Hello all, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Sarah Scherer here. It’s the perfect time of year to think about resetting and starting fresh for your health. One of my favorite ways to jump-start your “healthy habits” engine is to complete the 7-Day Healthy Cleanse. Here’s my take on the benefits of detoxing, the gastrointestinal (GI) reset and balancing your blood sugar, and the taste buds and healthy habits reset.
To start, detoxing is the action of eliminating the “toxins” built up in your body. These toxins can be absorbed by our skin; we can eat or drink them; or they can be toxins the body makes as a by-product of one of our systems. Essentially, every person’s body is always processing toxins out as quickly as possible. Though the body does this naturally, often we can accumulate too many toxins and our systems have to catch up; this can make you feel tired, have poor muscle recovery, etc. This is when a detox can help your body recover by eating super clean and hydrating well. The Shaklee cleanse supplement regimen is formulated to supercharge this detoxing process, allowing your natural detoxing to catch up.
The next benefit is the GI reset and balancing your blood sugar. Our GI tract does an amazing job supporting our immune system, keeping our inflammation at the correct levels, balancing our energy, and absorbing essential nutrition from our food. But our GI tract can also become stressed. There are many things that can stress our GI system. One critical stressor is being mentally or emotionally stressed. Others could be eating processed foods, not hydrating enough, not eating enough fiber, constipation, caffeine and alcohol consumption, the antibiotics in animal protein, and many others. The goal of the cleanse is to support your GI system by giving it a break (not consuming processed foods, animal protein, caffeine) and fueling it with the key nutrients (like the probiotics in Optiflora® DI and the prebiotics in fruits and vegetables) to support its healthy flora. The secondary benefit is that eating whole food sources of carbs like fruits and vegetables that contain the power nutrient of fiber will help stabilize your energy and improve your blood sugar levels.
Finally, there’s the benefit of a taste bud and healthy habits reset. We all know what it is like to crave something sweet, salty, crunchy, etc. These cravings are simply patterns or habits that our body and brain have learned and gotten used to. The benefit of the cleanse is that the patterns are completely turned upside down and your body and brain have to learn new patterns. This is the perfect opportunity to reset what food your body craves. For instance, after dinner, you might normally eat something sweet. Maybe before, you would reach for a bowl of ice cream, but now you will be reaching for a piece of fruit. After you maintain these new patterns, your brain will begin to associate the sweet craving with fruit, a much healthier choice. Also, a fascinating thing happens with our taste buds when we reduce our salt and sugar. Our taste buds actually become more sensitive to salt and sugar. This means a recipe with less salt or sugar will taste just like one with more salt or sugar. This taste bud reset is such a great benefit you can gain from the Shaklee cleanse.
As I come to a close today, one thing to keep in mind…though the cleanse is just 7 days, if you use it as a jump start to get your healthy eating, daily physical activity, and all other areas of your wellness on track, then the benefits will last you for a lifetime.
