Alan_A, Age 28, 7DW Advanced Cleansing, Master Faster Cleanse #2, Introduction, English Teacher

[Alan_A]

Hi all,

this intro is a lot late:rolleyes: , since actually i'm already into my precleanse and will start my formal cleanse the day after tomorrow.

i originally was planning to put up a video introduction but through the course of working with a couple of different cameras it so far hasn't worked out. its possible though that during my formal i might come across another camera and at least post a couple of videos.

i've been having a really good pre cleanse this week, enjoying eating light and less foods and that has resulted in better more constant energy throughout the day.

this cleanse will be the first one that i have had to work but with my experience and since i've adjusted and waited until my workload lightened there shouldn't be any problem.

its been about nine months since my last cleanse and i'm looking forward to this upcoming one so as to clean out my cells, tissues, organs, and joints of general toxicity that accrues just by living, clean out the extra extraneous build up of toxins due to my lifestyle this past winter of more or less doing eating drinking anything, and clean out emotionally and mentally both of which have been affected by last winter's lifestyle and by a very challenging intimate relationship.....

already during this precleanse,-- which included one day of only brown rice, one all-fruit day, and a couple of nights where i ate nothing but corn juice,-- already i've experienced more energy and clarity of mind that has allowed me to keep a clearer eye on my emotional/mental beings which has in turn gone through some upheaval and cleansing themselves.

i'd say that overall i'm feeling well, yet i definitely feel "heavy" and denser without a lightness of body and life. i'm sleeping too much and feel less than productive day to day without the clarity and crisp flow of mind and action.

after many cleanses under my belt so far, and with a good pre cleanse leading up to this formal, i'm very confident i'll see my being respond even more positively and uproot and release the extraneous toxicity and tendencies of living that have accumulated over the past nine months and support the sustaining of this cleanliness on into the future of the post cleanse.

and i'm even more confident that this will happen along side a great and growing number of cleansing friends here at our community who have been practicing self-healthcare the HPS way with courageous hearts and have brought me so much support, inspiration, and have given me the opportunity in turn to support, love, and inspire:D

with much MUCH gratitude,

[Jos-hua Medicine man]

Wishing you all the best Alan!

Hey, do you know something that the people at Boston Globe newspaper don't know?

=======================================

Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/05/12/time_to_cleanse_think_again/)wrote this a week ago...

By Judy Foreman
May 12, 2008

To read the Internet ads, you'd think that our bodies were awash in "toxins" - usually unspecified - and that we should therefore go to dramatic lengths, like "colon cleansing" and chelation to get rid of all this bad stuff.

more stories like thisDon't believe it. Or, to put it a bit more gently, don't risk your health or your pocketbook on programs that promise to "detoxify" you, without at least doing lots of homework first. Like asking exactly what these supposed "toxins" are. And thinking twice - or 20 times - before undergoing chelation, a procedure that uses powerful drugs to rid your body of heavy metals such as mercury or lead.

Some alternative medicine practitioners, such as Dr. Glenn Rothfeld, medical director of WholeHealth New England in Arlington, believe - although research is skanty - that cleaning out the colon occasionally may help some people, particularly those with irritable bowel syndrome. "Though whether it helps by getting rid of toxins is not clear," he said.

There's evidence, Rothfeld said, that the digestive tracts of people who eat typical Western diets may move wastes along more slowly than those of people who eat more fiber. In theory, this longer "transit time" could mean that some substances, like nitrosamines, which are found in preserved meats and are carcinogenic in animals, have more time to cause trouble.

But generally, people don't need to take dramatic steps to "detoxify" themselves because human bodies have multiple systems for getting rid of wastes, by sweating, exhaling, urinating, and defecating. If you really want a "clean" system, eat more fruits and vegetables and less junk food, all of which we're supposed to do anyway.

One testimonial ad, next to a truly gross picture on drnatura.com, reads, "How would you feel if long pieces of old toxin-filled fecal matter were stuck to the inside of your colon for months or even years?" But it's simply not true that waste material gets stuck indefinitely in the colon - though the cleansing products themselves can form the gels that look like huge stools.

