Forgive me for getting an Outkast song going through your head (my Clean Team is composed of super hip (they’ll love that!) music lovers so I’m getting quite an education) but your very own “so fresh and so clean” New Year begins with not only a catchy little beat but three very important R’s.

These R’s will be the tools for absolutely amazing vitality as well as an immune boost. They are: Remove, Restore and Rejuvenate, and here’s the super simple breakdown.

1. Remove toxins by avoiding processed/packaged food with additives and artificial sweeteners, beauty care products with ingredients you can’t pronounce, finding food and non-food items that are organic like fruits and vegetables, clothing, bedding, makeup, and pet supplies, buy or make your own eco-friendly cleaning products, and also look at removing common allergens from your diet such as dairy, bread, pasta, sugar, white rice/sugar and red meat.

2. Restore healthy bacteria in the gut (by using natural and often really delicious plant and herbal antimicrobials like garlic, lemon, olive oil, oregano oil, thyme and cayenne pepper) to help your body out as it tirelessly works to move all those toxins that we accumulate just by living, working and playing in this world of ours.

3. Rejuvenate by making time to rest both your body and your mind, with things like meditation, yoga, gentle walking or stretching, being outside whenever possible even if it’s just to watch some clouds float by or the snow fall through trees, taking a bath, reading, some form of creative activity, sharing space with loved ones, or simply being still for a few minutes every so often throughout your day. . .

A final tip that addresses all three of the above R’s is this:

Love those greens! Fresh green juices are one of the best ways to fill your body with incredible nutrition, easy to digest energy, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and a pleasant sensation of fullness that will help with maintaing the right weight for your own body. Greens (and especially in fresh juiced form) even help to generate feelings of comfort and being loved. Love from yourself for taking such good care of your wonderful body, but also, that feeling of being satiated and nourished creates a state of happiness and clarity in your brain (and also to your overall moods) both of which are so important in these long cold winter months. Seasonal Affective Disorder runs rampant and threatens to drive us all under the covers with a pound of chocolate, and unless it’s some sugar-free raw chocolate, you might be pleasantly surprised when silky, sexy, slightly sweet green juices become your “comfort food” of choice and the scales begin to tip in a lighter direction as a welcome side effect.

If you don’t happen to have a neighborhood juice bar don’t worry, because you can make delicious green juices without even having a juicer. With any high speed blender, you can make a thick “soup” and then using a simple nut milk bag (about $7) or even with a DIY cheesecloth one, you can strain out the pulp and be left with a glass full of yummy green nutrition to power you up through what promises to be an amazing New Year!

These simple things are the sexiest (and easiest) tools ever for reaching optimal health and vitality. You’ll have more energy and more time to fully experience the things you love and to begin actively participating in your incredibly vibrant life.

Warmth and love. . .

Dr. Alejandro Junger

By Gena Hamshaw

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re the designated “health nut” in your circle of friends. Perhaps you’re the resident vegan; you might also be the runner who’s training for her next marathon. When you go out to dinner with friends and family, you’re the one explaining what tempeh is, or extolling the joys of raw nut cheese, or giving your companions a quick tutorial in sea vegetables.

But something’s amiss. You’ve gone this one habit—just one—that doesn’t quite jive with the others. Maybe it’s the coffee you can’t stop guzzling in the morning. Maybe it’s that extra glass or two of wine that you don’t really need. Maybe it’s the furtive non-vegan cupcake you sneak in when no one’s watching, or the pizza you ordered yesterday and immediately regretted.

Or maybe it’s the smokes.

For almost eight full years, I was the health nut with the nasty habit. I was a smoker: not a social smoker, but a full on, pack a day smoker. I smoked in with my morning coffee. I smoked when I got home from work (to “unwind”). I smoked during my lunch break. I smoked after meals. I smoked after sex. I smoked after the gym—it was my reward, I reasoned. I smoke when I was stressed, and I smoked when I was mellow. Through good times and bad, ups and downs, I smoked. And, truth be told, I relished every cigarette I ever had.

That I was also a vegetarian, and then a vegan, didn’t stop me. That I exercised daily didn’t stop me, either. That I had made those choices under the rubric of being “healthy”— my veganism was more a health choice than an ethical one—didn’t really deter me, either. The hypocrisy was not lost on me, but I just couldn’t let the damn cancer sticks go. My doctor once chuckled during a physical and asked, “how does it feel to be undoing all of the incredible things you do for your body? Because that’s what you’re doing.”

