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Four Mistakes Most People Make Regarding Their Health

by Debra Koelsch

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NOT DOING THEIR RESEARCH

With the accessibility of the internet, it has been much easier to find valuable health, fitness, and nutritional information. There is no reason to not take advantage of this when it comes to managing your own health. Health professionals do not always have time to keep up on the latest studies. This is why it’s important to know how to do your own research. Learning the science is important if you want to avoid misinformation. The internet is full of bad health advice. Magazines are full of bad health advice. Television is full of bad health advice. When you are doing research, it is vital that you know how to tell a good source from a bad one. People fail at dieting all the time because they follow bad advice from the internet, or from people they know who “mean well.” Some are even health practitioners! The best source of information is peer reviewed studies. These are widely accepted as reliable by the medical industry. When viewing a study, it’s important to note the sample size (how many people were involved in the study), and the control group (the group of people who participated in the study, but took a placebo or did not otherwise partake in anything concerning the study. They just existed to show baseline data).

BLINDLY BELIEVING EVERYTHING THEIR DOCTOR TELLS THEM

People who do not ask questions, and blindly believe whatever their doctor tells them are uninformed patients. It is important to ask as many questions as you can to avoid confusion. While doctors mean well, they do sometimes make mistakes. This is why people seek out second opinions before making important, life-changing medical decisions. While it is important to find a doctor you trust, it is equally important to do your own research and bring any concerning information you find to your doctor for clarification. As mentioned above, you want to use reliable sources like medical studies, and not a blog like this one! ALWAYS fact check!

WAITING UNTIL SOMETHING GOES WRONG BEFORE TAKING CONTROL OF THEIR OWN HEALTH

Whenever you wait until something goes wrong, you are already behind the eight ball. DO NOT DO THIS!!! Just imagine if you got a diagnosis for advanced stage cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. Now, imagine that you could have done something about it sooner to avoid the uphill battle you will now face due to neglecting your health. Disease does not happen overnight. Disease happens due to lifestyle choices and environmental factors. If you knew this was causing health problems, you would have changed something, right? Nobody wants to be sick and tired all of the time. If you are living a healthy lifestyle and something goes wrong, you have more time to take corrective action than if you waited until your symptoms are severe. Symptoms are the body’s way of sending an alert that something is wrong. Symptoms should never be ignored.

ALWAYS THINKING THAT EVERYTHING IS OKAY

If you ask people, most of them will say that they are “already eating healthy” or “already living a healthy lifestyle.” I hear this all the time, and then when I see some of their lifestyle choices, I know that this is simply not true. They, however, think they are doing okay even though they just walked out of the bakery or fast-food restaurant for the third time this week. Many people think they are already living a healthy lifestyle when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. They are perplexed as to why they are always tired, or have unexplained aches and pains. They might even be doing a lot of things right. But, the truth is… there is always a trigger for disease. It is usually not just one thing, but a combination of things that caused your “toxic bucket” to overflow. We are constantly exposed to toxins in the air, water, soil, food, personal care products, workplace, home, and school. Toxins are accumulative. We must always be proactive about keeping as many toxins out as we can. It is time to drain the bucket. “Draining the bucket” is something that needs to be done periodically, but that is a topic for another blog.

What Happens if Detox is done improperly?

by Debra Koelsch

If you’re thinking about doing a detox, there are many factors that need to be considered. Detox can become dangerous if the body is not prepared ahead of time.

Who should NOT do a detox?

  • Pregnant or nursing women

  • People with silver amalgam fillings

  • People with Diabetes Type I

  • People who lack nutrients

  • People with eating disorders

  • People who are sick or have infections

  • Children

When you do a detox, the body grabs onto toxins and attempts to bind them up with the assistance of binders and chelators, and then flush them out of your system. It is important to make sure you prepare the body before attempting any type of detox. There are situations that will make things worse when you try and detox.

When Elimination Pathways Are Blocked

Poor lifestyle habits, diet, lack of nutrients, chronic constipation, dehydration, trauma, and exposure to toxins can slow down the process of eliminating toxins from the body. These can cause the body to go into cellular danger response (fight or flight). It is important for the body to be able to eliminate the toxins, whether it be through sweat, urine, bile, etc. If your elimination pathways are blocked, the toxins have nowhere to go. They will redistribute within the body. The body stores toxins in the fat cells.

