SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello and welcome to another episode of Empower Your Menopause with coaches Julie and James here from the team at Fabulous Beyond 40. And this week we're going to talk about detoxification and elimination, but before that, we've got a really important announcement to make. So every so often, Julie and I like to give something back to the women we serve, and given we advocate that you should be fabulous beyond 40, we're going to give away in October and November 43 health coaching sessions to women 40 and above. Now on these sessions, we're going to help you create the start of a journey, a roadmap for your journey during the menopause. We're going to look at where you want to get to first of all, then we'll see what's working for you now and take a look at what might be holding you back. And that's where Julia or I will step in, depending on which one of you book a call with. We're going to help you figure out how to get started and how to get over that first bump so you've got a clear pathway to go to. Now, hopefully, for some of you, that is going to be enough to get you going and get you on your way. But if you do need more help, we can discuss that on the call and what help might look like moving forward. It's really important to note though, these are not sales calls, they're calls to help you get started. If you'd like to bag one of those calls or just 40 to have in October, November, visit freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com. That's freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com. We'll put that in the show notes as well so you can see that. Okay, so let's crack on then with our chat about detoxification. So there's all kinds of things out there, aren't there? Detox teas, juice cleansers, all kinds of these magical elections, but are they really necessary? In this episode, we're going to talk about detoxification during menopause. It's a really, really, really important thing. We're going to explore what your body needs to detox naturally, what kind of things to avoid, and how to support healthy elimination without all the fads. Now, spoiler alert, your body's already doing a lot of the hard work for you because that's what it's meant to do. It's meant to detox you from a lot of the things that are going wrong. But let's delve into that then and chat. So, Julie, why don't we start off? I've talked loads there at the beginning of the episode. A little bit, give us your take on detoxification then, why it's important, what it means, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Sure. And this is a topic that, like many, are near and is near and dear to my heart because I've been through the fads, through the cleansing teas and the foot patches and the special diets and all of the rest of it. And there are a few things out there that have some merit, but we tend to get caught up in the fact that we have to detox in order to survive and thrive. And as you said, our body is already doing a lot of that work for us. Part of what helps with the detoxification is what we take in and the toxic load that we put into our bodies. And I know we'll talk about these things in detail, but let me tell you, if there's a special ring or earrings that you're supposed to put on that detox your body or a special product that you need to buy to detox your body, it's probably, well, technical term would be hooey. It's just not something that I would recommend. There's a way to support detoxification. It is critical. It's a critical function of our body, detoxification and elimination. And a lot of us don't do it very well. So it's important to address that, but not with some miracle product, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah. Let's dig a little bit further back than this detoxification and elimination. Basically, we're talking about our body getting rid of foreign substances that it doesn't want there, or substances that no longer serve us, and eliminating those through either digestive tract or in other mechanisms like through the skin, etc. Um, it's important for everybody, you know. When you have um a glass of wine on a Friday or a Saturday night, let's say, your body will see that as a poison and it wants to get rid of that. So it wants to detoxify it, it wants to eliminate it, it wants to clear the body from all that stuff. As we said, detoxification is a natural process. We all do it to a point, but there are things that we can add into our diets and our lifestyles that will help with it. But as Julie said, absolutely not um things like uh uh rings and earrings and brass bracelets and all that kind of stuff. Let's talk about actually physiologically what happens. One of the biggest challenges that can happen at this time of life for women in perimenopause and menopause is we talk a lot about hormones, particularly oestrogen and that irregularity of estrogen levels during the perimenopause, and then later that steady fall-off in the menopause itself. Your body wants to use um estrogen to do various things, 300 plus receptors around the body that estrogen helps with, which is why it's so critical towards a woman's health, and why things can be problematic once estrogen levels start to fall. If we aren't detoxifying properly, oestrogen that has been used, it's gone around the body, it's done its job, and it's on its way out, may not be detoxed properly, it may re-enter circulation and then it's interfering with good, fresh, new estrogen. These are not, by the way, technical terms good, fresh, and new estrogen and spent estrogen, things like that, but just trying to put it in a way that would be understandable. So you get this thing called enterohepatic circuit recirculation, which is where spent um estrogen comes around the body again and gets in the way of new, fresh stuff, which is why it can be a challenge and why detoxification detoxification elimination is particularly problematic for women in the menopause transition. So, Julie, that's me talking about liver, kidneys, that kind of thing there. Why don't you tell us about skin, which is kind of like your area, you know, what role does skin play in the detoxification process?