What is Phase 1 all about? Well, Phase 1 is basically a transition and preparation phase. Here’s a basic synopsis: it is a one month time period during which you transition your food intake (also known as diet!) over to an almost totally organic nature while at the same time doing several cleanses and detoxification processes preparing your body for getting the absolute most out of phase 2! How’s that for a synopsis?!
Another question we get quite often is “did you really do EVERYTHING that is in Kevin’s book for phase 1?” and the short answer to that is “No, but pretty close!” The following is a list of everything that we did, why we did or didn’t do it and how we did it. Hopefully it will prove helpful to you and answer some questions along the way! Also, here is a sample schedule showing one example of how you can organize your eating and supplements to your daily schedule so that you can make sure you fit everything in and not miss anything. I referred to my list for several days every time I ate so that I made sure I was being accurate!
What WE did for Phase 1
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1. Water. We drank a big glass of water upon arising, and endeavored to drink a minimum of a half gallon per day. Obviously filtered water. I bought a 1 quart container and have it sitting on the counter so that my goal is to drink one container before lunch and one container after lunch. This gives me my bare minimum and anything with meals or teas is just bonus.
2. Walk an hour a day. David did, I just endeavored to walk some each day even if it was only 10 minutes. The plan works without exercise, but it will work faster with it.
3. Extra Virgin Raw Coconut Oil. David actually ate 2 tsp of coconut oil each day. I was still learning to tolerate coconut, so I made sure that I cooked with some each day to get some in me. I found that cooking my eggs in it and then putting salsa on the eggs seemed to be a great solution and we have also found coconut oil capsules at the health food stores.
4. Colonics. We didn’t do this, although we can see the advantages to it.
5. Apples. We ate 2 organic apples per day, usually as our snacks.
6. Grapefruit. We ate 2 organic grapefruit per day. One as a snack and one with breakfast. If they are the large ones, 1 will be fine.
7. Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. We took 1 TBS before each main meal. If you cannot tolerate the Apple Cider Vinegar, you can take the Energy Slim which has the apple cider vinegar in it.
8. Colon Cleanse. We used Cleanstart by Nature’s Sunshine. It was simple and in an easy package but we now recommend using the Natural Herbal Tea and Prevail as we feel they actually are better products.
9. Eliminate Candida. We did not address this and I truly wish I would have. It would have made the first 7-10 days much nicer for me. I didn’t think I had that much candida because I hadn’t been having any symptoms recently and very few cravings but I was very mistaken. From everything I’ve read, three-lac or five-lac are the best choices for candida cleansing so we have included them in the “online store.”
10. Insulin. We did not get the eleotin tea. It is cost prohibitive but if you are prone to high or low blood sugar, it would be a plus. Lynn has had issues with low blood sugar in the past and even without doing the eleotin tea she had very minimal problems. She experienced slight energy slumps the first couple of days but then all of that disappeared and it’s been great the rest of the time. We have included a link to obtain the eleotin tea if you desire on the “resources” page.
11. Drink green tea. We drank at least 1 cup of green tea per day. White tea also does the same thing and has a milder flavor.
12. Whole Food Supplement. We took one made by Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality called Organic Life Vitamins. We currently recommend the His and Hers multi-vitamins by Formor.
13. Coral Calcium. We took a coral calcium each day that we bought at the store. We are now SeaCal.
14. Probiotics. We made sure we ate yogurt every day to get some good bacteria. This can also be done with the three-lac or five-lac (these products are probiotics by definition) recommended earlier for candida.
15. Heavy Metal Cleanse. We did our ionic foot detox every other day for about 3 weeks.
16. Organic Yerba Mate Tea. We are still drinking at least 1 cup of this tea each day. You can find it at the local health food stores or you can just order it on the “online store” page of the website. There are also flavored mate teas that are more palatable for some.
