• 2 salmon fillets
• 1/2 bunch radishes, sliced
• 1 handful of red cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 head of red leaf lettuce for wraps, pico de gallo fresh cilantro sprigs
Salt and pepper the salmon as desired and pan sear in a little butter till slightly pink in center, 4 or 5 minutes per side. Let cool and flake apart with fork. Add chipotle sour cream.
QUESTION
I hope you can answer this and hopefully others will benefit too.
I have been wondering a long while what my approach should be towards pain relief medications. For example whilst these substances are obviously not ideal, for someone who is not yet optimally “clean”, what happens if I get a bad flu with very strong headaches? Or as what has just happened, an infection sets in after dental surgery. The pain was simply not bearable and I found myself running for pain relief.
What are the alternatives? Are pain relief medications an absolute no-no? Are some less destructive than others? I understand that if my system was stronger, I would not get the flu or an infection after dental treatment. However, I am not “there” yet and I have to concern myself with the body that I have now which does get into trouble every so often.
Another issue is that of antibiotics. Whilst this dental infection may be the first time in a few years that I have been prescribed antibiotics, (In the past when I got sick the dr was my first port of call and he would give me what he knew to work…) I wonder if there is an alternative. If I clearly have an infection how long would you recommend I wait to see if my body will sort it out or if antibiotics are necessary?
Very gratefully,
Gittele
ANSWER
Hi Gittele,
Thank you for your email, these are wonderful questions. I would like to address pharmaceuticals as a general category. As always, this is not meant to replace the advice of your Doctor, I am not a physician.
Here is what we know: medications are toxic and extremely harmful to the equilibrium of the body and the planet. We also know that a clean body that has been effectively detoxing for some time will be able to beautifully regulate all systems and functions of the body.
The reality is that there are circumstances and illnesses where medication may play a role. All I ask of myself and my clients is that drugs be approached with the highest intelligence and discretion. I am often shocked to talk to people who don’t know the full name of their prescription, nor their prescribed dosage. Please proceed wisely:
1. Do not leave you Doctor’s office without getting all of your questions answered. Take careful notes, and do not allow yourself to be bulldozed or brow-beaten. Make sure you fully understand what he or she is recommending and why.
2. Do your research. You should know the generic name of the prescription, all possible side effects and complications, what it has been prescribed for in the past (many medications are used to treat multiple issues) and your exact dosage. You should know exactly what you are getting into and take responsibility for being fully informed.
3. Figure out where your body is on the transitional “bridge”. How long have you been aggressively detoxing? This will tell you your body’s ability to regulate itself. A highly alkaline system can fight infection better than an acidic system, and a long-time mostly raw and juice-filled lifestyle allows you to handle deeply emotional situations with more strength and intuition.
4. Gauge you level of discomfort. If you can easily bear it while you give your system a chance to do its work, you may not decide to interfere. If you are in constant pain that makes life unbearable you may decide to try medication.
5. Exhaust all other options. Have you tried acupuncture, therapy, physical therapy, rolfing, and guided meditation? Medication does not have to be a first resort. The internet is a great resource for finding others who have been in similar situations and tried other recourse.
6. Make sure you understand the length of time you are dealing with. Is this a long-term chronic pain, or something quick and commonly treated? The longer the medication is taken, the more it accumulates in the system.
7. Do not make any snap decisions. I often have clients meet with me for the first time and decide to go right off their anti-depressants. This could be a devastating decision. Slow and gradual moves, with a doctor’s guidance, are the way to go. We detox slowly and safely, making friends with where we are on the transitional bridge each step of the way.
8. Boosting your alkalinity with additional green juice and taking high-quality probiotics will help your body to stay strong during a cycle of medication. Avoiding all starches and sweeteners other than stevia until all medication has left the system is also essential, so that additional yeast and fungal growth does not take place during the process.
I hope this helps you to make a very personal decision. I am heartened to have so many emails from detoxers who are gathering all the information they can before going forward. Please remember, there are no gold stars for pain and suffering, and no guilt for any choices that are well researched, and made with the highest good in mind.
Love,
Ana
Adapted from an interview from Spring 2009
N.B.: Please excuse the random ordering of these questions. Some of them are for much more advanced followers so if you are confused by something just stick close to what makes clear sense to you right now. For some of you, this is just going to be too much information. Others will get a lot out of it. Feel free to skip through taking only what you need at your stage of the journey.
I have been following this detox lifestyle, and things have been going great until recently. This is the second month that I have missed my period and I am not pregnant. Can you explain why?
Many people have questions about changes in body systems, including the female menstrual cycle, as they transition into this lifestyle. Here’s what’s important to know: First, when big changes are made, the body can take a significant amount of time to adjust, and this does not necessarily mean that anything is wrong. Second, when you begin a cleansing lifestyle and your body can finally begin to heal, its own “triage system” will start to work where the need is greatest, which may not be the reproductive system. Watching the clock creates needless worry, but rest assured that every system functions perfectly in a clean body.
