13.05.2020 – Detox series – No. 10. Why moving your body is essential for a healthy body and mind.
And here are some tips on getting started, or doing more!
Exercise must be one of the very first considerations if you want to detox, your life, your body and/ or your mind!
In my late teens and early twenties, I was very anti-exercise! The idea of getting all dressed up in lycra and heading to a gym only to walk on a treadmill for half an hour made me feel nauseous. I tried it a few times (the gym, not the lycra) and would always feel self-conscious and a bit lost. Looking around at all the machines which were supposed to help you get stronger, yet bore no resemblance to anything I needed strength for in real-life. So, I would inevitably end up doing a few stretches, a few minutes on the treadmill, question my reason for living and would throw the towel in and just hide away in the sauna for a time, hoping that would do me some good! How I came to marry a CrossFit fanatic, I’ll never know!
Over the years, I’ve personally rebranded exercise, to “moving my body”. It’s far less threatening and much easier to achieve. So, on the days where I don’t get to the gym, I’ll try and go for a walk instead and as long as “I’m moving my body”, I feel great about that! This desire to move my body has never been a struggle. I’ve always innately recognized it and yet I have always pushed back at the idea of exercising! So, dear reader, if the first line of this story made you wish you weren’t reading, fear not, there’s something in here for you too!
At it’s most fundamental, exercising, or “moving our bodies”, boosts our blood and lymphatic system. That’s a biggie. Because if our blood and lymphatic systems are stimulated, our digestion will also improve. And if our digestion is working better, our long–term mental health will be better. Even in the short term, exercise produces feel-good endorphins and lowers our stress hormone levels, which makes us nicer to be around and it’s super-important for our sex lives! Moving your body also stimulates our lungs, kidneys, immune system as well as brain vascularization and neurogenesis (put simply, the formation of new brain cells) to improve brain function. Plus the very act of moving helps to stretch our fascia (connective tissue), lubricate our joints and strengthen muscles. And all that combined means we have healthier tissues overall, so we’ll notice an improvement in our skin and eyes and hair too.
So, everything really. Moving your body, aka exercise, improves everything.
But today, I want to focus a little more on the detoxification effects of exercise. When we exercise, our muscles require fuel or energy to keep on moving. Many years ago, athletes would “carb-load” before a big event in order to provide their bodies with that fuel. More recently research has pointed to fat being a more adaptable fuel for muscles to burn and many endurance athletes maintain a fat-centric or ketogenic diet to keep them at their peak. Now, I’m not telling you need to “go keto”, but what we can learn from this research is that muscles burn fat very well.
Our wonderful bodies have designed these very clever units of fat storage to be used in times of a calorie deficit or when we’re exercising. How marvelous!
The only snag is, unless we’re maintaining a calorie deficit — that is, eating less calories than we’re burning in a day, or exercising so much that our muscles are constantly burning fuel, for example if you’re weight training a few times a day, then there’s a good chance you’re storing a little too much fat.
And that’s not a great scenario, because guess where we, as humans store most of our toxins? In fat cells (aka ‘adipocytes’)! I know you knew that already, but I’m just hammering the message home ok!
So, if our fat cells are storing toxic stuff and we’ve got them stored all around our bodies, that’s not great is it? You know how after a massage sometimes you get a little headachy and some people even develop mild flu-like symptoms? That’s because the massage can create a mild lipolytic reaction, where some of the fat that’s been stored gets released into our tissues and the lymphatic circulation starts to transport them and filter them to remove them from the body. This process of lipolysis happens more significantly with an Endermologie massages, but the bonus with Endermologie is that it also boosts your lymphatic circulation by 300% for at least 6 hours after treatment, thereby clearing away all of the toxins more quickly so usually you don’t have the same toxic load or symptoms after the massage. In fact, because you’re boosting your blood circulation too, usually you fell pretty fabulous after an Endermologie massage!
Sorry, I digress! Anyway, these fat cells. Problematic right? Well even if a massage can shift some of them, it turns out that the very best way to burn fat is to exercise. For many years the experts believed this was because the muscles convert the fat to ATP to be used as energy, but some recent studies suggest that actually most of the fat that leaves our bodies does so by exhalation of carbon dioxide — i.e. breathing! Although we don’t have great data on what type of breathing specifically helps, it’s generally accepted that the increased rate and depth of breathing response during exercise is beneficial to shifting more of that pesky toxic fat!