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, that's I love this because there's a there's an ongoing argument that the skin can't actually detoxify, but there's a lot of research that proves otherwise. First of all, our skin is really important as a barrier to prevent toxins from entering our system. But what a lot of people don't know is that as much as 65%, maybe more, we're still not sure, but easily 65% of what we put on our skin can get absorbed into our bloodstream. It there are multiple layers of the skin, and they're just all designed to do something different. We replace our skin very regularly. Skin cells have a high turnover rate. So just about every week we have a new skin. And what we do to treat that skin is really important. So it acts as a barrier for preventing bacteria, viruses, other toxins from entering our system. But once they're in our system, if we ingest them or breathe them in, um, it also serves as a way to pass them through and pass them out through our sweat and our oil glands. And a lot of times we find that when we change our diet, our skin might get go through a period that makes it not look very good. But if our skin is pale, kind of gray, very dry, or very oily, acne breakouts, those kinds of things are often not only hormonally based, but also are based in toxins when our body is trying to get rid of them. And there are things called xenobiotics, which are basically non-natural, non-plant-based substances that our body wants to get rid of because it doesn't really know what to do with them. And so it our body will try to pass those out through the skin. That's why a lot of times you hear people talking about taking saunas and steam baths to help sort of pull those things out of the system, because it's a great way to get them through more quickly and more broadly, because we have millions of pores around our skin, and those pores are helping to open up and bring those things out of our body. And I the other thing is to remember that um, and I don't want to be jumping ahead too far, but a lot of times if we have a lot of chemically based products that we're using, we're eating a lot of junk and processed foods, we're drinking a lot of alcohol or uh artificial sweeteners, soda, or excess sugar, there comes a point where our body doesn't really know what to do with all that excess of toxins because our liver and kidneys have a limit as to what they can flush out. So a lot of times that will be stored in our fat tissue because the fat tissue kind of surrounds it and protects our body from absorbing it. And um so sometimes as we're sweating or we're losing weight, we may have these feelings of kind of malaise, just feeling sort of sick, because our body is finally, once we release that that weight or we open up our pores, we're actually able to circulate those things back through our system so our body can properly eliminate them.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, one of the reasons they're held in fat, of course, is because a lot of the toxins are actually fat-soluble toxins, right? So they aren't just flushed out with water, like by by drinking lots of water and peeing, which is one of the reasons why all these ideas of just cleansing with loads of juices and waters and things like that aren't necessarily always the right way to go. Your liver is the main detoxifying organ in the body. We've talked about kidneys, we've talked about skin as well. And I mean, one of the roles of the liver is it takes all those fat-soluble toxins, byproducts and waste and all that kind of stuff, and it makes them water-soluble so they can be excreted. That's called biotransformation, it's transforming those fats into something that can be actually excreted from the body. And I suppose the the challenge there with the liver and with the kidneys to a lesser extent is that when it doesn't happen, those substances can re-enter the body or stay in the body or hang around in the body, and they can impair many, many other different physiological functions that um take place.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Sure. I mean, just as a as an example, I know that um one of the main places where T4, which is a thyroid hormone, is converted to T3, which is the most active form, a lot of that takes place in the liver. Our hormone um changeover, as you mentioned, a lot of that takes place in the liver. And you know, cholesterol is an important factor in that. And I think we get into these low fat, low sugar, you know, we want to avoid anything with cholesterol in it kind of foods, and we're not really supporting our liver's function. It needs a lot of it needs a lot of care from us in order to function properly. And we can do a lot of that through diet and lifestyle choices.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk then about. In my mind, there's sort of like five or six main things that are the things that impair detoxification. And maybe once we've talked about those, we can take them one by one and look at what we can what we can try and do about them. So the first one is just an overwhelming toxic load, whether it be internal or external, toxic loads coming from from somewhere. So either those re-spent hormones or coming from somewhere else, as you were saying, xenoestrogens and and chemicals that aren't meant to be in the body, etc. You've got impaired elimination, so things like constipation, decreased gut transit time, they can all impair uh detoxification as well. A lack of antioxidants, antioxidants are chemicals that are there to reduce our oxidative stress and our toxic load, and so you have a lack of those imbalances in gut bacteria, and then our good old friend stress rears its ugly head once again, right? So, why don't we talk then a little bit, first of all, about the overwhelming toxic load? What can we do to reduce a toxic load, Julie? What is what are some of the things that listeners can do that are practical steps that can reduce their um exposure to these chemicals? I mean, you know, some of them are just not doable, are they? You like you live by a busy road, it's it's quite a long process to move your house from a busy road or in the middle of the city into the country so you don't get the the fumes from cars. But on a more practical level, what are some of the things that people can do?