I hate to break it to you all, but your body contains bugs. Lots of bugs. Ugly bugs. Worms, even!
Before you go drink a gallon of hand sanitizer, let me tell you that the ugly icky bugs and worms serve a purpose. As hard as it is to imagine in our ultra sanitized, germ-fearing world in which we live, these essential organisms, aka life within life, keeps our system in check when they are in check.
Think of your internal terrain like a hippie commune. They live off the land, embrace the simple life, and make their own medicine. Each one possesses a skill that benefits the whole clan.
Now, what if a McDonalds gets built right next to the commune? Food designed to hook and hijack their senses suddenly becomes a substitute for the nutrient-dense food grown on fertile soil. Upstream, developers dumped chemicals into their water supply. Now, these hippies are starting to look and behave more like the Manson Family - pillaging, killing, and craving toxic substances!
Instability…
This imbalance, at minimum, reduces your body’s efficiency, limiting your capabilities, and at maximum, leads to pain and disease that threatens to shorten your lifespan.
Athletes, Why Should You Care?
Endurance athletes put their bodies under more physical stress than the average bear, and they rely on consistent training days to progress. Unfortunately, the symptoms of a toxic terrain may mimic signs of overtraining among many other diagnoses. The root cause often lies beyond the injury at hand.
Dr. Emilea and Dr. Chris struggled with a multitude of symptoms during their collegiate running careers. Recurrent stress fractures, chronic fatigue, poor recovery, and thyroid malfunction, which would later receive a diagnosis of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis plagued their experience. Their journey to uncovering the root cause of their injuries and epigenetic expression of genes allowed the doctors to view disease, healthcare, and athletic capabilities differently.
They started to see the body as a system. A system that may malfunction under certain circumstances and heal under the right circumstances.
Origin of Toxins
More than ever, we expose our cells to toxins. Keenly advocating for your health requires intention and enlightenment to avoid threats and support your cells.
Nutrition
Our Standard American Diet leaves our system malnourished and inflamed. The SAD diet promises plenty of calories but little to no nutrition.
Environmental and Other Toxins
Between electromagnetic fields interrupting our own electrical system and penetrating our brains and bodies, air pollution, plastics, and other “forever chemicals,” our cells continuously get bombarded and even molecularly changed as a result.
Microbial
Microscopic, yet aggressive fungi, bacteria, viruses, and parasites feed off toxins, which helps and hurts our system when they overtake the terrain.
Physical & Psychological Stress
We lack sunlight and activity, and our stressful lives have physiological impacts.
Symptoms of a Toxic Terrain
Unfortunately, signs of a toxic terrain often get misdiagnosed as symptoms that mimic other diseases such as:
Asthma/shortness of breath
Autoimmune disease
Back pain
Bloating
Brain Fog
Constipation
Fatigue
Headaches/migraines
Herniated discs
Hormone dysfunction
Joint pain
Poor circulation
Poor recovery
Skin conditions
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Bringing balance back to your system will reduce and even eliminate your symptoms.
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Detoxing Like a Boss
You now recognize that your hippies became bloated, fat, McDonald’s-loving commoners that let the terrain grow out of hand, but reverting back to the beautiful, cohesive community takes a bit of strategy. The following outlines how you can detox like a boss!
Stop Feeding the Beast.
Eliminate Inflammatory Foods. First, you must manage the stressors entering your terrain so start by eliminating foods that trigger an immune response such as gluten, dairy, and sugar.
Address the Stressful Environment. If possible, you should remove yourself from moldy living conditions, a toxic relationship, or a stressful work environment and incorporate stress reducing practices such as meditation, prayer, exercise, and journaling.
Limit Chemical Exposures. Examine your cleaning supplies, remove toxic fragrance sprays, review your cosmetics and any other beauty supplies to ensure their safety. Utilizing apps and websites such as EWG to ensure you use safe products will greatly help.
Examine Your Water Source. Invest in a water filtration system and stop drinking liquid stored in plastic.
