NUTRITION STORIES by Elaine Fawcett, CNT, MA

1. Detox Foot Baths
2. Detoxing requires daily discipline
3. Taming the Sugar Beast

Detoxify with a Foot Bath

By Elaine Fawcett, Certified Nutritional Therapist, MA

You can’t escape them anymore — they’re everywhere. In the plastics in your phones, car upholstery and food packaging. In the flame retardants in your bed and furniture. They’re even in the air, and in the water you drink and the food you eat. Our environment contains more than 80,000 synthetic chemicals, with new ones being added constantly, and the health effects of only a handful of these chemicals has been studied. The human body has the miraculous ability not only to adapt, but to thrive in the face of hardship. These days, however, our bodies could use some help dealing with so many synthetic chemicals, many of which are known toxins. Although it’s prudent to minimize our exposure to toxins (such as using natural household cleaners and eating organic food), living completely free of them has become impossible. Even Arctic polar bears show high amounts of environmental toxins in their livers. The key, then, is to turn the body into an efficient detoxifier. Eating well, drinking plenty of clean water, exercising regularly and supporting your detox organs are essential. Adding a detoxification foot bath into your routine several times a year is another way to eliminate toxins, from heavy metals to insecticides. A detox foot bath is both effective and gentle, helping cleanse the body of harmful toxins without the upsetting reactions that more drastic measures, such as juice fasts or intensive liver cleanses, can induce (the body’s elimination pathways should always be cleared and supported before undertaking such therapies). This cleanse frees the body to better utilize nutrients and oxygen, and complete the many, varied enzyme reactions that are your body’s “spark plugs” of life.

How does the detox foot bath work? An ion generator is placed in the foot bath, generating both positively and negatively charged ions. This process pulls toxins from the lymphatic and circulatory system through the numerous, large pores of the feet. The feet possess more sweat glands per square inch than anywhere else on the body.

People report a variety of effects from a series of detox foot baths. Most report feeling lighter and more energetic. Some will feel more tired for the first few baths as their bodies mobilize a large toxic burden. Many find relief from joint pain, edema, gout and more. One mom found her young son, who has Down’s Syndrome, stopped having violent episodes after a series of foot baths. Another woman experienced profound and vivid dreams for 10 days after just one foot bath. The responses are as unique as the individual, and depend on that person’s overall health and toxic burden. If you know someone who has had a detox foot bath, they no doubt told you about the thick, horrible stuff that came out of their feet. Many foot bath companies will point to the rust-colored water as evidence of bodily toxins. In reality, the rust color comes from oxidation of the stainless steel ion generator. Most toxins pulled through the feet are clear, although they often have strong odors. However, based on correlating evidence, different colors in the water suggest specific detoxifying effects. For instance, it’s common for someone with a congested gallbladder to end up with dark green water. Black water points to a congested liver. After one woman’s foot bath produced a layer of what looked like heavy cream on top of the water, I asked her if she suffered from yeast infections. She said they plagued her.

Only one company, makers of the Body Cleanse foot detox bath, have actually studied foot bath water before and after a foot bath, a study that cost more than $10,000. They found numerous environmental toxins as well as various acids in the post-detox water. The Body Cleanse makers also report that several of their practitioner clients have had the water analyzed, revealing a number of heavy metals harmful to the human body. A detox foot bath is a wonderful complement to a good health routine. I like the detox foot bath not only because it pulls toxins out of the body, but also because it gives people a much needed half hour of peace and quiet.

Elaine Fawcett is a Certified Nutritional Therapist. For a nutritional consultation or to schedule a detox foot bath call 971-327-8509 or email digestionconnexion@canby.com.

©Copyright 2007, Elaine Fawcett

Detoxing requires daily discipline

By Elaine Fawcett, Certified Nutritional Therapist, MA

The key to staying healthy in our chemical-saturated world is to become an effective daily detoxifier. Although heaps of radical detox regimes exist, from juice fasts to heavy metal chelation, their lasting success depends on an ancient detox method that is not so glamorous and requires daily discipline: caring for your body as if it were the only one you had.

Removing toxic foods, especially sugars, is an excellent place to start. I know of one woman who ate 12 candy bars a day. Just cutting back by one candy bar a week was enough to provoke some mild “detox reactions,” those temporary, flu-like symptoms that accompany so many detoxes (although reactions can vary widely depending on the person). A sneakier but still quite damaging source of toxicity are those foods that look innocent but cause an immune response, resulting in anything from an itchy rash to auto-immune diseases. The five most common problem foods are gluten products, dairy, eggs, soy and corn. It is typical for folks to eat a food daily, particularly gluten or dairy, that silently wreaks internal havoc, since the body has long given up on sounding the alarms. An elimination/challenge diet, in which all the allergens are eliminated for two weeks and then reintroduced one by one every three days, is the best way to ferret out these offenders.

