New York Times: Rest the Tummy, Restore the Soul

by natalia | Apr 22, 2013 | Health & Wellness

Article from The New York Times

By VANESSA GRIGORIADIS

DIANA KOEN had a really bad day on Tuesday. She put in eight hours as a mortgage broker at a Midtown firm before spending an hour and a half stuck on the subway, and by the time she reached home it was dark. The garbage hadn’t been collected in front of her garden-level apartment, leaving a foul smell, and her daughter didn’t feel like taking the dogs for a long walk.

On top of all that, she hadn’t eaten anything solid for five days.

But as she waited for an apple-chard juice at Quintessence, a raw-food restaurant in the East Village, Ms. Koen, a slender blonde in her early 40’s, seemed blissful. The reason for her serenity, she said, was the fast – her first. For the past 48 hours, this former Zone-bar-gobbling carnivore had subsisted on a diet of fruit juice and vegetable juice, and for three days before that had consumed nothing but a mixture of water, squeezed lemons, Celtic Sea salt and honey. ‘’Not eating really hasn’t been a problem,’’ she said. ‘’I haven’t even been hungry. One time I was. But I ate a pinch of bee pollen, and it went away.’’

While millions of high-fat, low-carb devotees are gorging themselves on steak and butter, a small group of the body-conscious have opted to eat nothing at all. In the name of detoxifying their polluted bodies, these new believers – including mortgage brokers like Ms. Koen, fashion designers and Manolo-obsessed socialites – have joined a fasting corps formerly made up of the devoutly religious, raw-foodists and the chronically ill. They say 4 to 30 days or more of a regimen of fruit and vegetable juices, herbal teas, blended soups and laxatives can cure what ails them – whether it’s an excess of weight, a pasty complexion or the vague stresses of everyday life.</span>

Stephanie Paradise, an owner of the New Age Health Spa in Neversink, N.Y., has catered to fasters since the 1980’s. ‘’It used to be that people who came in to fast talked about weight loss,’’ she said, ‘’but these days that’s just not said.’’ Now it’s about ‘’detoxing the mind, body and spirit.’’

Ms. Paradise said business in the spa’s fasting program has doubled since 1999. The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Ariz., run by Gabriel Cousens, a fasting guru, has had a similar increase. The We Care Spa in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., frequented by celebrities like Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck and Courtney Love and breathlessly covered in women’s magazines, is booked through October, ‘’something that never happens in the summer in the desert,’’ said Rory Legacy, the manager. The cost can run to $3,484 a week – to not eat.

Fashionable fasters have inspired a cottage industry in upbeat literature, including reprints of classic tomes like Arnold Ehret’s ‘’Rational Fasting’’ (1914) and ‘’The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fasting,’’ published last year. In one early standard, ‘’The Miracle of Fasting,’’ Paul and Patricia Bragg said ‘’fasting is easier than any diet’’ and called bleached flour the ‘’staff of death.’’

There are also nutritional consultants who coach fasters, appealing to vanity as much as to purity. One of them, Natalia Rose, organizes four-day fasting weekends for women, packing the days with massages and reflexology treatments. For inspiration she might take them to Barneys to remind them what it’s all for. ‘’We’ll create a whole fall wardrobe with them,’’ she said, ‘’so they’re focused on Narciso Rodriguez, not what they’re putting in their stomachs.’’

Stomach Acid and Detox Symptoms, Gaining Weight When Underweight

by natalia | Apr 22, 2013 | Health & Wellness

Stomach Acid and Detox Symptoms, Gaining Weight When Underweight (August 22, 2011)

Hi Ana,

I recently bought The Raw Food Detox Diet and read it with great interest. I have food allergy/sensitivity/intolerance and found that your suggestions of the unique “sequence to eat food” very helpful. It definitely helps me to identify the food that causes gas or diarrhea. Is there a good book to read about the topic above (IBS & sensitive GI system) and for weight gain? We would like to know more about gaining weight, not losing it.

Duyen and Tom

Hi Duyen and Tom,

Thank you for your email. Natalia’s methods of detoxifying the body address both weight loss and weight gain. When the body is clean it will achieve a cellular perfection that is reflected on the outside. This lifestyle balances and harmonizes the systems of the body to bring it to its ideal. If you have always been underweight the cleansing process will help you to achieve this balance, and if you have lost weight during the cleansing process stay patient.

During the process of deep cleansing and detoxification many men and women find that they have become leaner than they would like. This is part of the process for some people, and it doesn’t mean you will always stay so gaunt. When the body is flushing out so much old toxic matter it goes through a transformation. Some people hydrate so much waste that they feel a little bulky temporarily, and some people are able to release so much that they feel too small.

For weight gain you can embrace all of the sprouted grain products like the Ezekiel breads, and the Alvarado Street Bakery breads and tortillas. You can use raw nuts and raw nut butters, and plentiful avocado salads. Lydia’s Grainless Apple Cereal is perfectly combined and is delicious with fresh sliced bananas and coconut water. You could also use almond milk, or even water with stevia.

The following is one of my favorite recipes (taught to me by Natalia):

• 4 tbsp of raw sesame tahini

• 1/4 cup of water

• 2 cloves raw chopped garlic

• 1 small nob of raw peeled and diced ginger root

• dash of nama shoyu soy sauce

• stevia to taste

Blend these ingredients in a high-speed blender until creamy and pour over your favorite green salad. I like to follow this salad with the following desert:

• 2 heaping spoonfuls of raw almond butter

• 2 heaping spoonfuls of carob powder

• 1 bunch of baby spinach

• stevia and nutmeg to taste

Blend these with ice to make your own creamy green slushy.

Love,

Ana

Natalia, thank you for the books and the advice in them. I started the raw food diet about a week ago. I’m a Level 3 (borderline 4) and have severe stomach issues. Some of the raw fruits are making my acid worse 🙁 but I am keeping my chin up about the others. However, I feel sicker and worn out, no energy and my sinus problems have exacerbated. I am assuming it is part of the detox, but any recommendations for what to do or when it gets better?

Thank you, Joanna

Hi Joanna,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear you are feeling poorly! There may be more than one issue making your detox so intense.

First, I highly recommend that you read Natalia’s Detox4Women. I suspect that you probably have an intestinal yeast overgrowth and eating anything too sweet or starchy will aggravate the problem (even raw fruit and sprouted grain breads can be a problem). Sugars and starches feed yeast growth, and active yeast makes a true detoxification impossible. Detox4Women outlines a very simple approach that will be the most effective for you. Riding your body of yeast and fungal growth is essential.

Overconsumption of fruit is also making things hard on you. It will hydrate and mobilize a lot of old waste that may be too much for your body to move all at once. And then when you have more fruit, it awakens more waste and hits a road block. This creates gas, and the reverse pressure backup you are feeling when your stomach acid comes up.

A good colon-hydrotherapist would be able to move some of the waste that you have already hydrated and mobilized that needs to come out. And then using the Detox4Women approach would be the perfect approach for you.

Love,

Ana