Over time, and as I began my journey into raw foods the hypocrisy became more than I could bear. I was terrified to quit: How would I end meals? How would I handle stress at the office? What would I do as I waited for people outside of restaurants? How would I occupy my hands at night?

Then I went to Mexico on an eight day yoga retreat. And for the first time in seven years, I went four days without smoking. I wasn’t trying: I was practicing three hours of yoga a day, eating mostly raw fruit and coconuts, and feeling incredible. Cigarettes simply didn’t cross my mind. When I realized how long it had been, it occurred to me that I’d gone nearly a week without nicotine. I’d never have another chance to go five days without any of my triggers: stress, deadlines, etc. So I decided to quit, right then and there.

At first, I didn’t feel so bad, and I thought that perhaps the armor of my healthy lifestyle would magically protect me from nicotine withdrawal. Then it hit me. First came quitter’s flu, the four-day ailment that mimics real flu (it’s a powerful form of detox, localized in the mucous membranes). Then came headaches: dull, unrelenting pains behind my forehead that persisted for days at a time. Then came lousy moods. Throw in trouble focusing, ravenous thirst, and erratic bursts of energy, and you get the picture: I was miserable.

But it wasn’t these nasty ups and downs that hurt the most. It was my sense of loneliness, especially at night. Many recovering alcoholics describe a dread of evenings, a fear of coming home and not being able to pour themselves a drink. As a friend who was trying to sober up once put it to me, “What will I do if I have to be alone with my thoughts?” I wasn’t afraid of my thoughts, but I did feel, suddenly, very alone. Cigarettes had been my little friends in those quiet evening hours, and I missed them.

So how did I stay the course? I wish I could offer you magical tips and tricks that helped me, but the truth is that there weren’t many. I didn’t use gum (I would have gotten addicted to that, too). I drank a lot of tea, slipped in some guilty coffee now and then (hey, it offered a healthier high than nicotine and tobacco), and relied heavily on my yoga practice. But the best motivation was the slew of improvements in my health: the brighter skin, the renewed energy, the capacity to run five miles without heaving. And the best incentive of all was my feeling that, for the first time, I could embrace my identity as a health freak honestly.

Now, a year and a half later, it seems a bit crazy to think that smoking ever figured so prominently in my life. It’s like trying to remember the intensity of being in love with someone long after you’ve fallen out of it. I still feel pangs every now and then, but for the most part, it’s ancient history. I won’t pretend it’s easy: I still have an intense nostalgia for smoking, and I struggle often with the urge to buy a pack. But fortunately—and in spite of the one or two guilty drags I’ve stolen from friends’ cigarettes in the last year—I’ve managed to remain firm in my commitment to quitting. And believe me, it’s worth it.

For all of you out there reading who struggle with smoking—or any other non-ideal habit that wages battle with your healthy ones—I urge you to do your best. I offer you no lies: quitting will be hard, and your ability to stick with it will ultimately rely on your own willpower and determination. But if you can muster your biggest reserves of strengths, I can guarantee you that a healthier, happier, and prouder future awaits.

Stick to your guns. Wherever you are, and whatever your goal is, this former smoker is cheering you from afar.

This summer, I cooled off with an excursion to a local water park featuring water slides, and a cool wave pool. I grabbed my bathing suit, packed a lunch and headed to Jersey. This day trip meant planning my meals ahead of time, which consisted of two Norwalk pressed green/vegetable juices from the best juice joint in NYC called, ‘Liquidteria,’ packed in a cold storage insulated bag with a cold pack, germinated sunflower seeds, sliced vegetables, and a lemon Lara Bar. Also, my friend made me an awesome coconut shake sweetened with stevia to drink during our car ride to the park. Delicious!

We arrived at the park and were stopped at the gate. “No Food is Permitted in the Park,” we were told! Caught! Poor shame, my innocent veggie food was condemned. The park offered an array of fake food offerings to choose from consisting of hot dogs, pizza, ice cream, and fried chicken. What’s a health nut to do? Answer: I argued! I declared, “My doctor has me on a special diet and I must eat my own food.” They allowed me to leave our food just outside the park on a picnic table under a large tent. Good enough. Hopefully, the woodchucks would leave my sunflower seeds alone while unattended!

When these situations arise I feel like the world is an insane place and that we have become so disconnected with what should be considered ‘normal’ and ‘natural.’ To me ‘normal’ means taking the best care of myself and eating natural food that comes from the earth. ‘Normal’ would never exist in a deep fryer.

Onward to the fun! Water slides are so cool! I am a fearless water slide warrior! I even went on the tallest water slide in the park! I could feel the cool change in temperature up at the top!