To save time, many people find it necessary to prepare a few days’ worth of dinners in advance. I suspect that it’s not a good idea to microwave foods such as cooked veggies, starches, and animal proteins, but I would like a deeper understanding of why. What are the best ways to store and reheat food?
Radiation from microwaves not only kills the food, but also mutates it in such a way that it becomes disadvantageous rather than merely neutral. The cooked foods that we use to fill out a meal, to satisfy ourselves, and to feel connected to a more “normal” way of eating are not highly acidic and do not nullify all of the wonderfully alkaline raw veggies and juices. “Nuking” takes food out of the neutral category, and places it into the category that is unfit for human consumption! This is a major difference. I will happily consume steamed or sautéed spinach in a little organic butter, garlic, and sea salt. I will NEVER consume spinach out of a microwave!
Our lifestyle is based around both alkalinity and the hydration of old waste, so our primary foods are extremely water-rich. Cooking removes some of the water content, making them move more slowly through the body. This is why it’s always best to have cooked foods after a large raw salad or blended salad. Reheating or cooking them twice dehydrates them even further. You can get away with it sometimes, but it is never the best approach. Reheating starches and animal proteins is much worse because they have very little water content to begin with (i.e., they are extremely dense) and will not pass through the body as easily when further dehydrated.
What facial qualities do you look for in a client, and what specific health issues do they reveal? How might you alter the client’s diet based on your observations?
Appraisal of a client’s appearance is a tool to add to the big picture of what I receive from a client. I do not use facial features and other appearances alone to determine a clients biochemistry and physiological situation. But it is a major factor because facial features and the bodies appearance at large tell a story of the clients cellular conditions.
For example, dark circles or puffiness under the eyes (fluid retention due to system imbalances) are usually indicators of a compromised diet-lifestyle that includes too much cooked animal protein, or too much alcohol and dehydration. Oversized features such as an enlarged skull or a jutting jaw indicate excessive gas pressure in the head due to long-term constipation. Bone is porous and absorbs carbonic gas as much as anything else, so when gas pressure leaves the skull (after really working the detox lifestyle) the area that was oversized due to excessive gas pressure will go back to its intended size. People are often pleasantly surprised when their hips become narrower than they ever thought possible and their heads develop a smaller, more youthful shape. Have you noticed how many actors who used to be young and handsome suddenly, at 50 or older, have these enormous heads? Hey, maybe that’s where the term “fat head” originated!
Health is diminutive. Everything that indicates health is tight and tiny. This tightness and smallness means low gas pressure and clean cells.
The same applies to the lips. Lips that are too large and amorphous (particularly in a Caucasian, Asian, or Latin person) are an indication of intestinal weakness and bloat, general IBS, and intestinal dystrophy. A clean and healthy body is small, tight, and symmetrical.
One of my greatest joys is seeing someone who is really diving into the lifestyle begin to “turn up.” The face develops an upward appearance rather than a downward pull. Remember, up is life and down is death. If you see a lot of droop in the edges of the eyes, the mouth, the jawline and jowls, or the cheeks, this is mirroring the experience of the whole intestinal tract and organs. The organism is starved of Life Force Energy flow. The pathways are blocked and cells are not “kissing” the life force between each other and conducting powerful vitality through the body.
The eyes are the subject of many branches of Chinese physiognomy as well. Sanpaku, which I believe was first documented in ancient Chinese medicine, is the term used to describe the placement of eyes in the sockets. Eyes that roll up (showing white between the iris and lower lid) are called “three whites” because you see white on both sides but also below the iris. This indicates a movement toward death, and can sometimes be a great way to understand a client who may, for example, have their weight under control but another serious issue at work.
What do you look for when reading a food label? Most people know to avoid ingredients such as enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, and partially hydrogenated oil, but what about lesser-known ingredients such as evaporated cane juice, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, brown rice syrup, and other substances commonly found in health foods?
It depends on whom you’re shopping for. A transitioning beginner with a lot of stored weight can get away with sprouted grain bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and many other items. But such foods are not good for those who have become clean enough that their bodies recognize them as harmful. If you are shopping for someone with excessive yeast who is desperate for some of these less ideal substances, allow small amounts as long as enough yeast is being starved. Weigh everything you know and deliberate every choice against the information you have about the individual’s system and life situation.
Men and children USUALLY don’t have systemic yeast infections, unless they’ve been exposed to a lot of radiation, fast food, packaged foods, or hormones. Of course, this is changing, as the world is getting more and more acidic with radiation. (Thus, the species is getting weaker). Men and children by 2012 will increasingly require yeast-specific diets, too (see Detox For Women for a thorough understanding of why). For now, however, they usually enjoy much stronger bowels and digestive strength. They can eat the well-combined, whole grain cereals, kamut cakes, and quinoa pastas. The idea is to take steps up the ladder, consuming ever purer substances but not rushing it – always factoring in what one is ready for emotionally and how much toxic waste could be awakened and if the individual will be able to manage the removal of that waste.