"I've heard my kids say that there's stuff in the GI [gastrointestinal] tract for seven years," said Dr. Douglas Pleskow, a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "That is the urban legend. In reality, most people clear their GI tract within three days."

The ads for colon cleansing are also remarkably vague about what toxins would be purged with enemas, laxatives, or special diets. Asked what toxins his colon cleansing dietary regimen called "Master Cleanse" gets rid of, author Peter Glick man, an advocate of a raw food diet, spoke of "metabolic toxins," parasites, and "environmental toxins . . . whatever kinds of stuff we're breathing in air."

Wrong, said Dr. Bennett Roth, a gastroenterologist at UCLA: "There is absolutely no science to this whatsoever. There is no such thing as getting rid of 'toxins.' The colon was made to carry stool. This is total baloney."

more stories like thisWhat's actually in the intestinal tract is mostly bacteria, which can aid in digestion. "An enema or laxative does not get rid of more 'bad' versus 'good' bacteria," said Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. It gets rid of both. "We don't like the idea of carrying bacteria so lots of folks want to cleanse, but remember bacteria can be your friend."

Moreover, colon cleansing would do no good at all for environmental pollutants such as PCBs and DDT, which are stored not in the gut but in fat, and can't be eliminated by colon cleansing.

Perhaps most worrisome, colon cleansing can actually be dangerous because most techniques draw fluid from surrounding tissues into the colon. This disrupts the balance of electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, said Pleskow of Beth Israel. This shift in fluids can lead to dehydration and low blood pressure.

As for chelation, it can be useful for getting rid of heavy metals such as lead in people with very high blood levels. But chelation can also be dangerous - the chelating drugs themselves can be toxic to the liver and kidneys.

It is totally inappropriate for people who have near-normal levels of heavy metals to get chelation therapy, said Dr. Rose Goldman, an associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Beware of practitioners who use hair sampling to detect multiple heavy metals and elements, said Goldman. "This type of hair sampling is highly inaccurate," she said. Some practitioners push chelation on people who complain of vague symptoms like fatigue and difficulty concentrating, which could easily be due to problems other than heavy metal poisoning.

If you do decide on chelation, ask if the physician is board-certified by either the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Be skeptical about practitioners who say they practice "clinical ecology," which is not a recognized medical specialty.

And before you jump to chelation, said Dr. Alan Woolf, director of the pediatric environmental health center at Children's Hospital Boston, make sure the environment is as free as possible of the contaminant in question, such as lead, so you don't recontaminate yourself. And try conservative treatments first, like adding calcium, zinc, and iron to the diet because these minerals can block absorption of lead into the body.

Before you fall prey to the country's rampant toxic phobia, ponder the whole notion of detoxification. And remember, your body has an extraordinary ability to cleanse itself.

Judy Foreman can be reached at foreman@globe.com.
=============================================

[Alan_A]

well Jos-hua, this is what i came up with and i'm thinking about sending it off to the Boston Globe but wanted to run it by you and the others first to see if there could be anything added.....

Please, anyone who thinks something should be added or deleted, let me know, then if we send this off and you are willing i can add your name to the closing.

her article is in italics....



Hi Judy, I read your recent article on colon cleansing and since I’m doing my sixth colon cleanse in three years I felt compelled to respond.

My name is Alan and I’m a health practitioner apart of the online community www.hpscleansing.com/group, a community of people dedicated to taking self-responsibility for their health. We all practice healthcare on our own bodies and therefore we call ourselves health practitioners, not because we are “licensed” practitioners with clinics and clients but because we practice day in and day out to regain and rejuvenate our health. As a result of our style of colon cleansing, which includes in-home colonic irrigations, healthy lifestyle-practices in everyday life, and the frequent sharing in and participation in others health via online forums, we have all accrued a great amount of knowledge and experience that I found runs contrary to your research on the subject of colon cleansing thus far.

By the way, I want to talk about colon cleansing only, not chelation as I have no experience with that modality.

To read the Internet ads, you'd think that our bodies were awash in "toxins" - usually unspecified - and that we should therefore go to dramatic lengths, like "colon cleansing" and chelation to get rid of all this bad stuff.

