THE RESET FACTOR

Transforming Your Health by Repairing Your Gut

45 Days to Reclaiming the Body You Were Born to Live In!

By Mindy H. Pelz, DC

Published by Reset Factor, LLC

Copyright © 2015 by Mindy H. Pelz, DC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any

form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without

the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews

and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

First printing 2015

 Printed in the United States of America

20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

reset

verb re·set \(ˌ)rē-ˈset\

: to move (something) back to an original place or position

: to put (a broken bone) back in the correct position for healing

Instant Bonus for Reseters:

Claim your 15-Day Detox Guide

 here at http://resetfactor.com/bookbonus

This book is dedicated to my dear friend Lani,

who never gave up on resetting her health

and inspiring others to do the same.

With the understanding that all individuals are complex and our health and fitness problems
are unique the ideals, programs, plans, tools and suggestions in this book are not intended to replace
the advice of trained medical professionals. All issues and questions regarding one’s health care
requires medical supervision. A physician should be consulted prior to adopting any program, plan,
tool or idea described in this book. The contents of this book are based upon the opinion of the author.
The author and publisher disclaim any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of this book.

This book is not intended to make any recommendations related to getting on or off
prescription or over-the-counter medication. If you face any current health concerns, or are currently
taking medication, it is always recommended to seek the advice of your physician before starting a

new nutrition or fitness program. While many of the testimonials shared in this book show patients
becoming healthier and even getting off of drugs and medications, only medical doctors can prescribe
drugs or tell you to reduce or stop taking a current prescription. This book’s role is to make you aware
of the hazards of poor lifestyle decisions while helping you to create better health habits resulting in
improved innate healing of the body. As you heal using the tools, programs and plans in this book
work with your medical doctor to reduce and hopefully eliminate the drugs you’re on.
 The information in this book is intended to be educational and should not replace consultation
with a competent healthcare professional. The content of this book is intended to be used as an
adjunct to responsible healthcare supervised by a healthcare professional. The author is not liable for
any misuse of the material contained in this book.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 How to Feel Twenty Again
Chapter 2 Your Gut Instincts Are Right
Chapter 3 Why the Brain Is Your Most Powerful Healing Tool
Chapter 4 Reward Your Hardest Working Organ—Your Liver
Chapter 5 Calories Don’t Count—Hormones Do
Chapter 6 Reclaim Your Birthright—Power Up Your Own Natural Immunity
Chapter 7 Why Your Spine and Nervous System Are Your Fast Pass to Health
Chapter 8 Setting Yourself Up for Success
Chapter 9 The Reset Truths of Health
Chapter 10 The 15-Day GI and Liver Detox
Chapter 11 The 30-Day Habit Reset
Conclusion
Recipes
About the Author
 Preface

When your health goes south, it turns your whole life upside down. I know—I’ve been there.

Do you want to lose weight? Have mood swings? Experience any puffiness or joint pain? Do
you feel lethargic or fatigued? Is your gut acting up?

Have you tried fad diets, gone to doctors, popped pills without seeing results?

It’s not your fault! It’s because the vast majority of these conditions are being treated
inappropriately or misdiagnosed by the standard health care model.

When I was 12 years old, I had one dream: to be a professional tennis player. For much of my
youth, I spent hours training, traveling, and committing myself to being the best tennis player I could
be. While other teens were hanging on the beach, I was hitting balls on the tennis court. While most
high schoolers were sleeping late on Saturday morning, I was on the tennis court before the sun was
up. At a young age, I learned the power of sacrifice and commitment.

My senior year in high school, I was given the opportunity to join the women’s tennis team at
the University of Kansas and fight for a scholarship position. I was elated. It was a dream I had
worked hard for—and I was ready for the challenge. Tennis is a sport that tests you physically and
mentally: you have to train your body to endure heat, move your feet fast in all directions, last through
long rallies, and have quick reflexes. More importantly, you have to train your mind to be patient and
strategic, to never give up, to play each point one at a time, and to persist despite any obstacle that is
put in your way. When I finally got the scholarship, I realized that there’s no greater feeling than
persevering through hard work and obstacles—and getting results for it.

Then, two years into my collegiate tennis career, my body began to break down. At nineteen
years old, all the training had caught up with me; my body was tired. It started during one practice,
when I noticed my shins were hurting. Within weeks, mild pain turned into chronic, severe, relentless
pain. I was diagnosed with shin splints and told ice and ibuprofen would be the fix.

The ibuprofen solved the pain problem temporarily. Yet, like most injuries in the body, if you
don’t get to the cause of the injury, it will continue to get worse. That’s exactly what happened. While
I was taking large amounts of ibuprofen daily to manage the pain, the injury grew worse.

Every doctor I consulted gave me a stronger painkiller. Each time I tried the new painkiller, it

felt like a miracle cure, yet weeks later it would stop working. At nineteen years old, I couldn’t make
it through my daily life without a painkiller. This went on for a year and a half.

Finally, an orthopedic surgeon was called in to evaluate me. He diagnosed me with

compartment syndrome, a condition in the lower legs where the muscles are so swollen that the fascia
surrounding them thickens and creates intense pressure in the lower leg “compartments.” This
condition creates a sharp stabbing pain that feels as if someone is shooting pellets into your calves. I
was immediately scheduled for surgery.

Recovery was supposed to be quick—three months, tops. We were in the tennis off-season, so
the plan was for me to have surgery in October and be back on the court training in December. But
things didn’t go as expected.
 Once out of surgery, I was quickly put on more medications—stronger ones than those I had
been taking for the past few years. And as I waited to get back on the courts, I quickly fell into the
typical college life: poor diet, late nights, beer, pizza, and partying. I gained thirty pounds over a

couple of months, and although my leg pain was improving, my health was at an all-time low. By
Christmas, my body was so fatigued I couldn’t get out of bed.

Watching my health spiral downward was one of the scariest and most frustrating experiences
of my life. Bouncing from doctor to doctor looking for answers started to make me feel as if I were
crazy. Luckily, one person was there to lift me up and keep me going: my mom.

When I went home over Christmas break, my mom could see that years of training, popping
pain pills, and going through surgery had left my body in a massively fatigued state. Being the
tenacious woman that she was, she quickly started searching for answers about chronic fatigue.
Finally, with persistence, we found a top chronic fatigue doctor who happened to practice in our town.

Our hope was restored!

Now, when you’re a patient struggling with your health, your doctor quickly becomes the
most important person in your life. He or she becomes your lifeline. You trust that your doctor will
find the answer for you, wants you to get better, cares about you, and will give you a new direction.
We want our doctors to have all the answers―to be superhuman.

But the day we walked into that doctor’s office forever changed the way I look at the doctor-
patient relationship. The doctor sat behind a large mahogany desk wearing a white coat. He was a bit
intimidating, but for the most part, I was relieved by the way he looked because society had trained
me to view anyone in a white coat as knowledgeable. He looked capable, smart, and resourceful.
 Sadly, my opinion quickly changed. As my mom began to tell my story, the doctor looked
disinterested, a little arrogant, as if we were somehow inconveniencing him with my story. He seemed
more interested in writing me a prescription than in understanding how my health had broken down.

My mom’s number-one concern was for him to give me a path to getting my body strong
enough to get me back to school as quickly as possible. When she asked him how he could help me
do this, he laughed with an arrogant smirk on his face and said, “Does she look like she can go back
to school?” As if the idea that the body could heal quickly from such a condition as mine was too
stupid even to consider.

He then proceeded to take out a long list of medications. He explained that some of these
medications had worked on cases like mine but that chronic fatigue syndrome was not the same in
every individual. His recommendation: start with the first one. If that didn’t work, move to the next
one, and so on and so forth. Within a year’s time, he said, we would know which medication might

help my chronic fatigue. In the meantime, his advice was to drop out of school and wait for one of the
medications to work.

Now let’s stop and review what I had been through in the years prior to my chronic fatigue:
daily pain medication, poor diet, improper sleep, pushing myself physically, stress, late nights
drinking, surgery, increasingly strong pain medications, and eventually even multiple medications.
Another medication was not going to be my answer, and wasting a year of my life hoping a new
medication would solve my problem was not my definition of a plan. I had destroyed my body from
the inside—and there wasn’t one chemical that was going to bring me back to normal again.

What I needed was a reset. A do-over. I needed to repair the damage I had done.

I needed a doctor who could see the big picture—what systems were broken inside me. I
needed a doctor who cared about finding the cause of my health problems. I needed a doctor who
believed in me and who could teach me a path to rebuilding my body back to its original design. And
I had no idea where to turn.

But my mom did. She found several doctors who believed in me and the power of my body to
heal, and the month that followed consisted of visits to some of them—health practitioners who could
actually help me.

The first doctor I saw was a holistic MD who immediately taught me how to stop putting
toxins into my body. He knew that 80 percent of the immune system lived in the gut, and that if I was
to heal, I would need to repair that system first. He put me on a healing diet and restricted me from
eating any foods that would destroy my gut and suppress my immune system. He then prescribed a
protocol of supplements to repair the damage that years of medications and poor diet had done to my
body. Vitamin C drips, B12 shots, high doses of probiotics, enzymes, and anti-fungal supplements
became a weekly regimen for me.

We then sought out the expertise of a “corrective” chiropractor to help open up the flow of
information coming out of my brain and restore the function of my nervous system. This sped up my
healing and had me sleeping and thinking better. Then we found an expert in stress management, who
taught me techniques for managing stress and showed me how to harness the power of using my mind
to visualize the body healing.

It was a powerful team approach to regaining my health—one that was focused on repairing
the damage that my lifestyle, medications, and stress had done, giving my body back its power and
giving it a fighting chance to heal itself.

The Power to Heal

 No one ever teaches us that our bodies are powerful healers. From the day we’re born, we’re
taught to put things from the outside into us to heal. Parents are told that their child’s immune system
is weak and that they need to keep their child away from germs, vaccinate him because he’s too weak

to fight bacteria on his own, medicate him when he has symptoms―and if necessary, do surgery to
repair something inside him that’s malfunctioning. This outside-in approach to taking care of our
health gives all the power to the medication and the doctor. And it almost destroyed my life. But after
three weeks on my natural protocols, my energy started coming back. I quickly dropped the thirty
pounds I had gained. I began sleeping better. I started feeling more hopeful and positive about my
future. I felt as if someone had turned on a light switch inside me, as I was now healing from the
inside out.

A month after I walked into the chronic fatigue specialist’s office, I was on a plane heading
back to college. Six weeks after that, I was on the tennis court, energized and pain-free. In the months
that followed, my recovery gained momentum. Each day I felt stronger and stronger. The prognosis

by one of our country’s finest doctors for the time it would take to treat and heal the symptom of
fatigue was at least a year. Yet I experienced that repairing the cause of my fatigue took a fraction of
that time. And to this day, I have never struggled with that level of fatigue again.

That experience changed my life forever. What I learned from the team of doctors who helped
me was that our bodies are incredible healers. The doctors took the time to teach me how my body
works and where the breakdowns in my health were—and then they gave me the tools to fix those
breakdowns. Those doctors believed in me and my power to heal. Their knowledge, belief, and
commitment to help me inspired me to go to chiropractic school. It motivated me to turn around and
teach others what I had learned. It resulted in the creation of the 45-Day Reset, which is the heart of
my work and this book.

For the past twenty years, I’ve been in the trenches of health with my patients. I call it “the
trenches of health” because we live in a time when our bodies are constantly being bombarded in a
way that creates physical, emotional, and chemical traumas. Our bodies are living in a war zone every
day.

No organ in the body is more vulnerable to these traumas than our gastrointestinal system.
Much like what happened to me, many people are experiencing breakdowns in their health. Yet we
have a health care system built on treating the symptoms of these breakdowns, not getting to the cause
of them. In fact, in many cases, the medical responses to symptoms are causing more damage to the
gut, leaving the body worse off than it was before. As a result, I have dedicated my life to helping
people understand the cause of their poor health and giving them the tools never to let their health
break down again.

This book is about giving you the same understanding, teaching you how your body works
and how to repair your gut, and handing you the tools to be the boss of your own health care. It’s my
hope that you will find the answers to your health challenges herein. But understand, this is not a

book about curing your disease. It’s about making you strong again. It’s about restoring that amazing
healing power you were born with. When you start to build your body strong from the inside out,
miracles happen.

I’m excited to be on this journey with you!

 Acknowledgments

I had no idea the day I left the chronic fatigue specialist’s office, feeling hopeless and
frustrated, that my health breakdown would launch a lifetime of passion and commitment to help
people find real solutions to their health problems—and that it would result in my writing this book.

I have many people to thank for the role they played in this creation. First, this book would
have never happened without the courage and commitment of the amazing group of patients I have
had the pleasure of helping over the years. You all inspire me and ignite a fire in me to help find you

the best health solutions available. Thank you for letting me walk alongside you in your journey back
to health and for having the strength and commitment to keep making your health a priority.

To Lani, to whom this book is dedicated, I wish the 30-year-old version of you had access to
the information on these pages. I have no doubt that if you had, you would be with us today. Thank
you for taking your personal health crisis and using it as a tool to inspire others to commit to their
health. You opened your heart to all of us and let us walk your journey of cancer with you―and even
up till the day you died, you worked to educate others on how not to end up with the disease path you
had been given. I miss you every day and will spend the rest of my life carrying your mission
forward.

I am forever grateful to the mentors in my life who paved a path for me. My first health
mentor was my mom. I feel so blessed to have been born to a woman who made health a priority from
the day I was born. My first chiropractor, Dr. Roger Akers, DC, taught me how powerful a
chiropractic adjustment can be to the human body. Dr. Luc DeShepperd, MD, proved to me that if
you change your diet, you’ll change your health. Drs. Ron and Mary Oberstein, DC, modeled for me
how rewarding a life of service and purpose can be. And finally, Dr. Charles Majors, DC, showed me
that anything is possible when you pair an unwavering belief with a ridiculous amount of action.
 I also know that the journey I have been on with my patients would have never been possible
without the amazing staff I have had the pleasure of working with over the years. Every one of you
brought to our patients a healing energy and commitment that I am eternally grateful for.

For years, people kept telling me to put the work I do in my office into a book. When I finally
committed to doing that, I started and stopped many times. Finally, it was the encouragement of the
Reset Factor team, Madeleine and Alex, who gave me the vision to see how this information could
transform lives.

My editor, Jennifer Read Hawthorne, had the daunting task of taking my words and turning
them into magic. There is absolutely no way this book would have been published without her
wisdom, patience, and ability to pull information out of my brain and put it onto these pages in a way
that people could understand easily and apply effortlessly. I am so grateful for her guidance and
support.

To my kids, Bodhi and Paxton, I know having a mother is who obsessed with her work is not
always easy. Searching for answers to people’s health crises has required me to fly all over the
country to attend seminars and learn from experts, and it has constantly kept me on the phone in
conference calls or on my computer writing. It has killed me every time I missed one of your special
events, soccer games, vaulting competitions, or school outings. Thank you for understanding and
supporting me, and for always cheering me on. I am so proud of you and the amazing people you
have become.

Last, to my husband, Sequoia, you are my rock. Thank you for being my number-one fan. You
never stop believing in me, cheering me on, and encouraging me to keep moving forward. You never
complain about having to take on more work at home or about driving the kids to one more event
while I put in extra time working. You are always willing to be the guinea pig for any new health idea
I want to try out. Without your support and love, this book would have never happened. Thank you
for loving me so much and walking this crazy path of service with me.

Part 1

Why We Need to Reset Our Bodies

Introduction

There are no coincidences in life. You picked up this book for a reason. And no matter where
you are with your health today, you can change it. I promise. I watch it happen all the time.

The information on the following pages is an accumulation of over twenty years’ experience
helping thousands of people reset their health—and I want to help you reset yours. Why? Because our
current approach to health is not working! We need to create a health care system that is dedicated to
rebuilding the body, not just treating symptoms. We need doctors who see people, not
conditions—unlike the chronic fatigue specialist I met with on that winter day who could see only my
syndrome, not me. He didn’t stop to ask why I was so tired or where my body had broken down or
what was causing the breakdown. All he could see was a symptom, a diagnosis, and its solution:

drugs.

Yet these are some of the most important questions you can ask when you’re sick: Why is my
body feeling this way? What system or systems are not working right? What aspect of my body is so
depleted that it’s causing me to feel like this?

After years of coaching people to better health, I’ve discovered that most people have a desire
to be healthy—but they simply don’t have a clear path to accomplishing their desire. We need a user’s
manual for this miraculous body we live in!

It’s time to take back your health! It’s time to understand that the body you have been given

has an incredible ability to heal and perform at whatever level you desire.

It’s time for a reset.

Modern Living and the Rise of Chronic Disease

The health of our communities is at a critical point. Obesity, heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer
[1]
are at an all-time high. Seventy percent of Americans are on a medication. The United States
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2009 statistics on deaths due to medications
showed that for the first time ever in the United States, more people were killed by drugs (over-the-
[2]
counter and prescription) than motor vehicle accidents. Drug fatalities more than doubled among
[3]
teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and they more than tripled among people aged fifty
to sixty-nine. These drug-induced fatalities are not being driven by illegal street drugs; the analysis
found that the most commonly abused prescription drugs—like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, and
Soma—now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. Tylenol is the top offender on the
list of common drugs that people die from due to an overdose.

In 2009, concerned about the growing toxic load on our children, the Environmental Working
Group (EWG) did a study measuring the number of chemicals present in newborn babies. They took
ten Americans from different parts of the country and measured the chemicals and pollutants in their
blood. These ten children had one thing in common: it was their first day of life. The results were
astonishing. An average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants (out of 413 tested) were found in
the umbilical cord blood of these ten babies born in August and September of 2004 in US hospitals.
The umbilical cord blood contained pesticides; personal care product ingredients; and toxins from
burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.
Of the 287 total chemicals and pollutants detected in the umbilical cord blood, scientists have shown
that 134 cause cancer, 158 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, 186 cause infertility, and 151

cause birth defects or abnormal development. Shockingly, 212 of the industrial chemicals and
pesticides found were banned over thirty years ago.

How could this have happened? Why is no one talking about it? How are these chemicals
getting into our systems? If they’re present in our environment, food, water, and medications, we need
to start asking ourselves how we can take personal action to minimize the damage they’re having on
our bodies.

Clearly, our children are suffering the most from this toxic overload. One in every sixty-eight
[4]
children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. These numbers, compiled in 2010 by the
CDC, show that autism spectrum disorders have more than doubled since the CDC’s 2002 survey.
What troubles specialists researching autism spectrum disorders is that this surge, which has
continued unabated year after year, exhibits only minimal variation among races, regions, and
socioeconomic groups. Autism has gone up in every group, every way you slice it. Something is
affecting the population—the whole population.
Cancer has now become the number-one killer of our children ages five to fourteen, six being the
average age for a cancer diagnosis. Studies of possible environmental risk factors include prenatal

exposure to cancer-causing chemicals and pesticides, plus childhood exposure to common infectious
agents (including vaccines).

The medicines we have relied on for years to cure us are now failing. Antibiotics provide a
good example of this. The massive amount of antibiotic use in our country has turned the bacterial
world into the domain of superbugs that are only getting stronger. Antibiotics are not as effective as
they were years ago.

I recently had a nutrition consultation with an eighteen-year-old college student who was
concerned with her worsening skin problems and depleted immune system. She had seen several
doctors whose only solution was more medication. Nothing was helping and the doctors were out of

answers for her. She came to me frustrated and losing hope she would ever have clear skin again.

When I went through her health history, I learned she had been on over twenty rounds of
antibiotics. That is more than most people will take in their lifetime—and she was eighteen.
Antibiotics are known to kill all the bad and good bacteria in our guts, leaving the gut in a very
vulnerable state. When our guts are out of balance, our whole body can break down.

The young woman’s skin and poor health were indicators of the beginning of this breakdown.
The solution for this young woman was not more toxins—it was to repair her gut and build her body
strong again, from the inside out.

Food allergies constitute another growing epidemic. One out of thirteen children now has a
[5]
food allergy. The number of people suffering from food allergies has more than doubled in the past
decade, and hospitalizations for food allergies increased by 500 percent from 1990 to 2006. In the
United States, about ninety thousand people visit the emergency room each year due to food allergies.

Often, a person is allergic to a commonly eaten food. Most people are surprised to learn that
the foods they love and eat every day are often the ones they are allergic too. (I’ll walk you through

these foods in Chapter 2.) Schools are now having to go to great lengths to accommodate for these
allergies, as the list of children with deadly allergies is growing. Most elementary school teachers are

now well versed in how to use an EpiPen® Auto-Injector. Whole sections of lunch tables are
quarantined for allergen-free lunches—a practice rarely seen decades ago.

What would make our children react so much to foods? If 80 percent of our immune system
comes from our gut, is it possible that damage to the gut suppresses our immune system and makes us
more susceptible to allergies? Maybe all the harmful chemicals we’re exposed to—the same ones the

EWG found in newborn babies—are beginning to weaken our digestive system. Is it a coincidence
that food allergies are becoming more common, or is it that our bodies are trying to adapt to our new
chemical environment?

Asthma is also on the rise. The prevalence of asthma has been increasing since the early 1980s

across all age, sex, and racial groups. Asthma accounts for almost 2 million emergency room visits, 14
million doctor visits, and 439,000 hospitalizations each year. More than 3,600 deaths are attributed to
asthma each year—that’s nine Americans each day. Something has to be triggering this increase.

Numerous children have come to me with chronic asthma problems. Most of them are on
inhalers, which are filled with toxic chemicals that destroy healthy tissues—chemicals like
corticosteroids. One young girl in particular was greatly affected by her debilitating asthma—so much
so that it was causing her to miss out on her childhood. She was constantly sick and wheezy, and
many allergens in the air would set her asthma off. When her medical doctor measured her lung
capacity, the doctor found she was spending much of her days low on oxygen. The young girl was
prescribed inhalers to be used for the rest of her life.

When she came to me, her condition was beginning to worsen. Her parents were looking for a
solution other than chronic medications. We implemented a plan to strengthen her gut and stop the
breakdowns in her body—and within six months she was off all inhalers. Her medical doctor re-
measured her lung capacity and declared her asthma-free.

What is causing so many people to have a weakened immune system? How can so many
people be susceptible to food allergies? What would cause so many people to get asthma?

More and more families are seeing breakdowns in their health. No one is immune from the
growing epidemic of chronic diseases and increasing toxic loads. Think back to when you were a
child. The majority of people with cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and cancer were elderly. In recent

years, however, the majority of people suffering from serious illnesses have been the young-to-
middle-aged-adult population.

This crazy-busy lifestyle is destroying our health. Look around you. Hormone problems,
digestive complaints, low energy, unexplained weight gain, and chronic pain have all become
accepted norms. And unfortunately, our culture has come to accept that having a high-stress lifestyle
means having a low level of health.

It’s time to do health differently.

How We Manage Our Health Today

Think about the last time you were not feeling well. What was the first thing you did to relieve
your pain? For most of us, the answer is to take a pill—that’s what we’ve been taught to do. Yet if
chemicals in our foods and environment are destroying our health, can a chemical in a pill restore our
health?

Let’s look at what your symptoms are telling you. Symptoms are how your body tells your
brain that something is wrong. They’re your body’s dashboard; when a dashboard light turns on, what
is your car telling you to do? Stop and get your engine looked at, right? Symptoms are the same thing.
Symptoms are how your body talks to your brain, giving you an assessment of what’s happening
“under the hood.” Back pain, headaches, digestive issues, allergies, fatigue, cloudy thinking,
depression, and unexplained weight gain are all signals from your body that something is breaking
down.

A 40-year-old woman came to my office this year with such severe low back pain that she
couldn’t even put her own underwear on. She is a professional woman with a family and a very
successful job, and she spent the past decade putting her family and career ahead of her health. She

managed her pain with daily medication and grit, and she came to accept her pain as part of the aging
process.

But after years of popping pain pills and accepting this low standard of health, she decided to
sit down with me and create a plan to build her body strong again. My tests found that years of
medications and poor lifestyle had destroyed her gut. Her bad bacteria counts were some of the
highest I had ever seen.

I immediately put her on the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox (the first part of the 45-Day Reset) to
repair her gut and liver. Within three days, miracles began to happen. First, her mobility came back.
Then, her pain started to diminish. And finally, her stomach began to flatten. By the end of the fifteen
days, she was full of energy, she had lost seven pounds, her pain was 70 percent gone, and her
stomach was flattening out.
 It’s a growing challenge, the fact that we’ve been taught to take a pill when symptoms appear.
This mindset toward our health is why the United States is one of the sickest countries in the
developed world despite spending the most money per capita. We have a medicine mindset. We have

more faith in a pill than in the healing power of our own bodies. Taking a pill is easy—it requires no
personal responsibility. It means we don’t have to change the foods we eat, exercise more, or stress
less.

But the bad news is this: taking a pill is not a permanent solution to our health problems. This
is why many people find their list of medications growing every year. This is why we are getting
sicker and sicker despite being on the latest and greatest drug. We are only masking symptoms, not
addressing causes.

The good news is that many people are starting to wake up to the fact that there is another way
to take care of their health. People are tired of all the side effects medications create. Many are

searching for new answers to their health problems. Once you make the decision to heal yourself from
the inside out, you feel empowered. You are now the one in control of your health.

The challenge many people find is that there is an overwhelming amount of information on
nutrition, exercise, and stress available today. If you made a decision to start a journey toward true
health and you googled “nutrition,” the amount of information you’d have access to would be
overwhelming. You would not find a clear path to understanding what foods you need to eat.

How the Reset Program Was Born

Depressed yet? Don’t be. There is hope! What most people haven’t realized is that no matter
where you are with your health—or lack of it—you can reset the healing power of your body. That is
why the program I’ve created is called the 45-Day Reset. It’s the one part of health that people forget
to factor in. It’s never too late to reset your health. Recognize that you have power within you that
wants to heal. No matter how bad your health problems are, don’t forget to factor in that your body is
craving a reset—and once you give it one, healing can happen.

The 45-Day Reset is a result of over twenty years working with thousands of people needing
a new solution to their health crises. The program is based on hard scientific research and years of
real-world success with my patients.

Many leading health experts now know what foods your body needs to thrive, what toxins
break down your immune system, how the gut gets out of balance, and how this creates a spiral of
poor health. We can clearly see why chronic pain can come from a broken digestive system. And we
now know that weight problems are not a calorie issue but a hormonal one.

The tools and research are summarized in this book for you. In this program, I’ll give you a
proven path to rebuilding your body back to the way it was designed to be. You’ll learn how to repair

the damage that years of stressful toxic living may have done to you. You’ll be given the tools to
bring your body back into balance and have it performing at the level where it was meant to be. A
Reset is what you need to regain your health and be disease-free for the rest of your life.

Once done, you will lose weight without having to starve yourself or work extra hard at the
gym. Risks for diseases will also decrease, allowing you to live a fuller, happier, healthier life. You’ll
get to enjoy more things in life because your mind and body are able to feel more, focus on important
things, and achieve more.

This is the 45-Day Reset, your step-by-step path to a higher level of health.
How to Use This Book

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 (the Introduction and Chapter 1) focuses on how

most of us are approaching our health—an approach that is broken. Understanding that you can apply
a different approach is pivotal to your success with the 45-Day Reset.

Part 2 (Chapters 2 through 7) is the nuts and bolts of how your body functions and why it
breaks down. I go in depth on how breakdowns happen and the science of how we can fix the
underlying problems that cause breakdowns. If you understand why your health got off track, then
you’re less likely to create the same problems again.

Part 3 (Chapters 8 through 11) contains the toolset, the details of the 45-Day Reset Program. I
will talk about how to set yourself up to make sure you succeed with the program. Next, I cover the
eight profound “reset truths of health” that will help you understand how to make health a lifestyle

change—not just some fleeting diet that doesn’t work.

So let’s start at the beginning: let’s take a closer look at how best you can approach your
health so that you can quickly put yourself back on the path to a new and extraordinary life.
 Chapter 1

How to Feel Twenty Again

A healthy outside starts from the inside.

—Robert Urich

We humans are self-healing machines. When you cut your finger, what does your body do? It

immediately starts a clotting process to stop the bleeding. It creates collagen to repair the broken skin.
And we don’t even have to think about it. We put a Band-Aid on it and just know that it will heal.

The same thing happens when we get an infection. Our body produces a cough or fever to
destroy the harmful intruder. Again, no conscious thought is needed; our body just does it innately.

This level of repair is happening in your body all day long. Your digestion, your metabolism,
your hormones, your immune system—they all have the capability to self- regulate. So if you’ve hit a
place with your health where you feel stuck—you’re gaining weight, you’re losing energy, or you’re
feeling depressed—I have great news for you: your body wants to repair itself! You can feel twenty
again!

The trick is understanding why your body broke down in the first place. So in the next few
chapters, I’ll help you understand how your body works, why it breaks down, and what you can do
about it. You need a proven path to regaining your health—not another broken promise. A path that
will have you feeling twenty again.
 In this chapter, we’ll explore how the 45-Day Reset works with your body’s own intelligence,
what the body’s original design looks like, why we need to reset our bodies, the limitations of a
symptom-based approach to health, and how the 45-Day Reset works.

Healing from the Inside Out

The 45-Day Reset helps your body heal from the inside out. It brings your body back to its
original design. It turns on your self-correcting, self-regulating healing power. While many programs
offer you quick fixes without lasting results, the 45-Day Reset reprograms the body back to its
original unspoiled and undisturbed state.

Every process within the body is perfectly designed to supply the body’s particular needs.
Every tissue is perfectly designed to carry out its special functions. Every organ is designed to
complement the function of other tissues. All systems work hand in hand to make sure that the body

meets its daily nutrient and energy requirements, as well as effectively removing any waste and toxins
that result from these processes.

In this day and age, key systems of the body are breaking down. Toxins are bombarding you
every second, causing your body to work overtime. They’re shutting down the self-repair mechanisms
of your body. This is why a reset is crucially important.

Your Body’s Original Design

Did you miss reading the user’s manual that came with your body? Well, don’t feel bad—most
people did. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the 45-Day Reset, let’s take a moment to help you
understand how your body was designed to work. Think of this book as your user’s manual. It will
teach you how to treat your body the way it wants to be treated.
 First, think of all your cells like pieces of a puzzle that go together to create a masterful
picture. If you’re missing one piece, the whole picture is thrown off.

We have over seventy-two trillion cells in our body. Every single cell in the body functions in
coordination with adjacent cells. Each small cell function plays an important role in the body’s overall
functioning.

For example, the cells in your digestive system need to be in perfect balance in order for the
neurotransmitters in your brain to work properly (more on this in Chapter 3). When we experience
conditions in our brain like depression or mental fogginess, we immediately assume the problem must
lie in the brain. We don’t go digging for where the depleted chemicals related to these problems are
made. We just see the deficiency and replenish those depleted chemicals through synthetic
medications. We forget the interconnectedness of every cell of our body.

I had a 45-year-old woman come to me complaining of depression and lack of mental clarity.
She often felt teary and hopeless for no reason. Normally an optimistic person, she felt as if someone
else were controlling her thoughts. Her life was great; she had no reason to be sad. Her doctor
recommended antidepressants, but she didn’t want another medication.

Knowing that the hormones that make us happy are made in the gut, I recommended that we
begin by repairing that organ and waiting to see what would happen. Within two weeks on the 15-Day
GI and Liver Detox, her moods improved and her mental clarity was restored. The body didn’t need
another toxin—it needed her to reset the malfunction.
Why Reset?

In his book Clean, Dr. Alejandro Junger writes: “The time has come when we are waking up

to an alarming truth. We are killing ourselves with the same chemicals we invented to make our lives
easier.”

Whether you are aware of it or not, we don’t live in the same world we grew up in. Our world
is a hundred times more toxic. As I pointed out in the introduction, toxins are everywhere! Our food,
water, air, household cleaners, and beauty products are more toxic than ever before. No one is
immune from the growing number of toxins we are exposed to.

One of the systems vulnerable to these toxins is our digestive system. Foods made from
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), partially hydrogenated oils, and man-made chemicals are
killing what is called the microbiome of our gastrointestinal systems. The microbiome is the

community of bacteria, good and bad, that live mostly in your gut.

The human body contains over ten times more microbial cells than human cells. This eclectic
grouping of bacteria is said to account for 1 to 3 percent of our total body mass and weighs
approximately two to three pounds. That means that every time you step on the scale, two to three
pounds of the number you see there is bacteria. This complex group of bacteria has to be in perfect
balance in order for your immune system, brain, and hormones to function properly.

One of the reasons people are more obese, more depressed, and more fatigued than ever before
is because of the damage to this microbiome that is being caused by toxins in people’s bodies. To
protect itself from toxins, your digestive system inflames. This can leave you feeling constantly
bloated, fatigued, lacking in mental clarity, and in pain.
 The brain is also affected by this change in the microbiome. Neurotransmitters that are made
in the gut become depleted, leaving the brain without the key amino acids that it needs to function
normally. B vitamins are also made in the gut, and without the proper balance of bacteria, they too

become depleted, leaving many people fatigued and weak.

Your immune system is greatly affected by your bacterial balance as well. If your microbiome
is out of balance, your immune system will be out of balance. Dr. Joseph Mercola writes that
increasing cancer rates have clear links to the toxins that are killing the healthy bacteria in the gut,
destroying our body’s immune capability to fight cancer.

For most people, these toxins keep coming. I see them every day in my practice: people
whose bodies have started to break down and who are in desperate need of a repair. Their bodies
never get a rest.

The Problem with Our Symptom-Based Approach to Health

Symptoms related to damaged organs do not develop overnight, nor in days or weeks. It takes
years of an unhealthy lifestyle, exposure to toxins, and neglect of the body before symptoms appear.
Most of us start life off at 100 percent function, all systems functioning smoothly. At this point, the
body is like a brand-new engine with all its gears, pistons, and other parts sparkling, shiny, and well
oiled.

As the body starts to become exposed to toxins—from food, water, air, and other
environmental conditions—damage slowly starts to add up. At first, there are no outward signs that
something bad is happening in the body. This is because the body has an integral backup plan in case
some parts of its systems can’t function well.

