21 Pounds in 21 Days (16 page)

Weighing in at over three pounds and located on the right side of the abdomen beneath the diaphragm, the liver is the body's largest glandular organ. The liver filters more toxins out of your system than any other organ and engages in over a hundred vital body functions. For one, it is a fat-burning machine. Using a soap-powder-like cleanser called bile that is produced in the gallbladder, the liver breaks fat down into a liquid that's able to travel through the wall of the small intestine and into the bloodstream. When the body is very toxic, the liver works inefficiently, becoming congested and less effective in breaking down fats. As a result, we are unable to lose weight efficiently, making weight loss harder. Another vital role the liver plays is in maintaining blood concentrations of glucose by storing or releasing glucose as needed. Carbohydrates are stored as glycogen in the liver and are released as energy between meals or when the body's energy demands are high. In this way, the liver helps to regulate the blood sugar level and to prevent a condition called hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This enables us to keep an even level of energy throughout the day. Without this balance, we would need to eat constantly to keep up our energy.

The liver already has a very difficult job. But its work is made even harder if your digestive system isn't working well. If you are constipated, for instance, there may not be enough digestive enzymes or stomach acid to completely digest our food. The standard American diet causes most people to have one or more of these problems, putting additional stress on the liver. A sluggish liver burns fat inefficiently and can contribute to hormonal imbalances, memory problems, fatigue, depression, bloating, and other symptoms. When the herbalist told me that I had to eat baby food, I remember that the whites of my eyes were yellowish, indicating liver malfunction. If your liver functions poorly, it affects your entire health.

The Kidneys

A poorly functioning colon also affects the kidneys. Our kidneys maintain the harmony of the body's internal environment. Among the processes they manage are removing waste products generated by the metabolic process, drugs, toxins, and other unneeded substances that have been absorbed by the digestive tract; releasing hormones that help the body produce red blood cells, regulate blood pressure, and maintain our bones; keeping the blood at the slightly alkaline pH of 7.35 to 7.45; and helping maintain the volume and concentration of urine. How much people urinate can vary from person to person, as well as from day to day. Urine volume can be as little as one cup per day—such a person would be very toxic—to as much as twenty-four cups! Drinking adequate amounts of water helps the kidneys do a better job of flushing out your system.

The Lymphatic System

The lymphatic system is a microscopic detoxifying highway running immediately beneath the skin's surface. It connects to every one of the trillion cells in your body, and its job is to collect cellular waste and debris, fat, bacteria, viruses, toxins, and water, and return them back to the bloodstream, where they are routed to the eliminatory organs for disposal. When you're toxic, your lymphatic system works tremendously hard. When you detox it moves a tremendous amount of fat and toxins being flushed out of the cells. Unfortunately, the lymphatic system doesn't have a pump, like the heart does, to push the fat and toxins it collects through it. So whenever you're detoxing, you must help the lymph system clear the toxins out. See Strategies for Eliminating Toxins (p. 136).

The Skin

While we usually think about our skin in terms of its appearance—whether we have zits or wrinkles, for instance—it's actually our body's largest organ. The skin coats our body, protecting us against
infections; communicates vital information to our brain through the sense of touch; regulates body temperature; and functions like a second kidney. On top of helping with internal climate control, our sweat glands expel many toxins, especially under our arms (axilla region). Assuming our pores are open, the skin secretes over one pound of toxins each day. We know many of them as acne and blackheads.

But the pores on our skin can get clogged. Dead skin cells; residue from soaps, makeup and perfume, lotions and oils, powders and deodorants; and toxins and pollution are common culprits. When they become blocked, our skin can't breathe and excrete noxious substances. When pores stay blocked, we lose our ability to sweat, undermining the body's natural climate-control system, and trapping toxins and other impurities inside. That's why I'm not big on these lotions and potions with all these new additives—bronzers, shimmers, exfoliating agents, and so on—that people are now using. Some people's bodies are superb detoxifying machines and can handle them. After being damaged by all the toxicity, I know that mine is not. Even if my body were in better shape, I would not risk blocking my pores.

Strategies for Eliminating Toxins

The most effective way to eliminate harmful toxins is to have therapeutic detoxifying body treatments. While you're on the Martha's Vineyard Diet Detox, you should give yourself two detoxifying treatments every week, focusing on the body's primary organs of elimination: the colon, the liver, and the kidneys. There are two goals: One is to cleanse toxins out of your body at a rapid rate similar to which your cells are releasing them. The second is to help you learn what it takes to care for yourself, which few people understand because they're stressed out and overcommitted, and therefore neglect themselves. There are many, many detoxifying treatments. I've divided them into three categories: “must-have,” “want-to-have” and “nice-to-have” if you have time and money. The “must-have” treatments are essential. Without them, toxins will back up in your body and you will feel terrible.
Providing much-needed support to your hard-working eliminatory organs, “want-to-have” treatments are great supplements to the “must-haves.” Select a few of the “want-to-have” activities if you have time and money to do them, but many people will not, so I do not include them among the activities that are essential to this detox.

