Sexy Forever: How to Fight Fat After Forty (16 page)

Many people are suffering from symptoms of fibromyalgia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or other diseases and autoimmune responses, never realizing their connection to possible allergies or our toxic burden, and that detoxification would most likely alleviate many of these symptoms and often prevent them in the first place.

Uncovering food sensitivities is a powerful process. Once you have determined the effects of particular foods on your health, you have to decide if it’s worth it or not to eat them. There are some people, like my granddaughter, who find that even a crumb will affect them; others, like my husband, can occasionally tolerate a little gluten, but to indulge too often is asking for trouble. It’s not just the discomfort food sensitivities create in the body but what these offender foods can bring long-term in the form of serious disease. Some doctors tell me that, unfortunately, cancer is one of them. Weight gain is another. Many cutting-edge doctors, as well as myself, believe that toxins and food sensitivities are likely at the base of most unexplained weight gain.

The health of the gastrointestinal tract is dependent on healthy food choices. Consuming and breathing chemicals creates an imbalance of bacteria, insufficient enzymes, low hydrochloric acid levels, and out-of-control inflammation. Any one of these factors may result in an irritation
of the digestive wall. When that happens tiny holes may form, allowing partially digested material, toxins, or bacteria to pass through. This is called
leaky gut syndrome
.

Leaky gut is serious and causes symptoms of digestive upset, gas, bloating, pain, and weakened immunity. According to Dr. Jonathan Wright, several supplements can help repair a damaged digestive tract wall. These include:

• Aloe vera
  
• Butyrate (particularly for the colon)
  
• Calendula
  
• Chamomile
  
• Deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL)
  
• Glutamine
  
• Marshmallow (the supplement, not the fluffy kind in the plastic bag)
  
• Plantain
  
• Vitamin A (never take more than 10,000 IU if there’s any chance you might become pregnant)
  
• Zinc
  

With the exception of butyrate, glutamine, vitamin A, and zinc, these supplements are known as demulcents because they help coat and heal the digestive tract, and most of us can use help to repair our gut wall.

Leaky gut is exacerbated by severe stress. I know firsthand. A decade ago when my mother passed I never allowed myself to properly grieve and deal with my emotional pain. Right after her funeral I jumped back into full work mode. It was avoidance for sure, thinking I could bury myself
in my projects and not feel this terrible loss, but the body and the cells have an intelligence much greater than that of the conscious mind. Eventually my body came to a screeching halt by developing symptoms of unbelievable fatigue and depression, forcing me to slow down and finally grieve. The exhaustion became so overwhelming I could not walk the short way upstairs to my bedroom without stopping halfway to rest. I would fall asleep if I happened to sit down for even a few minutes—once I even fell asleep on the air while on the Home Shopping Network. It felt like my body was coming to an end, as though I was completely out of gas. Finally it became alarming, so I went to my doctor; he diagnosed leaky gut. He took me off all sugar and alcohol, put me on an IV detox regimen of glutathione and vitamin C, created a supplement regimen, and strongly advised for my health’s sake that I take it seriously, which I did. It took almost a year to repair the damage.

It wasn’t about pills or pharmaceuticals. Healing required a new focus on healthy eating, getting eight hours of sleep each night, and avoiding sugar and other offending foods.

Part of detoxing my body involved going for regular colonics. It was all part of cleaning out the toxic burden I now realized I carried within, and one day during the process the floodgates opened. I lay on that table and cried like a baby. I guess it’s not so strange that it would happen during a detoxification, but finally I allowed the grief to manifest. From that time on, along with the health regimen I had adopted, I got well … and I got thin. This experience was invaluable to me. I began listening to my body and recognizing that even the smallest symptoms are the body’s language … the warning signs.

We hear a lot about the benefits of fiber and probiotics, but there is still confusion as to why they are relevant and important to our health … and to our ability to control our weight.

Constipation plagues most American adults at some time or another. Eating dietary fiber is one way to get and stay regular. The muscles of the colon need to be exercised in order to stay fit. Dietary fiber in the digestive tract creates bulk to keep these muscles working and make them strong and healthy. Years of consuming too little fiber causes the muscles of the colon to become weak and atrophied, with chronic constipation as a result; this is compounded by the fact that many people do not drink enough water. Eight glasses of water a day might seem overwhelming, but it is one of the best ways to stay regular, lose weight, and detoxify. Start by making it a point to drink a glass of water every hour over eight of the hours of the day. You won’t believe the results. Your skin will look better, your bowels will move easily and regularly, and you will wash out toxins and keep your colon hydrated.

According to Michael Murray, ND, the average daily fiber consumption in the United States is approximately 20 grams per person. Such a low fiber intake results in a digestive transit time of forty-eight hours or more, and this slow exit can result in the absorption of toxins from putrefied fecal material that has not been eliminated. (I know—yuck!)

The absorption of toxins from within the body’s digestive system is a form of self-poisoning that can lead to serious disease and, again, weight gain. The weight comes from the accumulated toxins that result from not eliminating properly, and as we know by now toxins have nowhere to be stored but—you guessed it—fat. The more you are constipated, the more toxic you become. But fiber is a non-nutritive food component that provides bulk and helps move food residue through the intestines, reducing
the absorbtion of toxins. Fiber is found naturally in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. When whole grains are refined (think white flour, white rice), out go the benefits of the fiber that would have been part of that food.