Become familiar with brands that you know use pure, natural, and simple ingredients. There are certain brands I gravitate toward for transitional foods, such as Cascadian Farms, Mother’s Cereal, Guiltless Gourmet, and Ak Mak, because they have established themselves as companies I trust.
The best rule of thumb is to pick the most natural and organic products with the fewest ingredients, and always remember not to consume ingredients you’ve never heard of. What is the food mainly comprised of? The minor ingredients are inconsequential. For example, we can get away with dark chocolate which contains milk and sugar because the cocoa content is so high and these ingredients play such a small role. Look at the first four ingredients, because they make up the majority of the item.
It’s also important to remember the big picture of this lifestyle: consuming fresh raw salads, cooked vegetables, other whole foods, and a smattering of packaged foods. It can be distracting to dissect everything, and packaged foods are never ideal.
I know that blended foods such as soups and smoothies can be great for hydration, enzymes, and cleansing purposes, but how does one reconcile them with the “don’t mix liquids with solids” rule? In terms of an ideal cleansing diet, are blended foods, such as Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl, really just fun foods? Would it aid digestion to make thicker soups with less fluid?
Good question. First of all, the reason why blended foods are so great is because they are predigested. They are easy to over-consume because they are so light. Usually that full, sloshing feeling is just the temporary mixing of fluid and fiber, which the body is able to deal with quite well.
From a chemical standpoint, anytime you blend substances at a rapid pace, you’re going to destroy the cellular structure. So blended foods are not of the same caliber as pure, healing foods such as fresh raw vegetables and fruits. But they are healers in that they are so easy to digest. Whenever you need to ease the burden of digestion, blended foods are a wonderful option. For example, the body of someone with cancer or half a pancreas is extremely compromised. Blended foods will be gentle on the intestine and allow the body to receive nutrition and enjoy the pleasure of taking in food but without burdening the system with digestion where the body cannot afford to be burdened when it is so low on life force and needs to put its energy into rebuilding/healing.
For me, making an extremely thick Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl recipe takes away much of the appeal but it’s designed to be silky. If you prefer it really thick, go ahead. It’s important to love what we eat. That full, fluid feeling is temporary, and does not indicate anything wrong. Eat it the way that brings you the most satisfaction and joy.
Shouldn’t starches be well cooked to make them easier to digest?
This is a common misconception, but in fact raw starches are easy to digest. I love to eat raw sweet potatoes just plain. They go through the body beautifully and efficiently. The next day after Pumpkin Pie In A Bowl (in a clean system), you should have a great elimination. I also frequently juice the rinds of cantaloupe and watermelon which people think of as being indigestible. It’s full of chlorophyll and makes for a frothy juice!
Can you explain how gas pressure manifests in the body? Is gas a sign of cleansing or of polluting the body with unclean foods?
It’s both. Figuring out where the gas is coming from in each instance is part of the detective work we learn to do as we get to know our body’s processes better.
First remember that everything that is true on the macrocosmic level is true on the microcosmic level. If you’ve got gas pressure in the skull, you’ve also got gas pressure in the individual cells, so we always have to go macro/microcosmic with this.
If you were to put all of last night’s dinner into the trash and seal it shut, by morning it would have a terrible stench that stench is bacteria. That bacteria creates what’s called carbonic gas. When you put food into the body, the same thing is going to happen. It’s going to sit and fester. It’s a basic chemical reaction. And then, of course, you have bacteria and yeast that grow and thrive off of that festering, fermenting stuff. From both the cellular and the intestinal perspectives, you’ve got these little cells forced to act like little garbage holders, metabolically manufacturing carbonic gas. That carbonic gas is both sitting within the cell and being emitted from it because the cell is a breathing, living thing.
First, we know that gas is originating from the acidic waste matter that is trapped in the blood, the cells, and the tissues throughout the body.
Second, when the cleansing process begins, more of this gas may be released from these tiny “trash bins.”
There’s a lot of trapped gas in the body. The waste has permeated deeply, and as the awakening process deepens, new levels of it will be reached. The gas will be experienced as each new layer is breached. This is exceptionally common, by the way, in people who have been through years of recreational and/or pharmaceutical drug use. They get into the lifestyle, and can’t understand why they still have puffiness, bloat, and sagging after working the lifestyle for some time. We are talking about years of use; the gas is very deep, stored even in the bones. They shouldn’t get discouraged because, at the end of the day, their bodies will contract and morph so much more beautifully than they could have imagined because they never knew that they were misshapen by the expansion of this carbonic gas. When it leaves the body looks and feels amazing. When you have gas trapped in your body or in your bones, it can make you depressed and irritable. It can just ruin your life experience. Gas pressure is a majorly overlooked health impediment.
Here’s a visual of what the cells experience when one eats something that will create carbonic gas and store waste:
Let’s take a really common mainstreamer meal – a chicken sandwich on whole wheat bread, with lettuce and tomato. The individual consumes it. It will take quite a long time to leave the stomach, probably about seven hours, because of the little battle happening in the stomach with the acidity breaking down the protein and the alkalinity breaking down the starch. Just sitting there, you’ve already begun the process of gas creation.
