Last year was an incredibly intense year for me, both workwise and emotionally. And as all things do, it finally caught up with me. It felt like I was pulling myself through November with my fingernails, and once I reached December I fell in a heap. Yep, I was teetering on the edge of burn out.

But the other thing I noticed was that I’d started putting on weight. My scales had broken a year earlier, so although I wasn’t checking my weight regularly, I could feel that my clothes had become uncomfortably tight. So in September last year, when the signs of weight gain were evident, I decided to go on a keto-style diet.

To my astonishment, eating keto did absolutely nothing. I was as diligent as I could possibly be, even including intermittent fasting…but my weight didn’t change at all. It felt as though my body was hanging on to this extra weight as if my life depended on it.

Would you agree that we aren’t all made from the same dough? We’re all unique, and what works for others won’t always work for us. So I needed to really tune in and listen to my body, to see what it was asking for. As much as I have respect for a short-term keto diet, it wasn’t the answer for me.

Are you keen to know what I discovered, which has helped me effortlessly drop 2.5kg in the past 5 weeks, bringing myself back to my ideal weight? That’s what today’s bulletin is all about. Enjoy!

The Importance of regular Liver Cleansing

Gary Young, the founder of YoungLiving, was a big advocate of liver cleansing.

“No matter how pure and good your supplements are,” he’d say, “We all need to cleanse our liver regularly”. 

I eat a really clean, mostly organic diet, with lots of greens. But I also take a lot of supplements, and these all pass through the liver for processing. That means liver cleansing applies to me as much as it applies to someone who’s eating fast food and drinking alcohol each day. And over the past year I’ve been quite attached to my yummy fats – I love a great olive-oil based salad dressing, I do a lot of pan-frying of foods in coconut oil, I love my avocadoes, my pumpkin roasted in coconut oil, and my goat’s feta marinated in oil.

So when I saw that my keto-style diet wasn’t budging the weight, I got a strong sense that it was time to do a liver cleanse.

Where a keto-style diet is high in fat and protein with reduced vegetables and carbs, a liver cleanse (at least, the one I did), involves a lot more fruit and vegetables, no fat and very little protein. 

I needed to accept that a completely different way of eating wasn’t going to be counterproductive to my ideal weight goals, and I just needed to give it a try.

I’ve done many different types of liver cleansing over the years, and have benefited from them all. However, the one I’ve been most enjoying this past 3 years has been the Medical Medium Liver Rescue (from his book by the same name).

The principles of this liver cleanse are simple. It’s a 9 day cleanse, divided into groups of 3 days. Here’s how I do it. If you’re going to give it a try, I suggest you invest in his book to get the full picture.

Normally this liver cleanse calls for 500ml of Lime juice in water, twice a day. The enamel on my teeth has been affected by many years of drinking lemon juice in water, so this time I did something different – I substituted the lime juice with a Red Drink instead. I wasn’t sure if it would work as well as the lime juice, but I have to say that for me it worked even better, and didn’t appear to impact the cleanse at all.

Click here to find out more about the Red Drink. It’s based on Young Living’s most popular product, our NingXia Red juice.

In addition to high antioxidant fruit juices like Blueberry, Plum, Cherry, Aronia and Pomegranate, NingXia Red contains a particular variety of pureed goji berries (aka Ningxia Wolfberries). The Chinese revere this berry, and it’s an incredibly liver-friendly food, having:

• More beta carotene than carrots
• More vitamin C than oranges
• More protein than bee pollen

In fact, the Ningxia Wolfberry (Lycium barbarumi) is a very unique high protein fruit, which (unlike animal protein) provides an alkaline protein source. I’ve been drinking this super juice since it was first released around 20 years ago.

But since April 2020, instead of drinking it neat, I’ve been having it in the form of the Red Drink, and my body loves it! I always feel like it hydrates me much better than water on its own. 

I was so grateful to see it work brilliantly on this cleanse, as a substitute for lime juice.

