The Many Misadventures of an Aspiring Raw-Foodist

The purpose of this blog is to give you a realistic view of the transition to a raw vegan life and the restoration of health. It isn't always easy. I don't always feel amazing. But in the end it is worth it. My hope is that I can inspire others to make positive changes in their own lives.



Showing posts with label Adya Clarity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adya Clarity. Show all posts

1.14.2011

Upcoming Winter Cleanse

I like to cleanse for 7-10 days, 4 times per year. I’m really feeling the need to flush out all this winter muck from my cells. So, starting January 18th, and lasting for 10-days, I’ll be doing a self-prescribed digestive cleanse which will also facilitate the cleansing of my liver and gall bladder. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend someone who isn’t familiar with cleansing to jump in and self-prescribe. If you’re new to cleansing I would use a cleansing package (let me know if you need recommendations and/or coaching). I’ve got to modify my cleanse for breastfeeding and hypoglycemia, so there will be some solid foods as needed, by I’m planning to keep to low-sugar fruits and vegetables and eat as little as I can while still keeping my blood sugar balanced.

The other day I came across my initial list of unpleasant symptoms, from before I began to go vegan or raw. I thought I’d lost it… but here it is! I can now see how far I’ve come. Following this cleanse I will post an update on my healing progress. I am now 1 and ½ years into my raw vegan journey.

Here is my daily cleanse plan:

Food:

Low sugar fruit, as needed

Low sugar green smoothie, as needed

100% Raw Food Meals and snacks (small, chewed well, all solid food as little as possible to keep blood sugar balanced)

  • 1 green protein shake (Sun Warrior Protein)
  • 34 oz green juice, fresh
  • 34 oz green juice, fresh
  • Greens First (optional)

Supplements:

  • Ginger tea (1+ per day)
  • Ginger tea
  • Ginger tea
  • Namaste or spring tea (1+ per day)
  • Namaste or spring tea
  • Namaste or spring tea
  • Adya Supershot (2 per day)
  • Adya Supershot
  • 34 oz Adya water
  • 34 oz Adya water
  • Chromium (2 caps per day)
  • B12
  • Iodine (2 per day)
  • L.B.T. caps (1-2 caps per day)
  • Acidophilus (3 caps)
  • Acidophilus (3 caps)
  • Acidophilus (3 caps)
  • Digestive Enzymes
  • Digestive Enzymes
  • Digestive Enzymes
  • Ginger caps
  • Ginger caps
  • Ginger caps
  • Gall Bladder Flush (every other day, at bedtime, followed by tea)
  • Isaflush (at bedtime)

Lifestyle:

  • Enema (everyday to at least every 2 days)
  • Body scrubbing (before showers)
  • Feet soak in Adya and pumice (at least every 3 days)
  • Yoga (at least every other day)
  • Aerobic exercise (at least 15 mins per day)
  • Sleep (try to be in bed by 10:30 pm, up around 7:00 am)
  • Fresh air and sun (go outside or open windows at least 15 mins per day)

I’ll keep you updated, wish me will power!

1.09.2011

Lesson #1: Mind Your Colon

I’ve been using Adya Clarity now for about 2 ½ months. I did the super shots once daily up until about 3 weeks ago, and have just been drinking the water. The past few days I’ve been back on the super shots, putting them in my green juice or just taking them alone. I admit I haven’t been great at getting in enough water after the shots, or in general. I’ve always struggled to drink enough water. I had been frustrated because at first it seemed to be helping with my digestive problems, then it sort of tapered off and after that my issues worsened. Since around Christmas I’ve had horrible gas, bloating, and some nausea. I felt hopeless and afraid. If this doesn’t help me, what will? On top of all that, the eczema patches started showing up again on my elbow and knees (I’d had nasty patches there last year that took many months and cleansing to clear up), and the eczema around my eyes began to flare up again to the point where it was very uncomfortable to wear makeup and the skin around my eyes was puffy, bright read, and scaly. My back broke out in painful pimples, which hasn’t happened since I was a teenager. Also, my muscle tension/pain/headaches have been much worse than usual. What’s worse, my breastfed toddler has developed a rash around his mouth which is scabbing over, and his urine has been rather foul smelling. I’ve been in a panic trying to figure this all out. When my daughter used to get a rash around her mouth it was a dairy allergy, but we don’t eat dairy or any common allergen causing foods. He had been eating small amounts of peanut butter, so I took him off of that, but he’s never reacted to it before. I feared he might be allergic to grapefruit, or citrus in general, because during the winter we eat a lot of that and I’ve been craving grapefruit and eating several per day (which after researching I found that it cleanses the liver and is anti-inflammatory so it helps with pain syndromes, go figure!).

One night, Coen was having trouble getting to sleep so we snuggled up on the couch, him watching Caillou and me reading articles on the laptop. I was reading some things written by Matt Monarch (from rawfoodworld.com) whose work always impresses me. I kept coming across his mentioning of the importance of colon cleansing (enemas and colon hydrotherapy sessions). This is nothing new to me. I know full-well the importance of washing out the colon when cleansing. When your body is releasing toxins and waste it gets dumped into your sewage system (colon) for elimination. You can ease the stress on your body, as well as the symptoms of detox, by flushing those toxins out with water. This method has been used for thousands of years. In fact, up until the past 50-60 years (before pharmaceuticals took over the healthcare system) even hospital rooms had equipment for colon flushing, as it was the first thing doctors did to facilitate healing. It was common knowledge that weather you had a headache, or a cold, or cancer, or whatever, the most important thing you could do was to clean out your colon. Somehow that knowledge has been lost to some extent in recent years, even to the point that people think of it as taboo and embarrassing. It’s quite unfortunate considering we need to be cleaning our colons now more than ever, with the ever increasing amount of flesh foods we eat and all the environmental toxins we take in. Now wonder we are losing so many people to colon cancer.

