Spring Clean Your Body: 10 Steps to a Healthy & Natural Detox
As the winter weather slowly starts to fade away and the regrowth of green leaves, grass and the blooming colorful flowers start popping up, you may be thinking it's a great time to reflect on your own personal growth and health.
In fact, you may consider doing a detox to feel refreshed in the new season.
Why is important to detox?Living constantly on-the-go not only causes your stress levels to increase, but you may not be able to eat as healthy as you'd like (which may cause chemicals from your food to make their way through your body) and you may also be exposed to toxins caused by pollution in your area.
When you detox, you're giving your body and mind a healthy and fresh start. Your body will get rid of the excess stress, chronic fatigue, toxins and become nourished and full of energy. However, a detox also doesn't have to just be from the foods you consume. You can also detox your environment to help you live a happier and healthier life.
What are 10 steps to a healthy and natural detox for Spring?
- Meditate and focus on the positive
- Switch to natural personal care products
- Limit your alcohol intake
- Be careful of what drugs you take
- Use natural cleaning products in your home
- Remove contaminants from your shower
- Drink more pure water
- Quit smoking
- Exercise
- Eat fresh, whole organic foods
Ellen Antoine, DO, FACEP, shares why you need a detox and the 10 steps for one that will get you feeling your best.
Featuring:
Ellen Antoine, DO, FACEP
Dr. Ellen Antoine completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her medical degree from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In May 1997, Dr. Antoine took first place as the Resident Presenter at the SAEM Regional CPC Competition. She then went on to win first place as the Resident Presenter at the ACEP National CPC Competition in October of 1997. In June 1998, Dr. Antoine was awarded with the William and Margaret Menin Award for Humanistic and Academic Achievements from Albert Einstein Medical Center.
Following residency Dr. Antoine took a position as faculty in an Emergency Medicine Residency Program at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia. She was named "Most Outstanding Teaching Faculty Member" both 1998 -1999 as well as 1999–2000. In 2002, Dr. Antoine was named a Fellow in American College of Emergency Physicians. She is dually board certified in Emergency Medicine (FACEP) and Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM). Dr. Antoine was one of the first 100 practitioners to be certified in Functional Medicine by the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFMCP) in Federal Way, Washington.
After years of health issues plaguing her family, Dr. Antoine wanted to understand the underlying causes rather than just treat the symptoms. These are the tenets of Functional Medicine – An integrative, science-based healthcare approach that treats illness and promotes wellness by focusing assessment on the biochemically unique aspects of each patient, and then individually tailoring interventions to restore physiological, psychological, and structural balance.
Through addressing root issues with appropriate diet, nutritional supplementation, optimizing detoxification, and making lifestyle improvements, Dr. Antoine was able to reverse her diagnosis of Lupus, an autoimmune condition, as well as heal from chronic infections. She was also able to improve behavioral concerns and academic weaknesses in several of her children and restore health to all of her family members.
Because friends and other family members noticed the significant improvements in their health and requested consultation, Dr. Antoine began a small medical practice out of her home where she saw patients for a couple of years. In 2011, Vine Healthcare, LLC was officially founded. Dr. Antoine is committed to and passionate about partnering with her patients on their journey to optimal wellness.
Her goal is to empower others with the knowledge of how to best care for their own bodies. She loves to educate others, including other practitioners, about the role lifestyle and diet play in health and healing.
Transcription:
RadioMD Presents: HER Radio | Original Air Date: March 19, 2015
Host: Michelle King Robson & Pam Peeke, MD
It's all about her. Her body. Her mind. Her wellness. Her sex. Her relationships. Her aging. Her beauty. It's HER Radio starring acclaimed entrepreneur and women's advocate, Michelle King Robson, and leading health expert, the doc who walks the talk, Dr. Pam Peeke.
PAM: Alright, Michelle, it's spring cleaning time.
MICHELLE: Oh, boy.
PAM: And, I don't mean your closets, either.