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Sure. And there a lot of these things don't need to cost a lot of money either. I think that's important to note. Um let's start from the inside out. So one of the first things we can do is to drink plenty of clean purifying water. And I know we just said that water doesn't detoxify everything, but it is an important thing to keep our tissues healthy, to um, to help flush things through. Our kidneys need all the support they can get because we can't live without our kidneys. Um we can't live without a lot of things, but kidneys for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Just to interject there, when I said that um water not playing a role in detoxification, it absolutely does, but it's much more challenged if your liver is not breaking down those fat-soluble elements that we talked about into a water-soluble one, because that is where water does come in, because then it will help flush, flush them out. But the kidney needs to be working, doesn't it, for for the water to to actually sorry, liver and kidneys need to be working for the for the water to actually do its job.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, they're they're a beautiful, a beautiful dynamic duo, let's say. Yeah. Um also looking at the food that we're eating. And again, you don't have to all of a sudden turn into a hippie and go live off of tree bark, but what you what you could do is start reading labels of your packages, start learning or working with a coach to learn how to eliminate some of these ultra-processed foods from your diet, because there's a lot of research now coming out that shows how harmful these things are. And these will contribute to your general sense of well-being, getting restful sleep. Your body does a lot of its detoxification while it's while we're asleep. And that's an important thing that most of us are lacking in these days with the high levels of stress. And and if we look outside a little bit, when we're thinking about what are we putting on our skin, what are we putting on our body? Again, these chemicals, and it's amazing to me to look at what's permitted by the governing bodies in different countries, because there are a lot of these things that are considered highly toxic that are allowed in some places in the world and not others. So there's a this could be a whole episode on its own, so I won't go into detail. But again, the xenoestrogens and the phtates and some of these chemicals that are really not meant for the human body. And looking at your environment in the house, the perfumed cleaning products or those things that plug in the wall and emit this chemical fragrance, we're breathing that in for all of the time that we're at home. There are plenty of natural ways to fragrance your home and to clean your home, to make your own cleaning products if you want to go that far. I do that because it's really quick and easy and super cheap to do, and they're very effective. Um, what are the products in our house? A lot of times things like furnishings and carpeting can be emitting a lot of a lot of chemicals in into our environment. So maybe thinking about getting a good air filter for at least for your bedroom where you're sleeping, so that you've got a chance to breathe in some good purified air. And there, we the again, this could be uh an episode all on its own, um, looking at inside and outside. But but the main thing is to just start being aware of what's around you and start making some um more educated choices. Find out what's in these products that you're buying, um, be curious and see what options are there and and ask for help where you need it, because you don't need to become an expert in environmental sciences to be able to do these things.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

No, absolutely. One of the other things that strikes me around the home as well, that it's a real, real challenge, again for everybody, but will really contribute to the toxic load, particularly of women 40 and above, is mold around the home, bathrooms, your damp walls, things like that. It can be an absolute havoc wrecker on our bodily systems. And you know, if you've got the slightest bit of black something, fungal growing around your shower or anywhere else, you want to try and get rid of that as as soon as possible because it is such a such a challenge to our to our bodies. If we're breathing in mold spores, it can be a real, real, real, real issue. So that is another thing to think about there. What about impaired elimination then? So we talked about the fact that constipation can contribute towards a toxic load because we aren't, for want of a better phrase, pulling out the stuff that we need to be pulling out in an adequate time and therefore it's hanging around internally long enough. What can we do to actually speed that up for any of our listeners who might be troubled by constipation? Because constipation is a symptom for many women of the menopause transition, right? So it is actually helping to contribute to this issue.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Sure. It's and that is a huge issue. And I would also say that the opposite is true because people who have uh much looser stool or issues with diarrhea on the other end of the spectrum, um, there's also an issue because things are not clear. What fiber does, and I will say, first of all, increase your fiber intake, but not without increasing your water intake. The colon needs a tremendous amount of water to process things through. And a lot of times constipation can be relieved just by getting properly hydrated so that the colon can do what it needs to extract the toxins and push them through with the fiber that we're consuming. Because if you increase your fiber intake without increasing your water intake, you can make the problem even worse. Um and then on the other end of the spectrum, of course, if our it isn't leaky, people say leaky gut, meaning thinking that that means having loose stools or diarrhea, but that's not what leaky gut is. Um but if you have that kind of expedited motility, let's say, then your your um intestinal tract also isn't allowing the fiber and the the colon to do its job to really pull things out and extract it and push it through in bulk. So a lot of times that stuff, some of it goes through the system and the rest of it remains, if you will, it's like the outside of a drain where things kind of build up. And and so that's where the fiber. So sometimes people who have looser stools don't take fiber in because they think it will make it worse. But in fact, that's the best way to bulk it up.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Um, and and move it through.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah.

