E189: Detoxification Demystified: How to Support Your Body for Hormone Balance, Energy, and Mood Stability

Are detox cleanses necessary, or is your body already built to handle toxins? 

In today’s world, we’re exposed to more toxins than ever— from polluted air to everyday products. These harmful substances can disrupt our hormones, digestion, and overall health, leading to problems like fatigue, bloating, breakouts, and painful periods. But here’s the good news: your body is designed to detoxify naturally, and with the right support, you can optimize this process without feeling overwhelmed.  

This episode breaks it all down, helping you understand how to support your body's natural detox process without going to extremes.  

By the end, you will:

• Understand how your liver, gut, and skin work together to remove toxins and why this is essential for hormone balance and overall health
• Learn easy daily habits to improve detoxification—no need for pricey cleanses or strict diets
• Recognize signs that your body's detox systems may be sluggish and discover how to help them using food, lifestyle changes, and minerals

Tune in now to discover how to support your body's natural detox process and start feeling more energized, balanced, and in control of your health!

LET ME HELP YOU FIX THOSE HORMONES

Love Your Liver Guide
Hormone Secrets Workshop

When you’re ready to fix your hormones without the drama of figuring it out on your own Join Nourish Your Hormones Coaching

Leave a 5-star rating on the podcast and DM me RATING on IG @leishadrews for $20 off the Restored mini-course on blood sugar balance. Blood sugar balance is one of the first things we work on to balance hormones!

Use the code HHPODCAST for $50 off Nourish Your Hormones

LET’S CONNECT!