When damage to the cells of the body continue and overall function diminishes to 60 percent,
the body’s compensatory mechanism can no longer take over the function of the damaged tissues. In
my experience, this is when a person starts to feel symptoms such as pain, fatigue, weight gain, and
depression.

Since we have been taught to take care of our bodies only when we “feel” a breakdown, many
people believe that their health problem started when their symptoms began. Nothing could be further
from the truth. It takes years for the damage from toxic living to produce a symptom.

Cancer is a great example of this. William Li, MD, President and Medical Director of the
Angiogenesis Foundation, has given a TED Talk on how to eat to starve cancer; he talks about how

most of us have anywhere from one to ten thousand cancer cells inside us right now. Hopefully, you
have a strong immune system that will identify and destroy those cells. But what if your immune
system were weakened? What if the cancer cells continued to multiply? When would you notice it?
Unfortunately, it takes millions of cancer cells and, in some cases, close to seven years for cancer to
grow to the point that it can be identified with diagnostic testing. The scary thing is that even at that
point, you may not have a symptom.

How the 45-Day Reset Factor Program Works

Convinced yet that your efforts are best spent repairing breakdowns in your body instead of
masking symptoms? The 45-Day Reset is designed specifically to repair your damaged gut, reset your
metabolism, improve your mental clarity, strengthen your immune system, detoxify your liver,
increase your happiness, and give you an abundance of energy. No joke! You can live in a body that
feels that great and functions that well.
 The 45-Day Reset lasts for 45 days and consists of two phases. The initial phase is the 15-Day
GI and Liver Detox to help you reset your liver, digestion, and hormones. In this phase, you’ll
eliminate foods that are interfering with your body’s original design, giving your digestion a

break—much like the homeopathic doctor did for me in my chronic-fatigue state.

You’ll also begin to add back in good bacteria, enzymes, and amino acids to repair your
microbiome. You’ll flood your liver with nutrients that are essential to its ability to effectively
detoxify.

Last, you’ll begin the process of balancing your hormones. Hormone receptor sites for insulin,
cortisol, and leptin that have been clogged with toxins will become unblocked, allowing your body to
finally be able to balance these crucial hormones. This turns on the fat-burning switch and tells your
body to use energy from fat. I often see people lose anywhere from five to ten pounds during this
crucial detoxifying phase.

The second phase is the 30-Day Habit Reset. This retraining phase will help you reset your
taste buds, daily habits, and mindset about health while continuing to repair organs that have been
damaged from toxic living. Most people experience profound weight loss during this phase. Because
your hormones will be balancing out, you’ll notice that your hunger is gone and your energy is high.
During this second phase, your body will begin to crave health more than it does the habits that have
been destroying it.

Before you start the initial phase of the program, I’ll outline the “reset rules” of health. These
rules will give you the necessary tools to keep weight off for good and have your body functioning at
the highest levels possible for years to come.

Depending on where your health is when you start, the first three to five days of the detox are
typically the hardest. Most people start off the first day enthusiastic and finish that day with an acute
awareness of just how strong their cravings are. Usually, the second and third days are when the
withdrawal from sugar kicks in and the brain begins to try to talk you out of this new way of eating.
By the fourth and fifth day, fatigue, cloudy thinking, and crankiness can be at their highest.

But if you can get past the fifth day, you will likely see the cravings disappear, the clouds lift,
and the body start to repair itself, releasing weight and giving you more energy.

I’ve noticed over the years that few people set out to accomplish their goals with a solid plan
for how they will overcome obstacles along the way. This is especially true when you start a new diet
or fitness regime: you tend to think only about how great you’ll feel or look at the end of the program,
failing to plan for the food cravings and temptations you’ll likely encounter along the way. But if you
plan for the obstacles, then you’ll be prepared when they arise—and much more likely to overcome
them and make it to your goal.

So as I walk you through the details of the 45-Day Reset in the third section of this book, I’ll
point out where I see patients hit these obstacles and what you can do to move through them as
quickly and easily as possible.

Since you already know that the first five days will feel new and can be tough, you should
create a support system around you that will cheer you on and remind you why you want to change.
Write a letter to yourself telling you why this reset is so important to you. Read it on the night of Day
3. The important thing is to keep your eye on your why. And don’t worry—in Part 3 of this book, I’ll
give you lots more ideas on how to stick with it. In fact, Chapter 8 is 100 percent focused on how to
make sure you succeed with the 45-Day Reset!

What I love about this program more than anything is that it is built to wake up your inner
doctor. Once that doctor gets a small taste that change is happening, it will go into massive repair
mode. The more time you give the body to repair, the greater the result.
 If weight loss is your prime objective, then the 45-Day Reset is perfect for you because it
focuses on addressing the root of the weight problem. No more calorie counting, feeling hungry all
the time, or isolating yourself to get the result you want.

As you reset your health, your metabolism is revved up. This will provide you with consistent
and reliable energy that will have you burning fat without exercise. It’s not about exercising for hours
on end either. In fact, this program only requires short periods of exercise. What this program does is
“reboot” your body. Its aim is to help your body go back to how it was before it started experiencing
negative health symptoms. So get ready for your metabolism to be jumpstarted, your digestive system
to be repaired, cravings to stop, and your body to function as it was designed to do.

I’m excited for you! The journey you are about to embark upon will have you feeling twenty
again!

Part 2

How Your Body Functions—and Why It Breaks Down

 Chapter 2

Your Gut Instincts Are Right

All disease begins in the gut.

—Hippocrates

One of the first places to go hunting for a breakdown in your health is in your gastrointestinal
system. This system is also known as the GI tract, the digestive system, and the gut—which is what I
like to call it. From this point forward, I will be referring to the entire gastrointestinal system as your
gut, which includes all aspects of your digestion: your mouth, stomach, small intestine, and large
intestine.

The gut has been called our second brain because so many other pieces of the body are
controlled by this area. Immunity, key vitamins, neurotransmitters, and hormones are all affected by
the health of your gut. Your gut is host to an incredible microbiome of bacteria that all have to be in
balance in order for your brain and body to function at their best. If you want to reset your health, you
need to reset your gut.

In this chapter, we’ll talk about why the gut is so important to health, what the gut consists of,
and what happens when different areas of the gut start to break down.

Your Gut: Number One When It Comes to Health

 Before I walk you through the typical breakdowns of the gut, I want you to understand some
basic (and maybe even surprising!) functions that the gut performs. Most people know that this
system is responsible for digesting food and converting it into nutrients that the body can use. But

what many people don’t know is that the gut has many other life-sustaining responsibilities as well.

[6]
To start with, your gut controls 70 to 80 percent of your immune system. It’s like a guard or
a gatekeeper that signals the alarm to let your immune system know if there’s an intruder like foreign
bacteria, viruses, or fungi.

But your gut also manufactures critical elements required by the body for good health,
including the following:

➢ Key vitamins (like the B’s)

➢ Omega-3 amino acids. These are important for normal metabolism; they’ve been
shown to reduce inflammation, improve cardiovascular health, and increase brain function.

➢ Serotonin, the “happy hormone.” Serotonin helps with the regulation of mood,

appetite, and sleep. It also supports cognitive functions such as memory and learning.

The gut also helps the body to absorb thyroid hormones like T3 and T4. These hormones are
primarily responsible for regulation of metabolism; they’re activated by the healthy bacteria of your
[7]
gut.
If your gut is not healthy, it’s likely you’ll have a catastrophic breakdown in your body. So how can
you tell if your gut has been compromised? If you have two or more of the following symptoms,
there’s a good chance your gut is out of balance and due for a reset:
 · Trouble losing weight

· Depression, moodiness, anxiety, paranoia

· Bloating after you eat

· Chronic pain

· Fibromyalgia

· Fatigue

· Lack of focus

· Catching colds all the time

· Constipation

· Joint pain

The Gut: What It Looks Like and Why It Breaks Down

To understand how easy it is for your gut to get out of balance, let’s look at all the pieces that
make up the gastrointestinal system and what lifestyle habits break those pieces down. As you look at
each piece, you might see where your gut has gone astray. Make a note of it. Then, during your 15-
Day Detox, we’ll talk about how to put the health of your gut back on track again.
 The gastrointestinal system comprises the mouth, the stomach, the small intestine, and the
large intestine. Here’s a closer look at each of these and what needs to happen to ensure that they
work the way they’re supposed to!

Mouth

Believe it or not, digestion begins in your mouth. Chewing your food is massively important
to digestion. When you chew your food, you release chemicals called enzymes that help you break
down the food to prepare it for your stomach. What throws the gut off right from the start is (1) not
chewing enough or (2) drinking with your meal.

Not chewing enough means that not enough enzymes are being released from your salivary
glands. If food is not broken down enough in the mouth, you burden the stomach and ask it to do extra
work. The same thing happens when you drink with your meals. You dilute those enzymes and reduce

their effectiveness.

Stomach

Most people think of their stomach as the main place that digestion happens. But really, the
stomach’s main purpose is temporary storage and the further breakdown of food. One way that the
stomach does this is by secreting gastric acid, also known as HCL. HCL is important in preparing
food for the small intestine. If you’re low in HCL, foods such as proteins won’t get broken down
properly and will be sent in an undigested state to the small intestine, where they will ferment. This
fermentation process creates an environment in which fungi like candida thrive. Candida is a huge
health problem that we’ll discuss in detail later in this chapter.
Signs That Your HCL Is Low

Your body will give you many signs when it’s low in HCL. The following are key indications:

· Bloating, belching, and gas after a meal

· Indigestion, diarrhea, or chronic constipation

· Acne

· Rectal itching

· Chronic candida

· Hair loss in women

· Chronic fatigue

· Adrenal fatigue

· Various autoimmune diseases

Causes of Low HCL

The biggest culprits are these:

· High-carbohydrate sugary foods

 · Medications

· Genetically modified foods

· Processed foods

· Chronic stress

Small Intestine

This is where the magic happens in the gut. If you can keep your small intestine healthy and
happy, your whole body will perform at a higher level. Two key things must be kept in balance in
your intestines: good bacteria and bad bacteria.

There are over one thousand different types of bacteria in the small intestine. As we noted
earlier, we call these bacteria the microbiome of your body. In total, there are billions of bacteria in
the small intestine—close to three-and-a-half pounds’ worth! These bacteria are crucial to keeping
your immune system functioning well, producing neurotransmitters, keeping B-vitamins and omega-3
levels high, activating your thyroid hormones, and ensuring that your serotonin levels are working at
their best. You should have 80 percent good bacteria in your gut and 20 percent bad bacteria. If you
get more than 20 percent bad bacteria from harmful foods you eat, you gut will be in trouble.

Small Intestinal Bacterial Dysbiosis (SIBO)

Small intestinal bacterial dysbiosis, or SIBO for short, is a complicated term for a condition in
which a person’s small intestine has too many of the bad bacteria and not enough of the good ones.
When the intestines contain the balance of good and bad bacteria that is optimal for good health, the
intestines are described as being in a state of symbiosis. Alternatively, dysbiosis (a contraction of the
term “dys-symbiosis”) occurs when this balance is upset. SIBO results when you have a deficiency in

good bacteria and an overgrowth of bad bacteria.

Symptoms of SIBO include the following:

➢ Bloating, belching, burning, and flatulence after meals

➢ A sense of fullness after eating

➢ Indigestion, diarrhea, and constipation

➢ Systemic reactions after eating

➢ Nausea or diarrhea after taking supplements

➢ Rectal itching

➢ Weak or cracked fingernails

➢ Dilated capillaries in the cheeks and nose in nonalcoholic people

➢ Post-adolescent acne or other skin irritations, such as rosacea

➢ Iron deficiency

➢ Chronic intestinal infections, parasites, yeast, and unfriendly bacteria

 ➢ Undigested food in the stool

➢ Greasy stools

➢ Skin that’s easily bruised

➢ Fatigue

➢ Amenorrhea (absence of menstruation)

➢ Chronic vaginitis (vaginal irritation)

As you might have noticed, some of these symptoms are similar to those resulting from low
HCL production. That is how the digestive system works. Since digestion begins in the mouth and

continues in the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine—all the way through the elimination
process—if any piece of this digestive plan goes wrong, it will cause stress on the other pieces. One
breakdown leads to another, until the whole system is in bad shape.

This is why a part of a 45-Day Reset includes a complete gut repair. You have to repair all the
pieces to get the gut moving in the right direction and bring the body back into balance.

What causes SIBO? Here are some of the most common causes:

➢ Stress

➢ Diets that are poor or imbalanced and lacking nutritional supplementation;

imbalanced diets may be extreme in carbohydrates, fat, or animal products
 ➢ Food allergies or sensitivities

➢ Frequent antibiotic or drug therapy

➢ Emotional stress

➢ Intestinal infections

➢ Parasite infestation

➢ Chronic inflammation

Candida

If you have an intense addiction to sugar, you need to pay close attention to what I have to say
next. When you have more bad bacteria than good, you create an environment where yeast can grow.
Foods that contain yeast―such as bread, beer, and sugary treats―ferment in your small intestine,
building up a fungus called candida. Sounds gross, doesn’t it?

Candida overgrowth can be one of the hardest gut situations to repair—mostly because this
fungus needs you to consume more sugar, breads, starchy carbohydrates, and alcohol to keep it alive.
It’s like a parasite that tells you what to do so that you continue to build an environment that makes it
happy. Candida is no joke.

Here are some telltale signs that you have candida:

➢ Skin and nail fungal infections (such as athlete’s foot or toenail fungus)
 ➢ Feeling tired and worn down or suffering from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia

➢ Digestive issues such as bloating, constipation, or diarrhea

➢ Autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative

colitis, lupus, psoriasis, scleroderma, or multiple sclerosis (MS)

➢ Difficulty concentrating, poor memory, lack of focus, ADD, ADHD, and brain fog

➢ Skin issues, such as eczema, psoriasis, hives, and rashes

➢ Irritability, mood swings, anxiety, or depression

➢ Vaginal infections, urinary tract infections, rectal itching, or vaginal itching

➢ Severe seasonal allergies or itchy ears

➢ Strong sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings

I have personal experience with the devastation of candida. This was one of the major
breakdowns in my body when I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Without even realizing it, I was a
prime candidate for candida overgrowth. I had destroyed my gut bacteria by taking medications over
the long term, and I was eating a diet high in breads, beer, and sugar.

One of the first steps to my healing was to kill candida—a process that can be brutal and can
take time. Candida die-off can make you more fatigued and cause ringing in your ears, rashes, foggy
brain, and achy joints. It took a thorough approach to kill candida in my body. It was tough, but boy,
was it worth it!
Leaky Gut Syndrome

There’s a new gut syndrome in town that’s getting all the blame―and with good reason. It’s

called leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut is being linked to a wide variety of symptoms, such as seasonal
allergies, digestive problems, brain fog, hormonal imbalances, autoimmune disease, and chronic pain.

Leaky gut is a condition in which microholes form in your gut. These holes allow undigested
food and toxins to enter into the bloodstream. The brain identifies these substances as foreign invaders
and orchestrates an immune response. One of the body’s greatest immune responses is inflammation.
With leaky gut syndrome, it’s as if someone turned on an inflammation switch. For some, leaky gut
starts as inflammation in the belly, but for others, it creates inflammation in the back, neck, and
extremities. The body’s inflammatory repair system starts working 24/7, and your symptoms start
getting worse and worse.

The following are signs that you might have leaky gut:

➢ Digestive issues such as gas, bloating, diarrhea, or irritable bowel

➢ Seasonal allergies or asthma

➢ Hormonal imbalances such as PMS or PCOS

➢ Diagnosis of an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s

thyroiditis, lupus, psoriasis, or celiac disease

➢ Diagnosis of chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia

➢ Mood and mind issues such as depression, anxiety, ADD, or ADHD

 ➢ Skin issues such as acne, rosacea, or eczema

➢ Diagnosis of candida overgrowth

➢ Food allergies or food intolerances

The worst part about leaky gut is that it wears down your body’s immune system. An immune
system that has been working on overdrive for years is ill equipped to fight diseases like cancer.

So what causes leaky gut? Gluten is the number one-cause (see the next section on food
allergies). Other inflammatory foods―like dairy, processed foods, sugar, and alcohol―are suspected
as well. Certain medications―like painkillers, antibiotics, and acid-reducing drugs―also lead to
leaky gut. Candida overgrowth and SIBO are also known to contribute to this harmful gut situation.

Whenever I have a patient who has a variety of symptoms that don’t seem to be resolving, I
think of leaky gut. People who have had multiple surgeries or who have been taking medication for
years to manage their symptoms seem to have the worst cases of leaky gut.

Large Intestine

Once the small intestine has pulled the nutrients from your food, it sends anything that can’t
be absorbed to your large intestine. The large intestine is responsible for breaking down the food even
more by adding water to it.

One of the most important things to know about the large intestine is its connection to your
skin. The health of your skin is a direct reflection of the health of your gut, especially the large
intestine. Think of the large intestine as an excretion organ. It prepares any remaining undigested food
for excretion—and one of the ways it excretes toxins is by pushing them out through the skin. Any
toxins that irritate or destroy the lining of the large intestine will get sent into the bloodstream and out
through the skin. Food allergies, especially allergies to dairy, destroy the large intestine.

Why So Many Food Allergies?

Have you noticed recently that everyone around you has a food allergy? Why is that? Well,
unfortunately, we are not eating the same quality of food that we ate years ago. The following is a list
of the top five food allergens and why they harm your gut.

Wheat

Wheat is harmful to the human body for two reasons. The first is the new hybrid of wheat that
we’re eating. The second is what farmers are spraying on wheat crops today. In the 1970s, farmers
discovered a smaller higher-yield dwarf version of wheat. This made for larger profits for the farmers

but started an epidemic of digestive problems, autoimmune diseases, obesity, and behavioral
challenges. Think back to when you were a kid—none of these conditions where prevalent at the rates
they are now.

According to William Davis in his book Wheat Belly, this new hybrid of wheat is packed with
several harmful proteins that destroy the lining of our guts and cross the blood-brain barrier, attaching
themselves to the nervous system and opiate receptors in the brain. One of these proteins is called
gliadin. When gliadin binds to opiate receptor sites in the brain, it induces appetite and causes
behavioral changes. Such changes include outbursts, inattention in children with ADHD and autism,
hearing voices, social detachment in schizophrenics, and mania in bipolar patients. Davis also states
that people who take in gliadin consume four hundred more calories per day.

The second issue with wheat is what is allowed to be sprayed on it. Farmers are now spraying
Roundup on wheat before they harvest it―yes, the same Roundup you use to kill weeds in your lawn.
This spray has a chemical in it called glyphosate. Glyphosate causes microholes in our guts, causing
leaky gut syndrome. Theses holes allow denatured proteins to cross through the gut lining into our
blood, acting as foreign proteins. This stimulates our immune system and drives massive

inflammation, more food allergies, and eventually disease.

Between the changes in wheat type and the spraying of toxic chemicals, can you see why so
many people are allergic to wheat today? This is why you remove all wheat from your diet during
your 45-Day Reset. I know this can be hard, but it’s a necessary part of healing. If you don’t give your
gut a break from the daily damage this food substance is creating, you will never heal. In fact, every
day you stay committed to wheat, you risk building disease.

Dairy

We weren’t allergic to dairy as kids, were we? Now it seems as if everyone is allergic to dairy;

in fact, it’s estimated that 50 percent of the population is allergic. Well, just as with wheat, you’re not
consuming the same dairy as you did as a child. Milk, the primary ingredient in all dairy products, has
[8]
been altered to increase production. Just as the new version of wheat contains the harmful protein
gliadin, milk has a new chain of amino acids called BCM7—beta a 1 casein—better known as casein.

BCM7 produces reactions in your brain similar to those produced by morphine, and it can alter
behavior and moods. If you have leaky gut, this protein goes right across the gut barrier and into your
bloodstream, initiating an immune response from your body. Your body reacts by inflaming to get
this foreign invader out of you. Whether you’re consuming conventional or organic dairy, you’re
getting this harmful protein. It’s estimated that 95 percent of casein in America right now is this beta
a1 version.

Remember that I mentioned the benefits of enzymes that naturally occur in our body to help
break down food? Well, dairy has a natural enzyme that helps the human body digest it. It’s called
lactase. When you pasteurize dairy, you destroy that enzyme, leaving the human gut ill equipped to
handle the digestion of lactose in cow’s milk. When dairy hits the gut undigested, it creates an
immune response that has the body producing inflammation to break it down.

The other challenge we have with dairy is what’s being done to cows to protect them from the
unsanitary environments they’re often living in. Growth hormone, antibiotics, and chemical-sprayed
food all seep into the glass of milk you’re drinking. Antibiotics are known to kill all good and bad
bacteria in the gut, leading to intestinal dysbiosis, which we discussed earlier in this chapter.

If you don’t have the right amount of good bacteria, your immune system will be depressed,
your pain increased, and your moods altered—all from drinking milk. Every time you drink milk, you
create an inflammatory reaction. If you have allergies, sinus issues, digestive issues, and skin
challenges―or if you feel as if your immune system is depressed―take milk out of your diet for 30
days and see what happens.

Corn

You will find throughout this book that I reference foods made from genetically modified
organisms (GMOs). If you’re not familiar with GMO foods and what they’re doing to your health,
now is the time to educate yourself. GMO foods are engineered to have a toxin inside them called BT
toxin. BT toxin causes an insect’s stomach to explode, resulting in death. Of course our food industry
is about increasing profits, not health. The presence of BT toxin in GMO crops is helpful to the farmer
because he or she doesn’t lose as many crops to insect damage.

Unfortunately, BT toxin has not been fully studied as to how it affects the human body.
However, many believe this toxin is contributing to the growing number of cases of leaky gut
syndrome. If we ingest BT toxin on a daily basis, then it does damage to us by creating microholes in
our guts―just as it does damage to insects. What’s even scarier is that some scientists believe that this
toxin gets into our DNA and shares information with our bacteria, causing our bodies to begin to
produce and secrete BT toxin, creating more intestinal dysbiosis even in the absence of GMO food.

Many countries have banned GMO foods because of the damaging effects they could have on
our health. Unfortunately, GMO foods are not only legal but extremely prevalent in America. Food
giants like Monsanto have also gone to great lengths to make sure there are no labeling laws to show
us which products are GMO and which are non-GMO. This has created a catastrophic health crisis
that people in America will be dealing with for years to come. But the good news is that one can get
around GMO foods by always looking for the USDA organic symbol. Anything with the USDA
organic stamp has passed the test for non-GMO foods.

Nevertheless, until better labeling laws are in place, I recommend you stay away from the
foods that are most commonly genetically modified, like corn. Anything that is made from
corn—corn oil, corn tortillas, corn flour, corn chips—has BT toxin in it. In the 45-Day Reset, I have

you pull all corn out of your diet to give your gut a good reset from the damages GMO foods are
causing.

Soy

Isn’t soy a health food? That’s what we were taught years ago. We know more now. And just
like the other foods that are causing so many allergies, you are not eating the soy you ate years ago.

There are two challenges with soy. First, it produces a chemical called phytoestrogen, which
mimics estrogen. Phytoestrogen is a plant sterol that can drive up estrogen in your system. Ingesting
soy can create hormonal problems often seen with perimenopause and menopause. In fact, soy started
to get more attention when breast cancer rates started to skyrocket. Breast cancer is often fueled by
too much estrogen.

The other challenge we have with soy, and why it’s under the food allergy section, is that it
too is one of the most genetically modified crops. Eating it will not only stimulate more estrogen but
will cause more BT toxin to enter your gut. Although eating USDA organic soy will eliminate the BT
toxin issue, soy still produces too much estrogen in your body. There is no health benefit that
outweighs the risk of this harmful food.

Peanuts/Eggs

More than three million Americans now have some kind of nut allergy. The number of

[9]
children with peanut allergies more than tripled between 1997 and 2008. What is causing our
children to be so allergic?

Although there is not one clear reason for all these allergies, there are many theories that
might explain the increase in sensitivities to these foods. One theory as to why these foods are causing
more allergies and histamine reactions is that these substances are mixed in some vaccines and flu
shots as preservatives. We are vaccinating our children at higher rates than ever before: most children
are getting 69 vaccine shots by the seventh grade. Along with the increase in vaccines, there has been
an increase in allergies and asthma in children, as previously noted.

How could something meant to help a child cause damage? How would it create a food
allergy? Think for a moment what the purpose of a vaccine is: to create an immune response. So when
you get injected with a vaccine, your body recognizes everything in the vaccine as a foreign invader.
The goal of the vaccine is to give you an immune response to the bacteria in the vaccine, but it
doesn’t just give an immune response to the bacteria—it can stimulate an immune response to
everything in that vaccine. And according to the CDC, the following are preservatives that are put in
vaccines:

· Aluminum

· Antibiotics

· Egg protein

· Formaldehyde

· Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

· Thimerosal (aka mercury)

· Soy

· Yeast

Why is egg used in a vaccine? Well, according to the CDC, vaccine viruses grow on eggs.

These vaccine viruses are injected into fertilized hens’ eggs and incubated for several days to allow
the viruses to replicate. The virus-containing fluid is harvested from the egg and put into the vaccine.
When the vaccine is injected into you, particles of egg still remain in the vaccine.

What about peanuts? In her book The Peanut Allergy Epidemic, Heather Fraser defines the
connection between vaccines and peanut allergies. She explains that a class of vaccine ingredients
called excipients is a likely suspect in the rapid increase in peanut allergies. Adding an excipient to a
vaccine formula is necessary to help an injectable vaccine move into the bloodstream and to improve
its effectiveness. In her book, Fraser well documents the addition of excipients that contain peanut oil
and the rise in peanut allergies.

Let’s think this through for a moment. If antibiotics, soy, and yeast are known destroyers of
the microbiome of our guts, what happens when children get so many vaccines throughout their
younger years? If the gut plays such a large role in the immune system, doesn’t anything that damages
the gut weaken the immune system? How many more toxins can our children take? If we are
damaging our guts through foods, vaccines, and environmental toxins, what does this mean for the
long-term health of our children? Luckily, a few people are waking up to these truths. Although we
have a long way to go with the number of toxins our children are exposed to, some doctors and
scientists are starting to ask these difficult questions.

***

You will see many themes running throughout this book. One main theme is that toxins and
foods we have altered are destroying our health. When I first learned about many of these toxins, I
was overwhelmed. I even rejected some of the theories I had read. For example, the first time I read a
book about cutting out all grains from your diet to improve your metabolism, I thought the author was
crazy. I put the book down and didn’t revisit it until I started hearing more and more people saying the
same thing.

Although I was wheat-free at the time, I was not ready to give up my wheat-free treats
containing other grains. Then one day, I got inspired to try a no-grain diet for myself. The results were
almost immediate. First, I noticed my energy was high all day long. Normally, my energy would take
a dip at 3:00 p.m. Once I gave up all grains, that dip went away. I also quickly dropped extra weight I
was carrying at the time, never to regain it. I shocked myself. I was so happy with how my body felt
and functioned that I never went back to grains as part of my regular diet again.
 The choice is always yours. No one is putting a gun to your head and telling you to stop eating
the foods that are harming your health. But as you read through the chapters of this book, if you find
yourself rejecting some of the ideas, ask yourself what is worth more: the taste of a food or feeling

fantastic?

I choose feeling fantastic any day!

Monica’s Story

Monica’s story is a great example of how your whole health can break down from a
breakdown in the gut. Monica came to me with extreme pain in her lower back. She had tried
everything. Cortisone shots, powerful pain killers, yoga, massages, and sporadic chiropractic care had
kept her from being disabled. But the pain was getting worse. It had become so bad that she couldn’t
bend over to put her pants or shoes on in the morning.

Knowing that I did corrective chiropractic and nutritional work, one of Monica’s closest
friends sent her to me. I immediately ran several tests on her and did a set of X-rays. The damage to
her spine was severe. It would take several weeks for me to get her gut test results back, so we
immediately started our corrective chiropractic protocol.

In the beginning, she noticed that her pain would diminish after the adjustments, only to return
hours later. I gave her home exercises to loosen her ligaments, and that helped the pain levels as well.
But something was still blocking her body from healing.

Then her gut tests results came back. She had one of the worst levels of bad bacteria I had ever
seen in a patient.
 We immediately put her on the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox—and the results were almost
immediate. Within days her pain had declined by 50 percent. Her mobility started to come back and
she could actually dress herself. She also had an unexpected result of quick weight loss. In 15 days

she lost eight pounds, and her belly, which had felt bloated and distended for years, shrank.

The greatest part was that you could see the joy coming back to Monica’s life. When you’re in
chronic pain and lose the function of your body, nothing in your life works right. Health is your
greatest asset. Everything in your life requires that you live in a healthy body.

Monica is a great example of how key your gut is to many of the symptoms you may be
experiencing. Leaky Gut, SIBO, and candida affect more than just the digestive tract. They affect
your pain levels, your brain function, and your immune system. Repairing your gut can transform
your life.

It did for Monica.

Chapter 3

Why the Brain Is Your Most Powerful Healing Tool

Anything that affects the gut will affect the brain.

—Dr. Charles Majors

The brain is the control center of the body. It controls the functioning of everything from the
smallest cells to the most complex organs. Nothing happens in your body without communication
from the brain—making it your most powerful healing tool. So a basic understanding of how the brain
works is crucial to resetting your health for the long term.

I like to think of the brain as your best friend. You know that friend you can call on in your
darkest hour? The one that will be there for you always? The friend that always wants to help and
always has your back? That is your brain’s relationship to your body. It constantly scans the body for
cells that need to be repaired, systems that need to be coordinated, and tissue that needs more healing.

What most people don’t realize is that in order for your brain to function normally, you have
to have a healthy gut. The brain and the gut are so intimately connected that even neurologists are
now linking depression, ADD, anxiety, and dementia to damage in the gut. Your brain also needs a
good lymphatic system to detoxify itself. New studies are beginning to help us understand just how
important the dura mater, the outer sheath around the brain and spinal cord, is in assisting in this
detoxification. Anything that harms the dura mater has the potential to slow down this detoxification

process, leaving protein buildup in the brain—and damaging effects.

In this chapter, we’ll look at how the microbial environment in your gut can have a dramatic
effect on your moods. We’ll also look at how the brain best detoxifies and what you can do to
facilitate this necessary process.

Brain Health Starts in the Gut

The brain is composed of eighty-six billion neurons. Each neuron carries information,
beginning in the neural body, then passing through a long thin cord called an axon, and then moving
out through things called dendrites. Like traffic flowing on a highway, information gets sent as
impulses across the axon and out through a dendrite, where it meets another dendrite of a neuron to
carry the information onward.
 The myelin sheath, which acts like a shield protecting a neuron, requires an ample amount of
B vitamins to carry the messages across the axon with speed and accuracy. Ironically, B vitamins are
produced in your gut. If your gut is out of balance and you’re suffering from symptoms of leaky gut

syndrome or intestinal dysbiosis, as we discussed in Chapter 2, you will not produce enough B
vitamins or the proper amount of neurotransmitters. If you’re low in these key nutrients, it affects
your neural activity.

What that means to you is a lack of mental clarity, less focus, more forgetfulness, depression,
and often chronic pain. Many of these symptoms are now being linked to low vitamin B and
neurotransmitter levels due to a gut imbalance.

Fatigue and lack of focus are health crises that many people deal with on a daily basis. Many
of my patients have tried to treat these symptoms medically, with little success. Feeling frustrated,
they start blaming their poor health on aging or circumstances in their life. You may feel this way

about your own health as well, but nothing could be further from the truth. Your brain was built to
stay mentally sharp all day. It was designed to keep you happy, and your energy levels should stay
constantly high throughout the day. Any change from that is not normal. It simply means there’s a
breakdown somewhere inside that needs to be addressed.

I’m often asked by corporations to speak to their employees about managing stress. One of my
favorite questions to ask them is “Who wakes up energetic and stays that way all day?” No one raises
their hand, and almost everyone laughs—as if I’m telling them a joke. What many people are unaware
of is that fatigue, depression, and lack of mental clarity can arise from a breakdown in the gut. This is
why I started with the gut in the last chapter: fix the gut and you help the brain function normally.

When I started my practice twenty years ago, digestive problems were rare, as was depression.
Now when I meet with a new patient and run through his or her health history, it’s rare for someone to
say they don’t have some type of digestive challenge. The same is true with depression. I’m also
seeing more and more people on antidepressants.

In fact, digestive complaints are so common now that a new survey conducted at New York
University’s Langone Medical Center found that 74 percent of Americans are living with digestive
[10]
symptoms such as diarrhea, gas, bloating, and abdominal pain. Anxiety and depression are also on
the rise. According to the CDC, 1 out of 10 Americans over the age of 12 is now taking an
antidepressant. That is a 400 percent increase since 1988.

It’s not a coincidence that depression and anxiety are rising at similar rates. There’s a
connection. A growing amount of research is proving that an imbalance in the digestive system can
cause imbalances in the brain, leading to depression and changes in mood. In his book Brain Maker,
David Perlmutter, MD, a board-certified neurologist, claims there is a medical revolution underway
that has brain experts looking and treating behavioral and mood disorders, Alzheimer’s disease,
depression, ADD, dementia, and multiple sclerosis in a whole new way. According to Dr. Perlmutter,
the health of your brain is dictated by the state of the microbiome in your gut—the ecosystem that
houses all your body’s microbes.

Mark Hyman, MD, asserts in his book The UltraMind Solution, “Your entire body and all of

the core systems in it interact as a single sophisticated symphony. You are one whole person, and all
the pieces of your biology and your unique genetic code interact with your environment (including the
[11]
foods you eat) to determine how sick or well you are in this moment.”

For the first time in recent medical history, doctors are looking for answers to people’s mental
conditions in the gut. Traditionally, mental disorders have been treated with medication. SSRIs are
drugs that are commonly given to patients with depression. But what is the purpose of an SSRI? It’s
to increase the serotonin levels in your body. What does serotonin do? It makes you happy. Where is
this amazing chemical made? You guessed it: your gut.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters are essential for electrical impulses to be

sent from neuron to neuron. This is how our thoughts occur. As noted earlier, information speeds
along a neuron to the axon; it’s with the help of a neurotransmitter that a neuron can connect to the
next neuron and keep carrying the information along. And neurotransmitters are made in the gut. If
your gut is out of balance, not secreting enough of the proper neurotransmitter, it will negatively
affect how your brain functions.

