Today, we are all victims of a failed dietary strategy that was imposed on us in 1961 when the American Heart Association declared cholesterol a public health concern, putting cholesterol on the “Nutrient Concern” List. (1) When that happened, consumption of cholesterol and saturated fats greatly declined (2) and, in turn, a slow burning, more stable source of fuel was lost in the shuffle.

Shortly after cholesterol-free foods hit the market, the federal government subsidized farmers to grow wheat and corn in an attempt to eradicate hunger. (1) That meant that American farmers were being paid to grow wheat and corn, which helped farmers, but flooded the market with highly processed wheat and corn products such as high fructose corn syrup.

Soon, sugar, in the form of processed wheat and corn replaced fats as our primary source of fuel or energy. Without regularly consuming fats, slowly our ability to burn fat weakened. We gained weight, moods became unstable, heart disease skyrocketed (3), we became inefficient detoxifiers of fat-soluble toxins, and became less able to assimilate and use the body’s good fats.

Many of us need support to reboot optimal fat burning and the body’s natural detox pathways. This is why I developed the Colorado Cleanse.

My Story

After years of struggling with my own digestion as a result of over-cleansing, I committed most of my career to learning about the digestive system. It was Ayurveda that gave me the insights to link the digestive wisdom of Ayurveda with the natural health practices of the west.

After decades of working with the relationship between the two, and guiding tens of thousands of patients through the Colorado Cleanse and Ayurvedic detox programs, I have observed time and time again that without a doubt, for optimal digestion, yes, we must cleanse regularly. But before that can be successful, the digestive strength must be repaired.

This is why I developed the Colorado Cleanse in the first place – because I rarely find a patient whose digestive system is actually functioning optimally. Without a well-functioning digestive system, our bodies are loath to receive the cleansing benefits we are so eagerly looking for. And while we are told that we just don’t digest as well when we age, in my practice as I help my patients reset their digestion, I find that this doesn’t necessarily have to be true at all.

So this fall, let’s gear up the digestion and help the body flush out some of the old toxins we have been carrying for years, all while we reset our digestive strength!

A Cleansing Casualty

I remember fasting for the first time when I was 19. I had read Paul Bragg’s book, The Miracle of Fasting. I got hooked on health back then, and one cleanse led to another. Soon I was reading Bernard Jensen and doing colon cleanses, drinking clay and ingesting a cornucopia of herbs that left me all cleansed out, but unable to digest like I used to.

Though I was still just 20 years old, I had cleansed myself into having a digestive tract that only worked if I kept cleansing it. I called myself a “cleansing casualty,” weakened from too many harsh detox programs.

What I have observed with most detox programs is that they are very effective at detoxification, but little or no attention is given to the reasons the body became toxic in the first place. I think many of us assume that, because the world is toxic, we must be toxic as well and therefore must detoxify.

What most of us do not realize is that the body has an amazingly effective detox system that can process just about anything short of DDT. Basically, if the body is toxic, we must ask how it got that way, and fix that first.

Toxins – The Fat is Where It’s At

Most of the harmful toxins in our environment are fat soluble, such as pesticides, preservatives, heavy metals, environmental pollutants, and parasites. Because they are not soluble in water, the kidneys cannot excrete them until they are processed through a functional digestive and detox system.

Poor digestion is your cue to a poor detox system. So many folks who do not tolerate wheat, dairy or fried food may, in fact, have weak digestion, and are therefore at risk of toxicity. In the presence of a weakened digestive/detox system, not only do we not tolerate hard-to-digest foods, but the fat soluble toxins will find their way into fat cells for storage, which unfortunately includes the brain.

If we jump into a detox program without resetting digestive strength and the body’s natural detox ability first, we run the risk of just moving these fat soluble toxins from one fat cell to another. This often causes uncomfortable detox reactions.

The Colorado Cleanse

I designed the Colorado Cleanse based on years of experience with detoxification. In fact, I have been administering Ayurvedic Detox programs since 1986.

What makes the Colorado Cleanse so effective and popular is fourfold:

1. After 60 years of a flawed, low-fat, high-sugar diet, the Colorado Cleanse aims to repair the damage to the digestive system and reboot a robust detox process for the body.
2. Before we cleanse toxic fat cells, we reset the body’s natural detox and digestive pathways so the body can process the toxins released during the Cleanse.
3. During the Colorado Cleanse, if you are straining, the body will just store the fat we are attempting to burn/detox. Therefore, we don’t encourage straining. In fact, we say that if it isn’t comfortable, it isn’t working.
4. Because of the digestive and detox reset, there are little to no post-cleansing cravings or severe cleansing reactions.

I continue administering and guiding this cleanse for my patients as well as the Guided Group Cleanses for one simple reason: over and over again, I see it delivering amazing results.