Read Transcript
Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Dreamland Baby, and in particular, a product that I wish I had had with my first baby and actually with all of my babies, which is a sleep sack with a really unique twist. So it’s super easy to use. Leads to deeper sleep for both you and your baby, and here’s how. It has a cover-calm technology that allows for evenly distributed weight from the shoulders to the toes. And this is a gentle, evenly distributed weight that helps the baby fall asleep and stay asleep because it mimics the feeling of a parent’s touch or hug. I’ve seen the benefits for me of using weighted blankets for sleep, and this weighted sleep sack really helps relax and calm babies in a safe way, which leads to, as well, better sleep for the parents. Any of us who have had babies know that sleep can be hard to come by, especially when they’re really little. And I wished I’d had this with my older kids when they were babies. And it’s now probably my most gifted item to new parents. The number one issue for parents, new parents is lack of sleep. And a mom invented this sleep sack out of desperation when her six month old wouldn’t sleep. They’ve been on Shark Tank. They got a deal on there with Lori. And I, like I said, I wish that I had always had this product and now love to gift it to friends when they have a new baby. You can check it out by going to dreamlandbabyco.com and make sure you use the code MAMA20 to save 20% off and get free shipping. So that’s dreamlandbabyco.com and the code MAMA20 to save 20%.
This episode is sponsored by BiOptimizers. I love all of their products and I have been mega-dosing their masszymes for a variety of reasons. But today I want to talk specifically about Magnesium Breakthrough because you might’ve heard me talk about or write about magnesium before. And once I started taking Magnesium Breakthrough, my sleep completely changed and I wake up feeling so energized. It also helps me wind down at night, although I am one of the weird ones that I prefer to take magnesium in the morning and find it really supports my sleep when I do. And here’s why this one’s different. Other forms of magnesium might only be giving you one or two types of magnesium. But Magnesium Breakthrough contains all seven forms designed to calm your mind and help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. And over 75% of the population is magnesium deficient. And this is important because magnesium is vital for hundreds of enzymatic reactions in the body. And what most people don’t know is that even if we’re taking a magnesium supplement, we can still be deficient because we’re not getting all of the forms. And Magnesium Breakthrough is the easiest way I found to get all seven forms in one supplement. So not only does it help me sleep better and calm my mind and body and stay relaxed during the day, it also helps me to have better digestion to recover quicker from exercise. And magnesium is well studied to also support bone density. Most magnesium supplements are ineffective because they only contain a couple forms. And Magnesium Breakthrough is unique in that it contains all seven forms. And I noticed a big difference from this one. For an exclusive offer just for Wellness Mama listeners, go to bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama. Your brain and body will thank you. And if you use the code wellnessmama during checkout, you will save 10%.
Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about detox, how to do it safely, and what to avoid. And I’ve seen a whole lot of things related to detox circulating on social media lately. And I wanted to bring on today’s guest to address some of these and to really go deep on the foundational aspects of detox and specifically how to do it safely and in a way that is working with the body rather than sort of overriding or stressing out the body’s natural detox pathways.
And Heather Gray is a functional diagnostic nutritionist and a bioenergetic practitioner specializing in supporting clients with chronic and complex illnesses such as Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and autoimmune disease, which she has recovered from. With over 32 years of personal experience, she understands the struggles of living with those conditions and is dedicated to helping others find relief. Her personalized approach as a practitioner, author, podcast host, and now stand-up comedian has helped countless clients reduce inflammation in their bodies and brain, improve their gut health, and achieve optimal health. And she really loves to delve into the root cause of symptoms and help her clients take control of their health journey. And like I said, in this episode, we go deep specifically on the topic of detox, and we debunk some myths around it, talk about how to do it safely, how to avoid a Herx reaction, and so much more. So let’s jump in with Heather Gray. Heather, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Heather: Thanks for having me.
Katie: Well, I’m really excited to get to have a couple of conversations with you that I think will be especially relevant to our listeners today and get to really delve into and tackle some topics that I see circulating potentially with a lot of misinformation on social media. And I feel like you have a very well-researched and documented approach that is very safe and in alignment with how the body works. And so I was so excited to bring you on and add your voice to these conversations.
