In this blog post, I will be discussing the different ways you can do a liver cleanse.
In my last blog post, I discussed the common characteristics of a Wood/Liver person. If you are curious and want more details on that particular Wood/Liver character type, you can revisit the information here.
If you’ve already discovered that you are a Wood person, or if you know someone in your life who’s a Wood person and you want to help, suggest doing a liver cleanse.
Clean Your Filter
A Wood person typically has some congestion or stagnation in their liver. And since the liver is a filtration organ, the best way to strengthen and heal it, is to do a liver cleanse.
Julia (my mother-in-law) always used to say that people know they need to change the oil in their car regularly. If they don’t, their car starts to malfunction. Yet, no one pays the same attention to the natural filter in their body – their liver.
Just like with your car, if you don’t cleanse your liver regularly, your body will start to malfunction in predictable ways – your digestion and elimination will become more sluggish and irregular, you may start to see inflammation markers in your liver, your cholesterol level and blood pressure might rise, or you may develop gallstones. Other common symptoms of a congested liver include; digestive bloating, acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, fatigue, and poor sleep.
For women, all types of menstrual problems can become more common when their liver is congested. These would include; painful menstruation, PMS, and reproductive area growths like ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids, or endometrial growths. For menopausal women, a congested liver can also contribute to hot flashes.
So what can you do about it?
Well, there are 3 ways to do a liver cleanse, depending on how thoroughly you want to go about it.
- You can do a Kitchari cleanse.
- You can do a simple, non-fasting flush
- You can do a more thorough fasting flush
I will go over each of these options now. Then, you decide which liver cleanse works best for you.
1. Kitchari Cleanse
Kitchari is a Middle Eastern dish that is very easy to digest. It is composed of mung beans and whole grain rice, along with some added spices. You can add a variety of vegetables to the recipe, changing the formula every day to keep your taste buds interested. Here is a suggested recipe.
How It Works:
Mung beans are very cleansing and detoxifying to your body, but particularly to your liver. Meanwhile, rice is strengthening to your spleen/pancreas. (Together, the spleen and pancreas are considered a single organ in Traditional Chinese Medicine).
Your liver and spleen/pancreas need to be balanced for proper health and good digestion, which is why a Kitchari cleanse is such a perfect meal: the mung beans are cooling and soothing to your liver, while the rice revivifies your spleen.
So, how do you do a Kitchari cleanse?
Well, to do a Kitchari cleanse, you eat nothing but Kitchari, every meal of every day, for at least two weeks.
The advantage of this particular liver cleanse is that it is relatively easy to do. It does not require any fasting on your part. You can continue to eat three solid meals a day.
And because the ingredients in Kitchari are easy to digest and have naturally detoxifying properties, they place very little stress on your digestive organs. This allows your liver the time and energy it needs to perform more of its regular, housekeeping duties.
After at least two weeks of eating nothing but Kitchari, you will have given your liver time to rid your body of toxins, chemicals, and pesticides. You will have allowed it to process sugars and fats that it has been holding on to for years. Now, they can finally be completely digested and removed from your body.
Following the Kitchari diet is a safe and easy way to do a liver cleanse.
2. The Simple, Non-Fasting Liver Cleanse and Gallbladder Flush
This flush is a bit more involved because it requires you to drink apple juice daily. You will also need to drink a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice at the end. But it is a more thorough liver cleanse than the Kitchari Cleanse.
How It Works:
Apple juice contains malic acid, which is an excellent solvent for stagnant bile in the liver. When you drink 1 litre of apple juice daily, it softens any bile accumulations, including gallstones, enabling your bile to flow more easily. It’s also a very effective metal chelator, meaning it can bind to the toxic metals accumulated in your liver and deactivate them.
The olive oil and lemon juice mixture at the end of the flush stimulates a strong contraction from your gallbladder, which helps to release any gallstones.
How do you do a non-fasting liver cleanse?