Principles of the Medical Medium Liver Cleanse: 

1. No alcohol, tea or coffee
2. No gluten, dairy, eggs, pork, lamb or canola oil to be consumed for 9 days
3. Stay hydrated
4. Stick to the plan (outlined below)

Days 1 to 3:

Upon waking: Red Drink

Breakfast: Blueberry, Banana and Dragon Fruit smoothie

Morning Tea: Home-made Banana and Blueberry gluten-free muffin, based on the recipe in the Liver Rescue book (I add 3 drops of Young Living Ginger oil into the recipe, which makes them taste even more amazing!). That would be Ginger Plus oil if you live in Europe, or Ginger Vitality oil if you live in the US.

Lunch: Vegetarian, Nut-free and Oil-free

Afternoon tea: Fresh squeezed apple juice with 1 to 4 dates

Dinner: Anything (except lamb or pork), but cut down on the amount of fat and oils used

Bedtime: Lemon Balm and Hibiscus tea

Days 4 to 6:

Upon waking: Red Drink 

Half an hour later: 500ml of fresh-squeezed celery juice

Breakfast: Blueberry, Banana and Dragon Fruit smoothie

Morning Tea (optional): Home-made Banana and Blueberry gluten-free muffin

Lunch: Large sized salad made with fresh greens, adding either steamed asparagus or steamed brussel sprouts (alternating each day between the 2). I also add some steamed pumpkin or sweet potato. Over this I pour a delicious home-made fat-free salad dressing, based on a recipe in the Liver Rescue book (the Mint Tahini Sauce which is part of the Baked Falafel recipe in that book). I love adding 3 drops of Jade Lemon oil and 1 drop of Dill oil to this dressing (that will be the Plus oil if you live in Europe, or the Vitality oil if you live in the US).  

Afternoon tea: Fresh squeezed apple juice with 1 to 4 dates

Optional afternoon drink: Another Red Drink

Dinner: Same as for lunch

Bedtime: Lemon Balm and Hibiscus tea

Days 7 & 8:

Upon waking: Red Drink

Half an hour later: 500ml of fresh-squeezed celery juice

Breakfast: Blueberry, Banana and Dragon Fruit smoothie

Morning Tea (optional): Home-made Banana and Blueberry gluten-free muffin

Lunch: A home-made spinach, tomato, cucumber, celery and avocado cold soup, using the recipe from the Medical Medium Thyroid Healing book

Afternoon tea: Fresh squeezed apple juice with 1 to 4 dates

Afternoon: Another 500ml of fresh-squeezed celery juice

Optional afternoon drink: Another Red Drink

Dinner: Large sized salad made with fresh greens, adding either steamed asparagus or steamed brussel sprouts (alternating each day between the 2). I also add some steamed pumpkin or sweet potato. Over this I pour my mint-tahini sauce.

Bedtime: Lemon Balm and Hibiscus tea

Day 9:

Upon waking: Red Drink

Morning: 500ml of fresh-squeezed celery juice

Throughout the day and evening: 

Orange or Ruby Grapefruit juice, Melon puree or Melon juice (watermelon, rockmelon, honey dew melon), Fresh Papaya,

One date if needed

Afternoon tea: Fresh squeezed apple & cucumber juice

Afternoon: 500ml of fresh-squeezed celery juice

Although I get a bit hungry on this final day, it’s well worth it. I will sometimes have a banana on that final evening, just so my tummy isn’t growling through the night.

Liver & Thyroid – both need support when weight trimming

There were 2 things going on for me which caused me to hold onto the weight: 

1. My liver was overdue for a cleanse
2. My thyroid needed some support

My heavy workload last year had thrown my thyroid out of balance, and the best way to reset that was with some dedicated down time. I took a 3 week break over Xmas, and let myself rest and sleep and rejuvenate as much as I could. I had many nights where I slept for 10+ hours a night, catching up on all the rest my body was craving.

If you think this may apply to you, make sure you get your Reverse T3 checked with a blood test. It’s not a normal test for thyroid function – it needs to be specifically requested.

