The Natural Path to Optimal Health

As you continue along your natural path to optimal health, you will encounter some ‘bumps in the road’. In this post, we will explore the path to illness as well as how the body heals in a very systematic manner and why the natural path to optimal health is not a straight one. Understanding the healing process is vital for maintaining your motivation and focus. So sit back, take a deep breath and read on about walking along the natural path to optimal health!

The Downward Path to Ill Health

People who have suffered from vitamin, mineral and/or protein deficiency for a period of years (many without realizing it) are likely to experience quite noticeable reactions when they begin to eat foods and take supplements that start to drive toxins out of the body. Some of the reactions most commonly experienced are:

Extra pimples or temporary rash (areas where the skin is trying to eliminate excess toxins)
Cold sores or strawberries on the end of the tongue
Sniffles or even a mild cold
Headaches, black spots before the eyes or dizziness (when stirred up toxins circulate through the head before being eliminated)

Many other reactions are also normal and temporary. Remember you can’t clean house without stirring up a lot of dirt first. The house invariably looks worse (for a short period of time) before you can make it look better!

The path to natural, optimum health is not a straight line, just as the path to ill health and its chronic ailments was not a straight one.

The downward path to ill health is shown graphically above and explained below. Notice first the line for natural (optimal) health. This line represents where we could be IF we lived in accordance with natural laws: eating natural, wholesome foods, exercising regularly, getting plenty of clean, fresh air, and adequately dealing with the stressors in our lives. Our decisions determine whether and how far we stray from this state of optimal health.

The line of actual health represents the results of our choices in life – it shows the downward trend that most of us experience at some point in our life. The timeline may be weeks, months, years or even decades. What this graph illustrates is that our health usually slips away from us gradually over time and not as the result of some catastrophic event. Think back over your own life, even if you just “woke up one day and noticed you didn’t feel well/right/energetic/etc”, you will find that you actually got to where you are over time.

This point represents the health line nature intended with no aches or pains, living in this world enjoying natural optimal health.
Toxins begin to build up in the body as a result of eating processed foods, lack of adequate water & exercise, too much stress, etc. and you begin to feel “run-down”. This is where acute illness strikes and one typically will go to the doctor or take medications.
This is where the “illness crisis” occurs – this is when you feel you’re lowest. This is the point where you are able to stop the progression of degeneration through some type of compensation and/or intervention (i.e., drugs, surgery, etc.) and you start to feel better.
You obtain a new level of health – you feel “OK”, but lack your original vibrant, buoyant vitality. This is because your body was only able to compensate; it was not able to truly heal itself.
This is the point where you again start to accumulate toxins faster than they can be eliminated and your health starts to erode once more.
You come down with a new acute illness that is intolerable, again necessitating a visit to the doctor and/or pharmacy.
This is the end of the current “illness crisis” – you start to feel better again.
Your body reaches another plateau of health – you feel fair, but lack nature’s vibrant vitality because you still have more accumulated toxins in your body than you can tolerate and deal with. Many of these toxins result from previous suppression of illnesses through the use of medication.
You again reach a point where the body can no longer handle the toxic load from stored toxins and the accumulating toxic burden from continued poor dietary and lifestyle choices. You begin to break down, accumulating more toxins along the way.
New acute illness and another call to the doctor or trip to the pharmacy.
End of latest “illness crisis” and the start of a temporary recovery…. And so on and so on. Each new crisis lowers your reserve energy and causes a greater accumulation of toxicity resulting in further breakdown of normal body processes that show outwardly as chronic symptoms and illness.

Now you can see how years of poor dietary choices and symptom suppression can gradually lead to what we call chronic illness/dis-eases. By using medications to suppress symptoms of an underlying problem or an attempt by the body to “clean-house” you prevent the body from ridding itself of stored toxic material, leading to gradual toxic overload. You don’t suddenly go from vibrant health to chronic illness; it is a cyclical process of accumulation and degeneration, illness, compensation and further degeneration.

Likewise, as you reverse the process through dietary and lifestyle changes, you cannot achieve optimal health overnight. You will progress back towards natural optimal health in a similar step-wise fashion.

