The Best Detox for Women

Quick fixes don’t work, though we all wish they would. If you’ve been following FLO Living for a while (or even for a short time), you know I advocate for making good choices every day, creating sustainable lifestyle habits that last for the long term, and living in line with your infradian rhythm, or the innate 28-day hormone cycle that controls six key areas of the body, all year long. It’s an evidence based, results-driven perspective and it really works.

That said, I do recommend doing the right kind of detox — emphasis on the words “right kind” — periodically. A detox that focuses on replenishing the nutrients and minerals your body needs while reducing the amount of nutritional clutter that comes into your body (think sugar, caffeine, and the pesticides and herbicides found on conventional produce) can kickstart hormonal healing and accelerate the disappearance of period problems like heavy or irregular periods, fatigue, acne, moodiness, brain fog, bloating, weight gain, and weight loss resistance. 

What makes a detox healthy and supportive (versus depleting and destabilizing)? When should you detox? How can you detox safely?

In this post, I give you everything you need to know about doing a safe, hormone-supportive detox. And I share the detailed 4-Day Detox plan that I designed specifically to help you balance your hormones and erase period problems.

If you’ve tried detox protocols in the past and they haven’t worked, this post is for you. 

How Do You Know If You Need to Detox? 

A healthy, hormone-supportive detox isn’t a daily lifestyle. It’s a short, thoughtful, nourishing protocol that you can follow a couple times a year to help rebalance your hormones ease pesky period problems. How can you tell when you’d benefit from doing a hormone supportive detox? Here are some clues your body might be giving you:

• You feel sluggish and tired most days, even after getting a good night’s sleep
• You have trouble concentrating 
• You feel irritable and moody most days
• Your body feels heavy, weighed down
• You feel bloated most days
• Your PMS is worse than usual
• You’re breaking out regularly
• You’re having increased food cravings
• You’ve been relying on caffeine to jumpstart each day
• You’ve been relying on alcohol to come down at night
• You’ve gained some weight and it just won’t seem to come back off

If you can identify with the symptoms on this list, your hormones need some TLC and one of the best ways to start that process is with a detox. But not just any detox! A healthy, healing detox is NOT a crash diet, juice cleanse, or fast. If you want to feel energized, refreshed, boosted in body and spirit, as well as lose a few pounds and get glowing skin, you need a detox that nourishes and supports you, not deprives you. 

Why Is Doing a Detox Important?

Modern life is hard on hormones. Here are just some of the things we are exposed to everyday that interfere with optimal hormone balance and contribute to unpleasant symptoms like fatigue, acne, depression, anxiety, brain fog, mood swings, weight gain, weight loss resistance, and period problems, like severe PMS, heavy or irregular periods, bloating, and menstrual migraines:

• Environmental toxins (household cleaning products, body care products, lawn chemicals)
• The pesticides and herbicides on conventional food
• Sugar/high-glycemic foods
• Gluten
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Not eating enough phytonutrient-rich foods 
• Chronic stress
• Sleep deprivation

What is the Best Detox Protocol for Women? 

The best detox for people with female physiology in their reproductive years is a detox that helps balance hormones, replenish missing nutrients and minerals, support the liver, and facilitate the elimination of toxins — all while allowing you to feel nourished and satisfied. Fasts, juice cleanses, and starvation diets do more damage to hormones than good!

I’ve designed a simple, powerfully effective detox that accomplishes all of this. My 4-Day Hormone Detox has you eating fresh, nourishing food for 3 meals a day, plus snacks. You won’t feel hungry, hangry, or deprived. You will prep food and then you will be eating frequently throughout the day, instead of watching the clock for your next juice.

Many women have told me that the 4-Dday Hormone Detox is not something they live through but something they actually look forward to!

Women who have done this cleanse have lost 10 lbs, cleared up stubborn acne, improved their energy, sharpened their thinking, solved period problems, and boosted their moods.

I created this cleanse using the principles of functional nutrition and my deep understanding of hormonal biochemistry. Every meal combines foods that help support the liver and that help restore and sustain the delicate endocrine (hormone) system.

What’s more, the detox is designed to stabilize blood sugar, regulate your adrenal system, improve estrogen elimination, and engage your healing feminine energy. The protocol will also increase the micronutrients you need to manufacture the right amounts of these hormones and to signal to them to do their jobs at the right times for you.

What to Expect During and After the Detox?

The 4-Day Hormone Detox is designed to boost your energy, ease period problems, clear your skin, and improve your mood. It also resets your relationship with food, getting you back into healthy balance.

More specifically, here is some of what you can expect:

Skin Benefits

The main environmental triggers of adult acne are dairy, caffeine, sugar (and high-glycemic foods, and gluten, and these are all eliminated during the 4-Day Detox. You’ll also increase the amount of skin-clearing, hormone-supportive nutrients in your diet, especially omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins. These micronutrients also support your liver, which is responsible for clearing excess estrogen from your system. When the liver is sluggish, excess estrogen builds up and contributes to breakouts.

