Cellulite Breakdown and Essential Detoxification part 2

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Beware the Heavy Metals

Whether or not you go for music of the same name, heavy metals in your body are something you want to get rid of. These elements, the concentration of which has increased dramatically in our air, foods and water since the Industrial Revolution, can seriously interfere with your body's metabolic functioning and thus challenge its wellbeing. Mercury tends to suppress the levels of white blood cells involved in the immune response. Cadmium displaces the essential element zinc needed for a great many of your body's enzyme systems and renders them inefficient and even inactive (including those that build new collagen and elastin for skin and connective tissues). In the West we now have a concentration of lead in our bodies some 500 to 1,000 times that of our pre-technological ancestors. High levels of this heavy metal age us prematurely, interfere with our mental processes, suppress immunity and contribute to depression. Aluminium, another heavy metal, detrimentally affects the central nervous system. It has recently been associated with the development of pre-senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The presence of all of these elements in excessive quantities (and their concentrations in the human body appear to be increasing with each passing decade) generally interferes with the metabolic processes on which good body ecology and therefore the absence of cellulite depends. It is important to do everything you can to eliminate them from your body. (The alginates, forms of fibre found in seaweeds, also chelate heavy metals and adding sea plants to your diet on an ongoing basis is a good idea, after your applefast is finished.) You also need to be aware of ways you can protect yourself from allowing heavy metals to build up in the first place. Here are a few suggestions:

• Steer clear of tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes
• Don't buy fruit or vegetables from shops in the street where they have been exposed to leaded exhaust fumes
• Don't cook in aluminium pans
• Eat plenty of fibre and nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits.

More Than An Apple A Day

Now let's get down to the programme. An applefast can be done by any healthy person provided of course your doctor agrees. It was taught to me twenty years ago by Dr Gordon Latto, a British medical doctor who uses nothing but food and breathing and a few herbs to heal even the most complex and chronic conditions. He is almost 80 and one of the most remarkably healthy and vital men I have ever met. The applefast lasts for two or three days (never more, except under doctor's supervision). You eat only raw apples — as many varieties as you want — for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as in between. Eat all you want, but chew well and always crunch up the seeds too. They contain valuable nutrients that help the process.
During the applefast you need to give up all tea and coffee although you may have as much mineral water or herb tea made with mineral water as you please, sweetened with a little honey if you prefer. The best herb tea of all for The Breakdown is solidago or golden rod which you can get from a good herbalist. Like nettle, it has natural diuretic properties to help shift some of the stored water in your tissues but, unlike nettle, it actually tastes pleasant.
Don't be surprised if you suffer the odd headache during this dynamic two or three days clear out. (Especially if you have been a dyed-in-the-wool coffee or tea drinker.) This is a sign that the whole process is happening rapidly. If you do, then take a 20-minute epsom salts bath and lie down in a darkened room to rest for 15 minutes afterwards. (More about this in a moment.)
External work on your body is important too to trigger the detoxification process. Start now to incorporate skin brushing into your daily routine. After the applefast is over continue doing it but begin to use other techniques as well to enhance lymphatic drainage, to help break up hardened connective tissue, and to keep the detoxification process going while you are rebuilding new, strong connective tissue and ground substance.

Cellulite Breakdown and Essential Detoxification part 1

Waist Disposal

`Excess fat is nothing less than a poison depot in an over-acid organism.' These words were uttered half a century ago by Danish physician Kristine Nolfi — an expert in healing the body through diet. They lie at the core of the cellulite phenomenon. One of your body's most effective ecological mechanisms for protecting itself from excessive poisons taken in through food, air and water or produced from within as a by-product of metabolism is to lock these toxic materials into fat cells. In the case of cellulite this natural protective mechanism goes one stage further — encasing these wastes in the interstitial fluids and ground substance by binding them within hardened connective tissue. There they sit year after year producing jodhpur thighs.

Personal Energy Crisis

This whole self-protective process is perfectly normal and, all in all, functions rather well, except for two things. First, in the presence of a high level of female hormones it tends to turn intocellulite. Second, it tends to deplete your energy — not only on a cellular level so metabolic processes don't function in an optimal way but overall so you are prone to fatigue and need stimulants such as coffee to get you going and to keep you going. For in any body which has a high level of waste stored in its cells, much of the available energy is channelled into trying to cope with these wastes instead of being used to keep metabolic processes functioning at a high level of efficiency. In broad terms you sense a lack of overall vitality and over the years develop a tendency to become chronically tired — sometimes so much so that it can even become very difficult to make the effort to help yourself. To shed cellulite you need first to help your body detoxify itself and eliminate the pockets of static tissues where, like stagnant ponds in a meadow, toxicity has been allowed to accumulate.