unknown 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So you talked about leaky gut there. That's a really good point to go on and start talking about gut bacteria imbalances because leaky gut is actually that, isn't it? It's a it's an imbalance in the bacteria of the gut that has led to some kind of detrimental um uh I can't think of the right word, but some kind of detrimental uh issues that happen to the actual stomach lining or the gut lining, which means that we're actually taking things into our into our bloodstream, which we shouldn't be taking in, which then causes another element of something that we need to detoxify from us. So gut bacteria is really, really important in in this whole in this whole detoxification and elimination conversation that we're having here. Um so let's delve into gut bacterian imbalances then. What kind of things can we do? How can how can we help? I'm gonna start off by saying that a probiotic is um a good thing to take, but there's a there's a I always think it's worth clarifying a little bit about probiotics. People have this idea that by taking a probiotic, and it's somewhat the challenge is somewhat exacerbated by the by the naming of probiotics. People talk about a probiotic having 10 billion colony forming units, and the truth is they don't actually form colonies within the gut themselves. They do a job as they go through most probiotics, but they don't actually hang around in the gut and form those colonies. And so, probiotic for me is something that that helps, it is not something that you can do in the short term and just think that after a couple of two or three months you've stuck a lot of bacteria back in, you've got all's gonna be rosy in the garden. It's much more complex than than that.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, absolutely. And the what I what I I think the the important piece here is, you know, when we talk about leaky gut, inside your small intestine, you have what are called cilia. They're like little hairs that that work through peristalsis to move food through your through the digestive process and extract nutrients and pull what it needs into into your bloodstream and into your body. And what leaky gut does is when we get, there's a there's a protective layer inside of the intestine. And so what happens is when we don't have enough of those bacteria, when we have excess toxins that we're consuming, um, we've we get little cracks and holes through that intestinal wall, and then undigested food particles that are way too big to be going into our bloodstream may go into our bloodstream or the interstitial fluid that's in between your cells, and that can cause a lot of inflammation, which is usually the the basis of any disease. And allergies. So when we when we and allergies, yeah, absolutely, and food sensitivities and the like. And when we can when we start changing our diet over, and this is really the foundation of that, because no, the bacteria don't hang around, but our gut bacteria, the population generally will change based on the kind of food that we consume. So if you change from a processed food diet to a whole food diet, especially if you do it, you try to do it all at once, you're going to experience some pretty severe digestive distress because you're you don't have the right bacteria to be breaking down the food. So that's why we talk about adding things in and taking small steps. And as you make that change over time, that the gut bacteria, the flora in your gut will change with the food that you're consuming. So when we have a diet that's filled with lots of restaurant food and highly processed foods, those kinds of things, we're just not going to have the right bacteria to break down. So popping a probiotic isn't going to fix the things that are that may be off with your diet that will not promote good health on its own. But we have to have those bacteria in our gut to break the food down properly and to absorb the nutrients from it. And especially if we end up using eating food with from animals that have been fed a lot of antibiotics, we're consuming those. If we're taking a lot of antibiotics ourselves, we are the antibiotics don't care which bacteria they break down, it whether it's good bacteria or bad bacteria. So we need to repopulate our intestinal tract with the right bacteria on the heel, especially on the heels of taking antibiotics. But getting food from cleaner sources is a great place to help that as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah. And also I think it's worth talking about here, you know, the gut microbiome, the bacteria, the yeast that are in there, everything working together. I like to think of it as like a garden, and you need to be tending it. So you need to be feeding it the right stuff, you need to be weeding out the bad stuff, you need to be helping the good stuff, stuff grow. And one of the things that does that is this concept of a prebiotic, the food that actually helps feed the good bacteria that are in there. And there are a number of different prebiotics that you can get. Fibre is one of them. You know, it's in you get um prebiotics in a lot of foods, but you can also these days buy prebiotic powders that are really easy to mix into things like shakes and stuff like that, and we'll go in things like um PHGS and inulin and things like that that you can put into your diet in the form of either a powder or a capsule that can help feed the good bacteria there and help that garden grow to the best of its ability. Do we need to move on to once again then talk about our good old friend stress?