So in our first episode together, I really would love to delve into the topic of detoxing and specifically how to detox safely, because I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a lot of kind of myths and potentially even dangerous information floating around about detox and the way that some people are doing it. And I tend to operate from the belief that our bodies are perfectly made and always moving toward a state of healing. So if something is not working out that way, that’s because either our body needs something it doesn’t have, or has too much of something it doesn’t need. And I feel like you address both of those so well in your work.
So I know this is a broad topic, but can you introduce us to the topic of detox? And then we’ll get a little bit more granular in some of the specifics below that.
Heather: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I came into the detox world because I was basically born full of shit. You know, like how many of your people, listeners out there can relate to being constipated as a young kid. You know, and that was like the start of my, let’s throw band-aids at symptoms, you know, thick, nasty oils, stool softeners, laxatives, but nobody’s trying to figure out why this four-year-old couldn’t poop.
Hindsight’s 20/20, there was a lot of early childhood trauma. My uncle committed suicide that year. My grandmother died of breast cancer, and I was being raised by alcoholic addicts. So it was like the, like I said, my kind of induction to having issues around, you know, health stuff, it kind of sparked my autoimmune disease. You know, I was having issues. Obviously, I wasn’t detoxing properly. I wasn’t pooping. And then I was also living in a moldy house. And so I wasn’t sweating. And that’s actually a pretty common symptom of people who have got mold toxicity is not being able to sweat. I used to think it was actually a really awesome flex, right? Of like, I don’t sweat. And then I would just get really, really sick and pass out from the heat because my body, you know, wasn’t working like it’s supposed to. You’re supposed to sweat, right? That’s how it regulates temperature.
And so when I found the world of detox, man, I really felt like the world opened up to me in a whole new way. It was just like, awww. But there is a right and a wrong way to detox and lot of us Americans, especially, we’re like, oh, well, if a little bit is great, then more should be even better. And that’s not ever the case, especially when it comes to healing. You know, I love using the analogy, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, right? I was sick for decades with undiagnosed celiac, 27 years undiagnosed Lyme disease, mold toxicity, three autoimmune diseases by the time it was all said and done. And here I’m trying to turn on the fountain that hadn’t been working properly for, for decades. And I got really, really sick in the beginning. And so I had to learn the hard way, you know, that, that Herxing, right, or a Herximer response. It’s a, it’s a die off from killing things too much. You know, same thing with detoxing. If you release the detox too much and you don’t have the correct order in place, you’re going to make yourself really, really sick.
And so, yes, there is a, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these influencers drive me bonkers because they’re just, they don’t have the full picture. You know, they kind of grab onto one thing and they run with it. But the beautiful part about being a practitioner, especially one who’s been there themselves, you know, you see that there’s nuances, right, to any healing protocol, it’s never black and white and anybody talking about something that’s, you know, everybody should do this or everybody should stay away from that. You know, it’s kind of, you kind of need to have a flag on the play when it comes to that kind of wording. You need to be careful because everybody’s different. You’re, you know, medical background is different. The environment that you’re living in, your genetics play a huge role. You know, people laugh and say their detox bucket. I have a detox thimble, right? Because of the genetics that I was, you know, blessed with and working with. So, you know, there’s a, like I said, there’s a lot of nuances when it comes to detoxing for sure.
Katie: Oh, that was such a great intro and so many more directions I’m excited to jump into after that. The first being, so you mentioned sweating. I would love to, if you could define for us, sort of what are the common detox pathways within the body and kind of an understanding of, I would guess, like in all realms, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So are there things we can do that are generally supportive of our detox pathways or things that are generally not supportive of our detox pathways that we might want to avoid?
Heather: I love this conversation so much. Like if I were to, I, I used to laugh that I won’t, if I were going to rebrand, it was going to be like the detox renegade or the detox mama or the detox diva, because it’s just, like I said, with my genes kind of setting me up, it doesn’t take much to tip me over and I have to put in maintenance, even though I’ve, you know, I’ve put Lyme in remission. I’ve reversed two autoimmune diseases. I still have a really kind of rigorous maintenance regime because that’s what keeps me healthy and vital, right?