A lot has been written in recent years about detoxification. Some of it can sound quite mystifying. But the whole process is really quite simple. The reason you have built up these pockets of wastes is simply that your body is continually having to cope with more poisons than it can eliminate in the normal day- to-day course of events. Remove some of the burden of what is creating this excess toxicity in your system by laying aside coffee, alcohol and over-processed foods complete with chemical additives for a time, and you are halfway there. Add to that a very simple and temporary regime designed to trigger rapid detoxification, some movement and some external help, and quite naturally you trigger your body's own mechanisms for clearing out the junk. This is the first step in the Cellulite Revolution. There are lots of ways you can do it but the simplest of all to begin with is to go on a two-or-three-day applefast.

Applemagic

The apple has long been valued as health tonic, medicine, cosmetic and bowel-regulator all in one. Apples are low in acidity to help balance stored bodily wastes which tend to be acidic. They stimulate the flow of saliva in the mouth and clear away debris from the teeth. Eating raw fresh apples stimulates circulation in the gums too. In folk medicine the apple was traditionally used for eliminating obesity (in part no doubt because of its detoxifying ability) as well as for the treatment of skin problems, bladder inflammation, anaemia, insomnia, intestinal parasites and even bad breath. In recent years we have come to appreciate the kind of fibre apples contain. In addition to cellulose (the most common variety of fibre such as that in bran which binds water and increases faecal bulk), apples are also rich in pectin — a special form of fibre with exceptional detoxification properties. Unlike cellulose, pectin does not bind water. It is water-soluble. Pectin has no influence on faecal bulking, but it can be an excellent substance to help lower cholesterol and for eliminating bile acids from the intestines. Also, and in many ways most important of all for keeping cellulite away, pectin is a natural chelating agent for binding dangerous heavy metals in the body such as aluminium, cadmium, mercury and lead, and eliminating them.

Carbohydrates, good or bad for dieting

Another distinction that some nutritional counselors make is between refined and unrefined carbohydrates. In dieting index weight loss, we prefer to classify carbohydrates as low-, medium-, or high-dieting. However, because you're bound to hear carbohydrates defined as refined and unrefined, this section discusses how the terminology relates to the dieting index.

Refined carbohydrates are more highly processed than unrefined carbohydrates. Processing includes such activities as cooking, milling, and separating the whole food into parts. Examples of refined carbohydrates are white bread, white rice, most packaged breakfast cereals, donuts, cakes, cookies, bagels, fruit and vegetable juices, fruit drinks, soda, and candy. The list goes on. Refined carbs are usually high-dieting, but some can be low, as in vegetable juice and some fruit juices.

Unrefined carbohydrates are those kept in their natural state. In general, the unrefined carbohydrates tend to contain more fiber. Examples of unrefined carbohydrates are whole vegetables and fruit, whole grains, dried peas and beans, and nuts and seeds. Some foods are processed more than others. For example, fruit juice is not processed as much as fruit drinks. Usually unrefined carbs are low-dieting, but not always, so be sure to check the dieting index listings before you eat them.

Pastas

Even though regular pasta is a highly refined, processed carbohydrate, its dieting value can be low, medium, or high, depending on how you cook it. If you cook spaghetti for only 5 to 6 minutes, its low-dieting. Other types of pasta may need slightly more or less cooking time. If you open a can of prepared spaghetti in sauce, those noodles will have a higher dieting index because they're mushy.

Cook pasta just until it softens and you'll be eating a healthier meal. The longer pasta is cooked the more available the starch in the pasta is for quick digestion—exactly what you don't want.

The Good and the Bad

Carbohydrates aren't good or bad; the difference is in how you eat them and how much of them you eat. This is one of the reasons why dieting index weight loss works so well. You don't need to give up your favorite treat food, whether it's white bread, bagels, or candy bars. But you do need to eat them in such a way that you don't cause a quick rise in your blood sugar levels, and you do need to watch portion sizes.

The dieting index gives you a way of managing your blood sugar and insulin levels, thus assuring that you aren't storing fat and also that you continue to lose weight.

One way to do this is to manage your dieting load by meal and by day. You'll be balancing the low-dieting foods with some high and some medium, and overall, you can keep your insulin levels low.

Now's the time to give up the notion of bad and good carbs and of fattening and nonfattening carbs. Instead, accept all carbs as okay, based on how you eat them.