17. Eat Breakfast. We made a point of eating a big healthy breakfast. Each morning, we typically had an egg, a grapefruit, a half cup of yogurt with ground flax seed, and sometimes a slice of toast. This is what kick starts your metabolism each day.
18. Eat Six Times Per Day. We at least made 5 times with 3 regular meals and a snack between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner. This keeps your metabolism up all day.
19. Eat Dinner Before 6 pm. Yes, we did our best, but we at least made sure that we were done eating 3 hours before bed. It took us a while to get this together, but we kept working at it and planning for it.
20. Eat Protein Before Bed. We had 100 grams of protein in the form of chicken breast or turkey or a protein shake before bed. This does not mean reading the label for 100 grams of protein; this is 100 grams of a food that is a protein source which will equeal around 20-25 grams of actual protein from the nutritional label.
21. Take Acetyl-L-Carnitine. You can find this on the “online store” page.
22. Eat Hot Peppers. I tried to add salsa to some of my food every day.
23. Use Cinnamon. I added Cinnamon to at least one cup of tea each day.
24. Eat Salad With Lunch and Dinner. Yep, we did it, even if it was just the pre-packaged organic salad mix we bought at wal-mart (organic of course) with some vinegar and spices on it.
25. No Trans Fat. It is actually much easier to find this now. If it says organic, it doesn’t have that anyway.
26. No High Fructose Corn Syrup. Same as above.
27. No Artificial Sweeteners. This is also a pretty easy fix. Stevia and raw organic cane sugar and raw honey are the options we used.
28. No MSG. Same as 25 and 26.
29. Eat Only Organic Meat and Dairy. This is harder to find and much more expensive. The dairy is no big deal to find. It is at Wal-mart and Albertson’s. I would not recommend getting Horizon’s because it is ultra-pasteurized and the stuff doesn’t spoil. If it doesn’t spoil, there is something wrong with it. The fact that it doesn’t spoil readily means that the bacteria can’t use it as food, so our bodies will probably have trouble using it for food as well. The meat has been another issue. We have gone to Central Market and Market Street for our meat and talked to the butchers working there and they say that their meat is not certified organic, but it is grown without the hormones, just not with the organic food required to declare it organic. Now, during these conversations, I also found out the chicken that they use at Market Street is Pilgrim’s Pride, which can be found at Wal-mart and Albertson’s. We also used venison that we harvested ourselves. We have since found some excellent on-line sources that can be accessed through the “online store” or the resources page.
30. No nitrites. This is actually easier to find than I thought at first. Hormel makes a non-cured lunch meat that is in a cardboard package that we use when we can’t get the organic lunch meat at Market Street. The Hormel brand with no nitrites can be found at Target and Wal-mart.
31. No Farm Raised Fish. Any fish we eat says “wild”, not farm raised.
32. No Microwaving. This was a bit of a stretch for me; David used to call me the microwave princess, but this was about the fourth source we had seen recently on this subject. So, I have bought a toaster oven for the office for reheating, and we are using the oven and stove-top for heating and reheating. We are planning ahead and letting things thaw naturally.
33. Limit Carbonated Beverages. We just didn’t drink any. We didn’t drink many before, but we just cut them out.
34. Limit Ice Cold Beverages. Every now and then I would have a glass of lemon-aid with ice that I had made from real lemon juice and stevia. Other than that, we just didn’t use the ice.
35. No Fast Food. During phase 1, on the occasion that we hadn’t planned ahead far enough, we would eat at Wendy’s and get their grilled chicken sandwich and side salad with a bottle of water, or until I discovered Subway’s chicken was pieced together, we went there.
36. Eat 100% Organic Food. Living in Texas, versus California or New York, this is rather difficult to do 100%. We started making the shift immediately, buying organic when we replaced things in our cupboard. There are a few things though that we couldn’t find that were 100% organic. There are many products that we couldn’t find 100% “certified” organic, so we got the closest that we could find that still tasted good. There are a few things, such as frozen pizza, that there are some varieties out there made with organic ingredients, but not 100%.