Remember how I said your brain is your best friend? Imagine if your best friend were down,
not feeling well, depressed, or depleted of energy. How well would he or she be able to help you in a
crisis? Not very well, I imagine. That same thing happens to your brain when it doesn’t get the proper
balance of neurotransmitters.

A deficiency in neurotransmitters can cause a wide variety of health problems:

➢ Sleep difficulties, including problems falling asleep, waking frequently in the

middle of the night, and not being able to fall asleep after waking at night

➢ Craving refined carbohydrates

➢ Having a hard time dealing with life changes

➢ Difficulty relaxing; tension

➢ Low libido; lack of interest in sex

➢ Fatigue, even during the morning

➢ Lack of concentration

➢ Difficulty losing weight

➢ Eating too much sugar

➢ Depression

➢ Feeling taken advantage of by others

➢ Chronic fatigue

➢ Chronic pain

➢ Emotional volatility; mood swings you feel you can’t control

➢ Difficulties in your family and work relationships because of moodiness

➢ Depression and feelings of isolation

➢ Excessive perspiration, cold hands, and palpitations

➢ Memory difficulties

➢ Difficulty overcoming even minor obstacles to achieve goals

 ➢ A tendency to dwell on your inadequacies and feel depressed

Do you see any of these symptoms in yourself?

One of the tests I often run in my office is an Organic Acids Test. It’s a functional medicine
test that helps me see if a patient is low in B vitamins and neurotransmitters. It also tells me how
depleted her liver is of essential nutrients like glutathione, how much bad bacteria and yeast she has in
her gut, and how quickly her cells are living and dying due to free-radical damage. It is a powerful
test. I can see how quickly she is building disease in her body and identify some of the breakdowns
that are contributing to her poor health.

Recently I ran this test on a 40-year-old woman who had a long history of depression. She’d
had had her depression under control for several years, but recently it had started to come back. This
time the medication she was taking wasn’t helping. She was teary often. She couldn’t see the bright

side of life, and it was starting to really impact her family. She was scared and frustrated.

When I ran the Organic Acids Test on her, sure enough, her body was packed with bad
bacteria and low in neurotransmitters―a combination I often find. A simple fix of a high-powered
probiotic and amino acids corrected the problem. Her story is such a good reminder to always ask
why a new condition has arisen with your health. Don’t just treat the symptom, treat the why (the
breakdown). This approach to people’s health has never steered me wrong. This woman, for example,
most definitely would have ended up on higher-powered medications that would have caused more
damage to her gut, making her neurotransmitter imbalance even worse.

Unfamiliar with neurotransmitters? Have you heard of GABA? It’s a neurotransmitter that
mellows you out and slows your thoughts down. Pretty helpful when you have a high-stress life, don’t
you think? Norepinephrine and epinephrine are also neurotransmitters that make you alert and give
you that shot of adrenaline when you need it. And dopamine is the neurotransmitter that keeps your
spirits high. These neurotransmitters are all crucial to happy living, and they are all made in the gut
and sent to the brain. Keeping the microbiome of your gut well balanced will keep your brain loaded
with these powerful chemicals.

Advances in neuroscience are showing us another interesting function of neurotransmitters:

they have a profound impact on our habits. They glue patterns of thoughts together. When you think a
thought over and over again, the neurotransmitters that get released at that time will hardwire you to
[12]
keep thinking that thought. Let’s use going on a diet as an example. One of the reasons that so
many people fail at diets is that they have negative associations with the word diet. Most people have
been on diets over and over again. Many have failed. The more times you fail at a diet, the more you
hardwire your brain to associate the word diet with suffering and failure. All someone has to do is say
the word “diet,” and you feel horrible. Once this is hardwired through your neurons with the help of
the neurotransmitters, it’s hard to change. You’re already programmed to fail.

But neuroscience has taught us some new information about this gluing of neurons together.
Just like thoughts that get thought over and over again become hardwired in our brain, if you change a
habitual thought to a new and better thought, you can unstick the neurons associated with that thought
and eventually change the thought itself. You literally can undo your thoughts (and reset your brain)!

You can use this to your advantage. When you get to the section on the 45-Day Reset, you are
never going to call it a diet. If someone asks you what you’re doing, you’ll say, “I’m on a reset
program,” or “I’m resetting my health.” Your association with the word program is totally different
from that with the word diet. In fact, I want to emphasize that the 45-Day Reset is not a diet. It is a
way of life. It is a toolset that will change the way you approach your health—and your health will
change as a result.
The Central Nervous System

Now that you have a general understanding of the brain and how it plays a part in your health,

let’s look at the rest of your central nervous system. The nervous system is the brain’s only messenger
system. It carries information from the brain to every cell, tissue, muscle, and organ in your body.
There are only two key concepts to know about this system.

First, we have two types of nervous systems, designed to work in balance: one that speeds us
up and one that slows us down. The one that speeds us up is called our sympathetic nervous system.
The one that slows us down is called our parasympathetic nervous system. Most people are overusing
their sympathetic nervous system. Our crazy-busy lifestyle has us on the go all the time. We are
constantly running from event to event, causing us to constantly use our sympathetic nervous system.

Since the two systems were designed to work in balance, if you’re constantly on the go, you

most likely have overdeveloped your sympathetic nervous system, thus weakening your
parasympathetic nervous system. An imbalance in these two systems can dramatically affect how well
your body performs—and it can be the fast path to chronic fatigue.

So how would you know if one or both of these systems were out of balance? Following are
some possible symptoms:

➢ Your brain races, especially at night.

➢ You find it hard to relax, even when you’re exhausted.

➢ You never let you brain relax. In fact, it’s difficult for you to just sit.
 ➢ You’re addicted to your smartphone, checking e-mail and social media
constantly.

Think of your two nervous systems like the gas pedal and brake of your car. If all you did was
use the gas pedal and never the brake, you would eventually crash. What I want to do is teach you
how to use the brake.

There are ways for you to develop your parasympathetic nervous system. Meditation is one
way. Sitting for as little as ten minutes a day can strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system. I
also recommend a technique called 4-7-8 breathing: inhale through your nose for a count of 4, hold
the breath for a count of 7, and exhale from your mouth for a count of 8. If you do this several times,
you will feel your body relaxing. It’s quick, easy, and a wonderful way to strengthen your
parasympathetic nervous system.

The second thing you need to know about the nervous system is that it is of such importance to
your health and well-being that it has a bony case, called your spine, protecting it. Anything that
damages your spine will damage your nervous system. If you damage your nervous system, you
greatly impact your brain’s ability to communicate with your body. This weakening of the nervous
system can lead to many symptoms, including the following:

● Digestive problems

● Asthma

● Allergies

● Sinus problems
 ● Headaches

● Neck pain

● Lower back pain

● Lack of mental clarity

● Sluggish metabolism

● Infertility

Our spine was designed to have curves. The spinal cord that carries life-sustaining
information out of the brain is designed to be seventeen to eighteen inches long, and the curvature of

the spine helps maintain the length of the spinal cord. When we lose those curves, we pull and pinch
the spinal cord and nerves. This greatly affects how well our brain can coordinate the functioning of
all the cells of the body. Unfortunately, our sedentary lifestyle and technology is quickly damaging
the curves in our spine.

What this means is that posture is not just about looking good. Posture tells you a lot about the
health of your spine and whether these curves are still intact. In Chapter 7, I’ll show you how to bring
some of those curves back and restore the function of your nervous system with ease.

The Brain’s Lymphatic System

As I mentioned in the first part of this chapter, your brain also has a lymphatic system. When
this system is functioning properly, it helps remove protein buildup and toxins believed to be related
to neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.
 A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that body posture has a
profound effect on the efficiency of the brain’s lymphatic system. More evidence shows that posture
plays a key role in your overall health. Also, current research is showing us that sleep has an effect on

how well this lymphatic system works. Getting enough sleep and sleeping on your side is said to help
improve lymphatic drainage from the brain and help with memory consolidation. This drainage is key
to preventing the neurodegenerative diseases mentioned above, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and
ALS.

Yet one poor health habit I often hear about from patients is not getting enough sleep. The
National Sleep Foundation says that most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep to function
properly. Sleep is so important to your overall health that missing out on it will weaken your body.
The Mayo Clinic states that studies are showing that people who don’t get enough sleep are more
likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if
you do get sick. When you’re asleep, your brain can do its best work. Lack of sleep prevents this

powerful healing tool from doing its job effectively.

It’s important to know several things about sleep. First, the amount of sleep you get is
important. In order for your brain to be able to repair itself properly, you need seven to nine hours of
sleep each night. Not getting enough sleep has been found to do the following:

· Decrease the cognitive function of your brain

· Increase your risk of heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes

· Kill your sex drive

· Lead to depression
 · Age your skin

· Make you forgetful

· Make you gain weight by increasing the hormone that makes you hungry

· Increase your risk of death

When you go to sleep is also important. When the sun goes down, your body secretes
melatonin to make you sleepy and to tell you to go to bed so it can start to repair injured cells. Four
hours after the sun goes down, you should be in a deep REM sleep. This is usually pretty easy for
people in the summertime. In the winter, however, it gets dark earlier. If you follow the above theory,
you would have to go to bed by nine o’clock. This is difficult for many and might explain why more
people get sick in the winter than in the summer. I like to use the general rule of getting seven to nine
hours’ sleep, so you should be in a deep sleep by 11:00 p.m. since most of the repair of your body
happens between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.

Nourishment for the Brain

I have great news for you: one of the key nutrients that your brain needs to function properly is
good fat. Yes, you heard me right: fat nourishes the brain.

One growing concern that doctors are having with patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia is
that when a person is put on statin drugs for decades, it shuts down the liver’s ability to produce
cholesterol. Your brain needs some cholesterol to function normally. When the brain is void of good
fat combined with an increase in toxins, a bad situation is created. Presently, one out three seniors will
die with dementia or Alzheimer’s. And what have we done over the past several decades? Removed
fat from our diets and added in toxins. Could it be that these two, combined, are contributing to
mental decline in our seniors?

So what kinds of fat does your brain need? Omega-3 fish oils are some of the best fats to add
into your diet to nourish your brain. One of the largest studies (of twenty-two thousand people) ever
done on the effects of omega-3’s revealed that those who regularly took cod liver oil, which is rich in
omega-3 fatty acids, were about 30 percent less likely to have symptoms of depression than those who
did not. The study also showed that the longer the participants took cod liver oil, the less likely they
were to have high levels of depression.

According to Douglas London, MD, Research Associate in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical

School, “The human brain is 60 percent fat, and omega-3 fatty acids are the fatty acid of choice for
the structure of certain parts of brain cell membranes and brain intercellular nerve connections. Lack
of dietary omega-3 forces the brain cells to utilize other fatty acid on hand, resulting in cells

constructed with inferior building material. This lack of available omega-3’s affects brain function
and is associated with cognitive and emotional disorders. There is growing evidence that a significant
[13]
proportion of the US population is at risk for omega-3 fatty acid deficiency.”

This is why you’ll see a fairly large dose of omega-3 fish oils included in your 45-Day Reset.
You also will be adding in plenty of wild salmon, flaxseed oil, Brussels sprouts, and raw walnuts into
your diet, as they are very high in omega-3’s.

Finding the Cause to Rebalance the Body

Are you starting to understand how complex your body can be? All systems are
interconnected, and this is why treating symptoms is a dead-end road that will never lead to restoring
health. If you’re having chronic fatigue because of a B-vitamin and neurotransmitter deficiency, and if
you take a pill to try to fix it, then all you’ll do is block your brain’s ability to be aware of the fatigue.
You won’t have addressed the B-vitamin and neurotransmitter deficiency.

Your body wants to be in a state of balance and health. Symptoms are your body’s way of
letting you know that it’s out of balance and needs assistance in restoring its health. So when you take
a pill to mask your symptoms, your body will often develop another symptom to get your attention.
This is why so often people get on one medication that throws their body even further out of balance,
thus requiring another medication to take care of that new symptom.

David’s Story

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a challenge that many parents are having to
face every day with their children. Many parents are looking for solutions other than putting their
child on lifelong medications with harmful side effects.

David’s family was in this exact place when they came to see me. David was a second grader
who was full of life, exuberant, curious—and incredibly unfocused. This made it difficult for his
teachers to work with him in a classroom setting. His outbursts were often disruptive to the learning
environment of the classroom. David’s teachers recommended that the family seek outside help for
his ADHD.

Numerous experts agreed that David should be put on medication, but David’s mom refused to
believe that was her only option. She started looking into how foods affected the attention of a young
child. She pulled all processed foods, sugar, and toxins out of his food and their household. David’s
attention improved, but he was still a difficult child to have in the classroom. Continuing to search for
answers, David’s mom found my office. I X-rayed David and found that his top cervical vertebra was
grossly misaligned. No doubt it was impacting how his brain was functioning and communicating
with his body.
 I started a protocol of care to realign David’s atlas and strengthen the surrounding tissues.
Within a month, changes started to happen. It started with David’s teacher commenting that he could
sit for longer periods of time. Then she showed David’s mother handwriting samples: his letters were

more clear and well formed. Another month went by and David was an all but normal child in the
classroom―still his spunky self but much more focused and able to participate in classroom activities
in a respectable way.

David’s story is a perfect example of how we treat the symptom and not the cause. Once we
took pressure off his brainstem, his whole body relaxed and his brain could function the way it was
designed to.

Chapter 4

Reward Your Hardest Working Organ—Your Liver

The food that you eat can either be the safest and most powerful medicine or the slowest form
of poison.—Ann Wigmore

The liver is the hardest working organ in the body. The small intestine filters the toxins we

ingest and sends them to the liver to break them down to facilitate their exit from the body. So the
liver performs functions related to the digestive process, metabolism, immunity, and hormonal
control. It also plays a role in cleaning up the body: getting rid of toxins and waste, as well as drugs
and other foreign chemicals. The liver is a ridiculously important organ—which is why one of the
keys to resetting your health is resetting this organ.
 Although gaining a complete understanding of how the liver works can be a daunting task,
learning a few key concepts about it will help you take care of this amazing organ. In this chapter,
we’ll look at how the liver works, what foods and substances harm the liver, and why resetting the

liver is one of the very first things we do in the 45-Day Reset.

The Miraculous Liver

The cells of the liver screen and filter the blood. The liver is so well built that it actually has
specialized cells specifically designed to metabolize drugs and alcohol. Any toxic substances are
deactivated and rearranged for eventual excretion.

Because detoxification is its specialty, the liver also produces a substance called glutathione.
Production of glutathione is one of those things your body was designed to do naturally. Glutathione
helps recycle and extend the life of your body’s important antioxidants. It also helps to directly

remove toxins from your various systems. It acts like a magnet, binding toxins and free radicals and
rendering them inactive and easy to excrete. Once these toxins and free radicals are bound, they can
be incorporated into the bile and brought to the digestive tract to be excreted via the stool. Free
radicals are a killer of health and speed up the aging process, so getting them out of your body is
extremely beneficial.

The problem—and it’s a major problem most people are facing today—is that our glutathione
levels are being depleted by harmful toxins and other factors we encounter on a daily basis. The key
things that deplete our glutathione levels are medications, aging, stress, pollution, radiation exposure,
and poor diet. They can decrease the liver’s capability to detoxify the blood, causing toxin buildup
and increased oxidative stress. This in turn can increase a person’s risk of diseases, such as cancer,
diabetes, and heart disease―and it can accelerate the aging process.
 You will hear me say this over and over: the environment we’re living in is more toxic than
ever. Our liver has a tougher job than it did decades ago. Being mindful of what foods are hardest on
the liver and incorporating a good detox several times a year is crucial for the health of your

digestion, metabolism, and immune system.

Toxins That Deplete Your Glutathione Levels

Following is a list of toxins and other factors that can deplete your natural glutathione levels:

· Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and other pharmaceuticals

· Acetone, solvents, and paint removers

· Fuels and fuel by-products

· Heavy metals (mercury in dental amalgams, vaccines, and tattoos; lead;

cadmium; and copper)

· Pesticides and herbicides

· Nitrates and other food preservatives of chemical origin (in salami, hot dogs,
hams, bologna, smoked foods, etc.)

· Artificial sweeteners, like Aspartame

· Synthetic food dyes

· Benzopyrenes (tobacco smoke, barbequed foods, fuel exhaust, etc.)

 · Alcohol

· Household chemicals (synthetically scented and colored detergents and fabric

softeners, air fresheners, mothballs, mildew removers, cleaners and bleach, lawn and plant

fertilizers, etc.)

· Chemicals found in housewares (nonstick coating used in pans and skillets,

plastic containers and linings of tin cans and other food packaging)

· Formaldehyde (in vaccines and flu shots)

· Styrene (found in photocopiers and toner printers)

· Chlorine in treated water

· Medical X-rays

· UV radiation

· Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) (like the ones coming from your cell phone,
tablets, and laptops)

· Industrial pollutants

· Poor diet (see 45-Day Reset)

· Strenuous exercise (This is why we recommend Surge Training.)

 · Chronic stress

· Anxiety and depression (Fixing the gut will help this.)

· Light pollution (Bed lights, streets lights, and the blue light from phones and

tablets all suppress melatonin production at night. Melatonin is key for glutathione
production.)

· Age (After the age of 20, natural glutathione production decreases at the rate
of 10 percent per decade on average in healthy adults.)

Many of you may be looking at this list and thinking I’m exposed to many of those toxins.
How is this affecting my health? What can I do about it? This is one of the main reasons I’ve written
this book. We’re exposed to so many things on a daily basis that are destroying our health, and many
of us are completely unaware of this. People are walking around fearful of cancer, yet they don’t
realize that their daily habits are building cancer within them every day. In fact, a top British medical
journal, the Lancet, found that glutathione levels were highest in healthy young people, lower in
healthy elderly people, even lower in sick elderly people, and the lowest of all in hospitalized elderly
[14]
people. Bottom line: if you’re sick and need a reset, you have to get these glutathione levels up.

The first step to fixing anything is knowing that it’s broken. Just knowing that these toxins are
depleting your glutathione levels, thus accelerating the disease and aging process, is the first step. The
second step is minimizing your exposure to these toxins. The third step is finding ways to detoxify
your liver and improve your glutathione levels. The 15-Day GI and Liver Detox will help with this
third step, as will following very specific steps you can take to improve your glutathione levels.

Ways to Improve Your Glutathione Levels

 Just as your habitual daily activities deplete your glutathione levels, you can add in daily
activities that improve your levels. These habits include the following:

Consume Sulfur-Rich Foods

The main sulfur-rich foods in the diet are garlic, onions, and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli,
kale, cabbage, cauliflower, watercress, etc.)

Try Bioactive Whey Protein

This is a great source of cysteine and the amino acid building blocks for glutathione synthesis.
The trick with whey protein is that it has to be a very specific type: it MUST be bioactive and made
from non-denatured proteins (denaturing refers to the breakdown of the normal protein structure).
When choosing whey protein, make sure it is derived from non-pasteurized and non-industrially

produced milk from grass-fed cows. It’s also important that the ingredients say there are no pesticides,
hormones, or antibiotics.

Whey protein is found in protein powders. There are thousands of protein powders on the
market, and it’s easy to be misled by a bad product. Please go to Resetfactor.com to see my preferred
brands, which meet the criteria mentioned above.

Exercise Boosts Your Glutathione Levels

If you need more reasons to exercise, here’s a great one: exercise increases your glutathione
levels, thus boosting your immune system, improving your body’s ability to detox, and enhancing
your body’s antioxidant defenses. The best type of exercise to increase these levels is Surge Training
(mentioned in the 45-Day Reset chapter). Surge Training is an exercise technique in which you work
to get your heart rate up and down over a 15-minute time period. It’s quick and effective.
 Strength training is another powerful way to improve your glutathione levels. We have
become a treadmill culture, where we hop on a treadmill going at the same pace for a long period of
time. In Chapter 5, “Calories Don’t Count—Hormones Do,” you’ll see how ineffective I believe this

type of exercise to be. Surge and strength training for short periods are the most beneficial way to
improve your glutathione levels and get in amazing shape.

Take Glutathione-Supporting Supplements

Some people ask, “If glutathione is so crucial to my overall health, can’t I just take a pill for
it?” Well, the answer is no. The challenge with glutathione is that it’s a protein. When you ingest
proteins, the body will break them down by digesting them and you won’t get the amazing benefits
that glutathione offers. But the great thing is that the production of glutathione in the body requires
many different nutrients that you CAN take. The following are key ingredients your body can use to
produce more glutathione:

1. N-acetyl-cysteine. This has been used for years to help treat asthma and lung
disease and to treat people with life-threatening liver failure caused by excessive Tylenol use.

2. Alpha lipoic acid. This is a close second to glutathione in importance for our
cells. It is involved in energy production, blood sugar control, brain health, and detoxification.
The body usually makes it, but given all the stress we’re under, we are often depleted in this
key nutrient.

3. Methylation nutrients (folate and vitamins B6 and B12). These are perhaps
the most critical to keeping the body producing glutathione. Methylation and the production
and recycling of glutathione are the two most important biochemical functions in your body.
Take folate, B6, and B12.
 4. Selenium. This important mineral helps the body recycle and produce more
glutathione.

5. Vitamins C & E. These two vitamins work together to recycle glutathione.

6. Milk thistle (silymarin). This has long been used in liver disease and to boost
glutathione levels.

You’ll notice in the 45-Day Reset chapter that I recommend these key supplements to
stimulate your glutathione levels. As with all the supplements I recommend in this book, you can go
to Resetfactor.com to see my favorite ones and where you can order them from. Choosing
supplements can be confusing. Don’t let overwhelming amounts of information or lack of clarity keep
you from getting these key nutrients. I want you to get results.

Other Foods Toxic to the Liver

Many of the foods we’re eating are harming our liver. Here are some foods known to destroy
your liver quickly:

Fast Food

No surprise here, right? A study from Europe showed that eating too much fast
food—resulting in a diet that’s high in fat and sugar (including high-fructose corn syrup)—could
cause serious damage to the liver. Follow-up studies also showed, however, that such damage could
be reversed by giving up the unhealthy diet.
 According to Dr. Andrew Ordon, author of Better in 7, a new study has found that eating fast
[15]
food for a month can cause significant changes to your liver. The combination of bad fats, sugar,

and salt causes something called fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease can be found in both obese and
thin people. The United States has 160,000 fast food restaurants serving an estimated fifty million
customers every day. Dr. Ordon states that the changes you can see in liver enzymes after one month
of eating french fries are in line with the effects doctors see with hepatitis.

Think about that. Fifty million people every day are damaging their liver just by eating fast

food. This harmful daily habit―along with other harmful habits such as sedentary living, consuming
a diet that causes a lack of good bacteria in the gut, and engaging in behaviors that damage the
nervous system―is destroying people’s health. Can you begin to see why more and more people are
getting cancer? Is it starting to make sense why we live in one of the sickest countries in the industrial
world? Can you see why people desperately need to be educated and given tools to reset their health?

Alcohol

Another no-brainer. Too much alcohol can lead to liver disease. Alcohol turns healthy liver
cells into fat. Because the liver has no cells that can feel these changes, most people that drink on a

regular basis don’t realize they’re damaging their liver until it’s too late.

When you drink a glass of alcohol, it is so stressful to the liver that the liver can only focus on
one thing at that moment: metabolizing that alcohol. As long as that alcohol is in your system, you are
not burning fat or detoxifying. The average glass of alcohol takes ten hours for the liver to process.
This is why I have you take alcohol out during your 45-Day Reset.

The other aspect of alcohol that’s important to understand is the fact that many alcoholic
beverages have yeast in them. As I mentioned in the gut chapter, yeast is a bad fungus that will
destroy your gut. The more yeast you have, the sicker your gut will be. Drinking alcohol irritates the
lining of the stomach, gradually weakening the kidneys and liver and leading to serious health
problems. Remember that anything that destroys the gut and liver interferes with healthy metabolism
and the weight loss process.

Salt

There are so many misconceptions about salt—it’s really gotten a bad rap. But very much like
fats, there are good salts and bad salts. Table salt is bad salt. It is highly processed and stripped of key
minerals your body needs. You know that too much table salt can increase blood pressure, but did you
know that it can also lead to fatty liver disease?

Here’s why. Table salt is not just sodium chloride. It contains additives that are designed to
make it more free-flowing: ferrocynanide, talc, and silica aluminate are commonly included.
Aluminum accumulates inside the body and can harm the nervous system, even leading to

neurological disorders. Talc is a known carcinogen. How can companies that produce table salt put a
known carcinogen in foods we eat every day? Well, the FDA has a special provision allowing talc in
table salt, even while it is prohibited in all other foods due to toxicity issues. According to current
regulations, table salt can be up to 2 percent talc.

What’s the best alternative to table salt? Sea salt. Unlike table salt, sea salt is unrefined and
unadulterated, and it’s not harmful in moderate amounts. Its benefits are vast. The human body
requires a certain amount of sodium for optimum health; we can’t live without some sodium. Healthy
sea salts make your body a hostile environment for pathogens such as bad bacteria and parasites. This
is what makes sea salt such an excellent preservative.

Sea salt also contains selenium, which helps to chelate toxic metals from the body. This is
extremely helpful to the liver. Sea salt also contains boron, which helps prevent osteoporosis; and
chromium, which regulates blood sugar levels. Sea salt is one of the few sources of copper that is safe
to ingest, and copper helps the body to form new arteries whenever the main arteries become too
[16]
clogged. Consuming small quantities of sea salt will actually lower your blood pressure.

Adding sea salt to your daily health regime will also help with your metabolism. Mineral
deficiencies are partly responsible for the rising obesity epidemic. Obese people are often
malnourished, and ironically their bodies are starving for key minerals and nutrients. When your body
thinks it’s starving, it will hold on to fat, only intensifying the obesity challenge that many people
face. So can you see that it’s time to throw away the table salt and add in the sea salt! Both your liver

and your metabolism will thank you.

Artificial Sweeteners

Next to alcohol, some of the worst foods you can eat or drink contain aspartame or
sucralose―which go under the brand names Splenda, NutraSweet, and Equal. These foods will
NEVER make you thinner and will destroy your health every time. They are so harmful that our
government has advised that pregnant women and children should avoid them.

Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to

[17]
the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious, including seizures and death. Over 90
different documented symptoms have been reported as part of the dangers of aspartame. These
symptoms include the following:

· Headaches

· Dizziness

· Seizures
· Nausea

· Numbness

· Muscle spasms

· Weight gain

· Rashes

· Depression

· Fatigue

· Irritability

· Tachycardia and heart palpitations

· Insomnia

· Vision problems

· Hearing loss

· Breathing difficulties

· Anxiety attacks
 · Memory loss

· Tinnitus

· Vertigo

· Joint pain

· Loss of taste

There is no doubt that aspartame is one of the most harmful food substances you can put in
your mouth. According to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame,
several severe illnesses can be triggered or worsened by ingesting aspartame. These include the

following:

· Brain tumors

· Multiple Sclerosis

· Epilepsy

· Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

· Parkinson’s disease

· Alzheimer’s disease

· Lymphoma
 · Fibromyalgia

· Diabetes

If you’re still not convinced that now is the time to get off this harmful chemical, current
studies done on rats show that aspartame increases the incidence several types of cancer, especially

[18]
liver and lung cancer.

Because of the numerous harmful effects of aspartame and the growing awareness of these
effects, more people have started to switch to sucralose, better known as Splenda. Sucralose is not
proving to be any safer. One study showed that mice had a higher risk of developing cancer after
eating sucralose. Other side effects reported with Splenda include the following:

· Rashes

· Dizziness

· Migraines

· Stomach pain

· Diarrhea

· Bladder irritation

· Numbness
 You will find aspartame and sucralose in many low-fat or nonfat foods. This is why one of my
reset rules for health is that you have to start reading labels. Read your labels and stay away from
these harmful ingredients at all cost.

Aspartame was one of the toxins that led me to chronic fatigue syndrome. Back in college, it
would not have been uncommon for me to have three super gulp–sized diet Cokes every day.
Between the chronic daily painkillers I was taking, the stress I was under, the diet Cokes, and the fast
food, I was a prime candidate for chronic fatigue syndrome and didn’t know it. My liver was dealing
with a tremendous toxic load, which is why putting me on more medications was never going to solve
my health crisis. Resetting my health was the only option that was going to be successful.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

When most people think of MSG, they think of Chinese food. But MSG is hidden in a lot of

different foods. Studies have shown that humans are five times more sensitive to this neurotoxin than

a rat is. We have glutamate receptors on every major organ, hardwired into our brains, and even on the

tip of our tongue. Our bodies are incredibly sensitive to these neurotoxins.

Glutamate is one of the main neurotransmitters for the hypothalamus. As you will learn in the
next chapter on “Resetting Your Hormones,” the hypothalamus controls most of our hormones,
eating, behavior, temperature control, pain regulation, and sleep habits, as well as the autonomic
control of our heart, GI tract, lungs, and bladder. When animals are fed MSG early in life, they
develop severe abnormalities―including short stature, small endocrine organs (pituitary, adrenal
glands, thyroid, ovaries, testes, and pancreas), and a higher risk of seizures and impaired learning.

Other names for MSG include the following:

· Anything “hydrolyzed,” such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein

 · Textured vegetable protein

· Yeast extract and yeast food

· Glutamate

· Glutamic acid

· Monopotassium glutamate

· Calcium caseinate

· Sodium caseinate

· Gelatin

· Soy protein, soy protein isolate, and soy protein concentrate

· Whey protein, whey protein concentrate, and whey protein isolate (except
approved whey proteins listed at Resetfactor.com)

· Carrageenan

· Bouillon

· Natural flavors or flavoring

· Maltodextrin
 · Citric acid

· Anything “ultrapasteurized”

· Barley malt

· Pectin

· Malt extract

· Soy sauce

Acetominophen

While many drugs―both over-the-counter and prescription―are toxic to the liver,

excessive acetaminophen ingestion is a leading cause of liver failure. Brands like Tylenol,
Anacin-3, Arthritis Pain Formula Aspirin-Free, Datril Liquiprin Children’s Elixir, and St.
Joseph Aspirin-Free Fever Reducer for Children are often used to ease a headache or reduce a
fever. However, more than 15 grams of acetaminophen can lead to irreversible liver disease in
adults.

The toxic effects of acetaminophen are accelerated by alcohol use. Chronic

acetaminophen use and chronic alcohol abuse have been separately linked to kidney and liver
disease, according to Dr. Martin Zand, medical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant
programs at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. If you want to give your
liver a break, avoid acetaminophen. If you don’t want to destroy your liver cells, never mix
acetaminophen with alcohol.
Nutrient Storage

The last thing to know about this amazing organ called the liver is that it is a huge storage

place for many nutrients. The liver can store large amounts of glucose, vitamins, essential nutrients,
and minerals. Copper, iron, fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, K, E, and D), and vitamin B12 are
stored in the liver to ensure that there is always a ready supply in times of need. Fatty acids are also
stored in liver tissues.

If you continually damage this organ, you’ll deplete the nutrients in it. This will accelerate
aging and disease, and it will rapidly break down your body. If you feel as if you’re aging fast and not
as healthy as you were a few years ago, it may be time for a detox.

This is why the 45-Day Reset starts you with the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox. I can teach you
how to eat better and how to stop engaging in harmful food habits that destroy your body, but you

have to take the proper steps to repair the damage that is already done. I have found that if you start
with a detox and then move into the 30-Day Habit Reset, you’ll have results that will last a lifetime.

Frank and Mariana’s Story

Frank and Mariana both came to me in declining health. They had been living the typical
American lifestyle: eating a poor diet, taking multiple medications, and experiencing numerous aches
and pains that were only getting worse. Being in their late sixties and early seventies, they assumed
that all of this was just the way their health was supposed to be as they got older.

Then their daughter-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Looking for lifestyle
solutions to her weakened immune system, she applied the principles that we teach in my office. As
her health started to improve, it inspired Frank and Marian to see how they could improve their own
health.
 When I ran an Organic Acids Test on them, I found multiple vitamin deficiencies, depleted
glutathione levels, and a growing number of bad bacteria in their guts. I immediately put them on the
15-Day Detox. Within days, weight started falling off them. In 15 days, Frank lost close to 30 pounds,

and the aches in his knees and ankles that had been there for years completely went away. Mariana,
who had made diet changes prior to her 15-Day Detox, lost 10 pounds, and her energy went through
the roof. As I’m writing this, they are 20 days into their 45-Day Reset. Both of them feel and look
younger than they have in years. Mariana has lost 29 pounds, while Frank has lost 39 pounds―all in
20 days!

What was the key to their success? What I love about these two is that they were willing to try
anything to improve their health. They took my recommendations and followed them exactly. Making
food changes, taking supplements to support their liver and gut, and working out for the first time in
years was not easy—but the rewards were great.

The other key to their success was that they did it together. I strongly feel that the key to
resetting your health is support from the people around you. Frank and Mariana are committed. First,
they’re committed to themselves. The greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of health. Second,
they’re committed to each other. Your health affects the people you love the most. When you’re in
pain, feeling bad about yourself, or tired all the time, who do you take it out on? Unfortunately, the
ones you love the most. When you turn your health around, all your relationships improve. The
greatest gift you can give your loved ones is the healthiest you possible.

That’s exactly the gift Frank and Mariana gave each other.
 Chapter 5

Calories Don’t Count—Hormones Do

The doctor of the future will give no medication but will interest his patients in the care of the
human frame, diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.

—Thomas A. Edison

I have great news for you! Weight loss is not an issue of eating too much food. It’s a hormonal
issue.

The only problem is that the hormonal system is complicated. It’s like a symphony with lots of
pieces that need to be balanced in order for things to work right. There are also lots of toxic influences
that break down our hormones. Yet once you understand how all the pieces work together and how
you can control these hormones, your body will release weight naturally.