But when we push ourselves as hard as I sometimes do, our body just wants us to slow down to a balanced pace. When we continually ignore that, our body flips a switch and produces Reverse T3 instead of regular T3. Reverse T3 is often called the “hibernation hormone”. When it’s high, it nudges the body into a state of deep rest, ie. a hibernation state. 

Think about what happens during hibernation in any mammal….our metabolism slows down, we store weight for winter, we feel sleepy. It also reduces our thyroid function at the cellular level, producing symptoms of hypothyroidism.

I know that when my Reverse T3 is high (which a recent blood test has confirmed), it’s going to work against my weight trimming goals….so making sure I take care of my thyroid and get the rest I need is always part of the recipe for achieving my ideal weight.

Add a bit of Oil Love into the mix….

At any time of the year (and not specifically during a Liver Cleanse), I love using oils placed on my thyroid, adrenals and liver, to help me connect to any emotions being stored in these parts of my body.

I love using EndoFlex or Myrtle on my thyroid, and Nutmeg on my adrenals. As for my liver, I choose between JuvaFlex, JuvaCleanse and Release oil. They’re all amazing!

And I love flavouring my water or juice with a combination of Lemon, Grapefruit and Peppermint oil.

What this Liver Cleanse did for me

After doing the liver cleanse and taking time to rest and increasing my cardio exercise with regular beach or hill walks, I noticed that I’d dropped 900 grams by the end of the 9 day liver cleanse. Hmmm….that wasn’t the WOW effect I was hoping for. But I did feel truly amazing in my body. 

But what I did notice was that I was less hungry. So without even having to make a conscious decision about it, I began having smaller portion sizes. 

Instead of drinking my Red Drink in one hit (along with other supplements), I started having just half of it, then sipping the rest throughout the morning.

I began eating a smaller portion whenever I felt like I needed some nourishment. For my body, with what was going on for my thyroid, I don’t feel the intermittent fasting was right for me. My body has responded so much better when I give it regular nourishment.

What my daily food looks like now:

Upon waking: Red Drink (half drunk on waking, the rest sipped through the morning)

Breakfast: Gluten Free seed muesli with cultured coconut yoghurt

Lunch: ¾ of my usual portion size, less oil used, includes a palm-sized amount of protein

Whenever I feel like it in the day: 

1. Banana, spirulina, vegetarian protein and almond milk smoothie (Young Living’s Pure Protein Complete “Vanilla Spice” is my one of my preferred protein sources for a smoothie)
2. A home-made, cold pressed cucumber, apple and ginger juice. Yum!!!

Afternoon: Red Drink (half of it drunk straight away, the rest sipped through the afternoon/evening) 

Afternoon: I love to consume my Bloom Collagen Complete in the afternoon, as a “sweet treat”. This is fantastic for the skin

Dinner: ¾ of my usual portion size, less oil used, includes a palm-sized amount of protein

What’s really excited me is that I’ve continued to drop weight ever since I finished the Liver Cleanse.

Before starting the Liver Cleanse, I weighed 78.2kg. On the final day of the Liver Cleanse I weighted 77.3kg. A week later I was 76.6kg, which was a small improvement. Two and a half weeks after that, I’m weighing 75.7kg.

That’s 2.5kg in 5 weeks. My ideal weight is anywhere between 72kg and 75kg, so I’m virtually into that perfect zone already. That’s amazing to me, because I’m eating more of what my body is enjoying, I’m eating consciously (ie. listening to my body, and keeping my portion sizes moderate rather than large), and the excess weight is just dropping off. How exciting!

Here’s how to order…

If you already have your own wholesale account with Young Living, you can order through the shopping cart on your virtual office, or via phone or live chat with your local Young Living office.

If it’s been more than 12 months since you’ve ordered, or if you’ve never set up an account, please reach out to the person who introduced you to Young Living.

You will need their member number when you place your first order.

If you have lost touch with them, or need any other assistance, we are here to help. Simply click on the button below, and we’ll be in touch to assist you and help answer your questions.