Much depends on how clear the intestinal tract is. Every cell in the body reacts in a chemical way. Throughout the body, mucoid matter is secreted to protect the intestinal lining from what’s considered a foreign invader. Fatigue sets in throughout the cells because more matter is entering an already overwhelmed body. The acidic substance of the sandwich decreases the body’s life force because it carries no life force itself, and it feeds the bacteria, yeast, and fungus.
After about 12 hours, it’s pretty well dehydrated. The lunch food hits breakfast as well as dinner from the night before, and it all becomes a big, acidic soup (or really, acidic leather). It has turned into a burden the body has no use for, like an extra piece of luggage that it’s walking around with. One might say, “It’s only a chicken sandwich”-but it’s not. It has depleted and will continue to deplete your life force.
Gas is clearly not the only thing being stored. The more fat there is in the body, the more environmental estrogens, radiation, and other harmful elements will enter the body and get trapped in the fat. The fat cells’ growth is a combination of fats, gas pressure, hormones, antibiotics, and PCBs, among other things. If your system is clear and you have relatively little subcutaneous fat, you are much less inclined to hold those environmental pollutants and drugs.
***However, if you are “sick skinny,” your organs are more directly affected, and you are more inclined to be neurotic (since the nervous system runs through the center). The “sick skinny” person has more neurological issues than physical ones.
I understand that wine, dark chocolate, and smalls amount of vinegar are okay for many people with yeasted systems, but that some bodies are too yeasted to handle the microtoxins in these foods. Would you please elaborate on when it’s necessary to avoid them altogether, and for how long, before adding them back into one’s diet?
We always take this in steps. What was feeding this person’s yeast and fungal load before? If someone has been living on high quantities of bagels, balsamic vinegar salads, alcohol, and pasta and we eliminate 80% of these foods, then we starve off 80% of their yeast armies. Almost anyone can include small amounts of these foods in their diet, even if they’re systemically yeasted, because they’re going to be starving off so much. Just pulling back will make a huge change for them. You would only fast-track someone with a severe illness, such as cancer or schizophrenia. Otherwise, why put them through it? There’s no need.
If a client has an acute disease like stage 3 or 4 cancer, I wouldn’t mess around but would rather pull out any and all offenders because there just isn’t time – the fungus has to be starved and killed off as fast as possible and there is no room for any acidity. This situation requires intense alkalinizing. I would “fast-track” him/her until the body is in full remission. If someone’s manifesting stage 4 cancer, that’s such a depth of poisoning that you might keep him/her on this track for 3 years to make sure the depth of poisoning has left the body enough to truly see the person safely out of the woods. There can be occasional “breaks” to help that person stay on course.
On the flip side of the coin are emotional issues. If you know someone is dealing with something about half related to acid waste and half emotional, a yeast fast track may only be addressing half of the problem. Emotional acidity must be fully addressed and this is why some people who appear to be doing everything correctly dietetically do not heal.
For somebody who has eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, or dandruff, I would also recommend the faster track until the symptoms go away and then continue for another 2 months after symptoms are clear. If the symptoms still come back, do it again. Serious skin conditions indicate that the system needs every bit of help it can get.
When you reintroduce foods such as dark chocolate and wine to clients’ diets after they have experienced 2 months free of symptoms, introduce them as condiments in small quantities. Then follow the Detox4Women approach as their basic lifestyle, peppering it with these treats if they enjoy them. They must never overdo it because the symptoms will come back.
If we avoid caffeine (in the form of coffee, tea, green tea, etc.) at all costs because it’s acidic to the body, why is it okay to eat dark chocolate, which also contains caffeine?
There is so little caffeine in chocolate. People often feel an effect from chocolate because of its microtoxins and the fact that cocoa itself is a stimulant, but there’s really very little caffeine. Anything that’s acidic and not purely alkaline is going to create a stimulating reaction or effect, weather it’s fish, goat cheese, or chocolate. We have found that by leaving something like chocolate in one’s diet, we can take out all the other acidic substances and offer satisfaction without the drawbacks.
Parents who are otherwise open to the principles of this detox lifestyle frequently express doubt and suspicion when it comes to removing milk from their children’s diet. Are there any articles or scientific research to refer them to?
Yes, there are so many of them out there but I don’t refer parents to articles anymore. Either they have their antennae up and are ready to hear the truth, look inward, intuitively understand it for themselves, and accept the fact that animal milk is not human food or not. I’m not interested in converting people. By the time they come to me or this work they are typically already “sold.” The goal is not to push people to do this despite their strong reservations. Many people may not appreciate this but I don’t spend my time looking at research studies. People send me studies all the time and tell me about this or that study that confirms that milk is unfit and reinforces other health truths that this work promotes but to me these things are just remedial – this was worthy of debate 10 years ago but now, it is a done deal – we are so far beyond the issue of milk, protein and grain myths.
