Detox FAQ

The 26-Day Detox will take you through 4 different phases, each of which have different recipes utilizing foods to systematically target the detoxification of specific organs in your body. The food required in the detox are real foods that you can purchase at your grocery store or health food store, and you eat plenty of food and should not feel very hungry. Robyn will take you through a colon cleanse, kidney cleanse, gallbladder cleanse, she incorporates detoxing protocols such as dry skin brushing, oil pulling, coffee enemas etc to detox your lymphatic system and liver. It is not just a "diet".  

Each of the 4 phases have different foods. The first phase you will eat lots of smoothies as well as some other raw and cooked foods like a potato soup and steamed broccoli. You will eliminate salt for the entire 26 days and will eliminate sugars for the first 4 days. There are a few days where you eat lots of watermelon and there are lots of really yummy recipes like purple heaven and black bug soup.

This detox is far superior to most detox programs out there. It changes lives.  Robyn incorporates  the nutrition, internal cleansing, and healing protocols of Dr. Max Gerson in her 26 Day Detox as well as the protocols of Dr. Bernard Jensen, Dr. Richard N. Anderson, Dr. Ann Wigmore, Dr. Max Gerson, Dr. Johanna Budwig, Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and even Hippocrates. She has researched Detoxing for years, been to several clinics around the world.  

You might be interested in watching our Detox Testimonials Video. 

You can see the different 26-Day Detox program options at this link: http://greensmoothiegirl.com/detoxsecrets/detox-webclass-specials/

Robyn has a Norwalk and she believes this is the best juicer, but others like
Champion, Omega, Breville, or Jack LaLanne are great as well. 

The Detox Program is 26 days long, and goes through several phases that allow specific organs to rest, purify, and rebuild. You can choose to participate in Level 1, where no special equipment is needed. This is recommended for first-time Detoxers who have been eating the Standard American Diet.

Level 2 is for people who eat a cleaner diet and are willing to own (or borrow) and use a juicer and an enema (bag or bucket) kit for coffee and/or wheat grass juice enemas.

Both the level 1 and level 2 protocols are detailed in the Detox Manual, which you get after you purchase the Detox program. 

It is best to eat organic all the time but especially while on the detox. You want to avoid putting chemicals and pesticides in your body or on your skin while detoxing. If you can’t find everything organic, its most important that the veggies you juice (if you are participating in level 2) are organic, and I recommend at least buying the following from the “Dirty Dozen” organic (Strawberries, Spinach, Apples, Celery, Tomatoes, Potatoes) as these fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues on/in them. Also imported produce from Chile and Mexico is likely to be coated in pesticides banned in the U.S. American-grown produce is preferable, although U.S. growers do use plenty of harmful chemicals.

If you must buy conventional produce for your detox, please use a good organic veggie wash, available at any health food store or online. You can also make your own inexpensively.

The 26-Day Detox is great for detoxing heavy metals. I would definitely take the Ultimate Minerals while detoxing and after. The Ultimate Minerals is a mix of humic and fulvic acid. Fulvic acid has dozens of beneficial uses for the human body. It transports nutrients, is a super-antioxidant, increases alkalinity, modulates hormones, regulates neurologic function, acts as an electrolyte, boosts immunity, and is the best source of bioavailable organic trace minerals. Fulvic acid is also nature’s most powerful natural heavy metal detoxifier.  It has a unique molecular structure that binds to heavy metals, making them inert. They can then be flushed safely out of the body with the help of humic acid.

We also recommend that you go for EDTA chelations by IV at a good functional medicine practitioner who provides that.

Here is the bonus video in the Free Detox Masterclass series: ADVANCED CLASS #4: Why a PHYSICAL Detox Can Solve EMOTIONAL Problems

You can find the 26-Day Detox Program Options here.

Hello! 

I am sorry you are having trouble. Here are the direct links to the free Detox Masterclasses. Try these:

CLASS #1: Could Toxicity Be Why I'm Sick? The 7 Types of Toxins in Your Body & How to Eliminate Them

CLASS #2: How to Change Your Weight Set Point Forever

CLASS #3: 8 Foods That Help You Detoxify (and 11 That Cause Toxicity)

ADVANCED CLASS #4: Why a PHYSICAL Detox Can Solve EMOTIONAL Problems

Please also check your internet connection. If the links to now work still, try on a different device. 