IG: @leishadrews
My story + more hormone resources here

Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

Hey friend, welcome back to the podcast. I get text messages sometimes from you guys and I got one fairly recently asking if I could do a podcast on detoxification and what that actually means in the body. Am going to go into that today. And if you've kind of wondered if you need to do cleanse or a detox or, , do you need to be doing more to detox every day?
That is what I'm going to answer today, and I'm going to talk to you specifically about how detoxification matters for hormone balance, and for better periods, and for more energy, and for less mood swings. That's a really big one for mood swings. , I'm excited to dive into that today. And if you didn't know that you could text me, you can totally text me at the link in the show notes.
The only caveat is if you want me to respond to you, you need to include , a phone number or an email because that is not something that is included for me. So I can only read what you said to me. Me and I can't respond unless you give me contact info. If you have a request for another future episode, I'd love to hear it or just feedback or questions about what we talk about here in general.
 Send me a text. I'd love to hear from you and let's dive into today's episode.
 I think that detoxification can feel really big and fancy, we can be doing things that are daily for detoxification. And to be honest, your body is detoxifying all the time, whether you are doing anything about it or not. And a lot of times our detox pathways can be compromised in this world that we're living in.
 I'm going to go through some of the Biggest organs that are used for detoxification in our bodies with the understanding that a comprehensive conversation on detoxification would take probably hours, days, weeks, months, who knows how long it would really take. But in 20, 30 minutes, I want to be able to help you understand a little more clearly what you can do essentially to help support better detoxification, because truly this world that we live in.
Has a lot of toxins and really toxic products are not something that I focus on so much here on the podcast because I think that it's covered like I think that there are so many other people who talk about. cleaning up your toxic products or cleaning up your home, cleaning up your skincare, all of those things.
And there are so many different products to recommend or to not recommend that it's just not something I've spent a lot of time diving into here. With that being said, I think that a basic understanding that many of us are using products, just the typical products off the grocery store shelves are for dish soap, for laundry soap, for skincare, for shampoo, for lotion, cleaning products in your house.
All of those things typically have a lot of ingredients in them that are not great for your body. Not great for your hormones, not great for your brain, not great for your skin. There are so many different layers to that. And just understanding that , there's going to be toxins in our air, unfortunately, there's toxins in our water, there's toxins in our food, and 
another reason I don't focus on this sometimes is because I think that we can really get into fear and anxiety when we just focus on everything that could possibly be wrong that could be going into our bodies, ? I think a really reasonable way to deal with toxins coming in is just to mitigate what we can, 
I don't live a perfectly toxin free life. Would I love to? Yes, I actually would love to. I still live in this world with you, it's hard to do that. And the more you research, I think the more you can get into fear or anxiety around it because there can just be so much to change in your lifestyle.
What I think is a really reasonable approach is just making changes that you can. I think it's really wise to be using clean products on your body, especially the ones that you use every day. For example, for me, toothpaste. Lotion, shampoo, ? Those kinds of things that I'm using most often are the ones I changed out first, deodorant, that one's huge because deodorant can have a lot of fragrances and aluminum and all kinds of things in it.
And it's going in your armpits, which is directly absorbing into your body in a very sensitive area. And then for women, it's right next to our breast tissue, which is a tissue that we want to protect. . And we want to keep as healthy as possible. I think that it's really important to focus on the things that have the most impact on you and then go from there.
 Even period products, that one might be something that I'll actually do an episode on in the future, since it's much more directly related to what we talk about here. But even period products, if you're using traditional tampons or pads that have pesticides on them, they have chemicals on them, maybe a fragrance.
Those are not going to be ideal on a very sensitive mucous membrane in your body that is very absorbent. . Changing the things that you use the most, I think is the most effective way to reduce toxins. And then in our food and in our water, we have filtration on our water at home. We try to buy organic food as much as possible and especially the organic food that makes sense that it really is different, maybe like smaller farms or different things like that.
We just honestly do our best to get the quality that we need, but also we focus on detoxification because our bodies need to be detoxifying from the vast increase in toxins in our life, but it doesn't have to be obsessive. And I think maybe that's my whole point of this whole episode, it doesn't have to be obsessive because We, our bodies were made to detoxify and I think giving them a little boost is going to be a really important thing in our world.
But I also think that we don't have to be stressing out about it all the time and doing. huge detox cleanses all the time. Let's just talk about how our body detoxifies. So the liver is one of the organs that comes to mind for me first, when we talk about detoxification, because the liver has so many functions in the body and a lot of them are related to detoxification.