To most people colon cleansing is strange and might seem a bit dramatic. In actuality it is quite simple. The type we do is colonic irrigations done at home which uses only gravity as force-pressure. No machines. Nothing dramatic. Just water, a bucket, some tubes and a tip that is inserted to a shallow depth into the anus. In my mind this is far far less dramatic, embarassing, and inconvenient than the procedure of colonoscopy or sygmoidoscopy that use scopes to probe deep within the colon to assess the situation.

more stories like thisDon't believe it. Or, to put it a bit more gently, don't risk your health or your pocketbook on programs that promise to "detoxify" you, without at least doing lots of homework first. Like asking exactly what these supposed "toxins" are. And thinking twice - or 20 times - before undergoing chelation, a procedure that uses powerful drugs to rid your body of heavy metals such as mercury or lead.

Yes, toxins. Toxins are elements which are traumatic to the body and its systems. What kind? How about instead of what kind, I can talk about what is causing them. First there is food and besides the unavoidable toxic elements inherent in all food that the body excretes there are avoidable toxins created by foods that are eaten in improper combinations (ie acidic with alkaline foods) and when in the stomach are not digested thoroughly and putrify or ferment and become toxic to the intestinal tract, blood, organs, tissues and cells. Then there are the foods that carry the residues of pesticides and chemical fertilizers used for agriculture, and the foods that are processed and packaged with additives, preservatives, and chemical flavorings and colorings, and the meats which are laden with antibiotics and growth hormones—all of which are toxins. Then there is environmental pollution of water and air which are toxic to the body and are also therefore toxins. Plus there is chemically-made medicine and the chemical elements used to make those medicines that simultaneously treat symptoms and create side effects due to those chemical toxins.

a lot of different sources of toxins.

Some alternative medicine practitioners, such as Dr. Glenn Rothfeld, medical director of WholeHealth New England in Arlington, believe - although research is skanty - that cleaning out the colon occasionally may help some people, particularly those with irritable bowel syndrome. "Though whether it helps by getting rid of toxins is not clear," he said.

There's evidence, Rothfeld said, that the digestive tracts of people who eat typical Western diets may move wastes along more slowly than those of people who eat more fiber. In theory, this longer "transit time" could mean that some substances, like nitrosamines, which are found in preserved meats and are carcinogenic in animals, have more time to cause trouble.

But generally, people don't need to take dramatic steps to "detoxify" themselves because human bodies have multiple systems for getting rid of wastes, by sweating, exhaling, urinating, and defecating. If you really want a "clean" system, eat more fruits and vegetables and less junk food, all of which we're supposed to do anyway.

Yes, you are so right, and we rejoice in that fact daily-- the body has perfectly-designed systems for dealing with wastes. BUT that is so long as those systems are functioning optimally. What happens is that the systems can be overrun with toxins from the factors described above while additionally compromised by things such as negative emotions and thoughts, stress and poor lifestyle habits such as lack of exercising and bad sleeping habits which contribute to lower immunity and integrity of the body’s systems. Once this happens then the body’s natural innate abilities to deal with and detoxify itself becomes greatly hindered.

One testimonial ad, next to a truly gross picture on drnatura.com, reads, "How would you feel if long pieces of old toxin-filled fecal matter were stuck to the inside of your colon for months or even years?" But it's simply not true that waste material gets stuck indefinitely in the colon - though the cleansing products themselves can form the gels that look like huge stools.

When myself and my community of friends does their one week colon cleanses we all see with our own eyes the waste material that gets stuck to the walls of the intestinal tract. We just wash over the waste material with water to wash away the cleansing products and you can see the waste material very clearly. Just recently one of my friends colon cleansed and didn’t use any cleansing products, and still out came large amounts of waste material many many days after his last meal.

"I've heard my kids say that there's stuff in the GI [gastrointestinal] tract for seven years," said Dr. Douglas Pleskow, a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "That is the urban legend. In reality, most people clear their GI tract within three days."

Yes, if the GI is functioning optimally and supported by a healthy and consistent lifestyle.

