The Healing Power of a Gut Cleanse: 6-Day Detox

By Dr. Edward F. Group

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Originally published at Global Healing Center & reproduced here with permission.

The body is an incredible machine. Each person’s body has a built-in detox system — starting with the gastrointestinal (GI) tract — that processes toxins, chemicals, and other harmful substances that your food inevitably contains. The GI tract begins to remove harmful substances from your food by sending them out of the body in your stool or to the liver and kidneys to be fully detoxified.

The GI tract also breaks down the food you eat, using the nutrients to build muscle, bone, brain, and other critical body tissues.

Over time, your gut can get overwhelmed from the toxins it absorbs from the food and water you consume, the air you breathe, and the products you use on a daily basis. A gut cleanse — sometimes called a colon cleanse — can ensure all those toxins aren’t affecting your ability to stay healthy.

Short Breakdown of the Gut Cleanse

• Get Ready: Stock up on raw organic apple cider vinegar (ACV), distilled water, and healthy, plant-based foods, or fruit if you’re doing the fruit-only option.
• Make ACV mix: Prepare six gallons of ACV mix by adding two tablespoons of ACV per one gallon of distilled water.
• Days 1 to 6: Follow a healthy diet with three small meals throughout the day, such as avocado, nuts, or fruit. Drink an ACV mix throughout the day. Before bed, take an oxygen-based colon cleanser.
• Post Cleanse: Follow a healthy, plant-based diet with three small meals throughout the day. Make sure to drink lots of water with fresh lemon.

Read the full details below.

What Does Your Gut Do for You?

When someone refers to the “gut,” they’re typically referring to the entire digestive system. That’s everything from mouth to anus — including the esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, and large intestine, also called the colon.

Every section of the digestive tract has a function, and the colon is one of the most important. It’s a U-shaped part of the intestines that is up to six feet long. The colon has four sections: ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid. A whole ecosystem of gut bacteria resides inside the colon, helping to keep your digestion on track.

What Is a Gut Cleanse?

A gut cleanse is an incredibly effective way to improve your overall health and wellness, boosting your gut’s ability to digest food and detoxify harmful substances. A gut cleanse has three main components: eliminating, flushing, and replenishing.

First, you eliminate food items known to cause digestive issues, such as dairy, meat, gluten, and other allergens, while eating a clean diet — ideally, all fruit — for several days. Next, you flush your digestive system of all the extra waste, toxins, and organisms it has collected over time. Last, you replenish your gut’s beneficial organisms, also called probiotics.

A gut cleanse is a three-step process — eliminate, flush, and replenish — that can kick-start a new, healthy lifestyle.

Cleansing your gut is something you should regularly do — it’s not just a one-time quick fix. Your gut needs regular maintenance. Doing a gut cleanse is a great opportunity to kick-start new, healthy habits. You will feel so much better after clearing out the old gunk and welcoming in healthier foods, more beneficial probiotic bacteria, and smoother digestion.

Signs That It’s Time for a Cleanse

The Standard American Diet (SAD) is ruthless when it comes to messing with your gut health. All of the meat, dairy, sugar, wheat, and fried and processed foods unleash all sorts of havoc on your body, leading to accumulated toxins and even compacted fecal matter in the gut. Many people say that they can feel when it’s time for a gut cleanse.

Your body is constantly sending signals that you need to cleanse, and some people say they can even feel when it’s time for a gut cleanse!

Your body is pretty good at sending out signals to make sure you’re aware that something is off-balance. If you notice any of the following symptoms, it’s a pretty strong indicator that it’s time for a gut cleanse.

• Skin blemishes
• Mental fog
• Poor sleep
• Low energy
• Poor appetite
• Headaches
• Body odor
• Body aches
• Constipation
• Bad breath

Gut Detox Protocol

To ensure you’re doing the gut cleanse properly, be sure to follow the dietary instructions below. In some ways, a cleanse is similar to fasting. You will be eliminating a lot of foods that you ordinarily eat unless you already follow a very clean diet.

Gut Cleanse Diet

You have two options for the gut cleanse diet. The fruit-only option is ideal, and you will get the best results with it. However, you can also do a gut cleanse by eating mostly plant-based foods.