 I'll just go through like a brief overview of how the liver Plays such a central role in detoxification and there are three phases of liver detoxification So phases 1, 2, and 3. Phase 1 is just the initial step where the toxins in your body whether that is excess hormones, whether that is pesticides, whether that is medication, whatever it is that has come into your body And by the way, you cannot avoid all of it.
 You will not, that's why your body is so good at detoxification. Those toxins are activated in oxidized, which is an inflammatory process actually to make them more manageable for further processing. It turns those toxic chemicals or substances into smaller metabolites, which just means it's breaking it down.
If you could think about it as converting it or chewing it or something like that, that process does. generate free radicals. Those are essentially like stress molecules in the body, oxidative stress molecules, which can be harmful if they're not neutralized. This step cannot work on its own without step two and be neutralized.
beneficial for the body. I am just going to throw in a couple of foods that help with each of these phases because I thought that it was interesting and helpful and can give you something to actually go on. For phase one, Liberty toxification, antioxidant rich foods are important and I want to just say you can go too far with this.
 Antioxidants help neutralize those free radicals and help protect cells from damage. So citrus fruits are great. Vitamin C rich foods like strawberries, bell peppers, cruciferous vegetables are also great for this phase. And I would say in moderation with those because they can affect the gut and the thyroid negatively if it's excessive.
And it looks like magnesium and iron are both important for liver function too. I like to get those from food sources as much as possible. Now, this does not mean take excessive amounts of antioxidant supplements because that can actually impair the way your body is producing its master antioxidant, which is glutathione.
 Food based is best and really just getting some of those bright colored fruits and vegetables in. Is key in just step one of liver detoxification. So see, it can be easy. That's not, those are not crazy foods. Strawberries, tangerines, bell peppers, most of us like those foods that is to help support phase one.
So now phase one, , you've taken those toxins. You've started to break them down, but they are not in a form that can leave the body yet. And so phase two, those metabolites are processed and made water soluble and making them water soluble means that your body can process them. break them down into a form where it's able to leave the body and the way that it will leave the body in step three is through the kidneys and through the gut. We'll talk about that here in just a minute, but some foods that can be helpful for phase two detoxification, which is Crazy important because we don't want phase one to happen. And then things get stuck in that more like inflammatory state.
 Cruciferous vegetables, again, are really helpful for this. Garlic, onions, meat, and egg yolks. Amino acids are really important for this phase of detoxification. And then molybdenum, which is a trace mineral it's found in leafy vegetables and in liver. And B12 are all necessary and then glutathione, which is again, your body's master antioxidant can also be synthesized from amino acids, which means that those foods are going to help with both of the first phases of liver detoxification .
And then phase three of liver detoxification is transportation and elimination, which sounds fancy, but essentially all it is moving those water soluble metabolites from phase two that we just made to the elimination pathways. They can be excreted through urine or bile, and then they are eliminated through the bladder and through the stool.
 Bile flow is really important for elimination and bile is created and transported in the liver and the gallbladder, and that bile flow is a piece that can be really compromised in women specifically, and can lead to slow digestion, can lead to gas and bloating, can lead to impaired detoxification, and also can lead to gallbladder function issues. Bile flow is something that we can support with movement, with hydration, and then also With castor oil packs, those can be really helpful for both liver and gallbladder function.
And when we are being intentional about our digestive process and we are chewing our food, we are thinking about our food when we're eating it and we're triggering bile flow with bitter foods. Even things like apple cider vinegar or digestive bitters, those can help with increased bile flow, which can help .
tremendously with detoxification and digestion. That is just an important little side piece in detoxification. When we're talking about the liver, there's multiple functions of the liver in detoxification. And specifically since the liver breaks down Not only toxins, but hormones. It really is one of the pieces that I think about the most, but the liver is not the only organ of detoxification by any means.
 The gut is also really important for detoxification and specifically in the realm of a bile being excreted into the liver with those metabolites that have been detoxified and are ready to leave the body, it's really important that the gut is functioning well. So that can happen . And the kidneys also need to be functioning well.
I would say that is in my experience, less of an issue that I see is enough kidney function or like good kidney function versus good gut function. The gut can be compromised by stress. The gut can be compromised by antibiotics, by toxins in our food, by not eating enough foods that feed good bacteria, by having low stomach acid.
And overgrowth of bad bacteria, parasites, there's so much that can go on with the gut. And this is something that I do testing for in my VIP one on one option so that we can actually dive deep and see all of those things that I just said with bacteria, parasites, yeast, all the things we can see what's going on in your gut, what's inflaming it, how your digestive markers look.
 That is something that I find to be really helpful in the detoxification process is optimizing gut function. What I mean by that essentially is you can assess this at home and just see how your gut is functioning. So many women that I talk to think it's pretty normal to have gas and bloating.