You can find the 26-Day Detox Program Options HERE

Absolutely!

Robyn has been in remission from Hashimoto’s herself for many years and has been 90% vegan for all of those years and in fact credits her good health with eating so many plants.​ Robyn herself does the 26-Day Detox at least 2 times a year.

Our good friend Izabella Wentz, The creator or "The Thyroid Secret" sent her 500,000 followers to our 26-Day Detox because it’s how Robyn healed from Hashi’s, herself, and put it into remission 17 years ago. Toxicity is one of the “root causes” of Hashimotos and thyroid disease.

Robyn does not line up with Izabella Wentz’s stance that Paleo is the only way to go, for thyroid patients–for Robyn, a very green and plant-based diet (not vegetarian, or vegan, necessarily, the past 25 years, but highly plant-based) was KEY to putting her own Hashimoto’s in remission and keeping it there. If you are avoiding cruciferous vegetables or goitrogens, you can still participate in the detox modified. Please see the optional food substitutions list for the detox in the detox portal. 

We’re great friends, the Paleo folks and Robyn, even though she believes that (AND the Auto-Immune Protocol) are fad diets, industry-driven, and on their way out…..because we ALL see that processed foods, GMO foods, and flour products have got to go! There’s lots to say here, but Robyn disagrees with the implication that everyone, just because of thyroid function, needs to eat animal proteins.

Read How Not to Die by Michael Greger, MD, for another perspective that’s very important. I eat virtually all whole plant foods, freely, and do not show any antibodies for thyroid. There’s no “one size fits all” but eating a LOT of plants is important for human beings with 35′ of GI tract.

You may also be interested in listening to Robyn's podcast episode with Dr Alan Christianson NMD who specializes in natural endocrinology with a focus on thyroid disorders.

Thank you for your support!

We aren't trying to change the potassium-to-salt ratio. We're trying to increase potassium slightly, to help trillions of cells "clean house," while eliminating EXCESS of specific type of salts (like table salt most Americans eat far more of, than the body can process) that causes inflammation. We aren't "eliminating" sodium, we're helping the body eliminate a sodium chloride buildup and inflammation overall.

The only people we recommend adding a bit of sole (original crystal himalayan salt dissolved in water, 1 tsp. a day) to the diet are people who are suffering with low blood pressure and "head rush" as they detoxify quickly in the early days of the program. They CAN do that, if they feel low-energy. (They can also drink coconut water, for the electrolytes, or they can have 1, 2, or 3 scoops of our vegan, organic protein powder. Any of those things are likely to help.)

You won't run out of sodium (the element you need) in your body. Not eating table salt is what most people all over the globe do, tens of millions, in native parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, China, India....people who go an entire lifetime without meeting a single person with diabetes or cancer.

Salting your food isn't the way to have a healthy potassium/sodium ratio in your cells. It's just a toxic Standard American Diet practice that, when you stop doing it, can cause some fairly quick shifts.....that are healing and helpful, but can cause dizziness or weakness, in the short term, for folks with low blood pressure.

The detox diet is extremely adrenal-supportive....plus we're cleansing many of the organs that, if they're clogged and maxed, continue to tax your adrenal gland unnecessarily.

It's also a very veggie-intensive diet, which we'd like you to use as an experiment as well in this question: "Which of these can I take into my "real life?" (post detox)  

A detox diet that isn't massively high in natural whole-foods fiber IS NOT a real detox. And, your post-detox diet must also be high in natural plant fiber. (Not Metamucil! Not the same thing at all.) 

All of the specific protocols in the manual were studied by other clinicians and researchers, and have been used in detox and wellness clinics all over the world.

There's a certain amount of time it takes to loosen up and eliminate garbage in your GI tract.....if we got you to commit to fewer days than this, we could not accomplish this, with the program.

It takes a certain amount of time to focus on optimizing the kidneys. Again, we're leveraging the best practices and discoveries of the research of folks like Dr. Bernard Jensen, Dr. Ann Wigmore, Dr. Max Gerson, Dr. Richard Anderson, and others......and we would LOVE to sell you a shorter detox, and we WOULD if we believed we could accomplish such comprehensive goals in a shorter time.