MICHELLE: I'm sorry.
PAM: I'm talking about your body and, oh, my gosh. We're looking in the mirror and we're going, "Oh, we've been hiding it all winter."
MICHELLE: That's a different story.
PAM: Now, we've got to whip out the shorts.
MICHELLE: Packing on the pounds. Now, we've got to get into the shorts and the bathing suit. It's time to clean the body out.
PAM: Alright. So, now it's time to do the spring clinging of your body.
We have Dr. Ellen Antoine, who has a background in emergency medicine as well as being one of the first practitioners in functional medicine by the Institute of Functional Medicine. One of the things we want to do, Dr. Antoine, is we want to understand how can we now look at our body and say, "Hmm. What are these steps we have to take to be able spring clean it?"
So, welcome to HER Radio. What is the first step?
DR. ANTOINE: Well, thanks for having me. First, I'd like to just say, it's important for us to understand. We hear the word "detox" and try to get rid of things in our body, we think of it as a fad and understanding what detox is, is really important. So, the body naturally detoxes on a regular basis. We urinate, we have bowel movements, we perspire, we exhale. The liver does something called "biotransformation". We have lymphatic drainage. I even consider dreaming the body's natural way of sort of detoxing from emotional junk. So, you said "spring cleaning". It's spring and this is the best time of year to really think about optimizing all of those detox pathways in your body.
PAM: Well, let's take a moment now. There are a number of things we want to bring up. So, the first one is you say, "Eat fresh, whole organic foods," is one of the first steps, right?
DR. ANTOINE: We need certain phytonutrients which we find in fruits and vegetables, all the different colors of the rainbow, which I tell my patients, they should be eating on a regular basis, we need to make sure that those foods are organic. Anything that's processed is going to have preservatives, artificial colors, flavors and other additives. Also, when we talk fruits and vegetables, many of them are sprayed with pesticides or are even genetically modified. So, we need things that are organic and grow in the ground, pretty much.
MICHELLE: So, let's talk exercise. Dr. Peeke, this is your specialty.
PAM: Get up and start marching, Michelle, for crying out loud.
MICHELLE: Start moving. Get moving. We know exercise is really important, right? I mean, circulation, overall health and all those things. It helps relieve the stress. Then, let's talk "quit smoking". Tell us about smoking.
DR. ANTOINE: Well, there are over 4,000 chemicals that are found in tobacco and, obviously, we've all heard the risks of lung cancer and it increase your ability of developing all sorts of different toxicities and cancer risks and decreases your ability to detox through all those pathways we talked about.
MICHELLE: Got it.
PAM: Okay. Cigarettes. Alright. So, we've got the eat fresh; whole organic foods; exercise; knock off the smoking; clearly, drink more water.
MICHELLE: That's me!
PAM: And, I don't mean diet sodas.
DR. ANTOINE: Correct.
PAM: Because, for crying out loud. Enough already. Then, remove contaminants from your shower. What's that about?
MICHELLE: Oh, that's toxins.
DR. ANTOINE: Yes. There are toxins in our water.
MICHELLE: Allergens.
DR. ANTOINE: Even when you talk about drinking water, you want to make sure your water's filtered.
MICHELLE: Exactly.
DR. ANTOINE: There are a lot of toxins and garbage found in our drinking water. On that note, make sure you drink at least half your body weight in fluid ounces of filtered water a day. Those same toxins are in our shower water and we absorb things through our skin, so there are toxins that can get into our body just by taking a shower.
MICHELLE: Yes.
DR. ANTOINE: So, have clean water. Have a filtered system in your house.
PAM: Oh, that's so important.
MICHELLE: But, it's also what goes on your skin, right? Your hair and everything, so using natural cleaning products, too, in your home is another thing that I'm a proponent of because you need that and we don't always know what those things are, so give us one tip there, too.
DR. ANTOINE: So, one of the simplest things to do is clean with vinegar and water.
MICHELLE: Ah! That's what we do.
