The Program

Dietary guidelines: Phase One

  For 2 days (48 hours), consume only clear liquids : water, herbal tea, and lemon water. Yes, it's a bit rough not eating for two days, but going on an all clear liquids fast really jump-starts your system into detox, and vastly increases the efficacy of this program. Generally, it’s easiest to start fasting Thursday night after dinner. Have dinner, then fast through the day on Friday and Saturday. You shouldn't have too much trouble making it through your workday Friday, since you'll only have missed two meals. Then If you're feeling a bit out of it on Saturday, you can just spend the day relaxing. Break your fast with a brown rice and veggie meal (more below) Saturday evening.

During the 48 hour fast try to avoid thinking about food. Take gentle walks, watch movies, read brainless novels, and, if you like, meditate and think about your body empting itself out and becoming clean. As for what liquids you should drink, lemon water is a must. Lemon water helps cleanse the colon and limonene, a chemical in lemons (specifically, in the peel), assists the liver in detox. To make lemon water, squeeze ½ lemon into 1 qt of water, then cut up the peel and drop that in as well. If you can handle spice, add a bit of cayenne pepper to your lemon water to aid circulation and the flow of fluid across cell membranes, further helping remove toxins. You really can’t drink too much of this stuff (well, you can, but not within reason), and that holds for the first 48 hours and the rest of the program as well. Keeping a high volume of fluids flowing through your body is critical to flushing out all of the toxins that you will be liberating.

During the two day liquid fast, and, indeed, for the entire week to ten days, it’s critical to keep your system awash in Vitamin C. Vitamin C is an anti inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti fungal, and anti-bacterial agent. It strengthens arteries and is critical in collagen formation (the connective tissue that makes your skin resilient). When you start to detox, you’ll be pulling highly reactive, dangerous chemicals out from where they’ve been stored. As these toxins are being broken down and eliminated, they can damage your tissues. Vitamin C is the single greatest aid in protecting your tissues from this damage. Buy Vitamin C crystals - packaged with rose hips or bioflavinoids if you can find them - and mix them in all the water that you drink (including lemon water)- about 1/8 teaspoon of vitamin C per 12oz glass of water. If you develop intestinal irritation, lower this dose by half. If you don’t, feel free to increase it to the point where you are ingesting 15-20 grams of Vitamin C per day. If you can’t find Vitamin C crystals with bioflavinoids, use pure vitamin C crystals for the first 48 hours, then keep mixing the crystals with water, but supplement with vitamin C plus rosehips/bioflavinoid tablets.

In terms of herbal tea, look for echinacea and dandelion root. Both contain chemicals that aid immune and detox processes. Green tea is also an excellent anti-oxidant and detox aid, but even decaffeinated green tea has some caffeine, so don’t drink more than one or two cups per day. Caffeinated green tea can be used to prevent headaches from caffeine withdrawal. However, if you don’t drink much caffeine regularly, caffeinated green tea is best avoided.