I wasn’t applying any of this to me at the time I was reading it. It wasn’t until the next day I began thinking, “hmm, skin breaking out… toxins trying to be released? Foul gas, bloating and nausea… yeast die off? Muscle pain and headaches… toxin release and yeast die off? Rashes… yeast and toxins? Adya… kills yeast and releases toxins!” I hadn’t thought of my Adya use as a cleanse and so I hadn’t treated it like one. The most perplexing thing was that I felt my digestion improving in that I know I’m absorbing nutrients better than I ever have because I haven’t required as much food lately. Normally I’m starving all the time and I eat about every hour, or more. But lately I noticed I can’t finish a whole grapefruit without being stuffed, in fact I can’t eat a large amount of anything, even vegetable juice. That’s not a bad thing, I’ve been waiting for this! I learned early on in my raw food journey that when you eat this pure, nutritionally dense food your require less of it. But for us the opposite seemed to be true, we eat nonstop and are always hungry. You can’t absorb nutrients through a yeast and mucus coated digestive tract, and if you aren’t absorbing enough nutrients your body will tell you it’s hungry so it can get in as much food as possible and absorb as many nutrients as it can. I was so confused realizing this, and yet having all this gas pain… it didn’t add up.

Time will tell if my theory is correct, if all these issues are symptoms of yeast die-off and toxin release, and if the Adya is doing positive work in my body. I’m off to do my first enema in many months. I wish I could do colon hydrotherapy, but the money just isn’t there, so hopefully the enemas will suffice. I will update in a week or so and let you know if I’ve seen any improvements in myself or my son. And also, I’m planning a digestive rest cleanse coming up in the next week or two, once I sort through my current issues. If you’re interested in learning about Adya, here’s a great place to see how its been working for other people: http://www.therawfoodworld.com/adyaclaritytestimonials.html

11.05.2010

Three Weeks on Adya

***UPDATE*** Adya Clarity has recently been recalled by its primary seller, Matt Monarch. This is due to inaccurate labeling and fraudulent marketing by the producer of the product, Adya, Inc. To view Matt's official appology click here. For more info on what has been discovered about Adya Clarity and Adya, Inc., click here.




I started taking the supershots on Oct. 11th (if you don’t know what I’m referring to, see the post just previous to this one). At that time my most troublesome physical symptoms were:


Frequent stomach pains


Digestive problems


Colitis


Irritable Bowel Syndrome


Eczema


Brain fog


Trouble concentrating


Exhaustion


Anxiety


Depression


OCD


Anger/Irritablity


Headaches


Muscle tension pain, esp shoulders and neck


Sweet cravings


Itchy dry skin


Dry scalp


Gas


Painful bloating


Hemorrhoids


Mood swings


Loose stools


Sinus troubles/post nasal drip


Excess mucus


Dizziness


Poor memory


Weak fingernails


Stomach fat


Persistent cough


Earaches (no Dr. could ever identify a cause)


Muscle weakness


Sensitivity to fragrances/chemicals


Trouble comprehending simple things


Sore throat


Heartburn


Chronic pain


Hypoglycemia


Food allergies/sensitivities


Gluten sensitivity


Nausea


Loss of appetite


Teeth pain


Unrestful sleep


Light sensitivity


Blurred vision


Cold and heat sensitivity


Low body temp


Low blood pressure


Tingling/numbness in extremities


Foot pain


Dry mouth and eyes


Difficulty swallowing


Skin discoloration


Tinnitus


Sensitivity to noise


Light-headedness


Fibromyalgia


Nail ridges


Jaw pain


Dark circles under eyes


Ingrown hairs


Dry, cracking heels


Rib pain


Poor night vision


Tonsil infections




A good 95% of these are common Candida symptoms, which is the reason I’m taking Adya. As I mentioned in a previous post I first heard about Adya when I saw a youtube video of Angela Stokes-Monarch talking about how she’d cured her own Candida.


I’m now 3.5 weeks in. For Angela it took about 6 weeks. After the 1st week I’d lost 3 lbs (that’s a lot for a person my size, considering I’m 5’7” and it put me at 117lbs). I felt pretty good. I was as un-bloated in my midsection as I can remember ever having been in my life. Then… I bloated. I bloated good. I bloated so big I looked an easy 6 months pregnant and felt like my skin was going to rip open and my organs were going to come bursting out. My muscle pain increased. I went into a major brain fog. I had an eczema flare up, had an acne breakout. A bunch of bad tasting mucus settled in the back of my throat and my nose ran nonstop. I got moody… okay, maybe not moody, more like ferociously angry. I became more light-headed than usual. My blood sugar went super-loopy. I wanted to eat the whole world, especially if it was sweet or salty. And lastly, I started expelling some of the nastiest smelling gas I’ve ever had… frequently and uncontrollably. It’s safe to assume I wasn’t in any mood for going out. Of course, all of this also made my anxiety worse as I wondered what on earth was wrong with my body (again) and felt like there was no hope or help for me and I for sure was going to die. Then I got over my dumb. DUH. Yeast die-off symptoms, silly! It’s got to get worse before it can get better. My body is still dealing with eliminating all those toxins, but it has improved over the past day. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the coming weeks will bring. One thing I know, the Adya is doing something. There is hope. And hope is a great thing!