My First Detox
A RESOUNDING EYE-OPENER
When someone asks about the best place to start caring for their health, I usually tell them the story of my first detox. This is when I realized the immense power of my immune system and its ability to heal. People have given me positive feedback on this compelling story, so I included a long chapter about this in my book, A Life Yet to Live: Finding Health, Vitality and Joy after 60. Here is the shorthand version of my first detox and its surprising benefits.
As I was approaching age 60, I realized my body was entering a new stage of life that I hadn’t experienced before. I made a promise to myself and my daughters that I would stick around with good health, energy, and awareness for as long as possible. Toward this end, I did a simple detox and took my first step toward a healthier life.
I Followed the Detox Program Outlined in Clean
I knew from my research that I would need to change my diet from the combination of store-bought and restaurant-bought food I was eating and drinking to a significantly healthier diet.
A friend recomended the book Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself, by Dr. Alejandro Junger. The book outlines a program to deal with the epidemic of metabolic disfunction that many say is the root cause of serious diseases like heart disease, cancer, dementia, and diabetes. He also shares his own moving story of shifting his medical practice to prevention from his previous practice as an ER cardiologist.
Reading Clean was a revelation about how my body worked. This book told me what my immune system was up to and how I digested food. It laid out how illnesses are related to toxins that are stored in bodily tissues and the role of inflammation. Before reading this book, I was largely ignorant of the enormous amount of internal activity associated with my body’s “internal housekeeping.” This included the harmful consequences of a compromised immune system. What and when I ate affected everything within me.
For example, I read that our immune systems are wildly robust. They work tirelessly to combat disease; clean out old, used-up cells; get toxins out of our bodies; and fight disease. But modern life doesn’t allow enough time for the immune system to do its work.
The role of the cleanse or detox program was to simplify my diet and eating schedule, so my immune system could catch up with itself. Reducing the load would allow it stay on top of things. It would not always be trying to catch up. This would allow for an even deeper level of cleansing, which would restore my body’s ability to heal itself.
The cleansing program restricted both quantity and quality of food. Breakfast and dinner were easily digestible smoothies or soups. This allowed my digestion process to be kept to a minimum. While digesting, the immune system slows down. Less digestive activity means more immune activity. A crucial part of the program is allowing at least 12 hours between the evening meal (a smoothie or soup) and the breakfast smoothie. The only solid meal of the day was lunch, a moderately sized combination of vegetables, some grains, and some proteins.
A Radical Departure from My Familiar Foods
The list of foods to avoid for three weeks is large: sugars including sweet fruits, caffeine, alcohol, gluten-containing grains, and nightshade vegetables including tomato, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes, plus a long list of potential digestive irritants. If I had not been partially convinced by the testimonials in the book, as well as finding a time one summer when I was mostly on my own, this cleansing program would have been a difficult challenge to take on. It is not a family-friendly or work-friendly program of eating.
The First Few Days Were the Biggest Challenge
My energy levels were all over the place, from muted to excited. A few moderate headaches appeared, which Dr. Junger predicted, and they passed on their own. I was hungry a lot and missed the comfort of feeling full, as well as my early morning tag team of hangover and coffee. Lunch became a highly anticipated event. I went shopping every morning for the best choices and the freshest, most organic ingredients.
After a few days, though, a stable all-day energy level replaced the erratic ones. I got used to the feeling of hunger, and it dissolved over time. Truly, I started to appreciate it! Knowing I was well nourished, the emptiness in my gut became a pleasant sensation. There was no need to eat to quench it.
At times I wasn’t even hungry for a meal. Dr. Junger says to eat anyway, because the immune system needs that energy to continue doing its work. He also recommends you walk and reflect more during this period. I also did some easy and restorative yoga on some days.
Positive Results
Results started showing after the first week and continued to build over my three weeks on the program. The biggest benefits were:
My nose and sinuses completely cleared. My chronic stuffiness and blockages completely disappeared.
I found reduced (or eliminated) joint stiffness that I’d had in my hands as well as in my lower back and hips.
Digestive problems and discomfort, such as bloating or feeling full, went away.
My appetite decreased or went away much of the time.
I rapidly lost weight, about 15 pounds over the three weeks, and have remained at this desired weight.
This was my first exposure to the world of probiotics, the bacteria that inhabit our colon and the critical role they play in our bodies.
Clean enabled me to understand how calorie restriction and intermittent fasting work as strategies to combat aging.
The biggest upside for me was a reset to my baseline of what optimum health could be. The way I felt after just 3 weeks was leagues different than before I started. My positive experience with this cleansing program opened my eyes to an optimistic future of better health and caring for myself. And I realized that being healthy in this optimal way changed my experience of life itself.
Once I finished the program, I slowly reintroduced some of the foods I had eliminated. The biggest offenders for me, which I could feel the effects of quickly, were grains and alcohol. I have since eliminated both of these problematic foods from my diet as I continue learning about the role of nutrition in treating and preventing disease.
Resounding Benefits
This first, simple detox was a resounding eye-opener for me. It formed the basis for many of the diet-related health practices I’ve adopted since then. My increased energy, reduced weight, increased mental focus and attitude towards life have stayed with me for over ten years as I continue to refine my healthy eating practice with new knowledge.
(Note: There are several other detox variations out there. What all the good ones have in common are: 1) enough time to reboot your immune system, 2) elimination of all possible toxins, 3) reliance on natural food for nutrition, not supplements, and 4) re-introduction of potential toxins one at a time so that you find out which ones you are sensitive to. Try any of them and see if it’s as big an eyeopener as mine was, and let me know your experience.)
