detox

This post is a continuation of the discussion of Detoxification Notes (Science Not Woo-Woo).

Correct me if I am wrong on this part, but I see a real problem with chronic low-carb diets if one is concerned with detoxification. As Dr. Walsh explained, toxins are found everywhere and with everyone. They are in our fat. Which means they are in the fat of the animals we eat. They share the same air we do. They too are exposed to heavy metals and environmental toxins.

Couldn’t ingesting anything but the leanest cuts of meat be an issue?

One of the concerns with low-carb diets is the negative impact on the thyroid. What if a partial explanation is both the intake and release of these toxins on a constant basis? Are toxins associated with the “low-carb flu” symptoms?

What if the heavy exposure and release of toxins is a contributing factor to those plateauing on low-carb? Especially if they are not consuming enough of the higher fiber foods needed to help remove those toxins.

The Research

After putting the first draft of this post together, I found this article.

How to remove environmental pollutants from raw meat

The headline is not interesting, except to say that cooking lowers the toxin load, but by how much and which toxins were questions the article did not answer directly, except to say that cooking in a manner that removes the fat is ideal for lowering toxin exposure.

I did find these interesting quotes.

The potential environmental toxins include inorganic elements such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, PAHs, PFAs, dioxins, pesticides and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), industrial chemicals which are viewed as one of the twelve most harmful pollutants produced by humans, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Most of these substances are fat-soluble, so any food with high fat contents accumulates higher levels of micropollutants than plant matter. “PCBs and other POPs accumulate in the fatty parts of meat because they are fat soluble. Reduced consumption of meat fats will reduce the intake of PCBs. On the other hand, eating meat with a high fat content can result in a significant exposure to PCBs,” the scientist explained.

Also:

Overall, the level of contamination in raw and unprocessed meat is below that of fish and seafood, “although it is much higher than that of fruits, vegetables and legumes,” says Domingo.

The entire article is worth reading. However, the article misses the obvious method for reducing toxin load in meat, which is by eating the leanest cuts.

My Takeaway

Low-carb diets also have two other potential issues. They aren’t as nutrient dense or have as much fiber as higher-carb diets. Of course, there will be exceptions, but I’d stack my Peasant Diet, which is full of legumes and potatoes, up against any ketogenic or all-carnivore diet to measure which is more detoxifying.

Am I wrong?

Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli

In the previous post, Detoxification Notes (Science Not Woo-Woo), I shared what I learned about detoxing the body from the Energy Blueprint Podcast.  A brief summary would be:

1. In order to detox, one must be dieting.
2. When you diet, you trigger off a detox process and it would be wise to plan for ways to support that process.
3. Not dealing with released toxins could result in those toxins being reabsorbed elsewhere which might create other health problems.

Since several posts on this blog deal with fat loss, I wanted to revisit the topic with this new information.

Finding the Correct Caloric Deficit

In the podcast, Dr. Walsh stated that his 10-day detox program uses a 35% reduction in calories. Let us put a pin in this number. He likely has data for many clients, so we can use this number as a good starting point.

If you drop calories too low, then it will be more difficult to use digestion as a transport of toxins. You know, less input = less output. If you don’t drop calories enough, fewer toxins will be liberated. Finding that balance will also depend upon on the length of the diet.

The Potato Diet and Hack (+ Detoxification)

The Potato Diet is almost perfect. When I hack, my calories drop by about 50% for 3-5 days. If I eat 2000 grams of potatoes (a little more than 4 pounds) that works out to 36-44 grams of fiber, depending upon if the potato is peeled.

Add in a medium sized head of cooked green cabbage for just 378 calories with an impressive 16 grams of fiber. All that cabbage may also reduce your potato intake. And similar to the potato, green cabbage is filling and has a very low flavor signal.

I’m pretty sure one could gorge themselves on boiled potatoes and cooked green cabbage and be in a significant caloric deficit.

The Peasant Diet

My peasant diet of potatoes, lean protein, legumes, and cabbage seems spot on for detoxification. As long as I focus on a creating a deficit. Dr. Walsh advises having a small eating window, such as 8 hours. That would accomplish it for sure with me.

Fasting Mimicking Diet (+ Detoxification)

As I write this post, I am on Day 4 of my 3rd Fasting Mimicking Diet. Due to the severe protein restriction requirements, my calories are coming in around 750 a day. My diet is just avocados, green cabbage, and leeks.

Yes, I am hungry, but the primary goal of an FMD is not toxin removal, but autophagy + apoptosis, and a spike in stem cell production.  You can read more about the FMS here:

Fasting Mimicking Diet Overview

This diet is not optimal for toxin removal, but it is somewhat supportive.

My diet for 5 days.

Scheduling Sweat

In previous fasts, I have felt very cold. I also didn’t feel like moving much. In light of the new information on detoxification, sitting around was not the ideal course of action. My current gym does not have a sauna and I don’t live in a hot area, so I got creative.

I did some searching for gyms with saunas and I found one that was offering a 5-day free pass. The same duration as my current FMD. Score!

If you don’t have access to a sauna, you have a problem. You need to sweat and you do it while operating on less food. The more you exercise, the more hungry you will be. On the surface, it looks like one should save their more aggressive fasts for the heat of the summer and the shallow ones during the winter.

