FIVE KEY STEPS TO RESOLVING HORMONAL HELL

1. ELIMINATE ALL FATS (& PROTEINS) BEFORE LUNCH

Think of the morning as a sacred time for your liver, which has been working hard much of the night to gather up all the junk. Come morning, your liver needs time and space to flush through toxins and continue its job of removing waste effectively.

In order for this process to happen effectively your body needs a little help. Firstly, it needs hydration to flush the waste through; and secondly, it needs to be free from fats coming from food. The moment you consume fats, be it plant or animal, the liver has to focus on processing the fats instead of clearing out. In other words, that window of opportunity for deeper levels of detoxification is lost. And remember that all high protein foods are also high in fat, so we’re talking meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, nuts and seeds, oils, olive and avocados. By dedicating one quarter of your day to cleansing, this process alone is often enough to start turning around symptoms.

2. FOCUS YOUR MORNINGS AROUND FRUITS & GREENS

This is a great time to get hydrated and fill your body with life giving foods. You can start your day with lemon water, which signals to your liver to start flushing things through. Then, you can either feast on a beautiful smoothie, packed with fruits and greens, or you can be adventurous and try introducing celery juice on an empty stomach.

3. DRINK 400ML OF CELERY JUICE ON AN EMPTY STOMACH

Celery juice is one of the most effective ways of flushing liver heat and helping with symptoms such as night sweats because it loosens loosens the toxicity, disperses fats cells and revives liver cells, creating cleaner blood that enables temperature related issues to improve.

4. HEAVY METAL DETOX SMOOTHIE

Again, this is another great option for breakfast. Not only does it taste completely divine, it also deeply uproots heavy metals and also targets nasty chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides that disrupt the endocrine system so dramatically. Click here for the full recipe.

5. FOCUS ON BRINGING IN ENDOCRINE AND REPRODUCTIVE SUPPORT FOODS

Wild blueberries; apples; black grapes; asparagus; spinach & leafy greens; cruciferous veg; black beans; avocado (small amounts later in the day; sesame/tahini (small amounts later in the day); lentils; raspberry leaf (tea); nettle leaf (tea or tincture); elderberry.

WHY MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS HAPPEN

So many women I know seem to be struggling with their hormones and going through what they consider to be menopausal hormonal hell!
 
Interestingly, menopause and PMS have a lot in common in the sense that they both stem more from underlying health issues than imbalanced hormones, and in both cases, the symptoms are a cry from the liver for help.
 
Low grade viral and bacterial infections that a woman didn’t know she had; sensitive central nervous systems; heavy metal toxicity; a sluggish or stagnant liver. This is why women experience menopausal issues.
 
Once upon a time, menopause was seen in a more positive light with little noticeable physical symptoms. It was understood as a natural process of slowing down and entering a new phase of life without being wrapped in fear of getting old and facing a series of health concerns.
 
But from the mid 1900’s onwards, this began to change with the emergence of Epstein Barr Virus and other viral strains at the turn of the century. Suddenly women in their forties and fifties were experiencing fatigue, anxiety, panic attacks, dizziness, moodiness, weight gain, and hair thinning, among others symptoms, and doctors thought they were crazy!
 
In fact, doctors were utterly confused and hormones seemed like a logical explanation.
 
Around this time, there was also the explosion of DDT, the now banned, extremely aggressive fertiliser that was freely sprayed around from airplanes in the sky, and that still to this day, inhabits women’s bodies (and men’s), causing huge disruption to the endocrine system.
 
And as if that wasn’t enough, levels of radiation were inordinately high due to the shoe fitting fluoroscope that was used in shoe stores across the world to measure a person’s shoe size.  

Between new viral strains, DDT and radiation exposure, as well as richer and more processed foods, menopause was a time in a woman’s life when a sluggish, overworked liver started to reveal itself, and not much has changed, except that today women are being affected at younger and younger ages, and even men, with their more resilient central nervous systems, are also experiencing challenges.  
 
The reality is we live in a world that is much like a toxic soup and if you don’t know how to navigate it, it makes life very hard.
 
Even practitioner friends I know who do everything to look after their health in the best possible ways are not escaping, and one of the main reasons why, is because their diets are too high in fat (& protein) for the body to really be able to clean itself more deeply each day.
 
When the liver is toxic and overworked from too many fats, toxicity and pathogens, the heat of its internal environment is higher than it should be. As toxic sludge moves from an area of heat (liver) to an area that is cooler (GB), it brings about the symptoms of ‘hot flashes’. The hotter the liver, the colder the gall bladder has to be, and this constant tug between hot and cold is what creates the most typical symptoms of menopause -  hot flashes.
 
So, what can you do about it?

Follow the 5 key steps above and give your liver some breathing space and love.

Wishing you much love, health & happiness

Rebecca