Sound too good to be true? I promise you it’s not. In this chapter, I’m going to walk you
through understanding hormones. We’ll break down the two systems that control hormones (brain and

gut) so you can start to understand the underlying cause of your hormonal issues.

Let’s begin!
The Brain and Nervous System

Hormone production is initiated in an area of the brain called your hypothalamus. Chemicals

from the hypothalamus get sent to the pituitary, which coordinates all your endocrine glands. The
endocrine glands then release the proper hormones needed to do their predesigned jobs in the body.

But what happens if one of your endocrine glands is weakened? Let’s use your adrenal glands
as an example. When your brain perceives a stressful situation, the hypothalamus initiates the release
of a chemical that contacts the pituitary, which in turn releases a chemical to the adrenals telling the
adrenals to release the hormone cortisol. Cortisol then moves through your bloodstream, setting off a
series of reactions telling the body to get prepared because a stressful event is happening. This is
called a fight-or-flight response.

If the adrenals are weakened, the cascade of messages will still get initiated by the brain but

the organ receiving the information will be ill equipped to respond. This is what happens with people
who are adrenal fatigued. Once a person’s adrenals begin to weaken, stressful situations still happen
but the adrenals don’t produce enough chemicals to give that person the energy needed to handle the
stress. The brain still perceives stress and tries to send messages to the adrenals, but the adrenals are
too exhausted and don’t have the ability to react. Once the adrenals are exhausted, there’s not a drug
or supplement that will magically turn them back on. The system has to be reset.

One of my patients, Roseen, came to me in a severe state of chronic fatigue. She had tried
everything. A mother of two teen boys with a very active lifestyle, she was desperate for a solution.
Instead of treating her chronic fatigue, I went searching for the breakdowns. I immediately thought of
her adrenal glands.

Before I made any changes to her diet, we worked to strengthen the communication from her
brain to her adrenals. It turned out that she had severe damage to her spine. Her spinal curves had all
straightened out, and this was causing her nervous system to weaken. Improper communication from
her brain, mixed with years of stress, had made her adrenals ill equipped to produce the hormones
necessary to give her energy.

We worked on strengthening her nervous system by getting her spinal curves back. Within
weeks of corrective chiropractic care, her energy started to come back. Then we added in diet
changes, repaired her gut, and pulled toxins out of her body. It took a lot of work and effort on her
part, but within months she had dropped over 30 pounds and was beginning to feel like her old self
again.

When resetting your health, there’s no magic bullet. This is why taking a pill will fail every
time. You may resolve an issue temporarily, but if you don’t search for how the body got out of
balance in the first place, you’ll find other systems beginning to break.

I have found that keeping the communication from your brain to your endocrine glands
working at 100 percent efficiency is one of the key steps in keeping your hormones balanced. In an
earlier chapter, I talked about how the brainstem and spinal cord have a protective mechanism built in
to make sure that communication to the organs is happening properly. That protective mechanism is
called your spine. Think of the spine as bony armor that helps prevent damage to this important
system. The spine was designed to have curves. As a result of the way we use modern day
technology—sitting long hours at computers, for example—we’re losing these curves. When you lose
the curves in your spine, you damage your spinal cord. When you damage the spinal cord, you reduce
the amount of information all the organs can receive from the brain.

The thyroid is an endocrine gland that is especially sensitive to changes in the spinal curves
because it’s located at the base of your neck. The mechanics of a straight cervical spine put a
tremendous amount of pressure on the nerves that exit at the base of the neck (at the C5/C6 level).
These happen to be the nerves that supply your thyroid.
 Among the many studies demonstrating the link between the thyroid and the spine is one in
the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association that reported a correlation between cervical
[19]
spine problems and thyroid abnormalities. If you want to balance your hormones permanently,
you need to consider your spinal curves. I’ll give you more solutions to this in Chapter 7: “Why Your
Spine and Nervous System Are Your Fast Pass to Health.”

The Gastrointestinal System

Hormones are also made in the gut and liver. A good example of a hormone that is
dramatically influenced by the health of the gut is serotonin. Simply put, serotonin is a hormone that,
when it goes to the brain, makes you happy. Like I mentioned in Chapter 2: “Your Gut Instincts Are
[20]
Right,” over 80 percent of serotonin is manufactured in the gut. When your gut is out of balance,
you stop producing the correct amount of serotonin, and that can make you feel depressed.

Research is beginning to show us that there is a connection between serotonin levels and the
type of good bacteria you have in your gut. An article in Scientific American noted that if certain
good bacteria were not present in the gut, your body would not produce the proper amount of
[21]
serotonin.

As you can see, keeping your microbiome well balanced is also key to keeping your body
producing the proper hormonal balance. Once your gut’s bacterial balance goes off, your body stops
producing the proper hormones to keep you both physically and mentally healthy.
Important Hormones

Although every hormone is important, I want to highlight a few key players: cortisol, estrogen,

growth hormone, insulin, leptin, and thyroid. These are the hormones that, if they go out of balance,
have the greatest impact on your health.

Cortisol

When they think of cortisol, many people immediately think of the infomercial that advertises
the supplement that helps get rid of belly fat that builds due to an increase of stress. And yes, this is
exactly what happens when you have too much cortisol surging through your bloodstream. Cortisol
levels are directly proportional to stress levels. If you’re one of those people who have trouble losing
weight, especially around the belly, there’s a great chance that your cortisol levels are too high.

Cortisol is secreted by the adrenals. When you perceive something as stressful, the brain
immediately sends a signal to the adrenals and tells it to secrete cortisol. The more stress you are
under, the higher your cortisol levels. Scientists have known for years that elevated cortisol levels
interfere with learning and memory; lower immune function and bone density; and increased weight
gain, blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart disease. Chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels also
increase risk for depression, mental illness, and lower life expectancy. At least two separate studies
have been published implicating elevated cortisol levels as a potential trigger for mental illness and
[22]
decreased resilience—especially in adolescence.

This is a hormone that you do not want a lot of. There are ways you can naturally lower your
cortisol levels. Exercise is one of those ways. This is why in your 45-Day Reset I have you doing
Surge Training, which will help your body use cortisol better. A meditation practice will also give you
the tools to slow your thoughts down, allowing you to be less reactive to stress and thus further
minimizing your cortisol levels. And remind yourself that all stress is self-inflicted and that you can
control your reaction to any stressful situation.

Estrogen

Estrogen is a powerful hormone in both men and women. Estrogen balance is essential for
achieving and maintaining fat loss and for preventing diseases like breast cancer. When you have too
much estrogen in your body, a condition called estrogen dominance can wreak havoc on you both
mentally and physically. It can cause you to gain weight for no particular reason, retain water, and
feel bloated. It can make you irritable, cause you to feel anxious, give you acne and skin rashes, and
create a host of other health and wellness issues. In women, with stress and age, there is a natural
decline in testosterone and progesterone levels, leaving a relative excess of estrogen. Fixing estrogen
dominance is crucial to balancing all your other hormones.

What causes estrogen dominance? There are only two ways to accumulate excess estrogen in
the body: we either produce too much of it on our own or we acquire it from our environment or diet.
Unfortunately, accumulating estrogen is not hard. We are constantly exposed to estrogen-like
compounds. The most common ways to get estrogen mimickers in your body is through food, beauty
products, and plastics. We call these externally sourced estrogens xenoestrogens.

When these xenoestrogens enter your blood stream, they attach to estrogen receptor sites,
where they block the action of natural estrogen. These estrogen mimickers are one of the major causes
of hormonal imbalances in both men and women today. Some conditions currently being linked to an
increase in xenoestrogens are infertility, low sperm count, breast cancer, obesity, polycystic ovary
symptom (PCOS), and severe perimenopause and menopausal symptoms.

How do you know where you’re getting these xenoestrogens from? The Environmental
Working Group (EWG), an organization working hard to bring this information to the public, has a
list of the most harmful endocrine disruptors (another name for mimickers or xenoestrogens). You
can find that list at http://www.ewg.org/research/dirty-dozen-list-endocrine-disruptors.

Your best defense against xenoestrogens is knowledge. Start looking for areas that you may be
getting these harmful chemicals from. Your beauty products are a great place to start. The EWG also
has an app, called Skin Deep, that you can download to help you understand which of your beauty
products will disrupt your health the most.

Growth Hormone

If I told you there was a pill that would slow down aging, give you more energy, and turn you
into a fat-burning machine, would you take it? Well, there is such a chemical. It’s called growth
hormone. Consider it your fountain-of-youth hormone. The only challenge is that your body stops
secreting it in large amounts after the age of 30. That means you have to coax your body into making

more growth hormone.

There are two ways to do that.

1. Build more muscle

Many people are focused on staying thin by going straight to a cardio workout at the gym. But
I have news for you. If you want to raise your metabolism and improve secretion of growth hormone,
you need to build more muscle. Running for an hour on the treadmill will not accomplish that.

One of my favorite ways to improve muscle strength is through resistance training, where you
use your body weight as weight (as opposed to something external, like dumbbells). Yoga is a good
example of this. Many of the poses in yoga strengthen you as you move through your practice.
Another great way I like to do resistance training is using an innovative product called a TRX; simple
yellow straps that hang from overhead and allow you to do a variety of exercises. You can find these
in many gyms and online.

2. Surge Training

If you want the best-bang-for-your-buck workout, Surge Training (otherwise known has high-
intensity interval training) is the most helpful workout for weight loss and promotion of health. When
you put your body through a series of exercises that cause your heart rate to go up and down, you
force your body to secrete growth hormone. I go over how to do a Surge workout in Chapter 11, “The
30-Day Habit Reset.”

Insulin

Want the secret to losing weight? It’s regulating this hormone. The best way to regulate this

hormone is by decreasing your sugar intake. It’s that simple. The challenge you will find is that sugar
is everywhere. It’s also incredibly addictive. So you need a strategy to get off it. That is one reason
why I start your 45-Day Reset with a 15-Day Detox—designed to help you beat this sugar addiction
fast.

When we went fat-free as a country years ago, the food industry started increasing the amount
of sugar in our foods. Unfortunately, this changed our taste buds and caused most Americans to
become addicted to sugar without even realizing it. Every time you eat a food that’s high in sugar,
your body has to secrete insulin. When secreted by the pancreas, insulin will attach itself to the sugar
molecules in your bloodstream and make them usable for energy. When you ingest large amounts of
sugar day after day, your body stops reading insulin effectively and you become insulin resistant. This
is leading to the growing number of cases of obesity and diabetes in our country.
 The CDC estimates that one-third of adults in the United States are now obese, and according
to the World Health Organization, almost 40 percent of all adults over 18 worldwide are overweight.
[23]
Obesity has been linked to many chronic diseases. In fact, according to the National Cancer
Institute, obesity is associated with increased risks of several different types of cancer, including
[24]
colon, breast and thyroid. The estimated number of cases of cancer attributed to obesity is thought
to be at least 20 percent. The great news is the same analysis shows that certain cancers, like breast
[25]
cancer, can be reduced by as much as 50 percent with a loss of weight of 10kg or more.

A projection of the future health and economic burden of obesity in 2030 estimated that
continuation of existing trends in obesity will lead to about 500,000 additional cases of cancer in the
[26]
United States by 2030. This analysis also found that if every adult reduced their Body Mass Index
(BMI) by 1 percent, which would be equivalent to a weight loss of roughly 2.2 pounds for an adult of

average weight, it would actually result in the avoidance of about one hundred thousand new cases of
cancer.

Have I got your attention? Getting your body out of insulin resistance can save your life. One
of the reasons I came up with a 15-Day Detox plan was that I needed to give patients a tool that would
kick them out of insulin resistance quickly. During this detox, you will pull all sugar out of your diet
and teach your body how to read insulin again.

Leptin

In the 1990s, researchers discovered an amazing hormone called leptin. Leptin gets released
from fat cells and tells the brain to burn energy from fat. When this was first discovered, researchers
thought they had found the cure for obesity and decided to manufacture a pill that simulated leptin.
What they found was just like what happens with insulin: people who were holding on to too much
weight were leptin resistant. Their brains were unable to read the leptin due to the leptin receptors
being blocked.

What blocks leptin receptors? Scientists have discovered that several things block these
receptors, but the main foods that block leptin are toxic processed foods. Anything with partially
hydrogenated oils in it will clog these receptors and make your body hold on to fat no matter what
you do. I’ve found that when people are trying to lose weight and can’t seem to drop a pound no
matter what they try, they are leptin- and insulin- resistant. You have to address those issues first if
you want to lose weight. Depriving yourself of calories or hopping on a treadmill for hours won’t do
it. The 45-Day Reset is designed to reset both these hormones.

Thyroid Hormones

From this point forward, whenever you think of your thyroid, I want you to think of your gut

and the spinal curves in your neck. Just like the studies done on neck curves and the function of your
thyroid, there is a strong correlation between our thyroid function and the health of our gut. Your
thyroid might be able to secrete enough T3, T4, and TSH, but it needs healthy bacteria in the gut to be
readily available so that those hormones can be absorbed. Eating probiotic-rich foods or taking a high-
quality probiotic will help your body be better equipped to absorb these key thyroid hormones.

If you have signs of thyroid problems―such as unexplained weight gain, cold hands and feet,
depression, or hair loss―yet your blood tests are all showing normal thyroid hormone levels, look at
the microbiome of your gut. If the microbiome is off, your body may not be absorbing thyroid
hormones properly.

Your thyroid is also highly susceptible to toxins. If you have read this far in the book, you
know we live in an extremely toxic world. One way to protect against the toxins that destroy the
thyroid is to take an iodine supplement. Many experts feel that the toxins in our environment have
depleted our natural iodine stores. The thyroid needs iodine to function normally. Since many people
are walking around with a deficiency in this key mineral, taking an iodine supplement will help build
the thyroid strong and help protect it from all the toxic exposure.

Fiona’s Story

Fiona has been a patient of mine for years. She always has an upbeat spirit and a can-do
attitude that serves her well in life. Despite this great attitude, her health was not thriving, and it was
starting to affect her life in many ways. I helped her to reset her metabolism by balancing her
hormones through diet changes, repairing her gut, and strengthening her nervous system. The results
were not only profound, they have been lasting. Her story is best told in her own words:

Despite living what I thought was a fairly healthy lifestyle, my health was not getting
better. In fact, it was getting worse. My digestion was not great. I was getting to the point

where I had gas daily. I was also having headaches a couple of times a week. I’m an athlete,
and it seemed the more I practiced, the more weight I gained (and it wasn’t all muscle). And I
always seemed to be tired. I was also beginning to develop seasonal allergies. Finally, I had
acne, no matter what I tried, and I’ve always had a reddish color to my face.

My poor health was affecting my performance as an athlete. I had very little energy
and endurance. My allergies were starting to affect my job as a counselor. I was having trouble
talking without coughing. For my allergies, I tried a variety of over-the-counter medicines and
relied on cough drops a lot; they worked with varying effectiveness, but nothing worked really
well. For my acne, I tried all sorts of products over the years, but none of them seemed to
make much of a difference.

The hardest part about the diet changes Dr. Mindy recommended was the sugar
withdrawal. I craved things that I don’t even usually eat! However, I found that being able to
eat good fats helped. Eating good fats satisfied my sugar cravings in a way that was actually
more satisfying than if I’d had the sugars. It was also difficult cutting most carbs and grains
from my diet, but when compensated for with the good fats and other great recipes Dr. Mindy

provided me, I found that I was more satisfied. As a lazy cook, I also found myself cooking
more. I was enjoying cooking more because I knew that what I was making was going to taste
great.

The results came slower for me because it probably took me about a month to get the
hang of the diet. But almost right away, my digestion improved and the amount of gas I had
decreased significantly. I also noticed that my skin started to clear up, including the redness
that I never even thought was abnormal. I started losing weight as well.

The results I got with the 45-Day Reset Program have been mind-blowing for me. I
have lost around 25 pounds. People I didn’t even know commented on how much weight I had

lost. Some people even told me to stop or that they hadn’t thought I had that much to lose in
the first place. More importantly, I have gained health that I never even knew was nutrition
related.

I now have clear skin and great digestion with no gas. I no longer have headaches. My
seasonal allergies are gone. I am no longer tired all the time, and I no longer get tired after
eating and/or in the late afternoon. However, my absolute favorite result is that with no sugar
in my body, I have no muscle burn when training in my sport! This alone has caused my
endurance to skyrocket and has improved the quality of my performance overall. I have won
the National Championships since changing my nutrition, and I give credit for that to the 45-
Day Reset Program.

Furthermore, now when I eat things not on the nutrition plan, very few of them are as
satisfying (either in taste or in physical satisfaction) as I remember them being. I also typically
feel bad after eating something off the plan. I have a lack of energy and returned symptoms
(especially poor digestion and acne), and I even get emotional and sometimes depressed. Now
I am much more selective when I eat things that are off the Reset Factor nutrition plans.

My advice to people wanting to reset their health is to stick with it and not give up or
beat themselves up when their discipline fails! It’s OK to not be perfectly strict all the time!
It’s going to happen—just move on when it does.

Doing the 45-Day Reset, even if you’re not perfect, will make a huge difference in
your health! Also, when you’re struggling to make a healthy decision versus an unhealthy
decision, take your focus off the negative (such as all the things you’re not getting) and instead
keep it on how great you’re going to feel when you’re healthier and how satisfying and tasty
the things you can eat are.

Chapter 6

Reclaim Your Birthright—Power Up Your Own Natural Immunity

Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.

—Hippocrates
 Most people have never been taught how miraculous their own immune system can be. You
were built with an internal medicine cabinet inside you, capable of fighting foreign invaders such as
bacteria, viruses, and fungus. Your immune system is also designed to recognize cancer cells and

destroy them. It’s an incredible aspect of your body, and if you keep it strong, it can protect you from
even the strongest of infections.

Learning how to maximize this system is key to staying healthy all year round. In this chapter,
we’ll look at some of the amazing things that your immune system does for you. We’ll also look at
why the immune system breaks down and what you can do to strengthen rather than weaken your
wonderful immune system.

What’s a Fever?

Stop and think for a minute why your body would raise its temperature. It must be trying to

burn something out, like an infection. A fever is a beautiful gift—a natural way to destroy bacteria
and viruses. Yet what do most people do when they first feel their temperature rise? They take a pill
to lower it. This can damage your body’s natural healing mechanism and leave your body wide open
for the infection to keep growing. This is why, while you will often feel better when you take a
Tylenol or Excedrin to lower the fever, once the drug is out of your system, your body will want to
raise its temperature again―because it still has an infection to kill.

You’ll notice throughout this book that I’m trying to give you the tools to read your body.
These tools will help you reset your body back to its original design. The more toxins you put into
your body, the less it will function the way you want it to. Taking medications for every
uncomfortable feeling we have in our body does not strengthen it. In fact, it weakens it.

So what can you do when you have a fever—other than taking medication? My advice is to
think about how you can assist your body. It has decided to raise its temperature to burn an infection,
so what can you do to help it burn that infection? Put an extra layer of clothes on. Lie on the couch
and rest. Drink lots of fluids. Take a probiotic to increase the good bacteria going into your gut.

But be sure to monitor your fever. Keep it under 105 and everything should be fine. One of the
most frequent and unnecessary visits to the emergency room is for fevers that are not at a dangerous
temperature.

What About Mucus or a Cough?

Mucus is something everyone has—and some people wish they had a lot less of the stringy,
gooey stuff. Sure, it can be gross to blow globs of snot into tissue after tissue when you have a cold or
sinus infection, but mucus actually serves a very important purpose.

“Mucus is incredibly important for our bodies,” explains Michael M. Johns, III, MD, director

of the Emory Voice Center and assistant professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery) at
Emory University. “It is the oil in the engine. Without mucus, the engine seizes.”

How much mucus is normal, and how much is too much? What does its color tell you about
your health? Can you just get rid of it or at least cut down on it—and how should you do that? These
are all great questions. In order to answer them, it’s important to first understand what mucus is doing
for you.

What is the mission of mucus? Mucus-producing tissue lines the mouth, nose, sinuses, throat,
lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. Mucus acts as a protective blanket over these surfaces, preventing the
tissue underneath from drying out. “You have to keep them moist, otherwise they’ll get dry and crack,
and you’ll have a chink in the armor,” says Neil L. Kao, MD, associate professor of medicine at the
University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
 Mucus also acts as a sort of flypaper, trapping unwanted substances like bacteria and dust
before they can get into the body—particularly the sensitive airways. “You want to keep that
environment, which is a sterile environment, free of gook,” says Dr. Johns. “Mucus is kind of sticky

and thick. It’s got viscosity to it that will trap things.”

But mucus is more than just sticky goo. It also contains antibodies that help the body
recognize invaders like bacteria and viruses, enzymes that kill the invaders the mucus traps, and
proteins to make the mucus gooey, stringy—and very inhospitable.

Sounds like a pretty helpful mechanism, right? Well, then, why would you want to kill this
mechanism by taking an antihistamine? No, it’s not fun to have sinus pain. But if you could remind
yourself that it’s serving a key purpose, then you might be able to hang in there a bit longer with your
nose running.

If you’re one of those people who constantly have sinus problems, the key is to get to the root
of why your body is producing so much mucus. A good reset to your body, especially your gut, will
often address the breakdowns that are causing your body to produce mucus in the first place.

What Else Does My Immune System Do?

When it comes to your immune system, most people think its main purpose is to fight
infections. But with the growing number of toxins in our environment, the larger concern for the
immune system these days is fighting cancer cells. Most people don’t want to think about this, but the
reality is that you have thousands of cancer cells inside you right now. In fact, as you’re reading this,
your brain is identifying where these cells are and how to get rid of them. Hopefully, you have a high-
functioning immune system that is identifying and killing those cells.
 According to Dr. William Li, MD, cancer researcher, president, and medical director of the
Agiogenesis Foundation, all it takes is for one of the trillions of cells inside you to mutate for a cancer
cell to be born. Dr. Li says that you don’t get cancer like you catch a cold. You provoke a healthy cell,

and it mutates into a cancer cell.

What would provoke a healthy cell to mutate? There are a variety of reasons, but a diet packed
with sugar and chemicals would be a good prime suspect. Once a cell mutates into a cancer cell, it’s
your immune system’s job to identify the foreign cell and kill it. With most people eating the standard
American diet—packed with inflammatory, acidic foods—many people are living in a body that is too
acidic. Your immune system is weakened by an acidic environment. A weak immune system will not
fight cancer well. A key part of building a strong immune system is getting your body back to the
alkaline side, as it was designed to be.

What Is Alkalinity?

A big part of resetting your health is rebuilding your body at the cellular level. As I mentioned
before, our body has seventy-two trillion cells, all of which have to be coordinated correctly to make
sure our bodies function properly. The cells have a pH level inside them. In 1931, Dr. Otto Warburg,
won the Nobel Peace Prize for his discovery that every person who had cancer had an acidic cellular
pH. He went on to say that cancer cannot thrive in an alkaline, high-oxygen environment.

What are the mechanisms behind the cell’s pH level? Inside every cell is a mitochondrion.
One of the key processes that mitochondria are responsible for is the production of ATP—the
molecules that give you energy. The more ATP you have surging through your body, the better every
system will work—including your immune system—and the more energy you’ll have.

In order for a mitochondrion to produce energy, it needs the inside of the cell to be alkaline. If
the internal environment is not alkaline, then instead of producing ATP, a mitochondrion produces
lactic acid. Cancer thrives in a lactic acid environment. One of the reasons cancer patients are so low
in energy is that their cells are producing lactic acid instead of ATP.

How Do You Keep Your Body on the Alkaline Side?

The first step to being alkaline is understanding what your cells’ pH level is right now. You
can easily find pH strips online or at your local health food store or pool supply store. Follow the
instructions and monitor your pH. The healthiest pH to be at is 7.4. If you really want to be as
accurate as possible, get the pH strips that test your urine. Be sure to test first morning urine, as that
will give you the best reading.

Once you have identified what your pH level is, the fastest path to improving your pH is by
adding greens into your diet. I make it a personal pledge to have greens with every meal. Parsley, all
lettuces, cucumber, and avocados are great quick-and-easy ways to slip some greens into your meals

without having to make a whole salad.

The other fast way to alkalize your body is by juicing, especially with green juice. With a
high-quality masticating juicer, you can drink your greens and alkalinize your system quickly. When
you remove the fiber of the green vegetable and concentrate the nutrients in a juice form, it makes it
extremely accessible to your cells.

Many people look at their medicine cabinet as the place they store key items that keep them
healthy. I actually don’t believe that health lives there. Medications like Tylenol, Excedrin, Claritin,
and Nyquil might be in your cabinet to give you symptom relief when you’re sick, but they do not
promote health. In fact, they often destroy your health. I believe that the best medicine cabinet
consists of the tools in your kitchen. The two tools I believe every house should have are a blender
and a juicer.
 Blenders are fantastic for making smoothies, which you will see in your 45-Day Reset. What I
love about smoothies is that if you combine the proper ingredients, you can literally get all the
nutrients you need to be healthy for a day. I put as many of my supplements, veggies, and healthy

foods in my smoothie as possible. This way I know I’m set for the day. You’ll find some of my
favorite smoothie recipes at the back of this book.

Drinking smoothies is also a phenomenal way to get high-quality nutrition into your kids.
Both my kids are very active. Often, I’ll see them in the morning and not again until night. They both
get a smoothie for breakfast because I want to make sure they get all the nutrients they need for the
day.

Juices made with a high-quality juicer are exceptional at quickly moving your body into an
alkaline state. The best juicer is a masticating one. It’s a bit more expensive, but it’s worth the money.
Masticating juicers extract the nutrients from foods in a way that allows the cells of your body to use

those nutrients more effectively.

The other word for masticating is cold-pressed. You can find cold-pressed juices at most
grocery stores. If you’re buying juice at a grocery store, be sure it is cold-pressed because juices that
aren’t give you no nutritional benefit.

How Do I Tell Which Juice Is Best?

As I mentioned above, cold-pressed juice is what you want. It will cost you more money, but
in my opinion, it’s the only kind to buy for your health. Other juices may taste great but add no
benefit to your pH. Many people are buying juice at the store thinking that it will make them
healthier, when in reality, it’s doing the opposite.
 Sugar content is another thing to be aware of when you’re buying juice. Many people like the
taste of higher-sugared fruits like mangoes, bananas, and pineapples. When you go to buy a juice at
the store, your taste buds will want those. But if you want to change your pH, you need a low-sugar,

high-green juice. Always look at the sugar amount on the nutritional label and stick to the lower-sugar
juices.

When you’re sick, you may reach for the orange juice, hoping it will build your immunity.
Although vitamin C is fantastic for your immunity, buying orange juice is not the answer. First,
orange juice is extremely high in sugar. Too much sugar in your body suppresses your immune
system. Orange juice is also acidic and will create an acidic environment inside your cells. You’re
better off buying a low-sugar green juice to alkalinize your body and taking a vitamin C supplement.

What Breaks Down Your Immune System?

It’s easy to make certain lifestyle choices that will begin to break down your immunity. These
choices impact the health of your gastrointestinal system, your nervous system, and the other systems
of your body. The following are the main insults to your immune system:

Your Stress

Everyone knows that stress is harmful to the body. Unfortunately, the system that stress often
hurts the most is the immune system. How does this happen?

When you’re chronically stressed, your body secretes more cortisol. Cortisol, which we talked
about in an earlier chapter, is a chemical that suppresses inflammation during a response to stress. If
it’s present in the blood for long periods, the body develops a resistance to cortisol and does not
respond to it properly. Instead, the body ramps up production of substances that actually promote
inflammation, leading to a state of chronic inflammation.
 These pro-inflammatory substances, called cytokines, are associated with a host of chronic
inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. Autoimmune conditions occur when the body basically
mistakes itself as a threat and attacks itself. Examples are fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and

lupus. Other chronic conditions affected by this chronic stress reaction include diabetes, heart disease,
and cancer.

Chronic stress suppresses critical pieces of our immune system. This makes the body
susceptible to acute illnesses and prolonged healing times. Lymphocytes are an example of one of the
immune cells that are lowered during times of stress. Lymphocytes are a major component of the
immune system. They kill invading organisms that would cause disease and they recognize harmful
substances and help defend against them. Cortisol and corticosteroids suppress lymphocytes. With a
lowered number of lymphocytes, the body is at increased risk of infection and disease.

Your Nutrition

Nutrition involves more than just choosing what tastes good. You truly are what you eat. A
diet high in toxins, inflammatory foods, sugar, and processed foods will not only promote
inflammation but will also make you acidic. The standard American diet is packed with these foods,
and that is one of the many things that has led to increased cancer rates in our country. The other
damaging effect of these foods is that they kill the good bacteria in your gut. You need good bacteria
to kill infections that enter the digestive system.

As I mentioned in Chapter 2, your gut is key to producing many essential vitamins. If you’re
deficient in those vitamins because your gut is damaged, your immune system will not work properly.
Think of vitamins like the fuel in your car. If you don’t have the right fuel or enough fuel, your car
will not function properly. The challenge with a poor diet is not only that it damages healthy bacteria
but that as that damage persists, it also makes you deficient in key vitamins. This is why resetting
your immune system has to include resetting your gut.
 A study at Harvard Medical School found a relationship between good bacteria and the
[27]
immune system. It’s now known that certain bacteria in the gut influence the development of

aspects of the immune system, such as its ability to correct deficiencies and increase the numbers of
certain T-cells. T-cells are crucial for identifying and destroying viruses, bacteria, and fungi.
Avoiding highly processed foods and adding in a high-quality probiotic are good habits to implement
to strengthen your immunity.

One of the greatest ways you can suppress your immune system is by eating sugar. Linus

Pauling, who helped discover the amazing benefits of vitamin C for the immune system, felt that
reducing sugar should be part of your immune protocol. Consuming sugar and refined carbohydrates
effectively crowds out vitamin C and prevents it from entering the cells.

Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah also discovered that sugar feeds tumors.
According to the Institute, “It’s been known since 1923 that tumor cells use a lot more glucose than
normal cells.” In fact, it’s been found that there are six times as many insulin receptors in specimens
[28]
of breast cancers than are found in healthy breasts. This is why when your doctor wants to see if
you have cancer, he or she will order a PET scan. PET scans involve giving the patient a glucose
mixture intravenously or via a drink or injection. Cancer cells absorb glucose more quickly than do
other cells, so giving the patient a glucose mixture makes cancer cells easier to identify on the scan.
Why would all those cancer cells come out? Because they love sugar. The more sugar you eat, the
happier your cancer cells become.

Your Toxic Load

The number of toxins you are exposed to every day also has a large impact on your immunity.
The toxins in your food leave your small intestine and go directly to your liver, which plays a major
part in your immune system as the body’s main organ of detoxification. Your body is designed to
detoxify itself. However, when external sources of toxicity are added to the mix, normal
detoxification processes become overwhelmed. A fully functional liver supports immune system
function. If your liver is preoccupied with the demands of detoxing, it will not give your immune

system the support it needs. This will leave you wide open to infections.

Toxins are also now considered a major contributor to many cancers. As we discussed in
Chapter 4, the liver is one of the most important organs in the body. An increase in toxins will put a
strain on it and ultimately leave it depleted, overworked, and unable to keep up with the demands that
have been placed on it.

On average, we Americans consume fourteen pounds each year of food additives―including

colorings, preservatives, flavorings, emulsifiers, humectants, and antimicrobials. We also consume on
average one pound of pesticides and herbicides each year, according to the book Digestive Wellness
by Elizabeth Lipski, MS, CNN. In 1990, the EPA estimated that seventy thousand chemicals are

commonly used in pesticides, foods, and prescription drugs. The use of pesticides and herbicides to
limit crop loss has skyrocketed over the past thirty years, and our toxic load is higher than at any other
time in history.

We’ve talked a great deal about the effects of toxins as related to other organs and systems.
The other damaging effect of toxins is that they create free radicals. Free radicals damage normal
healthy cells and bind to immune cells, damaging immune pathways. Because of their damaging
effects to the immune system, free radicals have long been associated with the ability of cancer cells
to multiply in the body. A diet high in processed foods and low in fruits and vegetables will increase
the amount of free radical damage in your body.

Toxins are not only prevalent in your food―you’ll also find them in your beauty products and
household products. The increase in the number of medications prescribed has also increased the toxic
load of many Americans. And your skin is the largest organ of your body. Whatever you put on it will
be directly absorbed into your bloodstream and will go directly to your liver.

The path to health has to be easy and time efficient or else you won’t follow it, and trying to
identify which products are highly toxic to your body can be a daunting task. But with their Skin
Deep app (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/), the Environmental Working Group has made it easier to
identify which beauty products are highly toxic and which are OK. Download it onto your phone and
be sure to check all your lotions, shampoos, gels, makeup, and anything else that goes onto your skin
or hair. You want those products to score a 3 or below on the Skin Deep app.

Your Spine and Damage to Your Nervous System

Many of you may be surprised to find your spine listed in this chapter on the immune system.
The spine protects the most important organ in the human body—your nervous system. Anything that

damages your spine will damage your nervous system.

When your nervous system gets damaged, the communication from the brain to your body will
be altered. Your spine was designed to be in a very specific place. When the vertebra in the spine shift
out of this place due to physical, emotional, and chemical stress, a variety of health problems can
occur. Numerous studies have demonstrated how restoring proper alignment of the spine can improve
your immune function. I will go through those studies in detail in Chapter 7, “Why Your Spine and
Nervous System Are Your Fast Pass to Health.”

Your Sleep Levels

As I mentioned in Chapter 3, sleep is how your body repairs itself. You need a good night’s
sleep to keep your immune system functioning at its best. According to Diwakar Balachandran, MD,
director of the Sleep Center at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
several studies show our T-cells go down if we’re sleep deprived. He also states that inflammatory
cytokines go up from a lack of sleep, leaving us at greater risk for colds and flus. In simple terms,
sleep deprivation suppresses the immune system. The more all-nighters you pull, the more likely you

are to decrease your body’s ability to respond to colds or bacterial infections.

My general recommendations when you feel a cold coming on are to cut out the sugar,
increase the raw greens, take probiotics and vitamin C, get your spine adjusted, remove all toxic food
from your diet, and sleep. Your body will heal. It was designed to fight infections.

