This is how you get the goo out. Our body has so many detoxification systems built into it to get rid of toxins that are in us. Our body has been masterminding this for years. Let’s talk about a few of your built-in detoxification systems.

The Liver

The liver gets the goo out of the blood and helps get it in the stool and also is an important step of detoxification. The liver is so cool. It can regenerate itself. You can lose like 80% of it and it can grow back. We are so cool.

The liver is like a machine with gears that takes goo in and then processes it and then sticks it to other things to get it out of us. Sometimes the gears get clogged and this is the theory of a detox program- just cleaning out the gears so the goo gets cleaned out more efficiently.

The Gastrointestinal Tract (GI)

Wow. The GI tract is super important. But, remember we are primal- and again don’t make it too hard. Making things too hard means that I am moving away from nature’s rule book. Nature is all about energy conservation so that you don’t need as much to survive. Only carry in your tool bag what you really need to conserve energy. Otherwise you might get too heavy, too slow and you just might not survive (or that is what nature lives by).

Now, also realize that the GI tract is like the inside skin of your body. Our outside skin is harder and drier. The inside skin of the GI tract is mushy and moist. Both the outside skin and the inside skin can break down and can absorb stuff.

When you think of your outer skin, if you have a big rash it oozes and gets puffy and can hurt. Well, the same goes on the inside too. But, if our eyeballs cannot see it, they don’t really seem to understand it. Meaning- many of us walk around all day with stomach pain and bloating and think that it is normal. I’m here to tell you, it is not. Your body is trying to tell you something. Listen to it. What are your eating?

The other thing to know is that your GI tract and your brain come from the same embryological layer- which is just a fancy way of saying that they are connected. This is important because if your stomach is bloated and in pain, your brain cannot feel good really. You will be more forgetful and fuzzy minded. Often times you fix your stomach, and your brain says thanks.
Let’s break the stomach down into 3 areas-

1. The stomach- this is where the churning goes on. This is where the food gets broken down. Think of it as the blender. It is important because the lower tracts need food broken down to absorb and to understand what it is seeing. A brief word about antacids- I have come to believe that heartburn is often times a response to body stress. It can be situational stress, it can be a message about a food that is irritating you. Now, if all you do is take a medication that blocks the stomach acid, but you don’t change what you are eating or your stress- then the symptoms never go away. See, if you are developing a food allergy and your body is trying to tell you that it is getting sick from eating it, an antacid just blocks the distress signal. Then what happens? A) You stop digesting the food correctly which can lead to nutritional deficiency or B) You keep eating the food that your body is allergic to which causes even more issues and harm to your body. Not to mention that you can also cause lots of changes downstream to all the gut bacteria at the end. Figure out the WHY and fix it. Listen to your body- it is telling you something.

2. The small intestine- this is where more digestion and absorption take place. This part is pretty long and in the middle of your tummy. It is like a big pipe worm that peristalsis the food through. Pain here feels like it comes and goes, think of a snake eating a meal and how it goes through its body. That is how food goes through the intestine. Now, if we are eating a food that our body is not good with- this part of our body gets puffy and our stomach pokes out. It does not feel good. Listen to your body, it is telling you something.

3. The large intestine- this is where all the gut bacteria live. It is where probiotics work. Now, probiotics are important. But, let’s not forget the first 2 parts of the GI tract. If you are allergic to a food and only taking a probiotic, it does not help why your stomach hurts. This part of your body is aligned on the outer rim of the tummy- kind of like a game board. The small intestine transitions to the large intestine in the right lower quadrant (this is where the appendix is) and runs on the outer abdomen- it goes up your right side, across the upper abdomen, and down the left side and out the rectum.
Realize that about 80% of your fighter infection cells sit in your GI tract. Also remember, your body would never hurt you. It is also my theory that a lot of autoimmune disease stems from the GI tract. If your gut gets broken down, then the food looks foreign and confusing and our body reacts negatively to it. It then cross reacts with other proteins of the body- such as thyroid. I think that this explains a lot of relation with gluten and the thyroid. It is the same principle as scarlet fever. See, scarlet fever is your body making a reaction to kick out strep throat. Well, it just happens that the heart has a similar protein to how your body reacts to the strep. In making the strep go away, your body starts to look at your heart as a bad actor and starts going against it. Your body would never hurt you, it just gets confused.

Also, realize that if you are ingesting something that your body does not like, your body gives you clues like chronic diarrhea. Other indicators could include rashes and hair loss. Sometimes this reaction is your body trying to heal itself.

Now, I know that some of you may think, this sounds a little different to speak of the human body this way. I understand. After all, I did come from a classically trained medical system. For the last few years, I have been listening to my body and seeing is truly believing. You get better when you listen to the body. Your body is just asking you to fix the WHY.

The Kidneys

Kidneys are the beans that sit in your mid back. They are literally shaped like a kidney bean- which makes sense in a nature sort of way. Our kidneys are filters that take the blood and run it through a filter and then reabsorb what is needed to keep us going, and then releases the other stuff.

They need water, water helps the filter get the goo out. This is super important. If you know of someone that has kidney damage or failure, they have to be careful with water because their body can’t get the goo through the filter anymore and then they get too much on board. When your kidneys lose their filtering capabilities, dangerous levels of fluid, electrolytes and wastes can build up in your body. Lesson: keep your filters happy. They are important.

Think of your kidneys kind of like a processing line that puts the bad stuff on one assembly line to get out of the system and puts the good stuff on the other one to pull it back in. They are cool. The kidneys are super forgiving until you push them too far.

Sweat

We sweat and get rid of toxins. After all, the skin system is the biggest organ of the body. It already has a lot of this figured out. Sweat is a way that we detoxify.
We sweat when we move. We sweat when we sit in the sauna. A sauna is a great way to strengthen the body for sure. Think of all the pores and all the glands in motion to get it all out. I like to sit in one a couple of times a week. It just feels good to release the toxins.

You must purge toxins by sweating, urinating and eliminating waste to purify the system. Bottom line, to enable our bodies to eliminate waste, we need undamaged and healthy physical systems including a healthy GI tract, liver, and kidney functions to name a few. If you are experiencing overall discomfort, or suspect your system is not working quite right, we can help! We will listen to your body and it will tell us.

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Dr. Samantha Durland is board-certified in Obstetrics & Gynecology, Anti-aging and Regenerative medicine and Fellowship trained in Metabolic and Nutritional medicine. Learn more about her ground-breaking philosophy and prescription for wellness- My Simple 7– daily actions to thrive in a strong, healthy and peaceful body here.