 Everybody's bloated. Bloating is not a big deal. That is not actually the case. Bloating is a sign that there is something going on that is either slowing your digestion. There's inflammation , the colon, in the, sometimes it's in the uterus, that lower GI tract, there can be inflammation.
There can be food triggers. That are causing bloating for you. It can be that you're just not digesting your food. There's a lot to bloating. And it is a sign that something is a little bit off in your gut. Constipation is another huge one that I think women typically think is normal or some women think is normal.
If you've had it always in your friends too. What I like to see in the realm of gut function is one to two. Fully formed, comfortable, essentially like full bowel movements per day, where you are not going multiple days without having a bowel movement, you're not having a hard time to have one, and you're also not going the other direction where you're having a ton every day, you're having loose stools, or a lot of pain cramping, acid reflux, all of those things.
Any of those signs would be a sign for me that there's something to look into and that there is a compromise in your detox pathway with your gut. If the liver is doing a beautiful job, it has no compromise from blood sugar issues or stress or lack of minerals, which 
spoiler alert for all of that. Typically the women that come to me have issues with all of those things, but let's just say , you don't, your liver is doing great, but your gut is not doing great. You're still going to have a pretty big block in your detox pathways because the gut is so important in releasing those toxins that have been essentially tagged and metabolized, and they're ready to go and ready to come out of the body.
What happens if they don't move out of the body? Your gut is always absorbing. Your gut is always. Trying to sort through what's in it and keep moving it out because nothing's supposed to be just sitting in your gut. If things are just sitting in your gut, undigested food or these metabolites of detoxification, you do start to reabsorb some of them.
 This can be a huge issue for estrogen specifically. And there's one type of estrogen that we see on the Dutch test that has this. this kind of like we can tell that it's being reabsorbed from the gut specifically. And when we see that estrogen is being detoxified pretty well through the liver or even poorly through the liver, but then it's also getting stuck in the gut, it can be reabsorbed.
 You can have symptoms of estrogen dominance like. really heavy periods, painful periods hormonal acne, breast tenderness, mood swings, all of these things can be caused by just reabsorbing too much estrogen. So sometimes you're not even making too much, but you're not detoxifying it well. And then you have elevated estrogen levels in your body and elevated estrogen symptoms because your gut is off.
So the is a huge piece, the gut and the liver are both a huge piece in detoxification of not only hormones, but also just toxins in the body. And even say your hormones are somehow detoxing just fine, but other toxins are getting stuck and reabsorbed in the body. It just creates more of a burden. That can create fatigue.
It can create brain fog. It can create, Other hormone issues because it tells the body that things are not safe. So detoxification is incredibly important. And the last pathway that I want to talk about is the skin because the skin is not something that I think we forget that the skin is a detoxification organ.
 If you're having skin issues and this could be rashes, psoriasis, eczema, dry skin, acne, any kind of skin issue, to be honest, any kind of skin issue is a sign that something internal is going on. We do a lot of topical things for the skin because it makes sense, right? We're like, oh, I have a rash on my skin.
I need to put something on it. Yes. And something is happening inside of your body that is not being detoxed well, appropriately through these other pathways that they should be, that it should be coming out. It starts to come out through your skin and supporting your skin in detoxification looks like eating those antioxidant rich foods, supporting your gut, supporting your liver.
And usually we can see really big improvements through those things because it is just always a sign that there's something going on under the surface when your skin is not detoxing in a normal way where you're just having every day we're shedding skin cells, we have oil coming through our skin, those are normal ways for the skin to detox.
But if it's detoxing and showing you a rash or bacteria on the skin or redness, all of those things are signs of essentially internal inflammation.
 So the question is really, what do we do about it? Do you need to, if you are listening to this and you're like, Oh, I do have some gut issues and I do have some liver issues. Do you need to go and invest in a big cleanse? Maybe typically what I say is we need to start with the small things first. So number one, you've got to be regular with your bowel movements.
I know that's sometimes easier said than done, that's something that I help my clients with all the time, but that has to happen. No matter if every other detox pathway is working great in your body and it's getting stuck in your gut again and again, you're going to have problems because of that. So that's number one.
In my opinion, we also need to be supporting your liver, especially if you have estrogen dominant symptoms and your gut is working fine, you're having those regular bowel movements, you're not having any issues there, then we need to be supporting your liver and that can be through foods that can. be through lifestyle support.
There are supplements to help support the liver. I'm on board with most, mostly all of it, but I think that those Regular daily things that you can do are going to make the most difference long term. Now for my clients, I do typically, if I think liver detoxification is a big focus, then sometimes I'll do what I call a jumpstart liver support.
And we'll do that and increase some bioflow and help move things out a little bit more efficiently. But I don't like to do that All the time. I like to do that as a jumpstart. And then we do really gentle food and lifestyle methods to just continue to support detoxification as we move forward. And I do similar things with the gut.