I have an expression that, you know, my part-time, my self-care feels like a part-time job, but it’s better than being full-time sick. Right? Because, you know, there are some of us that are just more prone or susceptible to these types of things.
So the three detox pathways, main ones are sweating, pooping, and peeing, right? And a lot of Americans are dehydrated, which means they’re not peeing properly either, not peeing enough, urinating enough. Like I said, I wasn’t sweating. So even with workout, I would just overheat and get really, really sick, just feel nauseous. And then pooping, like I said, I basically told you that I was born full of shit. And that didn’t change throughout until I finally was diagnosed with Lyme and I was 30 something and I still wasn’t pooping properly. And the doctor at the time thought it would be smart to go to war with my body with antibiotics and kill off a bunch of critters in a person’s body that wasn’t sweating and wasn’t pooping. Peeing was fine. I always was a good, I was always a well hydrated person. So I never had a problem with the peeing, but not pooping and not sweating, like that’s two out of three gone.
The way I like to work with folks when it comes to detoxing is actually detoxing their environment first. We, what do they call that? Addition through subtraction, right? So we’re going to build up the body by removing the roadblocks, removing the scented candles, removing the fabric softener, removing the whatever other scented crap that you have in your environment that’s really taxing on your liver and your body. You know, making sure you’re drinking filtered water.
And even going a step further, so many people take care in drinking their filtered water, but then they bathe, right, in water that’s not filtered. Our skin is our largest organ, you know, and our thyroid, especially women, you know, with autoimmune, we’re always, you know, having these issues with Hashimoto’s and chlorine has been shown to greatly affect the thyroid, you know, so if you’re taking care to drink filtered water, but you’re still bathing in water that’s not filtered, that, you know, that’s a huge issue.
Air filters, you know, the water, the air pollution, the VOCs and the chemicals that come off our homes, off our furniture. They say that a lot of times the air inside is like 10 times worse than the air outside. Like that’s crazy. And I’m living in Colorado, and we had so many freaking fires, you know, lately. I, you know, so addition through subtraction, it’s really, I really like getting a person’s environment dialed in first, because when we can take those boulders off the body, a lot of times then the body is just like, oh, okay. I know what’s going on here now. I can breathe a little bit now I can work properly.
And so that way, when you do start to detox, that it’s not so overburdened to begin with, you know, it’s like plugging up the hole in the bathtub, you know. Actually, I probably got that metaphor messed around. Like I said, I’m not used to doing interviews. It’s 8 in the morning here in Colorado. I usually don’t get started till 10, but I just love you and your work so much. I was like, I’m going to do it. But yeah, so you might hear some mixed metaphors, but that’s okay.
Katie: Oh, it’s so good. And I love that, like starting with talking about the three main detox pathways and supporting those, because I feel like I’ve seen this trend play out over the last 10 years or so that people get so enticed by these new biohacky trends or fancy supplements or devices. And I feel like if we start with the foundational basics and really support the body and how it was meant to be supported through, like you talked about hydration and proper digestion and getting sunlight in the morning and just the true basics, anything we do that’s expensive and time-consuming works better anyway.
So I love that you really started with those points. I feel like I had the opposite experience of you and that my sweat detox pathways are very effective after sauna-ing for lots of years, which I feel like is funny because I like have the opposite, were I’ll easily sweat, especially in public. And I joke that-
Heather: Oh, now I do. I’ve been using sauna for three years on a regular basis. Like that is, if people ask me, what’s your number one tool? I will never, ever, never, ever live without a sauna. Like that is, especially being the mold, easy person in the detox stuff. And so, but now, now I go out in the heat, my body’s like, oh, sweat. I’m like, shit, no, stop. I just did my makeup. So yeah, no, I’m like you girl. I’m yeah, easily sweater.
Katie: Same team. And like you, I love having the sauna and using it regularly. And the data is so incredible on sauna use, even just from the Finnish sauna study. And I’ve always said, if sauna were a pill, we would all take it. It unfortunately does require some actual time and effort, but I feel like it’s well worth the trade-off for the ROI you get, especially if you do it regularly. And it seems like that is one way certainly to support the detox pathway that goes hand in hand with being hydrated, which I was so glad that you mentioned.
