The Body Doesn't Lie (23 page)

Your body is talking to you: Sometimes you need a good cleanse away from negative foods and people, some time and space to be alone. The three-day Liver Flush is an excellent opportunity to make time for yourself and turn down a few invites, spend the evenings in, and focus on rest and relaxation. (Also a good idea to stick a bit close to a toilet, just in case the Liver Flush decides to “flush” a bit more suddenly than normal.)

The Liver Flush will help rid your body not just of food toxins but of emotional toxins as well. Often before people start the Positive Feedback program, they feel a tremendous amount of unresolved anger; as a result, they feel hot and sweaty, and they shout all the time. The Liver Flush will help you focus, forgive, and let go of anger.

Mix in a blender:

           
Juice of 1 grapefruit

           
Juice of 1 lemon

           
½ cup olive oil

           
1 clove garlic

           
2 to 3 slices ginger

Every ingredient in the Liver Flush Smoothie has its own anti-inflammatory power:

• Grapefruit has lycopene, an antioxidant that can tamp down inflammation.
  
• Lemon has numerous anti-inflammatory actions (see “The Beauty of Lemon,” below).
  
• Extra-virgin olive oil contains a recently discovered antioxidant called oleocanthal, which has anti-inflammatory properties similar to ibuprofen.
  ¹¹
  
• Garlic contains sulfur compounds that help the liver with detoxifying.
  
• Ginger, a potent anti-inflammatory and blood thinner, protects the liver by preventing cholesterol absorption.
  

Drink the Liver Flush Smoothie first thing in the morning, right after your Morning Glory warm water with lemon. Follow with another large glass of water. Then finish the rest of the Morning Glory ritual. Follow that (during these Liver Flush days) with a cup of hot water or hot liver-cleansing tea. During the day, continue to drink as many cups of such tea as desired:

• Fennel tea
  
• Nettle tea
  
• Peppermint-leaf tea
  
• Anise tea
  
• Green tea or jasmine tea
  

You may add lemon to these, but try to avoid honey until after the cleanse.

In this Release week, as mentioned, fluids are crucial. You should drink at least eight to ten glasses of water and/or herbal tea daily, in addition to your smoothies. I have a portable water bottle that I carry with me all day—I call it “my pink friend.” I use it for smoothies in the morning and nettle tea the rest of the day. I fill it up with water for hikes. Basically, it never leaves my side.

The Beauty of Lemon

Be sure to drink only filtered water—no tap water. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization devoted to environmental and public health, has identified 316 chemicals in U.S. tap water, 202 of which are not regulated. If you can afford it, have a reverse osmosis filter installed in your house. It’s the absolute gold standard, but it’s expensive. Otherwise, a carbon filter pitcher—such as a Brita—will filter out most contaminants for a very reasonable price.

With the Release plan, you’ll be making a smoothie every single day. After you’ve completed the first three days, you can begin to branch out into different smoothies. I use the NutriBullet, a nutrition extractor/ pulverizer: It allows me to throw in the entire fruit (seeds and all), so I don’t miss a drop of fiber or other nutrients. (See additional smoothie recipes in table 12, found in chapter 7, and a list of smoothie powders in appendix B.) Some of my favorite smoothie ingredients (goat’s-milk yogurt, pineapple, almonds or protein powder, flaxseed, banana, blueberries, kiwi, and a spoonful of olive oil) have all-star anti-inflammatory properties—as well as a bunch of other health benefits. For example:

• Pineapple:
  We now know that pineapple, long considered a no-no because of its high sugar content, is one of the strongest anti-inflammatory fruits on the planet. It also has bromelain, a digestive enzyme that helps the body digest protein.
  
• Flaxseed:
  A vegetarian source of anti-inflammatory omega-3s, flaxseed also helps increase energy, boost mood, and relieve pain, as well as ease digestion.
  
• Sea buckthorn:
  The oil of the sea buckthorn has a lot of good omega fats that help lower cholesterol and triglycerides. Sea buckthorn also helps to balance the production of gastric acids in a way that reduces inflammation and strengthens the immune system. Other antioxidants in sea buckthorn protect cells from free radicals and damage caused by excess sun, pollutants in the environment, smoking, and drinking.
  ¹²
  

Now for the “release” of Release week: It’s time to get rid of all foods that feed your negative. Start reading the back of every box or bottle you eat or drink from, and be skeptical of long ingredient lists. Shoot for five ingredients or fewer—all words that you recognize, without scary suffixes—and avoid sugars and derivations of sugar. Sugar lurks, hidden, in many products. For example, I was really surprised to see how much sugar was in my beloved almond milk. It wasn’t “pure”; it was full of sugar.

Go through your cupboards and gather up all candy, all cereals, all cake mixes. Even if they’re gluten-free, they can be full of sugar. Pile all the garbage foods on the table and then dump each, one at a time, into the trash, saying goodbye. Ditch the following:

Artificial creamers

Artificial sweeteners

Bagels, white flour (and products made from it), and wheat bread

Cashew nuts, salty nuts, pistachios, peanuts, Brazil nuts

Coffee in excess (more than two cups per day)

Cow’s milk, as well as cheese and yogurt made from cow’s milk

Eggplant

Energy drinks

Fast foods

Gluten-based

products (wheat, oats, rye, and barley)

Ketchup

Margarine

Mayonnaise

Mushrooms, especially shiitake

Oranges, tangerines

Pickles

Processed meats (bacon, ham, pork, hot dogs, sausages)

Soy beans, soy sauce, any processed soy product

Spicy foods, chili powder

Spirits, such as vodka and whiskey

Sugar, candy

Sugary cereals, granola, corn flakes

Tomatoes, tomato juice

Vinegar, all types

White potatoes

Now let’s talk about a few particularly troublesome categories of food: wheat, dairy, red meat, and sodas.