Then of course our improved digestive system is the next great elimination ally. Followed by urine, sweat and other bodily fluids. Just bear in mind however that even though a sauna will help you sweat some toxins out, if that sweat is left to sit on the skin for too long, a small amount may be reabsorbed, so it’s not a huge benefit unless you can shower straight away.
So now that I’ve convinced you that moving your body really is a great way to ‘detox’, let’s talk about some of the ways you can do that. With or without lycra. No judgement here.
One of my favourites that I recommend to my Endermologie Clients is rebounding. Which basically means jumping up and down! Preferably on a trampoline to protect your joints and to really get a good bounce going, ’cause that’s fun!! Rebounding is great for a few reasons. One, the bouncing motion compresses and alternately decompresses our bodies’ tissues. The ones I’m particularly interested in here are the interstitial tissues, which I used to call “the space between cells” back in my nursing days. The interstitial fluid in these cells is then pushed towards the lymph vessels and enters the lymph system, ready to be pumped around the body, (by the motion of the muscular contractions) and then filtered and drained away. Two, it’s fun. Three, all you need is a trampoline.
If you don’t have a full-size trampoline in your back yard, a mini one in your home will do just fine. Then just kick your shoes off, wear loose, comfortable clothing (but perhaps a good bra if you need it) and set aside 15–20 minutes to jump up and down. You might need to build up to that length of time, because if you haven’t jumped in a while I can promise you’ll feel muscles you’d forgotten you had.
There are all kinds of fancy moves you can try; high kicks, abdominal twisting etc., check out you tube for tutorials. Now, if you’re worried about pelvic floor instability, are pregnant or recently had surgery, it’s worth having a chat with your Doctor first. For the most part, if you listen to your body and take it easy to begin with, rebounding can really help to strengthen your pelvic floor and abdominal muscles.
If you’re over rebounding and have good joints and (pelvic control), skipping is also a great exercise option. Start off with single leg skips, then skip with both feet together and then have a crack at double-unders (i.e. you jump higher and spin the rope faster to go under your feet twice in one jump). It even writes easier than it is in real life! Warning, I take no responsibility for the whip marks you acquire whilst practicing these! If you like the sound of double-unders, I bet you’re the kind of person who likes burpees too right? Well, by all means give them a crack also! They’ll work every part of your body and get you into fat-burning mode very quickly!
But if you’re freaking out right now and wondering what language I’m speaking, try this simple exercise…lie down on the ground, ankles and head touching the floor and then get back up and clap above your head. And repeat. And repeat again for as long as you can until you’re thoroughly puffed. Try to use your hands as little as possible to get you off the ground, make your body do most of the work. Then set yourself a time goal. 3 minutes every day for a week, then 5 minutes for the next week etc., etc. When it starts to get easier, start adding weight. Even a couple of bags of rice in each hand will make a difference. It might sound easy, but it can make a big difference!
I can’t not mention weight lifting. Purely because it seems that many women believe that weight lifting is for blokes only. And it isn’t, in fact, it’s probably more important for us ladies to do weight training as it’s proven to help strengthen our bones. And women are disproportionately affected by bone conditions such as osteoporosis in later life. Plus, lifting heavy things build muscles faster and more muscle tone means you’re burning more calories, more of the time. You won’t end up with massive muscles unless you work out A LOT and eat a lot of calories, so please, give it a crack.
But, I know weight lifting is not for everyone and if you’re more of a yoga person — though no reason you cant do both, in fact, it’s an awesome combination…(sorry I know I get carried away)…then yoga is also fabulous to help with a detox. There are specific ‘twist’ poses that are believed to be particularly beneficial for detoxing. The theory is that these twists “detox the spine and subsequently massage the liver in order to increase its ability to detoxify ”.* Although I’m not sure I understand that, the movement would certainly boost the all-important lymphatic circulation and the deep yogic breathing with strong exhalation would be hugely beneficial in expelling toxins.
But, these are just a few suggestions, so whatever you like to do to move your body, dancing, swimming, stand-up-paddle-boarding are all fantastic and helping our body do what it does best. I’ve learned if you find something you really enjoy, it doesn’t actually feel like exercise at all!
