There are a lot of things that you may feel you need when starting to improve your health. It can be overwhelming with all the health influencers and practitioners online sharing so many products. How can you know what you will actually need? That is what I am here to share with you today! Obviously, everyone will have different needs depending on their goals, health concerns and budget. That being said, there are so staple products that I found to be so helpful when starting m health journey. These products are things that helped me to live healthier and start detoxing, ditching and switching.
Liquid Stevia: The first thing that is important when starting your health journey is learning to cut back on sugar. Liquid stevia was my GO-TO sweetener as it is all natural and tastes quite nice! You can add it to teas, smoothies to sweeten them so you don’t need sugary fruit, bake with it, and much more! Stevia is the ONLY sweetener we use in our home 99% of the time!
Organic castor oil: if you are looking to start practicing some holistic detox techniques that are affordable, castor oil packs are the way to go! They are easy to do, effective and do not require you spending hundreds at a spa! I started doing these 2 days per week for the first couple months of my healing journey and now do them once or twice a month. All you need is good castor oil, an old rag, plastic wrap and a hot water bag!
TENS machine: Transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation is something majority of the population can benefit from. Because of our chronic stress, concussions, gut inflammation and more, our vagal nerve has poor outflow causing all sorts of digestive and brain symptoms. TVNS is something almost everyone should be doing (check with your doctor first) to start improving both gut and brain health. It is SO AFFORDABLE if you do it yourself !You can either pay your chiro and acupuncturist $30 per session (it should be done very often) or buy the machine for $30 and do it yourself, which is the route I recommend as it is so much cheaper and can be done from the comfort of your home. To learn how to do TVNS, click here! You will also need these ear clips with the machine.
Liquid chlorophyll: This is one supplement that is so affordable but has so many benefits! Always check with your doctor before supplementing but this one is great for majority of people. If you aren’t sure what to take supplement wise, this is fantastic because it helps detoxify the blood and colon, alkalize the body, reduce inflammation, improve mineral status and much more! Chlorophylls molecular structure is almost identical to human blood so it helps to enrich our blood and improve our energy. If you take this supplement consistently, it can also help to reduce and improve body odour (especially when paired with a candida cleanse).
Probiotics: These are a supplement that most people can benefit from right off the bat (there are exceptions so talk with your doctor) to improve their health. Probiotics help improve energy, digestion, skin health, bowel movements, immune system and so much more. If you aren’t sure where to start with supplements you cant go wrong with chlorophyll and probiotics!
Essential oils: A very important part of the health journey is ditching toxic products for cleaner ones. This means starting to get rid of fragrances in the home (perfumes, air wicks, febreeze, etc) and replacing them with oils! For the home I love diffusing jade lemon with lavender for a clean and fresh scent throughout the house! I add it to my laundry too. For perfume, I love the stress away blend from young living mixed with valor essential oil blend. Find what oil scents you like and start using those!
Glass storage containers: Using plastic tupperware is very toxic for your health, especially when putting hot food in them. The plastics leach into the food and disrupt our endocrine system, cellular health, and affect every part of our body. Instead, Glass is the better alternative as you can reheat food in it safely and not worry about leaching BPAs and BPS into the food.
All Purpose Cleaner: Most the cleaning products in our home are full of chemicals that we are touching or breathing in. They are cancer-causing and highly inflammatory! I recommend switching to Young Living All purpose cleaner as 1 product can clean EVERYTHING (mirrors, sinks, toilets, counters, floors, etc) and it is essential oil based so a much cleaner option! A little goes a long way as it is highly concentrated! Mix 1 capful of solution into 16oz of water in a glass spray bottle.
Laundry Soap: I like using Neob brand (it is Canadian) or Molly’s Suds! Laundry soap is important to ditch and switch because the close are sitting on our skin every second of the day and the toxins from the soap are leaching into the skin and into our blood stream. To minimize toxins going into the body, replacing the laundry soap is a crucial first step.
Toothpaste: Ditching and switching my toothpaste was one of the first things I did, realizing how many chemicals were in my old and how it all absorbs right into the gut and blood stream. Natural toothpaste is just as effective but without all the chemicals!
Removing sugar and inflammatory processed foods from my diet was hard but what got me through was knowing I could have snacks that still tasted great but were good for me. My go-to chocolate was Theobroma Chocolate (unsweetened, no gums or sugar alcohols). For candy, I turned to smart sweets once in a while. For “chips” I use Siete (grain free, no msg or yeast extract) and Simple Mills for a clean cookie and baking products. There are many other food brands I love but these were my main ones!
Protein powder (Use code MARLASHEALTHYLIFE20 for 20% OFF): I needed to increase my protein consumptions and Ancient Nutrition Vanilla Multi Collagen was my favourite choice because it has 5 types of collagen to support hair, skin, nails, gut and joint health but more importantly, anything you added it to tasted like dessert! This helped me stick to my candida cleanse! I would add it to me veggie smoothie (was fruit free) and it would taste like ice-cream!
Matcha Powder: Coffee typically is overconsumed by most people so I am always encouraging everyone to try and consume matcha more often instead as it is alkaline, full of antioxidants and EGCG and great for balanced energy and mood (pretty much exact opposite of coffee). Choosing the right matcha is important to get the right deep matcha flavour. I always recommend ceremonial matcha and my favourite brand of all time is Soar Organics (USE CODE ‘MARLA’ for a big discount)!