The ads for colon cleansing are also remarkably vague about what toxins would be purged with enemas, laxatives, or special diets. Asked what toxins his colon cleansing dietary regimen called "Master Cleanse" gets rid of, author Peter Glick man, an advocate of a raw food diet, spoke of "metabolic toxins," parasites, and "environmental toxins . . . whatever kinds of stuff we're breathing in air."

Yes, and add parasites to my list too.

Wrong, said Dr. Bennett Roth, a gastroenterologist at UCLA: "There is absolutely no science to this whatsoever. There is no such thing as getting rid of 'toxins.' The colon was made to carry stool. This is total baloney."

more stories like thisWhat's actually in the intestinal tract is mostly bacteria, which can aid in digestion. "An enema or laxative does not get rid of more 'bad' versus 'good' bacteria," said Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. It gets rid of both. "We don't like the idea of carrying bacteria so lots of folks want to cleanse, but remember bacteria can be your friend."

That is how I used to think, and how most people still think—bacteria are the culprits for our health problems so we should avoid and eliminate them at all costs. The reality of the matter is that even though bacteria and viruses contribute to the process illness and dis-ease they can only do so if they have the proper environment to flourish in ie a toxic, immunity-compromised human body. With our colon cleansing AND proper everyday lifestyle we are always creating and successfully sustaining healthy highly-immune internal environments so that in the very likely case of acquiring bacteria and viruses the body can simply deal with it perfunctorily and with ease.

It is true that colon cleansing cleans out the good with the bad bacteria, but with proper colon cleansing which includes correct supplementation we do replenish our GI’s bacteria colonies.

Moreover, colon cleansing would do no good at all for environmental pollutants such as PCBs and DDT, which are stored not in the gut but in fat, and can't be eliminated by colon cleansing.

What PROPER colon cleansing does is clean the cells, tissues, organs, and blood. It strengthens and balances the organs and energy systems. With all of these cleaner and functioning optimally anything extraneous in the body is gradually brought into balance. In the case of fat, which is all to often extraneous, unneeded and definitely unwanted, the body will naturally deal with the fat, burning it off as it is no longer needed, while the blood can carry away the toxins to the necessary excretion channels ie the colon, lungs, kidneys and skin which are more than up to the task.

So, its not a matter of solely colon cleansing, but a matter of cleansing to clean out the colon and organs and with multiple methods rebuild, renourish, and rejuvenate the body in the period of time AFTER colon cleansing. its in this way that real lasting health comes about.

Perhaps most worrisome, colon cleansing can actually be dangerous because most techniques draw fluid from surrounding tissues into the colon. This disrupts the balance of electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, said Pleskow of Beth Israel. This shift in fluids can lead to dehydration and low blood pressure.

Before you fall prey to the country's rampant toxic phobia, ponder the whole notion of detoxification. And remember, your body has an extraordinary ability to cleanse itself.

Probably yes, too much fear, which is an emotional toxin and detrimental to one’s overall health. But then again could it also be people are awakening to to what others with experience of great health are saying, or what their personal intuition might be telling them, that things are not right with their health and with the system of health care they have grown up with, and that we can personally take full responsibility for our health creating real vibrant sustainable health that gets better and better each year?

With gratitude and appreciation,

Alan_A and the HPS Cleansing Community

Judy Foreman can be reached at foreman@globe.com.

[Richard_D]

Hey Alan, I guess this is going to be a short intro period (and precleanse, I guess for that matter) if you're starting up the formal in a couple of days, so I'm glad to have caught your thread today while it's still current. I've been mulling over the video thing too but I don't even have a camera, and neither of my computers has the processing power it would take to do decent video from a webcam, so...some other time.

You've done a pretty good job addressing the points made in that article, but to be honest you can see so much deep misunderstanding in everything that she wrote that I don't think anything you have to say would get through all the misinformation. She seems to think that the water itself in the colon is somehow detoxing the body, and apparently has no idea that the body carries out its own detoxing from the tissues and organs, no idea of the theory behind it. The doctors she quotes are either astonishingly ignorant or just being deliberately dishonest.

But I don't think you'll change any minds, maybe if she printed your response there might be a couple of people on the sidelines who get the message, but overall I'd be prepared to be dismissed as a kook.

Anyway, the real business at hand is your upcoming formal, and I hope you get the video to work out before it's over with.

