Book Review: CLEAN by Alejandro Junger, M.D. - Welcome to Conscious Nutrition by Heather Fleming.

This is one of my favorite books and thought leaders on the subject of nutrition. He uses an elimination plan to help you bring more ATTENTION and AWARENESS to your body. It isn’t just about the details of what you should or shouldn’t eat in this program, it is learning about your body from the experience.

I believe our nutrition evolution is constant and consistent. There is no “perfect diet” and you just wake up one day and you are there. It is like planting a garden, you care for it, nurture it, and reevaluate every year on what worked and didn’t work. Then you adjust.

“We always make time for what we want.” That is one line in the book that rocks my world. The first thing you need to do before you begin any program is to set your intention.
What do you want from your health? What do you need more or less of every day to be a better and healthier version of yourself?

More free time? Sleep? Energy? Or All of the above?

The protocol for the Clean program is:

1. A liquid meal for breakfast and dinner, while lunch is a solid meal containing protein and vegetables for 3 weeks. He has a list of approved foods that you have either in soups, juices or smoothies.

The Why: Your digestive tract is the core of your body and the hub for your immune system and detoxification processes. When you incorporate liquid meals, your organs have less to do so they can “clean-up” all the residual debris and remove it from your cells. If you have a laundry list of symptoms and are on many medications, your body is congested, not receiving quality vitamins and minerals and not detoxifying properly. This is how your body accumulates stress. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Seriously.

Why 3 weeks? There is research showing that it takes 21 days to make changes turn into a habit. Also, this amount of time allows for healing at the cellular level along with emotional healing.

2. You have a 12-hour window between the last meal of one day until the first meal of the next day.

The Why: It takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and after that you actually start to shift to burning fat. Giving your body time to process food before you go to sleep will help the body dive into fat burning mode during the evening vs spending time digesting your evening meal.

3. Make sure you have a bowel movement once every day. If not, he recommends castor oil as a laxative.

The Why: You all now how I feel about poop. It is so important. As you are intaking higher quality foods, your body needs to have an efficient elimination process. Bacteria and toxins are released out through our bowel movements. If your organs are not absorbing nutrients properly, you will have trouble eliminating properly. This is an easy tool to notice if your body is working efficiently. If not, you need more hydration, oxygen and nutrition. That simple. Besides his castor oil suggestion, I recommend coconut oil, Triphala (Ayurvedic herbs), and magnesium rich foods (leafy greens, avocados, sprouted nut and seed butters).

4. Drink Water.

The Why: When you are eating less amounts of food you need more water. We receive water from the foods we eat and as you are eating less quantity you need to replace this amount along with the water needed to clear the lungs and kidneys to perform their filtering functions.

5. Movement.

The Why: Movement enhances the bodies lymphatic system. The lymphatic system aids the immune system in removing and destroying waste, debris, dead blood cells, pathogens, and toxins.
It also removes excess fluid, and waste products from the interstitial spaces between the cells to release inflammation. It is difficult for the body to heal and restore when chronic, systemic inflammation is present.

6. Rest.

The Why: While you are resting is when your body repairs and restores. This is the whole reason to do cleansing type programs. You are committing yourself to allow for more time to nourish and replenish your body from life stresses. After these types of programs, you can implement mini breaks through out your day to create a healthy and balanced lifestyle.