Health expert Brenda Watson says we should get at least 35 grams of fiber daily. Aim for that from your food, and if you can’t eat that much fiber comfortably, see the
Resources
section for a good source of additive fiber.

It is important to note that fiber will not correct everyone’s constipation problems. Some people suffer from insufficient peristalsis, which means muscles in their colon do not sufficiently contract to achieve complete elimination. Drinking a buffered vitamin C powder (using magnesium or potassium as the buffering agent) on an empty stomach several days a week can naturally stimulate peristalsis to evacuate fecal accumulation.

The word
probiotic
literally means “for life.” What are probiotics, though? They are good bacteria (yes, bacteria) that aid us in health and healing. Why should you care? Probiotic supplements help keep a healthy balance of beneficial bacteria in your digestive tract, which is home to more than five hundred different species of bacteria. Good bacteria are critical in your body’s ability to deflect incoming toxins and aid the body’s elimination of them. This is what we are looking for. We are trying to lose weight, and to do so, we need to find as many ways as we can to eliminate toxins. It all adds up. Eliminate toxins here and there and pretty soon you are reducing your toxic burden. You will see it on your body, thinner and healthier.

According to the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
, good bacteria crowd out disease-producing bacteria, allow us to better absorb our vitamins (especially B vitamins and vitamin K), help us to produce natural antibodies that kill pathogenic (disease-producing) bacteria, help the body make short-chain fatty acids to promote good colon function, increase fecal bulking, promote mineral absorption, and may help prevent colon
cancer. In short, probiotics strengthen your immune system, help maintain a healthy colon, help the body digest food, and create an unfriendly environment for harmful bacteria and yeast. In essence, just as their name suggests, probiotics are life-promoting.

We get much of the good bacteria we need daily from our diet, but as we age, the amount of our good bacteria naturally decreases. Fermented dairy and vegetable foods such as yogurt, kefir, and sauerkraut are all high in good bacteria (but only if not heated to high temperature, which tends to destroy the good bacteria). Eating those foods is very beneficial, especially when coupled with a high-fiber diet, because good bacteria love to eat soluble fiber. Why is that a good thing?

Soluble fiber absorbs toxins as it passes through the GI tract and slows down the absorption of nutrients. This keeps blood sugar levels down, which in turn keeps your appetite in check and takes away sugar cravings. Either way, you get the skinny.

Insoluble fiber moves bulk through the intestines and controls and balances the pH (acidity) in the intestines. When good bacteria multiply they crowd out the bad bacteria and create balance. If you are not getting enough good bacteria from your diet, you can supplement with a high-potency supplement. I take one capsule a day of bifidobacteria with the right amount of lactobacilli. (These can be purchased at a health food store or at
RenewLife.com
.)

The next component to a healthy GI tract is enzyme balance.

In my last book,
Knockout
, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez talked about the critical need for enzyme replacement for his cancer patients. Enzymes are protein-based substances that are essential to every function in the human body: eating, digesting, absorbing, seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing, kidney function, liver function, reproduction, elimination, and more. Plus, enzymes are powerful little workers in removing toxins from your body.

Dr. Gonzalez feels that if a body requires healing, then restoring enzyme balance is crucial. For health’s sake, enzymes are crucial for removing toxins, and when you detoxify with enzymes you will have another weapon in your Sexy Forever arsenal to make you healthy and thin.

The best way to get enzymes is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables daily. But the enzymatic content of fresh foods diminishes with long-term storage, as well as from pesticides and toxins in the water and soil. Also, an aging body has decreased enzyme activity, so supplementation is something to consider. Brenda Watson says, “Normally enzymes are present in raw foods to assist in digestion, but many foods get depleted of their natural enzymes through cooking and processing. Without the essential enzymes needed for proper digestion, the body can’t break down those foods to absorb their nutrients. As a result, undigested food in the digestive tract can ferment, causing gas, bloating, and other digestive difficulties. Supplementing with digestive enzymes will decrease the need for all of the pancreatic enzyme secretions to be active in the digestive tract. This will allow some of the pancreatic enzymes to be absorbed into the blood, where they can work on that portion of food that enters the blood and lymphatic system undigested, helping to break it down.”

Remember, everything suggested in this book is to help you unload your toxic burden, so that you can gain control over your health. To be healthy and thin you must understand all the opportunities you have to detoxify your life. While it’s impossible to detox every aspect of your life, having this information allows you to chip away where you can. If you do this, your weight will find its perfect balance for your ideal body composition.

I discussed the importance of hydrochloric acid (HCL) in my book
Breakthrough
, but it bears repeating. HCL is produced by parietal cells (tiny pumps) in the lining of the stomach, and this acid is needed to ensure the
proper functioning of the stomach. HCL has at least two primary functions: it provides the acidic environment necessary for the enzyme pepsin to break down proteins, and it helps prevent infection by destroying most parasites and bacteria.