Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself (2 page)

You will discover how the early signs and symptoms of toxicity are confused and ignored in our culture, often written off as the “normal” wear and tear on our body parts, as if nothing can be done. This failure to catch the early symptoms means that more serious signs and symptoms appear later on. Typically they are suppressed by means of drugs and surgery, and once more the underlying primary cause remains unexamined and unaddressed. Finally, overburdened with toxicity, one or more systems in the body collapse and the chronic diseases that take so much effort to manage and mediate set in.

Modern medicine is still blind to this toxicity-disease connection. Instead, doctors generally wait until a “crash” happens in the form of an acute, emergency problem, and then they desperately call in the big guns (harsh drugs and surgery) to save the day. This medical artillery only adds to the toxic burden; instead of healing the problem at the root, the treatment results in more toxic residue for the body to eliminate.

Clean will reveal to you the connections that—like that familiar box you didn’t think to open but have been sitting on for years—have been ignored by most of society and most of modern medicine. It explains how intestinal irritation caused by dietary and environmental toxicity can present as a range of symptoms you might never have thought could be connected to toxicity, such as seasonal allergies, skin rashes, depression, or simply a lack of enthusiasm for life. Clean provides clarity among the hundreds of different cleansing-detox programs that have flooded our market and explains the science that ties them all together. It details what these toxins are, where they are, how you are exposed to them, and how they affect your life and health. It is a primer to surviving and thriving in a toxic world.

But more important, Clean will give you the tools to reactivate your detoxification system to its fullest, giving it a chance to go into deep-cleaning mode and restore your body’s own ability to heal, regenerate, and even rejuvenate itself. The Clean program is a simple, safe, and medically proven way to put this powerful ancient knowledge to work in practical, modern ways. It will show you how a cleansing-detox program does not have to be disruptive to daily life or make you feel deprived. It can be incorporated into a regular schedule and support your need for energy while gradually eliminating the toxins that have blocked optimal functioning of body and mind. You can start slowly on your first-ever cleanse by doing a one-week program, make a bigger commitment with a fourteen-day program, or jump right in for a full commitment of three weeks. Whether you complete seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days of Clean, every day spent on the program will help you avoid becoming one of the statistics that we hear of constantly, telling you that heart disease, cancer, and other modern diseases are almost inevitable and that with aging comes degeneration, hospitalization, and dependency. Each time you Clean, you are empowering your own ability to create, and then sustain, the high level of health that your body is so well equipped to experience.

What Is Clean?

Clean is a tool that anybody can use for restoring, rebalancing, and healing. Designed with the needs of busy people in mind, Clean is a simple and practical detoxification plan that fits into day-to-day life instead of asking you to put your life on hold. It is different from other detox plans that are gaining popularity in beauty and alternative-health circles, such as intensive juicing or fasting plans or the milder raw-foods diets. Extensive clinical and personal experience has shown me that these practices demand too much time, energy, or attention for most people. They work best for those who have already done months or years of dietary cleanup, and they are better suited to retreat settings. Such demanding programs can even in some cases be dangerous. Stripping away waste materials from the body without simultaneously carefully replenishing essential nutrients can cause a state in which toxicity is increased, not reduced. Intensive detox programs can leave a person depleted or, worse, in danger.

Clean is designed with safety and effectiveness in mind. It is backed by cutting-edge scientific understanding of how our organs, hormones, and enzymes function. At its core, however, are these very simple easyto-understand concepts:

Toxins and stress create obstacles for the normal functioning and self-healing capabilities of our bodies.

Modern eating habits and lifestyles pollute our bodies and don’t provide the nutrients necessary for them to function at optimum levels.

By removing the obstacles and providing what is lacking, our bodies bounce back into health, energy is restored, and we begin to look and feel our best.

The Clean program breaks down into three one-week plans, with a preliminary phase consisting of an elimination diet to prepare for the cleanse. Ultimately, you will work your way toward a three-week cleanse. It will be your choice whether to take Clean all the way through and complete the three-week program, or to work up to the three-week cleanse in incremental phases, completing a slightly longer program each time you do it (in most cases I recommend doing Clean once a year). Know that any step taken in the Clean direction will have positive impact, and over the long term doing cleanses on a regular basis will have a cumulative effect.

Three Steps of Clean

One-Week Cleanse. Your first three to five days on the program will be a lesson in how the body resists changing the deeply engrained habits around eating and drinking, even habits that your mind understands to be toxic and wants to let go of. You are encouraged to finish at least the first full week of Clean; by the end of this time you will experience a surge of vibrant energy and clarity of mind, as toxins are released from the tissues they have been trapped in and are recirculated for neutralization and subsequent elimination.

One week is enough time for your body to take advantage of this new state that you are creating. The Clean program optimizes the conditions needed for our bodies to fully express their miraculous potential of regeneration, repair, and healing. You will also have an opportunity to explore one of the dysfunctions that keeps Americans overweight: hunger. We so commonly say “I’m hungry,” but most of us don’t really know what hunger is. That bodily sensation that you call hunger may be something different. During Clean, you will finally be able to rename that sensation for what it really is. Clean guides you through a very effective way of doing just that.

More important, it is very likely that by the time you complete your first week, your motivation will soar and you’ll continue on. Some of my successful cases started with patients who were skeptics and gave me just a few days to prove my theory to them in practice.

Two-Week Cleanse. If you are able to continue, don’t stop. Set a goal of carrying straight on and accomplishing a second week on the program. Two weeks on Clean will deliver to you greater benefits, as systems in your body that had been blocked and slowed begin to be optimized again, while other systems that had been on “red alert” to help you survive the insult of the toxic world get soothed and settled. Longstanding symptoms of imbalance on the “surface,” such as skin problems, weight issues, allergies, and intestinal issues, begin to disappear.