Option 1: Fruit-Only Diet

While performing your gut cleanse, you should eat organic fruit. Choose fruits from the following list. These particular options are full of nutrients and water and are gentle on your digestive system. You can eat as much fruit as you want.

• Apples
• Avocados
• Bananas
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Grapefruit
• Oranges
• Papaya
• Pineapple
• Raspberries
• Strawberries
• Tomatoes
• Watermelon
• White grapes

Non-Fruit Option

If you need a heartier option, you can eat a plant-based diet; eliminate meat, dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, and gluten-containing products. Eat organic or locally grown food for best results. Below are a few additional tips:

• Eat healthy, plant-based foods for six days straight with three small portions daily.
• Eliminate meat, dairy, eggs, soy, GMOs, wheat and gluten-containing foods.
• Eat lots of salads, vegetable soups, raw nuts, seeds, and fruits.
• Do not cook any food in a microwave as this will reduce the effectiveness of cleansing.
• Eat dinner at least one hour before bedtime.
• Avoid all alcoholic beverages.
• Avoid artificial sweeteners like those in diet sodas and other diet products. Instead use honey, stevia, monk fruit, or coconut sugar.
• Avoid high fructose corn syrup, molasses, white sugar, dextrose, sorbitol, processed fructose, and sucrose.
• Replace table salt with seasonings like Himalayan salt.

Ingredients

You’ll want to make sure you have the proper ingredients for this gut detox on hand before starting. All the items on this list work together to balance out your gut microflora, remove toxins from your system, and normalize your digestive health.

• 6 gallons of distilled water
• 3 organic lemons
• 8 ounces of organic, raw, unpasteurized, apple cider vinegar
• 1 bottle of Oxy-Powder®
• 1 bottle of Latero-Flora™
• Organic fresh fruit
• Himalayan crystal salt

The distilled water, lemons, and apple cider vinegar create a drink you’ll hydrate with throughout the cleanse. Here’s how to make it:

1. Take one gallon of distilled water and pour out four ounces
2. Add two tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar
3. Shake well
4. Add the juice from half a lemon
5. Mix and refrigerate

Instructions

This gut cleanse is a six-day process. Each day, make one gallon of the apple cider vinegar cocktail and drink it throughout the day.

Save eight ounces of the apple cider vinegar mixture for the end of the day. Just before you go to bed every night, use it to take six capsules of Oxy-Powder. If you have any left over after that, don’t save it — pitch the rest and make a fresh batch in the morning.

Select a personal affirmation that works for you, perhaps related to the reason why you’re doing the cleanse. Are you trying to improve your overall health? Try, “I am healthy.” Is it to rid yourself of toxins? Say, “I am clean.” Are you determined to lose weight? Repeat, “I am lighter.” Or pick an affirmation that aligns with your goals.

Important: Drink 12 to 20 ounces of the gut cleanse cocktail when you wake up and between meals.

Breakfast

1. Take 3 Latero-Flora capsules 20 minutes before eating.
2. Eat breakfast. Follow your dietary option.
3. Drink 12 to 20 ounces of the gut cleanse cocktail.
4. Repeat your affirmation nine times.

Lunch

1. Eat lunch. Follow your dietary option.
2. Drink 12 to 20 ounces of the gut cleanse cocktail.
3. Repeat your affirmation nine times.

Dinner

1. Eat dinner. Follow your dietary option.
2. Drink 12 to 20 ounces of the gut cleanse cocktail.
3. Repeat your affirmation nine times.

Bedtime

1. Take six capsules of Oxy-Powder.
2. Drink the remaining eight ounces of apple cider vinegar mix.
3. Before closing your eyes, repeat your affirmation to encourage a restful night’s sleep.

Repeat these instructions for six days. After the first full day of the cleanse, you should expect to have three to five bowel movements every day. If you don’t, increase your Oxy-Powder intake by two capsules every night until you hit the three to five mark the following day.

Note: Because a gut cleanse flushes out most of the food and compacted waste that has accumulated in your gut, you will want to replenish your gut microbes with beneficial bacteria at the end of your cleanse. Take a probiotic supplement that can boost the results of your cleanse.