Just to clarify as well, you talked about like artificial or like scents and perfumes. And I know those are so prevalent in almost everything these days, but I always like to differentiate. That’s not the same as like essential oils, right? If someone’s using oils or like in their cleaning or whatever. I just always like to give that distinction because I am like you, I avoid any of those artificial scents. But I think like certain things can be, if they’re plant-based natural materials, like essential oils can be really helpful actually and supportive at times. But I just wanted to clarify that with you.
Heather: Absolutely. I just recently got a beautiful leather couch off of Facebook Marketplace. Total steal, I thought, right? It’s only a year and a half old. It’s gorgeous. I get it to my place and there’s an odor coming off of it. And I texted her and I was like, what is that smell? And she sends me a picture of her holding Febreze and sends me a picture of her holding a Glade plugin. And, you know, total complete stranger. Hopefully she listened. She’s not from this country.
And I told her like, do you realize there are chemicals that this country allows that are banned in other countries? I’m like, you two are a young couple. And I imagine at some point you want to have kids. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a essential oil diffuser and get rid of those, that nasty chemicals. And she, you know, she’s thanked me, but they’re very polite, you know? So I’m not sure if she took that in one ear, out the other, but I mean, it’s still, I’m still trying to off gas this damn couch, you know, because of the chemical sense, but no, yeah. Essential oils are completely different animal.
Katie: Awesome. Okay. So I’m also curious if we can talk about things like how our liver function comes into play when it comes to detoxing and also the gut connection. Because I know that those are two things that can certainly come into play in our second conversation when we’re talking about autoimmunity and inflammation and a lot of other things. But before we get to that conversation, how do those come into play in the detox world?
Heather: I mean, liver is one of the biggest detox organ that we have. It’s so fascinating. You know, it’s got a couple different phases of detox. It needs a couple different nutrients, you know, to detox. And it’s sad. I remember watching a Facebook group of health practitioners and this young girl who was in the medical field just denying that we need extra support to detox, that our liver should be able to handle it. And I was like, yes, and, you know, if our country wasn’t allowing, you know, I can’t even remember the number anymore, it’s like 800 plus new chemicals that haven’t been tested or proven to be safe are allowed every year.
You know, it’s just this chemical onslaught. People are staying up later at night and not getting the sleep they need because physiologically, we only detox during certain periods of the night. You know, so if you’re a quote unquote night owl, you know, you’re missing out on detox time. And I have a comedian friend right now, and she’s like, Heather, I’m dealing with a lot of brain fog lately. And my cognitive issue is really starting to slip. And I found out that she doesn’t go to bed till 3am every night. Like that’s her thing. And I’m like, well, if you want to hold on to your brain, you’re going to need to start getting to bed at a decent time because you’re skipping that part for your brain to detox.
The same thing with your liver. I used to laugh when I was younger and naive and stupid. I didn’t even have a shirt. You know, my liver’s been bad. I need to punish it. You know, and I was a heavy drinker. You know, I didn’t know any better at the time, but man, our liver is just such a beautiful, wondrous little organ. They’re doing so much work and it’s, it wasn’t, it’s not made for this lifestyle that we have today.
Nothing is made to work in this lifestyle that we have today. This is not set up for human health, period, end of story. And we’re seeing it, right? We’re seeing it with the raise of autoimmune, mental health, obesity, diabetes, like the list goes on and on and on and on. You know, this is the sickest we’ve ever been to the point where our younger generation is now the life expectancy is going backwards for the first time ever. Our life expectancy is going backwards. So it’s startling.
And hopefully people start to wake up and go, cause like you, you brought up in the beginning the foundations, you know, getting the sunlight in the morning, you know, getting your feet on the ground, drinking clean water, drinking whole food. Like it’s simple, but hard because this, this, this world is just not conducive, to living that kind of a lifestyle yet, unfortunately. I am seeing changes here and there and it is getting a little bit easier, but it can feel very isolating at times and lonely.