Now, is there ever a time for a big cleanse? I think so. I think there is. That's something that I will do on a semi regular basis, whether I do a liver boost or I do something else. But I think that cleansing is probably pretty important for us in, again, this world that we live in where things are just not How we would like them to be.
I have been in some, a couple of moldy houses, probably honestly to be really true. Most of my life I've probably lived in moldy houses and just the last three years or so I've been aware of it and we've been trying to move away from that and we are in a clean house now and I'm so thankful for that.
But like many of us live in mold. That's a toxin that messes with our immune system, our detoxification, all of the things. Many of us have parasites because our digestive function was not optimal. Maybe stomach acid is low, things like that, that just allow for pathogens to come in. Stress in the body can allow for those pathogens to come in.
We all get exposed to them, but. If they stick essentially, then it's because our immune systems need support or our digestive systems need support. So parasites, sometimes we need to cleanse for that. And just in general, some of us have heavy metals on board from our mother, from, from vaccines, from there are so many ways that we can get heavy metals.
 There are all these things that can be a bigger toxic load in the body. And I do think that sometimes doing more of a cleanse can be helpful, but , what I want to. speak against essentially is just using that as a crutch. And also if you're in a place where you have a lot of symptoms and you're really depleted, you're really tired, fatigued, brain fog, maybe it's not the time to do something like that.
I actually think that doing a cleanse needs to come out of a pretty stable foundation typically so that you're not further depleting your body, depending on what it is, of course, but you're not further depleting your body and stressing it by trying to kill off pathogens in your body or release things that your body is not essentially strong enough to do in that moment.
 I also think that letting those things go can really help with the toxic burden that's like weighing you down in the first place. I would highly recommend if you're thinking about that, having a practitioner work with you on doing a cleanse or at least asking for a recommendation from your practitioner Who knows where your body is because I think that it can be so easy to just jump into something like that, especially it's February now, but it was just January.
So we're probably all still in that. Oh yeah. Reset the body, do a kickstart, all the things. I just want to encourage you that the small things add up over time. And so really supporting detoxification just on a daily basis is incredibly helpful. And then the last thing that I will say is minerals are very much vital to this process.
, especially if you're doing any type of cleanse, but even if you're just wanting to support your liver and support your gut, replenishing minerals is going to be so key in this. That looks like eating mineral rich foods, like broths, and I love adrenal cocktails. Juices can be really mineral rich.
I like to be pretty careful with those for blood sugar reasons. Fruits are really great for minerals. A lot of animal products are really great for minerals as well, as long as they're really high quality animal products. There's a lot of minerals you can get just through whole foods. I also will supplement with some minerals because I think it's really important.
There's many different supplementation options for minerals. I think that we have to look at people on an individual basis. I don't like to just necessarily recommend one across the board, but I do find that adrenal cocktails are typically almost across the board, really supportive for women and especially moms.
 I love those adrenal cocktails to get more potassium and sodium in. And help with the transport of nutrients into the cell and blood sugar balance. And I see that helps with energy a lot of times. Even if you are in a starting phase and you're like, I just want to do something to start helping my detoxification.
Those minerals are really important. And magnesium as well. And then foods. And then I would go to the supplements and the tinctures and things like that. And even lifestyle. Changes that you can make to detoxify, moving your body more, drinking more water, using the sauna, doing lymphatic support. I still am planning to have a full episode on lymphatic support because I think it's so important for detoxification.
 It's one that can get missed pretty easily, I think, and feels like it's its own thing, but it's not our lymphatic system is also a big method of detoxification. In our bodies and sometimes we have to stimulate and support that system to be able to move the lymph and the toxins that are in our lymph into Circulation so that the liver can work and the gut can work to detoxify those so there's all the layers but I hope that you have had a couple of aha moments or takeaways and that you just do something to support your detoxification because it is really important to keep our health Stable long term, and it's really important in the short term for your hormones as well.
 If you are feeling a little overwhelmed by this information, if you need support, I would love for you to join us in nourish your hormones. We have coaching in nourish your hormones and you have the option to do lab work as well. we have created this program with the steps that you need to balance your hormones With essentially the very first two steps are making hormones well and then detoxing hormones well, and I think those are the most key in Really seeing change, but you also have our support.
You have our support to troubleshoot. You have our support to figure out what's going on in your cycle, to look at your food, to help you really hone in. So you don't have to do this on your own anymore. If you're interested in that, the link is in the show notes. You can reach out to me and I will help you find out if it's a good fit.
Okay, ladies, I will see you next time.