Part 1 - "The Perfect Breakfast"

Okay, let’s start with breakfast. I know, you’re not really hungry in the morning, plus you don’t have the time. Hey, that’s fine. There’s a reason why your body isn’t hungry when you wake up. Your body is smarter than you think. Why force concentrated foods into your system. “Hey, but all the other weight loss books tell me that a big breakfast is critical.”
Just listen. The word breakfast means, “breaking a fast”. A fast is an extended period without food. Last night, you hopefully slept a good eight hours . . . yeah right? Well for those eight hours or about that, your body went without food. That’s considered a short fast. When you woke up from that eight-hour sleep and ate breakfast, the fast was broken. In the human body, fasts are used to give your digestive system a break so that your body can devote its energy to cleansing and rebuilding. Problem is, in this day and age our bodies are so run down by excess food and processed junk, that our typical nightly fast is not nearly enough time for the body to digest all the food from the previous day. Plus your digestive system slows down at night; it would probably like a little “shut eye” too. Instead, that 8-hour fast is solely devoted toward digestion, rather than cleansing.
Because of the unnatural cooked and over processed foods we eat, each meal leaves our digestive system sluggish and filled with toxic residue to deal with. We expect it to just cleanse and heal itself, but it has no time! The next morning, we just pour undigested food on top of the halfdigested food still waiting there. Have you ever gorged yourself at dinner and still felt full the next morning? See what I mean. Over the past thousands of years, our bodies haven’t changed much, but our diets have . . . drastically. A light morning meal will help rid the body of these accumulated toxins and restore itself back to health. This morning cleansing process is VERY CRITICAL. Our digestive system needs this short, well-deserved rest in the morning. It will renew your ability to maintain optimum health. I’m going to explain your light morning meal in a second . . . I just need to throw in a quick biology lesson first. I promise to make this painless.
After food enters the stomach it travels into the small intestine (we have around twenty-five feet of small intestines for the slow absorption of plant food), food then enters the large intestine and continues through the colon (which makes up the majority of the large intestine) until the solid waste is finally excreted. Most people on the Standard American Diet (SAD) experience transit times of seventy-two hours or more. That means dinner last night could be chilling in your colon for days. In fact, upwards of eight (8) meals of undigested food and waste material could be sitting there, right now. The longer your body is clogged with rotting food in your colon, the greater the risk of developing various forms of illness. It’s a breeding ground for bad bacteria.
As a natural secretion to protect the surface of your colon’s membrane, the body creates mucus, trapping toxins to escort them out of your body. Dairy products, animal protein, processed foods, coffee and alcohol create the most mucus and congestion (since fruits and veggies are not foreign to the body, they don’t cause much secretion of this sticky mucus). After years of bad eating habits this thick mucus begins building up and lines the colon (like a clogged bathroom sink waiting for a “drano cleanse”). Thank goodness your colon can stretch to five times its diameter; otherwise our colon could be blocked completely by this mess. Unfortunately, water and some minerals must also be absorbed in the colon. Yet this mucus build-up inhibits proper absorption of nutrients and water, as well as slowing our normal peristalsis (uh oh, big word there, sorry). See, your colon is lined with these muscles that contract and send waste through to be excreted, that’s all peristalsis means. If those muscles are slowed-down so is your systems transit time and because of that, wastes just sit there rotting.
Good news though, this "perfect breakfast" and all the meals to come, dramatically decreases the transit time of waste matter avoiding toxic buildup. Besides, as you consume more raw fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds as a staple part of your diet, your body is finally nutritionally satisfied, properly hydrated and progressively it requires less food.
So needless to say a light morning meal is a good idea!
Here’s how it works.
Remember, you want to keep your body in a cleansing mode as long as possible. When you wake in the morning I highly recommend an ultra cleansing, highly nutritious whole food smoothie. Here is the recipe:
In a blender add:
1 banana (When I notice my bananas are getting too ripe, I'll peel them, wrap them in aluminum foil seperately and freeze them so they don't turn to mush and I alway have back-up).
1 handful of frozen fruit for women, 2 handfuls for guys (or fresh and whatever fruit you prefer) Try to eat organically grown fruits in order to cut down on your exposure to toxic fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. Organic farming also produces more nutrient-rich soil, which nourishes the plants and therefore nourishes you.1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green™ These nutrients are all in the form of whole food green vegetables and superfoods such as whole leaf wheatgrass, whole leaf barley grass, broccoli juice, kale juice, spinach juice, Spirulina, Chlorella, Icelandic kelp, etc.. without any added fillers. I get nothing to recommend this product, just truly believe in it for the past 10 years!
1 tablespoon whole flaxseeds (they grind in blender)
1/4 cup protein powder for women, 1/2 cup for guys (Raw Power™ protein is awesome, and again I am not endorsed by the company)
1/4 cup almond milk or plain greek yogurt for women, 1/2 cup for guys
1/4 cup water (or more to get the best consistency)
Shot of orange juice

Blend until smooth, about 30 seconds.Although this green smoothie may not look so appealing, believe me, it's fantastic and your body will actually crave it and your appetite and blood sugar will thank you! YOUR BODY WAS DESIGNED TO RECOGNIZE THIS FORM OF NUTRITION. Need I say more? This is some good stuff.
Continue drinking water in the morning until your next meal. And no, not that artificially sweetened, clear, carbonated, fruit flavored mess. That’s not water, it’s artificial and full of hard to digest chemicals.
This smoothie will keep your body in the cleansing mode, while providing natural bulk fiber that acts as a sweep through your colon. Remember, you always want to increase transit time. We don’t want anything just hangin’ out in our colon, right? We want to absorb the nutrients we need from the food and say goodbye. Since the smoothie help to loosen up old toxins in your colon, you’ll need extra water to dilute them and flush them out. When your body is in a cleansing mode, you are also releasing toxins from your organs and tissues, which release into your bloodstream before they are excreted. If you don’t have a lot of purified water in your system to dilute them, you could actually feel worse before you feel better. If you notice any detoxifying side effects like headaches or weak feelings, drink more water and if they persist, see your doctor. Guys should drink around a gallon of purified water a day and females should drink around three-quarters of a gallon per day, unless otherwise directed by your physician. If you drink too little water on this plan, you can also actually get "backed up" since you are adding so much extra fiber, which expands in the gut, like a soggy bowl of Raisin Bran, and needs a lot of water to push through. Stay tunned for your next meal, Part 2 but try this out for now. No need to make tons of changes all at once.
Copyright 2011 by Kathy Feldman. All rights reserved.