Having personally studied at the Budwig center internationally, and even used the Budwig protocol for 3 months herself. Robyn has some opinions about it.

Being on the protocol caused her to feel really mucousy and congested the entire time, and although the stuff was delicious, once off it, all those symptoms disappeared and she was clear again. (Budwig herself said that cottage cheese would NOT be a good replacement for her protocol.) 

Robyn does not believe that ANY American obtained variant of the original Budwig protocol is going to be helpful to a cancer patient. And we highly recommend that you go OFF the Budwig protocol, for this 26 days.

However, if you're committed to it, you can definitely bring it into the detox. We just want to help detox you of excess undigested proteins. And even organic quark in the U.S. if you can get it, isn't what Johanna Budwig supposedly used for many cancer patients. There are other nutrition protocols Robyn feels are far more efficacious against cancer. AND, you are getting your omega 3 fatty acids covered, in the detox program.

The GSG Detox, and Chris Square One course, are very complementary. Chris Square One course goes far beyond diet....and we highly recommend the Square One course as well. And Chris Wark highly recommends our detox.

The only cancer patient we wouldn't recommend doing the detox is possibly a stage 4 patient very underweight due to cachexia.

If you've been through chemo, you have a far higher toxic body burden than most, and those chemicals need your detoxification pathways optimized, to release.

If you did radiation, you have billions of burned cells wanting to heal.

And even if you didn't do any chemo or radiation, toxicity is often one of the root causes of cancer.

So, as you can tell, we are big fans of cancer patients detoxing. Robyn is a cancer researcher and has studied holistic cancer treatment at 19 clinics all over the world. All of them employ various means, including those in this program, of helping you clean house.

Robyn doesn't love the AIP diet, as legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and even nightshades are completely legitimate whole foods that people have eaten for 3.4M years, and are not problems for people who don't have a diseased gut.

However, if you DO, and if you are certain that these important food classes are problematic for you, we hope that you rehab your gut, rather than mis-appropriate the problem to be those foods....the problem is the inflammation in your immune system (gut).....and WHEN you bump those foods out of your diet, you simply replace one set of problems with another.

Because then an animal-protein intensive diet is almost forced. (Having eliminated SO many classes of high-fiber, nutrient-dense plant foods.) Some evidence shows that animal proteins cause an inflammatory (antigen) response as well!

So, we aren't huge fans of the AIP diet, though we DO like all the vegetables in it! As well as the no dairy, and no processed foods. Those are some things that we do clearly align with in AIP and Paleo.

Due to Robyn's philosophical differences with this fad within functional medicine, we certainly aren't going to adapt protocols well proven to be effective in human detoxification to it. (One of our own STAFF became much sicker, on the AIP diet....) That said, we want to support you in your healing regimen, and if you're committed to AIP, we are very happy to help you find adaptations. To work around those food classes. Just message us about foods you don't want to eat, and we'll help you substitute!

It’s a toxic soup we live in.

I won’t insult your intelligence with an exhaustive parade of the ways our immune system and organs of elimination are daily assaulted and insulted by chemicals and free radicals that cause degenerative disease.

They come from air, water, cleaning agents, food, and even stress. Many people work around industrial chemicals, and some professions have high exposure to toxins, such as cosmetologists and cleaning personnel.

The metabolic processes of the body even create waste products. Add that to bombardment from our processed, excessive-protein, chemicals-added diet. The human body was actually beautifully designed to cleanse and purify and achieve peak performance each and every day.

Understandably, though, under attack, the body can get overwhelmed.

The lungs excrete carbon dioxide. The kidneys excrete urine. The colon expels stool. And the skin releases salty water with other waste products, or sweat.

These are the four major outputs that even the less healthy among us monitor at least loosely. We know when we don’t sweat enough, or we are “constipated.”

However, we’re going to look more closely at a breakdown of detoxification and how we can go significantly further to aid those processes, in this unnatural world of pressure and overload on many of the body’s elimination systems.

Spending the time to learn about it, tune into it in your own body, and engage in simple practices to decrease your toxic load, may just cause your health to become significantly better.

Detoxification is a constant, daily process in the human body.

Some of our organs of elimination are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, our entire lives. Detoxifying takes more energy than anything else that occurs in the organism!

It’s important enough that we need to understand it in order to enhance it.

