3 The Solution: The 10-Day Detox Diet

Now that you understand the biology of food addiction and the means by which sugar takes hold of your taste buds, your hormones, your brain chemistry, and your waistline, and now that you know what controls hunger and fat storage, you can use that knowledge to achieve a healthy weight and metabolism not by willpower but by detoxification. It’s time for rehab!

Once you take back control of your biochemistry and body, you can be more flexible, but at the beginning you have to think about this as you would any other addiction. You must unhook from the biology that drives your behavior.

It takes dramatic change to reset your biology when it is in a state of chaos. You know how when your computer freezes, you need to reboot the whole system? You can’t just shut down one program and hope it will right itself. Well, you need to do something similar to regain control of your health.

Remember, biochemistry drives your behavior, not willpower. So you’ll have to use some biochemical science to reset your hormones and neurotransmitters—and by extension, to effortlessly end your cravings, lose weight, and reverse disease. That science is the foundation of the Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet.

Here’s what the detox will do for you:

Shut down the insulin surges—and thereby arrest belly fat storage and cravings.
Improve your cells’ sensitivity to insulin so you need less to balance your blood sugar, resulting in weight loss and health.
Reduce cortisol—the stress hormone that increases cravings for sugar, promotes belly fat storage, and shrinks your brain.
Lower ghrelin, the hunger hormone.
Improve leptin sensitivity in the brain, allowing your natural appetite-regulating system to begin to work again.
Increase the brake on appetite called PYY (peptide YY), the intestinal hormone that makes you feel full after a meal.
Increase dopamine naturally and reset your brain’s reward pathways so you can feel pleasure from eating real food.
Reset your taste buds so real food tastes good again.
Reduce inflammation (the problem at the root of almost all weight gain and chronic disease) by eliminating common food sensitivities, processed foods, and sugar and by including anti-inflammatory foods.
Boost detoxification by eliminating toxins from your diet and life and enhancing your body’s ability to get rid of stored toxins that make you fat.

Each of these important biological changes occurs automatically during the Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet. They happen as you detox from sugar and processed food… as you shift your eating patterns… as you flood your body with real, whole, fresh, anti-inflammatory foods… as you learn the simple, fundamental skills to help your body heal.

Keep in mind, though, that this program is designed not just for easy and rapid weight loss, but also to prepare you for long-term weight management and health improvement. So during each of the ten days, you will also focus on one aspect of whole-system healing. I will teach you how to:

Satisfy to cut your cravings for sugar and processed food.
Detox from all addictive substances and support your body’s detoxification system.
Empty and clean out your digestive system to help your body eliminate toxins.
Move your body so you improve your metabolism to create optimal health.
Listen to the changes happening in your body and become aware of the natural shifts toward health and wellness.
Think and examine the thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that get in the way of weight loss, and create new thought patterns for health and well-being.
Nurture yourself and calm your nervous system through simple techniques of breathing and relaxation.
Design your life through focused planning and attention and change your environment to create the automatic conditions for health.
Notice and track the changes happening in your body, including your food intake, movement, sleep patterns, and numbers (weight, waist size, blood pressure, blood sugar, lab tests, and medical symptoms).
Connect with others to get support to sustain and enhance the changes you have made, and to make changes in your community that can help us all heal.

As you progress through this learning experience, you will be simultaneously removing toxins, sugars, processed foods, and chemicals (like artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and MSG), plus foods (like gluten and dairy) that commonly cause allergies and sensitivities. You’ll be removing a lot of inflammatory, addictive, health-robbing things from your diet and your life. But what you’ll be adding is just as important, if not more so.

The food plan will introduce healing, anti-inflammatory, insulin-balancing, appetite-regulating, and detoxifying foods to your diet. You’ll be enjoying foods rich in phytochemicals—powerful, natural compounds that remove weight-producing toxins, including pesticides, heavy metals, and other chemicals known as obesogens. You’ll also be indulging in some delightful stress-relieving, self-care activities. This program is not about deprivation, but about abundance. It is about new choices and a new experience of health.

QUICK START, LONG-TERM FIX

You might wonder, “How is ten days enough to make a difference? Can I really accomplish anything in ten days that will make a lasting impact?” My answer is yes.

We have learned that if you have diabetes, you can reverse it in a few weeks with a gastric bypass, even if you are still morbidly obese. Why? Because when you rapidly shift your way of eating, you shift your hormones, brain chemistry, and biology very quickly.

Think of the Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet as a gastric bypass without the pain of surgery, vomiting, malnutrition, or weight regain. Research has shown that dramatic changes in diet, without gastric bypass, can very quickly normalize blood sugar in type 2 diabetics, getting them off medication in as little as a week. After twelve weeks, their liver, pancreas, and metabolism all return to normal. Your body is capable of amazing healing if you give it the chance.

But as I said, you don’t have to believe me. You just have to try it. You can do anything for ten days. The proof will be in the results.

Some may think this program extreme, or dismiss it by saying that if you eliminate any group of foods (like sugar or gluten or dairy), you will lose weight because you reduce overall calories. But this is not a calorie-restricted program, although it is possible that your net calories will naturally go down as the result of eating real food. That’s because real, whole foods are nutrient-rich and calorie-poor, whereas processed foods tend to be calorie-rich and nutrient-poor. As I explained in Myth #1, though, this really isn’t about calories. If you eat only real, whole, nutrient-dense foods (and stop obsessing about counting calories), you will win every time.

In just a few days you can literally reprogram your biology with the right foods, eaten at the right time with a few other simple lifestyle changes that can allow you to detox painlessly and experience how freeing it is to escape food addiction without struggle. There might be a moment of doubt, or even terror at the thought of giving up your Coke or Diet Coke, or your daily bread or cookies. You might wonder, “If I take away the things that make me feel good (however temporarily), what will I replace them with?”

What I’m offering you in exchange is a radical promise. It’s the promise that you will emerge after the first few days of this program feeling light, happy, energetic, and alive again—released from the grip of food addiction and in possession of a vitality you probably haven’t experienced in years. The joy you feel from being free of cravings and struggles with food will quickly replace any quick-hit high you get from sugar and junk. All you have to do is take that first step.

If you are looking to get into a special dress or suit for a big event, or to get ready for beach season, or just to do a quick reset on your overall health, it’s fine to use those goals as motivators. You will see fast results to get you to those goals. But I want you to understand that the impact of this program is far greater than the achievement of any short-term aspiration. Once you have used the program to reset your biology, you’ll see that it is really the beginning of an entirely new way of eating and living—one that will lead to optimal weight and long-term health and vitality.

In the next chapter, you’ll discover the potent combination of foods and lifestyle practices that make up the 10-Day Detox. You’ll learn everything you need to know, get, and do to radically change your body—and your life—from the inside out.