Nadia’s Story

A few years ago, a patient came to me having been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was
only 30 years old and the mother of two young children. For three years she had been on intense
chemotherapy. But despite all medical attempts, the cancer was growing. She was given months to

live. Scared and feeling hopeless, she came to my office as a last resort to see what she could do to
strengthen her immune system naturally.

I immediately changed her diet, taught her how to identify known carcinogens in her home
and beauty products, and gave her strategies to strengthen her immune system through supplements,
chiropractic care, and stress management. Our goal was not to treat the cancer but to create an
environment inside her that was unfavorable to cancer growth.

Much like what the doctors did for me when I had chronic fatigue, we created a multipronged
approach to building health from the inside out. Within four months, she had dropped 30 pounds. Her
energy and spirits were up. She was feeling better than she had in years.

When she went for her first PET scan since changing her lifestyle, they found that for the first
time since she had been diagnosed, the cancer wasn’t getting worse and in some areas the cancer cells
were shrinking. Something had stopped it from growing. We were encouraged. She continued on her
new healthy path and within a year, the tumors began to shrink. At the time of writing this book, there
is only one area in her body where cancer still exists. Her body’s immune system has kicked into high

gear and has slowed down the cancer’s ability to multiply.

To me, the surprising part of Nadia’s story is how little information she was given on what she
could do on her own to help strengthen her immune system. She desperately needed a reset—but she
was given only medication. Once we identified where her immune system was broken and repaired
those breaks, her immune system started finding cancer cells and killing them.

Patty’s Story

When Patty was diagnosed with breast cancer, she sought traditional medical treatment. And it
worked. Relieved that she was able to overcome this scary disease, Patty went back to living life as

she had before cancer.

A relative of hers recommended she read a book called Cancer Killers, by Dr. Charles Majors.
It’s the story of how one man reversed several brain tumors by identifying what caused his cancer
cells. At the time, Patty was feeling secure and happy that she had beaten cancer; she had no
expectations of the cancer coming back.

But it did. Several years later, her cancer returned. This time it was in her lungs. Doctors told
her it was stage 4 and gave her months to live. In a panic, Patty dusted off her Cancer Killer book and
started voraciously reading about how her body had built cancer.

I met Patty soon after that. We immediately changed her diet, started corrective chiropractic
care, and worked on repairing her gut and strengthening her immune system with supplements. Like
Nadia, she chose to do both conventional and natural health care treatments. Patty was incredibly
strict with the foods she ate, making sure that she didn’t eat anything that would feed the cancer.
Within months, the cancer began to disappear. Her doctors were shocked. Within less than a year, the
tumors had completely disappeared.

***

Nadia and Patty are amazing examples of how powerful the immune system can be. The
health plan they followed in my office was not geared toward treating cancer. It was aimed at
strengthening their bodies so cancer could no longer exist within them. Like Dr. Li mentioned above,
cancer cells are mutations of normal healthy cells. When you stop creating an environment that causes
the cells to mutate, cancer will stop growing.

In the third section of this book, I will go deeply into the mindset of health. When Nadia and
Patty made the decision to reset their health, they had to change their mindset from “a pill is going to

cure me” to “I have the power to beat this.” The same goes for you. Many of you reading this book
may be in a really tough state of health. Some of the ideas in this book may be overwhelming, radical,
and against what society has taught you about health. Be open. The minute you change your mind
from being a victim of your condition to being the victor over your circumstances, you will begin to
heal.

That’s what both Nadia and Patty did. Instead of hoping the miracle cure would show up, they
put themselves into action―and not just a little action. They changed everything about their lifestyles.
They looked at any behavior they had that might have provoked a normal cell to mutate into a cancer
cell. They reset their health.

I love the term reset because that is what so many people need. With so many toxins in our
lives, it’s easy to get off course. But you have the power to change that. You have the power to reset
your health whenever you choose. You get to be the boss of your health. You just need to be willing
to let go of old beliefs and health habits that may not be serving you anymore. Once you do, there is a
whole new healthy world waiting for you.

Chapter 7

Why Your Spine and Nervous System Are Your Fast Pass to Health

Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.

—Hippocrates

Have you ever been to Disneyland? If you have, you know that the key to speeding up the wait
in line is a Fast Pass. Well, your body has a fast pass to healing: it’s called your spine and nervous
system. Taking great care of your spine speeds up the function of your nervous system. Unfortunately,
by now you’ve probably noticed a common theme in this book: our bodies have been destroyed by the
modern conveniences of the world we live in today. Nowhere is this more apparent than with our
spine and posture.

The ironic thing is the fact that in many cases, toxins were originally developed to make our
life easier. I’m sure that the first time a toxin like partially hydrogenated oil was put into a food
product, consumers were excited that it extended the shelf life of that food. That made the food more
convenient and minimized how often people needed to go to the store—a quick, satisfying solution to
the problem of not having enough time. But over time, we’ve come to realize that processed foods
such as partially hydrogenated oils may be more convenient but are also destroying our health.
 The same thing is now happening with technology and our posture. Using smartphones,
laptops, and tablets has made life much easier for us―but unfortunately, it’s also destroying our
posture. It would be one thing if our posture were just an issue of looking good, but there is growing

evidence that poor posture equals poor health. Not only are foods and toxins destroying our guts,
leading to imbalances in our brains, but posture can dramatically affect how well our brain and
nervous system function.

So what can you do about it? We’ll discuss this problem and some solutions in this chapter.
First, we’ll look at how your brain communicates with your body and how the way you use modern
technology is changing the curves in your spine. Next, we’ll talk about how you can identify whether
your spine has problems. Finally, we’ll talk about the potential of corrective chiropractic for
realigning your spinal curves and removing the cause of many imbalances in your body.

The good news is that if you’re aware of a problem with your posture, you can change it.

Remember, our body always wants to go back to its original design. It just needs a strategy to do so.

How Your Brain Communicates with Your Body

How many of you have ever thought about your spinal cord? Probably not many. But your
spinal cord is one of the most important parts of your body. It has one job: to let information flow in
and out of your brain.

When you look at how the spine was designed, looking at it from the side, it was meant to
have curves. Those curves are there to protect the spinal cord. The spinal cord is the only path by
which the brain can send information to the other parts of the body. In men, the spinal cord is usually
18 inches long, and in women, it’s 17 inches long. And it needs to be relaxed in order for the
messages from the brain to be sent clearly.
 So what happens if you sit at a computer all day? You take out these curves and put them in a
completely reversed position, stretching the spine to new and unfamiliar lengths. And what if you do
that day in and day out for decades? Do you think it’s possible to do that and keep your normal curves

over time? The answer is no. We are seeing more and more evidence of people losing the natural,
normal curves in their spine—and the damage is becoming irreversible.

Orthopedic surgeons have now come up with terms they call text neck and forward head
posture (FHP) to identify these spinal changes. The number of cases of younger and younger adults
and adolescents needing disc surgery in the lower cervical spine is growing due to the increase in
habitual forward head position.

But that is only a small part of the damaged being done by the stretching of the spinal cord.
Researchers are also noticing that because of the importance of the upper cervical spine to the brain’s
communication with the respiratory and digestive systems, people who have FHP also have slower

digestive tracts and are getting less oxygen in and out of their lungs. Changes in your posture are no
joke!

Here’s how your brain communicates. At the top of the spinal cord sits your brainstem. When
your brain sends a signal to the cells of the body, the information flows in and out of the brainstem.
The brainstem acts as a connection from your brain to your spinal cord. It carries life-sustaining
information, serving as the center of control over vasomotor, respiratory, and cardiac functioning. It
also plays a part in digestion. It is such an important part of our brain that we have very special
vertebrae designed to protect it: the atlas and axis.
Christopher Reeve learned the importance of this neural area when he was in a horse accident that
fractured both his atlas and axis. When his upper cervical vertebra broke, it jammed right into his
spinal cord. Because this area carries information that controls digestion and respiration, his digestion
and lungs immediately stopped functioning. The pressure from those bones on the brainstem was so
traumatic, the brain couldn’t get the information to those organs to make sure they were functioning
properly.

One growing concern is that we too are damaging these two bones that protect our brainstem.
With our constant use of cell phones, tablets, and laptops, we spend hours every day with our heads
flexed forward. This is causing an unusual amount of pressure on our brainstem and spinal cord and is
impairing the flow of information that coordinates digestion, respiration, and the production of
hormones like serotonin. Although this damage is not as initially traumatic as the damage that
Christopher Reeve endured, the long-term effects are very similar to the symptoms he had.

What are the harmful effects of FHP? More and more doctors are addressing these damages to
the spine. Rene Cailliet, MD, director of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at
the University of Southern California, wrote about its effects in his book The Rejuvenation Strategy:

Incorrect head positioning leads to improper spinal function. The head in forward

posture can add up to thirty pounds of abnormal leverage on the cervical spine. Forward head

posture results in loss of vital lung capacity. In fact, lung capacity is depleted by as much as 30

percent. Loss of lung capacity leads to heart and blood vascular problems. The entire

gastrointestinal system is affected, particularly the large intestine. Loss of good bowel

peristaltic function and evacuation is a common condition that comes with forward head

posture and loss of spinal lordotic curves.

Forward head posture causes an increase in discomfort and pain. Freedom of motion in

the first four cervical vertebrae is a major source of stimuli that causes production of

endorphins, like serotonin. Forward head posture causes loss of healthy spine-body motion.

The entire body becomes rigid as the range of motion lessens. Soon, one becomes hunched.

What You Can Do?

 So what can you do to avoid the debilitating effects of FHP? The first thing is to know what
your spinal curves look like. Unfortunately, you can’t tell what your spinal curves really look
like—whether they’re normal or how much damage your spine has—without an X-ray. So if you’re

not already seeing a chiropractor who specializes in spinal correction, now would be a great time to
have your spine looked at.

There are also a couple of tests you can do yourself. Next time you look in the mirror, look at
your shoulders and notice whether they’re even. Does your head tilt to one side or the other? Look at
yourself from the side (using a mirror). Do your ears come forward in front of your shoulders? They
should be directly over your shoulders. These are both great examples of the body adapting to the
changes in these curves.

Other ways to know if your spinal curves have changed include reading your symptoms.
Remember that symptoms are like dashboard lights on your car. When they come on, they’re telling

you that something is wrong inside your body. Some symptoms of FHP and spinal cord changes
include the following:

➢ Headaches

➢ Low-back pain

➢ Neck pain

➢ Allergies

➢ Digestive issues

➢ Immune system challenges

 ➢ Fatigue

➢ Sinus problems

➢ Ear infections

➢ Lack of focus

➢ Hyperactivity, especially in children

Once you have identified that there are imbalances in your curves, a chiropractor can make
specific adjustments and give you specialized homecare and rehabilitation exercises that will bring
your correct curves back.

Because our children are growing up on technology, I recommend you also do these
observation exercises with your children. In my own practice, I’m starting to see these spinal changes
at younger and younger ages. A scientific principle known as Wolff’s Law states that once your spine
has changed from its original design, gravity is so forceful that over time it will start to decay your
bones. Very much like a cavity that will rot a tooth, changes in your spine will progress quickly. But
just as you can catch a cavity before it rots a tooth by having regular dental checkups, finding changes
in spinal curves before the spine decay or scoliosis sets in is always a smart idea.

Remember that the whole goal of the 45-Day Reset Factor is to bring your body back to its
original design, turning on your healing capabilities on the inside. If there is damage to your spinal
cord and spinal nerves because of changes in your spinal curves, you can feed your body all the great
nutrition you want but you still won’t be able to repair it completely.

Other Causes of Improper Spinal Curves

 A common question I’m asked is “What causes these curves to change, besides technology?”
My answer is to ask more questions: “How do you sit? Do you slouch in your chair? Are you slumped
over your computer?” Look at your posture and how you sit the majority of the day and you can start

to answer these questions yourself.

Sports injuries also change spinal curves, especially in children. Contact sports―such as
football, rugby, basketball, and soccer―all have a propensity to damage the spine in a permanent
way. I cannot emphasize enough the benefit of having a good corrective chiropractor on your team to
coach you through the daily stresses that destroy the spine and give you a protocol to repair them. Car
accidents also create significant damage to your spine. One serious whiplash injury can straighten
your cervical curve.

There are a few steps you can do at home to help your spinal curves out. One of my favorite
at-home exercises is to take a towel, roll it up, and slip it under your neck and lower back. If you do

this at night, before you go to bed, it helps to reset your spine and posture, lengthen the ligaments and
muscles, and give your spinal curves a break from the damaging stress of the day (see picture below).

Correcting the Spine to Stop Disease

Because the nervous system delivers information from the brain to the body and tells injured
cells to heal, anything that improves this communication will speed up healing. One reason
chiropractic is such a popular form of health care is that when you take pressure off your spinal cord
and nerves, your body heals at a significantly faster rate. This is why over 30 million people see a
chiropractor every year.

Still, although chiropractors are the most commonly visited doctors other than medical
doctors, every once in a while I get someone who says, “I don’t believe in chiropractic. Show me the
science.” Well, multiple studies have been done on the efficacy of chiropractic. Here are some of my
favorite ones.

Chiropractic and Blood Pressure

This study watched 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure over an eight-week
period. Their cervical spine was X-rayed, and measurements were taken of the atlas vertebra―the
doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine. Half the group was given a specific chiropractic
adjustment, the other half a placebo adjustment. Those who got the real procedure saw an average 14
mmHg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count) and an
average 8 mmHg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number) than the
[29]
group that got the placebo adjustment.

“This procedure has the effect of not one but two blood-pressure medications given in
combination,” study leader George Bakris, MD and director of the University of Chicago
Hypertension Center, told WebMD. “And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects
and no problems.”

In my own clinic, I have seen many cases where a patient’s blood pressure drops just from
getting his or her atlas realigned. It makes sense that if the atlas is misaligned, it can squeeze the
brainstem and cause blood pressure to rise. Remember, the brainstem is one of the most vital parts of
the central nervous system. The minute you take pressure off the brainstem, your body can reset itself
and your blood pressure will be reduced.

Spinal Care and the Immune Response

In his book The Cancer Killers, Dr. Charles Majors states that researchers have known for a
long time that there’s a critical link between the central nervous system and the immune system.
During the 1918 flu epidemic, in which more people died than in all wars combined up to the time, it
was found that the death rate of chiropractic patients was one-fortieth that of non–chiropractic
patients. How did this happen? What does a chiropractic adjustment do for your immune system? And

can a chiropractic adjustment have an effect on your cancer- and infection-fighting system?

A 2010 study published in Chiropractic & Osteopathy showed that the immune cells that fight
cancer respond directly to chiropractic adjustment. One of these immune cells is called interleukin-2.
When released into your body, interleukin-2 creates a cascade of events that help your body attack
cancer cells and other infections. This study looked at 74 people and monitored their immune
response after a thoracic adjustment. What they found was that “chiropractic adjustments temporarily
[30]
influence interleukin 2-regulated biological response following a single adjustment.”

Another study, done by Patricia Brennan, PhD, showed that after receiving an adjustment to
the middle back, patients had an increase in their white blood cell count. White blood cells are a
critical component of the immune system that fights bacteria, viruses, and fungi. If you don’t have
enough white blood cells, infection can take over your body. This is one of the challenges cancer
patients face: low white blood cell counts.

Patients evaluated in this study had their white blood cell count measured pre- and post-
adjustment. What Dr. Brennan found was that fifteen minutes after the adjustment, patients had a
surge of white blood cells. She concluded that there was an “enhanced respiratory burst” following a
[31]
chiropractic adjustment. This burst is necessary for our immune cells to destroy unwanted foreign
chemicals, invading viruses, and bad bacteria.

Researchers have also looked at the power of chiropractic for AIDS patients. In a person with
AIDS, the immune system is losing the battle against a deadly virus. A group of HIV-positive patients
were given chiropractic adjustments over a six-month period. The researchers found that the patients
who were adjusted had a 48 percent increase in the number of CD4 cells, a powerful immune cell that
kills viruses, while those that didn’t receive the adjustments experienced a 7.96 percent decline in the
[32]
number of CD4 cells over the same period.

Finally, a study done by the Journal of Orthopedic Surgery researched the possible connection
between chronic nerve compression and vertebral deformity in the thoracic region and chronic allergy
and asthma problems. It was determined that the adrenal cortex functions of these patients were
compromised due to the ongoing nerve compression. When this group was given a chiropractic

adjustment to release the nerve pressure, they had a 70 to 80 percent improvement in their condition.
[33]

A Chiropractor on Your Team

Can you see why 30 million people go to a chiropractor every year? Getting pressure off your
nervous system is one of the most helpful gifts you can give your body. Pinched nerves are not just an
issue of pain. As noted above, you can pinch a nerve and it can slow down your immune response,
increase your blood pressure, and eventually cause you pain.

How can you find a great chiropractor? Unfortunately, not all chiropractors are the same. In
fact, it is very confusing for the general public to understand the differences between chiropractors.
Here are some of the criteria for finding a great chiropractor that I tell friends and family about if they
live in other towns:

· A thorough diagnostic evaluation is needed. Look for someone who is

thorough with you on your initial visit. In my book, X-rays are key to identifying the changes
in your spine.
 · Spinal correction is a must. You want someone who will correct your spine.
We call this corrective chiropractic. Although powerful, one adjustment can have only a
temporary effect. You need a chiropractor with a game plan—someone who will measure your

spinal misalignments and create a plan for correcting them.

· You and your chiropractor should be a team. Home exercises, nutritional

advice, and strategies for keeping your spine healthy for life should all be a part of your care.

***

Hopefully, you now have a great understanding of how your body works and where it is
breaking down. If you get in the middle of your 45-Day Reset and begin to lose momentum or
enthusiasm, pick this book up and re-read one of the chapters in the second section.

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child. Everything was new and unfamiliar.
There were days when I would come home from work feeling horrible. It helped tremendously to read
books on what was going on in my body at that point in my pregnancy. When I understood the big
picture and why my body was feeling the way it did, it lifted me up and helped me get through those
hard days.

This book can do the same for you. Knowledge is power. Keep learning how this miraculous
body of yours works. Never give up on having amazing health. With the right attitude, a great plan,
and a hopeful heart, anything is possible.

Now, let’s reset your health!

 Part 3

The 45-Day Reset

Chapter 8

Setting Yourself Up for Success

You can’t always get what you want. You get what you’re committed to.

—Anonymous

As I mentioned in Chapter 3, your greatest weapon in the fight to heal your body is your brain.
Not only does your brain control all 72 trillion cells of your body, but it also helps you stay the
course. If you train it well, it will keep you disciplined, focused, and motivated as you embark on your
45-day health journey.

Before I walk you through the specifics of your 45-Day Reset, there are a few key strategies I
want you to implement to create a winning mindset and set yourself up for success. I also want you to
get clear about why you’re doing the 45-Day Reset, find an accountability partner, pick the right 45-
day period, and be careful whom you talk to. Most important: believe in yourself!

We’ll talk about each of these in this chapter.

Your “Big Why”

I can show you the path to an amazing, healthy life, but I can’t motivate you. That’s your job.
The great news is even if you have failed a thousand times at dieting, you can succeed this time!

Here’s the trick: you need to be clear from the beginning why you’re doing it.

Start by thinking about what life would be like if you didn’t have extra weight, pain, or disease
holding you back. Living in a body that doesn’t feel the way you want it to is a major block to living
an amazing life. So just think for a moment: what would your life be like if you didn’t have your
health problems to deal with? Would you be a better parent? Would you be happier in your marriage?
Would you be more productive at work? My guess is that the answer to all these questions is probably
yes.

I know this because for several years, I lived in a body that felt terrible. I know what it’s like
not to have enough energy and to feel bad about your weight. It affects everything you do. I want you
to begin to dream again. I want you to believe in yourself again. Just for the next few minutes, think
about how awesome life would be without the limitations of your body holding you back. This can be
hard at first, because if your body has been broken for a while, you might not even remember what a
great-feeling body feels like. But keep dreaming.

Most people aren’t aware of the fact that every night when they go to bed, their body is
repairing itself. In a seven-year period, you will have a whole new body on a cellular level. This is
great news for you! It means you can rebuild your body. I promise you it won’t take seven years. If
you follow the 45-Day Reset exactly as I lay it out for you, you will be living in a different body in 45
days.

The key to having a successful journey is to want the result you’re about to get―badly! You
have to want it more than you fear and dislike the obstacles that may present themselves during your
45-Day Reset. The more mentally hungry you are for a change in your health, the more successful
you will be at this program.

Action Step #1: Write Down Your “Big Why”

Why do you want your health to change? Write down your Big Why on a piece of paper or
sticky note. Put this somewhere you can see it on a daily basis: in a journal, in your car, or where you
brush your teeth—a place where it will constantly remind you of your dream. Pictures, quotes, and
motivating words to yourself are all great! The key is that they have to stir something emotional
inside of you. Your Big Why should fire you up when you think about it.

Choosing an Accountability Partner

Having an accountability partner has been one of the keys to my success with health. One of
my best friends is a phenomenal accountability partner. Whenever I start a new workout program or
health change, I usually commit to that change for 30 to 45 days. I do that because I know that’s how
I make a lasting change. I always ask her to be my accountability partner because she makes me
believe in myself.

Recently we did a 30-day exercise program together. It was 30 days of exercise for 30 minutes
a day. Several days a week, I work 12 to14–hour days. Those are the days I normally don’t work out,
and I was a little resistant to working out on those days until she reminded me it was just 30 minutes
and that I probably spend that much time on social media on those days. She was right. So I
committed to myself and to her.

On the second day of the program, I had worked a twelve-hour day; I was exhausted and I did
not want to exercise. But I had made a commitment to her. I didn’t want to let her down—she
believed in me, and I didn’t want to destroy that belief. I ended up working out and feeling fantastic,
and I was so grateful that she was my accountability partner.

You need at least one person to be your accountability partner―someone who knows how
badly you want to change. This person needs to have your back and want you to be as healthy as you
do. You need to not want to let this person down.

Choose your accountability partner wisely. This person needs to lift you up when you don’t
want to do the program anymore. He needs to be someone strong enough not to let you off the hook
and caring enough that he wants to see you succeed even if his own health is not in a great place.
Ideally, as you make changes and people see your results, you should inspire them to want to be better
and change themselves. I’ve seen this happen often: when a patient loses weight, the next thing you
know, all the patient’s family and friends are on the 45-Day Reset—they want to experience the same
results the patient is getting.
 Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Years ago I had a patient who was significantly
overweight. Her mother had died of cancer, and she made the decision that she didn’t want to follow
the same path. She decided to lose weight.

She had a group of friends, also significantly overweight, who were supportive of her and
cheered her on. Within months, she lost 40 pounds and was looking and feeling great. But as she
dropped her weight, her friends changed from great cheerleaders to unsupportive critics. As she left
her work every night to go to the gym, they started making comments like “You’re more concerned
about losing weight than being home for your children after work.” Then, when she stopped going out
to restaurants that had the foods she was avoiding, they would remark on how she never hung out
with them anymore.

As ugly as it is, sometimes the people closest to you will feel threatened by your success. That
is what happened with this woman. Ultimately, her friends brought her self-esteem down, and within

a year’s time, she had gained all the weight back.

Action Step #2: Pick an Accountability Partner

Tell your accountability partner what you’re doing and why. Tell her that you need her love
and support, especially on the days you want to go back to your bad habits. Let her know what your
goals are for the 45 days you will be following the 45-Day Reset.

Planning for Success

The last thing I want to mention is this: look at what will be going on in your life in the next
45 days. Remember how I mentioned you need to prepare for obstacles. If you think ahead and
prepare for these obstacles, they won’t take you off course. With this in mind, there are several action
steps you can take to set yourself up for success with this program:

1. Pick 45 days that you can commit to. You get what you’re committed to, so pick a 45-day
period in which you’re going to make your health a priority over everything else. I promise you that
the way I’m going to teach you to eat is something you can easily follow for life. But when you first
make changes, it can seem frustrating. So don’t try this on vacation or during an extremely stressful
time.

2. Look at your calendar. Do you see any parties, BBQs, or holidays coming up? A one-time
event doesn’t need to block you from starting the program, but I want you to prepare for it. The first
15 days you’re on this program, you will be detoxing. You won’t be drinking alcohol or eating sugar,

so if there’s a party coming up and you know it will be difficult to resist the temptation to consume
those things, wait till that event is over to start the program.

Occasionally, a patient tells me there is no 45-day period without a social event. If that is you,
don’t wait. You may be one of those people for whom the time will never be perfect. The trick is to
know when the events are coming up and how to prepare for them. If you’re going to your best
friend’s house for a BBQ, where you know she’ll make your favorite meal—which is not on the reset
plan—there are a few things you can do.

First, don’t go hungry. Eat before you go. We make horrible food choices when we’re hungry.
Second, bring your own Reset Factor–approved meal. Some people tell me they don’t like to stand out
and make a fuss. Let me tell you, more people will be interested in and inspired by why you are
committing to your health than will criticize you. Third, remember your Big Why. Don’t let others
steal your dream of being healthy. Yes, certain foods taste amazing. You know what’s even more
amazing? Living in a body you love!

3. Plan ahead. Before I leave the house every day, I think through what my meals will be and
make sure I’ll have access to healthy foods. If I know that getting to the right food will be difficult
that day, I bring healthy food with me. I often leave the house with a large bag of cut veggies, quinoa
salad, and avocado. You will never find me far from a bag of raw almonds, because if my blood sugar
starts dropping, I want to have something healthy quickly available so that I can bring it back up.
Make sure you have the right foods on hand before you start the program!

Be Careful Whom You Tell

I know this sounds crazy, but as I mentioned before, not everyone wants to see you succeed.

And for some reason, when it comes to health, people have strong opinions. Not all these opinions are
accurate. I’ve seen patients who were super gung ho about a 45-Day Reset get shot down in the first
week when their spouse told them that all the fuss about sugar is unscientific. Remember, your best
weapon for better health is your brain. Not only does it heal you, but it can keep you motivated
throughout the 45 days of the Reset. So be careful whose words you let into your brain.

For the next 45 days, you’re only going to tell the people in your life whom you feel have your
back and want you to succeed. This might require that you hibernate a bit. That’s OK. I have done
cleanses during which I just had to check out of my social group for a few days until I started feeling
strong with my cleanse and my body began craving health more than anything. When your body
craves health, it can override your brain. Once you’re feeling great and your sugar cravings are gone,
a chocolate cake can be placed in front of you and all you will think about is how awesome you feel
and how horrible you will feel if you eat that cake.
The 30-Second Rule

This brings me to my last point. I was a huge bread and sweets person for years. When I made

the decision to lose weight and put my health first, I had to come up with some tricks to help my brain
get past the desire for sweets. So I came up with something I call the 30-second rule.

When something gets placed in front of me that I want to eat but I know won’t benefit my
health, I first think about how I will feel an hour after I eat that food. Most of us enjoy the immediate
gratification of food and don’t think ahead about how we’ll feel afterward. For some, you will feel
physically bad. But for many of you, it may not be a physical pain but a mental one. You will feel bad
about yourself, frustrated that you are failing at another diet, and discouraged with yourself.

I then remind myself that when I taste that food, it will taste amazing for about thirty seconds.
In my opinion, that is a very short time of gratification in exchange for hours of feeling bad. It’s not a

worthy exchange, if you ask me. So next time you feel like eating something off your 45-day plan,
ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Believe in Yourself

I believe in you. I know what the human body is capable of. I have watched thousands of
people bring their health back following the path you are about to start. Each one of those people had
a unique set of challenges and hurdles to get over. Each one wanted health badly and was willing to
achieve the goal at all costs. You are no different. You can achieve the same results! You just have to
believe in yourself, stay committed to yourself and the program, and follow the path outlined for you.
If you do, you will succeed!
 Chapter 9

The Reset Truths of Health

Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.

—Anthony Robbins

There are eight keys to health that have the power to dramatically influence the way you feel
and function in life. I call these reset truths because they are absolutes when it comes to changing
your health habits. If you pay attention to these principles, you will be successful. I recommend you
continue to observe these truths even after you finish the 45-Day Reset, as they’re simply good health
principles to follow.

The body needs three things to heal: time, repetition, and energy. The reason I have you do
this program for 45 days is that you need enough time to give your body a chance to get rid of injured
cells and make healthy new ones. Repetition is key because every day that you follow your new health
habits, you build momentum. The more you stick to the program, the easier it gets. And the more
energy you put into this program, the more you will get out of it. Try new recipes in the back of the

book. Go explore a farmers’ market in your area. Make it fun.

At the end of the 45-Day Reset, you’ll feel like a new person!

Let’s look now at the eight reset truths of health. Applying these truths to your life will put
you on the road to health even before you start your Reset!
 1. Labels Tell a Story

For the next 45 days, I want you to read every label you come in contact with. If you’re going

to eat it, I want you to know what’s in it. The golden rule for label reading is that if you can’t
pronounce a word in the list of ingredients, it’s probably a chemical. The following are a few of the
key ingredients you want to stay away from:

Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA)

BHA is a synthetic antioxidant used to inhibit oxidation of fats and oils in food, thereby
preventing rancidity. But by keeping your food from going bad, BHA may in turn be putting your
body at risk. Some studies have shown that BHA causes cancer in animals, and it’s anticipated that it
may be a human carcinogen. Try to avoid BHA and look for foods that use vitamin E as an
antioxidant instead.

Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT)

Like BHA, BHT is used to prevent oils in food from going bad. It’s commonly found in many
cereals to preserve freshness. BHT has been found to increase hyperactivity in children, and
laboratory results have found that it increased the risk of cancer in animals as well. Like BHA, BHT
should be avoided whenever possible.

Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate

Nitrites and nitrates are commonly found in foods such as hot dogs, lunch meats, and bacon
because they help the meat retain its color and prevent bacteria formation. They can lead to the
formation of cancer-causing chemicals, so it’s best to avoid any packaged foods that contain these
preservatives. Several studies have linked increased sodium nitrite intake from hot dog consumption
to childhood leukemia. You want to avoid these preservatives at all costs.

Potassium Bromate

Commonly found in bread and baked goods, potassium bromate is used to strengthen dough
and lower baking time, but it has been found to cause kidney and nervous system disorders, cancer,
and gastrointestinal issues.

Hydrogenated Oils

Hydrogenated fat, also known as trans fat, is created by converting liquid vegetable oils into
solid fat through a hydrogenation process. These oils raise your bad cholesterol, lower your good
cholesterol, interfere with your body’s ability to fight cancer, and increase your risk of heart disease.

These synthetic fats are found in many snack foods and desserts.

Recently, the FDA issued a declaration of intent to ban hydrogenated and partially
hydrogenated oils from all foods. According to the statement, these fats are “unfit for human
consumption.” They stated that by 2018, these harmful fats must be completely removed from all
[34]
food products.

tert-Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ)

TBHQ is added to foods (especially animal fats) to help extend their storage life. Also used in
other products such as cosmetics, TBHQ can cause nausea and possibly increase your risk of cancer.
Although it may be tolerable in low doses, try not to eat too many foods that contain this ingredient to
prevent possible side effects.
 2. Eating Fresh Food Is Best

Fresh food is anything that has a short shelf life. When you walk into a grocery store, the fresh

food is around the perimeter of the store. Vegetables, fruits, and meats are great examples of fresh
food, and every meal you eat needs to have plenty of fresh items. This does mean going to the store
more often, but I promise you it’s worth it. Fresh live foods like vegetables build health. They have
enzymes in them that are crucial to your digestion.

You need to be eating one pound (approximately two cups) of fresh vegetables a day. Not only
is this a great way to get more vitamins and minerals into your body but the fiber will help pull toxins
from your body.

3. Eating Fake Food Will Make You Sick

Once you develop the habit of reading labels, stop eating fake food. Fake food is anything that
is laden with chemicals and that has been altered from the original food itself. Potato chips are a good
example of this. A potato is healthy. A potato chip has chemicals in it and is fake. Fresh cheese with
no added ingredients is real food; Velveeta cheese has been altered with chemicals to make it taste
different and last longer. Butter is a real food; margarine is a fake one. Another term for fake foods is
processed foods. Anything that has been altered from its original natural state potentially has harmful
chemicals in it.

If you have trouble deciding whether a food is fake or not, ask yourself whether nature made
this food or whether it was made by humans? Because processed foods have become so prevalent in
recent years, you can also ask yourself if the food you are about to eat was available when your
grandmother was a child. The presence of chemicals in our food is a recent phenomenon. Our
grandparents were not exposed to the toxic foods we’re now exposed to. Fresh apple pie is definitely
something Grandma would have made. A prepackaged Hostess apple tart? Probably not in Grandma’s
diet.

4. Your Body Needs Water

Seventy percent of our body is made up of water. This makes water the most important
nutrient you need. Yet most people don’t drink enough. A well-hydrated body is crucial to optimal
health. Dehydration can lead to fatigue, headaches, wrinkles, suppression of the immune system, and
low back pain. Most people don’t realize that often when you’re hungry, it’s actually your body being
thirsty.

The best way to add more water into your body is to start your day off with a glass of water.
What you put in your stomach first thing upon rising is absorbed into your body the quickest. This is
why I recommend the detox water during your 15-Day Detox (see Recipes section). Make sure to

always have water with you—at your desk, in your car, on the countertop in your kitchen. Six to eight
glasses a day is a best practice. Room temperature water is easiest on your digestion. You can add
fresh organic lemon juice for added detoxifying benefits.

5. Sugar Stops Your Body from Burning Fat

The fastest way to destroy your metabolism is to eat a diet high in sugar. It has been well
documented that cancer cells have a higher number of receptor sites for sugar, which enables them to
easily use glucose as a food source. Sugar has been known to increase inflammation in the body and
raise your blood pressure, and it’s now considered a major contributor to cardiovascular disease. Plus,
a diet high in sugar will cause your body to become insulin resistant and force you to pack on pounds
quicker than anything else.
 You’ll notice as you go into your 15-Day Detox and 30-Day Habit Reset that I have you take
sugar out of your diet completely. For many of you, this will be challenging but one of the most
rewarding experiences you’ll ever have.