Eat more and more, do you know chemicals in foods blow you appetite?

In a very real sense, everybody has direct reactions to foods. Direct reactions are reactions caused directly to cells by chemicals in foods. Among the most obvious direct reactions are those caused by alcohol. If you drink alcohol, you are almost certain to experience sedative effects, due to the direct effect of alcohol on your brain cells.

Often, people with Asian heritage react quite negatively to alcohol, and the common belief is that they're allergic to it. Technically, though, they don't have an allergy; they have a sensitivity — because this is a direct reaction, which doesn't involve the immune system. I believe that it's clearer and more sensible to say simply that Asians often have a food reaction to alcohol, since food reactions include both allergies and sensitivities.

Direct reactions, however, can eventually involve the immune system, because sooner or later the immune system is called in to repair the mess that direct food reactions cause. Therefore, the symptoms of direct reactions can feel much like allergies. Because of this, direct food reactions are sometimes called false food allergies.

Alcohol has obvious direct actions, but most direct food reactions are more subtle. Often, direct reactions occur when chemicals in foods bind with the cells that produce histamine; these cells are called mast cells. When this happens, it can cause the release of histamine. The food chemicals that are most likely to do this are lectins, which are most often found in wheat, peanuts, and beans. Another cause can be certain partial proteins, or peptides, that are found in tomatoes, strawberries, shellfish, pork, chocolate, and eggs.

Other foods that often seem to cause direct food reactions are mustard, pineapple, papaya, buckwheat, and sunflower seeds. Ironically, one patient of mine had terrible digestive symptoms, including severe heartburn, and took large amounts of digestive enzymes to help the problem. However, his enzymes were full of papaya, which he later found he was reactive to. When he stopped taking the digestive aids, his digestion improved immeasurably. Moral of the story: don't trust common knowledge about what's healthy — trust your own experiences. Everyone is different.

Other foods that sometimes cause direct reactions are those that contain high levels of natural histamines. Histamines are formed in foods that are allowed to age and ferment. Therefore, histamines are often found in aged cheese, sausage, and salami.

Other foods that can cause direct reactions are those that contain the partial proteins tyramine, phenylethylamine, and octopamine. These chemicals, like histamines, can cause blood vessels to expand and contract, which causes tissue swelling. In the head, blood vessel constriction and expansion can cause migraine headaches. That's why people who get migraines often shun the foods that are high in these partial proteins, such as wine, aged cheese, citrus fruit and yeast.

Another common foodstuff that often causes direct reactions is the artificial sweetener aspartame. Aspartame is mostly composed of the partial protein, or amino acid, called phenylalanine. In some people, it acts directly on brain cells, causing symptoms such as agitation and depression. In other people, it causes blood vessels to contract and expand, triggering migraines. In most people, though, it causes no reaction at all.

Many people also react to MSG, or monosodium glutamate, with headaches, nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, and confusion. Others react to various additives, including nitrates, sulphites, and artificial food colours.

Another name for direct food reactions is pharmacologic reactions. That's a good description, because it implies an important point: foods, like drugs, are chemicals. Not all drugs are good for you — and not all foods are, either.

Now let's look at the last type of food reaction: immune complex reactions. This type of reaction is not well known. But it should be. It can be a killer.

Foods, like drugs, are chemicals. Not all drugs are good for you, and not all foods are, either.

The Metabolic Effects of Eating Less

Dieting affects your metabolic rate. If you start to eat less your body slows down the rate at which it functions.

It is only relatively recently that there have been ampleamounts of food available to most people in the western world. In terms of human existence on earth we are still programmed to deal with droughts, food shortages and periods of starvation. It is far more damaging and more likely in evolutionary terms for the body to starve to death than it is to overeat. And so we have evolved with the perfect method for avoiding starvation during a period of food shortage: storing excess food when it is available. This excess food is stored mainly in the form of fat, which is oxidised to produce energy when needed.

Metabolic rate refers to the amount of energy made available for use for a specific period of time. Our metabolic rates are also perfectly adapted for food shortages. If we decrease our food intake our bodies prepare themselves for the anticipated assault on stored food. The metabolic rate decreases so that the body can function as efficiently as possible and therefore use as little energy as possible and as little stored fat. Dieting for a period of fourteen days can lead to a decline of up to 20 per cent of the metabolic rate.

