The Recovery Of Health

3. The Recovery Of Health

Now that you have an understanding of the symptoms that may occur when the diet is changed and health improves, you can evaluate the various ways in which the diet may be modified.

The intensity of the symptoms experienced is often related to the method used for the dietary transition, such as fasting, gradual diet improvement, quick diet changeover, and so forth.

3.1 Fasting – The Quick and Easy Way

A prolonged supervised fast is the quickest way to make the transition to health. Dietary changes can be made more easily after a period of fasting. Fasting, however, can be accompanied by intense symptoms, and the reactions experienced while fasting may alarm the first-time faster. For this reason, a lengthy fast should be undertaken in the presence of an experienced practitioner. Unsupervised fasts from three to five days, however, may be safely undertaken by people who are educated in the mechanics of starting and breaking a fast.

Below is a case history of a person who used fasting to make the dietary transition:

3.2 Fasting – A Case History

“I had tried to improve my diet off and on for several years. One day I would eat fresh fruits and salads. The next day it would be ice cream and potato chips.

Or maybe I would last a week on a good diet. Then I’d go out and eat Italian food for a reward. Then I’d eat healthy for a day or two, and the next day I would fix a huge cheese casserole.

I was always seesawing. Finally, I said ‘Okay, this is it. No food at all for a few days.’

I went on a seven day fast and drank only distilled water. After the fast, I felt so clean and wonderful that I didn’t want to mess up my body with junky foods.

I tremendously enjoyed fruits and unseasoned salads after my fast. I wasn’t craving all that cooked food. I made myself a promise that if I ate cooked foods one day, I would fast the next day. This helps me to break the momentum that would otherwise wreck my healthy diet.

Fasting is the easiest way to get back to a healthy diet and stay on it. It’s much easier for me to change from a ‘no food diet’ (fasting) to a ‘raw food diet’ than it is to start over again from my old cooked food, junk diet.”

3.3 Rapid Dietary Change

Some people desire to make as rapid a change as possible in their diet. This is admirable. After all, if your house is on fire, you don’t want to linger, but to get out as fast as you can. So it is with an unhealthy diet—you don’t want to drag your feet when your health is in question.

You do want to succeed, however. Unfortunately, rapid changes in the diet often fail. Changing the diet overnight is extremely difficult, although a few individuals have done just that.

Caution is advised if you want to make major and sudden changes in your diet. Your mind might be ready, but your body may rebel. After all, you wouldn’t expect a lion to suddenly start eating hay for breakfast. True, eventually a carnivorous animal can thrive on vegetarian fare, but it is usually introduced gradually. Man, however, is naturally fruitarian/vegetarian, so he will have an easier time in changing his diet, but still be aware that some people do not take to rapid changes in their diets, habits, living arrangements, or anything else for that matter.

If you want to go from a meat and potatoes diet to a raw fruit diet in a few days, fine; but be aware that your body may react so strongly that you could become discouraged and feel very sick. If such a rapid change is intended, it is best to fast before attempting it.

Remember that your present state of health is the result of years of bad living habits and poor diet choices. It may be unreasonable to expect your body to change completely overnight.

Here is a case history of one person who did make an almost overnight change in his diet:

3.4 A Rapid Change in Diet – A Case History

“I’ve always been an all-or-nothing person. I’d do something 100 percent or I wouldn’t do it at all.

I had been on a conventional diet, eating lots of fast foods, and getting most of my meals out of cans and packages. I didn’t pay much attention to what I ate, just so it filled me up.

“Then one summer my brother died from cancer of the colon. It shook me up. I started reading and found out that cancer of the lower intestine usually occurs when a low-fiber diet is eaten, like meat, dairy products, fast foods—in other words, my kind of diet.

That was all it took. One day I had been eating hamburgers, and the next day I was eating only oranges. Pow! I was an overnight fruitarian.

I nearly died. I had diarrhea continually for five days. Everything I ate came right out. I guess I should have fasted, but I didn’t know anything about that. I just kept eating fruits.

I weighed 185 pounds. After a few months, I was down to 110 pounds. I was a walking skeleton. People stared at me.