We’re doing a cleanse that is as comprehensive as science allows us to be, for the next few weeks. (After that, you should be assisting your detoxification processes every single day so that your engine runs cleaner.)

Detoxification is not only a trendy topic, it’s becoming a watered-down concept that can mean almost anything.

It seems to now be synonymous with the idea of doing anything that’s different, diet-wise, than what you do now. In fact, it seems that as it becomes clearer that “dieting” doesn’t lead to long-term weight loss, that word has gone out of style, and “detoxing” has taken its place.

As the word gets thrown around more and more, and hundreds of “detox” or “cleanse” protocols and products have popped up, the consumer may be confused.

Many people want, above all, for their detox program to help them lose weight. With 70 percent of America afflicted by weight problems, it’s no wonder that’s a primary goal and all others very secondary.

However, may I recommend that you make cleansing every cell of your body, with good nutrition and minimizing toxin exposure, first priority.

Trust that weight loss is a natural byproduct of that process—choosing outstanding organic, raw, sometimes concentrated (as with vegetable juicing) fuels, and undergoing natural but powerful detoxification protocols.

If clean detoxification is your primary goal, you will not be sucked into faddish, destructive programs.

Recently a close friend of mine was reading and planning a “kidney detox.” I asked to look at the article she was reading, which it turns out was published by the supplement company selling her an herbal combination they claimed was critical for the health of her kidneys. More upsetting to me, though, was what this program instructed the follower to do:

1. Drink a cup of olive oil
2. Chase it with a can of Coke

Anyone who knows anything about biochemistry is aware that soft drinks are terribly difficult for the kidneys to process. They are highly acidic and cause a uric acid buildup that can lead to kidney stones and gall stones and other problems of crystallizing structures building up in the joints, such as arthritis.

The liver doesn’t have enough sulfates, so it poaches them from sulfates in joints, and joints break down.

To advise people detoxifying their kidneys to drink sugary, chemical soft drinks, for their health, is unconscionable.

Soda pop—the sugar kind or the diet kind—is the most acidic habit you can undertake.

If you drink soda, it’s a virtual guarantee that you’ll have arthritis by age 50, and likely sooner, whether you’ve been formally diagnosed or not.

Soda is not food.

Nothing in it qualifies as food. It is simply liquid chemicals.

A tennis teammate of mine was told by her M.D. (an osteopathic surgeon) that he would refuse to do knee surgery on her if she was going to return to drinking soda after the surgery, because it would just undo his work, and fast.

Another popular “detox” has people drinking and eating expensive, high-protein shakes and bars.

Again, this shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how the body detoxifies.

Protein can be difficult to metabolize, especially when we manipulate macronutrients to eat more than our body was designed to be able to process, of any given macronutrient (fat, carbs, protein).

Perhaps worst of all in this program and others like it I have seen, the whey or soy bars and powders are highly refined, made from inexpensive, hormone-grown cow excretions (whey protein) or estrogenic refined soy products.

One of the worst aspects of this program, though, is the fact that all of our modern degenerative diseases have been linked to undigested proteins in the gut and in the bloodstream.

We are eating far too much protein, so it’s a very unwise idea to manipulate macronutrients to increase protein, in a program designed to give the body a rest. This is an egregious example of people who are selling a product rather than studying and implementing strategies that restore our health.

Some programs flying under the “detox” flag include eating almost nothing but protein, and some steamed vegetables. The only reason people achieve weight loss and may feel better temporarily on this program is the fact that they are not eating processed foods.

Just because one class of bad foods is eliminated for a period of time, and a second class of bad foods remains, does not mean that the second class of bad foods are actually good foods!

It merely means that your body is thrilled to have incremental improvement. I would prefer you to follow a sensible program that meets your needs nutritionally in all ways, rather than being part good, part bad.

Another famous old program has you drinking nothing but lemonade: water, lemon juice, and maple syrup.

The basis of it is to give the body a rest, as all ancient cultures and religions have done very successfully with water fasting. That is certainly a good idea, as the body first metabolizes any abnormal cells, when it is denied food. (It’s wise to go without food for a period of time, occasionally. It’s not wise to go without water. And ample water is critical to the detoxification process.)

Lemon juice is not only alkalizing (which is a very positive thing, in a world with far too much acidity), but also a natural diuretic, helping reduce inflammation and release fluids.

