How detoxing has changed my life
by Mandy Keillor
Discovering the truth about detox
I have been detoxing since my 20’s.
My way to regular detoxing and cleansing has evolved not just from wanting to take the best care of my body and live a long healthy life but it has also been a tool that I have used to deal with some of my biggest life challenges.
Together with suffering from an eating disorder and body dysmorphia for all of my adult life, my wife and business partner Natalia developed life threatening allergies 14 years ago after moving to Barcelona and we needed to totally rethink our eating habits to ensure she was safe.
My first detox experiences back in the 80’s were with homeopaths and naturopaths. They created concoctions of herbs and supplements that I readily swallowed as teas, tinctures and tablets.
There was a lot of hit-and-miss and it was a significant financial investment but I learnt a lot about supplements and the positive effects they could have on my body. I also learnt that without the right food and diet to support the supplement programs you could not get the best results.
I was determined to find the way! I persisted through therapists, trends of juicing and the fads of boxes of herbal tablet detoxes, high protein, low carbs, raw food and fasts.
Finally the truth I discovered through all the years of detoxing experiences was that the most profound detox I could do for myself was with a strict balanced diet of clean, fresh nutritious food.
Related Topics
Learning to love food
I spent the first 27 years of my life eating food because I had to.
My rapport with food was to say the least, sad. I didn’t really enjoy, appreciate or savor it. You could liken it to a relationship with a relative you don’t particularly like but with whom you’re stuck with for life.
To anyone on the outside my life seemed “normal” (that’s part of the disorder, keeping the facade) but I was living with an inner turmoil that was very destructive and I knew that I really needed to get control of the demons or else there would be consequences.
At my lightest I was 44kgs (or 6.92 stone). To give you an idea, the ideal healthy weight for my height at the age of 23 should have been around 57kgs (nearly 8.89 stone).
I now weigh 58kgs but it is still very hard for me to write those figures.
One of the ways I use to manage my disorder is not to weight myself. In fact the only time I do this is when I go for my annual doctor’s check up because it sends me into a spin. I am unable to see my body for what it really is.
In the end it was my children that were my motivation to get a grip on my weight and eating patterns. I realized that if I didn’t get control I was not only at risk of becoming very sick but also passing on my issues with food to them.
So, I took up bodybuilding! Figure of course!
Bodybuilding for a healthy body and mind
Bodybuilding has a precarious reputation in the world of sport for being “unclean” because of the use of steroids, ”full of meatheads” and not really a valid athletic endeavor.
I really didn’t give a s@#t.
For me, it was my savior.
What I found in bodybuilding was a constructive way to channel my obsessive personality. To love my body through the science of the sport and to understand how my body worked by using food, supplements and exercise. It gave me the self-discipline and the knowledge to care for my body and mind in a healthy, positive and sustainable way.
Although a bodybuilding diet isn’t a detox it is strict, and I learnt how to eat for my metabolic type, customize my meals to build muscle and train with the regularity I needed as well as exercise safely and correctly to shape my body.
Coming 3rd in the state NABBA was a huge achievement, especially because at the time I was also managing my building company, supporting my two sons as a sole parent and sitting on 3 boards! But really the achievement was to understand how to live in my body and ultimately it set me on a path to where I am today.
Just goes to show you never know where those off the path life experiences, like randomly competing as a body builder in the middle of your career, might take you….
Recovering with detox - creating The Detox Journey
In 2005 we migrated to Barcelona. It changed my life.
Like many people when they move to a new country, and in our case hemisphere, my partner Natalia’s body did not cope with the dramatic change of environment, lifestyle and food. Not long after she arrived in Barcelona she started to feel sick nearly every day with stomachaches, headaches, vomiting and lethargy. This continued for some months until she had an anaphylactic reaction.
It was frightening. The most difficult thing was that we didn’t know what had caused it. All we knew was that it was something in her diet, something that she was eating.
The only way I knew I could help was to detox her body so we could rest and reset her system. We needed to remove all the toxins, cleanse her body and find a very good doctor who could guide us through managing her allergies so her body could recover.
Thankfully with the help of a wonderful client she was referred to a specialist who was able to diagnose her allergies.
I wrote my first detox program to care for Natalia.
It was the beginning of my journey to create a program to teach people to use food to detox in a sustainable, easy and practical way and lead me to write The Detox Journey.
Detoxing with food
On my detox I teach people that our bodies have the ability to rejuvenate and the capacity to detoxify through nutrition.
The fact of the matter is that when we eat sufficient quantities of nutritious foods, our body works efficiently to continuously repair and heal itself. If we do not fuel our bodies with clean healthy food we hinder the elimination of toxins and this results in weakened organs and ultimately, unfortunately, illness and disease.
Our bodies are programmed to operate on a cellular level to eliminate these toxins and unwanted substances via the main organs of detoxification: the liver, kidneys, bowels, skin and lungs.
Eliminating toxins with detox
The way we eliminate toxins is through respiration, bowel elimination, urination and perspiration. When our bodies are unable to sufficiently eliminate these toxic chemicals, we store them in our body fat, skin, hair, and our gastrointestinal and lymphatic systems.
Most of our diets contain preservatives. Just think about processed foods and refined sugars, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, prescription or recreational drugs and artificial food additives that might be in your lifestyle. These all have an accumulative effect on your health.
Detox allows the body do it’s job so it can eliminate these toxins.
Rewards of detoxing
Next month I turn 55. I still find most days a challenge with my body issues but have found a way to balance them with regular detoxes and a food and exercise routine that keeps me feeling happy, healthy and looking good.
If you would like to join me on my next detox we start on the 26th of April 2020!
I promise that day 14 you will be a changed person. The rewards will be many. You will have increased energy, your inner beauty will be revived, you’ll feel lighter, have improved digestion, improved immunity, a clearer mind and have gained control of any habits or addictions.
But most of all you will gift yourself with the knowledge of detox and to learn how to manage how to care for your body with food.
