How to Detox Without Fasting (Plus: Recipes to Help Your Body Detox)

What You Will Learn in This Article:

• What to do to support your body after that holiday binge
• How the liver helps your body detox
• Detox-friendly recipes
• Supplements to kickstart your detox

It’s that time of year for new health goals and resolutions to commit to a healthy lifestyle. Intuitively, we all know when it’s time to reset that button—especially if we’ve gone on a sugar binge over the holidays. However, I completely get that not everyone wants to go to the trouble of fasting, juicing, and prepping special food every time they feel heavy and sluggish. So what other option is there, apart from fasting and juicing?

For those of you who don’t want to dive into any extreme diets or detoxes, here is an alternative that I think you might find helpful: the Liver Detox Kit.

The Liver Detoxification Kit

The Liver Detox Kit is a 3-part nutritional support program designed to help you detoxify after that holiday excess. It also helps counteract the daily exposures we all have to pollution, toxins, prescription drugs, alcohol, synthetic hormones, and other chemicals that come as a part of modern living.

What is in the Liver Detox Kit?

Part I: Daily Liver Detox

Daily Liver Detox is an herbal and amino acid blend for optimal liver detoxification, which is key to hormonal balance. It contains the amino acid N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), a glutathione precursor that is the “master detoxifier.” When paired with alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), milk thistle extract, thistle, and selenium, it creates the optimal antioxidant activity, regeneration of other antioxidants, and promotion of healthy liver and immune function.

This formula’s benefits include:

• Estrogen Dominance: May support “dirty” estrogen metabolism and elimination
• Peri-/menopause: May lessen certain symptoms such as hot flashes, belly fat, fatigue, and brain fog
• Thyroid: May increase the conversion of T4 to T3 hormone (the “working horse” thyroid hormone)
• Blood sugar balance: May help balance blood sugar levels
• Inflammation: May reduce inflammatory responses in the body
• Immune function: Supports healthy immune function
• Antioxidant production: May upregulate antioxidant production
• Liver protection: From environmental toxins, recreational and prescription drugs, and alcohol

The key stars here are: NAC, milk thistle seed extract, Alpha Lipoic Acid, and selenium.

Here are just a few highlights: 

N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) promotes the synthesis of glutathione—a tripeptide that is essential to boost liver detoxification. The liver is one of the most important organs when it comes to hormone balance. Glutathione also supports a healthy defense against liver-damaging environmental pollutants, gamma-radiation, and other potential toxins.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid supports glutathione, helps regenerate antioxidant vitamins C and E, helps maintain the ratio of reduced to oxidized CoQ10 in the mitochondria, and may help support healthy immune functions in the body.

Milk Thistle Seed Extract Silymarin, the active component in milk thistle, supports antioxidant activity, neutralizes toxins, and is hepatoprotective, meaning it protects the liver from damage, such as free-radical damage. Selenium (as selenomethionine) is an important coenzyme for the glutathione peroxidase detoxification system. It also supports the body’s normal inflammatory response and is known to lower Hashimoto’s antibodies.

Part II: B Maximus

This B complex contains nine B vitamins which is the entire spectrum of B vitamins essential in toxin binding and elimination. B complex also supports the liver, adrenal, neurological, and stress-related functions. It features activated forms of vitamins B2, B6, and B12; a fat-soluble, more physiologically active form of thiamin; and folate (not synthetic folic acid). 

New research has shown that diets with vitamin B12 and folic acid positively impact liver health by maintaining, or restoring autophagy, the process where liver proteins transport and digest fat. Supplementing with these nutrients may also lower inflammation in the liver, and help to slow the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 

Folate (as L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate) supports liver detox and positive mood, and is known as a “food for the brain.”

B12 (as Methylcobalamin) activates the liver detox pathway to detox heavy metals and histamines, and aids in melatonin and energy production, as well as preventing anemia.

Part III: Magnesium Replenish

This highly absorbable form of magnesium (in glycinate form) is a cofactor in the production of liver enzymes that speed up chemical processes such as bile production and break down hormones, food, and toxins. 

Magnesium deficiency is closely linked with liver disease. Research shows that magnesium supplementation may protect the liver and slow the progression of liver disease.