However, the massive amount of concentrated sweetener, in the form of maple syrup, is the reason people last longer on the “Master Cleanse” or “lemonade cleanse” than they would on a water fast. It keeps blood sugar high—or at least spiking and falling.

The lemonade is not good for the liver for many days on end, and is another unsupported, unscientific approach to detoxification. Far too many people have done it, for 60 years now, because it’s an easy approach, and because they’ve not been guided to a more sensible approach.

These are simply examples of the programs that range anywhere from scientifically dubious, to nutritionally grotesque, to dangerous and unethical.

When I ask friends who are starting one of these dicey programs why they want to, their answer is always something like this,

“Well, my friend tried it, and she lost 10 lbs. in two weeks.”

It’s always exciting to hear testimonials, but I hope you’ll demand more than that of any regimen you give your time, attention, and dollars to.

Any time you eliminate sugar, or calories, no matter how bad the rest of the program is, you’re going to lose weight. All of the detox programs out there restrict calories, and most (except the Master or Lemonade Cleanse) avoid sugar. That’s always going to be a good thing.

Just because your sister or mom lost some weight using one of these dubious programs, of course, doesn’t mean you’re detoxifying your many organs of elimination.

That doesn’t mean you’ll be helping your body in an effective way. (Weight loss is always good, if you’re overweight. But there are better, and worse, ways to go about it.)

If you’re going to go to the trouble of changing your eating habits, denying yourself the treats you may have overindulged in much of your life, and reading some material in an effort to improve your health, why not be very certain that the nutritional principles are sound that underpin the program?

Why not have that program give you not only weight loss, but also improved energy, better digestion, cleared organs of elimination, less risk of disease, and higher opportunity for longevity?

The best way to detoxify, then, at least for the nutrition approach (clearly there is much more to it than just addressing diet) is to give the body less food, and what food we do eat should be the easiest types of fuel to digest.

That way, the body can devote its energy to cleansing.

The easiest foods to digest are fermented plant foods, as well as raw, simple plant foods. Those foods should have a minimum of ingredients and sugars, and any sugars should come from whole, unprocessed foods.

Gagging down glassfuls of oil followed by soda, eating processed bars and powders, preempting natural processes in the body by forcing a state of ketosis, starving yourself except to drink lemonade, and so many other ploys are not health-restorative plans.

I hope they are a part of your past, not your present or future.

Academically and visually; the best way to verify that colon cleansing has powerful results is to read one of Bernard Jensen’s old texts, Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care: A Complete Program for Tissue Cleansing through Bowel Management.

Dr. Jensen examined over 10,000 colons in his career.

He didn’t use high-tech equipment such as modern doctors use almost exclusively, but rather he put patients through a protocol that caused them to eliminate many pounds of hardened “catarrhal mucoid plaque.”

That is, a buildup of materials in the lining of the small intestines and colon due to many years of eating inappropriate, heavy, difficult-to-digest, and gluey/fiber-free foods.

It stands to reason that long periods of poor eating habits will cause organs of elimination to become tired and malfunction.

If Dr. Jensen’s books aren’t available to you—or aren’t enough visual, obvious evidence for you—you can certainly search on the Internet and find hundreds of photos of eliminations from people who stopped eating heavy proteins and used fasting or cleanses, usually with clays and herbs, to bring long-accumulated residues out of the body.

And, finally, seeing photos is one thing, but experiential learning is the most powerful.

I had my doubts, too, frankly, until I underwent a serious 21-day cleanse myself nearly 20 years ago.

The results shocked me and made me a believer. (It also committed and motivated me to healthier eating habits like almost nothing else could.)

They were consistent with the results that had been described in Dr. Jensen’s books. (Also Richard Anderson, N.D., whose books Cleanse and Purify Thyself, Book 1 and 2, were helpful as I began to learn about detoxification some 20 years ago.)

When I did a major 21-day detox twice, years later after eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet, those shocking things (catarrhal mucoid plaque) did not come out of me.

Now, these suggestions to put your mind at ease about whether cleansing is actually (a) valid and (b) necessary have focused only on colon cleansing.

In fact, we want you to experience purification of other body organs and systems, such as blood and lymph, liver and kidneys, lungs and skin.

