Questions & Answers

How Do You Know As You Are Feeling Better To Begin Introducing Foods Into Your Diet Again

I get so many questions about recovery, it’s crazy. Lots of people that have contacted me for so many years now, saying, “How do I know I’m getting better? What are the signs I look for? When can I introduce certain types of foods back in my diet? Is there a schedule to follow? Is there any specific protocol or things like that?” It doesn’t work like that, okay. It doesn’t work like that.

Everybody today wants everything so regimented, and everything perfectly in line, and everything boom, boom, boom, it all happens within 10 minutes, everything’s done. The body doesn’t work like that. It never has. It never will, okay. Where’s that bloody cell phone I got? These stupid things, in my opinion, are ruining so much with people, because I was at a friend’s place the other day, mentioning something about health, and then the wife is straight onto Google to see if what I’m saying is factual or not. So I get sick of this Google crap. I really do.

So much important information will not be found on the internet, will not be found in studies, or not be found anywhere on Google. So much is lost already, unfortunately. You may find that hard to believe, but talking to someone like me, who is here, I was, what, nearly 40 years old when Google came along, but so much knowledge I picked up from so many people over many, many years that was never online. It was what we call empirical observation. People learn things by dealing with people, not so much dealing with computers and robots and crap like that, and Instagram all the time, and Twitter and that. People learned by talking to people and experiencing things. It was a different world.

So, anyway, that’s enough of my rant. But what should you look out for? What are the signs, okay. We’ve talked about this quite a lot, about wellbeing signs, about better sleep, about better libido, about just feeling more optimistic and positive about yourself, about less bodily sensations, about better bowel function, nicer skin. All those things are signs that you’re picking up, okay, that you’re picking up on that you’re getting better.

But here’s the thing; don’t always look at the primary complaint, and that’s what most people do. If they go to a naturopath or a doctor, they’ll have a big problem and they’ll have some smaller problems. So the big problem is what they want to go away. So naturally, as they recover, that’s what they expect to be gone, like the first thing that’s gone. So people almost have this fallacious, bizarre belief that almost like you’ve got buttons on your body. Bowel problem; flick, that’s off. Headaches; we’ll turn that knob down a bit with this pill. Hang on, I’ve got knee pain. Let me just flick that switch right off over here with this drug, or this herb, or whatever. It doesn’t work like that, okay.

When the body recovers, all sorts of sensations are produced, which some medical people almost see as symptoms that need drugs, that need treating by drugs, okay. Naturopaths like me, with experience, see recovery with people all the time, and we know about aggravations, they’re quite common, okay. People commonly call these die-off reactions and all sorts of crappy, stupid names like that. But recovery is normal.

If you fall off a bicycle and hurt your knee really bad, you can take anti-inflams, sure, okay. Or you can take, like I did when I had a bad motorcycle accident, you can wrap your leg in a ginger poultice like I did. The doctors were freaking out. I didn’t get blood clots and die like they thought, and within six to eight weeks, I was back in the gym again. Now, I couldn’t walk six to eight weeks prior.

Natural medicine has got answers for everything but medicine is quick to block out all this kind of information to people. How did I know my leg was recovering when it was really, really beat up bad, okay? I knew it was recovering because I could feel it getting nice and hot and warm with the ginger, and lots of small, sharp, shooting and darting pains in the muscle, in the ligament. You could feel as the body’s recovering.

In my opinion, taking pharmaceutical drugs constantly over that period would have hindered my recovery because it would have made me falsely believe I could get up and walk around when I should be lying on my butt, in the bed, taking it easy to allow that tissue to heal. That’s what I did, and that’s what allowed me to heal faster, okay.

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So what’s that got to do with what I’m saying? I’m trying to discourage you from looking at medicines, whether they’re natural or pharmaceutical, to push symptoms down as you’re recovering. It’s not a good idea. Try to let your body go on autopilot. If it’s guided by good food, lots of rest, and maybe some supplements that are indicated, you will notice recovery in almost a linear fashion. Recovery will be hindered by your inability to understand recovery. I’ll say it again. Your recovery will be hindered by your inability to understand the recovery cycle of the body.

As the body’s repairing bowel tissue or cells around the body, all sorts of reactions can occur, particularly in the gut. You could notice more bloating, more farting, weird motions for a period of time. Try and ride through these things. Try and ride through the noise, okay, because recovery is going up. But remember, there’s lots and lots of turbulence and noise in between.

