Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself (22 page)

Lunch: A piece of steamed salmon and steamed mixed vegetables made at home

Mid-afternoon: Snack or herbal tea (optional).

Dinner: Green Juice

Drink plenty of pure water all day.

When all this is put into practice, each person’s intake of Clean meals is unique to him or her. It may look very different week to week, or you may find a formula with the amount of variety you can handle, and stick to it for the three weeks. A few days of Clean will typically look something like the chart above.

A weekly planning and preparation chart is provided on p. 192 to help you organize what you plan to make and what you need to buy.

Your Clean Detox Nutrients

Nature provides all the nutrients you need for full-functioning detox. It’s up to you, however, to select them and get them into your body. The Clean recipes include all the nutrients you’ll need over the next few weeks as you switch detox onto “high.” Your snacks and any “off the menu” lunches can also be selected with these nutritional needs in mind. Use the “Detoxification Nutrients” chart (see appendix) during the program and afterward, to ensure that you fund all the needs of your busy liver by including many of these foods every week.

Clean delivers its maximum benefits when a few easy-to-find natural supplements are added into your daily intake. Though they’re not obligatory, I highly recommend them, and they are not expensive. Buy the best brands you can find, asking your local health food store for guidance. (Online vitamin stores often have low prices.) All of these nutrients are available as part of the Clean Kit. Visit www.cleanprogram.com. Good supplements should be thought of as health insurance. For a little extra investment up front they save money over the long term on doctor’s visits, prescription drugs, and missed workdays. They’ll add years to your life, especially when used as part of a detoxification program like Clean—and they’ll add life to your years.

Fiber plays an important role in elimination support (see the next section, “Enhancing Elimination”) because it absorbs water and creates bulk, which triggers the peristaltic movement of your intestines and promotes bowel elimination. Fiber sequesters (pulls out) toxic waste that the intestines keep clearing from the blood, making sure that the toxins don’t get reabsorbed. Fiber feeds the good bacteria, promoting a healthy environment in the intestines. It also captures cholesterol and prevents its excess absorption, while giving you a feeling of fullness, thereby limiting overeating. For all these reasons and more, high-fiber diets are associated with a decreased incidence of colon cancer and heart disease. Though the Clean program is filled with fruits and vegetables, it may contain less roughage than you are used to. Most people benefit from adding some form of fiber to the program. Look for natural fiber products containing ingredients like psyllium husks and psyllium seed, prune fiber, guar gum, and flax seeds. Bentonite clay is used in cleansing-detox programs to further bind to toxic chemicals including heavy metals and to reduce gas in the intestines. Fiber should be adjusted to the number and consistency of bowel movements. Most quality products come with dosing instructions.

THE CLEAN KIT INCLUDES:

Shake powders made from brown rice protein that contain all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients needed to support daily cell metabolism and the additional work of detoxification, specifically phase 1 and phase 2 of liver detoxification.

A high concentration of probiotics to reinoculate your intestinal tract with a healthy, viable flora.

A combination of herbal antimicrobials that will eliminate yeast and pathogenic bacteria in most cases, and an herbal supplement that will regulate insulin peaks and lows, thus eliminating cravings as well as facilitating fat burning.

The cost of this kit is an investment, but it is reasonable and it is a convenient option for those who otherwise would not do the Clean program. (See appendix “Clean Resources” for more information on how to order the Clean Kit.)

Probiotics are a very valuable tool in the restoration of the hundreds of different species of good intestinal bacteria. There are lots of good probiotics supplements for sale, some of which need to be refrigerated once opened; make sure yours has at least 15 billion organisms per dose. Read the instructions carefully. One dose a day should be enough during Clean, but there is no downside that I know of to taking more.