Sugar is hidden in almost every food in your grocery store, so make sure to read those labels.
Look for anything that ends in –ose, as that is most likely sugar.

Here is a list of common words for the sugar in your food that you want to avoid:

· Agave nectar syrup

· Barley malt

· Beet sugar

· Brown-rice syrup

· Brown sugar

· Cane juice (evaporated or not) or cane sugar

· Caramel or caramel coloring

· Corn sweetener

· Corn syrup or corn syrup solids

· Date sugar
· Dehydrated cane juice

· Dextrin

· Dextrose

· Diastatic malt

· Fructose

· Fruit juice

· Fruit juice concentrate

· Galactose

· Glucose

· High-fructose corn syrup

· Honey

· Invert sugar

· Lactose

· Malt syrup
· Maple syrup

· Maltodextrin

· Maltose

· Mannitol

· Maple syrup

· Molasses

· Palm sugar

· Raw sugar

· Rice bran syrup

· Saccharose

· Sorbitol

· Sorghum or sorghum syrup

· Sucrose

· Syrup
 · Treacle

· Turbinado sugar

· Xylose

If you see any of these words on your labels, avoid them.

The other way to know what sugar is in a food source is by reading the nutrition label. Stop
going to the calories and go straight to the sugar content. The American Heart Association says that
men should have no more than 35g and women no more than 25g of sugar daily, so when you read
your label, start by counting the sugar. To give you some examples, a Jamba Juice smoothie has 48g
of sugar, a vitamin water has 41g of sugar, and a Coca-Cola has a whopping 91g of sugar.

In the 1970s, our country declared a war on heart disease and the food industry took all fat out
of many products we had access too—leaving many foods tasteless. So to improve the taste, the food
industry has slowly increased the amounts of sugar in foods. You will find that sugar is in almost
everything, so pay close attention.

In a study published in 2007, M. Lenair, F. Serre, L. Cantin, and S.H. Ahmed showed that our
[35]
brains are actually more addicted to sugar than to chemical stimulants like cocaine. Every time
you eat sugar, the chemical dopamine is released into your bloodstream, making you feel euphoric.
This is why you keep going back for more. But your pancreas can’t keep up with the amount of sugar
you’re giving it, so it eventually wears out. This increase in sugar consumption is why diabetes is
affecting more Americans today than ever before.
 The glycemic index measures the sugar content of food and how it affects your glucose-insulin
levels. The higher the number on the index, the more damaging the sugar. To give you some
perspective, refined sugar has a glycemic index of 100. Honey has one of 55, coconut sugar has one

of 30, and stevia and xylitol have a glycemic index of 0. This means that when you digest stevia and
xylitol, they will not allow your pancreas to secrete insulin or your blood sugar to increase in any
way, shape, or form.

You’ll notice in the recipe section that many of the recipes call for these lower-indexed sugars.
Many people may find the taste of stevia and xylitol artificial even though they are natural substances,
so try coconut sugar as it has a lower glycemic index and is often more pleasurable to the taste buds.
This is the one sugar that I find my kids will accept, and we no longer have any other types of sugar in
the house. The beautiful thing about coconut sugar is that it has a 1–1 ratio with cane sugar, so any
recipe that calls for a cup of sugar can be replaced with a cup of coconut sugar. It’s that easy!

6. You Need Good Oils to Burn Fat

I have shocking news for you! We are one of the most fat-deprived nations. Your body needs
fat to perform any crucial function, like making good cholesterol, nourishing the brain, and
metabolizing fat. Yes—most people don’t realize that you need fat to burn fat.

One key step to living a healthier life is understanding that not all fats are created equal. There
are good fats and there are bad fats. You absolutely want to pull bad fats out of your diet. In fact, one
of the worst fats is partially hydrogenated oil.

The list below contains the bad fats you need to pull out of your diet immediately:

· Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils

 · Rancid oils (corn oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil,
safflower oil, and sunflower oil)

· Trans fats (margarine, synthetic butters, and shortening)

· Roasted nuts and seeds

· Roasted nut and seed butters

· Pasteurized and homogenized dairy products

Consumption of bad fats promotes the following diseases:

· Arthritis

· Type 2 diabetes

· Autoimmune diseases

· Neurological diseases

· Alzheimer’s disease

· Cancer

· Cardiovascular disease

· Pulmonary disease
 Good fats on the other hand, will promote health. Good fats to add into your diet are the
following:

· Oils: coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil (cook on medium heat only), walnut
oil, flaxseed oil, hemp seed oil, and grapeseed oil

· Animal proteins: grass-fed meat, wild fish (especially wild salmon), organic
cage-free eggs (pasture-raised is best)

· Dairy: Full-fat raw milk (whole or cream), raw cheeses, organic butter, ghee,
and kefir (without sugar added)

· Other: olives, avocados, and any coconut products (milk, butter, flakes, flour,
flesh, etc.)

Your body thrives on good fat. Your brain needs fat to function properly. Good fat is known to
lower your triglycerides, increase your metabolism, and improve your mental health―and it’s now
strongly being linked to helping your body fight cancer.

A patient of mine was really suffering with her health. She was on several medications and in
constant pain, and her doctor was really on her to change her diet to improve her LDL and triglyceride
levels. She had been doing low-fat dieting for years, but these numbers were not changing. She had
also had no luck at losing weight. Once she did the 45-Day Reset with us, her triglyceride levels
lowered and weight starting falling off of her. Her body desperately needed good fat to function
properly.

As sugar is taken out of your diet, you might find that your hunger temporarily increases. The
key to making sure that this does not happen is to increase these good fats. In fact, right now, many of
the healthiest diets, such as the Paleo or ketogenic diet, have people obtaining 40 to 70 percent of their
calories from fat. This is why you’ll see that in your 15-Day Detox, when we have you drinking
smoothies, we have you add in coconut oil. This will help curb your appetite, nourish your brain, and

speed up your metabolism.

7. Go Organic

As I explained earlier in this book, most health problems are toxicity issues. One of the most
common places to get toxins in your diet is from the chemicals sprayed on fruits and vegetables, as
well as the chemicals that are injected into the animals we eat. No one is free from the over-spraying
of our food.

It’s time for you to start taking those chemicals out of your diet. The first step I recommend is
going organic with your meats. It’s become common practice to add growth hormone and antibiotics

to cows and chickens before they’re slaughtered and made available for human consumption. Those
chemicals will definitely get into your body and destroy your good gut bacteria.

When you’re at the grocery store, look for meats that say “no added hormones or antibiotics”
and “organically raised.” These chemicals are becoming so well known as destroyers of our health
that even companies like Tyson Chicken are starting to pull them from their food products.

The other food you want to minimize because of its toxic load is pork. The pig is the one
animal that does not have a sweat gland, and thus it retains all of its toxins inside the fat. When you
eat pork, you get a high dose of extremely toxic meat. Even when it’s organic, it should be ingested in
moderation.

Once you have gone organic with your meats, go organic with your fruits and vegetables. If
you’re worried about the cost of organic food, here a some things to think about. First, the most
expensive way to take care of your health is to ignore these steps and wait for a medical crisis. It is
much cheaper to pay for your health now, as opposed to paying for a medical crisis later. Something
as simple as switching over to organic fruits and veggies could save you thousands of dollars down

the road in medical bills. So change your mind set on how you look at cost savings as it pertains to
your health.

A good general rule to follow is this: everything on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list should be
bought organic. For things on the Clean Fifteen list, such as avocados (which are ridiculously
expensive when bought organic), you can get away with buying nonorganic. You will find that list in
the 30-Day Habit Reset chapter. A general guideline for eating organic is meats first; once you have
accomplished that, fruits and veggies second.

8. Just Say No to GMO

I have mentioned GMOs in several places in this book. I can’t emphasize enough how toxic
GMO food is for your health. Avoid it at all costs, as it will destroy your gut. During your 45-Day
Reset, you will take all GMO food out of your diet.

How do you know if it’s GMO? Unfortunately, America’s labeling laws around GMOs are
minimal. Some foods are well-labeled and some are not. Since my number-one reset truth is “read
labels,” you should be able to identify whether a food is organic or not by looking at the label.
Anything with a label that says “USDA Organic” on it will be GMO-free. Some products go as far as
putting an actual “Non-GMO” label on the package. If you see both of those labels, that’s great! If
you see none of these labels, you may be eating a food that has been genetically modified.

Here are the most commonly genetically modified crops:

· Corn (field and sweet)

 · Soybeans

· Cotton

· Canola (another reason to avoid this harmful fat)

· Alfalfa

· Sugar beets (this means refined sugar as well)

· Hawaiian papaya

· Squash

8. Make Dinner Your Lightest Carbohydrate Meal

For those of you who want to lose weight, the fastest way to pack on the pounds is to eat the
majority of your calories after dinner―especially calories that come from carbohydrates. What
happens to most people is this: They come home at the end of a day and eat a large carbohydrate-
filled meal, complete with alcohol and a dessert. This causes their insulin to spike so high that it
doesn’t come down before they go to sleep. All that extra insulin while you’re sleeping will turn to
fat. In fact, sumo wrestlers know this quite well, and because one of the demands of their sport is to
add on weight, their training regime includes eating a carbohydrate meal and then taking a nap.

So if you’re interested in losing weight, one of my top recommendations is that your largest
meals should be breakfast and lunch, and dinner should be your lightest meal with the least amount of
carbohydrates. The only exception to this is if you decide to do intermittent fasting (see Chapter 11).
You never want to go to sleep with a full stomach of undigested food and high insulin counts in your
bloodstream. Because of this, many of my patients who do the 15-Day Detox choose to eat their one
meal at lunch, not dinner. This gives their body time to digest the food and use the insulin well before
bedtime.

Not eating late poses a problem for a lot of people because, like you, they have conditioned
their body to desire something sweet after dinner. The first thing you have to realize is that this is just
a habit you’ve created—it’s not that your body actually needs it. My dad is a really good example of
that. As a child, he was always given a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Although he ate extremely
healthy, 70 years later he still has trouble breaking that habit because it is so ingrained in him. Be sure
to look in our recipe section for desserts you can eat that will satisfy your sweet tooth but not spike
your insulin levels.

When people come to me and want to lose weight, my first recommendation is this: no fruits,
alcohol, breads, or pastas after 3:00 p.m. A dinner high in protein and veggies on a consistent basis

will have you losing weight faster than a sugar-free treat laden with chemicals for dessert.

Overwhelmed yet? If you read these rules and wanted to put the book down, hold on! This will
be easier than you think. Because the 45-Day Reset is geared to teach your body to crave health more
than the treats you’ve become accustomed to, all you have to do is take the first step. Trust the
program. I can’t tell you how many of my patients think the 45 days is going to be grueling and take a
whole lot of willpower—then come back to me and tell me how easy it has been. The same will be
true for you.

Now that you understand these basic truths about health, you’re ready to get started. In the
next chapter, we’ll start the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox program.
 Chapter 10

The 15-Day GI and Liver Detox

I’ve tried every detox on the planet myself. I’ve starved myself, drunk funky shakes, taken
massive amounts of herbs, and done colonics, enzyme baths, and wraps. I’ve eaten only fruits and

vegetables for weeks on end. One cleanse consisted of ten days on only lemon, cayenne, and maple
syrup. Although many of these approaches made me feel great at the time, the re-entry back to food
was difficult, and I found that within a few months, I felt worse than ever before.

But I’ve finally learned how to detox right, and that’s what I’ll share with you now. This detox
will provide your body with the many benefits of cleansing, support your gut to regrow healthy
bacteria, cleanse your liver, and leave you looking and feeling radiant. As you know by now, I call it
the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox, or the 15-Day Detox for short.

In this chapter, I’ll share all the steps of the 15-Day Detox with you: what you’ll need, what
the daily program looks like, and what to expect day to day. I’ll start with my top tips for a smooth
detox and end by answering frequently asked questions.

Reset Detox Tips

In order to make sure you get the most out of your detox, here are my top tips for getting the
most out of this detox process.
 Keep in mind that many popular detox protocols are just a pause button that gives your liver a
small break from the toxic load it’s under. They don’t do enough to heal the liver and gut. Once the
detox is over, you go back to your old habits, you start to gain weight back, and eventually you go

right back where you started―feeling horrible. In fact, I’ve watched many people have a rebound
effect after they detox. They’re so happy that the detox is over, they eat more of the harmful foods
they love and gain more weight back.

I don’t want that to happen to you. So let’s make sure you do this right by carefully reading
through the following reset detox tips and the guidelines for the 15-Day Detox.

Reset Detox Tip #1: Know Why You’re Detoxing

Remember your Big Why? Knowing it for your detox is key to your success over the next 15
days. The first few days of a detox can be tough, so being connected to your Big Why will help. If

permanent weight loss is your goal, the 15-Day Detox is a perfect starting point.

Not sure if you need a detox? Here are some of the warning signs your body will give you that
it’s time to detox:

➢ Feeling stressed

➢ Mood swings and headache

➢ White- or yellow-coated tongue and/or bad breath

➢ Fluid retention and/or congested sinuses

➢ Increased belly or visceral fat

 ➢ Cravings and/or blood sugar issues

➢ Gallbladder issues (or you’ve had your gallbladder removed)

➢ Abdominal bloating

➢ Overheating/excess sweating

➢ Weight loss resistance

➢ Acne, rosacea, itchy skin

➢ Fatigue unrelieved by more sleep, especially in the morning

➢ Moodiness

➢ Autoimmunity

➢ Chemical sensitivity (You’re a lightweight when you drink alcohol, or smelling

fragrances makes you anxious.)

➢ Insomnia, especially early morning awakenings such as 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.

➢ Cravings, especially for sugar, alcohol, and refined carbohydrates

If you have four or more of these signs, you may have a congested liver that needs a help.
Reset Detox Tip #2: Don’t Starve Yourself

Many people mistakenly believe that in order to provide a proper detox for their bodies, they

need to starve themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth! Your body needs nutrients to heal
and cleanse itself. Starving yourself for an extended period of time puts undue stress on your liver.
This is why you need a thorough detox strategy that gives your body all the nutrients it needs to repair
itself.

You’ll notice in the 15-Day Detox that you’re given the option to eat throughout the day. Just
by eating the right things, your body will cleanse and regenerate naturally. We want you to eat enough
good food to flood your liver with nutrients while pulling out the toxins. Detoxing done right is the
greatest way to rebuild a healthy liver and reset your metabolism for good.

Reset Detox Tip #3: Start by Repairing Your Gut

If there is a breakdown in your gut, such as leaky gut syndrome, you’ll overtax your liver with
too many toxins. Once the liver gets flooded with toxins, it stops metabolizing fat. Anytime you want
to reset your metabolism, you need to repair the gut and get nutrients to the liver to help it break down
fat again. This is why during your 15-Day Detox, you’ll start by repairing your gut and liver.

I recommend you use a high-quality, high-powered probiotic during your entire 45-Day Reset.
Most people need 50 to 100 billion CFUs (how we measure probiotic potency) with multiple strains
of good bacteria to bring back the health of their microbiome.

Reset Detox Tip #4: Eliminate Toxins from Your Plastic Containers

Your plastic bottles and food containers are filling you up with BPAs and
phylates—remember those nasty endocrine disruptors we discussed in an earlier chapter? During your
detox, only use BPA-free plastic bottles or change to glass bottles for your water. Make sure that your
food containers at home are BPA-free or glass as well. And never microwave food in plastic
containers (including plastic wrap, plastic bags, and plastic food storage containers like Tupperware).

When you do, you cause the harmful chemicals in your plastics to leech out into your food and thus
enter your body.

As a matter of fact, toss the microwave while you’re at it. The process of microwaving food
destroys all enzymes and vitamins in that food. It turns good food into dead food with no nutritional
value. I have had many patients tell me that they microwave broccoli in a glass dish with plastic wrap
over the top. Many people are eating broccoli for the health benefits, but when you microwave it with
plastics, you kill the nutrients in it and harmful chemicals like phylates and BPAs leech into your
food. The best way to cook your vegetables is to steam them on the stove.

Reset Detox Tip #5: Eliminate Toxins from Your Hair and Skin Products

If you’re like most women in the United States, you may put over five hundred chemicals on
your skin every single day. Many of those chemicals, such as parabens, are known to cause cancer.
Hard to believe? Well, it’s true. A research study done by Bionsen, a natural deodorant company,
found that the average woman’s daily grooming and make-up routine causes her to “host” a
[36]
staggering 515 different synthetic chemicals on her body every single day. There are over 13,000
chemicals in cosmetics alone, and only 10 percent of them have been tested for safety.

Anything you put on your skin gets absorbed directly into your bloodstream and transported to
the kidneys. What you put on your skin can destroy your health faster than what you put in your
mouth. This includes lotions, makeup, shampoos, hairsprays, perfumes, soaps, etc.
 Determining which products are harmful can be an overwhelming and confusing process. Use
the Skin Deep app at http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/app/ to find out which products are safe and which
ones are not safe.

My advice is that when you run out of a beauty product, replace it with a healthier option.
Over time, you’ll have only toxin-free products.

Reset Detox Tip #6: Eliminate Toxic Household Products

There are many toxins in the cleaning products you use in your home every single day. Most
of them are way more toxic to your body than the food you consume. Start looking at your cleaners,
detergents, air fresheners, and anything else that might be putting toxins in the air or touching your
food. Check out the Environmental Working Group’s healthy cleaning guide at
http://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners to learn more about which products you should avoid.

Reset Detox Tip #7: Filter Your Water

Unfortunately, your water supply is another source from which you may be ingesting harmful
chemicals. Investing in a reverse-osmosis water filter for drinking water is a smart idea. You can also
have a water filter attached to your main water line so that all your faucets and spouts throughout your
home will provide healthy water. If you’re looking for the best option at the lowest price, Britta filters
are also fantastic and a great option to start with.

***

When I first started learning about many of these toxins, avoiding them all felt like an
impossible task. Then I realized that every step I took toward minimizing my exposure to them was a
step in the right direction—and every little step counts. I’ve noticed that poor health and diseases can
be really scary when you don’t have a plan for getting and staying healthy. The purpose of this book
is to educate you, empower you, and give you a rock-solid plan for lifelong health and vitality.

Follow the eight detox tips above for maximum results.

Overview of the 15-Day Detox

Here’s an overview of what you’ll do on a daily basis (you’ll find details later in this chapter):

1. First thing in the morning upon rising, have a glass of Morning Detox water (see
recipe chapter at the end of this book).

2. Replace two of your meals with detox smoothies. Make your first smoothie of the day
for breakfast. Your second smoothie of the day can be either at lunch or at dinner—it’s your choice.

3. Enjoy one meal per day with a clean protein, together with steamed vegetables or a
fresh green salad.

4. Avoid all grains―including pasta, bread, cereal, rice, and corn.

5. Avoid all alcohol of any kind.

6. Avoid dairy of any kind―including cheese, milk, yogurt, and sour cream.

7. Enjoy five cups of raw vegetables a day; snacking on them throughout the day is
encouraged.

8. Limit fruit to berries and green apples.

 9. Any time you’re feeling hungry during the day, you can eat all the green apples,
berries, and vegetables you want.

10. For best results, take all supplements as directed on the protocol list (see
“Supplements” section below).

What You’ll Need

Here’s what you’ll need to prepare for your 15-Day Detox program:

· A blender. My favorite is the Vitamix. You can get one easily at Costco, but
any blender will do.

· Plenty of fresh organic fruits and organic vegetables. My favorites ones to

munch on during the day are carrots, celery, red bell peppers, and green apples. My favorite
ones to put into a smoothie are wild blueberries, cherries, and spinach. Keep in mind that you
can always use frozen organic foods if fresh foods are not available.

· A high-quality protein powder. See the supplement list below for my

recommendations.

· Organic lemons for your daily lemon water

· Clean proteins, like organic poultry, grass-fed beef, eggs from pasture-raised
hens, hormone- and nitrite-free deli meats, and wild fish

· Healthy and satisfying fats, like avocados, coconut oil, and raw cashew and
almond butters
 · Approved snacks, such as raw nuts, red cabbage, hummus, kale chips, organic
hard-boiled eggs, sweet potato chips, and non-GMO organic popcorn (see my favorite recipes
in the back of the book)

· Plenty of organic salad mixes and organic greens, such as parsley, kale,
romaine lettuce, and spinach

· Supplements—those found on the list below

· A GREAT attitude! You should be excited! You are about to experience what
it’s like to live in a body that is full of energy and that functions at a higher level than many
you may have ever experienced before.

Your Detox Supplements

There is a wide range of quality in the supplement market, and many supplements do not
provide the nutrition that the bottle promises. Often people reach for the cheapest supplement option,
but the fact is that many of the supplements found at your local drugstore or grocery store are
synthetic and can be toxic for your body. Therefore, during the 15-Day Detox, you will only consume
high-quality food-based supplements that your body can instantly turn into nutrients. Here are the
supplements with which I’ve had the best success in helping patients reset their health (amounts are
recommended daily dosage):

➢ Probiotic (50 billion CFUs)

➢ Vitamin D3 (5,000 IU)

➢ Turmeric (225 mg)

 ➢ N Acetyl-L-Cysteine (100 mg)

➢ L-Glutamine (powder form) (5 g)

➢ Glutathione (250 mg)

➢ Milk Thistle (425mg)

➢ Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) (50mg)

➢ Plant-based or grass-fed whey protein powder (1 scoop)

➢ Greens superfood supplement with chlorophyll (1 scoop)

➢ Omega-3 fish oils (5 g)

I know that choosing supplements can be overwhelming. It can also be easy to dismiss using
them on this detox―but don’t. Your liver and gut need extra help. Not putting harmful foods into
your body is a wonderful start, but the supplements help repair damage that has accumulated over the
years. You want high-quality supplements that will give you results, not expensive urine in which all
the vitamins get excreted from your body. If you need more guidance with supplements, check out
www.resetfactor.com for a list of the supplements I use.

When you first take a high-powered probiotic like the one I’m recommending, you may
notice temporary bloating in your abdomen, gas, or loose bowels. I have even had people break out in
rashes. Those are all great signs, indicating die-off of bad bacteria. Stay the course. Those symptoms
won’t last long. On the other side of those symptoms will be a fabulous-feeling body.
Your Meal Replacement Smoothie

Your two smoothies a day will help to reset your metabolism and give your gut and liver a
break. You want to use low-glycemic fruits such as berries in your smoothie to minimize sugar intake

during the 15-Day Detox. Coconut milk or almond milk are both great liquid sources for the
smoothies. Adding in healthy fats such as a tablespoon of coconut oil, half an avocado, or a
tablespoon of raw almond or cashew butter is an excellent way to make sure your smoothie is
satisfying. Then add in your protein powder, greens, and supplements.

Here are the ingredients for just one kind of great detox smoothie:

1 scoop protein powder

1 scoop green superfood supplement

1 scoop L-Glutamine

1 cup frozen organic berries

1 cup organic kale or spinach

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 cup coconut milk or almond milk (organic, non-flavored, and no added sugar)

½ avocado
 1 cup water

Avoid using the following in your smoothies:

➢ Fruit juice

➢ Yogurt

➢ Honey

➢ Coconut sugar

➢ Ice cream or frozen yogurt

➢ High-glycemic fruits like mango, papaya, pineapple, or banana

Look in the recipe section of this book for great smoothie ideas.

Approved Meal Ingredients

You’ll enjoy one meal each day while on the 15-Day Detox. I have included lots of delicious,
easy-to-prepare, and flavor-packed recipes in the back of the book for you to enjoy. Here’s what you
can eat:

· Clean proteins, like organic poultry, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised eggs,

hormone- and nitrite-free deli meats, and wild fish
 · Plenty of fresh organic fruits and organic vegetables. My favorites ones to
munch on during the day are carrots, celery, red bell peppers, and green apples. My favorite
ones to put into a smoothie are wild blueberries, blackberries, and spinach

· Healthy and satisfying fats, like avocados, coconut oil, and raw cashew and
almond butters

· Plenty of organic salad mixes and organic greens, such as parsley, kale,
romaine lettuce, and spinach

· Probiotic rich foods and drinks, such as kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, pickles,
pickled fruits and vegetables, and raw kefir (only allowed raw with no added sugars)

· Bone Broth, which helps to heal and seal the gut. See recipes.

Approved Drinks

➢ At least six to eight glasses of water every day

➢ Fresh-squeezed juice made with veggies and fruits from the “approved” list above
(check out healing green drink in recipes)

➢ Kombucha tea

➢ Mineral water or club soda (without sugar)

➢ Herbal organic tea (green tea is a great detoxifier)

 ➢ Bone broth (see Appendix for recipe)

What to Avoid

➢ All sugars, such as sugar, honey, agave, maple syrup, and high-fructose corn syrup

➢ All grains, such as breads, pasta, quinoa, and rice

➢ All fruits (except berries and green apples)

➢ All processed foods (human-made food)

➢ All coffee

➢ All alcohol

What a Detox Day Looks Like

Upon waking in the morning:

➢ Drink 1 glass of lemon water at room temperature.

➢ Take 1 probiotic (50 billion CFU).

➢ Take glutathione (250 mg).

➢ Take milk thistle (425mg).

 Breakfast:

➢ One delicious and nutritious smoothie, which includes 1 scoop protein powder, 1

scoop greens, and 1 scoop L-glutamine (5 g)

After morning smoothie:

➢ Take Acetyl-L-Cysteine 100 mg (2 tablets).

➢ Take Turmeric 225 mg (2 tablets).

➢ Take Vitamin D3 (5,000 IU).

➢ Take Omega-3 fish oils (3 g).

Lunch:

➢ One delicious and nutritious smoothie, which includes 1 scoop protein powder, 1
scoop greens, and 1 scoop L-glutamine (5 g)

Dinner:

➢ One delicious and nutritious meal with clean protein, organic vegetables, and a fresh
salad

Snacks:
 ➢ Raw nuts, red cabbage, hummus, kale chips, organic hard-boiled eggs, green apples,
and almond butter

Before bed:

➢ Take 1 probiotic (50 billion CFU), preferably two hours after dinner.

What to Expect Day by Day

Days 1 to 3

No doubt, the first few days can be hard. You’re helping your body begin to release toxins that

have been stored for an extended period of time. In the first few days of this program, you can expect:

● Fatigue

● Headaches

● Increased bowel movements and urination

● Hunger

● Thirst

● Irritability

● Changes in mood
 ● Skin rashes or irritation

Days 4 to 6

You’re beginning to increase the amount of toxins you’re releasing. You’ve started burning fat
by changing the way you eat. You’re extracting those toxins from your tissues and eliminating them
by taking your supplements daily. Did you know that fat is where our body stores toxins? Your
cleanse is helping you to break down fat and finally rid your body of toxins.

The symptoms you experienced during days 1 to 3 can intensify during the next three days.
Again, you may experience more of the same symptoms you felt in days 1 to 3.

Days 7 to 9

Depending on how toxic you are, by this point your symptoms should start improving. You’re
hitting the peak of your cleanse. The supplements, combined with your diet, are supporting the
extraction and elimination of toxins. You may notice at this point that your stomach is flatter, your
weight is dropping, and your energy is improving. If you’re not experiencing those symptoms, don’t
worry. It means you just have more toxins to release. Stay the course and you’ll soon feel the results.

Days 10 to 12

You should now start to notice the benefits of your cleanse. If you’ve changed your diet,
you’ll notice that food is starting to taste better. At first, your new diet might have seemed bland, but
now you’re getting used to these new flavors.

Your body is acclimating to a new diet and improved nutrition, so you can expect the
following:
 ● Improved energy

● Weight loss

● Improved sleep

● Improved digestion

Days 13 to 15

By now you should be feeling great! You’ve eliminated a lot of the toxins you’ve previously
accumulated over time. You might experience more of the same symptoms you felt during days 10 to
12.

The average weight loss with this detox is 8 pounds in 15 days. If you hit this point and you
are not losing weight, then that can be an indication there are more toxins that need to be released.
Don’t be discouraged. As you move into your 30-Day Habit Reset, those toxins will continue to be
released and your metabolism will gain momentum and speed up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to do two smoothies every day?

Yes. The protein powder, superfood greens, and L-glutamine have specific nutrients that help
the body in the detoxification process, so it’s important to get two smoothies in per day. Some people
prefer to have their one meal at lunch instead of dinner, and that’s OK. Just make sure you’re
replacing two meals with the smoothies.
 Can I eat more than one meal per day?

It’s recommended that you eat only one large meal. The timing of the meal is not important. If

a smoothie is not filling enough and you feel like you need more food, feel free to eat approved
snacks.

Do I have to take the vitamins with the 15-Day Detox?

Yes. The vitamins are specifically selected to pull toxins from your body, repair your gut,
lower any inflammation, stabilize your blood sugar, and cleanse your liver. Taking vitamins is
extremely helpful to accelerating the detox process.

I’m a vegetarian—can I still do the 15-Day Detox?

Of course! When using the protein powders, just be sure to use a plant, hemp, or pea protein.
There are a lot of great sources of vegetarian protein powder out there. When it comes to your meal,
do a vegetarian meal. Just avoid the clean protein. The mistake I often see vegetarians make is to eat a
meal too high in carbohydrates, especially grain, pastas, and rice. Since the entire 45-Day Reset is
about lowering your carbohydrates, be sure you don’t add any high-carbohydrate grains or pastas to
your daily routine.

I didn’t do all the tests you mention in this book. Can I still do the 15-Day Detox?

Although it’s advised that you be under a doctor’s care while making any big changes to your
diet, you don’t need to have all the tests I do in my office to be successful at this program. This
program will work with or without the testing. The tests I do, such as the organic acids test, helps me
zero in on what the patient needs the most.
 Help! I’m hungry!

If you find yourself starving, you need to eat more fat. Eat more avocados, raw nuts, or

hummus. Make sure to add coconut oil to your smoothies. I even recommend taking a scoop of raw
almond butter or raw cashew butter and eating it directly off your spoon. This is also a great tip if you
crave sugar at night.

Also, make sure that you’re not putting high-sugar fruits in your smoothies. Tropical
fruits―such as pineapple, mango, and banana―are highest in sugar. These fruits will spike your
blood sugar quickly and leave you feeling hungrier.

When I first rolled out this detox with my patients, it was after the holidays. People were
complaining of how they had overindulged and needed to reset after all the toxins they had built up in
December. The results were fantastic. The majority of people said their sugar and alcohol cravings

went away quickly. Most said they weren’t hungry. Some had a hard time the first few days with low
energy, rashes, and foggy brain. But by the end of the 15 days, everyone felt fantastic and everyone
lost weight.

I then had people follow it up with the 30-Day Habit Reset. Once again, the results were
incredible. Since toxins cause your body to hold onto weight, when people focused on pulling toxins
out first, their weight loss in the 30-Day Reset was remarkable. People lost more weight than in any
other 30-day diet program I have every prescribed.

The amazing piece was that even months later, people had kept the weight off and were still
feeling great. Even if they cheated a little here and there, they had truly reset their health. Years later,
I have done this 45-Day Reset with thousands of people—all with the same result. This program
works. And it will give you permanent results.
 So hang in there through the tough days—your body will thank you. Remember that two of
the keys to healing are time and repetition. Every day you’re on this program, you’ll build your body
stronger and stronger. Eventually, momentum and healing take over, and cravings and hunger go

away. It’s at this moment that I see a magical look in people’s eyes. It’s a look of deep satisfaction―a
feeling of self-pride. There is no greater feeling than knowing you are in control of your own health.
You get to decide how you feel and what direction your health will head. Nothing tastes as good as
that!

Now on to your 30-day Habit Reset, where you’ll learn how to teach your body to crave health
more than any dessert placed in front of you.

Chapter 11

The 30-Day Habit Reset

Congratulations! The hardest part is over. Now that you’ve completed your 15-Day GI and
Liver Detox, move immediately into your 30-Day Habit Reset. The great news is that you get to eat
more meals, drink fewer smoothies (if you want), and have all the fruit you want.

I’m often asked “Can I keep doing the smoothies? I feel great and enjoy them.” My answer is
YES! You don’t have to stop the smoothies or vitamins if you’re feeling good—that part is optional
as we move into the 30-Day Habit Reset.

The 30-Day Habit Reset is designed to help you create lasting good health habits that you can
easily stick to for life. There’s no break in between the 15-Day GI and Liver Reset and the 30-Day
Habit Reset. This is meant to be a 45-day program that you follow straight through.
What to Do During Your 30-Day Habit Reset:

· Continue to follow the 8 Reset Rules of Health (see Chapter 8).

· Continue to stay off all grains, pastas, and white potatoes.

· Continue to stay off all alcohol.

· Continue to stay off sugar.

· Continue to stay off bad fats and processed foods.

· Continue to eat as many raw organic vegetables as you possibly can

throughout the day.

· You can add back in more meals. Eat as many meals as you want (you don’t
have to stick to only one meal).

· You can add back in raw organic cow dairy, goat dairy, or sheep dairy. Still
stay away from pasteurized conventional dairy.

· You can add back in ALL organic fruits.

· The only GI supplements required are probiotic, L-glutamine, and omega-3s.

Rules for the 30-Day Habit Reset

 Remember, the 30-day part of the 45-Day Reset is designed to help you change your health
habits as a lifestyle. We’ve talked about many of these already, but here’s an important overview of
the effects of sugar, alcohol, grains, dairy, etc., and how to create new and positive habits around

these substances.

Reset Rules of Sugar

You may feel nervous about continuing to avoid sugar during the 30-day Habit Reset, but let
me tell you, there are great alternatives to refined white sugar. Over the next 30 days, you can have as
much stevia and xylitol as you desire. You may also add coconut sugar, but do so in moderation.
You’ll notice the recipes in the back of the book include these sugars.

My experience has been that not everyone likes stevia; many people prefer coconut sugar. If
you’re looking at a new recipe and it calls for sugar, coconut sugar has a 1–1 ratio to refined sugar. If

the recipe calls for a cup of sugar, replace it with a cup of coconut sugar.