Magnesium also facilitates bowel movement which is part 3 of liver detoxification through evacuation. When constipated, we re-cycle not only toxins but also metabolites of “dirty” hormones, causing more hormonal problems. 

Magnesium Glycinate supports healthy liver function, bowel movement, sleep, and blood sugar balance. It also supports Complete Estrogen Detoxification by eliminating “dirty” estrogens and helps convert the less active T4 thyroid hormone to the bio-active T3 hormone, supporting healthy thyroid hormone levels. Magnesium is also helpful in creating better quality sleep which is when most of the detoxification happens.

Kickstart your Detoxification to Support Hormone Balance

As you support your liver and its ability to detoxify, keep in mind that the liver plays a key role in hormonal balance as well, especially when it comes to the thyroid and estrogen dominance. It’s in the liver that the thyroid converts T4 to T3 (the active hormone) and estrogen gets metabolized to free you from hip and butt fat, lumpy breasts, PMS, mood swings, or fibroids.

We have intentionally formulated the Liver Detoxification Kit to support your hormonal balance to its best abilities. 

How to Take

1. Take one B-Maximus, and one Daily Liver Detox at Breakfast. 
2. Take one Daily Liver Detox and 2 Magnesium Replenish at bedtime.

To get started with the Liver Detoxification Kit, click here.

Note

Please remember that the effectiveness of the Liver Detox Kit will increase significantly when you incorporate a good diet like the Elimination Diet (which I cover in my protocol cookbook, Cooking for Hormone Balance and Overcoming Estrogen Dominance). 

You can also learn more about how to optimize liver function to rebalance hormones here.

Recipes to Help Your Body Detox

To get you started, here are some recipes to help support your body’s detoxification.

Breakfast Recipes

Activated Charcoal Smoothie
Spinach Peach Smoothie
Supergreen Basil Smoothie
Savory Oatmeal Sweet Potatoes
Savory Porridge with Butternut Squash and Apples
Sourdough Buckwheat Pancakes
Farmer’s Wife Sunday Breakfast

Lunch Recipes

Immune-Boosting Turmeric Detox Veggie Soup
Easy Miso Soup
Burdock Miso Soup
Quick Sauerkraut Salad
Arugula and Salmon Sashimi Salad
Orange Fennel Salad
Beetroot Tarragon Salad

Dinner Recipes

Easy Thai Salmon
Moroccan Chicken Tajin
Rustic Lamb Roast
Prebiotic Rich Wild Rice Protein Salad
Instant Pot Bison and Cabbage Stew
Salmon Fillet with Seed Rotation Pesto

Drink Recipes

Better Than Coffee (Chicory Latte)
Schisandra Beet Adaptogen Latte
Holy Basil and Lemongrass Tea
ACV Tonic with Lemon, Seltzer, and Stevia
Preserved Lemon Tonic
Jamu Shot and Spritzer

Resources

Krinsky DL, LaValle JB, Hawkins EB, et al. Natural Therapeutics Pocket Guide. 2nd ed. Hudson (OH): Lexi-Comp; 2003. 

Hodges, Romilly E. and Minich, Deanna M. Modulation of Metabolic Detoxification Pathways Using Foods and Food-Derived Components: A Scientific Review with Clinical Application. Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism. June 16, 2015.

Karimi, Gholamriza, et al. “Silymarin”, a promising pharmacological agent for treatment of diseases. Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences. July/August, 2011.

Wei J, Lei GH, Fu L, Zeng C, Yang T, Peng SF. Association between Dietary Vitamin C Intake and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study among Middle-Aged and Older Adults. PLoS One. 2016.

de Andrade Kivia Q. et al. Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Hepatic Diseases: Therapeutic Possibilities of N-Acetylcysteine. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. December 18, 2015.

Khoshbaten, Manouchehr et al. Grape seed extract to improve liver function in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver change. Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology. July, 2010.

Clifford, Tom, et al. The potential benefits of red beetroot supplementation in health and disease. Nutrients. April, 2015.

Photos by Brooke Lark, Sam Scrimshaw and Brooke Cagle