I found myself continually weak. Climbing up a single flight of stairs took several attempts.

There were days when I felt like I was going crazy. All my family and friends looked like strangers. My own face even looked unfamiliar to me.

I had so many toxins circulating in my system that I could not think straight. This lasted about six months? Finally things started to change.

I started gaining weight and getting my strength back. In fact, I had more energy than I ever had in my life. I would wake up before sunrise and run several miles. I became continually happy and was always smiling.

Today I honestly don’t know howl went through those six months. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone be so radical as I was. I believed I came close to killing myself.

Don’t be too tough on yourself; you took this long to get sick, so take your time to get healthy.”

3.5 Gradual Dietary Change

This method may take the longest time, but it produces the least intense symptoms. The disadvantage of changing the diet slowly is that people may backslide too easily, or their health may be so poor that they can’t afford to wait a long time. Since the symptoms of healing are spread out over a long period of time, it may be years before the person feels truly healthy. Still, this is an easy way to change the diet for those who do not want to experience the strong reactions sudden changes entail.

Symptoms will occur even with a gradual transition. Depending upon how you lived in the past, these symptoms may reoccur for several years or until an optimum diet is strictly followed for a length of time.

Gradual changes in the diet are fine, provided that continued/forward movement toward a goal is maintained. If you take two years, for example, to eliminate all meat from your diet, you might be more susceptible to eating it again after you thought you had given it up. As long as you are definitely improving your diet every week and are not fooling I yourself, then your progress is probably satisfactory.

The best thing about changing the diet over a period of months is that you have the time to educate yourself about the symptoms you may be experiencing. You are also more likely to stick with your improvements if they are implemented over a period of time and are made a part of your lifestyle. Some people change their diet one week, but are back to eating the old foods the next week. Slow, sustained progress is better than fast, erratic changes.

Here is a case history of a person who slowly changed her diet:

3.6 Gradual Diet Change – A Case History

I was fifty-three years old when my husband and I decided to change our diets. We had recently retired to our country home, and we decided it was time to take better care of ourselves.

We became vegetarians almost by accident. We were working hard outside in the summer with our garden, and we would get so hot that we didn’t want to eat meat.

Besides we had so many garden vegetables that it was easy to make a meal on them.

The first summer we ate meat maybe twice a week. About the only effect we noticed was a strong desire for afternoon naps.

During the fall and winter, we stayed on our twice-weekly meat diet, and started to eliminate all sugar from our diet. I really noticed an improvement when we stopped using sugar. I also cut back on our salt to help my husband’s blood pressure.

When the spring and summer came, we started eating more fresh foods and these took the place of our bread, milk and eggs. Since we never ate out, being away from the city, we avoided most rich foods.

Finally by the following fall, we had just about stopped eating any meat unless guests came by. We eating a salad at about every meal, and I stuck to only cooked food per meal.

We just kept feeling better and better. The bursitis in my shoulder disappeared and my husband lost his pot belly after all these years.

When the next spring and summer came around, we became total vegetarians and started having complete days with only raw foods. Every now and then, we would steam or bake a few vegetables.

Our diet is still not perfect I but all the improvements we’ve experienced encourages us to continue as far as possible. We’re lucky, I guess. We have plenty of homegrown produce and get to stay outside a lot. But I think anybody can start to make improvements in their diet and health—no matter how small.”

3.7 What The Future Holds

Body purification is a lifelong process. Your body will always strive to a higher state of health. It will always be eliminating toxins as soon as they become present.

Consequently, you can always expect some cleansing symptoms to occur even after you have achieved a high state of well-being. The symptoms, however, will be of a much shorter duration and of a much lower intensity.

For instance, that cold you used to get each year for a week may only last two days or one day. You may only notice a temporary cleansing lasting only a few hours or overnight instead of the ten-day periods of sickness that used to plague you.

Gradually, all the old symptoms will disappear. Your body will/be in such a high state of health that you will experience little discomfort during its cleansing cycles.

You will have passed through the suffering and pain of toxic elimination. You will have reached the birthright of every human being—perfect health.