While refined wheat products are the most inflammatory, wheat itself—even whole grains—can cause problems, because of its high volume of gluten, a type of protein that gives bread its stretchiness. If your reactions to gluten are strong, go to an allergist with expertise in food sensitivities to have yourself tested; he or she will let you know if you have an intolerance or a full-blown allergy. Banning all gluten would be a challenge—indeed, some foods I recommend, such as rolled oats, have gluten. That said, I do believe that striving to reduce wheat products can help minimize inflammation. The findings of a recent animal study published in the journal
Immunology
suggest that gluten can increase inflammatory cytokines even among those who don’t have an intolerance or allergy.
¹³

Most of us were raised to believe that full-fat dairy and red meat were bad for us because of the saturated fat and cholesterol. Then the low-carb craze came along and refuted that, claiming that meat was not only not bad for you, it was vastly preferable to the blood-sugar-increasing nonfat foods we’d been eating instead (pasta, air-popped popcorn, salads with fat-free dressing).

Now researchers are discovering that there is in fact an increased heart attack risk borne by meat-eaters, but that risk doesn’t come from the meat itself; it comes from a chemical that’s triggered by bacteria that live in the digestive tract only of meat-eaters. Vegetarians and vegans don’t release this chemical, but meat-eaters do. Researchers believe that this chemical (known as TMAO, an acronym for its chemical structure) allows cholesterol to work its way into artery walls, stiffening them and causing arteriosclerosis, as well as preventing the body from releasing extra, unneeded cholesterol. This is no joke, because researchers believe that a raised TMAO level increases the risk of heart attack without even taking into account any of the traditional risk factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.
¹⁴

Much in the same way, dairy can harm the good bacteria balance in the gut. A study published in the journal
Nature
found that a diet high in dairy saturated fats helped host a harmful microbe called
Bilophila wadsworthia
, often found in people who have inflammation in their intestines.
¹⁵
The researchers believe that these dairy fats change the composition of the bile, which in turn changes the composition of the good-to-bad bug ratio in the gut. As the balance shifts, it can trigger an immune response that increases inflammation. Indeed, this is thought to be a very common reaction among adults.

So, if dairy fats are bad, what about skim milk? Well, I believe nonfat dairy may even be a bit worse, as the high lactose content raises blood sugar in the absence of any tempering fats—which can lead to more eating. While the milk fat in a cup of whole milk or even 2% may sate your hunger, the high glycemic index of a glass of fat-free milk makes it essentially no better for inflammation than a glass of sugar water.

That’s why, while you’re in the Release week, you won’t have any red meat or dairy. When you get to the Radiate stage, you’ll be able to enjoy red meat in moderation, because our brains and our muscles need a bit of red meat
once in a while.
But we absolutely need to get away from meat being the
centerpiece
of every meal—especially in a time of release.

And one final word about liquids: No more Diet Coke. No more Diet Pepsi. No more Diet Anything. No more soda, for that matter. Period. End of story.

Surveys have found that most people who drink diet soda drink more than twenty-six fluid ounces every day, which makes sense when you hear how many experts now believe that diet soda is addictive. I had a patient named Sara who was addicted to Diet Coke. She drank three liters a day (or roughly one hundred fluid ounces)! She refused to even consider making a change. During our Reflect work, we discovered that Sara’s lower back pain stemmed from having felt abandoned by her mother during a messy divorce. She was fourteen at the time, and she felt responsible for the rift in some way, but she’d learned to bury her pain and anger.

Flash-forward a few years, and she married young and had three girls. She did everything she could for her family, unfortunately losing herself in the process. Her back pain had been going on for years when her husband finally sent her my way. After studying her Body Timeline and her Food Diary, she was able to identify the source. As we talked more, Sara began to see that diet soda was the fuel of her pain: She drank to get energy to be at the whim of her family. Once this light went on, she understood how and why she needed to make the change I’d been recommending. Today, she’s kicked her diet soda addiction, her back pain is gone, and she’s learned how to make time for herself again—without her reliance on soft drinks to keep her going.

A study of over 250 thousand people found that those who drank more than four cups of soda (especially diet) each day—thirty-two ounces—were 30 percent more likely to develop depression than those who drank no soda.
¹⁶
And those who think they’re protecting their health by drinking soda with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar are sorely mistaken. Sucralose (Splenda) has been found to decrease insulin sensitivity by 20 percent.
¹⁷
Furthermore, a preliminary study presented at a prominent health conference suggested people who drink diet soda have a 61 percent higher chance of stroke and heart attack than those who don’t.
¹⁸
I could go on, but . . .

Please, just stop!

I always remind my patients: You might feel worse before you get better. Release is like going for a facial to get rid of blackheads when you’ve not had a facial in months. Your face will be clogged up, so you’ll need a good exfoliation and a thorough cleanup—and you might look worse for a day until you start to shine and glow (and radiate!).

Instead of your normal bowel movement, you might experience some diarrhea or runny tummy, but don’t worry—that’s part of the cleanse. Let it go. Remember that all the negative toxins need to leave your body to help free your mind. You’re releasing your negative thoughts and emotions by not feeding your emotions toxins such as sugar; you’re releasing your negative food habits to prepare yourself for a big change in your life—a transformation. You’re getting stronger so that you can make strong decisions for yourself.