A question I’m asked frequently is “What about organic refined sugar?” Remember that the
45-Day Reset is designed to kick your body out of an insulin-resistant state; unfortunately, even
organic refined sugar will cause your pancreas to work too hard and keep your insulin receptor sites
blocked. See Chapter 9 for the list of hidden names for sugars. Avoid all of them to make sure you get
the best results.

Reset Rules of Oil

As I mentioned in earlier chapters, the United States is one of the most fat-deprived nations.
You absolutely need fat to keep your body healthy. So for the next 30 days, you’re going to substitute
good, health-promoting fats for all bad, harmful, inflammatory fats!
Eliminate inflammatory fats such as:

· Canola oil

· Safflower oil

· Sunflower oil

· Vegetable oil

· Crisco

· Margarine

Substitute bad fats with these health-promoting fats:

· Avocado oil

· Olive oil (don’t heat above 100 degrees)

· Coconut oil

· Sesame oil

· Grapeseed oil

· Organic butter (from pasture-raised cows’ milk)

Reset Rules of Dairy

The pasteurization process causes dairy to have a higher sugar content, so when you buy dairy,

always look for raw dairy. This is usually pretty easy when you’re searching for cheese but a lot more
difficult when you’re looking for milk. You’ll notice in the 15-Day GI and Liver Detox that you’re
not to eat any dairy. This is because I want to take out of your diet any food that could harm your gut
or cause you to be insulin resistant. Read Chapter 2, “Your Gut Instincts Are Right,” to learn more
about this harmful food.

Many people are sensitive to dairy, so as you add dairy back into your diet after the 15-Day
Detox, it needs to be raw organic dairy and you need to notice if you have any kind of reaction after
eating it. A reaction to dairy might be bloating, skin rash, or overall feelings of sluggishness.

Research has found that a glass of milk can contain a cocktail of twenty painkillers,

antibiotics, and growth hormones. It also contains estrogen-mimicking hormones―as we discussed in

the “Resetting Your Gut” and “Resetting Your Hormones” chapters―leading to breast cancer and
other hormonal imbalances. The other challenge with cow’s milk is that the size of cows’ milk
molecules is significantly bigger than that of human breast milk molecules. Our bodies were designed
to break down human breast milk, not these larger milk molecules. Goat’s milk is a great alternative,
as it contains smaller molecules that are easier for our digestive system to handle.

Reset Rules of Eggs

You can eat as many eggs as you want during both your 15-Day GI and Liver Detox and your
30-Day Habit Reset. When buying eggs, make sure you get organic, cage-free eggs. Those are going
to have the most nutrients with the least number of harmful chemicals. Pasture-raised organic eggs are
the absolute best, and you’ll notice that their yoke color is a deep orange/yellow. They are filled with
more helpful nutrients, and fewer harmful alterations have been made to the chickens that lay them.
Reset Rules of Grains

Grains turn to sugar once they enter the bloodstream. A piece of bread is said to have as high a
[37]
glycemic index as a candy bar. Like consuming sugar, consuming grains is one of the fastest
paths to gaining weight. This is one of the reasons I have you continue to remove grains from your
diet during the 30-Day Habit Reset. Although I like gluten-free flours, which are better for your gut
than wheat and white bread, for the whole 45 days I want you to pull out ALL grains. This is the

fastest path to weight loss and health. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to have your
muffins, pancakes, and breads again; there are great alternatives to wheat and white flour.

Here’s a list of foods that you should avoid during your 30-Day Habit Reset program:

· White bread (use Paleo Bread instead)

· All pastas (use zucchini noodles and sweet potato noodles instead)

· White and red potatoes (use sweet potatoes instead)

· Rye bread

· Whole wheat bread

· Muffins (substitute almond and coconut flour in a recipe)

· English muffins
 · Baked goods and pastries

· Crackers

· Potato chips

· Pie crust

· Cookies

· Brown and white rice (use wild rice and quinoa instead)

· Corn and corn chips

· Popcorn

· Corn and flour tortillas (use Paleo Wraps instead)

Avoid these flours if you see them listed on a label, as they’re high in sugar:

· White flour

· Whole wheat flour

· Sourdough flour

· Rye flour
· Barley flour

· Graham flour

· Matzo flour

· Malt flour

· Durum flour

· Couscous flour

· Bulgur flour

· Semolina flour

· Brown rice flour

· Spelt flour

· Kamut flour

· Amaranth flour

· Arrowroot flour

· Buckwheat flour
 · Corn flour

· Corn meal

· Millet flour

· Oat flour

· Potato flour

· Quinoa flour

· Sorghum flour

· Tapioca flour

· Teff flour

· White rice flour

Other starches to avoid:

· White rice

· Brown rice

· White potatoes
 · Oats

Here are great approved substitutions that you can eat:

· Paleo Wraps (substitute for tortillas) (Check out Thrive Market

online.)

Flour substitutes with low sugar include the following (you can have these on the 30-Day
Habit Reset):

· Almond flour

· Coconut flour

· Hemp flour

· Lupin flour

· Chickpea flour

· Chia flour

Reset Rules of Fruits and Vegetables

First, eat only organic fruits and vegetables. Second, keep vegetables raw since raw vegetables
are more beneficial to your body than cooked vegetables. Once you cook vegetables, you destroy
many of their nutrients. Make a point of having raw vegetables at every meal. The only exception to
this is if you feel bloated after you eat. People who have too much bad bacteria, as with SIBO, can
feel extremely bloated after eating raw vegetables. If this is your experience, cut back on the raw

vegetables and give your gut more time to repair. Keep trying to add raw vegetables back in every
few days. If you are taking a high-powered probiotic, with enough time, the bloated feeling will go
away and you’ll be able to eat more raw vegetables.

The other thing to think about with fruits and vegetables is their sugar content. Many people
are surprised to hear that these healthy foods have a high sugar content, but they can as easily raise
your blood sugar as organic refined sugar can.

Highest-sugared vegetables—eat only in moderation:

· Carrots

· Beets

Medium-sugared vegetables—eat as much as you want:

· Red, yellow, and orange peppers

· Red cabbage

· Tomatoes

Lowest-sugared vegetables—eat as much as you want:

· Green lettuces
 · Parsley

· Celery

· Avocados

· Cucumber

· Kale

· Green cabbage

· Cauliflower

Highest-sugared fruits―avoid during your entire 45-Day Reset:

· Tropical fruits such as pineapple, papaya, mango, banana, and grapes.

Medium-sugared fruits―avoid during your 15-Day Detox, but eat in moderation during your
30-Day Habit Reset:

· Citrus fruits

· Melons

· Nectarines

· Peaches
 · Pears

· Apples (except green)

· Kiwi

Lowest-sugared fruits―eat as much as you want throughout your entire 45-Day Reset:

· Any kind of berries—including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries,

blackberries, boysenberries, huckleberries

· Green apples

When it comes to deciding whether to buy your fruits and vegetables organic, I recommend
that you try to buy as many organics as possible. If money is a consideration, we’ve talked about the
EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists. The Dirty Dozen are those fruits and vegetable most
heavily sprayed with pesticides. You want to buy these organic. The Clean Fifteen, on the other hand,
are not as heavily sprayed with pesticides; it’s safer to eat conventional versions of these, if you have
to. Here are the lists for easy reference:

The Clean Fifteen (OK to buy nonorganic):

· Onions

· Avocados

· Pineapple
 · Mangoes

· Sweet peas

· Eggplant

· Cauliflower

· Asparagus

· Kiwi

· Cabbage

· Watermelon

· Grapefruit

· Sweet Potatoes

· Honeydew Melon

You may have noticed that this list contains only 14 fruits and vegetables. I removed sweet
corn from the list because corn is one of the most genetically modified crops and should only be
bought organic.

The Dirty Dozen (always buy organic):

 · Apples

· Celery

· Tomatoes

· Cucumber

· Grapes

· Nectarines

· Peaches

· Potatoes

· Spinach

· Strawberries

· Blueberries

· Sweet bell peppers

Some experts suggest that you add kale and green beans to this list, as these have been more
heavily sprayed in recent years. I also would add corn to this list due to the fact that it is genetically
modified.
Reset Rules of Meat and Fish

Unfortunately, if you’re eating grain-fed beef, you’re getting a large dose of antibiotic and

hormone-injected meat. Every chemical that’s put into the animal, including the chemical-laden food
that animal is fed, is still in the meat as it sits on your dinner plate. These chemicals slow down your
digestion, making you bloated or constipated, and they raise your estrogen levels. Grain-fed meat also
typically has more fat than other meats. Toxins live in the fat of an animal. When you eat that fat,
you’re getting all those toxins the liver tried to excrete and ended up storing in the fat.

According to Dr. Sara Gottfried in her book The Hormone Reset Diet, we are hardwired by our
DNA and the microbes in our gut to eat mostly vegetables, nuts, seeds, occasional fruit, and clean
protein. Eating this way will keep you lean and your hormones balanced.

During your 45-Day Reset, you can have organic meat and fish in moderation. Since meat

carries the highest amount of toxins, it’s imperative that you go organic. If money is a concern, I
would rather you bought your meats organic and your fruits and vegetables nonorganic. Just be sure
to follow the guidelines set out by the EWG when buying foods from the Dirty Dozen and Clean
Fifteen lists.

Here’s what else you need to know about various meats:

· Beef: Avoid all grain-fed beef. A great alternative to grain-fed beef is

grass-fed beef. Unlike grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef is incredibly good for your body.
Beef from cows that are allowed to graze on grass and roam in large fields is high in
omega-3 oils that are crucial for improving brain function, lowering inflammation, and
keeping your metabolism working efficiently. Include grass-fed beef in your meals at
least twice a week.
 · Chicken: Organic chicken of all types (drumsticks, wings, breasts,
skin-on) is OK. Nonorganic chicken is packed with antibiotics and hormones that have
been injected into the animals. Avoid nonorganic chicken at all costs.

· Fish: Farm-fresh fish is an absolute no-no, as it lacks key nutrients

like omega-3 oils. Frozen or fresh fish is fine, but all fish should be wild, not farm

raised. Sometimes you have to ask your butcher or waiter at a restaurant if the fish is
wild.

Here’s the Food & Water Watch’s “dirty dozen” list of seafood. Avoid these during your 45-
Day Reset:

· King crab

· Caviar

· Atlantic bluefin tuna

· Orange roughy

· Atlantic flatfish

· American eel

· American cod

· Imported catfish
 · Chilean seabass

· Shark

· Atlantic and farmed salmon

· Imported shrimp

· Tilapia

.Deli Meats: These meats carry the highest possibility of toxic overload, so you absolutely

want these meats organic and nitrite-free. Several studies have been done on the increase in incidents
of leukemia in kids who eat processed deli meats. Sausages, salamis, and sliced turkey are all great

choices when bought organic and free from nitrites.

Pork: This is the one meat you want to eat in moderation or cut out completely. The pig is the
only animal that does not have sweat glands and thus holds on to all of its toxins. Since the 45-Day
Reset is about detoxifying your body, I highly recommend you eat pork rarely or not at all. If you do
choose to eat pork, be sure that it’s organic and has no caramel coloring or sodium nitrites in it.

Reset Rules of Alcohol

Next to pulling grains out of your diet, this is everyone’s least favorite nutritional habit. Yet
pulling alcohol out of your diet will have a significant effect on your overall health. During your 45-
Day Reset, you are to pull ALL alcohol out of your diet.

Many people love a glass of wine at night after a hard day at work. So I’m sorry to be the
bearer of bad news: even one glass raises your estrogen levels, kills good bacteria in your gut, and
stops your liver from metabolizing fat for energy. If you’re trying to reset your health, drinking
alcohol will hold you back from living in the body you deserve to live in.

Recently, a family member of mine wanted some weight loss advice. She’d been thin most her
life but was noticing that she was starting to hold on to weight more than ever. She had been eating
and drinking the same way for years and was surprised as the number on her scale started getting
higher and higher.

She got motivated and joined a gym. She made a new health habit of daily workouts, hoping
this would cause her to lose weight. After weeks of committing to her new exercise regime, she
hadn’t lost a single pound. She was frustrated and ready to give up on her workout plan. When I sat
down with her to look at her diet, I could see that she ate fairly well. The problem was that she loved
drinking beer. And while she was practicing many of the right health habits to be the weight she
wanted, the beer had caught up with her.

What happens when you drink alcohol? Several chemical processes happen that don’t benefit
you. First, you destroy your gut. Beer and wine have the highest amount of yeast in them. One of the
major breakdowns of the gastrointestinal system is candida. Drinks like beer and wine feed candida,
causing you to crave more beer and wine. A great way to stop the cravings is to stop feeding your
body yeast. It can be difficult at first, but as the candida dies over time, so will your cravings.

Second, alcohol increases estrogen in your body. Now, remember that estrogen is what makes
a female body curvy. The more estrogen you have in your system, the more your body will convert
that to fat. Even one glass of alcohol per day can make you put on extra pounds. During your 45-Day
Reset, you’re going to pull all alcohol from your diet. For some of you, this may be hard, but I
promise if you hang in there and give it enough time, you’ll see the benefits quickly as the fat around
your abdomen starts to disappear.
 Third, as long as your liver is metabolizing the alcohol, it can’t burn fat. Many studies have
shown how alcohol causes the body to stop the burning of fat for energy. For some of you, this is
going to be the hardest part of your reset experience. But the whole idea of the 45-Day Reset is to

bring your body back to its original state, the way it was designed to be. You can’t fully reset without
giving up alcohol. Give your liver a break and watch your body flourish!

Although you won’t be drinking alcohol during your 45-Day Reset, once your reset is over,
drinking alcohol in moderation (1 to 2 drinks a week) is not harmful. But you do need to know a few
key things about alcohol and how it’s processed in the body.

· Beer: This is probably the worst alcoholic beverage you can drink because of
its high gluten and yeast content. Hopefully, if you’ve made it this far in the book, you
know by now that the key to living with lifelong health starts by taking good care of your
gut. Beer will quickly destroy the good bacteria in your gut and increase your estrogen

levels, leaving you bloated and hanging on to extra fat. Sound appealing? I would avoid
beer at all costs.

· Wine: Although there are many scientific papers showing that the high
antioxidant content of wine is beneficial to the body, the sulfites and high sugar content in
wine are both destructive to the gut and stressful to the pancreas. If you remember the
“Resetting Your Gut” chapter, many people suffer from candida. Candida is caused by too
much yeast—and most wines are packed with yeast. Bottom line: wine has too much sugar
in it, and whenever you’re trying to keep your weight down, avoiding wine is a good
practice.

· Mixed Drinks: The biggest challenge with mixed drinks is what you mix the
alcohol with. Since we’re trying to minimize your sugar content, mixing your gin with
tonic gives you a burst of sugar that could easily put you back into insulin resistance. Hard
 liquor has less sugar than many nonalcoholic drinks, and if it’s mixed with something
mellow, such as a club soda, it’s your best choice of alcoholic beverage.

Reset Rules of Nonalcoholic Drinks

The bottom line here is that you want to drink water—and lots of it! If you’re fine for the next
45 days drinking only water, that is the quickest path to success! Other great choices for nonalcoholic
drinks are herbal teas, kombucha, club soda, zevias, or green juices with limited fruit.

Coffee drinking is not recommended during your 45-Day Reset. When drinking coffee after
your 45 days, make sure it’s organic, as many coffees have fungus on them and are heavily sprayed. If
you have an extreme coffee habit, you’ll want to slowly limit your coffee during your reset period to
minimize headaches and extreme fatigue.

The best way to get off coffee is to have a little less each day. If you serve yourself a quarter
of a cup less every day, over a few days to a week you’ll be completely off it without any headaches
or extreme exhaustion. The other thing about coffee that destroys people’s health is what they put in
their coffee. Added sugar, nonorganic dairy, artificial sweeteners, creamers, syrups, and whipped
cream are all destroyers of your health.

Organic herbal teas are a great alternative to coffee. Green tea and yerba mate tea will give
you an energy lift without draining your adrenal glands like coffee does.

Reset Rules of How Often and How Much to Eat

The 45-Day Reset is not a food deprivation plan. You can eat as much as you want of the
approved foods at whatever time you want to eat. The only time of the day I highly recommend
limiting your food intake is before bed. The reason for this is that going to bed with a full stomach
often causes food to ferment in your gut, which can destroy good bacteria and increase your chances
of candida. Also, your body cannot properly digest and metabolize food that you eat right before bed.
In fact, as mentioned earlier, one of the strategies sumo wrestlers use to fatten up is to always take a

nap after their largest meal. Going to sleep on a full stomach forces the body to store most of the
calories as fat, as it doesn’t have the ability to metabolize large amounts of food while sleeping.

Studies used to show that you needed three meals a day and that you needed to eat first thing
in the morning. This is an outdated theory; eat when you want to eat. As your body resets and comes
back to its original design, it will tell you when it’s hungry. Honor that. A well-functioning body
knows best.

Reset Rules for Eating Out

While you’re doing your 15-Day GI and Liver Detox, it may be difficult to eat out. During the

30-Day Habit Reset, eating out should be a little easier. The one major challenge you’ll find with
eating out is that you won’t have control over the quality of the food you eat. Most restaurants use
nonorganic GMO food. They also tend to cook with the wrong oils. Because of this, eating out on a
regular basis can be a fast path to poor health and packing on the pounds. Many studies have found
that people eating in a restaurant eat 40 percent more food and 30 percent more bad fat than they
would if they were at home.

When you do eat out, there are some smart guidelines you can follow. When ordering from a
menu, go directly to the salad section or the entrée section. Hors-d’oeuvres and desserts are most
likely to be non-approved foods. Eating out often during your 30-Day Habit Reset is not advised, but
if an invitation arises, don’t feel as if you can’t participate. Other tips: when the waiter brings the
bread, tell him or her not to leave it on the table. Many people find it hard not to munch on the bread,
so if it’s out of your sight, it’ll be easier to avoid! The other item people find difficult is drinks; stick
with water or tea.
Reset Rules for Grocery Shopping

I highly recommend looking through the recipes in the back of this book and picking out some

key recipes you want to make. Make a list of exactly what you’re going to purchase. Realize that most
processed foods and foods that will destroy your health are located in the center aisles of the grocery
store. The fresh food is around the edges, so stick to the vegetable, meat, eggs, and refrigerated foods
sections; that’s where the healthiest food lives.

I also recommend that you never go to the grocery store hungry, as bad decisions usually
result. Also, if you have a well-organized list, you won’t be distracted by foods that you normally
wouldn’t have bought prior to your 45-Day Reset.

Menu Ideas

Sometimes patients will tell me that they understand the concepts I’ve described in this book
but are not quite sure how to put them into action. This is why I have put recipes in the back to help
give you some good ideas. Many of these recipes are ones that I use on a daily basis with my family.
But to give you a better idea of meal planning, the following are examples of foods that I recommend
for each meal.

Breakfast

· Smoothies

· Breakfast salad (fried eggs on top of greens)

· Egg and avocado

 · Hard-boiled or soft-boiled eggs

The keys to a healthy breakfast are protein and fats. Eating these at the start of the day will

minimize your hunger and give you sustained energy throughout your morning. But what many
people reach for at breakfast is a pastry or cereal. There is too much sugar in both those options,
which is why many people get hungry at ten o’clock and start craving something sugary or caffeinated
to lift their energy up.

Lunch

Again, the strategy at lunch is controlling your blood sugar. Protein, vegetables, and healthy
fats are the best things you can have for lunch. If you notice a three o’clock dip, what you ate for
lunch spiked your blood sugar too high. When your blood sugar spikes at high noon, it will crash at
3:00 p.m. and have you craving something sugary. This is very similar to the 10:00 a.m. dip some

people feel.

Most people don’t experience these dips on their 45-Day Reset because the program is geared
toward controlling your blood sugar. But if you ever experience extreme hunger and low energy,
remember the key is to decrease your sugar (usually from fruit or too much protein) and increase your

fat (with more avocado, raw nuts, raw nut butter, and hummus).

The following are good lunch ideas:

· Salad with clean protein (see salad section)

· A grainless sandwich

· Clean protein with cooked vegetables

 Dinner

This is the most important meal of the day. What you eat at dinner will determine how much

insulin will be floating in your bloodstream while you sleep. If you’re waking up exhausted, then
you’re eating too many things that increase the release of insulin. These are the same things that cause
your energy to crash at 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

One of the mistakes I see people make on the 30-Day Habit Reset is eating too many fruits or
too much protein. If you’re waking up exhausted or not losing as much weight as you would like on
this program, look at what you’re eating at dinner. Less protein, fewer fruits, and more fats and
vegetables are the key to balancing your insulin levels and speeding up your metabolism.

The following are some of my recommendations for dinner:

· Roasted chicken with cooked vegetables and sweet potatoes

· Grass-fed burgers wrapped in butter lettuce with avocado and sweet potato
coins

· Wild-caught salmon with sautéed bok choy

· Fish tacos with Paleo wraps

Lateral Changes

In this 45-Day Reset, you’ll see that I like to incorporate a lot of “lateral” changes. What I
mean by lateral changes is that you’re going to just swap out a food you’re already eating for a
healthier choice. Switching from grain-fed beef to grass-fed beef is a great example of that. When you
go to the market, just commit to only buying grass-fed beef.

In the beginning, it will taste different. The first time I tasted grass-fed beef years ago, I was
unsure that I could grow to like it. But with time and repetition, you’ll notice that the taste becomes
what you’re used to. Remember that you’ve trained yourself to like the foods you eat now. If those
foods are not building you a healthy body, make some lateral changes. Know that the new taste will
be different at first—but don’t let that stop you. Stay with it. Grass-fed beef has so much to offer you
and your health!

If you’re missing some of your favorite foods, ask yourself if there’s a good lateral change you
can make that might be a healthier choice. Here are some of the more common lateral changes I
recommend:

· Coconut sugar for refined sugar

· Zevia sodas for regular sodas

· Coconut oil for canola oil

· Raw nuts for roasted nuts

· Paleo wraps for tortillas

· Romaine lettuce for bread (I know it’s not the same, but it works!)

· Grainless bread for regular bread

 · Sweet potatoes for white potatoes

· Nitrite-free deli meats for processed meats

· Wild salmon for farm-raised salmon

· Grass-fed beef for grain-fed beef

· Lily’s chocolates for processed candy

· Kombucha for beer

These are just a few examples that have worked for many of my patients. Your first reaction

may be that the lateral change is nowhere near the original food. Remember that you have trained
your taste buds to love these foods—so you can train them differently. It takes time and repetition of
the new foods for your brain and taste buds to like them. But give it a shot. Be adventurous. The more
you add these great new healthy foods into your diet, the more normal they will feel.

Intermittent Fasting

This concept is an advanced nutritional idea. It’s advanced because for many of you who will
be getting off sugar and grains, it will be a huge change. And fasting may be the furthest thing from
your mind. But I want to include fasting in this book because it’s getting so much attention as a
fantastic way to slow down the aging process, stop insulin resistance, and reverse diseases like cancer.

According to Dr. Daniel Pompa, author of The Cellular Healing Diet, fasting markedly
improves almost every health condition. It does this by down-regulating cellular inflammation. Since
inflammation has been named the silent killer—linked to almost every chronic disease, including
cancer—lowering cellular inflammation is a powerful step in resetting your body. There is no faster
way to lower inflammation than to fast.

A recent study suggested that fasting for three consecutive days actually “flips a switch” to
[38]
ignite regeneration of the immune system. It’s the ultimate reset button, actually triggering the
body to begin producing new white blood cells. The study also found that prolonged fasting triggered
a reduction of the enzyme PKA, which is linked to aging and increased risk of cancer and tumor
growth. According to scientists at the University of Southern California, “There is no evidence at all

[39]
that fasting would be dangerous while there is strong evidence that it is beneficial.”

If you’re not convinced yet, fasting also spikes your growth hormone. If you remember from
the “Resetting Your Hormones” chapter, growth hormone burns fat and slows the aging process.
Fasting is also said to boost your energy because your body is not wasting energy on digesting food.
This also helps take the burden off your gut when it needs to heal. Conditions like leaky gut, irritable
bowel syndrome, and Crohn’s Disease have all shown signs of improvement when a person fasted.

Other benefits of fasting include these:

· Weight loss

· Increased brain function and cognitive skills

· Powerful detoxification effects

· Life extension

· Improved hormone balance

 · Insulin sensitivity

· Enhanced digestion

· Decreased disease risk

· Reduced appetite

· Improved immune function

Convinced yet?

So what’s the best way to fast? Intermittent fasting is a fantastic way to fast without missing

out completely on food. You’ll want to go 15 to18 hours without food. That means you’ll be eating
most of your food within a six- to nine-hour window.

This is how it works. Stop eating at 8:00 p.m. When you wake up in the morning, have some
green tea with grass-fed raw cream or grass-fed organic butter in it. The saturated fats will help wake
your brain up. After the 15-Day Detox, you can do organic coffee with grass-fed raw dairy.

Eat your first meal around noon. That would be sixteen hours without food (you can go longer
if you want). Your first meal will be a light lunch with lots of healthy fats. Between five and eight
hours from this meal, you can eat however much you want. But this will be your biggest meal of the
day.

Since you’ll be eating less food overall, you’ll need to make sure every calorie counts. Your
dinner will need to be packed with protein and healthy fats. If you don’t get a well-balanced dinner,
you may have trouble sleeping and wake up hungry. Intermittent fasting, when done correctly, will
stabilize your blood sugar to the point that hunger is a thing of the past.

If you want to try this type of fasting, I recommend you do it after your 15-Day Detox, when
your blood sugar has already evened out and your brain is used to less food.

What About Exercise?

There’s no doubt that our bodies were made to move. So during your 45-Day Reset, I highly
recommend that you move your body every day. Since everyone starting this program is at a different
starting point, the general formula I recommend is 3 days of walking per week, 20 minutes at a time;
3 days of Surge Training (see description below); and 1 day of yoga or stretching per week.

I have found over the years that your brain will start to negotiate with you if you only work

out two to three times a week. Your brain will tell you “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow,” and it will be easy to
keep putting off. But if you know you have to move your body every day, it’s just a matter of picking
what type of movement you want to do—and the negotiating stops.

Research is also showing us that strenuous exercise, such as half-marathons or long triathlons,
can be damaging to the heart and raise your cortisol levels. So for most people I don’t recommend
these types of activities unless it’s their passion and they’re training like extreme athletes.

Your exercise program has to have a good balance of cardiovascular training, weight training,
and stretching. Many people, when they want to lose weight, want to hop on the treadmill for hours at
a time. But as I mentioned before, this will raise your cortisol levels. When your cortisol goes up,
your blood sugar goes down, and when your blood sugar goes down, you become more hungry and
hold on to more fat. So for most people who are trying to lose weight, I don’t recommend long
periods of cardiovascular exercise.
 On the other hand, when you start doing strength training and increase your muscle mass, it
increases your metabolism. In fact, did you know that while you’re sitting at your desk all day, you
burn more calories if you have more muscle? Don’t be scared to add some strength training to your

weekly workout regime. There are many great “boot camps” around the country designed to do
exactly this. Or meet with a personal trainer at your gym to get on a strength training program. It will
benefit you greatly.

Example of Surge Training

If you don’t have access to a gym or boot camp, here is an example of a Surge protocol that I
teach at my office. Pick five of your favorite exercises. You can pick anything—if you don’t like
jumping jacks, pick a different exercise. The important thing is that when you do the exercises, you’re
able to do to them without hurting yourself. Since Surging is about getting your heart rate up and
down, try to push yourself until you’re out of breath. Also check out my website at Resetfactor.com

for more details.

Five Exercises
Jumping jacks
Push-ups
Running in place

Running with high knees

Tricep dips

Instructions:
One round of this surge protocol consists of ten steps:

1. Warm up for 1 minute by running in place.

 2. Do jumping jacks as fast as you can for 30 seconds.
Rest for 30 seconds.

3. Do push-ups as fast as you can for 30 seconds.

4. Rest for 30 seconds.

5. Run in place for 30 seconds.

6. Rest for 30 seconds.

7. Run in place with high knees for 30 seconds.

8. Rest for 30 seconds.

9. Do tricep dips for 30 seconds.

10. Rest for 30 seconds.

Repeat for a total of three rounds.
And that’s it! What you do when you bring your heart rate up and down is train your body to speed up
its metabolism and secrete growth hormone. If you remember from the “Resetting Your Hormone”
chapter, growth hormone makes you burn fat and slows the aging process.

What to Do When Your 45 Days Is Over

When most people get to the end of their 45-Day Reset, they feel and look so good that they
don’t want to go back to their old habits. If this is you, I would encourage you to do the same. The
reset rules I have outlined in this chapter are how I eat most the time—but I have what I call an 80/20
rule. Unless you’re trying to reverse a disease or lose weight, 80 percent of the time, stick to the reset
rules and everything you learned during your 45-Day Reset. The other 20 percent of the time, eat

however you want. If you follow that formula, you most likely will avoid disease.

Now, if you get to the end of the 45 days and haven’t lost as much weight as you wanted, or if
you aren’t feeling better, you need to follow the 90/10 rule: 90 percent of the time, you’ll follow the
reset rules, and 10 percent of the time, you can eat however you want. Ten percent equates to about
two meals a week. Keep going, though. Don’t be discouraged. I’ve seen some people need more time
than 45 days to reset their health. It took you years to get to this place with your health; it can take
some time to reverse it.

If you’re trying to reverse disease, such as cancer, I strongly urge you to follow this nutrition
program 100 percent of the time until your health is balanced and in a great place. Reversing disease

takes serious commitment and can’t be done moderately. You need to be all in! Many of my patients
who have cancer or autoimmune conditions follow the Reset Program for years.

Remember, the key to success with any nutrition program is consistency. The first month,
you’ll see and feel your body changing; the second month, your friends and family will notice the
changes; and by the third month, the whole world will begin to notice!

Conclusion

Hopefully by now, you know that it is possible to reset your health. It doesn’t matter how poor
your lifestyle has been up to this point, how many times you’ve tried to get your health on track and
failed, what your family history says about the diseases you’re likely to get, or even what the
diagnosis presently staring you in the face is. Your body is built to heal!

There are two ways to approach your health. One is with the attitude that you have no control;
the other is that you have ALL the control. I preach the second approach. I’ve watched too many
people succeed at changing the direction of their health to know that it’s possible. I also know the
path I’ve outlined for you in this book will give you back that control.

Be patient. Have faith. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. Don’t ever take no
for an answer. There is always a way to move your body toward health—you just have to keep taking
action and keep applying the principles I’ve outlined for you here.

Every morning when you wake up, write down three steps you’re going to take that day to
build health. Keep your mind focused on those steps. Don’t look back—you’re not heading in that

direction. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done with your body up until now—you’re on a new path
now, one that has you living in the body you’ve always dreamed of.

If you slip, don’t let it get you down. You can always hop back on your new program. You
have within you the most powerful doctor that ever lived. Your body wants to heal. The more you
follow the principles in this book, the stronger you make that doctor.

I have dedicated this book to a dear friend of mine who refused to take no for an answer. At
40, she was given a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. She had gone for a routine mammogram
and had come away a cancer patient with a death sentence. She had had no warning signs and no
symptoms, and she was sideswiped by this horrible diagnosis.

But she set out to defeat it at all odds. When the doctors told her she had months to live, she
turned it into over a decade. When she was told chemotherapy and surgery were her only choices of
treatment, she found a team of doctors who showed her several ways to build health and kill cancer
naturally. When most people would be fearful and shut down, she developed a mindset of leaving no
stone unturned in search of answers.

She did everything possible to find answers. She surrounded herself with people who believed
in her and cheered her on. She kept herself in action every day and never gave up. She only focused
on moving forward, never beating herself up for what she had done or hadn’t done in the past. She
had one mission: stay healthy and happy as long as possible.

No matter where you are today with your health, I want the same strategy for you. I want you
to believe in yourself and see only solutions. Be patient. It may take you some time, but the principles
in this book are proven to work. Stop searching for shortcuts— they don’t exist when it comes to
health. Changing your habits and committing to improving your health is a process.

Let go of fear. It’s not serving you. There are only possibility and hope on the path to health.
Believe in miracles. You are a miracle. Your body heals cancer cells every day. While you’ve been
reading this book, thousands—if not millions—of people have been reversing their disease. The last
chapters of your life haven’t been written yet; you get to write them now. You get to set your health in
the direction YOU choose.

I’ll end with this thought: if disease builds in your body from poor lifestyle habits practiced
over and over again, then health must be rebuilt the same way. Once you raise your standards for
yourself and refuse to accept anything but optimal health, you’ll begin to heal. Don’t give up on
yourself, ever. When your health improves, everything in your life will blossom.

I am here for you. I believe in you. You are powerful. Do everything you can to maximize that
power. I am cheering you on.
 Recipes

The following are some of my favorite recipes. Many people think that when you eat healthy,
your food is going to be tasteless. Nothing could be further from the truth!

I’m sure you’ll find the following recipes enjoyable—they will give you sustained energy after
you eat or drink them and help make your 45-Day Reset simple and easy to follow.

All ingredients should be bought organic. If you can’t find organic versions of a food you
want, be sure to follow the EWG’s guidelines for the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, listed in the
previous chapter.

These recipes are completely optional. If you don’t like to cook, you can keep it really simple
and ignore them altogether. I include them because I’ve noticed that one of the bigger obstacles to
long-term success with this style of eating is boredom. The mind likes change, especially when it
comes to food. So mix it up, try new smoothies, and when you have time to be adventurous, try a new
recipe.

Make it fun and easy for yourself!

Appetizers
 Sweet Potato Pancakes (4 servings)

Pretty much everyone grew up eating potato pancakes made from leftover mashed potatoes,

but this take on potato pancakes adds a big burst of flavor and health with the use of sweet potatoes,
which have far more vitamins, minerals, and flavor than white potatoes. Cooked in coconut oil, they
have a slightly sweet yet savory flavor that you’ll want to experience again and again.

