Maximizing Your Mitochondria

By Claire Bacon, ACN, CNC

“Maximizing your mitochondria” is a fun new way to describe optimizing your energy on a cellular level. It’s a natural strategy that helps to remove waste products and harmful toxins from inside our cells.  At the same time, we want to enable good nutrients to enter the cells.  This ability has everything to do with the health of our cell membranes. We need to develop the ability for our cell membranes to distinguish what can come in, and what needs to go out!

A Cleanse can usually help…

When we talk about detoxing, getting healthy, and losing weight, we usually focus on dietary strategies and supplements to promote liver function.  When we use good, antioxidant-rich products like SP Cleanse and SP Detox Balance Shake, we’re using foods that naturally reach the cellular level.  That means we’re activating cellular detox pathways and nourishing the cell membranes so they can work better – very gently.

We often don’t need to look deeper… until something seems wrong, and then we do…

What if there’s more work to do…

You see, some people don’t have such an easy time with a Cleanse program.  Maybe they have tried other diet programs, and similarly failed to achieve their goals.  This might not have anything to do with making a mistake or making the wrong dietary choices.  And maybe has nothing to do with exercise, either.  It means that there is more work to do.

For some people, first you have to fix the cells!

Imagine what it would be like if your cell membranes are dysfunctional – holding onto toxins instead of letting them go, and not allowing glucose into the cell?  Well, that would feel terrible.  Like your cells are simultaneously poisoned but also malnourished.  And then consider the mitochondria – if you haven’t heard of these before, they are the little energy factories that power up your system when you get up and moving.  But some people don’t get up and move so well. 

What’s the problem?  Why aren’t things working?  It’s because the root cause of the problem is not your adrenal or thyroid hormones.  It’s not lack of B vitamins.  And it’s not even a lack of electrolytes or probiotics!  We have to go back to basics – to the fundamental building blocks of your cells:  the cell membranes and the mitochondria inside.

Toxic Barriers to Cellular Health

We are all exposed to pollution and toxins from all directions on a regular basis.  Luckily, God gave us natural mechanisms to deal with these insults… our liver, kidneys, lungs, skin, and mucus membranes all provide effective ways to keep the bad stuff out.  That is, until we get overwhelmed.  Let’s consider all the sources…

• Air pollution from exhaust fumes, industrial manufacturing, and chemtrails
• Water pollution from industrial discharge, sanitizing chemicals, and sewage line breaks
• Preservatives in our food and beverages
• Trans fats from rancid oils and fried foods
• Fluoride treatments and contamination in our water
• Parabens and phthalates in our personal care products
• 5G Radiation

We are seeing it more and more these days:  our cellular barriers and defense mechanisms are breaking down.  We can’t keep up!  Our cells need more help.  That’s why we need a step-by-step approach to rebuilding our infrastructure.  We need to reestablish proper cell signaling and communication.  Our membranes need nourishment in order to restore well-functioning receptors.  That’s the only way our hormones will start working properly again!

A Step-by-Step Approach

1. Remove the Interference

Our first step is to remove the primary source of toxins entering the body. For some people, this could be eliminating toxic mold through remediation or getting an air purifier, while for others this could mean removing silver amalgam fillings (high in mercury). Obviously, you don’t want to be consuming toxins like fast food, sugar, or alcohol when you’re trying to cleanse your cells.  But what toxins are coming in through your skin?  You might not even realize you’re poisoning yourself with lotions and perfumes. Without removing the source of toxins, even the best Cleanse program will not keep up.

2. Regenerate the Cell Membrane

A healthy cell membrane allows glucose and nutrients to enter the cell freely—but prevents the toxins from entering, too. A damaged cell membrane triggers a state of ”lockdown” in the cell: where nutrients can’t enter, and wastes can’t leave. So, we need to restore the membranes with a good variety of healthy fats and oils that form the basic building blocks of this structure. Everyone needs Omegas!