By all means, if you need the confirmation of research studies for the vile consumption of pasteurized milk, check out the China Study or Notmilk.com (but don’t buy into their nonsense about soy milk being advisable) or any other of the myriad vegan propaganda sites and you’ll find plenty of information for the uninitiated. But, I really find that at this stage, things like milk are so obviously unfit that people who are switched on don’t need to have it confirmed by research studies.
The facts are clear: the mucous, the antibiotics, the hormones, and the protein in the milk are all utterly offensive to bodies, young and old. This is not new information to the public. Also, acidic substances (like milk pasteurized milk and yogurt) leach the calcium from the bones. There would be no issue around calcium if acidic substances weren’t compromising the calcium in the bones to begin with. Parents should know:
Until recently the Western world was the only group that ever consumed pasteurized cow’s milk (everyone is Westernized now so I use the term “western” loosely). Humans are the only species that consume milk after weaning age, particularly the milk of another species.
Only Western women (again, until recently) have a problem with osteoporosis.
Cows don’t drink milk to make milk. They eat greens/grass. Note this well all nursing mothers!
Traditionally, cultures that drank the milk of other species would drink it raw, and certainly not in copious quantities as our nutritional guidelines recommend. Remember that the milk lobby and the milk industry have a vested interest in people consuming large quantities of milk.
What is the best way to approach body care when choosing deodorants, antiperspirants, shampoos and conditioners, lotions, and spa treatments such as manicures, pedicures, and facials?
Body care should be kept really simple. A clean body is like clean cells and simplicity is where it’s at. Your skin is your largest organ and your second largest eliminative organ (the first largest eliminative organ is of course your bowel). Your body metabolizes what you’ve taken in and releases toxins through your skin. What comes out of your body, causing you to stink most in the morning, is evidence that you’ve undergone a detoxification process overnight.
When you brush your body and your teeth and tongue, you are basically removing what has emerged from the skin overnight because letting it sit will breed bacteria and make you stink. So you want to keep the body very clean in terms of bacteria.
The reason soap works so well is because it’s an alkaline substance. It’s a base. So when that alkaline substance is taken to the skin, the soap is adhering to the acidity that has risen to the surface. But avoid added fragrance or chemicals. Just pure French Castile soap is all you need. I love the brand called South of France. I like to scrub my body with it using scrubbing gloves.
When you body brush first and then use alkaline soap, you’re removing anything that can be magnetically pulled off the skin. When your skin is really clean, you’re not going to have any problems.
For the armpits, you may want to use some natural deodorants as a courtesy to others! But one trick I’ve discovered over the years is the little midday wash. It’s refreshing and it works great.
In this lifestyle, as you go through cycles and reach deeper layers, different elements will surface through your skin. Just stick to a regime that’s simple and easy, and toxin-free.
When your cells are really clean, you’ll emit a sweet alkalinity. This will happen eventually, but not for a number of years. You will know when you’re truly alkaline when you can taste a sweet secretion in the back of your tongue and detect a sweet scent from your armpits. This might not happen every day, because everything is always moving through the body. (When your body is clear, it’s always active and changing, which means you can’t always trust the results of a live blood cell analysis. When your body is stagnant, you can get a much more accurate reading.) However, you will experience moments of, “Wow, I hit the sweet spot of alkalinity. How cool!”
Steer clear of products that merely mask toxins and odors. All you need to do is follow a very simple body-care regimen. Don’t allow the filth to accumulate internally, and use a body brush and wash your skin with good-quality soap. If you want to use a moisturizer, I find that the best is pure coconut oil. It’s delicious, cheap, and cheerful, and it makes your body gorgeous. You can use a tiny bit of it as an eye cream and lip balm. A woman over 35 can use it as a basic moisturizer. The only time it’s not advisable as a facial moisturizer is when you’re prone to breakouts because it can clog a bit.
Acne is a symptom of unfit consumption. This is where physiognomy comes up. Acne around the chin and neck is a sign of liver issues. A pimple becomes acne when the body says, “This is too much now, let me try to pour it out through the skin.” Acne is simply bacteria and fungus pushing through the body. If you prevent that from occurring and keep your surface cells clean by using a good alkaline substance, everything will work it’s way through quickly.
For your teeth, you need a good toothbrush and a natural toothpaste. The best toothpaste I’ve found is called Homeodent. It’s awesome. It comes in two flavors, anise and lemon. Lemon is my preference. Don’t forget to brush your tongue every day, too.
Keep active and keep the cells moving. This whole lifestyle is about movement. If you have open, flowing pathways, anything that goes in will find a way out-even if it’s unsavory. Even if you have alcohol, goat cheese, chocolate, and fish, but you’re coating it the next day with the alkalinity of the green juice, you will be able to magnetize that waste and escort it out of the body. You don’t have to live on just watermelon; just be sure that whatever goes in also comes out by keeping the pathways open and flowing. You will eventually recognize that the real value of exercise is not burning calories, but moving the chi. The body is meant to move and flow.
