Exercise To Detoxify Body

Most of us think of exercise as a way to strengthen our muscles and lose weight or body fat, but it can also be used as a way to strengthen our detox system and lose toxins. To explain how, it's best to split exercise into two types: aerobic exercise - that includes running, walking, swimming and sports - and Eastern exercise, particularly yoga.

Aerobic exercise

Whether it be running, gentle walking, swimming, tennis, squash or aerobics classes, traditional exercise has major health benefits in the body. It strengthens the heart and lungs, it builds bones, boosts the immune system, helps you sleep and even causes you to live longer. However, aerobic exercise also helps stimulate detox processes in the following ways.

  • It encourages sweating. At rest, you lose 0.003 litres of sweat an hour, but during an hour's exercise, you can lose as much as a litre (2 pints). While 99 per cent of sweat is water, the other 1 per cent contains minerals and toxins. Therefore, the more you sweat the more toxins you will potentially excrete.
  • It makes you breathe faster. As you exercise, your muscles produce toxic byproducts like carbon dioxide and lactic acid. When your body detects these, it actually stimulates the part of the brain that controls breathing to work faster to expel them. As you expel these toxins, others that are processed within your lungs can follow.
  • It stimulates the bowel. In studies at the University of Maryland, USA, bowel transit time (the time it takes for things to pass through the system) was increased by 60 per cent. No one know exactly why this occurs, but it's good news for detoxers.
  • It causes safe breakdown of fat. If you burn more calories than you take in, fat is released for the use of energy. The sudden breakdown of fat caused by crash diets leads to a sudden rush of toxins into the system that the body can't handle. By breaking fat down more slowly, moderate exercise helps to release toxins gradually.
  • It stimulates the lymphatic system. Unlike the circulatory system, the lymphatic system does not have a pump that propels the lymph around the body. Instead it relies on muscle contraction to push it through the body - which occurs as you exercise.

All of the above factors, when combined, dramatically improve the functioning of your detox system. Before you start to train for a marathon, however, it's important to realize that, like everything to do with detoxing, moderation is the key. Studies have shown that when we exercise, free radicals are formed in the body. When exercise is regular and at a low or moderate intensity, the body can easily handle these free radicals, but work out too hard or for too long and you'll put even more pressure on your detox system.

To get the benefits, you should therefore aim for between 30 and 90 minutes of low to moderate intensity per workout session; and aim for three to five sessions per week. If you want to exercise more than that without harm to your detox system, it's important that you fill your diet with lots of antioxidant-packed fruits and vegetables; you may also want to take a good multivitamin supplement.

Estern Exercise For Detox

If you don't want to pound the pavement, trudge on the treadmill or plough up and down the local swimming pool, it doesn't mean you can't boost your detox potential through exercise. Instead, you can use so-called Eastern exercises like yoga, t'ai chi and qi gong, which are gentle but equally effective forms of exercise. In fact, the perfect detox programme would include a mix of both types of exercise. This section concentrates purely on yoga, partly because it is the most researched Eastern exercise and partly because it's the easiest for beginners to pick up. Its advantages are listed in the box on the right.