The lifestyle coach was explaining to his client
Coach: You are what you don’t eliminate. If that piece of cake is indigestible by your body, it remains as a toxin inside your body causing enormous imbalances until your body finds a way to eliminate it. So it is your responsibility to ensure toxins are removed periodically.
Client: Oh could you suggest a detox plan for me? That would make it simpler…
Coach: (With a resigned smile) Why take it into your system in the first place when you know it ought not to be there?
Science smiled. If only it were that simple to follow, every person alive would be healthy!
God: So you think a detox diet is not required for everyone eh? What would you suggest?
Science: To begin with what the coach said is true and the simplest to understand, though from experience the most difficult to follow! Holistic Health Practitioner Paul Chek says ‘You are what you eat, what you assimilate and what you do not eliminate!’ If every morsel can be accounted for as nutrition it releases the body from the undue stress of needing to remove a backlog of toxins.
God: Well, most of what mankind eats today was not created by me!! So much processing that you have removed what ought to be eaten and have retained only what ought not to be consumed in the first place!
Science: It has become the most challenging aspect of healthy living Father. In fact even now, just see how humanity reacts…
Coach: Follow this policy ‘Drink your food and chew your water’. This means you must chew your food 30 to 35 times – every mouthful till it becomes liquid and you can literally ‘drink your food’. Only when you masticate properly do the enzymes get released aiding in enzymatic digestion. ‘Chew your water’ meaning roll drinking water in your mouth to mix with your saliva for it to be useful to the body. Keep sipping water right through the day.
Client: (After a thoughtful pause) Can I just blend the food in a mixer to liquify rather than chew each mouthful 30 times? That would also make it unnecessary to drink water additionally.
Coach: (With a horrified expression) The digestion in your body is a process – not an end result alone. Your body is an apparatus to digest food, you are expected to give it the raw materials to digest and allow it to assimilate food into energy; not provide it a chemical health pill that makes the digestive process redundant!! It is like saying, I need to anyways die, why not simply lie down and stop moving right away!
Client: (With an unapologising shrug) How about water? Will any liquid do or…
Coach: Only water is water!!! Juices, soups, blends, shakes… none of them count as water!
God: (Smiling at Science’s expression of helplessness) I understand your problem. What do you think is the most important eliminatory system of the human body?
Science: Well, the skin is the largest organ that eliminates toxins via sweat, but I personally believe the most crucial and least recognised is your breathing. After all with every exhalation your body is literally throwing out the toxic waste as CO2 If only people learnt how to breathe properly, eat only what is digestible and sweat it out, there would be less need for detox plans.
God: (With a tentative frown) Are you saying that CO2 is actually not required by the body and is merely a toxic waste?
Science: Oh no Father! That is not what I meant. CO2 is a waste gas i.e. it is an end product of metabolism, but it is a very important waste gas and it affects the functioning of all our bodily processes. As Dr. Yandell Henderson said, “Carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body, it is the only one that is produced by every tissue and that probably acts on every organ.” In fact our brain instructs us to breathe based on the level of CO2 available in the blood and alveoli. When you hold your breathe and there is a build up of CO2 it triggers the respiratory centre in your brain and tells you to breathe more. On the other hand, if the level of carbon dioxide goes below what the brain’s respiratory centre perceives as normal, it will tell you to breathe less and stop blowing off more CO2
God: (With a smile) So you mean the presence of CO2 in your body actually controls the the very foundation principle of life – breathing in oxygen.
Science: Yes Father. It is CO2 that tells haemoglobin to release oxygen to the tissues. If you have a low level of CO2, haemoglobin will hang onto its oxygen molecules and your cells and tissues, including the brain, will suffer from a lack of vital oxygen. This is called the Bohr effect.
God: So what happens when you breathe too much? Take in too much oxygen in an attempt to detox your body like you said earlier?
Science: (With a defensive look) Oh! I said breathe right not breathe more! The deficiency of CO2 in blood is called Hypocapnea. CO2 is a powerful dilator of blood vessels and other smooth muscles. So if one has low CO2 the body will respond by constricting these vessels. Also, with too little CO2, the body will become less acid and more alkaline leading to muscle twitching, pins and needles and fatigue. So certainly breathing too much or hyperventilating in an attempt to take in more oxygen is not helpful.
God: And what causes people to hyperventilate?
Science: Normal breathing is about 10-12 breaths per minute. But today almost 90% of humanity have chronic hyperventilation – having 18 – 22 breaths per minute. Lack of earthing (keeping your barefoot on earth for electrical grounding of the human body), sedentary lifestyle, mouth breathing especially during exercise, sleep factors, overeating, lack of exercise, lack of nutrition – most importantly lack of proper breathing technique.
God: And what pray is the method for breathing right?
Science: People seem to have the tendency to breathe with the upper chest rather than the diaphragm. Ideally the first two-thirds of the breath should expand the belly and the chest movement coming only in the last one-third. This can be consciously practiced by keeping one hand on the belly and the other on the chest and breathing with awareness. The diaphragm is the chief biological pump of our body, working with the abdominal wall and pelvic floor to keep blood and lymphatic fluids moving freely through the body. The movement of the diaphragm is also essential for maintaining optimal “motility” or movement of the organs.
God: I think its also time to educate man that movement is life! Every time he moves, his muscles act as body pumps allowing the toxic wastes and other fluids to flow without restriction. Every time any muscle contracts and relaxes, it triggers energy by increasing mitochondria or the powerhouses that convert chemical energy into energy the cells can use.
Science: Because the whole body breathes, if we have restrictions in muscles and joints anywhere in the body, it can place unwanted load on the respiratory muscles. Learning to breath, move and stretch properly is mandatory. Lord! I really wish you had given human beings a user manual on how to use their body best! They seem to have totally missed the point of needing a healthy body!
God: Hmmm… My dear! Did you realise that CO2 also has a very powerful message on life for humanity? CO2 is very crucial for life, not merely oxygen. The very process of metabolism is to retain the usable and eliminate the unusable. Only when the unusable (CO2 )is eliminated, does it provide a context for new energy (O2) to flow in. That is the way life works. However, if the mechanism of creating adequate CO2 is lost and levels become too low, lack of CO2 is life threatening as it automatically reduces the availability of O2. Similarly, every experience encountered is there to help you retain the positive and exchange the toxic negative with a new lease of life. But for those experiences new energy will not flow in to life. The Bohr effect highlights how it is actually CO2 that triggers proper O2 usage – almost like saying the negative is present for one to strive towards needing the positive. The very purpose of every life event, is not only to enhance the potential of life giving positives but to also ensure a constant recycling of the negative keeps happening. Ultimately the lack of ability to remove toxic wastes should not hamper man from celebrating the blessing of human life.
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in infinithoughts in February 2013
When Science met God… | Segment Four: The dance of a trillion cells
Chapter Eight: You are what you do not eliminate!