Menstrual Health Benefits

Because the Detox is designed to balance your hormones, you will notice an improvement in period problems, like PMS, cramps, bloating, and heavy or irregular periods.

Mood Benefits

If you’ve been experiencing anxiety, low mood, depression, or just a sluggishness and demotivation, then the 4-Day Detox can help. One root cause of mood swings and hormone instability is imbalanced blood sugar. The Detox is designed to balance blood sugar. Many women experience their worst moods (or mood swings) the week before their period, and this is fueled by high estrogen/low progesterone, which the Detox also helps correct by supporting the liver (to eliminate excess estrogen) and boosting B vitamin stores (which helps with progesterone production).

Body Composition Benefits

Bloating can get better during the detox. You’re might also  lose a few pounds, too. That’s because balanced blood sugar correlates with lower levels of insulin — and lower insulin is correlated with less fat stored around the waistline. (Insulin is an important and necessary hormone in the body, but too much of it in the body — which happens when blood sugar is high or chronically unstable — is associated with the storage of unwanted body fat.)

Emotional Benefits

During the detox, you’ll be journaling on specific topics that will expand your perspective, increase your sense of confidence and calm, and support you in connecting with your feminine energy and creativity. You’ll be having a conversation with yourself and your body that you can use to make positive changes in your life. The Detox is also designed to shift your relationship with food, encouraging you to actually engage with and enjoy what you eat.

If your body and mind need a boost, I highly recommend the 4-Dday Hormone Detox. It is nourishing, restorative, and easy — no deprivation or punishing rules — so it can be rolled out when you need it to help you get back on track. 

WHEN is the optimal time to do a detox? You should do a detox during your follicular and ovulation phases only. Due to infradian changes, your metabolism is slower in the first half of your cycle and requires less calories, so you can tolerate the cleanse most easily then. Learn more about the infradian effect on metabolism here. 

What Happens After You Finish the 4-Day Hormone Detox

After the 4-Dday Hormone Detox, it’s important to take small but effective steps everyday to keep toxins out of your system. You’ll want to maintain the good work you did during the targeted detox to keep your hormones healthy all year round.

I recommend eating a nutrient-dense diet, full of good fats, greens, high-fiber foods, and high-quality proteins. Your liver needs the nutrients from those foods to process the excess hormones and toxins and eliminate them from your body. Specifically, the liver breaks down and eliminates toxins in four phases:

Phase 1: The liver breaks down toxins into smaller components by using nutrients from food such as glutathione, B vitamins, and C vitamins. These smaller components are called free radicals and they are more toxic once they’re broken down, so it’s critical to flush them from the body ASAP.

Phase 2: These free radicals are combined with the selenium and amino acids in the liver – again, sourced from your food – and they become harmless and water-soluble through the process.

Phase 3: Then these water-soluble molecules bind to fiber — yes, the very same fiber you get in food! — and are escorted out of the body.

Phase 4: Toxins are eliminated via your skin, your lymphatic system, and bowel movements.

This is one of the reasons why food is such a core component of the FLO Protocol, and why living in line with your infradian rhythm depends so heavily on the foods you eat (and don’t eat). Optimal liver function also helps promote healthy weight maintenance and weight loss.  

In short, your liver needs MORE nutrients, not less, to do its job effectively. To supply your liver with a steady stream of hormone-supportive nutrients and promote detox everyday, give the following foods a starring role in your daily diet all year round: 

• Gutathione-heavy vegetables like avocados, carrots, broccoli, spinach, apples, asparagus and melon. Add two additional servings a day
• Selenium-rich foods like as oats, eggs, and Brazil nuts.
• Fiber-rich foods like nuts, seeds, lentils and peas. Add flaxseeds to your breakfast eggs and lunch salad.

You can also speed up the elimination process and get those toxins out your body fast with a couple of simple lifestyle hacks.

• Sweat – encourage your lymphatic system to get in on the game of releasing toxins by giving it a gentle movement massage. Workout in a way that makes you sweat, whether that’s a home dance workout or a hatha yoga class.
• Soak – draw yourself a bath full of epsom salts, the ancient and highly effective way to detox via your body’s largest organ – your skin.

In addition, I recommend all people with female physiology in their reproductive years take targeted, hormone-supportive supplements that insure your liver gets all the nutrients it needs to do its elimination work. Even when we eat the cleanest diet, there are factors beyond our control (like the nutrient-depleted soil our food is grown in) that make it difficult to get all the nutrients we need from food. 

The five formulations in Balance by FLO Living provide the essential micronutrient support that you need to balance your hormones. Think of them as your personal “insurance policy” against endocrine disruptors like stress, coffee, environmental toxins, lack of sleep, and plain-old modern life.

You no longer have to waste money on low-quality supplements or supplements that don’t target your unique hormonal profile. I’ve formulated all the essential supplements you need to heal your hormones with the highest quality ingredients. The Balance by FLO Living supplement kit is thoroughly researched, rigorously tested, and perfectly suited to meet your needs. 

Always remember that once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that finally start to work for you. You can do this – the science of your body is on your side!