Hair products matter the least but they do matter because you don’t want toxic substances on you at all eventually. Choose natural or organic, and again, keep it simple. When you have a clean, healthy body internally, you will have clean, healthy hair.
As for manicures and pedicures, I don’t go near them at all, and yet my nails are so healthy. I don’t like the way the manicurists file the nails and treat the cuticles, and of course the smell is completely acidic. Two of the most toxic places are shoe repair shops and nail salons. If your body is clean, it will be beautiful, including your nails. If, however, you love having colorful nails and you’re doing everything else right, get a manicure, it’s fine. But if you want to discover for yourself just how beautiful your body can be without all the artificial treatments, live this lifestyle for a while and you’ll see. Even the color of your nails will change. Your hands and feet will become luminescent and youthful. Go for simple and clean. Women don’t need to measure their worth by the bag hanging from their manicured hands.
The only thing that facials are really good for is if you truly need to have a deep cleaning because there’s too much bacterial build-up and pus (almost like a facial colonic). Microdermabrasion is actually dangerous. Facials will be unnecessary if you do everything else right.
There’s one exception: a lymphatic facialist will give you a facial massage that moves the lymph around, which can be worthwhile. (You can give these to yourself once you learn how to do it). Anything that moves the lymph around is good. But just like acupuncture and acupressure, such treatments will not prevent your body from settling back into its old, stagnant condition if you revert to your old routines.
Is it a good idea to add a few drops of food grade peroxide to water (1 tear drop per 3 oz) while fasting to help kill off yeast, or is this unnecessary?
If you are juice fasting and you have a lot of yeast, the first order of business is to consider the contents of the juice fast and the frequency of the colonics. Make sure you are not using fruity juices if you are fighting yeast, unless you’re getting very frequent colonics. I think it’s very hard to juice fast on just green juice with stevia. I personally need to use apple, beets, and carrots, especially in the evening and of course strained grapefruit and orange juices can make juice fasting an incredible pleasure. Try to use the Just Pick’d brand which you can find in your health food store freezer section. It’s the only truly alkaline citrus juice I know of because most citrus is picked when its under ripe and therefore acidic. Note that all fruits do not become alkaline until they have ripened, preferably on the tree or vine prior to picking (this is rare in today’s world sadly). But the inclusion of fruit juices creates an even greater demand for fasting colonics because fruit is so awakening, and so prone to fermentation if the waste it awakens sits.
With regard to adding a teardrops of food grade hydrogen peroxide to your water (1 tear drop of 12 percent hydrogen peroxide per 1 ounce of water is a safe ratio for using H2O2 – nothing more concentrated than that and it only works when it is consumed alone on an empty stomach, never with food or with anything in the system) while fasting to help kill off extra yeast, it really depends on how you react to the peroxide water when you are not fasting. Many people have a really hard time with it and feel terrible because it’s such an intense detoxifier, and you don’t want to make your fast unbearable. Peroxide water is not really necessary when fasting because you are going to get so much good out of just the fast, but if you want to push the envelope, it’s not going to hurt, and it might help (these things vary from person to person). It will awaken at an accelerated rate a lot of old gas pressure, which will either leave the body easily or get stuck. Peroxide water is kind of like bentonite and psyllium; as it’s moving through the body, it can feel very uncomfortable. Do you really want to put yourself through this when fasting is already a big step?
What do you tell people who are mentally ready to take their cleansing to the next level, but physically are not?
We must remember to trust ourselves. We can liken this to climbing a mountain, where we’ve got a base camp and additional “camps” where we can rest at each level. Because the body is constantly evolving and becoming more rarified and powerful and clean, we should never assume we’ll stay at any of the camps for long. But sometimes emotionally and socially we need to have a little overnight rest and take time to get our bearings. We have to trust that the body and the mind together will go to the next stage. We shouldn’t send our bodies up to the next ridge of the mountain without our psyches.
I went through this myself. If anyone ever told me that I would do what I do now, I would have thought they were absolutely crazy. I wouldn’t have even thought about even omitting breakfast from my routine ten years ago. And there are so many things that I never thought I would want to do, and now I wouldn’t want to do otherwise. So just trust yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back. See how far you’ve come. Really honor the place you’ve reached, because it’s probably further than you realize. Then, when it’s time, your body and your mind and your heart will be able to go forward together.
Is it okay to use an infrared sauna while pregnant? If so, how often and for how long would you recommend using it?
No, don’t use infrared when pregnant. You never want to raise your body temperature when you’re pregnant.
When nursing babies, you say they will eventually grow into their own schedule of feeding every three hours or so, and that forcing this will cause excess gas and spitting up. Is spitting up a natural occurrence, or is it the result of trying to eat too quickly for fear of being taken away from the breast for a long period of time?
Forcing a baby to feed on a strict schedule will make the baby nervous, unhappy, uncomfortable, and distressed, leading to gas and spitting up. A baby wants to feed more often and feel the physical closeness that comes with feeding. Spitting up is not natural. It’s probably due to a combination of stress and the content of the milk, because most women who are nursing today have toxic breast milk (although it’s still preferable to formula). A baby’s tender, healthy body senses the acidity of the milk. My kids never spit up because I was able to take up this lifestyle in time.