Ingredients

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and shredded

1/4 medium onion, shredded

2 large eggs, beaten lightly

1 teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt

2 tablespoons refined coconut oil

Instructions

Place the first four ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix until combined. Heat the coconut
oil in a large iron skillet over medium heat, making sure that the pan is fully coated. You might find
you need more coconut oil; it’s OK to use more, just ensure that the pan is coated. Once the oil is hot,
use a ¼-cup measurer to drop the potato mixture into the pan. Press each mound down a little with
your spatula. The mounds should look like round pancakes. Fry each pancake until each side is brown
and crispy. This should take about four minutes for each side. Avoid turning the pancakes so that they
don’t come apart. Remove to drain on a paper towel.
 Tip: Refined coconut oil can take higher temperatures. For best results, you want the cakes to
sizzle when you put them into the pan.

Side Dishes

Butternut Squash with Peas & Parmesan (4 servings)

This is a take on risotto—with all the creamy goodness but without the carbs. But you won’t
miss the carbs; in fact, you’ll wish you had made more of this side dish because your family is going
to devour it quickly.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon avocado oil

1 garlic clove, pressed in a garlic press

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/4 yellow onion, chopped

2 tablespoons vegetable broth

1 cup vegetable broth or bone broth (see recipe below)

 1/4 cup peas, cooked and drained

1/4 cup raw parmesan cheese, grated

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Rice the squash in a food processor and then save for later. One trick to ricing vegetables
successfully is to use a spiralizer first. You can find one on Amazon. Cut off the peel of the butternut
squash, spiralize, and then place it in a food processor. Pulse a few times in the food processor and
you will have riced butternut squash.

In a small pan over medium heat, warm 1 cup of the vegetable broth; keep ready. In a large

skillet, heat the olive oil and add the onion to the pan, cooking to sweat the onions for about 2
minutes. Then add the garlic and red pepper flakes, cooking another 30 seconds. Add the 2
tablespoons of broth and let cook for an additional 2 minutes. Toss in the riced butternut squash plus
salt and pepper, stirring gently to combine. Add in half the remaining warm broth, cooking for
another few minutes and watching for it to get dry. Then add in the rest of the broth, allowing it to
reduce again. Start tasting the squash, and if it’s not done, you can keep adding in a little broth at a
time until the squash is tender. When squash is tender, add in the peas, stirring carefully to combine
and heat through. Add the cheese and stir to melt.

***

Sweet Potato and Cabbage Slaw (6 servings)

 You may not have realized you can eat raw sweet potato, but it’s a lot like carrots—only
better! This version of slaw will awaken your taste buds, and the added spice will make you super
happy and wide awake.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons avocado oil

1 tablespoon lime juice

1-1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt

3 cups sweet potato, grated

3 cups Napa cabbage, shredded

4 scallions, trimmed and sliced thin

1 teaspoon jalapeno peppers, finely minced

Instructions

In a large bowl, whisk together the oils, lime juice, and salt. Toss in the potato, cabbage,
scallions, and peppers. Serve.

Tip: If you want to serve later, don’t mix in the sauce until it’s time to serve.
 ***

Sweet Potato Coins (4 servings)

This recipe was born out of a need to create better side dishes that my children would love.
Sweet potatoes are lower on the glycemic index than white potatoes. This recipe is easy to make,
delicious to eat, and helps reset your health. You can experiment with your favorite spices very easily.
Even fresh herbs like basil or oregano can liven it up.

Ingredients

2 to 3 medium-size sweet potatoes, sliced into thin coin shapes

2 tablespoons coconut oil

Himalayan salt, to taste

Instructions

Slice the sweet potatoes into thin rounds. Place in a large mixing bowl and add coconut oil.
Make sure that there is enough coconut oil to cover all the sweet potato coins. Sprinkle with
Himalayan salt to taste. Lay the coins flat on a cookie sheet, making sure that none of the coins are
overlapping each other. Place in the oven on the top rack and put the oven on medium broil. Cook for
10 minutes, keeping a close eye on the coins to make sure they don’t brown too quickly. Turn each
coin over after 10 minutes and place back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Once crispy, remove. Let
cool down and enjoy!

Main Courses
 Coconut Chicken Curry Stew (8 servings)

You can’t go wrong with this curry stew. You’re going to love it all year long because it’s not

weighed down and heavy. Using coconut milk and filling it out with veggies like zucchini make it
super-healthy brain food. Your family will thank you.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons refined coconut oil

8 boneless, skinless, organic chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped into large chunks

3 small zucchini, thickly sliced

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

1 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons course pink Himalayan sea salt

30 ounces unsweetened coconut milk

1 cup red grape tomatoes

 Cilantro, optional garnish

Instructions

In a large pot with oil, set on high heat, brown the chicken on both sides. Remove the chicken
from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, add the onion, sweat the onion for about 2 minutes, and
then add in the zucchini. Sauté both until slightly browned, then add in the garlic, curry, paprika, and
salt, and sauté an additional 30 seconds. Put the chicken back in the pot with the ingredients, add in
the coconut milk, and bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes or until the
chicken is tender and cooked through. Add in the tomatoes and cook an additional 5 or 10 minutes.
Serve like stew, with cilantro as garnish if desired.

***

Tex-Mex Low-Carb Burrito Bowl (4 servings)

Who doesn’t like Tex-Mex night? No one, right? Of course, it can be hard on the waistline and
belly, but this pared-down version is low carb and full of goodness, with lots of flavor. Eat it in a
bowl, top it with extra salsa, and you’ll be so happy you did.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons avocado oil

3 cups broccoli slaw

1/3 cup yellow onion, chopped

 1/3 cup red bell pepper, chopped

1/3 cup celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 pound ground grass-fed beef

2 to 4 diced green chilies

1-1/2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

Salt and pepper, to taste

Cilantro

Avocado, sliced

Instructions

In a large sauté pan, heat up the avocado oil, add onion, and sweat for 1 minute, stirring
continuously. Add the bell pepper, stir for another minute, add the celery and broccoli slaw, sauté for
another 2 minutes, and finally add the garlic. Cook, stirring the entire time, until the broccoli slaw is
of desired doneness. In another pan, brown the ground beef, drain off, add green chilies, and then add
the rest of the spices except for the salt and pepper, cilantro, and avocado. To prepare your burrito
bowl, layer the veggies with the meat in a bowl. Top with cilantro and avocado.
 Tip: Get creative with your toppings. What can you grow and use? Find your favorites.

***

Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps (4 servings)

This is my absolutely favorite main course recipe. My kids love it when we make these—and
they can be picky eaters. I prefer the cashew butter for a richer taste. It’s easy to make. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 pound ground organic turkey

1 cup Shitake mushroom caps, chopped

3 tablespoons organic almond or cashew butter

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 8-ounce can water chestnuts, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

 1/3 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup green onions, chopped

1 head lettuce, separated into leaves (We like butter lettuce.)

Instructions

Cook the turkey in a skillet for about 5 minutes, until the turkey crumbles and is no longer
pink. Add the mushrooms and the next 7 ingredients. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring constantly,
for 4 minutes. Add green onions if desired and cook 1 minute. Spoon the mixture evenly onto lettuce
leaves and roll them up. Serve with extra soy sauce if desired.

From B. J. Hardick, Kimberly Roberto, and Ben Lerner, Maximized Living Nutrition Plans (Celebration, FL:

Maximized Living, 2009).

***

Grainless Sandwich (1 serving)

Think you’ll never eat a sandwich again? Not necessarily true. There are creative ways in
which you can make sandwiches without bread. I like to use romaine lettuce because it’s stiff and

holds the contents of the sandwich well. I have also used large butter lettuce leaves. Here’s one of my
favorite lunchtime treats.

Ingredients
 2 romaine lettuce leaves (the larger the better)

1/2 avocado, sliced

2 slices organic no-nitrite deli meat (turkey or chicken preferred)

1 slice tomato

2 slices raw cheese

Instructions

Rinse and then pat dry the lettuce leaves. Put the avocado slices on first. Then add the meat
and tomato, followed by the cheese. Roll up like you would a wrap. If the contents start to fall out,

wrap a second piece of lettuce around it. If you need more moisture or spice, try adding some Sriracha
sauce.

***

Grass-Fed Burgers (4 servings)

This is a recipe that we often make for dinner in my household. I like to have these burgers
with a green salad and sweet potato coins on the side. Grass-fed burgers are also great wrapped in
large pieces of butter lettuce.

Ingredients
 1 pound grass-fed burger meat

1/4 red onion, diced

1 teaspoon raw organic butter

1 cup raw organic grated cheese (optional)

Himalayan salt

Ground pepper

Instructions

Heat the butter in a small skillet and add red onions. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Don’t let the
onions blacken. Remove the onions from heat and cool. Put the meat in a separate bowl. Place the
cooled onions on top of the meat and mix thoroughly. Add grated cheese. Mix so that the onions and
cheese are throughout the entire meat mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Form the mixture into
patties. Put on a cooking sheet and place in the oven on broil.

Salads

Californian Cobb Salad (4 servings)

You will find that salads will become a common meal for you. What I love about a salad is
that you can get a great combination of good fats, protein, and raw vegetables in one meal. Here is a
version of a Cobb salad that I like to make often. Everyone loves the fried egg on top. When you cut
it, the yolk will seep into the salad and add to the taste.
 Ingredients

3 cups mixed greens

1 cup chopped parsley

2 cups chopped organic turkey or chicken (Sliced uncured meats are OK too.)

1/2 cup chopped raw cheese

1/2 avocado, sliced

1 to 4 fried eggs (one for each serving)

1 teaspoon grass-fed butter

Instructions

Wash the mixed greens and place in a large salad bowl. Chop the parsley, meats, and cheese
and toss them into the salad. Slice the avocado. Cook a fried egg in butter on the stovetop. If desired,
let the egg yolk be a bit runny. Mix the chopped items into the greens. Toss with salad dressing (see
my favorite salad dressing recipe) and put on a large dinner plate. Place avocado slices on top. Then
place a fried egg on top of each plate you serve salad on.

Green Apple and Raw Nut Salad (4 to 6 servings)

 I have brought this salad to dinner parties for years and everyone loves it. It’s high in protein
and lots of good fats. Be sure to use the salad dressing recipe I give you—it really brings out the taste
of the green apples.

Ingredients

3 cups organic mixed greens

1 cup mint sprigs

1/2 cucumber, chopped

2 green apples, thinly sliced

1/2 cup raw almonds

Salad dressing

Instructions

Wash and rinse the mixed greens. Place them in a large salad bowl. Add mint. Thinly slice the
green apples and chop the cucumbers. Toss the items into bowls with the greens. Toss in almonds (no
need to chop). Right before serving, add dressing for best taste. Feel free to add chopped meats or
cheese for more protein and healthy fats.

***

Breakfast Salad (1 serving)

 The most common question I get from patients is “What do I eat for breakfast?” With your 45-
day program you will have to think outside the box a bit. A breakfast salad is a great way to start your
day off healthy. This is quick and easy, and it will give you lots of energy to start your day.

Ingredients

1 cup organic mixed greens

1 avocado, sliced

1/2 cup raw nuts

1 fried egg

1 teaspoon grass-fed butter

Instructions

After you wash and dry the mixed greens, place them on a plate. Fry an egg in a pan with
grass-fed butter. Cook to your desired yolk firmness. Cut the avocado and place on the greens on a
plate. Place almonds on top of that. Finish with a fried egg on top. Salad dressing optional, but I
usually don’t put salad dressing on this one, making for one less step in the morning. Enjoy!

***

Reset Factor Salad Dressing (4 to 6 servings)

 Commercial salad dressing is packed with sugar and chemicals. You want to avoid it at all
costs. I discovered this homemade salad dressing years ago, and I get a ton of comments on it every
time I bring a salad over to someone’s house for dinner. I also love how easy it is to make.

Ingredients

1 lemon

1 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon fig jam (without sugar, fruit only)

Instructions

Put the oil in a bowl. Squeeze the lemon in, removing seeds. Stir in the jam. Mix thoroughly
so there are no chunks of jam left. I have used many different versions of jam. Apricot is good as
well. You can also use stevia instead of jam if you are on the 15-Day Detox.

Soups and Stews

Hearty Lamb Stew (4 servings)

When we want to warm up in our house, this is our go-to food. We try to make the batch last
two to three days. Local farmers’ markets are great locations to find new ingredients to add.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons avocado oil

 3 pounds grass-fed lamb stew meat, with bone (Have the butcher cut it for you.)

1 cup red onion, chopped

1/3 cup celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tablespoons ground Garam Masala spice blend

1-1/2 cups shitake mushrooms, chopped

2 sweet potatoes or yams, chopped

2 lemons or limes, juiced or squeezed

3 cups beef or lamb bone broth (see recipe)

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Using a large bowl, cover the lamb with 1 tablespoon of avocado oil and then the spice mix.
Add more spice as needed so as to cover all sides of the meat. In a large soup pot, heat up the
remaining avocado oil on high, add onion, and sweat for 1 minute, stirring continuously. Add the
spiced lamb and celery, and finally add in the garlic. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
When the meat has an even sear, add 1 cup of broth as well as the sweet potatoes and mushrooms.
Then add a second cup of broth. Bring this to a boil, then turn the heat to medium-low and cover. Stir
frequently to keep the flavors combined. Add in the citrus juice. The sweet potatoes should dissolve
as the stew cooks. Add the last cup of broth and simmer for at least half an hour before serving. Spice

to taste. Remember to store the soup in the refrigerator when it’s not on the stove. Add broth and
ingredients to keep the pot going, as the base will get better and better.

***

Spa Soup (8 to 10 servings)

In my family, we call this one spa soup because it’s like a spa for your digestive system. We
often cook this delicious soup the day after Christmas, when everyone has overeaten and needs a good
reset to their gut.

Ingredients

1-1/4 pounds sweet potatoes

1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt

2 to 3 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped

1 bunch Russian kale (8 ounces)

1 bunch green chard (8 ounces)

8 cloves garlic, peeled

 3 cups vegetable broth

2 large yellow onions

2 tablespoons avocado oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Peel and dice the sweet potatoes. Combine them in a large soup pot with 3-1/2 cups water, a
teaspoon of salt, and the sage. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, for about 10
minutes. Wash the kale and chard, trimming away the tough stems. Chop the greens coarsely. Add the
greens to the soup, along with the garlic cloves and the vegetable broth. Continue simmering gently,
covered, for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the onions and sauté them gently with a pinch of sea salt in avocado oil on
the stovetop over medium heat. Stir frequently, until they are soft and golden brown, for 30 to 40
minutes. When the onions are ready, add them to the soup and let it cool slightly. Puree the soup in a
blender, in batches, and return it to a clean pot. Add a little more water or broth if the soup is too thick
to pour easily from a ladle. Serve hot. Squeeze lemon on top and add black pepper for added taste.

Probiotic Rich Foods

 Probiotic Yogurt (10 to 12 servings)

Making your own yogurt from raw dairy can be a great way to get probiotics into your diet.

Unlike pasteurized yogurt, homemade raw yogurt will have multiple strains of good probiotics and
will benefit your gut greatly. Here is a simple recipe you can follow to make your own yogurt. There
are three steps:

Step 1: Start with raw organic whole milk.

Step 2: Purchase a probiotic starter online. There are lots of great options on Amazon.

Step 3: Make your delicious yogurt!

Instructions

Heat the milk on the stovetop to 180 degrees, stirring constantly. This breaks down proteins.
Once the milk is thick, remove it from heat and let it cool down to 110 degrees. Once it’s at a 110
degrees, add the probiotic mix into the milk. Pour into mason jars and put in the refrigerator for 8 to
10 hours. One trick to make this quick and easy is to buy an electric yogurt maker, which maintains
the temperature and assures that you get the best finished yogurt possible.

***

Sauerkraut (10 to 12 servings)

 Sauerkraut is one of the best probiotic-rich foods that you can eat. It literally has trillions of
good bacteria in it. Many experts feel that you will get more probiotics from eating sauerkraut than
you will from taking a probiotic. Here’s how you make it.

Ingredients

2 large cabbages (Reserve 3 to 4 large leaves, enough to cover the surface of the brewing
container.)

2 large onions (You can use other vegetables as well―hot peppers, carrots, beets, caraway
seeds, ginger, and garlic also make your sauerkraut great!)

2 teaspoons sea salt

1 cup filtered water

1 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Shred the cabbage and other vegetables in a food processor. Put the shredded vegetables in a
large container with all the other ingredients. Pound them with a mallet or pestle—long enough to
release the juices. Press the mash down. The juices should just about cover the top of the mash. Put a
large plate on top of the mash to help release more of the juices. Leave on countertop for a couple of
hours. Within a few hours, liquids should cover the tip of the shredded mixture. If there is not enough
cabbage juice, add cold filtered water or more apple cider vinegar. Leave to ferment at room
temperature for 3 to 5 days. Within 1 day the smell should start to change, and within 3 days the
mixture should have a delicious aroma. Transfer to jars and place in the refrigerator. The longer your
sauerkraut stays in your refrigerator, the more great bacteria it will create.

***

Bone Broth (10 to 12 servings)

If you think you have leaky gut syndrome, consuming bone broth is one of the best ways to
heal and seal those microholes. If you think you have a severe leaky gut condition, do a bone broth
fast for four days, then add in high-probiotic foods like sauerkraut and probiotic yogurt. The bone
broth will repair microholes and kill bad bacteria. The sauerkraut and yogurt will add trillions of new
good bacteria to your gut. It’s a great way to reset your gut.

In selecting the bones for the broth, look for high-quality bones from grass-fed beef, bison,

pastured organic poultry, or wild-caught fish. Since you will be extracting the minerals and drinking
them in concentrated form, you want to make sure that the animal was as healthy as possible.

There are several places to obtain good bones for stock:

· Save leftovers from when you roast a chicken, duck, or turkey (organic and
pasture raised)

· From a local butcher, especially one who butchers the whole animal

· From a local farmer who raises grass-fed animals (ask around at your local
farmers’ market)

· Online from companies like US Wellness Meats or Tropical Traditions

Ingredients

2 pounds (or more) bones from a healthy source (This is about 2 to 3 chickens.)

2 chicken feet for extra gelatin (optional)

1 onion

2 carrots

3 stalks celery

3 tubers turmeric (optional)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Optional:

1 bunch parsley

1 tablespoon or more sea salt

1 teaspoon peppercorns

Additional herbs and spices

2 cloves garlic (add for the last 30 minutes of cooking for additional taste)
 Instructions

Place the ingredients in a large stock pot on the stovetop. I like to put my bone broth in a slow

cooker—either way works. Add enough water to cover the bones. Place on medium to high heat for
several hours. Within the first hour, a foam will develop on the top. Scoop that foam off. After several
hours, put the broth on low heat and cook for 24 to 48 hours. The apple cider vinegar will pull many
nutrients and minerals out of the bones. After several days, you can strain the bones and vegetables
and serve the broth. I leave it in my slow cooker and scoop the broth out. Then I keep adding more
water to extend the broth.

Desserts

Chocolate Coconut Bars (8 servings)

Just because you’ve pulled sugar out of your diet doesn’t mean that you have to be deprived of
sweets. Who doesn’t love chocolate and coconut? These bars will satisfy your sweet tooth and give
you healthy fats.

Ingredients

Bottom Layer

2 cups shredded coconut, unsweetened

1/3 cup virgin coconut oil, melted

 2 droppers liquid stevia

Top Layer

3 squares unsweetened baker’s chocolate

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 droppers liquid stevia

Instructions

To prepare the bottom layer, place all the ingredients in a food processor with the S blade and
blend the ingredients until dough is formed. Scrape the sides as needed. Press into a cold 8 x 8 silicon

cake pan and place in the freezer. To prepare the top layer, using a medium to small glass bowl, warm
the coconut oil and baker’s chocolate on low on the stovetop. When melted, stir in the sweetener.
Remove the bottom layer from the freezer and spread chocolate evenly over the bottom layer. Freeze
for 30 minutes.

Tip: Spread toasted almond slivers between layers for an added kick of protein and flavor.

***

Grain-Free Cookies (6 to 12 servings)

You might think that going grain-free means you’ll never eat a cookie again, but nothing is
further from the truth. Here are some great dessert options that will satisfy your taste buds without
raising your insulin levels.
 Ingredients

1 cup super-chunky peanut butter (1/2 cup almond butter or peanut butter)

1 cup coconut sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (about 6 ounces) (I recommend Lillie’s Stevia
Sweetened Chocolate Chips, available at Whole Foods.)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix in the
chocolate chips. Using moistened hands, form a generous tablespoon of dough for each cookie into a
ball (flatten the ball once on the pan). Arrange them on 2 ungreased baking sheets, spacing 2 inches
apart. Bake cookies until puffed, golden on the bottom and still soft to touch in the center, for about
12 minutes. Cool on sheets for 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.

***

Almond Chocolate Power Bars (8 to10 servings)

 There is no doubt that this is one of my favorite dessert recipes. It’s easy to make (prep time is
8 minutes and cooking time is 12), helps satisfy a nighttime sweet tooth, and is packed with so many
good fats that it helps to stabilize your blood sugar for days. I often have a container of these at the

office to snack on throughout the day to keep my energy high.

Ingredients

2 cups raw almonds

1/2 cup flaxseed meal

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

2 scoops flavored whey protein powder

1/2 cup raw almond butter

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup coconut oil

8 drops liquid stevia or 3/4 teaspoon stevia powder, to taste

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract (no sugar—check the label)

8 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and sweetened to taste with stevia and cinnamon
(optional)
 Instructions

Place the almonds, flax meal, shredded coconut, whey powder, almond butter, and salt in a

food processor. Pulse briefly, for about 10 seconds. In a small saucepan, melt the coconut oil over
very low heat. Remove the coconut oil from the stove, then stir the stevia and vanilla into the oil. Add
the coconut oil mixture to a food processor and pulse until the ingredients from a coarse paste. Press
the mixture into an 8 x 8 glass baking dish. (A parchment paper liner helps when you want to remove
the bars from the dish.) Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour, until the mixture hardens. In a double
boiler, melt the chocolate, stirring in stevia and cinnamon. Spread melted chocolate over the bars and
return to the refrigerator for 30 minutes, until the chocolate hardens. Remove from the refrigerator,
cut into bars, and serve.

Adapted from B. J. Hardick, Kimberly Roberto, and Ben Lerner, Maximized Living Nutrition Plans
(Celebration, FL: Maximized Living, 2009).

Breakfast

Pesto Chicken and Sweet Potato Breakfast Bake (4 servings)

Here’s a great Sunday morning brunch option. Packed with lots of good fats and clean
proteins, this breakfast should keep you full and energized for hours.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons melted ghee, butter, or coconut oil, divided into equal parts
 1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced

1/2 yellow onion, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups diced cooked chicken (I use a rotisserie chicken.)

3 tablespoons homemade pesto (or you can just use fresh basil)

10 eggs, whisked

Salt, to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the sweet potatoes in 2 tablespoons of ghee. Place on a
parchment paper on a lined baking sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until soft, then turn oven
temperature down to 350 degrees. Place a large sauté pan over medium heat and add 2 more
tablespoons of ghee along with the onion and garlic. Cook until the onions become translucent, about
5 minutes. Add the chicken and cook for about 10 minutes. Last, add pesto and mix well until
combined. Grease an 8 x 8 baking dish, add the mixture from the pan to the baking dish, and then add
in eggs and salt along with the sweet potatoes. Mix well until combined. Place in the oven and bake
for 30 to 35 minutes, until the eggs are set in the middle and cooked through.

***

Breakfast on the Go: Sausage Egg Cups (4 servings)

 I love this quick breakfast option—it’s another great way to start your day with a high-protein
meal that will keep your blood sugar up all day long.

Ingredients

2 to 3 chicken sausages (hormone- and antibiotic-free), cooked and chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1/4 yellow onion, chopped

8 eggs, whisked

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper, to taste

Avocado, to garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cook the sausage until cooked through. In a large bowl, add the
sausage, red bell pepper, yellow onion, eggs, garlic cloves, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, and salt
and pepper. Whisk until well combined. Use a ladle to pour the mixture into 8 to 10 muffin tins. (I use
a silicone muffin tray and do not have to grease it. If you’re using a regular metal pan, thoroughly
grease all of it or use muffin liners.) Place in the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until cooked
through. Garnish with avocado.

***

Easy Spin on Breakfast (1 to 2 servings)

This is another tasty and quick breakfast option. I find that many people don’t know what to
do for breakfast if they take grains and cereal out of their diet, but eating sweet potatoes is a great way
to fill yourself up in the morning.

Ingredients

1 sweet potato or yam, poked with a fork

2 eggs, cooked to preference

For the pesto

2/3 cup walnuts

1 to 1-1/2 cups fresh basil leaves

1 garlic clove, peeled

1/2 cup olive oil

 juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Poke holes in the sweet potato with a fork. Wrap the sweet potato in foil and place it in a slow
cooker for 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high. To cook faster, place the sweet potato in an oven at 400
degrees for 25 to 35 minutes. Once the sweet potato is done, remove it from the foil to let it cool to
the touch before removing the skin. Then mash the sweet potato with a fork. For the pesto, place the
walnuts in the food processor along with the basil leaves and garlic clove, and pulse until the leaves
break down. Then slowly add the olive oil while the food processor is still running. Lastly, add lemon
juice and a bit of salt and pepper. Puree until smooth. Once the sweet potato is mashed and the pesto
is finished, mix 2 to 4 tablespoons of the pesto into the mashed sweet potato. To finish off the meal,

cook up an egg however you like. I fry mine over easy.

***

5-Ingredient Breakfast Stuffed Acorn Squash (2 servings)

If you haven’t tried acorn squash, now’s a great time. Sweet and with a nice soft texture, this
meal could be served for breakfast or dinner.

Ingredients

3/4 pound natural breakfast sausage

1 acorn squash, cut in half with seeds removed

 2 eggs

1/2 yellow onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the acorn squash cut-side down onto your baking sheet.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the acorn squash is soft when you press on the skin. Remove it
from the oven and let cool. While your acorn squash is cooking, add a tablespoon of some kind of fat
to a large pan over medium heat (I use bacon fat), then add your minced garlic and diced onion. Stir to

keep from burning. Once your onions become translucent, add your breakfast sausage to the pan.
Cook down, breaking up the breakfast sausage as it cooks.

Once the breakfast sausage is almost all the way cooked through, turn your heat to low and
add the inside of your acorn squash. Do this by using a spoon to scoop out the insides, leaving just the
skin of the acorn squash. Be careful not the tear the skin! Mix the acorn squash and the breakfast
sausage together, then add it back to your acorn squash skin. Once both of your acorn squash halves
are full, press into the middle with a spoon to create a little resting spot for your egg. Crack an egg on
top. Place back in the oven to cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until your egg is cooked to your
preference. Serve!
 15-Day Detox Smoothies

Very Berry Breakfast (2 servings)

Ingredients

1 cup frozen unsweetened or fresh raspberries

3/4 cup chilled unsweetened almond milk

1/4 cup frozen pitted or fresh unsweetened cherries or raspberries

2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground flaxseed or flaxseed oil

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Pour the milk into a blender. Then add the berries, cherries, and ginger. Mix on high for 1
minute. Then add the grated ginger and lemon juice. Mix on high for another minute.

***

Berry Good Workout Smoothie (1 serving)

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups chopped frozen or fresh strawberries

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

1/2 cup frozen or fresh raspberries

1 cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 scoop plant or grass-fed whey protein powder

1/2 cup ice cubes

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a blender, adding lemon juice to taste. Puree until smooth.

***

Spinach Smoothie with Avocado and Apple (1 to 2 servings)

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups coconut milk

2 cups stemmed and chopped spinach or kale

 1 green apple—unpeeled and cored

1/2 avocado, chopped

1 scoop plant or grass-fed whey protein powder

1 cup ice

Instructions

Combine the coconut milk, spinach, apple, and avocado in a blender and puree until smooth,
about 1 minute, adding water to reach the desired consistency. Add ice to thicken.

***

Reset Green Detox Smoothie 1 (1 to 2 servings)

Ingredients

3 to 4 cups water

1 avocado

6 stalks collard greens

1/4 cup hemp seeds

 1 juice of a lemon plus zest (or lime would be fine)

Drops of stevia to taste

1 spoonful sunflower lecithin or almond butter (optional, but we love it as it really helps bind
and make smoothies really smooth)

1/2 teaspoon turmeric (for reducing inflammation—fresh is best)

1 cup ice

Instructions

Pour the water into a blender. Add greens, hemp seeds, lemon, turmeric, and almond butter.
Mix on high for 1 minute. Add ice. Mix for another minute. Add stevia to sweeten as needed.

***

Reset Green Smoothie 2 (1 to 2 servings)

Ingredients

3 to 4 cups water

1 avocado

4 large handfuls kale (We like to de-stem ours.)

1 handful fresh spinach

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Drops of stevia to taste

1 inch fresh peeled ginger (sometimes more, as we just love it)

1 spoonful sunflower lecithin or almond butter (optional)

1 tablespoon Udo’s omega oil blend (great for brainpower)

1 cup ice

***

Reset Green Detox Smoothie 3 (1 to 2 servings)

Ingredients

3 to 4 cups water

1 avocado

6 stalks collard greens

Handful parsley leaves

 Juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon turmeric (again, for controlling our inflammation—fresh is best)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons hemp oil

2 teaspoons sunflower lecithin

Stevia to taste

1 cup ice

Instructions

Place the water and hemp oil in the blender. Then add the avocado, collard greens, parsley,
and turmeric. Mix for 1 minute on high. Then add the sunflower lecithin, lemon and zest, and
cinnamon. Add ice for a better taste. Add stevia if you need to sweeten. Mix on high for 1 more
minute.

***

Morning Detox Water (1 serving)

This is a great way to start your day off right. I recommend that you have this first thing in the
morning, as you want the first thing that hits your stomach to be healthy. This morning detox water
will help your body be more alkaline, pull mucus from your body, cleanse your liver, and speed up
your metabolism. Make this a part of your morning ritual and watch your health grow.

Ingredients

1 pint-size glass of water (about 1 to 2 cups)

1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (I like Bragg’s.)

1 whole lemon

Dash of cayenne pepper

Dash of cinnamon

Stevia as needed

Grated ginger (optional)

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients in a glass of water. I use a pint glass. You can mix with a spoon or use
a blender for best results. When squeezing the lemon in, be sure to take the seeds out. If mornings are
tough for you, it’s a good idea to make a larger batch to keep in the refrigerator so it’s ready to go for
the morning.

30-Day Habit Reset Smoothies

 Green Tea Smoothie (1 to 2 servings)

Antioxidant-rich green tea makes this smoothie a nutritional powerhouse.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons water

1 green tea bag

2 teaspoons honey

1-1/2 cups frozen or fresh blueberries

1/2 medium banana

3/4 cup almond milk

1 cup ice

Instructions

Heat the water on high until it’s steaming hot in a small bowl. Add the tea bag and allow to
brew for 3 minutes. Remove the tea bag. Stir the honey into the tea until it dissolves. Combine the
berries, banana, and milk in a blender that has ice-crushing ability. Add the tea to the blender. Blend
the ingredients on “Ice Crush” or the highest setting until smooth. (Some blenders may require
additional water to process the mixture.) Pour the smoothie into a tall glass and serve.
 ***

Watermelon Wonder Smoothie (2 servings)

Transform a summer fruit favorite into a drinkable delight. Just remember to buy seedless
watermelon or remove the seeds before you blend!

Ingredients

2 cups chopped watermelon

1/4 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 cups ice

Instructions

Combine the watermelon and coconut milk, and blend for 15 seconds or until smooth. Add the
ice and blend 20 seconds longer, or to your desired consistency. Add more ice, if needed, and blend
for 10 seconds.

***

Collard Greens Smoothie with Mango and Lime (1 to 2 servings)

Ingredients
 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 cups stemmed and chopped collard greens or spinach

1-1/2 cups frozen mango

1 cup green grapes (freeze ahead for best results)

1 cup ice

Instructions

Combine the lime juice, 1/2 cup water, collard greens, mango, and grapes in a blender and
puree until smooth, about 1 minute, adding more water to reach the desired consistency.

***

Turmeric Tornado Smoothie (1 to 2 servings)

Turmeric is a great source of curcumin, which is an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-

tumor, antibacterial, and antiviral agent. It also helps flush out dietary carcinogens, boosts liver detox,
and treats depression.

Ingredients

1 cup hemp or coconut milk

1/2 cup frozen pineapple or mango chunks

1 fresh banana

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon turmeric (can be increased to 1 teaspoon)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon chia seeds

1 teaspoon maca powder (optional)

1 cup ice

Instructions

Process these ingredients in a blender until smooth and enjoy the multiple benefits of turmeric.

About the Author

 Mindy H. Pelz, DC, has been serving health to her community for over twenty years. After
receiving an undergraduate degree in exercise physiology and nutrition from the University of
Kansas, she went on to get her doctorate in chiropractic from Palmer West College of Chiropractic,

where she graduated with clinical honors.

Dr. Mindy knows what it’s like to have your health taken from you. At a young age, she was
diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and told to drop out of school and wait for
medication to work. Refusing to believe the prognosis the doctors gave her, she went searching for
answers. Her personal journey back to health ignited a voracious passion in her to understand why the
human body breaks down—and how these breakdowns can be fixed by removing toxins, adding in
good nutrition, and working with the healing laws of the body.

In the 20 years she has been in practice, Dr. Mindy has helped tens of thousands of people
reset their health. Her unique approach to health and her passion for nutrition has led her to work with

professionals, Olympic and collegiate athletes, Academy Award–winning actors, professional

musicians, and Silicon Valley CEOs. She lectures all over the country and has been hired by
numerous corporations to help their employees reduce stress, maximize their nutrition, and remove
harmful toxins from their life so they can be healthier, happier, more productive people.

Raising a family of her own, Dr. Mindy is deeply concerned about the toxic world our children
are growing up in today and the breakdown many women are experiencing in their perimenopausal
years. Dr. Mindy believes that healthy adults start with healthy children. In her own practice, she
works closely with all members of many families to give them a toolset to steer their health in
whatever direction they choose. The principles she teaches empower every family member to be the
boss of their own health and give them a path to predictable health—free of disease, drugs, and
surgeries.
 Still maintaining an active wellness practice, Dr. Mindy lives in Silicon Valley with her
husband and two teenage kids.

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