Any entertainment park holds lines of people that wait their turn for a thill ride, and there was plenty of time to observe and contemplate the crowd. Since this was a water park, there was a grand opportunity to get a good view of people in their bathing suits. My personal journey of eating primarily raw food for 20 years, practicing periodic cleansing methods and being a Colon Hydro-therapist has awarded me with some wisdom on the subject of toxicity. By no means am I perfect and prefer not to be so, and would not impose perfection onto anyone. This personal journey toward wellness takes much effort and consciousness to sustain daily. I feel great compassion toward all beings that struggle with weight issues, any physical/emotional dilemmas, ignorance or lack of discipline. All the work that I do is in support to help others overcome these struggles.

Obesity is an epidemic in this country. Over 58 million Americans are overweight. I witnessed an overwhelming amount of overweight people at the park. In particular, many of these people looked very bloated in their mid-section. The cause ranges from over-consumption of food, too much animal protein and refined food, imbalances in the body, lack of food combining principles, and poor food choices. These bellies ranged from a little pouch, to bloated, to pregnant sized gut, to a completely descended colon that is impacted with layers of mucus, waste and toxic gases collecting for years. We are becoming a toxic, weakened, numb, over-stimulated, addicted, medicated, sick society. This water park asked me to keep my veggies outside the park, yet offers these already sick and abused bodies more grease. Is it ‘normal’ to live this way?

There were many families at the park and the number of overweight children present was alarming. How will these children cope with keeping a healthy weight when they only know to live in a heavy body that causes their little hearts, and lungs to work excessively hard to carry around all that excess weight. The digestive system is burdened and overwhelmed. All organs, glands and systems are stressed. The cellular body becomes clogged. Their parents overfeed them with unhealthy food that creates their little arteries to clog at a young age. Their relationship to food begins now and becomes fixed. What will the future bring?
Finally, I saw some young people at the park in their twenties and early thirties. Most were an average weight and physically fit but my discerning Colon Hydro-therapist eye detects a level of toxicity found in the tissue. When the body becomes flabby, fleshy or loose we can guess that the tissue contains toxins, poisons, and gases along with fat. This level of toxicity stored away in the cells is found in our skin and soft tissue. The waste and gases age the body and will make the tissue quality sag.

Excessive fat cells may remain in the body forever. Dieting only works temporarily. Eating healthier and less food is the only solution. Statistics reveal that only 5% of people are successful on diets. A change in lifestyle is key to any long-term success. Looking to have a youthful body and to feel great at any age? It is essential to practice eating a super healthy diet along with periodic cleansing. Yes, you got it. Please include colonics as part of your health program and you’ll be on your way!

Dr. Sam Rader

I realized the madness had to stop when I retrieved a clump of hair the size of my fist from the drain filter in my shower. For weeks, I had been surfing the net for hair loss shampoos, supplements and tinctures. With all the pictures of aging men, I had to wonder why a healthy 29-year-old woman like myself had been reduced to such desperate measures.

By the time I got tested for mercury toxicity, I had lost about 2/3 of my hair. It was not only thinning considerably, but I used to have luxurious curls that hung to my mid-back, and now I had a whispy mop that barely scraped my shoulders. My hair was literally breaking off! On top of that, I had noticed a tremor that made writing and makeup application a mess, and holding a yoga pose (even just a simple warrior!) had become a physical impossibility. I had many sleepless nights and my mood was all over the place. My memory started failing me, too—I couldn’t remember conversations I’d had the day before, and I actually booked a vacation during the same week that I was supposed to be the Maid of Honor in my best friend’s wedding. Yeah, that happened.

My life had become a mess, and I couldn’t figure out how to connect the dots. I felt like I was falling apart at the seams and if one more person winced as the complimented my new ‘haircut’ I was going to go postal.

Then it hit me. I was lying in bed one morning…somewhere in that state between dreaming and awake…and I got a message from my unconscious. Broadcast in synaptic neon I saw the word: Mercury.

All the snippets I had caught from wellness blogs and news feeds (thank you Jeremy Piven) finally crystallized into a story that made sense. Needless to say I booked an appointment with my GP and a week later held the lab results in my hands that stated I was in the 95th percentile for mercury toxicity. Not to mention that my bloodwork also showed a significantly high level of arsenic.

I could understand how the mercury had gotten into my system—I am a sushi lover and seafood aficionado. But I wasn’t in electronic semiconductor manufacturing. I’m a psychotherapist in private practice in Hollywood. The strong presence of arsenic in my blood had me baffled.

