As a doctor who helps women balance their hormones, I take an individualized approach to my patients to treat their root cause and teach them the skills to care for their body. But one tactic that works for nearly everyone is a professionally designed detoxification plan as an effective hit-the-reset-button for your hormones and so much more. While other organs participate, ground zero for detoxification is your liver. While you’re detoxifying, you want to show this organ some major love. Giving your liver love means eliminating anything that potentially stresses it out and giving it the right nutrients to work efficiently. Let’s be clear about this plan: You will not be hangry or otherwise miserable, but especially if you’ve got some vices—looking at you, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar—the first few days might feel a bit yucky. My 21-day detoxification plan also nixes sugar, inflammatory fats (including vegetable oils), and common food sensitivities like soy, dairy, corn, and grains that mess with your hormones and keep your body inflamed. Most of these foods should take a permanent vacation. (Alcohol can come back, but remember, imbibing can stress your liver.) The good news is that many patients feel so much better eliminating these problem foods after 21 days that they never want to add them back. With these strategies, you can reset your hormones in as little as 21 days. While my plan can help balance them, hormones are complicated and oftentimes require some short-term and long-term strategies to rebalance. While Kayla showed massive improvements after her detox, we still had more work to do during subsequent visits. That’s why I recommend working with a functional medicine practitioner for an individualized long-term hormone-balancing protocol. Psst: Did you know that anxiety can be triggered by hormone imbalance?