Benefits of a Gut Detox

A healthy gut means a happy body. When your colon and digestive system are working the way they should, your body’s natural ability to detoxify itself is at peak performance.

If your digestive system is not working properly, you most likely aren’t getting all the nutrients available from what you eat. Your body may also be having trouble absorbing enough water from your food. A gut detox can get your digestion to a better place. Below we list the top benefits of a gut cleanse.

Balance Your Emotions

When your gut is in proper working order, it can affect your mood in a good way. Several studies show that anxiety and stress increase with greater inflammation in the body — and inflammation occurs when your diet is less than optimal.^[1] A gut cleanse can normalize this systemic redness and swelling, helping to balance out your emotions.

Regulate & Restore Your Immune System

The micro-organisms in your gut interact quite closely with your immune system, and depending on which organisms you’ve got, there’s a potential link to autoimmune diseases.

A gut detox can help eliminate the harmful organism in your body, helping the gut to heal and keeping your immune system on track while replenishing your gut with beneficial microbes.^[2]

Relieve Constipation & Promote Regularity

Your body can have a hard time with digestion when you follow a poor diet that’s full of processed foods, meat, and sugar. An unhealthy diet can lead to compacted waste — or, in other words, constipation.

Since you eliminate unhealthy foods on a gut detox, while focusing on drinking water and eating fiber-rich foods, it helps your system, removing waste and flushing out the bad stuff.

Essentially, your gut will be reset following a cleanse, which means your bowel movements will likely be more regular and consistent, and you’ll be processing and digesting food at healthy levels again.

Increase Energy

One of the most commonly reported benefits following a gut detox is a big energy boost, especially if you follow it up by switching to a healthier diet.

You may not even need that cup of morning coffee anymore. You’ll not only feel more awake, but you will also just feel better overall.

Jumpstart Your Metabolism

Both new research and therapies focus on how the microbiome in your gut helps regulate metabolism. A gut cleanse could be just what you need to take your body’s innate calorie-burning power to a higher level.

As a bonus, once your biome is in top shape, it may help you fight against obesity. Early studies show that new therapies focused on gut flora could be effective at lowering obesity rates.^[3] This is why replenishing the gut with beneficial probiotics is essential to the overall effectiveness of any cleanse.

Boost Nutrient Absorption

Within your gut, the colon absorbs nutrients from the food you’re eating. If your gut is unhealthy, those nutrients may not be properly absorbed.

When that happens, you’re at a higher risk for things like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), malabsorption syndrome, leaky gut, Crohn’s disease, and nutritional deficiencies.

Strengthen Your Brain

Recent research shows that the health of your gut can have a positive impact on brain function. Specific diets — like the healthy one you’ll adopt after your detox — can help normalize neurodevelopmental disorders.

Some probiotics are also known to influence brain activity, so be sure to add them back into your diet with supplements once the cleanse is over.^[4]

Other Ways to Maintain a Healthy Gut

Once you’re done with the cleanse, make following a healthy diet your new norm, especially if you previously ate meat, dairy, or a lot of processed foods. There are other options for maintaining a healthy gut as well — things you should probably do together with that diet, listed below.

Manage Your Stress

Too much stress can cause a whole array of disorders, including ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).^[5] If you’re stressed out, try healthy ways to manage it — like meditation, yoga, and deep breathing.

Take Enzymes

Digestive enzymes have one main purpose — to break down food so you can digest it more efficiently — but they also boost your health in other ways.

Enzyme supplements support normal digestion, reduce bloating and gas, protect your cells and tissues from oxidative damage, and deter systemic redness and swelling.

Adopt a Plant-Based Diet

Animal-based diets have an undeniably negative affect on gut health.^[6] A plant-based diet that focuses on organic fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains helps to normalize mood, fight obesity, and promote a healthier gut microbiome.

A plant-based diet promotes strong digestion, and helps with heart health, anti-aging, and so much more. Herbal and green teas, as well as supplements, can add additional nutrients and antioxidants to your plant-based diet.