Crystalline buildup in kidneys and gall bladder, through flushing and eating nourishing alkaline foods, can be naturally broken down. That way you’ll never even know that eventually they would have put you through the very painful experience of passing “stones.”

Fiber will bind to bile and remove a much higher amount of the byproducts of your own cells’ breakdown and sloughing off, but will also carry away chemicals that may have had residual effect for many years trapped in various organs.

It makes sense that residues remain, since the body was not designed to digest, assimilate, or eliminate a heavy chemical load.

Part of that will be in resting from the usual onslaught of bad foods most people subject their body to.

But for the most effective elimination through all of those organs, you are highly encouraged to participate in all of the parts of the detox, including skin brushing, deep breathing, and drinking an appropriate amount of water.

It is not recommended to undergo Detox while pregnant or nursing.

During Detox our bodies are being cleansed of toxins. These toxins can be released and ingested by the child through the mother’s body. The more reliant a child is on its mother’s body for its nutrition, the more chance the child has of ingesting the mother’s released toxins.

Mothers should use their discretion when deciding whether or not to detox.

If you are a pregnant or nursing mother who has already registered for Detox, please contact customer support for guidance.

Of course we can’t advise you about your specific health issues as we are not medical professionals. But what we can do is share testimonials from some others who have done the detox.

Robyn’s editor worked on the detox in detail until it was published 3 years ago. Finally, earlier this year, she did it herself to the letter. At the end of the detox, her endocrinologist took her off one of her medications, because her A1C level was in the normal range! She did the detox again, later in the year, with the same results. She also lost about 15-18 lbs each time. Recently, her endocrinologist prescribed her the GSG detox.

As for dialysis, these medical issues are caused partially by toxicity, but you should consult your trusted functional medicine practitioner.

Traditional MDs often do not know anything about holistic protocols, but make sure it is safe for you.

We got ourselves into this situation of modern degenerative diseases by eating the toxic standard American diet, and cleaning it up has to be part of the solution.

I am on Warafin for blood clots. I have had to stop eating greens altogether just to keep my numbers within range. When I read about Green smoothies, I am leery of it.

Any suggestions on this? Would your program be right for me?

The sad thing is, people on blood thinners need detoxification as much or more as anyone.

However, you need to talk to your doctor about the amount of green food you can eat. I have never even heard of a cardiologist who said you can’t eat ANY greens.

Consult your doctor and see if you can keep in your vitamin K range with a limited amount of greens and find out which are lower in K.

We may need to help you make a few modifications. That is not impossible.

Is your program appropriate for someone who has adrenal fatigue? No longer very severe?

I’ve been told by some adrenal fatigue ‘experts’ that it’s better to eat small amounts frequently to keep my energy level stable.

I LOVE our program for adrenal fatigue, it’s perfect.

And when you read the manual (or the quick start guide), you’ll see….you can easily eat 5-6 times a day.

It’s the food you eat that’s important in the detox…..choose your times of day, and how many meals you actually eat, based on your own needs and preferences.

Ironically, people with IBS need fiber and micronutrients MORE than all of the rest of us.

IBS comes from a diet devoid of nutrients (including micronutrients and fiber that greens/veggies/fruits in green smoothies ROCK at)…..but yes, some really ill people do tell us that they “aren’t supposed” to have high fiber foods.

You may want to work on rehabbing your gut first for a while….eliminating all dairy and processed foods and gluten……take a great probiotic and do as many as you can, of the habits in 12 Steps to Whole Foods course……then come back to the detox when you can tolerate whole foods.

Most folks with serious gut disease do really WELL with our detox, but again, ironically, it’s the lack of fiber that is part of what causes IBS in the first place. (But yes, we know that doctors often tell you to stay off fiber. That’s for your comfort, not for your health.)

High-fiber foods are ALSO all the most nutritious ones that have the power to help you get back on top of your health.

SIBO is *caused* by antibiotic use. So now you need to build up your gut. Most of your immune system lives there, and ab’s wrecked it.

We recently tested all the probiotics that my readers sent us, and only OUR (GSG) prezyme pro, and one other brand, actually cultured the medium we tested it on (milk).

