When people change their diet and truly start eating clean, they often feel worse initially as the body is able to initiate the first true healing detox it has probably had in many years.
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What To Expect When You Improve Your Diet
By Stanley S. Bass, D.C.
If I were asked, “which is the area of greatest misunderstanding and confusion in the field of nutrition?”, I would immediately be forced to reply, “It is the failure to properly understand and interpret the symptoms and changes which follow the beginning of a better nutritional program.”
What happens when a person makes a decided improvement in the quality of the food consumed? Remarkable things begin to happen to the body (as well as the mind). The amazing intelligence present in every cell of the body, the wisdom of the body in its operation immediately becomes manifest.
“Withdrawal” Symptoms Follow Use of Improved Diet
What are the symptoms or signs which become evident when we first begin to omit the lower-grade foods and instead introduce superior foods - those which are more alive, more natural than we are accustomed to?
A letdown occurs. This is due to the discard by the body of the toxins which are removed from the tissues and transported through the bloodstream to the eliminating organs.
This initial letdown lasts about ten days or slightly longer and is followed by an increase of strength, a feeling of diminishing stress and greater well-being.
Don’t Judge Results Prematurely
The person who starts a better diet, stays on it for three days to a week and then quits will say, “Oh! I feel better on the old diet—the new one made me feel weak.” He failed because he didn’t give his body a chance to adjust and complete its first phase of action - recuperation.
During the initial phase (lasting about ten days on the average to several weeks in some), the vital energies which are usually in the periphery or external part of the body much as the muscles and skin begin to move to the vital internal organs and start reconstruction. This shunting of much of the power to the internal region produces a feeling which the mind interprets as some weakness. Actually, the power is increased, but most of it is being used for rebuilding the more important organs and less of it is available for muscular work. Any weakness which is felt here is not true weakness, but merely a re-deploying of forces to the more important internal parts. Here it is important for the person to stop wasting energy, and to rest and sleep more. This is a crucial phase and if the person resorts to stimulants of any kind, he will abort and defeat the regenerative efforts of the body. It is important that he have patience and faith here and just wait it out, and after a while he will get increasing strength which will exceed by far what he felt before he began the new program.
Success in recovery or improvement of health hinges upon the correct understanding of this point - realizing that the body is using its main energies in more important internal work and not wasting it in external work involving muscle movements. Be wise - take it easy here and relax. Just coast in your work and social obligations until you’re out of the woods.
Excerpts - reprinted from HYGIENIC REVIEW
