Detox

[Craig]

I must admit that I've never really experienced detox. I thought I did when I first went raw vegan but I was eating so little food and calories that the tiredness and lethargy I felt was probably the start of keto-adaptation. I had a diet coke, just to see if it indeed was detox, and it did stop. However, the caffeine and aspartame are stimulants well known to give a sense of false energy. When I started eating more: two 9-11 banana green smoothies, nuts, seeds, sesame milk, avocados, etc. It never happened again UNTIL I went Raw Paleo. Then I understood these symptoms as keto-adaptation. They subsided after about two weeks and I haven't had any symptoms since.

Does it only exist for some people? Does my body simply get rid of toxins very sloooowly?

I'd like to know your individual experiences regarding detox, what you believe is the mechanism and why some experience it while others don't.

I don't believe that it does NOT exist but I sometimes think that too many symptoms get blamed on detox when it's something entirely unrelated. For example, I recently read of someone who was constipated for a YEAR and chalked it up to detox. Isn't detox supposed to come and go? What's your take?

Craig

[wodgina]

I hardly think about detox much these days but my bro's starting to go RP too and he's called me up a couple of times and his having exactly the same problems I had...but I didn't know they were detox at the time.

Nightmares, I have these when detoxing and he has had trouble too, really horrible dreams,  I just thought it was the crap meat and fat Iwas eating at the time but it makes sense now.

I've heard that the liver detoxes at around 3 in morning and this makes sense as this was around the time the both of us felt ill and had/have nightmares. I detoxed recently after having alcohol, around 3 in the morning I started waking, falling back to sleep having horrible dreams...ugghhh.

I think the toxins were released by the fat I had been eating back into my blood stream making me feel ill so this made my dreams negative.

Maybe some people detox all the time and others detox at 3 in morning! Me and my brother are quite lean so this would probably mean we would detox more because of lack of body fat to store toxins away from our organs while people with body fat would would have a more cushioned detox.

Andrew

[Raw Kyle]

I believe a big factor is what your eating as a less toxic diet. That is to say, some diets are better are easing detox symptoms and some diets (imo) recirculate a lot of the dislodged toxins in your body and cause much longer lasting and stronger symptoms. Of course the relative health and toxicity of your body when you start is also an issue.

I believe that raw fats (animal in particular) are the best nutrient to ease detox symptoms and help usher toxins out of the body. So someone going on a lower fat diet might experience more detox symptoms for that reason.

When I first went raw vegan I was praying for something profound to happen, even if it was miserable, to validate that what I was doing was working and giving me results. I was also consuming very low calories when I started, and will probably never know which experiences were detoxification, which were caused by lack of certain nutrients, and which were relatively unrelated to diet.

One thing is certain though, everyone is always detoxing, even SAD eaters. If toxins weren't constantly leaving your body you would be in serious trouble. A lot of mystery and hype is given to "detox" when in reality it's just a simple law of nature, a combination of diffusion and organ activity. Everything in nature moves from areas of greater to lesser concentration (unless counteracted by an organism or outside force) and toxins in the body are no different. And of course certain organs, in particular the liver, are given the specific job of filtering out toxins and having them removed. Some of the raw vegan books I read before seem to suggest that you will go through terrible pain and discomfort and emerge a super version of yourself. This is a great selling point but in my experience (and of those I've read about and talked to) falls short of the reality.

[wodgina]

Vegans and AV seem to be a little obsessed by detox...but yeah it depends on the foods you are eating before you embark on raw paleo.

my detox was nothing as dramatic as Av has claimed (like having to walk around on crutches for weeks or something like that!)

My liver and kidneys were swollen from the amount of junk and alcohol I used to consume plus a year of taking strong anxiety medication.

 so my  detox would probably worse than a vegan or a person on healthy SAD. It was mainly disturbing nightmares coming and going over weeks, this was probably from consuming higher fat later in the evening, diarrhea making working a bit difficult for a while and a low range headache lasting 1 month.

Cheers Andrew