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yes. Oh, if if you want to oxidize your body and shunt the blood away from your detoxification processes, stress yourself out because that's what it's going to do. Um, managing your stress is going to allow your body to focus on the things that it needs to be doing to repair, restore, detoxify, and eliminate all of that extra stuff that we don't want in there. And these days, I know everybody's stressed. We talk about stress, we talk about how stressed we are as if it's a, you know, oh no, I'm more stressed than you are. And we're we're all experiencing that. And stress isn't all bad. There are some good forms of stress, and we need some stress to keep ourselves functioning. But when we have excess chronic stress, that will definitely affect our ability to detoxify.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah. And I think it's worth here as well, just briefly once again bringing up our other old friend, which is alcohol. Um, you know, we once again, we keep saying this, we aren't the boost police, although we see seem to talk about to reduce alcohol a hell heck of a lot in this in this podcast. But really, you know, alcohol just because it is seen as a poison, because your body um prioritizes eliminating it over loads of other things, the more alcohol you have, the more challenged your detoxification mechanisms are going to be overall. So I suppose we're coming up to sort of like the half-hour mark. So some ideas then for let's go through a few. I'll just reel off the ones that I can sort of like remember off the top of my head that we both talked about and some other things. Ideas for the liver support, reducing alcohol would be one of them, reducing those xenoestrogens and other chemicals that Julie talked about so eloquently before. Um, increasing your vegetable intake, particularly things like artichoke and watercress, really, really good for helping with elimination. We've not actually mentioned those two, but they're two foods that really do help with detoxification elimination. Increasing fibre, we talked a lot about that. One of our favorites, I think, for both of us is flaxseed because it does so many things. It's got um phytoestrogen in there, it's got protein in there, it's got good fats in there, it's uh got good fibers in there as well. So flaxseed, really, really good. Green tea can help with detoxification as well. There's some uh chemicals in there called catachins, which really help, and then reducing stress. Did I miss anything, Julie? Is there anything you want to add to that little list of things that people can start thinking about doing when it comes to detoxifying and helping in this really, really important stage of the menopause transition?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yes, for sure. I would also say focus on getting as much good quality, restful sleep as you can and take care of your skin. Our skin is our first line of defense against toxins, and it's also a really important organ of elimination. And if things like dry brushing and um, you know, putting cleaner products on our skin will help a lot. Um, plus, it'll you'll look better. And of course, hydration, hydration, hydration, hydration. Can't say that enough because that affects every cell in your body. So staying hydrated as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

It's interesting, isn't it? Because you know, I we tend to think as as our body as this thing where the skin is the barrier to the outside. And effectively, when you think about it, we're a little bit like a donut in the fact that we've actually got a hollow center, so we've got the skin on the outside, and then we've got the digestive tract, which, although it's internally, is just like a huge pipe going from here to your backside, which is the other biggest organ, which has the most exposure to the outside. So it makes absolute sense to be looking at internally that internal pipe that's going on there from the digestive point of view, but also the skin as well from an external point of view. You cover those two things off, and you're a long way towards having a better detoxifying journey and therefore a better experience of the menopause transition as an extension of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

For sure. And of course, if you have questions about any of this, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to talk to you about it. That's what we're here for. And I know James mentioned at the beginning of the call or the podcast that we're we're offering 40 free coaching calls, no strings attached, no hard sales, none of that, um, at freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com because these are important things and they become more important as we age. We want to stay healthy and vibrant and avoid lifestyle-related diseases that are really avoidable. Yeah. And detoxification is an essential component of that.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah. I think it's worth just saying as well, all you've got to do is give us 45 minutes of your time, and we'll give you a really, really good roadmap to walk away with, which should help on your perimenopause or menopause journey, depending on where you are within that thing. But equally, anybody over 40, female over 40, if you want to speak to us, jump onto that call. It's freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com. So I think that's it for today. Just jump on that URL, select a date and time. You can choose to work with either one of us or to speak to either one of us. Uh, we won't be offended if you choose the other one. Um, absolutely fine. In the meantime, then until we speak again, stay fabulous and we will see you in the next episode. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Bye.