Sexy Forever: How to Fight Fat After Forty (9 page)

If you simply can’t afford organic food and you can’t grow your own, there is a solution. It’s crucial to wash nonorganic foods carefully to cut down on ingested toxins. Soak all nonorganic food for twenty minutes in water to which you’ve added salt and fresh lemon juice or vinegar, or purchase a good vegetable wash to remove the toxins as best you can.

Certain foods in the produce section tend to be very high in pesticides. If you can’t buy these organic or avoid them then follow the washing instructions to make them less toxic.

Fruits and Vegetables Highest in Pesticides

• Grapes
  
• Lettuce
  
• Apples
  
• Bell peppers
  
• Carrots
  
• Nectarines
  
• Peaches
  
• Strawberries
  
• Pears
  
• Kale
  
• Celery
  

Fruits and Vegetables Lowest in Pesticides

• Broccoli
  
• Bananas
  
• Avocados
  
• Cabbage
  
• Watermelon
  
• Sweet peas
  
• Sweet corn
  
• Papayas
  
• Mangoes
  
• Pineapples
  
• Onions
  
• Shallots
  
• Kiwis
  
• Asparagus
  

Even though these are all yummy and nutritious foods and are the
least
contaminated, be sure to wash them well, as they are not free of toxins. To reduce toxic exposure before eating nonorganic pears, nectarines, and potatoes, soak them in a bowl of vinegar (approximately 4 tablespoons) and enough water to cover, then peel them before eating.

Soak vegetables like bell peppers and celery in a bowl of water with the juice of a fresh lemon for twenty minutes, then scrub with a vegetable brush. Soak cherries in this lemon water for sixty minutes.

There are two nonorganic fruits you really should never eat: apples and grapes. A toxic pesticide called cryolite goes through the skin of these fruits and permeates them entirely. But the organic versions of grapes and apples are loaded with incredible nutrients and enzymes, so if you can swing it, go organic here.

Unfortunately, poison-sprayed food that has not been thoroughly washed is so toxic that the chemicals outweigh the good the food could
do in its natural state. As you know, without sufficient nutrients the brain keeps signaling the body to want more and more food. These cravings are usually for sugar or carbohydrates, since these are the quickest sources of energy. Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s not about your will at this point; there are physical needs for these foods, as harmful as they may be. But over time these cravings will go away.

We already talked about this at the beginning of the chapter, so I won’t go into detail here. Just go green for all household products. The commercial cleaners and chemicals you have been using liberally all these years make your home toxic and may be linked to many conditions including autoimmune diseases and allergies. Green and natural household cleaners are now available everywhere, both in stores and online. This simple change is another valuable step in detoxifying your body.

Then switch to chemical-free cosmetics. Everything you put on your skin goes into your bloodstream. What is the sense of eating organic food and getting rid of household chemicals, and then loading up on chemicals on your skin?

GET HEALTHY, STAY SEXY

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

These simple changes I’ve described above will help. You’ll feel energized, your appetite will diminish, bloating will subside, and your weight will start to drop. I’ve got some more in my bag of tricks, if you’re willing to go a little deeper. Stay with me!

I am ambassador for a company called LifeWave, which has developed amazing nanotechnology patches that help your body produce glutathione, a key component in your body’s natural detoxification mechanism. Glutathione is an antioxidant that protects our cells from damage by free radicals and holds off the ravages of aging (including weight gain). We stop making glutathione around age forty, which is why our bodies become less resistant to disease and less able to fight off the toxins we all encounter in our everyday lives. By wearing one of these patches daily, you clean out toxins from your cells. At night I wear a patch to help my body produce carnosine, an antioxidant that repairs cell damage from free radicals.

These patches are a simple way to fight the chemical onslaught. Wearing the glutathione patch can help greatly in detoxing your body. It’s very simple—you wear the patch three fingers below your navel and change it every day. Along with good nutrition and eliminating outside chemicals as best you can, you will be well on your way to good health and a thin body. (See Resources for more information.)

Colonic irrigation is one of the least expensive, most effective ways to cleanse the large intestine of accumulated toxins and waste products. Colonics draw toxins from the blood and lymph back into the colon for excretion. Colonic irrigation lasts thirty-five to forty minutes and cleans the entire five feet of the colon, unlike an enema, which cleanses only the lower eight to twelve inches of the bowel. Enemas are a good way of detoxing the lower bowel, particularly lukewarm coffee enemas that are not too strong.

