Secondary Eliminations Are Disease


However the exact form the chain from irritation or malnutrition to
enervation progresses, the ultimate result is an increased level of
toxemia, placing an eliminatory burden on the liver and kidneys in
excess of their ability. Eventually these organs begin to weaken.
Decline of liver and/or kidney function threatens the stability and
purity of blood chemistry. Rather than risk complete incapacitation
or death from self-poisoning, the overloaded, toxic body, guided by
its genetic predisposition and the nature of the toxins (what was
eaten, in what state of stress), cleverly channels surplus toxins
into its first line of defense--alternative or secondary elimination
systems.

Most non-life-threatening yet highly annoying disease conditions
originate as secondary eliminations. For example, the skin was
designed to sweat, elimination of fluids. Toxemia is often pushed
out the sweat glands and is recognized as an unpleasant body odor. A
healthy, non-toxic body smells sweet and pleasant (like a newborn
baby's body) even after exercise when it has been sweating heavily.
Other skin-like organs such as the sinus tissues, were designed to
secrete small amounts of mucus for lubrication. The lungs eliminate
used air and the tissues are lubricated with mucus-like secretions
too. These secretions are types of eliminations, but are not
intended for the elimination of toxins. When toxins are discharged
in mucus through tissues not designed to handle them, the tissues
themselves become irritated, inflamed, weakened and thus much more
subject to bacterial or viral infection. Despite this danger, not
eliminating surplus toxins carries with it the greater penalty of
serious disability or death. Because of this liability, the body, in
its wisdom, initially chooses secondary elimination routes as far
from vital tissues and organs as possible. Almost inevitably the
skin or skin-like mucus membranes such as the sinuses, or lung
tissues become the first line of defense.

Thus the average person's disease history begins with colds, flu,
sinusitis, bronchitis, chronic cough, asthma, rashes, acne, eczema,
psoriasis. If these secondary eliminations are suppressed with drugs
(either from the medical doctor or with over the counter remedies),
if the eating or lifestyle habits that created the toxemia are not
changed, or if the toxic load increases beyond the limits of this
technique, the body then begins to store toxins in fat or muscle
tissues or the joint cavities, overburdens the kidneys, creates
cysts, fibroids, and benign tumors to store those toxins. If toxic
overload continues over a longer time the body will eventually have
to permit damages to vital tissues, and life-threatening conditions
develop.

Hygienic doctors always stress that disease is remedial effort.
Illness comes from the body's best attempt to lighten its toxic load
without immediately threatening its survival. The body always does
the very best it can to remedy toxemia given its circumstances, and
it should be commended for these efforts regardless of how
uncomfortable they might be to the person inhabiting the body.
Symptoms of secondary elimination are actually a positive thing
because they are the body's efforts to lessen a dangerously toxic
condition. Secondary eliminations shouldn't be treated immediately
with a drug to suppress the process. If you squelch the bodies best
and least-life-threatening method to eliminate toxins, the body will
ultimately have to resort to another more dangerous though probably
less immediately uncomfortable channel.

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Given half a chance the body will throw off toxic overburdens and
cleanse itself. And once the body has been cleansed of toxemia,
disagreeable symptoms usually cease. This means that to make
relatively mild but unwanted symptoms lessen and ultimately stop it
is merely necessary to temporarily cut back food intake, eating only
what does not cause toxemia. These foods I classify as cleansing,
such as raw fruits and vegetables and their juices. If the symptoms
are extreme, are perceived as overwhelming or are actually
life-threatening, detoxification can be speeded up by dropping back
to only dilute raw juices or vegetable broth made only from greens,
without eating the solids. In the most extreme cases hygienists use
their most powerful medicine: a long fast on herb teas, or just
water. I will have a lot to say about fasting, later.

When acutely ill, the most important thing to do is to just get out
of the body's way, and let it heal itself. In our ignorance we are
usually our own worst enemy in this regard. We have been very
successfully conditioned to think that all symptoms are bad. But I
know from experience that people can and do learn a new way of
viewing the body, an understanding that puts them at cause over
their own body. It allows you to be empowered in one more area of
life instead of being dependent and at the mercy of other peoples
decisions about your body.

Finally, and this is why natural medicine is doubly unpopular, to
prevent the recurrence of toxemia and acute disease states, person
must discover what they are doing wrong and change their life. Often
as not this means elimination of the person's favorite
(indigestible) foods and/or (stress-producing) bad habits.
Naturally, I will have a lot more to say about this later, too.

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Like Upton Sinclair and many others who largely failed before me, I
am going to try to convince you of the virtues of fasting by urging
you to try fasting yourself. If you will but try you will be changed
for the better for the rest of your life. If you do not try, you
will never Know.