Tips and Questions

In the previous post, there were 2 good comments.

1. Time your blood donation after a detox to eliminate more toxins.
2. Detailed herbal support advice.

Dr. Walsh recommends using a lot of fiber during a diet detox, but he didn’t specify which type. Perhaps it is detailed in his pay program? I bought a basic fiber at the supplement store that didn’t have protein, but I was overwhelmed by the number of choices. Is there a best choice, be it supplement or specific food?

My plan right now is to continue doing an FMD every month or so. I’ll probably do fewer in the winter and I’ll try and figure out a way to time sauna access. In between the FMD, I will do variations of potato and peasant.

Are there any others tips that we can add to this post?

In the previous post, Fear of a Toxic Planet, I described my views on toxins and briefly on detoxification. I said:

Toxins are stored in our body fat. The best way to reduce toxin load is to not be heavy. This means if you are already heavy, you will need a plan and some willpower to get lean. You can’t buy that at the Farmers Market or Whole Foods.

It turns out my view is both correct and incomplete. The Energy Blueprint Podcast recently had a FASCINATING show about the science of detoxification with Dr. Byran Walsh. I have always been a skeptic of detox plans, as I see so much fear being peddled for profit. Thankfully, Dr. Walsh was skeptical as well. He dug deep into the literature and read over 300 studies on the topic.

How to Detox Your Body with Real Science (Instead of Pseudoscience)

I took some notes.

Toxins Are Real and They Are Everywhere

Dr. Walsh explained how they can find toxins in everyone. People all around the world, including newborn infants, have some exposure. Toxins are everywhere. We are exposed to them in the air (driving), the soil, food, water, cleaning products, and possibly even supplements. Even some “green” cleaning products can have toxins.

So spending a bunch of money at Whole Foods may help you a little, but not completely. At one point in the interview, Dr. Walsh mentioned that poorer people are more likely to get toxins from smoking, whereas upper-class people are more likely to toxins related to gardening.

There are too many variables when it comes to toxicity. Much is still unknown. If you believe that “clean-living” is enough to keep toxins away, you are mistaken.

Toxins Cause Real Problems

There are numerous studies connecting environmental toxins to different health issues. Some of the ones mentioned include:

• cancers, lymphoma, leukemia
• Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s
• Diabetes
• Cardiovascular disease
• ADHD, autism
• poor fertility

Some toxins when released have a negative effect on thyroid hormone, which can cause a host of other issues.

Your initial reaction might be to pay for a toxicity test, but tests can be flawed. The reason is during periods of reduced calories toxins are released from body fat, which causes the numbers to go up. Then in periods of normal or excess calories, toxins remain in fat, which could under-represent toxic load.

A better course of action would be to assume exposure and respond accordingly.

Photo by Scott Rodgerson

Caloric Deficits Are Required to Liberate Toxins

There are two classes of toxins: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Water-soluble are easily eliminated from the body. On the other hand, fat-soluble require the burning of body fat, which means a reduction in calories for some period of time.

There are many detox plans on the market that do not have a fat-loss component. Do not fall for them. Lipolysis is required to liberate fat-soluble toxins.

Many supplements that are peddled as detoxifying actually interfere with the detoxification process at higher doses. Green tea extract and curcumin were mentioned. Listen to the show for a deeper explanation. The short version is you can’t pay for some magic pill or powder to make the toxins disappear.

How to Detox According to Dr. Walsh

As I stated at the top of the post, my view that fat loss was the way to eliminate toxins was both correct and incomplete. What I learned is simply liberating the toxin from the fat cell is not always sufficient to expel them from the body. Sometimes toxins liberated in one area get reabsorbed in another area.

Some toxins get peed or pooped out. And some get sweated out. So in addition to being in a caloric deficit, sweating is key to any detoxification. Dr. Walsh recommends using a sauna for 30-minutes a day during a detox and he goes as far to say that he would not have anyone go on a fat-loss diet without drastically supporting detoxification and this includes sauna use. The type of sauna is not important. Sweating is a key pathway for removing toxins that must be utilized.

But before you kick off a detox plan, Dr. Walsh stresses to be healthy first. Meaning having a diet rich in nutrients, which will help with the detoxification pathways. I’m guessing the readers of this blog already are eating a nutrient-dense diet, but for the new readers, it is good to know.

Foods that will help transport the toxins out include leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, and sprouted mung beans. The supplement St. Johns Wort speeds up the detoxification pathway. Higher fiber is recommended and activated charcoal can also assist.

Speculation

Before the show ended, I had already started connecting the dots in my head. If someone is losing a lot of weight without using a detoxification support they might make their health worse in the long-run. Especially someone yo-yo dieting that is continually liberating toxins, but not expelling them.

Dieters often experience a reduced metabolism. Not just from having a smaller body, but more than expected. Some theories state the body learns to become more efficient at a lower calorie level. What if it was more than that? If certain toxins can negatively impact thyroid and we know this to be true, then this could be a piece of the metabolic puzzle.

I have more thoughts on this topic, which I will save for the next post.