But besides taking a good probiotic, and most of them are DEAD and useless after sitting in the supply chain for 1 year or more…..Try to tackle 3-4 different types of cultured foods. Do them for 90 days before even BEGINNING to think that they don’t work, because it takes some time to build up that beautiful, complex inter-highway of many types of probiotic organisms that keep your gut healthy.

Start with our detox, and then do step 8 of my 12 Steps to Whole Foods program, which is all about the many types of cultured foods from all over the world that you may want to try. And like I said, don’t pick one, pick 3 or 4 that you learn to make (they’re all cheap to make) because EACH picks up different cultures.

Do a detox, rebuild your gut with cultured foods, take a quality probiotic made in small batches with an excellent cross section of the good bacteria you’re missing……and if you’re willing and able, do a 21 day water fast if those less-intense options don’t get you back to health.

Your mouth is dry. Your mouth tastes bad. You smell yourself in various ways and it's unpleasant.

Some body part is swelling, or you taste metal (former chemo patients, people with heavy metal toxicity, PLEASE get ACZ if so. It's good for everyone, we all have heavy metal toxicity, also ACS is fantastic for opportunistics and you'll have some for later if you or a family member gets sick.)

You get zits or a rash.

You're moody. Tell yourself, "I'm releasing ----- and I choose to be at peace with this and let it happen." You may be snippy with people you love.

This is all temporary. You could go back to not being smelly and moody but then you'd be toxic.

You won't have all these things. But you might have one or two.

In Phase I, you’ll eliminate meat, dairy, all processed foods, and also nutritious foods that include fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and grains.

These are classes of foods that have the most reactions.

Foods with the highest numbers of reactions are dairy products, nuts, and grains.

If you still have symptoms even in the first week, one of a couple of things may be the case:

• You have a pervasive food sensitivity (more likely a stronger reaction than just a “sensitivity,” possibly a true allergy) to a food whose presence still is having an effect. To test this, you may want to repeat Phase I and take an extra week on the elimination program to see if symptoms abate with a bit more time. You are reacting to other things in your environment besides food.
• You have some degenerative gut issues that will take time to heal.You unfortunately may have to take a longer time and develop more patience to heal from a very entrenched problem in your body. Don’t give up—just get very scientific about tracking what causes your symptoms and what gives you relief, and be very rigorous about avoiding the forbidden classes of foods.

It’s not just about food sensitivities.

It’s about eliminating foods that take longer to digest, in the interest of giving many systems a much-deserved rest.

So don’t “cheat” and set back your cleanse by introducing a food we are eliminating for a good reason.

Just because we're moving towards a more high-vibration life doesn't mean we don't feel frustrated, sad, or stressed sometimes. In fact, when we're finely tuned (as we become when detoxing), we tend to FEEL more, in general. At both ends of the spectrum.

Of course, emotions don't tend to last very long. But we hear this A LOT from detoxers, that as they near the end of the program, they start to feel anxiety about their addictions, and about losing the gains of this process as they go back to "real life."

A big way to help with that is through inviting you into our membership course, 12 Steps to Whole Foods. This comprehensive and lifetime course educates you about the "why" of eating more whole foods, regarding addictions, regarding inflammation, regarding how to do it within a budget, regarding how to deal with family members who don't want to change, and then just walking through the 12 steps to Whole Foods.

Stay strong! I'm really proud of you, too, and I'm glad that even though you're feeling a bit down, you see the huge accomplishment. And after potentially DECADES of an addiction, of course it's going to rear its head now and then.

After 9 days of water fasting, I came home to my healthy eating, then last night I ate in a restaurant with my girlfriends, and had two glasses of wine. Plus brussels sprout risotto (super rich) and grilled fish tacos and several bites of someone's dessert. I didn't sleep well all night and woke up in a slight funk.

Note to self: I felt AMAZING for the few weeks I had no alcohol or anything else bad, and was in total detox mode. I got SO much done and felt ambitious and happy, and woke up at 5 am and jumped out of bed every day.

Even I seem to have to learn many things the hard way, and over and over, for changes to be permanent......I'm thinking about this long and hard today and determined to make better choices at next girls' night. Because now I have to spend a couple days getting back to the joie de vivre I've had before I did this dumb thing. Even I don't live everything perfectly all the time.

But I try not to beat myself up, because as I often say, that just doesn't serve anyone well. 

