Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life: Unleash the Healing Power of Fresh Juices and Cleansing Diets
384
Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life: Unleash the Healing Power of Fresh Juices and Cleansing Diets
384Paperback(Revised)
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Overview
More than a simple collection of recipes, this book guides readers toward a lifestyle that promotes alkaline balance by juicing, eating well, and cleansing the body and soul. While most juicing books focus too much on fruit juice (which disrupts the body's pH balance with too much natural sugar), this book primarily focuses on juices, smoothies, and soups made from vegetables. Now, completely revised and upated, it also offers a guide to the food richest in nutrients from Vitamin A to zinc and includes over 20 new juice recipes as well as new versions of various cleanses to benefit the colon, liver, gall bladder, and kidney, lymphatics, and more. Beyond the body, the Calboms explain the heavy toll emotional, mental, and spiritual unrest can take on the body (and sometimes even encourage disease) and share unique, effective methods for cleansing the body of such toxicity.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781455521357 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/04/2014 |
| Edition description: | Revised |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Sales rank: | 389,971 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
John Calbom, M.A. is a behavioral medicine specialist and psychotherapist. He is the director of Trinity Wellness Institute.
Read an Excerpt
Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life
By Cherie Calbom, John Calbom
Grand Central Publishing
Copyright © 2014 Cherie Calbom John CalbomAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2135-7
CHAPTER 1
The Secrets of Vibrant Health
Healthy, trim, energetic, and full of life! That's what you can be when you incorporate the secrets of juicing, fasting, and cleansing, along with more raw, whole, organic foods into your lifestyle. You can easily make these wonderful steps to healing and vitality a part of your daily life. You're about to discover a program that really works. It's worked for us and for thousands of other people. It can work for you.
If you're feeling sick and tired much of the time despite your best efforts at living a healthy life, don't be discouraged. I'll help you turn that around. Maybe you've been struggling to lose weight and just can't seem to get it off or keep it off—you lose a few pounds only to gain them back, plus a few more. Or maybe you're feeling sluggish and tired; fatigue is a constant reminder that something's amiss. Perhaps you have frequent headaches, back pain, or pain elsewhere in your body. Your sleep may be disturbed; you may wake up around three a.m. each night (a good indication that you need to do a liver cleanse). Or you may feel tired in the morning, even after plenty of sleep. Your digestion may be off-kilter—you experience gas, bloating, or constipation, good indicators that you need liver and gallbladder cleansing. Your immune system may not be up to par, and consequently you experience frequent colds, flu, infections, or sinus problems. (Sinus problems may also be caused by a congested liver.) All these symptoms could be signals that your body is in need of the super nutrition found in fresh juice and the detox programs on these pages.
Whatever your health challenges or goals may be, you can benefit from the life- giving nutrients in freshly made juice and raw foods. You can get an energy and vitality boost from short juice fasts. And, because your system may be overloaded and overworked trying to clear out excess toxicity that has accumulated in your cells, tissues, and organs, you could greatly benefit from the detox programs in Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life.
Detoxing for Radiant Health
Research shows that the average person is exposed to thousands of toxins and environmental pollutants daily, more than ever before in history, and all this toxic waste takes a toll on the body. Without a periodic program of detoxing, it's almost impossible to stay on top of eliminating all this stuff and keep your body in a state of health. But take heart. I'll show you how to use juicing, fasting, and detoxing programs to systematically clean out your cells, tissues, and organs of elimination and jump-start your health right away.
Detox programs and products are showing up nearly everywhere these days as people discover how they improve health. Plus, a lot of people simply feel they are toxic and in need of help. There are books and magazines that continue to promote the newest detox plans. Numerous health spas offer special detox wraps, massages, and natural mineral springs (which promote detox). There are numerous retreats and programs that offer juice fasts, raw foods, and cleansing programs to revamp your health and vitality. Health food stores have huge displays of cleansing and detox products. And it seems that nearly everyone we talk to about detoxing has an opinion or a question about how to do it or how it will be of benefit to them.
Unfortunately, many products and plans either don't work or are difficult to use. Some of the programs require little or no effort on your part; they say just take the pills or herbal products or try this quick-fix treatment and you're done—your nagging symptoms will all disappear. Keep in mind that there are no quick fixes. It took a number of years to get to this point, and it will take awhile to get your health cleared up. But while it requires time, patience, and some discipline, it's not difficult. And the rewards are huge.
Many people tell me they eat a reasonably healthy diet, get some exercise regularly, and don't eat bad stuff like junk food or desserts—at least not too often. Some people ask, "But isn't it good enough just to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, drink some vegetable juice, buy organic produce most of the time, and try not to eat too much junk?" That's a fair maintenance program, but that's not going to clean out toxins stored in the body.
