Health

The optimum Cleanse, Detox & Rebuild (CDR) protocol lasts only twenty-three days. It is usually required not more than once a year, but many of you have treated your bodies as toxic waste-dumps for so long that you will be well advised to work through the full program twice, six months apart, in the first year.
Before you begin any health regimen, you must be tenacious about becoming healthy. This may sound extremely simplistic, but it’s fundamental to all that follows. If you’re not prepared to devote the time to change your life for the better, then don’t begin. That is, don’t begin now. Yes—you can find the right time. Here are some things to consider.
Do not begin your program-to-health by indulging in gluttony and over indulgence. Don’t do it in October in anticipation of Thanksgiving through New Year’s binging. Remember Peace on Earth usually gives you a bigger Piece on your Thighs. Also, do not begin a month before you take that cruise-of-a-lifetime.
The best time to begin a health regimen, for most people, is early in the year as there are few eating or drinking feasts until Easter/Passover in the spring.
Though February and March programs to health may cause you to have to pass on the chocolate on Valentine’s Day and go sober on St. Patrick’s, that’s part of the “tenacity” to which we refer. Sports “Fans”—short for Fanatics—have the added pressure asserted by the year-round parties precipitated by Sunday afternoon regular season games. Playoff games and Finals/Series/Bowls up the ante even further1.
The good news is that once the initial CDR is over, you will have so benefited by your change of habits that you will no longer reflexively make visits to the refrigerator out of boredom. You will eat less and eat healthier.
Further, you will be allowed to eat, drink and be merry, transgress on occasion, and even pig-out when circumstances absolutely demand it. It won’t ruin everything, as long as the binges are spread far enough apart and interspersed with healthy food choices.
At the end of the CDR you will feel so much better than you do now, that you will not want to “ruin” it with marathon eating and drinking, even though your friends, associates and perhaps even your family, will do all in their power to push you back to where you were. On the one hand they will congratulate you on how great you look, praise your loss of weight, marvel at the tone and texture of your skin and hair, and envy your general ambiance of health—on the other hand, they will hand you a beer and a knockwurst. You will learn to hate everyone you know. Prepare yourself for that.
One last admonition: Do not hyper-binge the night before you start. If anything, try to calm down your eating for several days in anticipation of the beginning of your healthy lifestyle implementation. This will make the first few days of your Cleanse less challenging.
Step #0 – Finding the Time
• Get a calendar, preferably one that indicates your particular ethnic and religious celebrations.
• Draw a large “X” over each day on which some non-healthy eating and/or drinking may be expected.
• Find a block of four weeks with no marked-out days. This is your target CDR period, and will allow for the twenty-three day protocol plus a few extra days to calm-down before going on the formal program.
• You may start on any day of the week; it does not have to begin on Monday; that’s entirely up to you.
• Remember: don’t select a time period that ends the day before Thanksgiving or any other festive (derived from the word “feast”) day.