To prompt your first step on this health-freedom road, I ask you to
please carefully consider the importance of this fact: the body's
routine energy budget includes a very largë allocation for the daily
digestion and assimilation of the food you eat. You may find my
estimate surprising, but about one-third of a fairly sedentary
person's entire energy consumption goes into food processing. Other
uses for the body's energy include the creation or rebuilding of
tissues, detoxification, moving (walking, running, etc.), talking,
producing hormones, etc. Digestion is one aspect of the body's
efforts that we can readily control, it is the key to having or
losing health.

How Fasting Heals

Its an old hygienic maxim that the doctor does not heal, the
medicines do not heal, only the body heals itself. If the body can't
heal then nothing can heal it. The body always knows best what it
needs and what to do.

But healing means repairing damaged organs and tissues and this
takes energy, while a sick body is already enervated, weakened and
not coping with its current stressors. If the sick person could but
somehow increase the body's energy resources sufficiently, then a
slowly healing body could heal faster while a worsening one, or one
that was failing or one that was not getting better might heal.

Fasting does just that. To whatever degree food intake is reduced
the body's digestive workload is proportionately reduced and it will
naturally, and far more intelligently than any physician could
order, redirect energy to wherever it decides that energy is most
needed. A fasting body begins accessing nutritional reserves
(vitamins and minerals) previously stored in the tissues and starts
converting body fat into sugar for energy fuel. During a time of
water fasting, sustaining the body's entire energy and nutritional
needs from reserves and fat does require a small effort, but far
less effort than eating. I would guess a fasting body used about
five percent of its normal daily energy budget on nutritional
concerns rather than the 33 percent it needs to process new food.
Thus, water fasting puts something like 28 percent more energy at
the body's disposal. This is true even though the water faster may
feel weak, energyless.

I would worry if sick or toxic fasters did not complain about their
weakness. They should expect to feel energyless. In fact, the more
internal healing and detoxification the body requires, the tireder
the faster feels because the body is very hard at work internally. A
great deal of the body's energy will go toward boosting the immune
system if the problem is an infection. Liberated energy can also be
used for healing damaged parts, rebuilding failing organs, for
breaking down and eliminating deposits of toxic materials. Only
after most of the healing has occurred does a faster begin to feel
energetic again. Don't expect to feel anything but tired and weak.

Essentials of a Successful, Safe Fast

Fast in a bright airy room, with exceptionally good ventilation,
because fasters not only need a lot of fresh air; their bodies give
off powerfully offensive odors. 2. Sun bathe if possible in warm
climates for 10 to 20 minutes in the morning before the sun gets too
strong. 3. Scrub/massage the skin with a dry brush, stroking toward
the heart, followed by a warm water shower two to four times a day
to assist the skin in eliminating toxins. If you are too weak to do
this, have an assisted bed bath. 4. Have two enemas daily for the
first week of a fast and then once daily until the fast is
terminated. 5. Insure a harmonious environment with supportive
people or else fast alone if you are experienced. Avoid well-meaning
interference or anxious criticism at all cost. The faster becomes
hypersensitive to others' emotions. 6. Rest profoundly except for a
short walk of about 200 yards morning and night. 7. Drink water! At
least three quarts every day. Do not allow yourself to become
dehydrated! 8. Control yourself! Break a long fast on diluted
non-sweet fruit juice such as grapefruit juice, sipped a teaspoon at
a time, no more than eight ounces at a time no oftener than every 2
or 3 hours. The second day you eat, add small quantities of fresh
juicy fruit to the same amount of juice you took the day before no
oftener than every 3 hours. By small quantities I mean half an apple
or the equivalent. On the third day of eating, add small quantities
of vegetable juice and juicy vegetables such as tomatoes and
cucumbers. Control yourself! The second week after eating resumed
add complex vegetable salads plus more complex fruit salads. Do not
mix fruit and vegetables at meals. The third week add raw nuts and
seeds no more than 1/2 ounce three times daily. Add 1/4 avocado
daily. Fourth week increase to 3 ounces of raw soaked nuts and seeds
daily and 1/2 avocado daily. Cooked grains may also be added, along
with steamed vegetables and vegetable soups.

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The second essential concern has to do with adjusting the intensity
of the fast. Some individuals are so toxic that the waste products
released during a fast are too strong, too concentrated or too
poisonous for the organs of elimination to handle safely, or to be
handled within the willingness of the faster to tolerate the
discomforts that toxic releases generate. The highly-toxic faster
may even experience life-threatening symptoms such as violent asthma
attacks. This kind of faster has almost certainly been dangerously
ill before the fast began. Others, though not dangerously sick prior
to fasting, may be nearly as toxic and though not in danger of
death, they may not be willing to tolerate the degree of discomfort
fasting can trigger. For this reason I recommend that if at all
possible, before undertaking a fast the person eat mostly raw foods
for two months and clean up all addictions. This will give the body
a chance to detoxify significantly before the water fast is started,
and will make water fasting much more comfortable. Seriously,
dangerously ill people should only fast with experienced guidance,
so the rapidity of their detoxification process may be adjusted to a
lower level if necessary.