What do you think of multiple colonics during the week? Are they too frequent?
As long as there’s waste matter leaving the system, colonics are a good thing. For people who are trying to achieve really high states of health who have a history of consuming substances that stick in the body, several treatments a week are a great healing protocol so long as each treatment releases copious amounts of waste. This kind of rarified cellular cleanliness is not something that everybody wants or aspires to. The implications are also very specific for this to be advisable; the colonics must be done properly (which requires a lot of knowledge in and of itself – it’s for the few not the many), and not used as a tool to make up for overindulgences. It’s used to speed the healing plow and maintain once high levels of health are achieved.
Someone who treats themselves several times each week does so because they understand the biochemical advantages of doing so. They are the few who truly understand how the body is being affected and how this frequent cleansing actually supports rather than undermines the intestinal flora, intestinal fortitude, and peristalsis. I don’t know more than 20 people who do this and have enough understanding of the biochemical benefits along with the ability to execute perfect colonics on themselves. You can be sure these are not people who still have questions about it or who are swayed by conventional criticism and controversy.
How exactly do female hormones interact with a not-so-clean-celled body? Do hormones cause more chaos in this environment?
What we have here is a jumbled mess of hormones, with the endocrine system spitting them out randomly because the entire system has gone haywire. Couple that with totally unnatural exposure to environmental estrogens, the hormones and antibiotics in foods, and everything we’re exposed to in the mainstream world. That hormonal imbalances are going to manifest in some way is a given. How it will manifest exactly varies from person to person. Someone might have unsightly hair on the face or décolletage; another woman might have a severely underactive thyroid.
It seems like every woman has some sort of hormonal imbalance, whether she’s experiencing irregular periods, dramatic mood swings, depression, or excessive hair growth. The mistake when approaching any of these symptoms is to focus too much on the symptom itself. The goal is always to step back and look at what would have caused the endocrine imbalance to begin with. We can always fix imbalances by looking at their causes. The key is that hormones are misfiring and creating all kinds of problems, physical as well as emotional.
What are the differences between the signs and symptoms of cleansing too quickly and those of cleansing too slowly? How do we know when to speed up or slow down the process? For example, the cleaner a person gets, the more sensitive he/she becomes to the occasional “not-so-clean” substance, and yet the more he/she can withstand it. Isn’t that contradictory?
Unclean substances will absolutely affect you as you become more sensitized to them. You can have them, but this doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel the effects. If you have a clean-celled body, you probably won’t start gaining weight after just a night of uncharacteristic indulgence. But after two nights in a row, you’ll bloat. Your body will process the substances very quickly, but for this same reason you’re going to feel them move through you in a much more acute way.
If things are working really well, continue at the pace that’s working. If this means keeping the bar high or speeding things up, that’s fine. If, however, there are symptoms once you’ve lifted the bar, then bring it back down. By lowering it, you’ll have an elimination and the cleanse will be slowed. The mistake is to speed things up when there are symptoms, which means the bowel is already unable to keep up with the cleansing process.
How skinny is too skinny when cleansing? Isn’t the standard BMI index of “normal” weight exaggerated because it’s based on the average of a waste-impacted population? If so, what barometer should we “cleansers” use? And what can we say to friends and family who express concern that we are getting too skinny?
I’m so sick of these numbers! BMI and scales and people thinking that they know what heavy and skinny look like-it’s all created from the paradigm of untruth. We should begin with what we feel on the inside, not what we look like on the outside. If we’re feeling euphoric and our centers are clear, we can go out and run a couple of miles or more and really feel the power and joy of our bodies. I don’t care if you’re 92 lbs. or 182 lbs. If you’re feeling compelled to measure yourself by the stories and standards of a misguided world, then you must grapple with that until you can rise above it. How can you bring your truth to a world of untruth and expect it to be accepted? At a certain point, you will recognize that people are going to come at you with negativity and criticism, and it’s your choice to accept it or not.
How are kidney stones formed, apart from being an issue of excessive acidity in the body?
A kidney stone occurs when the urine becomes concentrated and certain substances like uric acid, calcium oxalate, cystine, and ammonium phosphate accumulate and bind together. When they are small, they pass easily through the urinary canal. If, however, there’s too much acid in the diet and too little flow, big clumps can form an object called a kidney stone that is too large to pass in the urine. It all comes down to the accumulation of unfit substances and compromised flow where pathways should be clear and unobstructed.
Can avocados mix with berries?
Avocados are a fruit, and can mix with other fruits (like berries). They are an exception to their combining group because they can also be eaten with starches.
Are cooked beets a starch, a veggie, or both?
Beets are a neutral vegetable.
There are many kinds of wheat-organic, whole, enriched, etc. Is there a hierarchy? Are there certain ones to avoid?
Whole grains are always optimal, but remember that grain starch feeds yeast.