DR. ANTOINE: And not use anything that has tons of chemicals that you can't pronounce. Most of those things you can't pronounce are bad for you.
MICHELLE: Amen!
DR. ANTOINE: Things with parabens, things with petroleum, ammonia; all sorts of things in there that are just bad for our body. As natural is clean and as minimal is best.
PAM: I love it. Then, moving on to the next thing. Be careful what drugs you take. Well, that's fairly self-evident. First of all, do you need the drug? Come on.
MICHELLE: That's right.
PAM: Whether it's over the counter or it's from a physician. You know, think 900 times before you take anything into your body like that.
MICHELLE: Amen. And know your body.
PAM: So, that's important. Oh, man. Then, how about that alcohol intake, ladies, with your little binge drinking on the weekends.
DR. ANTOINE: Drink your water instead. Drink your water.
PAM: Hello!
MICHELLE: It's "wine o'clock", isn't it? Oh, I'm sorry.
DR. ANTOINE: Yes.
PAM: Just stop it, Michelle. Stop it right now. My god, you're encouraging them. Then, switch to natural personal care products. Oh, Michelle, this is right up your line.
MICHELLE: Oh, is it ever.
DR. ANTOINE: This fits right into what we were talking about with cleaning products. We don't want to have things that we put on our skin; we put on our hair; we put make up on; we clean our house with. It is said that before a woman even walks out the door in the morning to go to work or go about her day, she's come in contact with over 140 different toxic chemicals.
MICHELLE: It's crazy.
DR. ANTOINE: We can clean up our diet, we can drink all the water, we can exercise. We don't want to, then, pour a whole bunch of toxins into our system by the things that we put on our hair, put on our face. The things you use for your face and for your hair should be things that you'd be willing to eat.
MICHELLE: That gets into allergens as well, so I'm just going to tell our listeners that we just created a new website called "SkinSafeProducts.com". It is extraordinary because you can find things that actually work for you and don't work against you. So, everybody needs to know that. We just launched it last week, so we're very excited about it.
DR. ANTOINE: That's exciting.
MICHELLE: I couldn't agree with you more. It's very exciting.
PAM: And, there's an app for that. You've got an app, too.
MICHELLE: There is! There's an app coming out. It will be out probably this week. Apple is just waiting to approve it and it's called "Skin Safe" and it's going to revolutionize the way we think about our skin and what we use on our hair, skin and nails. Everything. So, let's talk about the last one, which is "meditate and focus on the positive". Talk to us about that.
DR. ANTOINE: So, I think that this is crucial. We can tell people to change their diet and make all sorts of different changes and there are tons of studies and research that show the way we think and the way we feel has a tremendous impact on our health. So, I ask all of my patients to spend some time each day writing what I call a "gratitude journal" and meditating--whatever that may be, whether it's prayer or something else—on the positive. But, the gratitude journal, I suggest people write 2-5 things each day that bring them joy or that they're thankful for and spend time focusing on that.
MICHELLE: I couldn't agree more.
PAM: I want to make sure everyone knows that we're talking to Dr. Ellen Antoine. She is a specialist in functional medicine. It's helped us understand the 10 steps for a healthy and natural, as it were, detox. It's spring cleaning time, folks. It's eat fresh, whole organic foods; exercise; get that cigarette out of your mouth; drink pure water; remove the contaminants from your shower—that's right! They've got all kinds of toxins in that water. Use natural cleaning products in your home. Be careful of what drugs you take. All kinds of drugs—not just what the doc gives you. Limit your alcohol intake and switch to natural personal care products. Meditate and focus on the focus on the positive.
Thank you so much, Dr. Antione, for helping guide the HER Radio listeners. I'm Dr. Pam Peeke with Michelle King Robson.
MICHELLE: I think one of the key things you just said was having gratitude and being grateful every single day and that's what all of us at HER Radio need to be doing and that just keeps you well and healthy.
You're listening to HER Radio on RadioMD. Follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook.Stay well.