Antimicrobials help kill the pathogenic (bad) bacteria. Many of the foods in the Clean recipes such as garlic, lemon, olive oil, onions, broccoli, coconut oil, and many of the spices have antimicrobial properties. But sometimes the intestinal flora is in such state of disarray (dysbiosis) that it needs a little heavier artillery to clean the territory so that the good bacteria can take up residence once more. A smart measure is to take one or more of the following during Clean. Concentrated oil of orégano is especially potent against yeast (look for it as a pill or essential oil). A clove of garlic can be eaten daily, raw. (Slice it and place it between thin apple slices if you prefer). This will not only help to eliminate bad bacteria, yeast, and parasites; it will also help regulate blood sugar levels, enhance fat burning, reduce hunger sensations, lower cholesterol, relieve arthritic pain, and reduce bowel gas. If this is unappealing, garlic pills are an inexpensive and easy way to ingest effective amounts of garlic. You may find an herbal antimicrobial that combines several different antimicrobial herbs and roots. Berberine, licorice root, rhubarb root, skullcap root, coptis root, ginger root, sage leaf, and thyme oil are some of the ingredients I look for.

Olive oil taken at night will lubricate your intestines, improve bowel elimination, provide anti-inflammatory fats, kill germs and enhance fat burning, stimulate the gallbladder and liver to move bile clearing the liver system, promote bone formation, inhibit blood clot formation, and promote hormonal balance. Take two tablespoons before bed every night and follow with water and lemon.

Finally, try to include a liver support product during your Clean program. These can be a single ingredient or a combination of ingredients. The most common available liver support herbs are milk thistle (sylimarin), N acetyl cysteine, dandelion root, and wormwood leaf. Ask the staff at your health food store for advice; many salespeople seem to have Ph.D.-level knowledge of liver support preparations!

FAQs About Doing the Clean Program

Q: I work out and train hard physically. Can I still do Clean?

A: Yes. Recreational and competitive athletes alike have successfully done Clean, losing weight while upping their performance. It is not recommended to do Clean during intensive precompetition training, but at any other time you can keep training while on the program. Double or even triple the servings of your liquid meals. Use more of the soups and energy smoothies than juices and make sure your lunchtime meal includes lean protein, healthy fat such as avocado or coconut, and some of the allowed grains from the Elimination Diet.

Q: I drop weight easily and am already slightly underweight. What should I do?

A: You can safely do the program. Weight loss is always greater amongst those who need to lose weight as the body is looking to find its best state of balance. Any pounds you do lose, you can put on strategically when you are done by eating plenty of good fats, clean proteins, and whole grains. However, it will help you to double up on your liquid meals during Clean, and to make sure your daily meals are satisfying in portion size. Include nuts in your snacks.

Q: I am too busy to prepare the Clean drinks and smoothies. Can I still do Clean?

A: When patients’ schedules are so busy that they have no time to make their own liquid meals, I suggest an alternative option. The Clean Kit (www.cleanprogram.com) contains powdered shake mixes and a supply of supplements that delivers all the enzymes, herbs, and nutrients needed to successfully complete the work of cleansing and repair, while you eat the daily food meal from the Clean recipes or the general Elimination Diet. After testing many products over the years, I now rely on a combination of products from a reliable manufacturer that has proved to be highly effective and totally safe. All the products are made from natural ingredients and are free of added chemicals.

2. Support Your Body’s Detoxification

The second essential instruction for doing the Clean program is to support your body’s detoxification process. There are many ways to do this.

Enhancing Elimination

The Clean program depends on effective elimination for much of its success. With less energy dedicated to digesting, absorbing, transporting and assimilating foods, the body will be redirecting its energy toward “catching up” with inner cleaning. As it shifts into releasing toxins from cells and tissues, your job is to support the channels of elimination so that these waste products can now make their way out. It is simple to do, and it is very important. Without this step, you won’t see all the benefits—and in some cases, if you ignore elimination, you can create discomfort and even health problems. The channels of elimination include the skin, the lungs, the kidneys, the bowels, and the circulatory system, which connects them all through two subsystems, the blood vessels and the lymphatic system. Here are tools to enhance their function. Use them individually or in combination until you are successful.

