Picture of regular store-bought turmeric powder. Dull-yellow or brown-orange color, indicating the powder has been exposed to air for a long time. This type of turmeric is only suitable as a food-coloring agent and not as a supplement.

The bright and lovely color of fresh, unoxidized turmeric root. It’s almost glowing, due to curcumin’s ability to convert UV light to yellow. 

Bad News: Regular, Store-Bought Turmeric Has Very Poor Gut Absorption. Most of It Is Oxidized and Only Suitable for Food Coloring

We have all heard that turmeric is great – it promotes radiant skin, weight loss, has many cognitive and brain benefits and can work better for pain than over the counter pain relievers! Recently, some publications explored the effectiveness of turmeric for depression and the results were very promising.
Virtually all benefit-showing studies done on turmeric, use ethanol-aqueous extracts from fresh roots. This is very different from regular, store-bought turmeric. Gut absorption of turmeric is quite low (study) and gets even lower with age, because of the reduced ability of the liver to produce bile.
Fortunately, there are ways around this! Let’s explore some great options to get all the benefits of turmeric, without having access to lab-grade turmeric extracts.

Best Option: Use Full-Range Micelle Turmeric to Get All The Health Benefits Turmeric is Known For! (Link)

This is arguably the most effective way to put turmeric in your body and actually feel, notice and experience the actual benefits turmeric is known for. Micelle turmeric uses extremely tiny droplets(about 200 times smaller than the emulsion droplets that butter consists of for example), suspended in a liquid to bypass the digestive process and ‘transport’ the turmeric straight into your cells, where it can do it’s magic – it’s the closest thing to an ‘anti-aging injection’ that you’ll find. Even compared to high-quality unoxidized turmeric extract, micelle turmeric has up to 200-times higher absorption rate and quickly gets delivered around the cells in the body.
As amazing as micelle liposomal turmeric is, it does have a slight downside – its higher price. Since making micelle solutions requires lab testing to confirm that particle size is small enough to get absorbed right through membranes, this does raise the cost slightly.
Micelle turmeric is ingested normally(orally) – because of it’s high concentration and bio-availability, only a few drops are required to experience the effects.

Option 2: Find Fresh Turmeric Root, Blend With Some Water and Coconut oil, and Add Black Pepper

The second best way to absorb turmeric is to simply get a high-quality powder or just fresh root. It’s impossible to tell with a 100% certainty how good certain turmeric powder is, without lab testing, but the color of the powder is a good indication – look for a bright, vibrant orange or yellow color. Low quality turmeric is immediately obvious by it’s ‘dullness’ – it just doesn’t look that good. If you find a high-quality powder, you can use that to make turmeric milk(recipe), which has decent absorption, due to the fat content of the milk.

1. The Rapid Detox Carrot Drink

Recipe: Juice 2-3 carrots, add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice and a bit of honey

This detoxing drink is particularly effective for weight loss, due to it’s special combination of carotene and citric acid. Acids, including lemon juice and vinegar are extremely important for losing weight. Many people swear that massive doses of vitamin c (4-5g/day)  melt fat like nothing else. What’s interesting is that it’s not actually the vitamin C that’s causing the weight loss, but rather the acidity. Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, and it has a pH of 2.4 – the same as vinegar and lemon juice. This drink is extremely effective, especially when taken on an empty stomach.

2. The Tomato Juice Cleanser

This drink is extremely simple – it’s just tomato juice, with some black pepper and salt. Just like the first drink, it’s very acidic. But it also has another power – it’s packed with minerals. Tomato juice is the best source of potassium. This means that a glass of this juice is enough to keep hunger at bay for many hours! Black pepper increases insulin sensitivity, which makes this detoxing drink perfect for weight loss. Athletes, and especially marathon runners often drink this drink to rehydrate properly. The drink contains very few calories – almost an insignificant amount – a glassful of the juice is about 30 calories.

3. Watermelon Juice

Watermelon juice is very easy to prepare – you can either put watermelon flesh in the blender, or you can put it in a strainer and smash it with your hands to produce juice. Watermelon juice is relatively high in calories – about 40 calories per cup. However, it’s high nutritional content, acidity and special phytochemicals, like citrulline make it perfect for weight loss. Here’s what’s also interesting: putting ice in the drink, makes it almost zero-calorie – that’s because the body uses all the energy contained in the juice to compensate for the cooling effect on your body.