Three-Week Cleanse. The completion of your third week will show you how it feels to slow down and even reverse the aging process. You are able to feel how vital, clear, and optimistic you should really feel for your true physical age, not your chronological age. The transformation in those who follow the Clean program in its entirety is often remarkable. They finally drop stubborn pounds. Their complexions firm, tighten, and glow. The whites of the eyes get whiter and brighter. They sleep more soundly and have a higher energy level throughout the day. Patients can finally find relief from many of the discomforts that they have been struggling to get rid of, from constipation to sinus infections to joint pain. Disease processes assumed to be chronic or only manageable by drugs are often slowed down and even reversed. As you experience your body’s ability to restore order on its own, you will no longer see conditions that once had a frightening hold on you, from high blood pressure to high cholesterol and more, as life sentences.

Improved physiological balance can have a positive effect on psychological and emotional levels too. Moods improve, and a sense of mental clarity returns. After completing the program, many find that their cravings are reduced, poor foods and highly caffeinated drinks lose their appeal, and a mindful relationship to meals is restored. Most report that their work and relationships get a boost from what they can only describe as a heightened state of self-awareness. At a level beyond the physical, completing the three-step Clean program can feel like cleaning dirty spectacles: you get a fresh vision of your world.

The Importance of a Wellness Plan

A plan is essential to any endeavor where we want to see growth and success. We make a business plan, investing time and money, on a new startup. We spend huge amounts of time and money hiring experts to help us make savings plans, wedding plans, career plans, vacation plans—and sometimes even funeral plans. What this comes down to is breaking a big task into small, achievable steps and putting them on a calendar. Such planning makes a goal much easier to achieve. Yet in many years of working in medicine, I have rarely met a patient with a Wellness Plan.

As you’ll learn in chapter 8, in order to truly survive in a toxic world, you need to put a Wellness Plan in place. A reasonable yet organized Wellness Plan that sets out small goals for the year empowers you to achieve the ongoing state of health you need to thrive in our toxic world. Conventional healthcare protocols do not cover all the bases that are essential for ongoing health in our stressed environment. For example, almost no family doctors routinely test for vitamin D levels, something I believe should be a priority, nor do they help you decide which supplements to take and when. Should you want to test for certain lingering toxins, you’re also usually on your own. I’ll show you how this, too, can be achieved on your plan for the year.

The Clean detox program helps you get clarity on your health goals and priorities. It can also be used to bring you back on track when your commitment to good eating weakens and you deviate for a few weeks. Like a mile marker you can always find your way back to, Clean can realign you with your Wellness Plan and get you back on track.

Clean is safe for almost everyone. Note, however, that all cleanses can have an effect on the way prescription medications are absorbed. Some treatment regimens will exclude you as a candidate for a detox program. If you are currently taking prescription medications, please read on carefully before proceeding with the program.

The Clean Audit

Answer the questions on this list and note your “yes” answers.

Do you have headaches more than occasionally?

Do you tend to get colds or viruses each year?

Do you have bowel movements less frequently than after every meal?

Do you have bowel movements that are not soft and easily

passed?

Do you have diarrhea more than very rarely?

Do you get itchy or watery eyes and nose at certain times of year?

Do you have allergies or hay fever?

Do you often get congested or mucusy?

Do you get bloated after eating?

Do you have extra pounds that won’t come off with diet and exercise?

Do you have puffiness in areas of your face or body? Do you have dark circles under your eyes? Do you get heartburn? Do you have gas more than occasionally? Do you have bad breath or body odor?

Is there a thin white coat on the back of your tongue when you wake up?

Do you get cravings for certain kinds of food, especially sugary, starchy, or dairy foods?

Do you have a tendency toward restless sleep?

Do you have itchy skin, pimples, or any other troubling skin condition?

Do you get pain or stiffness in your joints or muscles? Do you have low moods or a foggy mind?

Do you find that you are forgetful, have difficulty concentrating, or can’t find words?

Do you feel apathetic and tired?

Do you feel anger or bursts of irrational frustration?

Do you have higher than average sensitivity to odors?

Have you noticed an increasing sensitivity to toxins in everyday life, such as feeling more nauseated when you smell dry-cleaning fluid or fill up your car’s tank with gas, noticing stronger effects of certain food additives, or having reactions to cleaning or personal-care products?

Do you use multiple prescription medications?

Do you use many potentially toxic chemicals in your home or work environment?

Do you have musculoskeletal aches and pains or symptoms suggestive of fibromyalgia?

Do you have tingling or numbness on one side?

Do you have strange reactions to medications or supplements?

Do you have recurrent edema?

Have you noticed a worsening of any troublesome symptoms after anesthesia or pregnancy?

These could all be symptoms of toxicity. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t answer “yes” to at least one or two of these questions. Some people have many more “yes” answers than that. Whatever your response, affirmative answers to any of these questions indicate that you would benefit highly from Clean, which has been shown to improve and clear up these symptoms and many others.

Clean is not a magic bullet. It is not designed to cure every ailment. It is designed to be a jump start—a reboot that gets all systems running better. Once you’ve completed part or all of it the first time, it is a preventive tool that you’ll use periodically to shed accumulated toxins and switch on deeper healing. Meanwhile, you will create an ongoing Wellness Plan to achieve a set of longer-term toxin-beating goals.

Clean is not the result of multimillion-dollar clinical trials or pharmaceutical company sponsorship. This modern detox program came to life in the same way that many great discoveries are made, when one person went on a journey to find a solution for his own suffering. In the case of Clean, that person was me.