7-Day Detox Miracle: Revitalize Your Mind and Body with This Safe and Effective Life-Enhancing Program Book

This was required reading for class. Here follows my review.

1. What is the "Big Idea" of this book?

The Big Idea is twofold: We are "in-toxin-cated;" however, we can greatly improve our health by going through the steps to release those toxins from our bodies.

2. List three things you learned about detox and the Foundations from this book.

I learned that we need proper fatty acids for Phase 1 detoxification. That means that we need to not only be eating healthy fats, we need to be digesting them properly. Fatty acids are so important to health & I'm not terribly surprised that they're crucial for detox. I'd say that this is probably one of the reasons why many people are so toxic; most people are misinformed about what healthy fats actually are. Bile production slows down when we eat poor-fat or low-fat diets, & that means we don't properly break down the fats we do eat. Plus, most people in our culture are arguably so stressed out that they can't get into a relaxed state for proper digestion to occur.

The second thing I learned ties into the first: Without proper bile production & release, we can't bind toxins to expel them. Bile's role in the body is not just to break down fats into fatty acids; it also binds toxins & helps to carry them out of the body.

That leads to the third thing I learned: Constipation results in the reabsorption of toxins carried by the bile. When the feces sits in the large intestine for too long, the bacteria living there are able to separate the toxins from the bile. This leads to them being reabsorbed through the thin membrane of the intestine.

All of this is to say that proper digestion is extremely important, & it's responsible for more than just the uptake of nutrients. I don't think our culture really thinks much of this, probably because we've normalized constipation. Bottom line: If you aren't pooping on the daily, something needs to be addressed.

3. Did you find anything contradictory to the philosophy of this class?

Despite the decent information in the book, I did come across several statements that are contradictory to our own philosophies at NTA. One of the worst offenders? Saturated fat was lumped in with hydrogenated. Saturated fat has gotten a bad rap for years because of the erroneous assumption that it works the same as trans fats [hydrogenated fats] in the body. We now know that saturated fats from sources like properly raised animals & plants like coconut are healthful & even necessary for our bodies.

Following that, they said cholesterol is raised by eating saturated fats & I have lots of issues with this. First, our culture's fat phobia has led to raised cholesterol. How? Well, cholesterol is a protective substance that our body needs. When we starve the body of cholesterol, it makes its own. The result? Not eating enough cholesterol results in the body making more of it while eating enough results in the body making less. Cholesterol has also been blamed for conditions like heart disease because it's merely been spotted at the scene of the crime. Why? Because cholesterol is protective, it responds to inflammation in the body. Heart disease is an inflammatory disease, so cholesterol is present trying to fix the issue. It's been wrongly blamed as the cause of the problem.

The authors seem to have a vegetarian slant, though they admit that people do need animal protein. At one point they said to make sure to eat meat that was "drug-free & grain-fed," which seems like an oxymoron & possibly a typo. We know that the healthiest meat comes from the healthiest animals: those that are fed their natural diets while living in a suitable environment, like cows grazing on pasture [ie. not eating grains]. There typically isn't a need for drugs in these types of animals since they are living healthy lifestyles.

At first, I found it strange that they recommend distilled water as it can strip the body of minerals. After a bit of Googling, I found that, according to Dr. Mercola, drinking distilled water can "only be recommended as a way of drawing poisons out of the body." I still kind of feel that drinking distilled water would not be a great idea since it does cause the loss of minerals. Considering that there's a two day fasting period in this program, it seems like we'd need proper mineral balance during those two days to not pass out. Just my opinion.

I also found their recommendations for low blood sugar to possibly be contradictory to our own as they suggested more fluids [with no mention of electrolytes], more rice, & a fruit shake before bed. Hypoglycemia tends to worsen when we eat even more carbohydrates, so I'm not sure what they're going for here. I don't know about you, but if I drank a fruit shake before bed I'd wake up shaking.

4. What are your thoughts/comments/perspectives about this book?

Let's be honest: I almost threw the book across the room [read: across the upper level of the parking garage I was walking on during my lunch break] when I read "Eat a low-fat diet to prevent obesity" on page 112, but then I realized that would be unwise since the majority of the information in the book is good.

The book definitely helped me understand more of the nitty-gritty of Phases 1 & 2 detox. I may opt to try the program one day, but I haven't decided. All in all, I think it's a good resource for learning more about the detoxification process as well as what nutrients are essential for detoxification.