A recent study at the Rockefeller University in New York examined the effects of dieting on dieters' daily energy requirements. A group of obese people were studied; they had lost substantial amounts of weight and yet were still overweight by an average of 86 pounds. They found that as they lost weight their daily energy requirements dropped accordingly. After they had lost an average of 124 pounds their calorie requirements had dropped by an average of 28 per cent to become lower than those of normal-weight people. As they lost weight their bodies were using any available food more efficiently.

Although irritating to the dieter who wishes to lose weight, it makes perfect sense to the body which is responding to an evolutionary history of dealing with the lack of food. Excess food is still only a relatively recent development, and the desire to be thin by rejecting food makes no sense to our sense of survival.

So, even if dieters are managing to eat less food than non- dieters and less than they would do if they were not dieting, dieting reduces their metabolic rate. Any food eaten is used more efficiently and the need for metabolising fat is minimalised. To lose weight and maintain this weight loss, dieters have to eat less consistently, and to compensate for a decreasing metabolic rate they have to eat less and less over time.

But what about the times when dieters are eating more than non-dieters and perhaps even eating more than they would do if they were not dieting at all?

Diet-Breaking

It is often assumed that diets do not work because the dieters are not actually dieting. The dieting industry tells us that failed dieters are weak-willed and are simply not sticking to their diet. The responsibility for not losing weight is placed firmly on the dieter's shoulders with no understanding of the processes which constitute diet-breaking.

Experimental work shows that dieters overeat both in the laboratory and in naturalistic studies. Perhaps this behaviour is an illustration of diet-breaking, suggesting that not sticking to a diet is a far more complex issue than simply a lack of determination.

So why do dieters not stick to their diets? Surely all they have to do is eat less food?

Anyone who has ever dieted can provide you with reams of reasons why they break their diets, and will cite hundreds of examples of times when they have eaten more than they intended. Dieters may recall the different causes for their episodes of 'over-indulgence' and yet most dieters still blame themselves, and regard themselves as failures.

I want to draw upon the results of an experiment that I carried out as part of my work for my PhD, which suggests that diet-breaking is not the fault of the dieter, it does not reflect personal inadequacy, but is an inevitable consequence of the structure of dieting. Overeating is part and parcel of attempting to diet and is a consequence of trying to eat less, a direct product of dieting.

I carried out a study in the final year of my PhD which examined the effects of dieting and attempted to find out why so many diets fail and why women break their diets. The overeating behaviour shown by dieters in the laboratory is also reported by dieters in their day-to-day lives. Many women report fluctuating between days when they manage to eat less and days when they completely overeat.

Imagine sticking to 1000 calories a day for three days and then being invited out to dinner on the fourth day. Tempted by all the food available and the fact it is a special occasion, many dieterssay that they would eat more at the dinner than if they hadn't been trying to diet on the previous days. It is like thinking 'Oh what the hell. If I'm going to break my diet I might as well make the most of it.' It is similar to trying to give up smoking or drinking.

A friend of mine used to smoke only after six in the evening. She would never think about a cigarette before this and certainly wouldn't think of smoking first thing in the morning. At New Year she decided to stop smoking. From the moment she decided to stop all she could think about was cigarettes, even in the morning. She woke up desperate to smoke and found that when she actually had one cigarette, for the first few days of smoking again, she smoked more than ever before. The overeating found in dieters is similar to this.

It was originally believed that overeating was followed by a period of dieting, that people dieted because they had a tendency to overeat, and needed to compensate for episodes of indulgence. Dieters are all sorts of people. Some have problems with food, but the vast majority of dieters simply see themselves as being larger than society tells them to be. There is no evidence to suggest that dieters become dieters because they have episodes of overeating.

It was then proposed that dieting caused overeating — a complete reversal of the original theory. Researchers suggested that the overeating shown by dieters in the laboratory and reported in their day-to-day lives was a direct consequence of attempting to eat less. This is similar to the analogy with smoking; trying to stop smoking causes a desire to smoke more and trying to stop eating causes overeating. The difference is that stopping smoking is good for you, stopping eating isn't!

This idea was called the causal analysis of eating behaviour and suggests that attempting not to eat, paradoxically, increases the probability of overeating, the specific behaviour dieters are attempting to avoid. It represented a new approach to the eating behaviour of dieters and is an interesting reappraisal of the situation.

A study by Wardle and Beales in 1988 showed that dieters tended to overeat and the authors concluded that the results 'supported the idea that dieting causes disturbances of food intake'.

So why does this happen? Why does dieting cause overeating?

It is possible that overeating is a direct product of changes which occur as a result of dieting. Dieting could cause changes which increase the tendency to eat more.