So, I hope that while anxiety may cause your mood to be lower at times, that you keep refocusing on the big wins here, and make a plan for how to come back to real life, with fewer addictions.

It's still helpful to have done this reboot even if you DO go back to ALL the addictions.....but yes, you want to stay at higher vibrations, and remember, it's a process, not an event.

If you had to travel and didn’t plan ahead, or you went to a work party and succumbed to a temptation, all is not lost. (Although you’ll be happier with yourself, and with the outcomes, if you are a purist on the cleanse. It is worth it!) Do not quit on the process just because you made a mistake. Go right back to the program and pick up where you left off.

A 95 percent detox is exactly 95 percent better than 0 percent detox. So forgive yourself, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and soldier on. What will happen? Well, now the body has to spend a bit of time recovering from the insult, just as it was getting some momentum in the focused “housecleaning” and “rebuilding” tasks it was working on. It will need to contain and clean up after the invaders, and that diverts attention away from the process we had begun.

If you find yourself bored by the prescribed diet and wanting something different, eat a plate of fruit or put some unsalted butter on your baked potato or yam. Or put a pinch of stevia or maple syrup, some coconut milk or coconut cream, and a shake of cinnamon in your oatmeal. These ideas will give you a treat without dramatically sabotaging your cleanse program.

One of our participants was a very frugal 32-year-old.

She spent $350 in the 26 days of the detox.

She told me many of the ingredients were things she hadn’t eaten before-- in some cases had never heard of. Many of the ingredients are things that have a life beyond the detox.

Salt-free seasoning and other ingredients are far from “used up” and can become part of your cooking repertoire, saving you money in the future.

Another, also a single woman, said she spent $1,000 less on her credit card the month she did the detox. She wrote me, “I know it’s because I wasn’t eating out.”

You can access the portal in the following ways:

1.  http://greensmoothiegirl.com/detox/portal/
2. Or go to greensmoothiegirl.com and on the main menu bar select “Detox” then “Member Portal”

Enter your username and password used for your membership and click Log in

In early 2011, I traveled to speak in the Pacific Northwest with my friend, author, nutritionist, and raw-food celebrity David Wolfe.

He said in one of our lectures, “If I were going to eat cooked food, I would eat sweet potatoes and oatmeal.”

Later that year, I was reading all of the materials produced by the Gerson Institute (and Dr. Max Gerson). The Gerson Therapy, whose track record against cancer far exceeds the success of modern oncology, features 13 glasses daily of raw vegetable and fruit and green juices. This did not surprise me.

But it also has featured, for 70 years now, lots of well-cooked potatoes, oatmeal, cooked Hippo soup, and occasional brown rice and sweet potato.

Why?

Gerson points out that, baked or boiled in its jacket, a potato is good food. It and oatmeal are high in vitamins and minerals.

But more than that, for immune-compromised people, it provides lots of bulk and fiber, for good digestion, for a feeling of fullness, and for a soft cushion in the 30+ feet of gastrointestinal tract. This slows absorption of the fresh juices and many vegetables called for in the Gerson protocol.

Only Level II participants in this detox will be juicing vegetables and fruits.

However, for many people suffering from chronic health problems, a buffer from the natural-but-strong power of many raw vegetables and pure juices can be soothing and easier to digest than just raw food alone.

Also, for an extended period of time, cleansing can be accomplished more comfortably if there is bulk in the stomach from these simple, nutritious, but soft and cooked foods.

My own family is deeply indebted to The Gerson Therapy, as my grandmother followed the diet to the letter in the early 1980s. She consequently beat metastatic melanoma cancer, which her M.D. in Houston told her was 99 percent fatal without chemotherapy and radiation.

The Gerson Therapy, which I have researched (and read hundreds of its detailed case studies of cured cancer patients), and the Dr. Ann Wigmore Institute, the Budwig Institute, and the Hippocrates Institute, all of which I have studied at, have heavily influenced my thoughts about good orthomolecular medication and nutrition. The principles and practices that underpin it have left a major imprint on this detox program.

I am grateful for the work of Dr. Max Gerson, Dr. Ann Wigmore, Dr. Johanna Budwig, Dr. Brian Clement, and others who have advanced the true principles that when the body is provided optimal living and plant-based food and juices, its natural, powerful immune function is stimulated and supported to eradicate many chronic degenerative diseases of the modern age.