The Quick and Easy
Guide to Improving Your Health on the Body Ecology Program Part VI: Why You
Might Feel Bad (At First) When You Start to Eat Healthy
You're following the Body Ecology Diet, and eating healthier than
ever, but you feel awful? Don't worry! This is a good sign that your
body is flushing out toxins and getting well. Find out here why you
need to hang in there, and what you can do to relieve your symptoms.
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Congratulations, you've given up processed foods, added fermented foods and
drinks and started your healthy Body Ecology program.
So why don't you feel 100% great?
You're not alone. Many people experience mild to severe discomfort
when they begin to make healthier lifestyle choices.
What's important is that you learn to recognize these symptoms as evidence
that your body has essentially begun to "clean house".
Cleansing is a natural force that drives the impurities from your body created
by a poor diet, the environment, and your emotional life. Cleansing is essential
to your well-being, vitality and longevity.
There is even a name for the uncomfortable "illness" symptoms
that show up during cleansing: the Herxheimer reaction!
The Herxheimer Reaction - Feeling Worse Before Feeling Better
The phenomenon, also called a healing crisis or die off, was first described
over a hundred years ago by Adolf Jarisch, and a few years later by Karl Herxheimer.
They were two doctors treating syphilitic lesions on the skin of their patients,
and they noticed that in response to treatment, many patients' illness
symptoms intensified before improving.
In fact, they found that those patients whose uncomfortable reactions to
treatment were the strongest, healed the fastest, and best.
Today, it is well recognized in medical circles that the release of toxins
from dying pathogens in the body causes illness symptoms that are in fact
a sign of effective treatment.2
Any time you make a radical change to your lifestyle and eating habits, or
when you withdraw from addictions, your body needs to cleanse out toxins,
or "detox".
For more information on cleansing, read: Why
Your Body Needs to Cleanse (and the Surprising Signs That it is Cleansing):
Part I
Body Ecology Detoxifies Your Body
Pathogenic yeast and bacteria normally present in on our inner and outer
body surfaces love high-sugar, acid-forming, low mineral foods - it's what
helps them thrive!
So when you eat processed foods, take
antibiotics, or change your blood chemistry with birth control pills or
other drugs, you create a perfect environment for fungus/yeast
and other pathogenic organisms to take control, and burrow even deeper into
your body's cells, tissues or muscles.
The Body Ecology Diet works because it starves the unfriendly yeast and pathogenic
bacteria in your system, and populates your gut with friendly microflora
(beneficial bacteria and yeast) instead.
Unable to survive, the pathogenic organisms begin to die, which creates the
need for your body to get rid of them.
As dead yeast and bacteria begin to exit through normal channels in your
body, they sometimes release toxins faster than your body is able to handle.
This die-off can create symptoms such as:
- Acne
- Sore throat
- Headaches
- Skin rashes and itchy skin
- Muscle and joint aches and pains
- Vaginal discharge and itching
- Fatigue and weakness
- Swollen glands
- Nausea
- Constipation, bloating, or diarrhea
- Low grade fever
- Depression
The greater the die-off of pathogens, the more uncomfortable you may be,
and the more symptoms you might have.
Stay the Course!
It's extremely important to remain strictly on the Body Ecology program
during this time of detoxificaiton, and to give yourself the maximum opportunity
to heal. Don't get discouraged when you find yourself as sick, if not sicker
than before. In fact, you might even notice that you feel better in some ways,
even while experiencing die-off.
The good news is, when the healing period ends, you will definitely feel
stronger and better than ever!
Give your body time. It could take as little as a few days, or as long as
a few months depending on the level of toxicity in your body.
In the meantime, here are some things that you can do to help your progress
through die-off:
Assist your body as it cleanses with professional colonics and home enemas
Be sure to read: Powerful
Tips to Improve Your Digestive System's Health: From a Conversation with Nancy
Spahr, CBE and Colon Therapist
Often, when your body starts to cleanse, your bowels stop moving and just
at the time you need them to eliminate efficiently, they don't. For the short
term...while you are cleansing...gentle colon cleansing herbs can help encourage
your colon to release again. However, you never want to become dependent on
laxatives.
- Don't overeat. In fact, eat less but drink more fluids.
Over eating diverts energy away for digestion.
- Eat all alkaline meals, especially during the first three days on the
diet.
- Eat warming foods like miso
soup.
- Drink plenty of water
and warm, healing teas
- Get plenty of rest and be kind to yourself. Allow your body's natural
healing to take time.
- Avoid
stress.
- Find someone to talk to and be
sure to stick to this important advice to stick to your goals.
It's important for you to know that fermented
foods and drinks
can cause some uncomfortable digestive symptoms before your body is used to
them.
While cultured vegetables and probiotic liquids are excellent for your healing
process, you may need to start with smaller quantities at first. For more
information on this, read: Is
It Possible to Get Too Much Fermented Food in Your Diet?
If your symptoms are so severe that you've tried every recommendation and
still cannot function, you might need to consider backing off and taking a
slower, step-by-step
approach to healing (link to 7 healthy principles).
Try These Natural Symptom Relievers to Help You Hang in There!
- Part of your healthy cleansing process is healthy elimination.
If you are constipated, colon cleansing can help, and another very important
tool is Body Ecology's LivAmend. We created LivAmend to stimulate your liver
and gall bladder to release more bile and therefore release more toxins.
This aids in cleansing and elimination.
Experieincing die-off? To support healthy gall bladder and liver
functioning and to promote healthy elimination, try LivAmend
today.
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- Another great option is digestive enzymes. Assist
Digestive Enzymes and Assist
Dairy and Protein Digestive Enzymes are the best digestive enzymes for
helping your break down and assimilate your foods, so that you can avoid
symptoms like fatigue after eating, gas and bloating.
- And finally, you may want to support symptom relief with essential
oils. When detoxing, you want to make sure you use 100% pure essential
oils. Because of labeling laws, essental oil manufacturers are allowed to
say they are 100% pure, when they are actually exteded by 50% with toxic
chemicals. We recommend third-party tested Forever Young Essential oils
for purity and potency.
Forever
Young's Peppermint oil and Ease
blend are two great options for digestive symptom relief.
To ease digestive pain, Dana Young, founder of Forever Young, recommends
putting 2 - 3 drops of Ease blend on your hand and massaging it into your
abdomen in a gentle, clockwise direction.
No Pain, No Gain?
At Body Ecology, we honor the wisdom of Mother Nature.
And just like Mother Nature always strives for homeostasis, or balance, our
bodies follow suit. When we honor these natural forces, whether sunny or stormy,
we can learn to be in harmony with life.
It's no different with healing.
The next time you experience a cleanse, welcome it as part of your body's
natural healing process. Trust that as you stay the course, you'll experience
the rewards of great health!
Sources:
The Herxheimer Reaction - Feeling Worse Before Feeling Better
http://www.silver-colloids.com/Pubs/herxheimer.html
2Observations of Jarisch-Herxheimer Reaction in Sarcoidosis Patients
http://www.joimr.org/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=51&t=51
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