After removing toxic foods, the next step is to add in cleansing foods, with the most obvious start being an abundance of colorful vegetables. I know a family who experienced detox reactions when they added steamed leafy greens to their daily diet. Such foods provide not only important vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, but also FIBER. Laxatives are one of the top-selling drug store items in the United States, which is a sad commentary on the state of our digestive tracts. Everybody should be having at least one bulky, easy, well-formed bowel movement a day. Your body absorbs about 6 liters of water a day through the intestines. If the intestines are impacted with fecal matter, then you’re absorbing and reabsorbing dirty water, circulating dirty blood and creating a launch pad for poorer health. Vegetables that are low in carbohydrates (that means no potatoes, and remember, corn is a grain) should make up more than half of your plate at every meal. For breakfast shoot for low-carb fruits, such as blueberries, which are also loaded with antioxidants. The lymphatic system is another vital component to staying detoxed. Lymph flows at a sluggish 3 liters per day, compared to our blood, speeding through the body at 5 liters per minute. Which brings us to our next crucial detoxifier: Exercise. Lymph requires the contraction of muscles to circulate throughout the body, cleaning up nasties as it goes along. So if framing workouts in terms of minutes of cardio or pounds pushed sends shivers up your spine, get out for a walk to pump your lymph and boost your immunity.

I must end by addressing the most powerful detox tool you possess: Your mind! Mental stress is perhaps the most potent toxin you can inflict on yourself. Even stressing out about all the toxins in our environment is going to rob you of good health. It is simply amazing to see how a positive attitude affects health, versus a negative one.

Establishing the habits of a detoxifying lifestyle is a lifelong process; a constant balancing act that varies with age, activity level and environment. What with the addictive nature of junk food and the billions of dollars spent advertising it, sticking to a diet of simple, whole foods can be a formidable, if not revolutionary, undertaking. But if you think a clean house feels nice, just way until you experience a clean body.

Daily Detox Tips

Jumping into a radical detox, such as a juice fast, can make some people very ill — the body’s elimination pathways should always be cleared and supported first (see story). However, gentler detox methods exist, my favorite being a detoxification foot bath. An ion generator is placed in the foot bath, pulling toxins from the lymphatic and circulatory system through the numerous, large pores of the feet. Lab analyses show the foot bath draws out many environmental toxins as well as various acids and heavy metals. Also, although I am not in the network marketing business, I have found one safe and excellent detox product that cannot go without mention: Natural Cellular Defense (NCD). This product is unique because once it attracts toxins, it encases them in a cage-like molecule so they don’t lodge elsewhere in the body on the way out. I also like it because it’s easy to give to children. To schedule a foot bath, call 971-327-8509. For more information on NCD, visit www.mywaiora.com/103870.

©Copyright 2007, Elaine Fawcett

LIFE IS SWEET ENOUGH

Unclenching the jaws of the sugar beast

By Elaine Fawcett, CNT, MA

We Americans seem to make the winter months one long sugar binge, starting with Halloween candy and finishing up with chocolate eggs. We fill the spaces in between with bottomless sodas, sugary cereals, pastries at the meeting table, and, of course, dessert after dinner. When you look at all sweeteners combined, Americans consume an average of 200 pounds each of the sweet stuff a year. It’s no wonder the Center for Disease Control predicts that one in three Caucasian children born after 2000 will become diabetic. For Hispanics and African-Americans, that number jumps to 1 in 2.

So why aren’t we shaking our fists? Because, quite simply, sugar is an addictive drug that has so thoroughly infiltrated every corner of our lives that we’re dull to its presence and hooked on its high. Why do you think celebrities get fat in rehab? You have only to look at snack ideas in a Girl Scout handbook, check out what the teacher gives as treats, or walk the aisles of your local grocery store for evidence of how far we’ve strayed from our ancestral diets.

For most of human history, sweets have been a scarcity and food in general was hard to come by. Our bodies have evolved to weather times of famine when blood sugar levels are low, threatening survival. Only one percent of our pancreas is in charge of actually responding to excess sugar, so rare has that been for our species…until now. As a result, a roller coaster of blood sugar highs and lows ensues and our “fight or flight” hormones are called in for backup. They have no idea whether an angry bison is chasing us or we just ate a huge gooey brownie. As far as they’re concerned, the threat to survival is the same. As a result, convenient functions like immunity and hormone balancing take a back seat until everything settles down, which, for many, it rarely does. So it’s no wonder we are a nation of chronically ill, hormonally imbalanced and overweight sugar junkies.

As a recovering sugar addict who experiences relapses, I am intimate with how difficult it is to come clean, but I’ve picked up a few tips along the way. First, if we consume enough vegetable fiber and healthy fats, such as butter and coconut oil (more on fats in a future column), AND we are digesting these fats, sugar cravings go down. Secondly, if we are properly nourished and digesting well, the glucose-driven brain is less apt to scream for energy from the nearest Snicker’s bar. Thirdly, carbohydrate-rich foods such as fruits, grains, beans and potatoes turn to sugar soon after they hit the stomach (even if they are “complex carbs”), and can trigger more sugar cravings. A good rule of thumb: If you feel sleepy or crave sugar after a meal, you just ate too many carbs, and how much is too much is different for everyone. (If this happens after no carbs, you may have insulin resistance.)

When we find balance nutritionally, we can enjoy the occasional treat without sliding into a three-day cookie dough binge. The hardest part of kicking sugar is that by saying “No thank you”, we are making a statement that rejects an American way of life and sheds awkward light on a pressing national dilemma. I like to remind myself that, for the most part, life is sweet enough.

Elaine Fawcett, CNT, MA, is a Certified Nutritional Therapist practicing in Salem and Canby. Please call 971-327-8509 or email digestionconnexion@canby.com.

©Copyright 2007, Elaine Fawcett