BOWEL ELIMINATION

Many of the toxins and most of the mucus that is pulled out of the tissues and captured from the blood get eliminated through the bowels, bound up in feces. Facilitating the movement of this waste material through the intestines is crucial at all times, but especially during a detox program, when it is very common to see this mucus mixed in with, or surrounding, your stools. It is sticky, so naturally, can cause constipation; you must do whatever you can to support daily, generous, bowel movements. Fiber supplements, which help grab the toxins and move everything toward the exit, might not always be sufficient to keep things moving as quickly and as efficiently as you need during this deep-clean program.

This toxic mix has a tendency to stick to the intestinal wall in a layer of plaque that thickens as the hours go by. When it’s not released in healthy feces, this constipated mix lets toxins get reabsorbed and then digested by the pathogenic bacteria in the intestinal walls. They in turn will emit their even stronger toxins and exacerbate the condition of dysbiosis. Avoid constipation even for one day during Clean. Use your fiber supplements, drink lots of pure water, and take gentle to moderate exercise to promote daily, generous bowel movements. If they don’t happen easily, take herbal laxatives every night. Dr. Schulze’s Intestinal Formula #1 is the most potent one available, almost guaranteed to make you eliminate consistently thanks to its mix of wild harvested herbs, including senna and cascara sagrada (available from www.herbdoc.com). Swiss Kriss is another effective and trusted brand, readily available at health food stores. In both cases, read the instructions and take as many doses as necessary to achieve the goal of consistent elimination. Even if they give you mild diarrhea occasionally, do not be concerned unless it is constant and it dehydrates you. In this case, cut back on the amount of laxatives you take or leave them out for a day to restore balance.

There is no set number of bowel movements a day that everyone must have, whether in daily life or during a detox program. “Optimal elimination” means as much as is necessary to dispose of the materials that will affect the system negatively. With a good, healthy diet, free of toxins, one should eliminate feces after every meal. Most of us eliminate much less often than that—in general we are a constipated population—and it’s now considered normal to have one movement a day, with many people having less than that. In its healthiest states, the stool should have the color and consistency of peanut butter (though some healthy foods like dark green vegetables turn it darker). When your stool is more solid than this consistency, it is an early sign of constipation. A healthy stool shouldn’t smell in a way that urges the evacuation of the bathroom and it shouldn’t take too much effort to eliminate.

If a day goes by without a bowel movement, try taking a dose of castor oil, the oldest trick in the world for encouraging the release of toxicity and mucus. It works as well today as it did a hundred years ago, when family doctors used it as a remedy for practically every situation. Start with half a shot glass of it followed by a glass of water with lemon juice. Wait thirty to forty-five minutes to see if this promotes a bowel movement. If it does not work, repeat. If necessary, repeat again until the bowels begin to move. The release can be intense at times, so you will want to avoid doing this while busy at work or far away from a bathroom.

Colonic hydrotherapy. To effectively boost the removal of the mucoid plaque that gets pulled out during Clean, use colonic hydrotherapy during the program. Contrary to what many Western-trained physicians may say, colonics are very safe and beneficial when done with the right therapist. During the treatment, pure water is delivered at low pressure into the colon and then drawn out, which irrigates the colon and helps it release waste matter. There are two kinds, the open system and closed system, both of which are hygienic, discreet, and not uncomfortable. You can research which one you like better. A detoxification program is the time when colonics are most beneficial, especially to those with a history of constipation. You can have as many treatments during Clean as you like, depending on your budget and schedule. (I’ve even had patients who got them daily during their detox.) Enemas are a self-administered way of irrigating the lower colon; they are helpful too, and may be used during Clean, though they do not work as deeply as colonics.

When you switch from a poor diet to a better one, better bowel movements are of the earliest benefits you will get. It can be a major part of the relief and improvement that comes from a detoxification program, both physically and mentally. And there is no reason for this benefit to be lost after you finish Clean, provided that you continue to eat and drink foods that do not cause irritation and mucus production in your system, keep the intestinal flora in good repair, and maintain the twelve-hour window at night.