a liter of water. You could squeeze some lemon in it, put a pinch of sea salt in it. You can even, you know, the sea salt helps with some of the trace minerals. You can do about 3 to 5 minutes of deep breathing. And it's great for you to do this throughout the day, right? So especially building these little breaks into your day-to-day can really help with resetting your nervous system as well. Taking little movement snacks, right? So walking— after I do this presentation, I want to try to get out for a little quick walk. Rebounding— so a rebounder, I'll show you what it looks like in a couple of slides here, but it's just like a little mini trampoline that you can bounce on, or you can just You know, do that little bouncing that we did with the Big 6. Stretch hourly. So stretching really helps to move that lymph. Dry brushing before your shower, which we'll talk a little bit about as well in a few slides here. And then when you're on the maintenance phase, a castor oil pack over your liver can be really helpful for getting the lymph moving as well. So if you're not familiar with a castor oil pack, I'll show you that in a few minutes here as well. So foods that help support the lymph. Think of colorful, anti-inflammatory, real whole food, right? Pretty much what you're doing on the release phase where you're focusing on lots of fruits and vegetables, omega-3s, right? So getting— if you're a vegetarian, you might need to supplement, but getting some fatty fish in, turmeric, leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables. So these are things like cruciferous and bitter vegetables like broccoli or rucola, which help with liver and lymph synergy, adding protein to each meal for better blood glucose control. And then, you know, obviously in the release phase, you're omitting the refined carbohydrates, the processed oils, and alcohol, which are going to pretty much clog your lymph. So movement for lymph, we talked about the big 6. But in addition to that, walking is really helpful. Strength training, obviously, this is something— strength training, we would recommend more so when you're off the release phase. So building muscle helps with absorbing that glucose, excess glucose out of the bloodstream. And then also when you're contracting your muscles, that helps move the lymph. Gentle cardio, so walking, some cycling, rebounding, and then yoga and breathwork can really be helpful as well for opening up the diaphragm, reducing cortisol as well. Nervous system. So once again, if you're stressed, your lymph is going to stagnate. right? So really calming your nervous system, which tells your body it's safe. So the parasympathetic state is when we have open drainage pathways. Practicing mindful breathing, prayer, meditation, or nature walks can all help shift us into the parasympathetic state, which is then going to help optimize the flow of the lymph and optimize metabolism as well. Some supplements, you know, we always want to use supplements as supplements, right? We always want to focus on the lifestyle strategies first, but some supplements that can help support the lymph is magnesium, omega-3s, trace minerals, B vitamins, certain herbs like ginger, fennel, dandelion, red clover. So you can consume these herbals in teas. Manual lymph drainage, which we talked about, right? The big 6, sauna, and then compression sessions. You can, you can do these at, you know, at the gym I go to, I know they have like these things that you can put over your leg, which can help compress the lymph as well. Some tools. So I have some of them here. So one is a dry brush. So a dry brush— I can share a video in the chat once I'm done here, but dry brushing is really helpful because it helps move the lymph. This is something you can do before you shower. You start with your feet and you brush the skin in an upward pattern towards the heart. So you start with the feet, then you go on to your legs, your thighs, then you can move on to your arms. So once again, you want to go towards the heart. You can do it on your belly, your thighs, your buttocks area as well. This little brush here. So I have this one here, which I'll show you once I stop the screen share so you can see it a little better. But this brush I've been loving, I just bought this maybe like a month ago or so. But every morning when I wake up, I use— this is a dry brush for your face. And so I just, you know, brush my face with it kind of in an upward fashion. You can do it on your neck. And you just kind of go in upward fashion that can really help move the lymph around your face. This little tool here, I have one here. Here it is. This is called a Flowpresso. So this or Flowvibrate, sorry, Flowvibrate. So it, it can help move the lymph around your face. Right. So it's just a little tool that vibrates and helps move the lymph around your neck area and your face. So pretty handy to keep on your desk if you have a desk job. And then this is what the rebounder looks like. Okay, so key takeaways, you know, stagnant lymph is going to cause inflammation, which is then going to cause weight resistance. Restoring lymph flow is going to help with detoxification, hormones, and effortless weight release. Lymph is not just about detox, it's really about your entire metabolic system, okay? And it really can be the missing link for a lot of people, which commonly gets overlooked. So quick action steps. As I said, start your morning with mineral water and some deep breathing. Try to take a 10-minute walk after meals for lymph balance. And then when you're on the release— off the release phase, you can try castor oil packs as well. So let me stop my screen share here. I'll show you what the castor oil packs look like. The ones we like are from a company called Queen of Thrones. So if you haven't visited our store, this is our new store, which I would encourage you all to visit. So when you— let me share my screen. So this store is only applicable if you live in the US. If you live in Canada, I'll send you the links. I'll put them in the chat as well. But you can find the dry brush here. So the dry brush that I showed is— sorry, it's just thinking here. This is the, the dry brush. It's got copper bristles. Okay, and then the castor oil pack. So castor oil, you want to make sure that it's organic and that it's hexane-free. So the brand that we really like is by a brand called Queen of Thrones. Okay, so this is— this here is the whole kit. So it's the castor oil pack, which is that cotton cloth that you see here, plus the organic castor oil. So this is— this is for kids, but, you know, there's one for adults as well. It's also— they have a neck one, so if you have any thyroid nodules, it can be used for that. So this is basically the, the kit, and the, the castor oil pack you can reuse. You can wash it and reuse it as well. Okay. And then eventually it does get a little, you know, gross, so you'll have to replace it, but it can last for quite a long time. Okay, quite a few uses. I've had— I've just recently discarded mine and opened up a new one, but it lasts for quite a long time. So any questions about anything? Questions, comments, you can put them in the chat. And if there are no questions, then I will let you all go on with your day. Okay, well, have a wonderful rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend, and we'll see you all next week. Bye everyone. Have a great day.