Use Non-plastic, Non-toxic Cookware. Plastics and teflon, as an example, break down especially when exposed to heat. Particles such as Teflon build up and create forever chemicals within our bodies.
Open Up Your Detox Funnel
Your cells, lymph, skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and your intestines work together to grab the invaders and escort them out the door like a 19 year old with a bad fake I.D. However, a toxic terrain often creates dysfunction of the detox organs. Your unwanted toxins may get stuck on the elevator between floors.
First, you must ensure that the final exit is possible. All too many people suffer from constipation and permeable intestinal tracts known as leaky gut. Meaning, waste literally permeates the intestinal walls and leaches out into the bloodstream. One must address the leaky gut to ensure the toxins remain contained.
Healthy elimination involves 2-3 solid, but not too solid, bowel movements a day with minimal-to-no odor. When this occurs, you know you’re open for business! Then, you may start addressing lingering issues up the funnel.
Upregulate
Your body is one big capitalist company! Your human factory has a CEO, HR department, mid-level managers, and some dubious workers at times. When your liver workers call in sick because the entire department drinks too much alcohol and couldn’t handle the virus that Tommy Boy brought into the crew, the factory comes to a halt.
Your company needs your liver crew to make bile, cleanse the blood, and perform over 500 different jobs. Your circulatory department needs your liver crew to cleanse the blood supply. Your CEO brain needs clean/healthy blood to work efficiently. Your shareholders, the heart, demand energy production for itself above all else!
According to the National Cancer Institute, upregulation means “the process by which a cell increases its response to a substance or signal from outside the cell to carry out a specific function.”
In the example above, the liver department clearly needs an overhaul. You’ve already confiscated the flasks, replaced the vending machine with whole foods, and improved the quality of the raw materials. Now, it is time to upregulate. Upregulating the liver crew improves their motivation and productivity.
Upregulating is a delicate science. Much like any good HR department, you cannot go around firing the disabled and pregnant. No! You give them specific resources to accommodate their needs to perform their absolute best in the way of minerals, vitamins, etc.
Bind + Kill
Detox is not complete without a little murder, right? Remember the incessant killjoys that serve a purpose? Yep, they gotsta go!
But, not all of them… And what about all the larceny they conceal? You know, the chemicals, heavy metals, and other toxins they consume?
Herbs contain antifungal, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties. Unlike pharmaceuticals, the body does not develop an immunity to the herbs, and they naturally bring a homeostasis level to your system.
Binders help escort out the remaining toxins that make your system a hap-hap-happy little home for invaders. When the invaders die off, they are super dramatic leaving toxic residue in its dying wake, so the binders also help sweep away the debris.
Sure, you could just gulp down some herbs and go on a murdering spree, but guess what? They will just grow right back out of hand if the terrain remains toxic. Binders help complete the detox cycle.
Move Your Body
Sweating and moving the body via yoga, walking, running, or in whatever way calls to you assists in the body’s detox. Utilizing movement as a form of medicine will benefit your overall health and detox through all pathways.
Work with a CPK Doctor
BSI/CPK doctors design effective programs from start to finish based on your body’s individual frequency. Your body sends distress signals, and CPK doctors such as Apogee Wellness’, Dr. Chris George and Dr. Emilea Finley, analyze the signals to determine the body’s priorities.
For example, you may suspect a parasitic infection, but your highest priority lies in relieving lymphatic stagnation along with a mineral deficiency.
As stated earlier, the process is an art form. Utilizing a delicate and calculated approach to create the best landscape for you.
CPK docs are like the Bob Ross of functional medicine. Everytime Bob painted a giant brown streak down an already awesome canvas, I was like, “WTH, Bob?!?” Then, it turned into a spectacular tree.
CPK is the same. They will hand you a mix of herbs, binders, and minerals for your babesia infection and mineral deficiency, and you’re like, “WTH?!? What about my knee?” Shortly thereafter, your knee is healed up, and you’re like, “I see what you did there. Nice.”
Detoxing your body like a boss takes planning and help from the right doctor(s) that will listen and understand your individual needs. In the end, your system will operate flawlessly and take your performance to new heights!