You know, when I, I said, I recently started doing standup and comedians aren’t necessarily known for being a healthy group of people. And I got into a car with one of them and she is a smoker, and she had perfume on. And by the time we got to the gig, I was so sick. I thought I was going to puke. I was just nauseous, you know, and I asked her, you know, could you please, you know, if we’re riding together, not, you know, just not the perfume. And she got so offended by it. You know, that’s like, that’s, that was like a part of her identity. She was always told that she smells really nice and, oh, I just love the way you smell. And so for me to ask her to do that, it was more than just not wearing perfume. It was kind of a part of her identity.
So like I said, if we just made these products where they weren’t toxic to begin with, we wouldn’t have this issue, but unfortunately it’s not the way that it is right now. So we have to do things differently.
Katie: Yeah, such a good point. I totally agree with you. Our modern environment is not conducive to the way our bodies were meant to be. And I’ve heard other people talk about nature deficit disorder and how we’re meant to live much more in alignment with nature and at least the rhythms and the experience of nature than we currently do. Like we, for the first time in history, have the ability to eat a diet that’s completely devoid of what we were meant to eat, to live in an environment completely removed from nature, to exist under artificial light and foods that are not even food. And then we wonder why we have issues.
And I feel like that’s what your approach really tackles and helps people figure out both their own individual pieces that are going to be their specific things they need to work on and the general things that we all need as humans. And I would guess like me, I’m grateful now in hindsight for my health challenges because it helped me learn things that I now hopefully am able to help other people with. And I would guess you having your detox thimble has helped you learn so much that you can now help other people with.
I want to make sure we also get to talk about Herx reactions, because you brought those up in the beginning. I certainly experienced them, certainly early on when I was trying to resolve autoimmune disease myself. And definitely, exactly like you said, thought more must be better. I’m going to detox quickly and made myself very uncomfortable in the process. But can you explain what’s going on with a Herx reaction and maybe what we need to know to avoid going through that experience if we know we need to detox?
Heather: Yeah, absolutely. Some people, some doctors even still like, look at that as like a badge of honor. We’re doing something. Something’s working. Yay. No, actually, no, we, you don’t need to feel worse before you get better. And it’s just because you’ve gone too fast and too strong, too fast.
So Herxheimer response is if you’re killing stuff off faster than your body is getting rid of it. So now you’ve got a toxic backup in your body. And I even made a special video on like how to do a sauna properly because I made that mistake of not knowing how to do a sauna properly. And I just like jumped right in, did the full, you know, 30 minutes was so sick and dizzy afterwards. And then like, it took me three or four times to figure out, okay, maybe I should back this off and slow it down. You know, maybe I should take a binder before I get in. Maybe I should take some extra electrolytes afterwards, you know, to help, you know, replenish what my body is leaving.
So, you know, I tell my clients, you know, when you get into a sauna, especially if you’re like me and did not sweat, I only want you in for five minutes the first time, maybe first two or three times. And then you move up to 10 minutes and then you move up to 15 minutes. So any kind of detox, you know, the slow, low, better, like I said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’re in this for the long run. And if you’re making yourself so sick, that you’re like, that’s it, I quit. Or, you know, I can’t function or, you know, blah, blah, blah. That’s counterproductive. So, low and slow wins the race when it comes to detoxing. You know, and, uh, oh man, what was the other part of that question? I think that was it.
Katie: Yeah, definitely Herx reactions are not fun. And I think you’re right. Slow progress is much better and more comfortable and more sustainable than trying to rapidly get through it. Also, you’ve referenced genetics, and obviously everybody’s genetics play a role here, but I’m guessing there are also some commonalities.
So I’m curious, what are some of the key genes that are related most to detox that you look at when you work with someone, as well as are there any things that we can either take or do other than the ones we’ve already mentioned that are sort of universally supportive for detox? I see a lot of things like zeolite and binders floating around on the internet right now, and I’m really curious your take on those.
