Powerful Tips to
Improve Your Digestive System's Health: From a Conversation with Nancy Spahr,
CBE & Colon Therapist
Your digestive health has a direct link to your body's health.
In fact, the quality of food you eat affects your quality of life AND
energy. Find out how to improve your digestive health.
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Your digestive tract...that mysterious 30-foot tube holds more solutions
for your health than most of us could ever imagine.
Unfortunately, most of us feed our taste buds before thinking about how
it affects our digestive health.
It's true, isn't it? Most of us have received our nutritional education from
the media, influencing us with delicious tastes designed to meet every craving
and convenience. It's not surprising that we'd forget the correlation between
the quality of our food and the quality of our digestive health.
While it seems like a simple formula on the surface, it's much deeper than
you'd think. That 30-foot tube which makes up your digestive tract is responsible
for delivering the components of what you eat into your body.
So this tube needs to be in good condition to deliver needed nutrients to
their critical digestion and absorption points.
In order to understand digestive health better, we talked with Nancy Spahr,
Certified Body Ecologist, Certified Colon Hydrotherapist and Certified Natural
Health Practitioner. She's studied AND seen it all from what goes in to what
comes out at her healing center, Cleansing Waters.
Here are Nancy Spahr's 7 key steps for your digestive health:
- Choose high quality, fresh organic foods - Nancy has seen incredible
changes when people go from boxed and canned foods to fresh, organic whole
foods as part of the Body Ecology program.
- Incorporate a healthy mix of raw and cooked foods - raw foods
have their own enzymes which are especially important when your body is
healing and may be low on enzymes in general.
- Follow
the 80/20 rule and have 80% of your plate full of healing vegetables.
- Chew thoroughly -Digestion of carbohydrates (starches, sugars)
starts in your mouth with saliva and enzymes. The enzymes not only help
break down your food, they also attack bacteria. Most people don't chew
thoroughly, which makes digestion of food much harder when it reaches your
stomach. Chewing is stage one of proper digestion.
- Understand the importance of stomach acid (HCl) - Stage two of
good digestion happens in stomach and it is your stomach's job is to temporarily
hold food and begin to break it down. Stomach acid is important for in this
stage of digestion and while it does not actually digest the food, it triggers
the enzyme pepsin to break down proteins. The stomach acid also destroys
pathogenic bacteria and parasites, eggs and larvae.
- Aging, poor diet and lifestyle habits can cause an acidic condition
of the blood. If your blood is acidic, your stomach thinks it doesn't
need to secrete stomach acid.
- Not enough stomach acid means you cannot
digest protein properly. The food stagnates and ferments (the
wrong kind of fermentation), setting you up for illness.
- Heartburn, gas and bloating result from too little HCl, not too
much. If you have these symptoms, you could be missing HCl or digestive
enzymes. Nancy recommends Assist
Dairy and Protein, which has HCl and pepsin to help your stomach do
its job of digesting proteins.
- Pay attention to digestive enzymes -your food moves from your stomach
to your small intestine, where 90% of nutrients are absorbed.
- Your pancrease produces digestive enzymes so that you can digest
carbohydrates, fats and proteins. It relies on the gallbladder and liver
for the bile necessary for the digestive process to take place. LivAmend
can be useful at this stage of digestion also because it increases bile
flow from the liver and gallbladder. Bile is necessary for healthy peristaltic
movement and healthy elimination.
- Taking digestive enzymes with each meal , like Assist
and Assist
Dairy and Protein can help your body digest foods. They improve
your body's ability to extract nutrients from the foods you eat. The enzyme,
pancreatin, available at any health food store, is another excellent enzyme
for this stage of digestion. All these enzymes help you avoid the gas,
bloating and other digestive discomforts that often result when your body
lacks the digestive enzymes necessary to break down and assimilate your
foods.
- Incorporate prebiotics and probiotics - Your intestines (small
and large) are the home of your inner ecosystem, where the friendly
microflora (bacteria and yeast) live. The microflora help you digest and
assimilate foods and keep your immunity strong.
