21 Day Detox......The last few days

With just a few more days left in the 21 day detox It almost seems effortless to eat like this. The shakes are a nice convenience. As has been my routine, always preparing my own food takes time. With this program, it takes just a few minutes to make my smoothies for the day, that's breakfast and lunch. One can get used to feeling good.

As I mentioned previously it's important to be intentional about reintroducing foods back into the diet. You don't need to reintroduce foods you don't plan on eating and you'd be better off continuing to avoid processed, sugar-laden, and devitalized foods. I highly recommend controlling your sugar intake like the FDA controls heroin; then again, you should do a better job of it. A few rules of thumb: counter an occasional high-sugar food with fiber and protein; ground flax and chia, rice bran, whey protein powder are great in this respect. When it comes to reading nutritional labels on packaged foods, I never buy or eat anything that has a higher added sugar content than the sum of the fiber and protein content per serving. For example if your favorite cold cereal has 10 grams of sugar and one gram of fiber and two grams of protein, you're getting a very unbalanced food. A better option is something with less than 3 grams of sugar per serving, 3 grams of fiber and protein.

It's also best to reintroduce foods starting with the least allergenic foods first. If you've suspected you are sensitive to milk then start with a high quality plain yogurt, then aged cheese, maybe cottage cheese, and lastly fluid milk. You may find that you are sensitive to the cheap homogenized stuff you were consuming, but can tolerate high quality organic whole milk. You may find that a high quality yogurt (unsweetened) and aged cheeses like Swiss and sharp cheddar are fine but drinking any kind of milk is out. For some raw cow or goat milk is best. Then there are certain people who don't do well with dairy at all. The challenge phase is the time to figure out where you stand.

Next you might start introducing grains and starches. Start with potatoes and other nightshades if you've eliminated them. I'd save wheat until last and consider only eating wheat that has been soaked, sprouted or soured. That goes for spelt, rye, kamut, oat, and barley as well.

The other concept to come away with is the idea of rotating your diet. It's possible that anybody can develop a sensitivity to any food if eaten daily year-round. Diversity is key. I recommend eating a variety of healthy foods as you alternate your meals throughout the week. In addition, eating seasonally and locally produced foods makes health and economic sense. Depending on where you live, locally may need to be within 1,ooo miles. But eating summer fruit right through winter grown in South America, New Zealand and who knows where, isn't necessarily good for you or the environment. And by all means support your local farmers. Better still, grow your own food as you are able, but don't eat bananas everyday, unless you live in Ecuador. Some foods are going to be worse than others from repetition.

Those I treat with food allergies are most often sensitive to a food or foods they love and eat two or three times a day. A rotational diet doesn't have to be difficult. It just takes some planning. For each meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner, have at least four options. Make enough for leftovers, and alternate.

The worst thing you can do is end a detox diet with a binge party. Then again, it may be the lesson you need to stick with healthy eating. Most of those I know who've done this get quite sick.

A post-purification diet is ideal, which continues the main principles but ensures you are covered, given your unique nutritional needs. The shakes or smoothies can be continued, but take a break even from them now and then. Everyone needs some core supplement support. This will be individualized depending on your needs. For example, a common core for an adult is SP Complete or Catalyn and a fiber supplement, along with essential fatty acids. You may need additional bone nutrients, trace minerals, and B vitamins.

Take time to assess and document what changes you've experienced through this journey: weight loss, more energy, better sleep, no more constipation. It's amazing to see the changes that can occur in blood work, cholesterol numbers for example.

I'm looking forward to staying healthy through the winter, how about you?

21 Day Detox......Day 11 - 12

Cruising along now, I wish I could say I'm not even tempted by the cheese and rice chips my wife is munching on while we chat in the kitchen. I had to turnaround and converse while I searched the cupboard for some kosher snack that had somehow just magically appeared there to satisfy my desire for salty and crunchy. Alas, I had to resort to my banana coconut pudding with a little cocoa. I topped it off with cracked-cell chlorella, a detoxifying blue-green algae, and feel even more satisfied in my mind and palate. It's really pretty good (I have a greenish-brown ring around my mouth).

Over the last few years when I speak on detoxification and lead patients through the process, I am always asked about other programs, The Master Cleanse, Isagenix, liver flushes, etc. Although there are many I haven't looked closely at, the one's I've examined often come up short. Some of these do work to some degree, weight loss, an improved sense of health, but I've found most of them lacking what I consider basic and important attributes in a healthy cleansing or detoxifying diet.

For example I finally just looked over the Isagenix products, a very popular program. As is often the case I see some real problems with their ingredients. Most glaring is their use of fructose as a sweetener. For all you who read my liver articles recently you'll recall that fructose as an added sugar is very bad news. An effective and safe cleanse needs to support the liver, one of the most important detox organs. Fructose effectively congests the liver and is efficiently converted to fat. Next, I noticed in their fiber product Isagenix uses something called Fibersol-2 (produced by a proprietary method of controlled enzymatic hydrolysis of cornstarch). While this newfangled fiber may provide some of the health benefits of increasing fiber in the diet, it seems completely unnecessary to use a Franken-fiber created in a lab, when all around on God's green Earth is nature's fiber ("so turn Frakenstein into Franken-fine"). Lastly, I noticed some odd herbal additions that could be problematic, especially for those suffering from acid reflux; namely mint.

Not to pick on this one company, but my goal is to really feed the body while detoxing, support the organs of detoxification, and weed-out hidden food sensitivities or allergies. To that end, as we proceed through the last half of the 21 Day Detox, now is the time we can prepare for the "challenge phase."

Right, your asking, "wasn't the challenge phase days 1 through 10 or so?" Yes it was and continues to be challenging at times but one of the great opportunities we have nearing the end of the program is to begin to re-introduce foods back into the diet. One of the biggest mistakes I see by those finishing this program is to start haphazardly eating foods that have been eliminated. At this time, like no other, the body is primed to detect hidden food allergies. Food sensitivities and allergies are quite common, but often undetected. After a few weeks on a diet of this sort, the body will often produce a more obvious symptom after exposure to a food you were unaware was a problem. To know which food is to blame, one must introduce only one food at a time, in a sufficient amount, for a sufficient length of time.

Another important aspect of this program is that it teaches you or reminds you how to eat wholesomely. The diet is not intended to be permanent. It's not an ideal diet for life for most individuals. Dietary needs are individualistic, and I'm not talking caloric needs. Some need more meat, some do OK on vegetarian sources of protein. In both cases I'm talking about eating real food, from real (healthy) animals and plant foods from nutrient-rich and chemical free sources. Keeping your sugar, caffeine, and alcohol intake in check. By the way, have I told you about my nickname for Kettle Korn? "Cancer Corn;" Perhaps I'll explain that later.

Inevitably we are exposed to dietary burdens, intentional and un. That's why I recommend some form of detox diet yearly.

By the way, if you slip up, don't give up! "It's not what you've done it's what you do next."