The Red Tea – The King of Detox Drinks

 
How detoxing drinks work and do they lead to weight loss?
We already mentioned some of the mechanisms behind the power of the three simple drinks. But there is more to be said about the power of phytonutrients to produce visible weight loss and belly fat reduction. Your liver can store a lot of fat-soluble toxins, which require antioxidants to ‘liberate’. If you’re not consuming enough plant antioxidants (which the above-mentioned drinks have plenty of), you can be sure that there are toxins in your liver, which your body can’t get rid of by itself.

The Green Tea & Chia Drink – Simple, But Powerful!

Ingredients:

• Green Tea
• Chia seeds
• Some Honey or Stevia if you want to go zero-calorie!

This drink seems simple, but is amazing in so many ways! It packs a powerful detoxing punch, thanks to it’s combination of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids and the EGCG antioxidants of green tea. The drink in the picture is prepared using matcha green tea, which is a powder you mix with water and not a tea you steep. Good matcha is quite expensive, but feel free to use regular green tea too! Matcha is quite strong as well, so if you are not used to drinking it, by all means, go with regular green tea. The caffeine from the green tea is an important component, because it stimulates the hepatic nerves in the stomach, which stimulates the liver and helps it detox. This is the same reason coffee enemas work well.

The Sour Carrot and Turmeric Drink

Ingredients:

• 60% Carrot Juice
• 20% Lemon Juice
• Some Honey
• Half a level teaspoon of turmeric

Another great detoxing drink! The detoxifying power of lemons, turmeric and honey, combined with the carotene from carrots. This drink tastes great and can be made in a large glass, instead of the shot glasses I used (come on, they are pretty). The antioxidants in turmeric are absorbed much better in combination with the lemon juice. Carrot juice has some antibacterial benefits, as does honey. This is important, because bacteria, like h.pylori, which more than 50% of people have can actually make your liver store toxins.

Rapid Weight Loss Results and Aging-Reversal After a Simple Detox Regimen?

If you’re looking for a way to quickly get rid of belly fat,  massively improve skin complexion and feel 20 years younger, a diet regimen that has been getting a lot of rave reviews lately is Erin Nielsen’s program – it’s a simple regimen that aims to control your gene expression through the foods you eat, leading to quite a rapid transformation in about 70% of people. It works particularly well for women over ~40. We have known for many years that certain spices, foods and supplements have a direct effect on gene expression. Turmeric for example, alters the expression of more than 200 genes in the human body. Certain food combinations have the power to trigger hormones like leptin and turn off inflammatory gene expression. This is why you sometimes hear about people who have lost massive amounts of weight, just after a simple juice detox.

How Liver Detoxing Works and Why It’s Important

Some people look at detoxes and cleanses as over-hyped trends, but they are actually not. Many people will lose large amounts of belly fat, just after doing a proper liver detox with juices. The reason is actually very clear and it’s no mystery at all – your liver accumulates fat-soluble toxins and in order to keep them ‘diluted’ it has to hold on to a certain amount of fat. The way the toxins are eliminated is with the help of a phytonutrient molecule, which the drinks above have plenty of. Your body uses the phytonutrients to turn the ‘stuck’ fat-soluble toxins into water-soluble ones, which are then easily removed by the kidneys. This is why you may notice some increased peeing after drinking those two powerful drinks, especially on an empty stomach in the morning.
Since the liver is involved in virtually all vital processes, the benefits you will notice from those detoxing drinks are many. Better skin, improved mood and higher energy levels are usually the first benefits people notice. Increased metabolism is often experienced as well – you can feel this by your hands feeling warmer and your energy levels increasing!

1. The Hunger-Eliminating Avocado Smoothie

This smoothie may seem too high in calories to support your weight-loss goals, but it actually lowers your total caloric intake by reducing hunger pangs and provides important nutrients to keep your metabolism going. The key is the avocado and almond fat, combined with the fiber content and the high potassium.  Potassium is one of the most important minerals for a satiating breakfast! This smoothie is also pretty high in protein, which is extremely important for weight loss. There is plenty of evidence that just making your first meal of the day a high-protein one will get you on the right track to weight loss.

Half an Avocado
1 Ounce of Almonds
1 Banana
A bit of honey (optional)
A cup of water

2. The Antioxidant Bomb

This smoothie contains a very high amount of anthocyanins and phytonutrients. It is helpful if you feel fatigued in the morning, if you are going to be exposed to strong oxidants, like cigarette smoke, sunlight or fast food. Since it’s quite acidic, it also helps with digestion and weight loss. Acid, found in vegetables neutralizes and cleanses the alkaline waste products that occur any time you ingest protein (like homocysteine). So, starting with an acidic drink full of antioxidants is a great way to prime your metabolism in the morning.