What is your opinion of pumpkin seed cheese in terms of (a) density, compared to raw goat cheese or fish, and (b) life force energy?
Pumpkin seed cheese is absolutely fine. It has a density similar to goat cheese. What you need to be sure of, as with any dense substance, is the ratio of density to hydrating foods (and not overdo it). A bit of cheese on a cabbage leaf roll-up, a large raw salad, or some steamed broccoli following a salad is a wonderful way to feel satisfied. A rich and delicious meal with seed cheese as opposed to goat cheese, if that’s what you enjoy, is a great way to treat the palate!
Our children fully depend on us in every way. Are we to serve them up a bunch of lies in the form of food, environment and social programming because it’s easy and lucrative for large corporations and our pride or convenience? Or are we going to serve them the truth? I cannot serve my children anything but the truth. Will you join me? We can only do this by giving them all they deserve – the most light and life-enhancing nourishment from pure food, clear, untainted information, deep affection and complete appreciation for all that they are.
Your children can all radiate their unique brand of luminous, indwelling life. “Life Force Energy” and “Children” can be synonymous again! Enjoy the recipes in celebration of family healing and wholeness!
You can download Life Force Energy Children for free.
Tofu, Fermented Foods, and Laxatives (January 8, 2010)
Nora writes, “Is it okay to incorporate tofu and tempeh into the program during the detox or should I wait until after the 28 days to eat them? Would it be okay to eat them raw? Also what is the status of fermented foods such as Kimchi and tempeh?”
A woman who is enjoying the benefits of the Detox 4 Women approach to eating can expect to be able to moderately add some “avoid” items back into her lifestyle. She will be able to eat more fruit again once her yeasts and fungal growth are under control, and to enjoy the occasional smaller nut or seed-based meal. But soy is never going to be an optimal part of the human diet, for men or for women. In fact, as Natalia reminds us, “soy is the most mucus forming plant on the planet.” We do not include soy-based foods under the title of “human food” because of this. I often tell clients that eating soy is akin to pouring wet cement into your 98.6 degree intestinal tract and waiting for it to harden (not exactly in line with our quick-exit approach to eating). And the mucus formed goes beyond the actual intestinal blockage; the lungs, sinuses, and lymph system are just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re looking for the density of a soy-based product try a raw cheese, an avocado, corn, squash, or a grain based dish (millet, quinoa, or buckwheat). Soy sauce (especially the Nama Shoyu raw brand) works in moderation because it is water-based and lacks density, and miso can also be used to flavor a dish without ill-effect.
For non-soy fermented foods such as kimchi, komcucha, and krauts, the rule is always freshness; anything aged, bottled, or store-bought mimics lactic acid in the body. Homemade or locally prepared freshly fermented foods are wonderfully pro-biotic (you want them 6 days post-preparation or less). So stay away from the brands you find in the stores, but enjoy the ones you make yourself or find prepared at your favorite raw restaurant.
Nora also asks, “Is it okay to use a herbal laxative tea if I am not eliminating after each meal as I should?”
This is an important question. Let’s look at what we know. First, the waste that cannot be eliminated by the body on its own (like the petrified forest of chicken, soy, and milk glued and dehydrated in our over-laden intestinal tracts) must be hydrated and alkalinized in order to be mobilized. Our body’s natural peristalsis (intestinal contractions) have thus far been unable to do this. Stimulating these intestinal movements with a laxative like senna will not hydrate or alkalinize. So the poor Smooth Move drinker will have increased and painful movements that would have happened anyway, that will not do any more than the body itself can do on its own. And often laxative-stimulated bowel movements are extremely watery; so the hydration has been pushed along leaving the actual matter (which is now further dehydrated).
The second thing I really want emphasize is that the use of non-stimulant based laxatives, which use psyllium husk, should only be used with the coaching and expertise of a trained colon-hydrotherapist. Psyllium husk reportedly increases from five to twelve times its original mass. Think about what this means for the person who includes a tablespoon full in every morning smoothy. With no colonic this mass isn’t going anywhere; even what the body can move on it’s own is only a tiny part of what is left inside. Chronic pain and inflammation, a distended belly, and complete constipation are the result. Psyllium husk can be used for its toxin absorbing properties with the use of frequent colonics, but this is something I don’t even mess with myself. A dear friend, and colon-hydrotherapist, recently described a client who had taken one tablespoon of psyllium and poured colonic heaviness for an hour each day for three consecutive days before there was and end to the visible psyllium. It must be used with extreme caution, if at all.
And last, a lack of bowel movement is an indication of something happening in the body. Use it as the first clue, and start to collect all the pieces. Are you mis-combining too many meals? Is the detox process moving too quickly and awakening more than can be moved? This might be a time to add more safe and neutral cooked foods back into your diet. Or would a colonic aid the process? A frozen or sluggish bowel tells us about our process, and stimulation will mask these signs and create a false response in the body. Instead, listen to your colon’s alarm system, and start to figure out where a change needs to be made.