I got a call one day from a lady looking for help for her husband, who had just been diagnosed with cancer. They had been on a health regimen for more than eight years, juicing, making green smoothies, eating organic foods, exercising faithfully, and walking nearly every day. Then her husband was diagnosed with cancer. "What happened?" she asked. My first thought was to ask if he had been exposed to any toxic chemicals. He had—very potent chemicals on his job. There was the key. Just juicing and eating good foods won't clear from the body all the toxic chemicals that can be stored in organs, tissues, and fluids.
To get rid of toxins and keep your body healthy, you need to detox it periodically. That doesn't happen when you're eating regular meals all the time. Your body has to concentrate on digestion all day long. Consequently, it doesn't have much time for cleanup and repair, let alone time to move out toxins that are tucked away in fat cells, organs, and tissue spaces. To accomplish detoxification, you need to juice fast once in a while and utilize the colon, liver and gallbladder, and kidney cleanses periodically. This is the best way to stay trim, fit, and healthy or to get well again. And it's possible to accomplish this in the real world without being overly obsessed. It can even be fun once you get the hang of it.
Periodic detoxing can help you get rid of irritating toxins that do harm in the body and stubborn fat like belly fat. The key word here is "periodic." I'm not telling you to live on only juices, raw foods, and herbs for the rest of your life, but to periodically detoxify your body with the programs in this book, to juice most days of the week, and to eat a high percentage of your food raw. Once you've completed a detox program, you can follow up with a maintenance program of whole foods, plenty of fresh vegetable juices, raw foods, purified water, regular exercise, and emotional and spiritual cleansing. I'll show you how to make it work no matter how busy or complicated your life might be. And if you're short on funds, I've got many programs you can put together inexpensively.
Since it's nearly impossible to meet your health and wellness goals without doing something to counteract the influences of ever-increasing toxicity, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, you must tackle the negativity with determination. Nevertheless, you don't want to be compulsively regimented about food and dieting, or anything else for that matter. I'm not advocating overdoing it to the point of making your eating habits a source of stress or fear, which will only make you feel worse, because you're probably already trying to fit a lot into your busy life. Some people tend to go overboard on health and dieting. They become food police for themselves and others, frequently driving themselves into a state of stress and exhaustion in their pursuit of perfect health. This can undo all the hard work of getting healthy. The point of this book is to guide you toward a balanced lifestyle, by making juicing a way of life, helping you find short-term cleansing programs that work for you, and providing useful tips, delicious recipes, and support to keep you on track along the way.
Why You Need to Detox
Even if you moved to a deserted island in the middle of the South Pacific and ate only organic coconuts and vegetables grown in your own garden, you still could not be sure you were totally safe from pollution. The air you breathe might have picked up radiation from halfway around the globe; the fish you caught could be contaminated with mercury from a far-off shore; the water might not be safe to drink due to acid rain.
The reality is that we live on a planet that is polluted. The air we breathe is loaded with invisible pollutants, our food supplies are often toxic due to pesticides and preservatives, and we can't trust the water supply due to water- treatment chemicals. We are exposed to thousands of toxins and chemicals in our homes, yards, workplaces, and schools, on our highways, where we shop, in our sleep, and in the food we eat. It doesn't matter how old we are, what we do for a living, or even where we live. Environmental pollution is everywhere. These toxins include industrial chemicals, insecticides, pesticides, heavy metals, emissions from the burning of organic fuels, electromagnetic pollution, radiation, hormones and antibiotics used in animal farming, and food dyes, preservatives, and additives added to our food. We're bombarded with reactive molecules called free radicals that can damage our cells. The use of pharmaceutical and over-the-counter drugs results in side effects; moreover, these drugs can interact with other drugs and substances to cause further toxicity. Average people like you and me are being inundated with thousands of chemicals whose names most of us can't pronounce and that are invisible to us, yet inevitably they take a toll on our bodies. The assault on our bodies continues year after year, gradually weakening our organs and compromising our immune systems—our bodies' natural defense.
Toxic chemicals affect every aspect of our bodies in some way—cells, tissues, and organs become overloaded with waste. Fortunately, we are equipped with organs of elimination and detoxification to clear away the accumulation of these pollutants. But when our organs become overwhelmed with too much work, a buildup of toxicity occurs and we become more and more fatigued, mentally fogged, and susceptible to sickness. Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life shows you what you can do to assist your body in managing this onslaught from the environment and how to choose good health habits that will strengthen and protect you. A strong, healthy body can resist toxic overload and disease, so there's great incentive to become stronger, healthier, and more resistant.
