Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now. I'm Dr. Aviva Rong. Hi everybody and welcome

and welcome back to Natural MD radio.

This is Dr. Aviva and today I want to talk about something that is a

traditional healing practice that has a tremendous amount of merit, but like so many things when done to extremes can cause problems.

And I wanted this specifically in relationship to women and thyroid health. So today we're going to talk about fasting,

detoxing, cleansing, what this all means and how to know whether it's a good choice for you

and how to go about it safely and how it can

cause some problems. So in my medical practice I've seen a trend where I've had many, many women in the past many years who usually the

scenario is something like she is maybe three to six months postpartum or maybe even a little bit more and a mama who you know you eat heavier when you're pregnant you eat more when you're breastfeeding be you don't drop the baby weight quickly as you'd like to because you're tired and you're not getting the same amount of exercise and you know even my most plant-based healthy eating

carb-free friends who are pregnant find themselves

often wanting things like lots of carbs when they're pregnant. Our bodies need more energy.

So we get these ideas that maybe at some point postpartum we want to do a little bit of a detox and we read about a cleanse or a detox or a fast and jump right in.

And for most women, a short little time of eating lighter,

having more fruits and vegetables,

maybe skipping certain foods that feel a little bit heavier or maybe you want to

take them out to balance your blood sugar can be fine and in fact has been a

traditional practice in so many cultures.

I grew up in a Jewish family where fasting happened once a year,

for example, on Yom Kippur.

My best friend's husband is Ethiopian Orthodox and he has very specific

fasts that he does actually each week he has a couple of days of the week where

he doesn't eat any dairy products and any meat.

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