Must-have treatments:

• Water—six to eight cups (8 oz.) of distilled water daily
  
• Colonic
  
• Kidney flush
  
• Coffee enema
  

Want-to-have treatments:

• Chi machine
  
• Detoxifying bath
  
• Dry skin brush
  
• Rebounder (lymphatic drainage)
  
• Sauna
  

Nice treatments to get if you have time and money:

• Body wrap
  
• Cellulite treatment
  
• Ear coning
  
• Lymphatic drainage massage
  
• Gallbladder liver flush
  

Must-Have Treatments

Water

About 70 percent of the human body is composed of water. Without it we can't survive. While a person can live five weeks without food, they won't make it for five days without water. Why is it so important that we wet our whistle? H
₂
O aids our digestive processes; assists us in absorbing nutrients and transporting them throughout the body; aids our blood and other fluids in cir
culating; keeps our internal thermostat in check; and flushes out unwanted waste matter, fat, and toxins. We are constantly losing water when we urinate, move our bowels, and sweat, so we must drink water—not juice, not soda, not coffee—to replenish it. Just as water is vital to cleansing, nourishing, and lubricating the cells, it softens our stools and lubricates the colon, making it easier for our bowel movements to pass. Drink six to eight 8-ounce glasses of water (48 to 64 ounces total) daily while you're on the Martha's Vineyard Diet Detox. Again, you're drinking extra water while you're on the detox so it can help flush out cellular waste. If you do not drink the water, your results will be slower. Remember that the best water to drink during your detox is distilled.

Colon Cleanse

Not only does cleaning your colon help eliminate toxins that make you feel bad and cause you to gain weight, colon cleansing is an important technique to preserve your long-term, overall health. There are several ways to clean your colon, from drinking water to using herbal cleanse formula to giving yourself an enema to getting colonics. I recommend the following:

• 21-day detox:
  three colonics (one per week), herbal-cleanse formula (daily)
  
• 7-day detox:
  one colonic, herbal-cleanse formula (daily)
  
• 2-day detox:
  herbal-cleanse formula (daily)
  

Colonics.
Colon hydrotherapy is a way of cleansing the colon. I love colonics because they accomplish four things:

1. Soften the stool and flush out toxins
   
2. Soak the sludge (hard fecal matter), helping it to begin to slough off.
   
3. Lubricate the colon.
   
4. Retrain the colon to engage and improve peristalsis.
   

Colonics differ from enemas in that they have deeper cleaning power. The colon is approximately 5½ to 6 feet long and stretches
to 2½ to 3 inches in diameter. There is enough water in an enema bag to stimulate peristalsis in the lower one-third of your colon. A colonic, on the other hand, can flush your entire colon out (whether this happens in any individual session has much to do with how impacted with feces it is).

Unlike enemas, which you can administer to yourself at home, colonics are administered by professionally trained
colon hydrotherapists
(colon therapists), experts in cleansing the colon and educating you on how that organ works. Find one by referral, and visit the website of the International Association for Colon Hydrotherapy (www.i-act.org) to make sure that they're certified.

When you get a colonic, you undress from the waist down and lie on a massage table, with your lower body covered by a sheet or towel. The colon therapist lubricates your anus with KY jelly or vitamin E oil, then slowly and gently slides the single leg of a hollow, Y-shaped speculum about an inch or two into your rectum. The speculum is about the size of a quarter. Since the rectum is a muscle designed to expand and contract, inserting the speculum doesn't hurt. However, anyone who has not done it before will experience different sensations than they may have experienced before. Although inserting the speculum can cause anxiety, it neither hurts nor feels particularly good. After a few moments, the rectum will relax and you may become unaware that the speculum is there.

The two branches at the wishbone-shaped end of the speculum are connected to two different hoses. The one attached to the narrow side of the Y directs a gentle stream of purified water into the body. Fecal material comes out through the other hose and empties into the sewage system.

To begin, the therapist opens the intake valve, allowing the colon to slowly fill. The patient feels his or her colon slowly filling with water, which softens the feces and loosens the sludge, making it easier for them to pass. To stimulate peristalsis, the therapist may alternate between admitting warm and cool water or may massage your abdomen. Eventually, the client feels the urge to have a bowel movement, at which point the therapist opens the outflow hose and the body's natural peristalsis propels the stool
out of the body. The entire process is self-contained. When the client moves his or her bowels, there are no sounds, no smells, no spills, and no mess.

As the fecal matter exits through the outflow hose, it flows past a little window in the colonic machine on its way to the building's sewage system. This window in the machine acts as a window into your body, allowing you and the colon therapist to look at what's happening inside. The therapist can tell whether you're chewing your food well enough; if stool has become impacted into your colon's many nooks and crannies; whether your body is experiencing an overgrowth of
Candida
or yeast; if you have excess mucus, bacteria, toxins, or parasites.

Each patient's colon is rinsed and cleansed several times in each session. During the session, the therapist massages the stomach, helping to loosen impacted waste material and stimulate peristalsis. Over time, even a sluggish colon will “remember” how to contract, reducing the amount of time it takes to move waste out of the body. Depending on how impacted the client's colon is, the session can be more vigorous or extremely relaxing. Regardless, a colonic is an amazing educational session you truly never forget!

Afterwards, the colon hydrotherapist serves some
acidophilus
or another
probiotic
to help restore the good bacteria that live inside the colon. Immediately, you feel completely different—cleaner, lighter, and more energetic, true signs that your body was very toxic. It takes the average person three or more sessions to clean out the entire colon. By the third or fourth session the water might reach the cecum, the place where the large intestine starts.

 

Laxatives.
The standard medical response when someone is constipated is to prescribe an over-the-counter or prescription laxative. There are several different types of laxatives, though people seem to prefer stool softeners and stimulants. I don't believe in using laxatives often. First of all, they're chemical stimulants, which means now you have more toxins in your bloodstream. On top of that, most laxatives irritate the colon, putting it into spasm
and causing it to purge some—but not always all—of its contents. If you use them regularly, they can damage the colon without ever healing the root cause of why you're constipated in the first place. Many people become so accustomed to them that they unknowingly train their colon to be sluggish, rather than reconditioning it to engage in peristalsis. Consequently, when they don't take the laxative, they don't go to the bathroom. Finally, laxatives clean the inside of the colon out, but they don't slough off that sludgy fecal matter that lines your intestinal walls.