A RAW COUPLE'S DETOX

Cliff and I onto our fourth day of raw, and we're detoxing.  Though my feet and ankles and knees are feeling better, and his ankles are feeling better, we're really tired.

It's to be expected when going back to healthier eating.  Detox is real and a natural consequence and it comes in waves throughout the day.  Sometimes I awake really energetic.  This morning I woke up crying.

Dr. John Robbins explains in his video, "Healing Through Nutrition," "Start eating only fruits and vegetables for a few days, and on the 3rd day, you won't be able to get out of bed and you'll see just how healthy you really are."  Meaning, to the level that detox kicks in, that's how lacking in real, true vital 'energy' you really were.   

Raw food, he explains, alkelizing raw food, is energizing from the organic glucose, nutrients, enzymes, proteins, fatty acids, minerals and water inherently within it.  Since the body tends towards acidity (so important to realize), it NEEDS to be fed daily with alkelizing foods, to function properly - this is just the way the body is built.  So why does eating healthy...suddenly make you feel 'bad?'

Robbins video is really offering answers.

Acidifying foods offer false STIMULATION.  Our body has been leaning on and drawn to the stimulation they offer, at our expense.  Instead of running on true vital energy created from good nutrition, we are running on adrenalyn from our emergency reserves.  When we take in acidifying foods, our body sees them as poisons and directs the poisons away from the heart creating tumors and other symptoms and storing the toxins in body fat.  The body does this...to help us!  It is trying to keep us alive!  When we eat acidifying foods, we are putting our body through an onslaught of stress, asking it to keep energizing our daily activities with energy from it's own resources (adrenalyn), since all we're giving it is poison (acidifying food).  Soon, however, the adrenals are exhausted from constantly pumping out emergency energy.

Go raw and suddenly pour in an onslaught of live and alkelizing foods, and suddenly the body needs to make a serious switch in what it has been running on.  Suddenly, the body realizes there is REAL LIVE ENERGY to go about the serious work it had been unable to accomplish until now, having been busy diverting all of those toxins away from the heart to keep you alive.  Now at work cleaning those stores and pockets of toxins out, there is only so much energy to go around.  Our regular daily activities may have to take a step back as the body busies itself cleaning up the insides.  "Respect the body and rest while you're having an internal healing crisis. The body is working on cleansing from the inside," Dr. Robbins says.    

In the video, Robbins cautions listeners to detox slowly for the sake of your daily life, and suggests working towards a diet of nothing less than 80% raw and 20% coooked.

Cliff is not as used to raw as I am and took note of this and decided to have a cooked gluten free breakfast while he was out this morning, thinking it could help slow the detox down and help him not feel so tired and adjust better to all of the alkeline he's been suddenly eating.

As long as he gets back on the raw alkeline wagon, I have no problem with this.  Maybe cooked every 3-4 days will help him adjust.  He is doing so well - no coffee today (acidifying), all raw since we started - he is such a trooper.  And the fact that he ate something cooked 'out' is abiding by what I had asked - I had initiated a pact that our kitchen would be all raw and all cooked food would be eaten out.  I'm okay with whatever he needs to do for himself.  (And, I know I have that "option," too, which feels comforting, but i'm okay so far.  I don't feel like i need it...yet.)  And really the intense FEAR of cooked 'starting a binge' is lessened by what Dr. Robbins is teaching - if you have ENOUGH alkeline to buffer the cooked (at least 80%/20%), your body will feed off of glucose and nutrition and not off of adrenalyn.  At least that's how i'm understanding it today.        

So, we respect the body and rest.  It's going through a cleansing process.  Rest, water, gentleness, togetherness.  We feel close.  We're in this together.  It's nice.  Finally :-))  We just needed each other :-)

Soon we'll piddle on the patio creating our garden by setting up our new tomato plants and herbs, and later I have a singing job.    

My sweet Cliff just fell asleep on the sofa after having just gotten back from a bicycle ride and having popped in the Dr. Robbins video again, from which I am gratefully absorbing info as we speak.  It's so nice how much interest he is taking in getting more educated.  He's taking responsibility for his health!

So, even though we feel a little crappy, we still feel better than we did before we started, and we know how much better we will soon feel!

P.S. I found notes on the internet that go along with Dr. Robbins "Healing Through Nutrition" video that someone unrelated to Dr. Robbins put up on their website.  Check them out to learn more about what foods are alkelizing and which are acidifying...      http://healthfree.com/nutritional_power_robbins.html 

xoxo michelle joy