A fast of only one week can accomplish a significant amount of
healing. Slight healing does occur on shorter fasts, but it is much
more difficult to see or feel the results. Many people experience
rapid relief from acute headache pain or digestive distress such as
gas attacks, mild gallbladder pain, stomach aches, etc., after only
one day's abstention from food. In one week of fasting a person can
relieve more dangerous conditions such as arthritic pain,
rheumatism, kidney pain, and many symptoms associated with allergic
reactions. But even more fasting time is generally needed for the
body to completely heal serious diseases. That's because eliminating
life-threatening problems usually involve rebuilding organs that
aren't functioning too well. Major rebuilding begins only after
major detoxification has been accomplished, and this takes time.

Yes, even lost organ function can be partially or completely
restored by fasting. Aging and age-related degeneration is
progressive, diminishing organ functioning. Organs that make
digestive enzymes secrete less enzymes. The degenerated immune
system loses the ability to mobilize as effectively when the body is
attacked. Liver and kidney efficiency declines. The adrenals tire,
becoming incapable of dumping massive amounts of stress-handling
hormones or of repeating that effort time after time without
considerable rest in between. The consequences of these
inter-dependent deterioration's is a cascade of deterioration that
contributes to even more rapid deterioration's. The name for this
cascading process is aging. Its inevitable result--death.

Fasting can, to a degree, reverse aging. Because fasting improves
organ functioning, it can slow down aging.

Fasters are often surprised that intensified healing can be
uncomfortable. They have been programmed by our culture and by
allopathic doctors to think that if they are doing the right thing
for their bodies they should feel better immediately. I wish it
weren't so, but most people have to pay the piper for their dietary
indiscretions and other errors in living. There will be aches and
minor pains and uncomfortable sensations. More about that later. A
rare faster does feel immediately better, and continues to feel ever
better by the day, and even has incredible energy while eating
nothing, but the majority of us folks just have to tough it out,
keeping in mind that the way out is the way through. It is important
to remind yourself at times that even with some discomfort and
considering the inconvenience of fasting that you are getting off
easy--one month of self-denial pays for those years of indulgence and
buys a regenerated body.

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On her 90 day water fast she lost about 150 pounds, but was still
grossly overweight when the fast ended. Toward the end it became
clear that it was unrealistic to try to shrink this woman any closer
to normal body weight because to her, fat represented an invaluable
insulation or buffer that she was not prepared to give up. As the
weight melted away on the fast and she was able to actually feel the
outline of a hip bone her neurosis became more and more apparent,
and the ability to feel a part of her skeleton was so upsetting to
her that her choice was between life threatening obesity and
pervasive anxiety.

Her weight was still excessive but the solace of eating was even
more important. This woman needed intensive counseling not more
fasting. Unfortunately, at the end she choose to remain obese. Fat
was much less frightening to her than confronting her emotions and
fears. The positive side was that after the fast she was able to
maintain her weight at 225 instead of 375 which was an enormous
relief to her exhausted heart.

Another client I fasted for 90 days was a 6' 1" tall, chronic
schizophrenic man who weighed in at 400 pounds. He was so big he
could barely get through my front door, and mine was an
extraordinarily wide door in what had been an upper-class mansion.
This man, now in his mid twenties, had spent his last seven years in
a mental institution before his parents decided to give him one last
chance by sending to Great Oaks School. The state mental hospitals
at that time provided the mentally ill with cigarettes, coffee, and
lots of sugary treats, but none of these substances were part of my
treatment program so he had a lot of immediate withdrawal to go
through. The quickest and easiest way to get him through it was to
put him on a water fast after a few days of preparation on raw food.

This was not an easily managed case! He was wildly psychotic, on
heavy doses of chloropromazine, with many bizarre behaviors. Besides
talking to himself continuously in gibberish, he collected bugs,
moss, sticks, piles or dirt, and switched to smoking oak leaves
instead of cigarettes. He was such a fire hazard that I had to move
him to a downstairs room with concrete floor. Even in the basement
he was a fire hazard with his smoking and piles of sticks and other
inflammables next to his bed, but all of this debris was his
"precious." I knew that I was in for trouble if I disturbed his
precious, but the insects and dirt piles seemed to be expanding
exponentially.

One day the dirt exceeded my tolerance level. To make a long story
short he caught me in the act of cleaning up his precious. Was he
furious! All 350 pounds of him! (By this time he had lost 50
pounds.) He barreled into me, fists flying, and knocked me into the
pipes next to the furnace and seemed ready to really teach me what
was what. I prefer to avoid fights, but if they are inevitable, I
can really get into the spirit of the thing. I'd had lots of
childhood practice defending myself because I was an incurable
tomboy who loved to wrestle; I could usually pin big boys who
considered themselves tough. So I began using my fists and what
little martial arts training I had to good use. After I hurt him a
bit he realized that I was not going to be easily intimidated, and
that in fact he was in danger of getting seriously damaged. So he
called a truce before either of us were badly beaten up. He had only
a few bruises and welts, nothing serious.