3. Restore Cellular Energy

Our mitochondria inside the cells transform nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP).  This is the fuel on which every cell in every organ in the human body runs on – around the clock. When you lack ATP, this worsens inflammation, disrupts hormonal balance, leads to fatigue, causes brain fog, lack of focus, and impaired concentration. Does that sound like you?  Restoring the mitochondria is paramount to getting you healthy.  And there are some very specific things needed to do it: B vitamins, phosphorus, amino acids… the list goes on and on!

4. Reduce Cellular Inflammation

When the cell membranes are inflamed, nothing works right.  This disrupts communication between the cells, increases toxic load, and crushes energy. Common sources of cellular inflammation include:

• dietary sugars,
• grains,
• trans fats,
• heavy metals, and
• mold mycotoxins.

So we absolutely need to take a look at your diet and environment.  We may need to do some advanced testing to figure this out. Turmeric and Omegas are a safe bet they will be useful here.

5. Reboot Methylation Processes

Methylation is a process through which the body adds methyl groups (CH3) to its DNA in an effort to protect cells and normal gene function. Healthy methylation is how we block bad genes from expressing in harmful ways. Excess toxins and lack of dietary folate impair the body’s natural methylation process. As a result, this leads to internal stress, hormonal imbalance, and lowered energy. Restoring methylation allows the body to suppress unhealthy genes and express healthy epigenetics.

Signs of Mitochondrial Damage:

Let’s see if we can list all the ways…

Supplements for Mitochondrial Health

You know we have a lot of choices! Below, I have summarized our top choices for accomplishing healing in different ways. This is a convenient menu for considering what options might work best for you.

Mix and match according to your individual testing results, needs, curiosity, and budget…

Choose a variety of Omega 3-6-9 oils:

Keep antioxidants & anti-inflammatory nutrients in the mix:

Choose a lymphatic promoter & binder to capture toxins: 

Are you in need of Gut Healing?

And last but not least…

Lifestyle Factors to Boost Mitochondria

That’s right, it’s not just about taking supplements. You’re going to actually DO some things differently in your routine! We have some good options to think about…

• Turn off the wifi at night
• Blackout your room for optimal deep sleep
• Watch the sunrise every morning
• Red Light Therapy and Sauna
• Stress Management
• Listen to Classical music and healing frequencies
• Use a PEMF bed or grounding mat
• Alternate hot and cold therapy
• Longer steady workouts – more endurance exercise

Depending which of these options might be available to you, you probably have some great choices you can easily start doing!

Dietary Considerations for Mitochondria

And where would we be without a dietary approach? Obviously, some attention is needed here, because this might have been some of the problem to begin with!

• Add Celtic sea salt to your food for trace minerals (enzyme activators)
• LMNT salt packet in your water
• Biotics Electrolyte Forte in your water
• Timeline Nutrition – Mitopure drink powder for recovery
• Ketone IQ (ketones are the preferred nutrition for the heart and brain)
• ASEA water and cellular performance powders
• Don’t microwave your food
• Body Health H2 Hydrogen tablets
• Eat more fresh fiber:  salads, organic GF oats, radishes, artichokes, dandelion
• Intermittent Fasting
• Only cook with organic butter, olive oil, and coconut oil

Short chain fatty acids (such as butyrate) are essential for calming oxidative stress, inflammatory response, and pathogen growth.  SCFAs can significantly improve metabolism and your energy expenditure during exercise.  Precursors to SCFAs are found in butter, coconut oil, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, aramanth, cultured vegetables, coconut water, kefir, and other non-dairy probiotic beverages.

These are some of the most healing foods you can find!

Whew! That’s quite a menu…

Lots and lots of things you can do! But don’t get overwhelmed. We want you to feel empowered!

If you need a helping hand, be sure to reach out. We’re here to talk you through your choices. We can run testing when needed to check your inflammatory markers, and can prioritize what avenues to go down first.

You don’t have to do this journey alone! Make a Nutrition appointment and get started today!