It has been predicted from the causal analysis of dieting and overeating that increasing dieting would cause an increase in those factors related to overeating. Research suggests that changes in mood, state of mind, control and hunger occur as a consequence of dieting and could cause an increase in eating.

A classic study was carried out in 1950 by an American professor called Ancel Keys and his colleagues. Their aim was to evaluate the effects of a period of restricting calories, and to see whether reducing food intake caused overeating. Over a period of twelve weeks, thirty-six healthy non-dieting men received a carefully controlled daily food intake of approximately half their normal intake and consequently lost 25 per cent of their original body weight. Ancel Keys states that they developed a preoccupation with food, often resulting in their hoarding or stealing it. They showed an inability to concentrate, with mood changes such as depression and apathy being common. At the end of the period of dieting the men were allowed to eat freely and often ate continuously. They reported loss of control over their eating behaviour, sometimes resulting in binge eating. The author concluded that these psychological effects were not a function of the actual process of starvation, but were more likely to be due to the restriction of their diet.

In 1988, Warren and Cooper, in a study in Cambridge assessing the effects of dieting on both mood and the control of eating, placed seven men and seven women on a calorie- restricted diet for two weeks, and monitored any daily changes. They found an increase in feelings of loss of control, over eating and increased preoccupation with food.

Dieting seems to cause overeating by changing factors which contribute to eating more. The study which I carried out attempted to assess what these factors could be.

Up to 90 per cent of the female population diet at some time in their lives. The aim of the study was to examine the effects of these constant attempts at losing weight and to analyse their contribution to overeating. The failure to lose weight is often regarded as a sign of weakness and an indication that the dieter is not dieting properly. The following results suggest that failed dieters are simply responding to changes which occur during a diet and that breaking your diet is inevitable.

Effects of dieting on eating control

Dieting causes problems with the control of food intake. Attempting to diet results in increased calorie consumption in certain situations. Dieters feel more out of control than non- dieters, and experience chaotic eating patterns.

Dieters aim to eat less and to control their food intake. Women often attribute their perceived 'large size' to their inability to eat appropriately, believing that the reason why they are over their desired weight is because they overeat. Women look at other people's eating behaviour and believe that they eat less and at different times and understand their own behaviour in terms of loss of control. Dieting is regarded as a means to impose self- control and an external structure on their food intake. However, there is no evidence to suggest that, before dieting, women who are over their desired weight eat any differently or experience more episodes of loss of control than women who are at their desired weight. There is no evidence to suggest that larger women are more out of control than their thinner counterparts, or that women who decide to diet have experienced more overeating than those who don't.

However, there is evidence to suggest that dieting increases episodes of both perceived and actual loss of control. Imposing the dieting structure on food intake appears to have the opposite to the desired effect.

Perceived loss of control

Because of the limitations set by the diet, any food which is eaten beyond these limits is regarded as overeating and attributed to loss of control. Eating which would usually be seen as a large meal, a special occasion or a treat is regarded as overeating and indicative of lost control. The urge to eat which would usually be regarded as hunger is registered in terms of craving, and giving in to this urge is regarded as a weakness.

One woman said: 'When I start to diet I want to eat things I shouldn't eat. I want to buy fattening foods when I know I am on a diet.' She did not eat any more than before she began to diet; however, desires to eat certain foods are perceived as being a problem.

Actual loss of control

One of the main effects of dieting is that it contributes to actual loss of control over eating. Dieting causes increases in the preoccupation with food, making food more attractive, it alters responses to food, resulting in certain foods becoming 'forbidden', which triggers specific states of mind, and it causes mood changes. All these contribute to actual loss of control and result in the dieter eating more than she would have if she hadn't dieted in the first place.

One woman said that she found the diet very difficult. 'I feel depressed about dieting. I overate to start off with, felt depressed and then ate more. I felt that eating would make me happier, but I just felt guilty and wanted more to eat.' Dieting resulted in her eating more than if she had not tried to diet in the first place.

Another woman said: 'I can't cope at the moment with the feelings of deprivation that I get when I go on a diet. It wells up inside me and I panic and eat.' The diet made her feel deprived, and so even though she wasn't eating less, she then ate more to compensate.

Dieting aims to control food intake and to reduce food consumption. It aims to impose a structure on the dieter's behaviour and to result in weight loss. It doesn't appear to achieve either of these aims. The cognitive and emotional changes which occur as a response to dieting undermine attempts at eating less, and cause overeating, the very behaviour dieters are trying to avoid.