200 grams of frozen red cabbage
1 handful of blueberries
1 banana
1 cup yogurt
A dash of vanilla
A cup of water

The yogurt is there to ensure that our smoothie contains some fat! This improves the absorption of antioxidants and slows it down, providing a “timed release”. Unfortunately, this smoothie is not as good-tasting as many others, but it does include bitterness-suppressing and bad-taste-masking ingredients, so it isn’t that bad! As a general rule, the more bitter and generally “unpleasant” a vegetable is, the higher it is in antioxidants, so there is no easy way to make a smoothie that is very high in antioxidant, but also tastes amazing. To add even more to the downside, this smoothie is also a bit time-consuming to prepare and requires a bit of cleaning afterwords 🙁

3. The Stable Energy Smoothie – A Real Breakfast in a Cup

This smoothie is specifically designed to provide a very slow release of glucose and feed your brain. It is best used when you need your brain power – before an exam or job interview for example. This smoothie is relatively high in calories and it’s stable-energy release can be easily nullified by a fast-food or unhealthy meal. So, use only when needed! It’s also similar to the hunger-eliminating smoothie, but it’s a bit higher in carbs & fiber and lower in fat.

1/2 cup oats
An ounce of almonds
1 Banana
1 cup yogurt or milk

It’s no secret that cold drinks burn calories, simply because they cool the body down, and it then needs to use energy to warm back up. However, there is an even more interesting effect happening – the cold stimulates the vagus nerve and speeds up both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, raising your metabolism naturally. The liver is also stimulated, so blood flow to it increases, clearing toxins and burning stored fat.
Of course, this is not a magic drink that will make you lose 50 pounds in a week or something, but it’s a nice way to detox the liver and see some fat loss, especially if you drink it on an empty stomach in the morning.
If you want to lose body fat and detox the liver quickly, I recommend the 2-week diet plan, which will give you quick and very noticeable results just by following a few very simple dietary guidelines. Do not drink this quickly! We don’t want anyone getting a cold from this.

How it Works

The ginger also stimulates the same nerves, due to being slightly spicy. We have all heard that hot food burns calories – the chili stimulates the same nerves, which causes the body to raise it’s metabolism and you may start to sweat even when it’s cold outside. This drink does the same, only better and we avoid the sweating and feeling how, because the ice cools you down! So, give it a try. It is especially useful before a large unhealthy meal, to avoid fat storage.
Also, feel free to make your own recipe. You need acidity and spiciness, combined with ice. The ginger, honey and lemon drink tastes nice, but you can also prepare a horribly tasting vinegar and garlic drink, if for some reason you want to do that. It would have the same detoxing effect.

What you need to know about this fat-loss ‘trick’

This is one of the coolest tricks, I learned from the amazing 2-week diet plan by Brian Flatt(explained in this video). Here’s all there is to this trick:

1. Prepare a high-protein breakfast that includes lemon juice and eat it
2. Don’t eat carbohydrates with the breakfast, and also don’t eat any for the next few hours. The longer, the better!

Just make your breakfast a high-protein one (combined with a citrus fruit) and then avoid consuming a lot of carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, basically all grains and sugars) for the next few hours. This keeps your glycogen stores in the liver empty and you will notice the fat just melt! This trick on it’s own will not get you in amazing shape, but it’s a good starting point for anyone looking to get the fat-loss ball rolling! Once you see some results you then get motivated, which makes following a complete rapid fat-loss system, like the 2-week diet effortless.
A big advantage of the high-protein is that if keeps you full for much longer, compared to a carb-heavy one. Even cereals promoted as having a “low glycemic index” will create blood sugar ups and downs that will make you very hungry within 2 hours of eating them. So, not only are we eating an effective fat-loss breakfast, but we’re also ensuring that we won’t be very hungry for the next 3+ hours of the day!

But a high-protein breakfast is not all we’re doing here! We’re also adding some citrus fruit to make things even better! Eggs go very well with lemon juice and so does fish, if you’re willing to go through the trouble of preparing fish for breakfast. Eggs are much easier to make.
We have all heard that drinking vinegar of lemon juice will promote fat loss. This is due to many mechanisms, including Ph, detoxification and the way the liver processes fat. Drinking vinegar or lemon juice with a carbohydrate-rich meal will slow down the absorption of the carbs a lot and will put less fat on your body, then the same meal consumed without the acidic drink. It’s not fully understood how citrus fruits, combined with a low-carb and high-protein meal promote fat loss, but what’s important is that it works!
People traditionally ate protien for breakfast. Think about it – eggs and bacon, boiled eggs, were the most famous breakfast meals until a few years ago.
Eggs are a classic breakfast and have been such for hundreds of years. Only recently, people began eating carb-heavy oats and various breakfast cereals for breakfast, and the results are in – people have more problems with excessive body fat than ever! Of course, this is only one factor, but regardless, it’s an important one.
So, give this simple breakfast a try for a week or two and see how it goes!

