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Summary
On episode 412 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Dr. Alejandro Junger, the New York Times bestselling author of Clean. He completed his training at New York Downtown Hospital with a fellowship in cardiology and blends Eastern medicine into his holistic approach to treating patients.
Dr. Junger walks through his book Clean 7, a shorter, more intense version of his original 21-day detox program, built on three pillars: functional medicine, Ayurvedic principles, and intermittent fasting.
The conversation covers the functional medicine “five R's,” how Ayurvedic dosha typing personalizes the elimination list, and why a gradually escalating fasting window sits at the center of the seven-day plan.
Links
- https://cleanprogram.com/clean7
Key Takeaways
- Detoxification is more accurately called “biotransformation.” Junger prefers this term because it describes what actually happens: toxic, fat-soluble molecules get converted into water-soluble, non-toxic ones so the body can excrete them, rather than the vague, overused marketing sense of “detox.”
- Clean 7 rests on three pillars: functional medicine, Ayurveda, and intermittent fasting. Each pillar targets a different piece of the body's ability to clear toxins and repair itself.
- Functional medicine's Five R's structure the program. Remove (toxins, bad bacteria, stress), Reintroduce or Replace (nutrient-dense food), Re-inoculate (good gut bacteria), Repair (the intestinal lining, which Junger calls the body's “Achilles heel” since most chronic disease traces back to a leaky gut), and Relax.
- Ayurvedic dosha typing individualizes which foods to avoid. Determining your predominant dosha (fire, earth, wind, water, ether) shows which foods and activities are most likely to throw that element out of balance, personalizing the elimination list on top of standard removals like dairy, sugar, alcohol, coffee, and gluten.
- Intermittent fasting exists because modern eating never lets digestion rest. Junger argues that breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks keep the body in constant “feasting mode,” stealing energy from detox and repair, unlike the ancestral pattern of alternating feast and fast.
- The 7-day program builds the fasting window gradually across the week. Each day pushes the overnight gap longer, from 12 hours between meals up to a full 24-hour fast on day four, using easier-to-digest shakes in place of some solid meals along the way.
- Seven days isn't enough to reverse chronic disease, but it's a gateway. Junger's original Clean program runs 21 days and is genuinely transformative, but most people never commit to it. Clean 7 exists to give people a fast, achievable taste that makes them want to go further.
- Alejandro's three strategies to get and stay well: strive to live in a state of full presence, since that's the deepest form of wellness he recognizes; keep the body functioning as well as it can, because dysfunction makes presence harder to reach; and actively reduce your toxic load, chemical, relational, and situational, since we live in an unusually toxic world.
“The maximum expression of wellness, for me, is to be fully present.”
Alejandro Junger
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