Incorporate Probiotics

Recent research shows that probiotics help restore healthy gut flora, normalize swelling, boost mood, improve skin health, and ease certain systemic diseases.^[7]

Supplements can help introduce the right probiotics into your body. Choose supplements that contain many probiotic strains as well as prebiotics, fiber-rich “food” for the microbes. You can also add dairy-free probiotic foods to your diet for additional benefit. Many fermented foods, like kombucha, sauerkraut, and kimchi, naturally contain beneficial probiotics.

Start Exercising

Exercise is for more than just weight loss. It helps keep you alert, releases stress, and keeps your brain functioning at an optimal level — and it’s helpful for your gut, too.

When you exercise, it boosts the number of beneficial microbe species in your gut, which boosts digestion as well as your immune system.^[8]

Points to Remember

A gut cleanse, also known as a colon cleanse, is an important part of regulating your digestive system and getting your body back on track. With an unhealthy internal system, you’ll feel sick and sluggish. A gut detox can also normalize your mood, immune system, and digestion — all the while promoting regularity.

We recommend our Colon Cleanse Kit as part of a healthy lifestyle to simultaneously support your gut and colon.

An ideal gut cleanse spans six days. During that time you will eat only fruit — or a clean, plant-based diet — allowing your gastrointestinal tract to clean itself out, lighten its load, and detoxify. Apple cider vinegar, lemon, and gut-detox supplements, taken at regular intervals, help the process. Taking a probiotic after you complete the cleanse helps ensure your gut stays healthy afterward.

Once you finish the cleanse, it’s important to maintain optimal gut health. You can do this by exercising, taking supplements, changing your diet, and controlling stress.

Have you ever done a gut cleanse? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Article sources:

1. Bested AC, et al. Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: from Metchnikoff to modern advances: Part II – contemporary contextual research. Gut Pathog. 2013 Mar 14;5(1):3.
2. Wu HJ, Wu E. The role of gut microbiota in immune homeostasis and autoimmunity. Gut Microbes. 2012 Jan-Feb;3(1):4-14.
3. Martinez KB, et al. The gut microbiota: the gateway to improved metabolism. Gastroenterol Clin North Am. 2016 Dec;45(4):601-614.
4. 4 Fast Facts about the Gut-Brain Connection. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health. Updated 24 Sep 2017. Accessed 21 Dec 2018.
5. Konturek PC, et al. Stress and the gut: pathophysiology, clinical consequences, diagnostic approach and treatment options. J Physiol Pharmacol. 2011 Dec;62(6):591-599.
6. David LA, et al. Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome. Nature. 2014 Jan 23;505(7484):559-563.
7. Hemarajata P, Versalovic J. Effects of probiotics on gut microbiota: mechanisms of intestinal immunomodulation and neuromodulation. Therap Adv Gastroenterol. 2013 Jan;6(1):39-51.
8. Monda V, et al. Exercise Modifies the Gut Microbiota with Positive Health Effects. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2017;2017:3831972.

Recommended articles by Dr. Edward Group:

• Get a Brighter Smile With DIY Natural Teeth Whitening
• Hormonal Imbalance in Women: Top Causes and Home Remedies
• Low Sex Drive in Women: 9 Causes and 7 Simple Solutions
• Leaky Gut: Symptoms, Causes and Remedies
• How a 3-Day Fast Resets Your Immune System
• The Link Between B-12, Brain Function and Memory
• The Top 10 Detox Herbs
• 14 Foods that Cleanse the Liver
• Top 5 Foods for the Pineal Gland
• The 9 Best Herbs for Lung Cleansing and Respiratory Support

About the author:

Dr. Edward F. Group III (DC, ND, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM) founded Global Healing Center in 1998 with the goal of providing the highest quality natural health information and products. He is world-renowned for his research on the root cause of disease. Under his leadership, Global Healing Center earned recognition as one of the largest natural and organic health resources in the world. Dr. Group is a veteran of the United States Army and has attended both Harvard and MIT business schools. He is a best-selling author and a frequent guest on radio and television programs, documentary films, and in major publications.

Dr. Group centers his philosophy around the understanding that the root cause of disease stems from the accumulation of toxins in the body and is exacerbated by daily exposure to a toxic living environment. He believes it is his personal mission to teach and promote philosophies that produce good health, a clean environment, and positive thinking. This, he believes, can restore happiness and love to the world.

For more, please visit Global Healing Center.