It’s a common advice that if you’re going to eat a carb-heavy meal, do it after a workout, or in the morning. The reason is that your carbohydrate ‘stores’ are emptier than, and the carbs go towards filling those stores, instead of being converted to fat. There’s a simple trick to emulate this effect, without a heavy workout and without fasting – just hold a squat position for as long as you can, until you feel a painful burn.
Dietary trick changes insulin levels and puts your body in a fat-burning mode
Since the leg muscles are the largest muscles in the body that you can flex and keep tension on easily, their glucose receptors ‘open up’. This means that a large percentage of the carbs you eat will go in those muscles and be converted to energy in the mitochondria, instead of ‘spilling’ around your body and going to bad places, like the belly.

Cardio is often not especially effective for fat loss. Many people believe in the myth that says if you’re sweating, you’re definitely burning fat. In fact, the opposite is true – if you’re cold, your body is forced to use energy to warm your body up. Sweating just means your body is making too much heat, compared to the outside temperature. This often has turns on protective processes in the body that shut down energy production to prevent overheating – hence why you feel sleepy and tired after baking on the beach or after a hot sauna.
If you’re serious about loosing weight, give this yoga workout a try. It’s extremely effective in putting your body in a fat-burning state, and doing the workout daily will lead to quite amazing results.
What is especially effective for weight loss is continuous tension in the large muscles – the legs and the back. You’ll often find diabetics using those sort of exercises to lower their blood sugar, and intense cardio often has the opposite effect on them – it raises their blood sugar an hour after the workout, due to stress hormones being released in the adrenals and the liver. You’ll also notice sprinters have a better physique than marathon runners, which again proves the point of this article.

1. 1. Side Plank

2. Downward Facing Dog

3. Plank Flow

As you can see, those exercises put a lot of static tension on the muscles. Aim for 10 minutes of total tension, which is harder than it looks at first. There is no specific timing for each exercise – just hold the pose until you no longer can and you feel the burn. Rest for a minute, move on to the next exercise. Repeat. The squat hold is also very effective, but demanding – just holding it for 30 seconds can have a massive effect on how much carbohydrates you store on your thighs.
As you can see, the whole session is three exercises. You don’t need more. We’re not aiming for stretching here, only muscle tension. The three exercises put tension on the legs, the abdominal muscles and the upper body (shoulders).

There are two ways to use cayenne pepper juice in this amazing recipe. You can use cayenne powder, or you can juice fresh cayenne, store the juice in the refrigerator and then use add a tablespoon to your drink. The latter is obviously more difficult, as you have to obtain fresh peppers and then make a mess with your juicer. However, it’s a one-time thing, once you have prepared a glassful of cayenne pepper juice, you have enough for a month.

The Prepared Juice with Very Little Cayenne – Ideally Add as Much as You Can

• Half a cup of water
• Quarter cup lemon juice
• A teaspoon of turmeric
• Enough Cayenne Pepper Juice or Powder to Make the Juice Very Hot, Yet Drinkable
• A Dash of Black Pepper
• A tablespoon of fat – coconut oil is best
• A tablespoon of honey

Use this trick to restore your circulatory system and cholesterol levels to that of a 25 year-old
Add everything to a jar, close it and shake it to mix in the oil. Use hot water to make the coconut oil liquid, otherwise it will stay hard.
The Fat is used to slow down the absorption of the drink, reduce stomach burn if more cayenne is used and increase the absorption of curcumin from the turmeric several-fold.

How The Drink Works and Why it’s Much More Effective Than Plain Turmeric, or Garlic Drinks

A traditional remedy for clogged arteries is to drink very hot (temperature-wise), plain water on an empty stomach and walk fast. The increase body temperature dilates the arteries and plaque buildup is quickly reabsorbed. This drink accomplishes the same, but without the high-temperature and without the exercise necessary. Cayenne pepper dilates arteries and induces thermogenesis. The turmeric fights inflammation and enables the body to get rid of the plaque.
The drink isn’t only effective for removing plaque. In fact, it’s great for anyone who:

• Suffers from any type of pain, particularly joint pain or fibromyalgia
• Suffers from Hemorrhoids or Blood circulation disorders, like many types of angioma.
• Has low-energy levels or depression
• Suffers from poor circulation, has cold hands and feet or experiences cold sweats.
• Suffers from high blood pressure

Because of the blood-vessel dilating properties of the drinks, it is much more effective than using just turmeric, or even the traditional german plaque-cleaning drink, made from garlic. As a side benefit, since the drink doesn’t need garlic, the side effect of garlic breath is not there. The slightly increased body temperature, which comes after drinking the drink does result in some increased fat burn, especially if you go on a run withing two hours of drinking it.