Rick

[Stephen_C]

Hi Allen,

Good to see you are getting ready for another cleans and I'm also happy to hear you were not affected by the big quake. I'm sure your body is ready to cleans and will be thanking you as you prepare for your formal...

As far as the article goes it seems to me to be generated more toward this culture of fear and greed that has been perpetuated on us over the last few years. The big phramas and doctors obviously don't want people healthy because of profits. Here at HPS we know the difference because of our continuing practice and our participation within the forums. There are no quick fixes, but as we all know through practice change toward a good, positive healthy lifestyle can be achieved.....

Looking forward to your 6th MASTER FASTER cleans.....

PEACE

Stephen_C

[Alan_A]

hey guys,

Rick, yep, formal in two days, guess i'll just jump right into that without any precleanse thread. i also agree with you that probably sending my reply to her would be useless. anyway, if someone with a bit of knowledge, or even if someone with as much knowledge as herself comes along they can see for themselves that there is another way of looking at colon cleansing and personal self-healthcare.

Stephen, my body is so ready to cleanse and i know this especially after i just read at the hps-online.com homepage my testimonial from last year:

"..Youthful energy, toned appearance, enhanced mental functioning, enhanced creativity, development of all-encompassing compassion, intimate connection with all forms of life, rich relationships, enhanced decision making abilities, discardings of useless self-limiting beliefs, creation of life-revitalizing beliefs….all of these I have and am experiencing. Really, the list goes on and on for someone who is devoted to taking responsibility for themselves and healing themselves.

I’ve been so fortunate to to be apart of all of these transformations, and one of the most important of these has been the long overdue return of energy to my body. Energy I now have to put towards developing awareness of my emotionality and attitude-mentality, seeing where I self-defeat myself, where i deny a vibrant life for myself, and where to work to make the necessary changes."

its amazing to me how true that was and how true it is now that i'm feeling no where near what i was feeling then. i am truly looking forward to bringing the energy back to my life that i was feeling after my last cleanse.

but i want to add some perspective to this--if i was in the same position before HPS that i'm in now feeling comparitively stagnant, stuck in a rut, lower than desired energy with less than ideal clarity of mind, non-prolific creativity, and procrastination creeping in a bit i would be suffering and struggling so much more. instead it is much easier to see these things as a process, to see how they've come about, and to see a way through HPS cleansing to transform them.

i think its an old belief that i can do things alone, but really, i can't nor do i need to do them alone. i see now how dependent i am on HPS.

[Jos-hua Medicine man]

yea, cool Alan, surprised me to find what yu wrote and are doing, but yea, real cool... my only comment is maybe you want to add a bit about the fasting, because that is where the detox is actually coming into play, after all the home colonics are just washing, plus of course oxygenating, and the herbals are basically breaking up and releasing the crap, and of course nourishing, but the fasting dude, that in combination with the colon cleansing is the key to detox, and i know everytime that i see a colon cleansing site which doesn;t include fasting and juicing, but makes claims of the sort hps see from their cleansing, then i immediately know that they are just copying other sites like ours, because without the fasting, no real detox is coming about and if no real deep detox is not going on, half the things they claim just from colon cleansing could not be happening.

anyway, yea real cool. go for it Alan...why not?

[Benjamin_R]

Hey Alan

great to hear about your upcoming formal!! It's a good season to be cleansing with the warm weather and sounds like your body is going to lap up every minute!



"..Youthful energy, toned appearance, enhanced mental functioning, enhanced creativity, development of all-encompassing compassion, intimate connection with all forms of life, rich relationships, enhanced decision making abilities, discardings of useless self-limiting beliefs, creation of life-revitalizing beliefs….all of these I have and am experiencing. Really, the list goes on and on for someone who is devoted to taking responsibility for themselves and healing themselves.


That's a very profound testimonial you posted last year and I'm sure we'll be hearing more of this kind of testimonial in a week's time!...looking forward to it:cool:

I think your response is very well written and addresses the article very well....whether it will get through to the general masses is another story....but definitely submit it and hopefully it will reach a few people who are looking to take their health into their own hands and become HPS health practitioners!

Cheers

Ben