Learn to Love Your Colon
The month of June is a focus of “Men’s Health”. It is warming to see so many lives change as men are educated on their blood function, importance of thermal imaging and gut ecology. This month let’s briefly discuss the six foot soft muscle at the end of our digestive tract known as the bowel or the large intestine or the Colon.
Diet and stress have a huge effect on the health of your colon.
Let’s start with the basics. Fiber is a type of carbohydrate that makes up the structural material in the leaves, stems, and roots of plants. But unlike sugar and starch—the other two kinds of carbs—fiber stays intact until it nears the end of your digestive system. This is what makes fiber beneficial, and why you’ve probably heard you can’t eat enough of it. There are however, facts and fiction.
Fiber Can Help You Lose Weight
TRUE: Fiber’s few calories are more than offset by its weight-control benefits. The conclusion of a review published in the journal Nutrition is clear: People who add fiber to their diets lose more weight than those who don’t. Fiber requires extra chewing and slows the absorption of nutrients in your gut, so your body is tricked into thinking you’ve eaten enough, says review author Joanne Slavin, Ph.D., R.D. And some fibers may also stimulate CCK, an appetite-suppressing hormone in the gut.
TRUE: Foods with added fiber don’t necessarily provide the benefits you might expect. Inulin, for example, a soluble fiber extracted from chicory root, can be found in products like Fiber One bars. In addition to boosting fiber content, it’s also commonly used to replace fat. Inulin is known as a prebiotic, which means it promotes the growth of healthy bacteria in your gut. That’s good, of course. “But,” says Slavin, “inulin doesn’t have the same cholesterol-lowering effect as the fiber found in oat bran.”
Fiber May Help Prevent Colon Cancer
In 1999, Harvard researchers found no link between dietary fiber intake and colon cancer. But a European study that tracked more than a half million people correlated a high-fiber diet with up to a 40 percent reduced risk of colorectal cancer. Then a 2005 review in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who ate the same amount of fiber as those in the European study didn’t experience any benefit. The American Institute for Cancer Research calls protection “probable.” This controversy aside, high-fiber diets are associated with preventing many chronic diseases, so it’s smart to boost your intake, says Arthur Schatzkin, M.D., Dr.P.H., of the National Cancer Institute.
A simple strategy: Eat sensibly. Favor whole, unprocessed foods. Make sure the carbs you eat are fiber-rich—this means produce, legumes, and whole grains—to help slow the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream. “The more carbohydrates you eat, the more fiber becomes important to help minimize the wide fluctuations in blood-sugar levels,” says Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D., a nutrition researcher at the University of Connecticut.
Colon Cleansing
Colon cleansing involves following a restrictive diet plan to flush the digestive system of waste. Men benefit from colon cleansing by shedding extra pounds and experiencing reduced gastrointestinal distress. Before beginning a colon cleanse diet, talk to your experienced health practitioner as some cleansing practices may be harmful to your health. More often than not, we see people go on their own programs when their organ(s) is not healthy enough to spit out the toxins. Our advice: engage a certified, experienced health coach before embarking on a protocol that may send you into a healing crisis that will not be pleasant.
Processed Foods
The typical modern diet contains many processed, high-calorie foods. According to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, only 4 percent of men eat the recommended nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Eating unhealthy foods increases your intake of fertilizers, trace pesticides, food additives, preservatives and hormones. These chemicals may build up in the colon, causing weight gain, bloating, fatigue and gastrointestinal distress. A colon cleanse alleviates these symptoms by flushing the digestive tract of harmful waste.
Begin your colon cleanse by eliminating all processed, fatty and high-calorie foods from your diet. The majority of your meals should consist of limited fruits and lots of green vegetables. These foods are high in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that boost energy and increase overall health. We recommend eating several servings of greens daily for their detoxifying properties. Supplement your meals with small amounts of whole grains, lean protein or recommended non-dairy products. Avoid all caffeine and alcohol for the duration of the cleanse. A typical colon cleanse lasts four weeks.
Considerations
Several companies market colon cleansing tonics specifically formulated for men. These products are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, making them potentially dangerous. Talk to your health practitioner or nutritionist before taking an herbal supplement to determine if it is safe for your body. We offer nutritional and stress testing of organs in the month of June for men at a discount. Call for more information.
Benefits
Most dieters lose weight while following a colon cleanse plan. According to our studies, men may lose from 4 to 20 lb of fat during a detoxifying cleanse. Clearing the digestive system of excess waste decreases bloating, puffiness, abdominal pain and other gastrointestinal problems. Our clients have reported colon cleansing improvements in loss of constipation, no more bad breath, nail fungus gone and bladder infections reduced.
Three Bowel Movements Daily
If you’re not having three bowel movements per day you are constipated. The word “constipation” is derived from the Latin word “constipatus”, which means “to press or crowd together, to pack, or to cram”. In naturopathic medicine, it is believed if you are eating three meals per day and you’re not having three bowel movements a day, you’re constipated.
“Constipation is the mother of all diseases.” This is what Hippocrates, the Father of Naturopathic medicine, taught in all the Greek medical schools four centuries before Christ began his earthly ministry.
Dr. Bernard Jensen taught in all his bowel management and detoxification classes that, “most grandmothers and great-grandmothers know more about the bowel than the majority of state licensed medical doctors.”
Colon/Rectal Cancer is epidemic in the USA. Two hundred fifty thousand colostomies took place last year alone. Many of these poor souls have been sentenced to be shacked with a colostomy bag wrapped around them for the rest of their life. Dr. Norman Walker said in his book, “Health in the Colon”, there is no expense and no extreme that a person should be willing to go through to prevent a colostomy bag.” This non-toxic, preventative treatment, according to William Wattinger, M.D., who taught doctors how to administer colonic irrigation, wrote the training manuals for the procedure. Most client complaints from stomach aches, to head aches, to back aches, to fluid retention, to colds, flus, fever, sore throats, sinusitis, ear aches, infections to chronic fatigue were treated first with a colonic before any other treatment was considered. According to Dr. Wattinger, 80% of the problems and patient complaints were eliminated with a colonic or series of colonics and no further medical treatment was necessary.