37. Use Natural Sweeteners. This was addressed in the “don’t use artificial sweeteners” area.
38. Infrared Sauna. Didn’t have one, therefore, didn’t use one. We have found a reasonably priced one and listed it at our online store.
39. Get Sun. I really tried to be outside for a bit each day. David came closer to the 20 minutes each day.
40. Get Some Sleep. We started really trying to go to bed by 10 and get up around 5:30 or 6. In the beginning, it was a bit more difficult, but we really got used to it.
41. Krill Oil. We were already taking Omega-3s from fish oil and just continued doing so. The wal-mart brands are not as well absorbed. This really needs to be a health food quality. We actually found a better absorbed one in the Omega 3-6-9 by formor.
42. Vitamin E. We didn’t do it. Can see where it would be healthy, but we didn’t order what he recommended. This is in the Super Avengers product as well as many other anti-oxidants.
43. Digestive Enzymes. We did this, and now recommend the M-E-C product. We only take them with our main meals, not with our snacks. We take one with each main meal and when we are eating non-organic such as in a restaurant, we take 2 with the meal.
44. No Lotions or Creams. I didn’t go with none, I went with more natural. Burt’s Bee brand can be found at Target. There are several brands to choose from at Central Market and Market Street. We also have a link in our “online store” to some natural products that we have liked.
45. Rebound. We had loaned someone our rebounder and didn’t have it during our phase 1. We really like rebounding and would recommend it for the multitude of health benefits, but didn’t personally do it during phase 1.
46. Massage. We were already getting 1 massage per week and continued that.
47. Yoga. Didn’t do it. See the benefit of it, but with everything else, didn’t have time.
48. Shower Filter. You can purchase one at Wal-mart, Lowe’s, or Home Depot very inexpensively. You install it just before the hot water heater and it filters the hot and cold water from that point. The filters need to be changed about every 3 months from what I understand and that will filter the chlorine out. I do agree that what you put on your body is every bit as important as what you put in your mouth because of the absorption capacity of the skin.
49. Electromagnetic Chaos Eliminator. Haven’t done this yet. It is on the list of changes to make in the future.
50. Breathe. I really try throughout the day to take deep breaths and relax. This has lowered my stress levels tremendously.
51. Reduce Air Conditioning. Well, I don’t really think I’ve done this one. I am more conscious of it and probably keep things set just a bit warmer than before, but I’ll be honest, I’m not going to sweat during the day while I’m working or at home in the evenings while relaxing.
52. Flourescent Lights. We don’t have any in our house and I’m looking right now to see if we can replace the ones at the office with a full-spectrum light bulb that will go in the existing fixtures.
53. Chamomile tea. I did this occasionally, but honestly don’t want to drink a cup of tea before going to bed that will make me have to get up and go to the bathroom in the night.
54. Alpha Calm. Didn’t do it and haven’t looked into it that much. I figured it was pretty close to our Natural Calm which is an outstanding product that helps you relax as you go to sleep as well as relaxing muscles.
55. Destressing CDs. We already listened to teaching and preaching cds and calm music but I have made a point to listen to more classical music during stressful times such as balancing the check books.
56. Add fiber. We added fiber with the colon cleanse and with ground flax seed in our yogurt.
57. Parasites. We had actually recently done a parasite cleanse, but if you haven’t done one within 6 months, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do it. Most of the time this can be combined with the colon cleanse and it is included in the Herbal Tea and Prevail.
58. Liver cleanse. The apple cider vinegar aids in this as well.
59. Lift weights. Great idea, but didn’t do it. Again time.
60. Drugs. We didn’t take very many to begin with, just the occasional Tylenol or advil. So, not taking drugs was no problem.
The further we went in phase 1, the more pure organic it got because we kept replacing things with organic items as the old stuff ran out.
