Health: Medicine Guidelines

Fat, exhausted, depressed, pallid, and gaining frightening amounts of weight despite “everything’s normal” reports from my doctors, I started looking into intestinal cleansing and detox products. Coincidentally, I was trying to find something to add to a 4-for-3 promotion order and came across this little book (my freebie). I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise, probably, but I’m so glad I did! This is the most important “find” I’ve come across in quite a while.

Don’t let the slimness of this book fool you; it is far harder to write one page of compelling, succinctly presented information than it is to write 20 pages full of a bunch of words. Jerry Lee Hutchens has done a brilliant job with this little book.

The first 53 pages, sections I and II, convey simply but profoundly the way the organs of our digestive system are meant to work–and work together–to cleanse and nourish our bodies. I consider myself an educated woman, so I thought I understood all that, but I clearly didn’t. For example, I didn’t understand how my lungs are involved in the digestive process, and it really opened my eyes to what’s going on with my body now.

One profound recognition for me is how the blood and lymph work together to ensure optimal health. Did you know that, unlike our heart-pumped blood circulation system, the lymphatic system that works in tandem with it depends on muscular contractions to circulate properly? It was like a camera flashed before my flabbergasted face when the major significance of this one simple fact (of many in this book) hit home.

I don’t know about you, but when given the choice of exercising to “burn calories” and nebulously “speed up the metabolism” (what an exhausting notion) OR going on fad diets and buying supplements to lose weight, I’ve chosen the latter. (It’s easier not to eat than to exercise, after all; but, then, why does my weight keep going up and up and up along with fatigue and illness and the number of medications I have to take?)

After reading this book, I have to ask: What if our epidemic of obesity (and depression, fatigue, and disease) is partially driven by how the importance of exercise is explained to us? If not exercising is framed as more like not bathing or cleaning the house year-in and year-out instead of a means of becoming “impossibly slim” or impossibly “reversing the aging process,” perhaps more of us would embrace movement as avidly as we embrace all those expensive (and toxic) home and body cleaning products–not to mention plastic surgery–that we waste so much money on.

And lest you think this book pushes strenuous exercise, the last section of the book includes some very simple stretching, breathing, and yoga exercises that can be easily incorporated into anyone’s day–even some you can do while sitting on the toilet! It’s not a have-to; it’s a how-to.

Section III, The Large Intestine: Problems and Solutions, summarizes what certain digestive signs and symptoms might indicate and provides a valuable (and simple) at-home self-diagnostic test to determine how your system is working at any given time. This is where you will find information on parasites and common intestinal maladies such as Leaky Gut and Irritable Bowel Syndrome plus advice on the efficacy of various popular cleansing techniques. I would urge anyone considering a program of colonic cleansing to read this book first before deciding on how to proceed.

Finally, the guts (pun intended) of what I thought I bought this book for, the Weekend Cleanse, is a succinct 22 pages with everything you need to know to do a gentle, productive cleanse (up to five times a year) AND come off the cleanse without distress. There are no products to buy, just your choice of two simple approaches to the cleanse. I would have paid the full book price just for these 22 pages, but without the rest of the book I would not have understood their true value. Resist all temptation to jump right to this section. Skip an hour or two of TV and read the book from page 1 through the Conclusion, which begins and ends with these inspiring words: “The rules are simple: Take care of your body…. ‘And may we all know peace.’”

Amen.

Rating: 5 / 5