Some Startling Effects of Toxicity
Many studies and reports link environmental pollution to the state of our health. Chemicals that were designed to enhance our lives were introduced into our environment more than fifty years ago, but in the past half century hundreds of them have been shown to be either highly toxic and carcinogenic, or at least troublesome and irritating to our complex biological systems. It leaves us wondering what happened between what was supposed to make our lives better and what is instead making us sick.
Less than 10 percent of all the chemicals in our environment have been even partially evaluated for safety. It's difficult to know exactly how many of them are actually harmful or highly carcinogenic and could damage our health, the health of our children, and the health of our planet. Environmental toxins disrupt normal metabolic functioning of the body, which over time can lead to poor quality of life, and have been linked to conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autoimmune disorders, inflammatory diseases, infertility, sexual development abnormalities, and cancer.
Better Choices for Better Health
Now that we recognize that we live in a polluted world, what can we do to protect ourselves against this onslaught? Obviously, the first line of defense is to avoid toxins as much as possible and build up our immune systems. Although we can't avoid all exposure to environmental chemicals, especially those that we breathe, we do have many and varied choices about what we put in our mouths and on our bodies, spray in our houses and on our lawns, use for cleaning products, and apply as cosmetics.
When it comes to water, we can use purified for drinking and food preparation in order to avoid the hidden sources of pollution. Make sure to use purified water for soup, coffee, tea, and ice cubes as well. And healthy food choices are something we can make each and every day. We can choose whole, unprocessed, organic foods grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers. When choosing animal products, we can look for cage-free eggs and cage-free poultry and grass- fed beef, raised without hormones and antibiotics.
"What am I supposed to do?" a friend asked in frustration. "If the world is so toxic and there is no escape, why even try? Maybe I should just eat all the hamburgers, French fries, and chocolate chip cookies I want!" Well, that's certainly not the answer. We can make good choices and avoid some of the more flagrant sources of poisons, such as junk food, fried food, refined carbs, high- fat and high-sugar foods, and packaged items with preservatives. We can avoid pesticides and insecticides from nonorganic foods and from those that are made for home and garden. We can say no to vaccinations, some of which still contain thimerosal, a mercury-containing organic compound that is widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including vaccines. (This preservative could be especially harmful for babies and children and has been linked to autism, though this link is unproven. Before you get any vaccinations for yourself or your children, make sure they contain no thimerosal or any other harmful preservatives. Why be a test case for a mercury-based product?) We can avoid mercury toxicity by asking our dentists to remove all amalgam fillings (silver-colored fillings containing mercury) and replace them with safer alternatives.
The use of pharmaceutical drugs often causes side effects that are worse than the conditions the drugs are designed to treat. This requires additional drugs to counteract the negative side effects of the first one, further taxing our bodies. We can get second opinions from doctors who specialize in natural medicine and search for nontoxic natural remedies whenever possible. We can also be very thoughtful about the use of over-the-counter drugs and search out natural remedies first. Although over-the-counter drugs are widely used, they present another source of toxicity.
What Happens When Toxicity Builds Up?
Most of us keep our floors swept and our clothes washed, and give our cars periodic oil changes. We understand the importance of cleaning and caring for our possessions, but we often neglect our own bodies. Our bodies are able to handle a certain amount of toxicity because we have immune systems and organs of elimination designed to clean out many of these toxic substances, but they can handle only so much before they become overwhelmed by the huge numbers of toxins that we encounter from the environment—air, water, and food.
The result is that substances not broken down and excreted are generally stored in the intestines, gallbladder, kidneys, liver, lymph, fat cells, and skin. The colon, which is designed to eliminate solid waste, can become sluggish and build up putrefaction. The liver can get congested and be unable to properly filter the blood. The kidneys can become overwhelmed in their attempt to excrete toxin- laden urea. As a result, our systems are unable to function properly; nutrients are not absorbed well and poisons are reabsorbed into our bloodstreams. Toxins are then stored in fat cells, they collect in other tissues and spaces between the cells, and they clog our lymphatic systems. If the lymph isn't moving the debris out of our bodies, we can begin to feel sick. All this toxic buildup eventually affects our energy, mood, sleep, mental clarity, and immune function. We may feel sick, tired, and depressed. If we continue in this decline, we may get a disease.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life by Cherie Calbom, John Calbom. Copyright © 2014 Cherie Calbom John Calbom. Excerpted by permission of Grand Central Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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