This is a highly effective, but very expensive, way to detoxify. The body uses its own internally generated heat to protect itself from viruses, bacteria, and other harmful substances—a fever is the body’s attempt to destroy invading organisms and to sweat out impurities through the skin.
An infrared sauna has heat levels that are generally kept around 140ºF. The heat stress removes calcium deposits from the blood vessels and breaks down scar tissue from blood vessel walls. Some studies demonstrate that saunas can remove chemicals such as DDE, PCBs, and dioxin from fat cells.

Home units are available for purchase for $1,200; again, this is very expensive, but I want you to know all your options. I take a forty-five-minute sauna two or three times a week, and I am always sure to drink lots of water before and after to get maximum benefits. Of course, as with any measure affecting your health, before you try a treatment, consult with a doctor or knowledgeable and experienced expert.

Chelation therapy draws lead, mercury, and other heavy metals out of the body. Chelation refers to a method of binding up toxins such as heavy metals and bodily wastes and removing them, while at the same time increasing blood flow. In chelation therapy a substance called EDTA is administered intravenously and binds to various toxic metals in the blood such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminum. The toxins are then flushed from the body through the kidneys. EDTA is three times
less
toxic than aspirin and has been tested and used safely for the past thirty years on an estimated half million patients, including me. Other detoxification methods use ultraviolet light or hydrogen peroxide. Your antiaging doctor will be familiar with this process, and you can discuss with him or her which treatment would be best for you.

The lymphatic system is a complicated network of vessels, ducts, and nodes that moves fluid between the cells and tissues and produces and distributes the infection-fighting and scavenging cells of the body. It feeds literally every tissue and organ and the blood. It is the transportation highway for the immune and repair functions of the body. When the lymph system is functioning properly it effectively cleanses the tissues, aids in cellular repair, and eliminates toxins.

When the lymph system becomes congested, it deprives the cells of oxygen and affects the ability of the body to rid itself of its own waste material. Over time, other body systems that rely on the lymphatic system for waste removal will become compromised, setting the stage for pain and disease. A sure sign of lymph congestion is sore or swollen lymph glands, which are most noticeable in the neck, armpits, and groin. Illnesses ranging from allergies to fibrocystic disease and even cancer can be related to lymph congestion.

Correct diet, infrared saunas, and manual lymphatic massage can prevent or reverse lymph congestion and will stimulate the flow of the lymph. I work with Cynthia Story, a certified lymphatic specialist in Montecito, California. If you’re considering this treatment, be sure to choose an experienced therapist. Someone who isn’t can actually aggravate a patient’s condition.

Because of the time-consuming nature of lymph massage, a lot of doctors are turning to a noninvasive handheld instrument known as the light beam generator (LBG) to restore lymph function and eliminate wastes. This machine penetrates many times deeper than lymphatic massage alone and also increases the effectiveness of manual drainage of the lymph system. See if your doctor will purchase one for office use; it can’t hurt to ask.

This is a very sophisticated piece of equipment you should urge your doctor to buy. It is a cellular-electrical-biofeedback machine used for acute pain management and lymphatic congestion, among other things. This machine has been used successfully since 1993. It releases a “spectrum of low-level pulsing magnetic fields that induce the flow of microcurrents within the tissues”—which in English means it is able to locate underlying dysfunction and provide treatment for the patient. It promotes improved circulation, wound healing, bone regrowth, and pain relief for conditions such as fibromyalgia. (Go to
SuzanneSomers.com
for a list of Ondamed practitioners.)

Hyperbaric oxygen is often used by cancer patients to successfully detoxify after chemotherapy. This is an expensive treatment and involves breathing high concentrations of oxygen in a pressurized chamber.

Whether you make small changes or large changes, one by one you can start to eliminate toxins from your life. You don’t have to do it all at once, but with each step you are closer to significantly lowering your own personal toxic burden. Each change will add to the quality of your health and life, and I promise you will feel an inner peace that you are reducing your exposure to chemicals.

Cancer was a major wake-up call for me and forced me to examine my lifestyle and dietary habits. I was lucky to have taken charge of the disease with a firm resolve to eat as though my life depended on it, which it did. Cleaning out my house and medicine cabinet of chemical cosmetics and household cleaners was the next logical step.

As I cleaned up my life and cleaned out my body I lost weight. Those extra menopausal pounds that had plagued me for years, especially around the tops of my hips and abdomen—the pounds that for the first time didn’t respond to my Somersize way of life—miraculously seemed to dissolve. I got back to 127 pounds—my perfect weight! That’s when I began making the connection between balanced hormones, eating clean food, avoiding chemicals, healing my gut, and taking proper supplementation.