- Most people's inner ecosystems are imbalanced, which can lead
to leaky gut, an overabundance of pathogenic bacteria and yeast (like
candida)
and illness. Probiotic-rich fermented foods and drinks add healthy microflora
to your intestines, bringing your inner ecosystem back into balance.
- Including probiotic-rich fermented foods, like cultured
vegetables and probiotic
liquids has been key to transforming people's health, in Nancy's experience.
- Nancy always recommends organic, unpasteurized Apple
Cider Vinegar
with "the mother." An excellent
prebiotic, it feeds healthy microflora and aids your digestion. Try
it in salad dressings in place of regular vinegar.
- Hydrate - Nancy has noticed that many people who first come into
her healing center drink a lot of soda and coffee. Some even start their
day with these acid-producing beverages and changing this habit can really
bring about positive changes in your digestive health.
- Soda and coffee dehydrate your body, which can also sap your
energy. Drinking filtered water, organic herbal teas and probiotic liquids
provide energy and hydration.
- Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine both say that cold drinks slow your
"digestive fire" or your "chi" (energy). Since
life and healing require energy, focus on room temperature water and beverages
or warm tea.
- Cleanse and Detoxify - The Body Ecology program goes a long way
to helping your body cleanse and detoxify. At Cleansing Waters, Nancy and
her team provide a variety of other detoxification services, an important
one being colon hydrotherapy. Donna Gates is a huge proponent of colon hydrotherapy
as a way to support your cleansing and detoxification.
- Pay attention to your stool - bowel movements should occur at
least once per day and ideally after each complete meal. If you are not
eliminating frequently enough, toxins will be accumulating in your colon
and also throughout your entire body...right down to each individual cell.
Your entire body will look and feel toxic!
- Cleanse your colon - everyone could use a colon cleanse. Colon
hydrotherapy (colonics) is an ideal choice because 10 gallons of water
are used to hydrate your colon, softening up hardened fecal matter and
sweeping it gently out of your body. This actually allows your whole body
to detoxify. Releasing toxins from your colon allows your liver to release
more toxins, not to mention all of the cells in your body.
- Nancy recomnends 2 colonics within the first 48 hours. This
allows you to get comfortable with colon hydrotherapy and also allows
the water from the first session to soften any old hardened fecal matter
to be swept away during the second session. Thereafter, her clients have
2 colonics in the next week and one per week for 6 - 8 weeks. After this,
the colon hydrotherapist and client decide upon a maintenance protocol
If you have headaches, skin eruptions, constipation, gas, bloating,
depression or lethargy as you begin your cleanse, a home enema can
be your greatest tool to shorten these "die-off" symptoms
of detoxification. Get your Home
Enema Kit today to support your detoxification and health maintenance
program. |
tailored to the client's needs.
- Enemas are excellent between colonic sessions or as part of your
healthy cleansing program. If you are experiencing constipation, gas,
bloating, skin erruptions and other symptoms of die-off, doing a home
enema can clease toxins from your body right at home and have you feeling
more energetic and happier soon. When your body is cleansing faster than
it can eliminate the toxins, you will experience the Herxheimer's die-off
effect. Stay ahead of your toxins by actively cleansing. Your goal is
to smoothly eliminate them in a consistent, steady manner.
- The
Health and Yoga Home Enema Kit is perfect for doing home enemas
because it includes a 2 quart stainless steel bucket and a 20-inch catheter
that allows you to get water deep into your colon, where it can soften
old hardened fecal matter.
About Nancy Spahr: Nancy had a long history of constipation, depression
and candida, which she successfully healed through the Body Ecology program
and colon hydrotherapy. Today, she shares her healing services with over 50
clients per week in her healing center, Cleansing
Waters.
At Cleansing waters, Nancy and her team provide colon hydrotherapy, Body
Ecology consultations and training, ionic footbaths and the Hothouse Total
Health Spa.
Nancy is a Certified Body Ecologist and I-ACT Certified Colon Hydrotherapist.
You can reach Nancy by calling 317-259-0796 or e-mailing her at: info@cleansingwaters.info.
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