Heather: Yeah, I know enough about genes to be dangerous, but not enough to, so that’s not my area of expertise that, you know, we’ll refer to Dr. Sam Shay, you know, for stuff like that. Or back when I used to run DNA company lab tests, it would kind of tell me a little bit, but I honestly don’t know what those are. I just know that mine are jacked up. I’ve been told that several times. And I also know like my vitamin D, you know, all my pathways to vitamin D are bad. I don’t store it properly. I don’t make it properly. I don’t convert it properly, which also leads to, you know, bad detox. I’m not a, genes are kind of a double-edged sword. A lot of times people think, well, it’s in your genes, so it’s just the be-all end-all, but it’s not. There’s epigenetics, so your lifestyle and your environment has a play in what gets turned on, what gets expressed and what doesn’t.
But for someone like myself, so the commonalities are a lot of type A personalities that have gotten autoimmune diseases. You get that early childhood trauma, right? There was that ACE score. What was that? Kaiser did that. Oh my gosh. Did that research of adverse childhood experiences and the higher your number are, the more likely you are to get chronic disease as you get older. So I have found that commonality that most people, those of us that have had got a chronic disease or an autoimmune issue typically have some issues in their genetics, also have some issues in their, you know, trauma, right? Their nervous system. So that’s one thing that you got to look into as well.
You know, as a good functional practitioner that I am, I was great at the detox and the supplements and the diet, but I was like, emotions? I don’t think so. But a lot of it, I didn’t even remember. I didn’t even remember the trauma. Like that’s how well our bodies keep score. You know, I remember one of the questions you were going to ask was a book that had changed your life, The Body Keeps Score was kind of what took me off my functional medicine path and into looking at trauma and nervous system resetting and breathwork and meditation and tapping because I was stuck in fight or flight all the freaking time.
And you can’t heal properly when you’re stuck in fight or flight, you know, and that also helps with the detoxing. That’s part of the reason why I was constipated is because my body was verklempt, you know, I was stuck in fight or flight. I wasn’t digesting, right? You talked about the gut, asked about the gut earlier, you know? So getting into fight or flight also, I mean, getting out of fight or flight was also a huge component to helping detox and reverse some of these, these health issues as well. Oh man, I felt like I rambled again.
Katie: I’m so glad you brought up the emotional side because I know we’re going to get to have a follow-up conversation and talk about inflammation and autoimmunity and Lyme and mold and all those things. And like you, that was a piece that I ignored, the emotion piece, for a very long time and thought I could just override those and be totally fine. And I feel like for women especially, this is more often than not at least an important piece, if not the vital one when it comes to healing. Once we do all the other things that we can sort of like effort, we then still have to go internal and address that side as well. So I know our second conversation will delve into that.
And we’ve touched on so many topics, and I know you have resources and courses for many of these that I will link to in the show notes. But for anybody listening, where can they find you to keep going deeper on detox specifically or any of the topics we’ve touched on?
Heather: Yeah, either renegadehealthboss.com or I’ve got the courses page, which you’re going to link in the show notes. It’s rhbcourses.com. And you know, if you use the code mama, you get $100 off the course, which makes it like $79. And I have a whole, I have a whole course on toxins. I have a whole, I have a seven series video, real cooking for real life. And then I go over all the foundations of health, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, supplementation.
And notice that supplementation is last on that list, right? Because it’s just supposed to be supplements. Even I’ve found so many functional practitioners, acupuncturists, I’ll walk in and I walked out with $300 worth of supplements, but nobody was still asking me, was I pooping? What was my stress level like? Was I sleeping at night? You know, so dialing in these foundations, no matter what you have, you know, fill in the blank, autoimmune, mental health, cancer, diabetes, it doesn’t matter. If you go back to the beginning and you go back to the basics, it’s amazing what the body then can take over and handle because we were meant to heal. We were meant to thrive. And I think we have forgotten that.
Katie: Amazing. Well, all of those links will be in the show notes at wellnessmama.com for you guys listening on the go. And Heather, I’ve so much enjoyed our first conversation and I’m beyond excited to get to jump into another one with you. So you guys listening, stay tuned for that one. But for this conversation, Heather, thank you so much for your time.
Heather: Absolutely.
Katie: And thank you as always for listening. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
Leave a Reply