When It Is Done Too Quickly

When someone is overweight, and they want to lose weight quickly by radically changing their diet and doing a detox, this can cause problems within the body. The body stores toxins in the fat cells, and if you lose weight too quickly all of those toxins dump out into the body. This will make you feel sick, especially if the liver is already overworked. It is important to prepare and have a plan before doing any type of detox.

When It Is Not Done For A Long Enough Period Of Time

Short term detox programs yield short term results. To do a proper detox, it could take up to two years, depending upon how healthy you were when you started. People who are in fairly good health may be able to detox within six month. We are exposed to toxins every day from the air, water, soil, food, environment, and the everyday products that we use. These are accumulative. Small exposures are not the concern, the concern is that we are exposed to toxins DAILY and if they are not removed from the body, they will eventually make us sick. It is only a matter of time. It is beneficial to do a detox a few times per year to keep your toxic bucket from overflowing. Unlike an overflowing sink, we cannot simple “turn off” the toxins. If you left the water on in the sink, eventually the water would overflow. This is what happens in the body, too. When your toxic bucket overflows, that’s when you experience symptoms. If left unchecked, some toxins can cross the blood-brain barrier and end up in the brain. This can lead to brain fog, Alzheimer’s, and other undesirable results.

Not Drinking Enough Water

The body needs water! If you do not drink enough water, the body cannot effectively carry out its normal functions. This is especially important for the liver. If bile is unable to move, it can turn into sludge and block your elimination pathways. This happens when the bile stays in the gall bladder for too long. Water helps to flush toxins out of the body, so it is important to drink a lot of water during a detox. You should drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day. For example, if you weigh 100 pounds, you should be drinking 50 ounces of water per day.

Detoxing with Silver Amalgams

Often times, people don’t notice any symptoms from having mercury amalgams (silver fillings) in the teeth. But, if you are attempting to do a proper detox with silver fillings, all you will do is pull the mercury out of the fillings and circulate it within the body. This can be extremely dangerous. Mercury leaches out of these filling every time you chew, every time you eat something hot or cold, and if you grind your teeth. These fillings also weaken teeth. It is imperative to have these properly removed by a SMART Certified Biological dentist before doing the detox. If you have unexplained symptoms, it very well could be from these fillings. The immune system constantly launches attacks against foreign objects in the body, so it is definitely something worth investigating. I, personally, have had ten of them removed before I started the program.

Detoxing When You Have An Infection

This is a very bad idea because the immune system is already dealing with an overburden of toxins that are being released into the bloodstream. If you already have an infection, your immune system has less resources available to deal with both of these issues and it will be taxed. This might cause additional symptoms. This is also what happens if you have silver fillings. The immune system is constantly dealing with the release of mercury into the bloodstream. Due to the proximity of the teeth to the sinus cavity, much of it goes into the brain, which is why it may not show up on a test if you get tested for mercury. If you are currently going through medical treatments (such as chemotherapy), it’s important to consult your doctor before attempting any type of detox. It is better to wait until you are finished with the treatments.

Ignoring The Half Life

Supplements and medication have a half life. This is the point where the potency of the substance is reduced by 50%. There are certain supplements that need to be taken within that period of time to keep the toxins from redistributing in the body. If a supplement has a half life of 6 hours, you must take it every 6 hours. If it has a half life of 4 hours, you must take it every 4 hours. Failure to do this will lead to redistribution of the toxins.

What To Expect

During a detox, the body dumps toxins. You may have a few days where you don’t feel good. This is good, because you know the toxins are mobilized and ready to be removed from the body. You may also feel some withdrawal symptoms. When you switch from a diet of highly processed foods to a healthy diet, the body goes into withdrawals because junk food is addictive. If there is bad bacteria in the gut, you might have cravings for junk food during this time because this is what feeds the bad bacteria in the gut. When you release toxins into the bloodstream, the immune system launches a response. This is called the Herxheimer Effect. This might cause you to feel nausea, bloating, headaches, joint pain, skin irritation, brain fog, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, or other symptoms. These symptoms usually last about a week. Sometimes this will cause people to give up and think that the detox did not work. Nothing could be further from the truth.