Hi there,
First of all, I want to congratulate you step into my world. Never in my life I would thought that I would be sitting in front of computer and purging out my feelings and opinions. As an ESL student whom busted his rear end and managed to put himself thru college and doctor degree, I wish you find my blog funny but yet informative. My goal of blogging is to express what I see “health” thru the lans of holistic doctor with training in both chiropractor and functional medicine.
Throughout the blog if you see any grammatical errors… well, just let it be. Cut me some slack alright? As if writing the blog itself is not hard enough.. alright enough of that, let’s get back to the point.
First topic we gonna talk about is……drum roll please…….. Detox!
Detox, what detox??
Well, day in and day out, we are exposed to toxins around us at any given moment; such as lead in the paint, fluoride in the water, mercury in the fish, GMO, refine sugar/carb, and not to mention all the second hand smoke and fumes up in the air just to name a few (scare yet? no worries, ICON is here to rescue you!). These heavy metals and chemicals (which I grouped them “toxins”) have strong impact to our bodies. As a trained functional medicine practitioner, we have learned how these toxins can cause hormones in the body go haywire and can potentially caused wide arrayed of chronic diseases such ash high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, thyroid issue and depression just to name a few.
There are 2 phases for detoxification; phase 1 – accumulated all toxins within the body and phase 2 – eliminate these toxins out. When we heard the term “Detox” we usually associated it with starving yourself and drink only shakes. Not this one. In this 21 days detox program, we want you to EAT ALL DAY because your body needs proper nutrition and energy to do this, but with right foods in conjunction of organic whole food supplements and shakes. It is a very specific protocol which design to help you stay full and also eliminate toxins the same time (really??).
Last week, I was fortunate enough to lead a small group of 12 warriors (yes, including myself) to conquered this 21 days detox/transformation process provided by Standard Process company and boy oh boy, did we get more than what we signed up for. Let me tell you this, the journey itself was challenging but the result were STUNNING! Feedback from these warriors including sleep better, poo better, more energy throughout the day without afternoon crash, better skin, and someone even lost 14 lbs!!! what did he had in his body before the detox, a nuclear plant??? Personally, not only i have lost 7 pounds but i have also gained so much from this and here are the 3 take away points:
- You can live without coffee. Yes, you heard me right. When people say they can’t live without coffee or need coffee to wake up is usually a false statement. I am sure you didn’t have coffee before you were one year old but you still lived to this day don’t you? The key is, if you eat the right foods such fruits/veggie and keep your sugar consistent throughout the day, you will avoid the highs and lows and afternoon crash. Drinking coffee is a luxury but not a necessity.
- you can live without refined carbohydrate, including rice and noodle. Ok, for this one, the difficulty is extremely high for me (being an asian descent) and i am gonna put it up there along with climbing mount everest (which i haven’t been). But guess what, I did it, and it turned out that we really DON”T need these refined carbs. In essence, these refined carb are really just empty calories, cause huge inflammation and turn into fat cells in the liver in the body, so why eat it?
- Going back to caveman style is REALLY good for you. I consider myself a relative heathy person. I ran bunch of 1/2 marathons and a couple of full marathons, I work out, watch what I eat most of the time and I sleep good. But I want to see what this detox has affect on me so I experimented myself with pre and post blood chemistry blood panel testing. The Pre test was done on 2/17/16 and Post was done on 3/28/16. The result? See for yourself. Numbers don’t lie!
- Total cholesterol dropped from 209 to 171, a 38 points reduction.
- Triglycerides dropped from 53 to 41, a 12 points reduction.
- LDL cholesterol dropped from 118 to 86, a 32 points reduction.
Cholesterol, is what I considered one of the most controversial and conspiracy topic in medial health. While most people seeing it as the bad guy, but we need them to repair wounds and hormone production. Without them, we are in a serious trouble. However, just like everything else, too much and too little is no good. Medical has been long to say too much cholesterol is linked to heart disease (based off a faulty and disaster research done half century ago), so they reduced the cholesterol range down to 100-199 while I am comfortable of it being around 220 level with my functional training background.
It is better, faster, cheaper, and way safer as compared to the cholesterol drugs you have been taking. Best part? NO side effects!! But wait, you tell me changing your lifestyle is too hard and difficult, but are you really going to use that as an excuses with these results within a month? Imagine how much more impactful if you keep it for longer.
There is an old Chinese saying: “there is no ugly woman but just lazy women“; I think it can also be apply to health as well.
In my opinion, everyone should do this especially if you have chronic conditions such as heart problem, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol. thyroid disease, obese, depression, autoimmune disease just to name a few. But please do consult with your physician (like me) to make sure your body is ready for this.
If you know anyone that is having challenges/difficulties, or perhaps even yourself want to get better for your health, connect with me and let me see how I can best assist you.
Alright, I think this is good point to stop for my first ever blog. Hope you enjoyed it and until next time, stay out of trouble.
Yours in health,
Dr. Wu, D.C.
