21 Pounds in 21 Days (3 page)

Once I returned home, I threw myself into learning everything I could about holistic medicine. I was still ill so I did most of my studying in bed. By now, I knew that a healthy colon would be the key to my recovery, so I studied to become certified as a colon therapist, earning my certificate in 1993. Around that time Tony and I relocated back to Connecticut. I returned to nursing, practicing, among other places, at Yale–New Haven Hospital.

As I studied natural healing, I began to learn that alternative doctors are preventing heart attacks and minimizing the need for prescription drugs and surgery by doing things like helping people eat healthier foods, strengthening their immune systems, and administering treatments designed to remove poisonous heavy metals like arsenic and mercury from their body. The more I learned, the more I grew disenchanted—and sometimes even angry—with my profession. While complementary medicine, a diverse collection of health care practices and products that fall outside of the traditions of conventional medicine, isn't the end all and be all, it does have a lot to offer. Unfortunately, the medical establishment looks down on it.

I earned my PhD in natural healing in 1996. Thirsty for more knowledge, I enrolled in the Clayton School of Natural Healing to receive my ND (naturopathic doctor degree). A naturopath differs from a traditional allopathic doctor educated at a typical American medical school. Allopathic physicians are trained to diagnose and treat diseases, prescribe drugs, and perform invasive surgical procedures. They do not learn much about prevention, how a person can heal his or her own body, or how to correct the root causes or reasons a person developed a health condition in the first place, though few will just come out and tell you this.

Naturopaths are trained to be both healers and educators. We believe that, when provided with the right conditions, the body naturally and innately heals itself. Our job is to teach our clients how to create those conditions. A naturopath's training is similar to that of an allopathic doctor, but instead of learning how to prescribe drugs and perform surgery (which we believe are useful, but just not the treatment of first choice), we are trained to treat our clients with foods, nutritional supplements, herbs, enemas, colonics, various mind/body/spirit approaches, iridology, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine (a healing system native to India), and stress reduction and relaxation techniques that help the body heal itself.

In naturopathic school I learned many important concepts that would help me to heal myself. For example, that brain fog/Coke bottle feeling that caused me to feel “out of it” and unable to find my daughter's school? I learned it's a classic symptom of
Candida
, a type of fungus, wherein the body is overrun with yeast cells, and that you can get rid of it by going on an anti-
Candida
cleanse and strict program of dietary changes, herbs, and phytonutrients.

I also realized that I had to be able to understand and help people who were sick access their mind–body connection. So I next studied and became certified as a hypnotist by the American Institute of Hypnotherapy. Knowing hypnosis also helped me overcome my own physical challenges. As I educated myself, I “test drove” on my own body every procedure I learned in school. I learned their strengths and limitations, what worked and what didn't. Overall, I was amazed by the results!

One day, I woke up and realized I felt great. I had the kind of feeling that makes you sing in the shower at the top of your lungs! I don't know what happened on that particular morning; wellness is a process, it doesn't come in a magic pill. Yet I've learned that there's often a point at which you get over some kind of hump and suddenly realize you're getting better. It had taken me seven years, but I accomplished my goal of healing myself!

While I was engaged in this exhausting process of studying and healing, my old friend Deb told me about Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Though I had grown up in and lived in Connecticut, about four hours from “The Vineyard,” as the island is called, I didn't know anything about this playground for the “rich and famous.” I hadn't had any downtime since I could remember, so I gladly investigated. The ferry ride over was beautiful. I felt rejuvenated by the blue skies, the feel of warm sunshine on my face, the seagulls that waft alongside the boat as it travels, and the smell of the fresh sea air. When I arrived, I felt like I was in heaven. I loved the pastel-colored gingerbread cottages, the dramatic cliffs, the
island's scenic lighthouses. I decided that I had to live there. Within a year my family and I had moved into a spacious home in the town of Oak Bluffs.

I worked as a nurse at Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. I had mixed feelings about being back in a hospital setting, but my return to traditional medicine taught me a lot. I found that I felt guilty distributing the roughly twenty-five pills I provided to many of my patients daily, knowing that I was exposing them to the medicines' side effects. I realized, instead, that I wanted to teach people to repair, regenerate and rejuvenate themselves by detoxifying their bodies. As a side job, I began working with older people who were interested in being weaned off of medications. Over time, my client list grew. I also started a support group for people with CFS. Word traveled that I knew how to help people heal. Before long, my house was filled with friends and guests wanting me to help them get better from CFS, cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis. I did.

In the middle of all this, I bore my son Toron. I also have an older stepson, Tony, Jr., who is older than my daughter Whitney. My pregnancy put more stress on my healing-but-still-fragile body than it was able to handle. After giving birth, it took me a month to walk and two years to recover. While nursing myself back to optimal health, I developed the cleansing program and healing philosophy behind the Martha's Vineyard Diet Detox. I was able to resume a full life as a wife, mother, and healer, so I knew it could work for others.

In 1999 I opened the Martha's Vineyard Holistic Retreat (www.mvholisticretreat.com), located at the Martha's Vineyard Inn in Vineyard Haven. My background allows me to integrate traditional Western and alternative approaches, while my experience in acute and chronic care allows me to help people who are extremely sick. My clients range from islanders to vacationers to New Age gurus to medical doctors, some of whom say they fear being run out of their profession for pursuing alternative care. In the off-season I travel around the country and treat people in their homes.

I noticed that as I detoxed my clients to help them improve their health, they would feel thrilled that they were also losing weight. I kept reminding them that they were healing from chronic diseases, but they kept talking about dropping pounds. In time, I started to understand just how important weight loss was to them. Indeed, a healthy body and a healthy weight go hand in hand, and weight loss is a wonderful consequence of detoxifying the body. But between the demands of starting a business, beginning menopause (at which point my metabolism slowed to a crawl), and not exercising, I started to get quite heavy. Although I was eating very healthy foods, over several years I gained about 50 pounds. This really bothered me. Even prior to getting sick, I had been obsessed with dieting. Weight has always been a challenge for me; the women in my family tend to be hippy
and we all carry weight around our butts. Over the years I'd done a lot of research on diets and dieting and tried them all: Atkins, Pritikin, high protein, low carb. None of them worked. Fortunately, by this time I knew that toxicity must play a role, but I was so busy helping to heal others that I didn't address my own weight problem right away.

One day James Hester, an entertainment industry marketing and promotions professional, came to stay at the Inn. He was surprised not only by how much younger and vibrant he looked after detoxing, but by how both his energy level and outlook on life improved during the process. I detoxed James twice. He lost 21 pounds each time. (You can read James's testimonial on page 16.) He started referring his friends and family. They detoxed, lost weight, felt better, and looked great. But after he knew me fairly well, James got on my case, insisting that I needed to lose weight. At his urging I decided to heed my own advice and lost the 50 pounds. My metabolism is still extremely slow, but I keep my weight down by following the program. In the meantime James kept referring people to me. Each time, he observed that everyone lost weight.

“This detoxing for health is great,” he told me. “But I am convinced that you have a diet—a detox diet!” He went on a mission to get me this book deal. In order to prove that my program worked. I detoxed my publisher Judith Regan, who lost 21 pounds. My cowriter, Hilary Beard, also detoxed but, like many people, didn't want to lose weight. You can read her story on page 185 and tips for detoxing while maintaining your size in Chapter 8.