Your current state of poor health with its many symptoms, aches, complaints and toxic poisons, after years of consuming civilized demineralized, devitalized, empty calorie foods . At point A you decide to do something about your health and get help – this is the point where you decide that the natural way is the way in which to rebuild and start the process towards regaining optimal health. Your health stabilizes as your body begins to regenerate enough reserve energy to begin the healing process.
At point B you experience a “healing crisis”. This means that the body spontaneously starts cleansing and throwing off toxins. This occurs because you have prepared yourself (by consuming a more healthful diet and making healthy lifestyle choices) to begin the “health recovery” process. The healing crisis may actually feel very similar to an “illness crisis” – in both cases your body will show similar outward symptoms (i.e. runny nose, headaches, nausea, fever, etc.). However, a “healing crisis” is very different from an “illness crisis” and you must not stop the process by using medications or other means of symptom suppression.

You can tell a healing crisis from an illness crisis by the way it starts. Invariably, a general feeling of lower energy with a gradual onset of symptoms (i.e., swelling glands, constipation, achy joints, etc.) will precede an illness crisis. The healing crisis usually comes on quickly and is preceded by a period of exuberant health – just before a healing crisis a person often feels better than they have in a long time. And they are healthier – a healing crisis occurs because the body is now healthy enough to dig deeper and remove more of the stored up wastes that you have been carrying around. It can use your new-found energy to rid itself of these wastes, but in so doing, you feel a lag in energy and may experience symptoms as your body metabolizes these wastes and eliminates them.

At this point it is very important to remember that what is happening is normal and necessary for true healing to occur. The body is trying to move from one level of health to another higher level of health by throwing off toxins and healing itself. The golden rule to remember is that whatever moves you into a healing crisis will also move you through and eventually out of the crisis, allowing you to achieve a greater level of health.

Point C shows the positive improvements that are possible if the healing crisis is encouraged to continue. You will feel better than you have for a very long time and you may even over-do-it a little bit – the body will eventually settle into a new level of balance.
At point D, your body begins to once again rebuild your energy reserves and your level of health stabilizes. You will have lost some weight, achieved more energy, greater mobility and a generalized better feeling about your health. Initially, this motivates you to continue on the program. However, most people are looking for the results achieved during the B-C leg to continue. The most common complaint during this rebuilding phase is that “I’m not seeing progress anymore”. The fact is that you are, you just don’t know it yet. Your body is not a machine – it needs time to rest, stabilize and rebuild before it can begin the cleansing process again and throw off more of your toxic burden. Don’t lose faith! You will soon experience the rewards of your perseverance and persistence in following the program.
Another healing crisis occurs and you begin the detoxification process again. If we have done our jobs right, you recognize this process and understand what a wonderful opportunity you have to work with your body while it is cleansing and healing. We are here to help you and we understand what you are going through!
Your body reaches another pinnacle of health and vitality and settles into the next higher level of health.
You rebuild, you repair and you build up your reserve energy. You may not see a lot of changes, but they are occurring, just beneath the surface. You may question, doubt and become discouraged; you may even “fall off the wagon”. DON”T GIVE UP! This is a normal part of the healing process and it is ESSENTIAL for achieving life-long optimal health. Your body has to become strong enough to be able to deal with the years of accumulated toxins. If your body simply dumped them all into your bloodstream at once, you’d die. That’s why it takes time and energy to reach a new level of health so it can throw off more toxins and eliminate them without causing excessive strain and damage to your glands, organs and systems. KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON!
Another healing crisis and the start of another spurt toward health…. etc.
Eventually, you will reach the point of optimal health.

Notice also that the “Tolerated Toxins Area” decreases as your body achieves greater and greater health. You will notice as you rebuild, repair and heal that you become more sensitive to foods, fumes, and products that did not bother you previously. As you become healthier, your body will start to give you (and you will be more aware of) very clear signals about things that are not good for your health. For example, if you used to eat fast foods before you started the healing process, you will find that fast foods will now cause nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramping or a general feeling of ill health. Your body is becoming a finely tuned machine and will not run well on poor fuel and it will let you know that it doesn’t appreciate the burden!

So you see that obtaining optimal health is not a straight road, but a path with many bumps and turns along the way. Knowing that they are coming and that they are a natural part of the healing process can go a long way in maintaining motivation and keeping an optimistic outlook.

We design our programs to work with the body along this natural path to health, helping the body rid itself of toxins ONLY when it is ready and helping rebuild and repair the body when the time is right. This step approach may take some time, and it definitely takes effort on your part, but the benefits of obtaining optimal health along the natural path are absolutely incredible. We want to help you and will work along side you as you climb the steps back to optimal health along the natural path.

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.