Its been a little more than 2 weeks since I finished the detox and I have gotten by blood work and results from the Blood Chemistry Calculator. Before I dive into what that showed I would like to summarize my experience.
The first six days (phase 1) were not bad. The food is bland and not terribly exciting, kind of like I would expect a body builder diet to be like. I have certainly become accustom to eating good high fat meats so sticking to chicken breast, ground turkey, and cod was a little boring. I found the best way to consume the veggies was by steaming them in the Instant Pot and then dumping some olive oil on them. It was quick and tasted better due to the olive oil. Eating the Mung beans gave me gas. I don’t eat a lot of beans so my digestive system is not used to the quantity I was eating. I am guessing if I consumed beans more often it wouldn’t have been a problem, but be mindful of that if beans don’t make an appearance in your diet too often.
The sauna was an interesting experience for me. I have only been in a sauna a handful of times so 10 days strait was something new to me. It took me a couple of days to find the temperature where I could stay in for 30 minutes and not feel like I was going to die but yet feel like it was somewhat challenging. The pre-sauna exercise was doable for me, as I am an avid exerciser. If you are not someone who exercises regularly I would suggest scaling it to fit your own needs. Don’t think you need to get on the treadmill and run for 30 mins. You could walk for example and make the intervals a couple of burpees or body weight squats. You just need to get your body temperature up so don’t try to go crazy.
Phase 2 was a whole different game. Except for day 9, I felt pretty awful most of the time. I had a ton of brain fog, I was tired, cold, and generally in a bad mood. Even though I was just eating a bowl full of veggies each day I was not terribly hungry during this phase. I honestly think that the “awfulness” of phase 2 way due to two things.
- Overall stress load: People don’t realize how draining stress can be. The past 2 months or so have been particularly stressful for me. Yes, I have a full time job (in addition to health coaching), 2 small kids, a wife, and all the responsibilities that come along with that. In addition though I have been starting my health coaching business and have had some family members that I care deeply about have some serious illnesses. All this combined put a lot more stress on me than normal.
- Additional training: In addition to the 30 mins of exercise I was doing as part of the detox I was still trying to keep up with my strength training plan. This was fine at the beginning but I think it eventually took its toll on me at the end.
If I was to change anything I did to perhaps make the experience a bit more pleasant next time I would drop all the additional exercise and also make sure I mitigate stress as much as I could.
OK now on to the blood work….
If you don’t recall, here was my toxicity score according to the blood chemistry calculator before starting the detox
Here is my toxicity score 2 weeks post detox
That is a fairly good improvement. I am just below the mean for my age group. I would also hope that this number increases over time because typically your body continues to detox things even after you stop the detox. It also tends to get better the more you do it (obviously). So that begs the question would I do it again? I think the answer is yes I would. I think I might attempt it again right before Spring and before I start training for OCR again. (You should certainly never attempt this detox during any serious training!)
If you are thinking of doing this detox, I would suggest you give it a try. However, I would not try it if any of the following are true.
- You are in a period of high stress in your life, wait till a time where things are calm.
- You are doing any kind of serious training that can’t be put on hold. Outside of walking, yoga, etc. I wouldn’t attempt to do anything else during the 10 days
- You are not confident in your self control around food. If you have a hard time skipping meals, or if being around food you are not supposed to eat causes a lot of problems for you, I would try and solve those issues first before doing the detox.
- You have not removed toxic components in your lifestyle already. Are you still drinking out of plastic bottles, still putting on deodorant with aluminum in it, still using makeup with all kinds of nasty chemicals in it, still storing food in plastic? Clean that stuff up first before attempting the detox. Make sure your lifestyle is as free from toxic exposure as possible before diving into this.
That is all I have. Feel free to leave any questions you might have about the detox below and I will be sure to answer them. You can also go back and read my previous posts on this topic by clicking the links below.
Starting The Walsh Detox Program