 

Today we are more than ever exposed to environmental and other toxins and at the same time we are consuming less and less antioxidants. Although our body makes it’s own antioxidants, it does rely heavily on dietary intake of vegetables in order to process the toxins in the liver and get rid of them. Lacking those antioxidants, the toxins get stuck in the liver and more and more fat is produced to store them, leading to ‘belly fat’. This type of fat cannot be efficiently burned off with exercise and when it is, the toxins are released, leading to fatigue, headaches and other unpleasant effects. Fortunately, there is a simple solution! Read on 🙂

How the Liver Eliminates Toxins

The liver doesn’t work exactly as most people would imagine it – it’s not supposed to absorb toxins from the bloodstream and then store them. Instead, it’s job is to transform the toxins into non-toxic compounds, which are then excreted. This happens in three stages.
In the first stage, the liver processes the toxins through a process of oxidation (in the case of alcohol), reduction (in the case of protein waste) or it jumps straight to hydrolyzation, which makes the toxins water soluble and they can be then carried through the bloodstream and excreted through the kidneys. For this to happen, dietary antioxidants are needed. In the past, this wasn’t an issue, as studies have found that paleolithic men were consuming as much as 300 grams of fiber a day, all of which came from plants. Today, less than 50% of Americans meet the daily recommended amount of fiber, which is only 15 grams. As a result, we have a belly fat epidemic.

How Bitter Vegetables Reverse Fatty Liver and Melt Belly Fat

Fatty liver is a common condition and although commonly associated with heavy drinking, more than 30% is not and is due to diet alone. Lacking vegetable oxidants, the liver cannot turn fat-soluble toxins into water-soluble ones, and they become ‘stuck’ in the liver. As a result, fat accumulates, which is the most common cause of visceral, or belly fat – sometimes all of the belly fat is part of the liver, pushing the belly out.
Liver problems occur in only about 1 in 5 heavy alcoholics and it has been proven that there must be another factor involved, most likely dietary. But you don’t need alcohol to accumulate large amounts of toxic fat in your liver, as we all know. Plenty of people who don’t drink have problems with belly fat, making the intake of ‘bitter’ vegetables the most important factor of all.
Bitter vegetables come to the rescue! When we say ‘bitter’, it’s not necessarily bitter, but vegetables that have slightly astringent and bitter taste, somewhat stinging when you eat them. Cabbage is a good example. If you have ever tried cabbage juice you know it stings, similar to eating garlic. This is what we mean by ‘bitter’. Plant antioxidants generally don’t taste that well, hence why many people don’t eat enough of them.

To make things simple and ingest the necessary antioxidants to flush the toxins from the liver and get rid of belly fat, it’s easiest to make a juice. This way, you don’t have to chew on pounds of vegetables, and it’s easier to make it a habit.

Simple Bitter Juice Recipe

• 1 Cucumber
• 3 Cups Kale
• 1 Lime or Half a Lemon
• 1 Cup Swiss Chard
• Half an Apple

If you want to get the maximum effect (and bitterness :)), you can leave the lemon or lime unpeeled. If you drink the juice on an empty stomach you will feel the effects quickly – you might get a slight headache or you might get slightly nauseous for about 10 or 20 minutes. This is a good sign – it means the juice is working. The toxins are being flushed, and you are experiencing increased blood flow, leading to the headache. You’ll still get the benefits if you drink the juice with food, but since it will be absorbed much slower, you won’t get any side effects at all. Adding cabbage to the mix is even better, but not a lot of people can cope with the taste.
A word on wheat grass juice
Anyone who has tried a larger amount of wheat grass juice on an empty stomach will feel the effects immediately, which can sometimes be severe. This is due to the toxins leaving the liver and being carried to the kidneys to be eliminated. My next post will be on wheat grass juice. The problem is, it’s not as readily accessible as common vegetables, and in fact, if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, the only viable option for most people is growing the wheat grass themselves. Wheat grass juice tastes horrible to most people, proving the notion that the worse and more bitter a vegetable tastes, the more antioxidants it has.

It’s okay to eat the vegetables instead, but juicing is easier

Some people don’t like juicing, and particularly the cleanup of the juicer. If that’s you, you can just make it a habit to eat more greens, bitter and astringent vegetables like kale and cabbage and more antioxidants in general. This is key for losing weight, especially if you’re dealing with the dreaded ‘belly fat’.