Relationships are the same. Nothing ever works smoothly, okay. And relationships are the same. What are signs of a relationship recovery if they’re bad? You’re feeling better about that person. That person is feeling better about you. That person’s being more demonstrative towards you. You can feel this, and you should be able to feel a similar thing with healing, okay. A similar thing. You should start feeling better about yourself, better about other people that you were beating up on. Maybe last week, you were really pissed with somebody because your back was hurting or your bowel was hurting, so you were snapping at someone. When you become less snappy, when you become a little bit nicer to be around, that’s a huge sign of recovery because you’re feeling better internally. That’s a sign to look for, okay.

Ask people, good, dear friends and family, to keep an eye on you and also from time to time give you a little bit of feedback on how they see your recovery. And when you do recover, you’ll notice a lot of things, okay. Your increasing ability to engage with other people in a nicer manner, that’s a big one. Your ability to expand your diet without aggravations. Okay, the scope of your wellness will really increase. That’s just what I mentioned before. Sleep. Energy. Look for the key indicators, okay.

How much power have you got when you get up in the morning? How well do you sleep at night, without tossing and turning? Key things. What’s your appetite like? Are you losing too much weight? Are you gaining too much weight? What’s the power in your body like, the vital force? That’ll express itself on multiple levels, all right.

Okay, so it’s probably a little bit … To give you an analogy, to me, it’d be like a power tool I was using a few days ago. I was sanding something back and I’ve got a cordless tool. Now, I’m using that tool, but I noticed that it’s great at the beginning, but the performance was slightly dropping off, and dropping off a little bit more, and I could see it and I could feel the performance was dropping off, and I thought, “That’s it. I’m going to stop.” Put a new battery in, wham, full power again. This tool’s working.

The body is very similar, okay, the power will drop off. That’s a sign, also, of recovery in the initial phases. As the body’s cleaning up, power is going to come down. You’ll feel crappy, you’ll feel tired, and you might have bad breath and things like this. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, the body will generate more of that vital force. The energy will come up. The wellbeing will improve. The power tool is starting to work a little bit better now. So look for the indicators, okay the classic indicators.

People will tell you more about you often than you’ll be afraid to admit to yourself, particularly very close friends who see you regularly. When they start seeing you in the wellbeing phase and in a sharp recovery phase, they’ll say, “Wow, you’re looking great today,” especially if they’re honest people. Whereas maybe a month prior, they could’ve said, “You’re looking a bit tired. You don’t really look happy. What’s up today?” And you’ll say, “Yeah, well, my gut’s playing up and my bowel’s not working.”

But you’re not going to look really upbeat when everything’s working better, are you? You’re going to feel better, you’re going to look better, you’re going to act better, and you’re going to think better, and all of those things will speed up recovery. And the pharmaceutical drugs? Well, they’re just bandaids that stop the symptoms. As soon as you stop that drug, symptom comes back and you feel like crap again. It’s your call, basically.

So when do you know you can put foods back into your diet again? Common sense, isn’t it? I mean, think about the crappy foods you were eating, perhaps, that led you to the point where you had to take action. There’s no point putting crappy foods back in the diet, any more than there’s no point using a shitty, crappy power tool with a $2 battery. You get what you pay for in life. You get quality food, could even be cheap organic carrots for all I care. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to buy good food.

So I hope you got something out of this, all right. Just a little bit of information out of this video to sort of make you feel that you can recover and the foods can come back in slowly, slowly, slowly as your gut improves. I’ve made several videos on how to put foods back in, in terms of their importance. What are the important foods to put back in at the beginning, and then slowly, slowly as you improve, you can put more back in. But be very careful in the initial stages.

It’s like a business. The initial stages, there’s cashflow problems, there’s major hassles with business, and most businesses tip over within a few years. Health recovery is like that, too. As the business improves and it starts getting on a roll, it just gets bigger, it snowballs, it’s a massive company that’s got tons of money coming in. Health’s the same, okay.

It’s snowballs slowly, and all of a sudden you’ve got a massive amount of good health and you’ve got a buffer there, like cash, i.e. good health, to play with, meaning that if you want to have some wine or some parties or drink some … eat some crappy food, you’ll get away with it, to a point. And then, of course, you should pull your head in and bounce back, but you can do a lot when you’re healthy. You can’t do much when you’re sick.