Tailoring Your Detox to Your Personal Level of Health and Lifestyle
Conceptualizing a successful personal detox program is very simple: One must reduce the level of toxins coming in and simultaneously, increase (or at least get out of the way of ) the body's ability to process the toxins currently stored in tissue.
There are as many combinations of what can be done to achieve this as there are people reading these pages. That's why we don't advocate a particular one. You're the one who needs to decide what makes sense for you.
The first step is to decide how you're going to reduce your exposure to toxins. After reading Sea of Toxins and its connecting pages, you'll have a better idea of how to reduce the number of toxins that are coming into your body. Though you can start today and make rapid improvements, this is not simply a weekend project. It should be considered an awareness that you gradually improve upon from now on.
Then you need to foster your ability to process toxins. There are three bottomline areas that you have to address, because all effective detoxification programs include these aspects. They are a) improvement in diet (see healthy diet); b) moderate exercise (could be as little as 15 minutes of walking a day or gentle yoga); and c) balanced supplementation (see essential supplements).
Within this basic framework there's room for lots of personalization in the areas of diet and exercise. The area of supplements, however, is a basic. The supplementation aspect has to do with the biochemical needs of the body to process out toxins (see How the Body Detoxifies). Still, within this area of the basic natural chemical ingredients that the body needs to change fat-soluable toxic substances into "excretable" water-soluable substances, there is variation in the amount one should take, or can take. This is because, the amount of supplementation you need will vary based on your personal level of health, and the degree to which you're able to absorb the supplements will depend on the health of your digestion track. You may find it helpful to consult a nutritionist or a holistic health practitioner to fine-tune this aspect of the program for you. (See Finding Allies.)
The attached chart represents a "broad brush" approach to determining the most strenuous, i.e. the upper limit, to the level of detox you should undertake, based on your age and level of health. Please remember that more gentle detox procedures will work for everyone, they just work more slowly. (See Master Chart.) Taking a slow approach is good, because it's more likely to result in lasting lifestyle changes, and less likely to cause distressing and possibly damaging cleansing reactions. (See Dangers of Detox.)
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