More connected to your mind and body. More grounded in your everyday life.
Throughout the 21-day detox journey to healing your body, you’ll start to notice a positive mindset and create uplifting habits. Nourish with a daily protocol of nutrient dense smoothies, supplements, and whole-food meals following Clean 21 guidelines. On the inside, your body is skillfully redirecting energy and nutrition to boost detoxification and metabolic functions, reduce inflammation, and promote gut repair at the cellular level.
The reset isn’t just felt inside your gut; it sparks a complete mental and emotional transformation, helping you reach your goals and achieve lasting, life-changing results
Dr. Alejandro Junger is a cardiologist, New York Times best-selling author, and founder of The Clean Program. Recognized as “The Father of Detox,” Dr. Junger's programs have been embraced globally in the health and wellness space.
What we know from ancient traditions is that the body is a whole. What we know from science is to understand the whole, we need to understand the parts. This is where the 7 systems of the body come into the picture. We have integrated these elements into our Clean products and resources to help you understand these body systems a little better.
What are the 7 systems, and why do they matter? Here’s an introduction to the science of the 7 systems and how they are already present in your life:
Assimilation
Assimilation is the process of taking in something, like a nutrient, food, beverage, digesting it, and incorporating it into one’s being. You have probably heard the phrase, “you are what you eat.” That is basically the essence of Assimilation. We become what we take in, whether it’s a meal, a conversation, or even a breath of clean air.
At Clean, we talk a lot about the importance of gut health. For the most part, this is where assimilation begins with food. Along with the long digestive tract to help us break down and give us the expanse for absorption, we also have the gut microbiome and its team of microorganisms to change the structure of compounds, making them able to enter the body better. Assimilation is pivotal to gut health and even further into what we take into our cellular structure.
Questions about Assimilation in your life:
How do you feel within hours after eating a meal?
Are you deficient in nutrients, like iron, even though you eat nutrient-dense foods?
Are you taking in too much food?
Defense
The boundaries, border, and brigade of the body are represented by Defense. We might think of it as the immune system. It can also be the initial response of inflammation seen with repair. The stronger the membranes of cells, such as in the gut, respiratory tract, nasal passage, and mouth, the less permeable they will be to pathogenic invaders that could deplete the body’s reserves. Healthy defense and repair systems such as cleaning up cell debris and even DNA damage are essential to maintaining good health.
Questions about Defense in your life:
Are you one of the first people to get sick with a cold or flu?
Do you have redness, pain, or swelling in your body?
There is no mystery around the system referred to as Transport. It says what it is – it is motion. It involves proteins that carry around essential messengers such as fats, hormones, and even nutrients. It represents the circulation of blood and lymph. When we don’t have enough proteins to transport or stagnation in the body due to lack of flow, the body’s functions suffer, and cells aren’t able to readily get what they need or get rid of what they have to perform well.
Biotransformation is the process by which we convert a compound to another compound in the body. We see this conversion in the detoxification steps that occur within the liver, where a toxin becomes more water-soluble to be excreted. Because transforming a compound takes energy, it’s all the more critical that our Defense system is working to keep toxins outside the body.
Once they are inside, the Biotransformation system is utilized, followed by the other half of this system, Elimination. Elimination can happen in several ways, through urine, stool, sweat, breath, mucous, and even tears. Our ability to keep our toxin load low is determined mainly by how efficient our Biotransformation & Elimination processes are working together.
Questions about Biotransformation in your life:
Have you been exposed to high amounts of toxins, such as mercury, plastics, or pesticides?
Do you eat organically-grown food?
How often do you have a bowel movement?
Energy
Energy means different things to many people, from being vital enough to live the life you choose every day to an electrical power source to the cellular currency of ATP. Within this system, we are mainly connecting into the mitochondria, or what has been called the ‘powerhouse’ of the cell. When the mitochondria has the nutrients it needs, it can harness energy for the cell, ultimately giving a person energy to “do work.”
Several nutrients are required to make these metabolic cycles run well. Missing just one of them can mean stopping them to a grinding halt or slowing them down dramatically. You are only as energized as your mitochondria.
Questions about Energy in your life:
Do you feel fatigued throughout the day?
Is it challenging to get out of bed in the morning?
Are you on overdrive, from one thing to the next, without time to eat healthy food?
Communication
Communication is the key to all relationships, especially within the body. The way an organ system communicates with another through hormones will determine the outcome or action of the organism. It can be efficient and streamlined or cluttered and confused.
Communicators are neurotransmitters like serotonin, GABA, and acetylcholine. The way they are exchanged back and forth within cells will translate into a person’s ability to be content, calm, and focused. Proper, accurate, and truthful communication within the body without delay, interference, or improper translation makes for a healthy person.
Questions about Communication in your life:
Do you have low thyroid function?
Have you had issues with being too stressed and wired?
Do you find it’s difficult to focus?
Structure
It’s been said that the human body is 60-80% water. If we didn’t have a skeleton, muscles, and even the membrane of cells, we wouldn’t be able to hold and direct that water. Our significant structural elements like the bones, muscles, and cartilage provide the framework for how we move in the world. If our posture is off or our spine is curved, or our muscles shrunk (atrophied), we will have changes in the communication of nerves and misfiring of functions, such as in the digestive tract. Structure makes up this part of the 7 systems.
Therefore, bodywork and physical activity are part of a healthy lifestyle. In addition to the significant structural elements, the smaller structures of the cell, from the omega-3 fatty acids in the cellular membranes to the double-helix of the DNA, are equally relevant for the activity of other systems like Defense, Biotransformation, and even Assimilation.
Questions about Structure in your life:
Do you have good, erect posture?
Have you had your bone mineral density tested?
Do you feel like you are losing muscle mass?
As you can see, all the systems of the body need to work together in collaboration. If one system is out of alignment, the whole is imbalanced. Keeping all 7 systems integrated equals excellent health.
Written by the Clean Team
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