While continuing to eat regularly throughout the day, you will drink 1 litre of apple juice or apple cider daily. The malic acid in apple cider will act as a solvent in your liver, dissolving any stagnant bile within its ducts so it can be released.
Continue to drink this 1 litre of apple juice or apple cider each day for 6 days. During this time, your diet should be as healthy, and easily digested as possible.
Choose lightly cooked vegetables, whole grains, and fruits, in season. Avoid foods known to congest the liver, such as deep fried foods, spicy foods, roasted nuts, chocolate, and cold foods. (Foods eaten straight from the refrigerator cause all of your organs to constrict).
On the sixth day, stop eating early in the afternoon, at around 2 or 3 pm. You can continue to drink liquids, but stop consumption of all solid foods.
At 8:00 pm, drink a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice to allow your gallbladder to contract and push out gallstones.
Once you have drank this mixture, go immediately to bed, and lie down on your right side. Gallstones will usually start to come out the next morning with your daily bowel movement, although some people will see stones coming out already during the night.
The next day, you will likely continue to see gallstones coming out during the day. Keep eating a light diet of mostly vegetables and fruits. The next day, you can eat normally again.
3. The Fasting Liver Cleanse and Gallbladder Flush
This is the most thorough liver cleanse and gallbladder flush. It is also the most difficult to do, as it requires some scheduling on your part. **You will be fasting for 2 days, so you may wish to do this on a weekend. That way, you can relax without worrying about how the fasting may affect your energy level.**
How To Do A 2-Day Fasting Liver Cleanse and Gallbladder Flush:
To do this liver cleanse, you will be drinking two 8 oz. glasses of apple juice or apple cider every two hours for two days. From 8:00 am until 8:00 pm each day, you will be drinking apple juice.
At the end of the second day of fasting, you will drink a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice to cause your gallbladder to contract and push out stones. For more extensive details on how to do this flush, please visit this section of our website.
While you are fasting on apple juice, you should notice that you are releasing some diarrhea. For some poeple, this release will start early, with their first or second drink of apple juice. For others, the diarrhea may not arrive until the evening of the first day, or not until the morning of the second day.
This is completely normal.
However, if you do not start having diarrhea by the afternoon of the second day of fasting, you can take a teaspoon of our Chinese Bitters tincture in between drinks of apple juice. For more information on how this will help, please contact me at 416-248-2930, or email me at rebecca@sensiblehealth.com.
After drinking the olive oil and lemon juice, you will notice a release of gallstones. The release of gallstones is usually more powerful with this fasting liver cleanse than with the non-fasting liver cleanse above. Because you have fasted for two days on apple juice, your liver will be more open, and bile will be able to flow more readily into your gallbladder to allow the stones to be moved out.
A lot of our customers see profound and dramatic improvement in their overall health when they do this fasting liver cleanse. The other cleanses can also improve liver health, but tend to do so more gradually and subtly. So, if it is at all possible for you to fast on apple juice for two days, this is the liver cleanse that we recommend.
For more details on how our tinctures can be used to ensure the most successful liver cleanse possible, please contact me at 416-28-2930 or email me at rebecca@sensiblehealth.com.
Why Should You Cleanse Your Liver?
Your liver is a powerhouse of an organ. It is the only organ that can actually regenerate itself. It performs so many functions within your body that when it becomes congested and stagnant, it can create any number of health issues.
Customers of ours are regularly surprised at how much better they feel after doing a successful liver cleanse and gallbladder flush. It is not uncommon for them to exclaim that they feel at least ten years younger.
Conclusion
I hope you’ve found this information helpful and inspiring. In our stressful, and competitive culture, liver congestion is a very common problem. However, it is also relatively easy to remedy.
Performing any of these 3 different liver cleanses will increase your its ability to detoxify your body and better circulate your blood, improve your digestion, and improve energy and sleep.
Choose the one that suits you and your lifestyle best and then witness the results for yourself!