My doctor explained to me that everyone is exposed to these heavy metals and other toxic pollutants all over the place—from the water we drink, to the air we breathe, to the products we buy. She said that only some of us (lucky me!) weren’t as good at eliminating these toxins. Turns out my liver, kidneys and glands are old-fashioned, and don’t know how to filter out these substances as fast as they accumulate in my body.

“So how do I get this sh-t out of me?!” was the next obvious question. My doctor informed me that the standard treatment for heavy metal toxicity is a process called chelation, where metal-binding agents are ingested, inserted or injected into the patient’s system to bind with the metals and escort them out through the proper elimination systems.

So I was given a chelation injection on the spot, which made me instantly nauseated, scared and disoriented. I couldn’t get up to drive home for the next hour, and I felt like liquid fire was infiltrating my veins. My doctor said this was ‘normal’ and handed me a care package of 30 chelation suppositories to be inserted where the sun don’t shine every other night.

I tried the suppositories for a few weeks, and the effects weren’t nearly as violent as the injection had been. But there was a sickening spicy, metallic smell that wouldn’t seem to wash off with my fig-scented liquid hand soap and I always felt a bit like I was buzzing.

I called my doctor to see if there were any other, perhaps more pleasant, routes to detoxifying, and that’s when she told me about Sunlight Saunas. I had noticed the pretty wooden sauna in her office when I was lying there, a woosy mess. But she explained this was no ordinary sauna. Instead of using convection heat, where your body gets hot because of the temperature of the air, Sunlight Saunas use infrared heat, which is absorbed directly into the body.

I did a quick Google search and found that a neurologist in Seattle named Dr. Deitrich Klinghardt had found that “the sweat of people using a conventional sauna was found to be 95 to 97% water while the sweat of those using an infrared thermal system was 80 to 85% water with the non-water portion principally cholesterol, fat-soluble toxins, toxic heavy metals, sulphuric acid, sodium, ammonia and uric acid.” So I just had to relax and sweat and I could rid myself of the toxins? Clearly, I was game.

I bought a small unit that could fit in my bedroom and I got to sweating. I lied in that warm, womblike, temple of yumminess every other day for 30-minutes at a time (frankly, I still do). I meditate in there. I make phonecalls. I even tilt my computer on its side and watch my Netflix videos. It’s heaven.

And after 6 months of hanging out in my fabulous infrared sauna…I am healed! Hallelujah! Can I get a witness?!!

I feel great. My hair is getting thicker and longer, and there is evidence of that in my clean drain filter. I no longer shake. I no longer forget. And I’ve actually lost 5 pounds (apparently 30-minutes in an infrared sauna burns up to 600 calories).

I went back to my doctor for my lab results and found that my mercury is completely in the normal range. Not only that, but for the first time in my life, my cholesterol levels are healthy (I’ve had genetically high cholesterol since I was a kid). Another side product of infrared heat? You bet your bottom dollar. This stuff is no joke. I mean, it’s infrared heat that is used in the incubators for newborns in hospitals. C’mon.

My name is Dr. Sam Rader, I’m an infrared addict, and I’m toxin-free!

Dr. Sam Rader is a holistic psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology, and is also a certified yoga instructor and certified massage therapist. Dr. Rader uses her training in psychology, yoga, anatomy, cognitive neuroscience, somatic experiencing and EMDR to facilitate wellness in her clients with a focus on the mind/body connection.

To learn more about Dr. Rader, visit www.samraderphd.com or www.raderoninfrared.com

If you’re interested in learning more about FAR infrared saunas, check out the one Kris uses here…

Put down the Zagat Guide and pick up a good book on cleansing and detoxification. It can save your life, and the planet’s. A good book to start with is my book, CLEAN, The revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself.

I wrote CLEAN in an attempt to clear the general confusion on detoxification and to prevent something tragic in my opinion. We are at risk of discarding the whole thing as a fad, because celebrities are endorsing it. There is great value in examining things without jumping into them because of endorsements from people we trust. Ironically, the most catastrophic backlashes came from fads endorsed by the people we trust with our lives, doctors. I am referring to the “Low Fat” fad. In the 90’s, America declared war on fat. Fat free was the secret to good sales. The concept that eating fat made you fat was endorsed by the medical community, and the country blindly followed. The result is the fattest country in the world. Obesity has caused more deaths and disability in the last 20 years than all the wars ever fought by the US throughout its entire history, put together. Don’t believe me ? Read the National Health Statistics, if you are not at risk of a heart attack. They are scary.

Literally, the same generation of doctors that prescribed you a fat free diet are now warning you of the dangers of detox programs. Some go as far as to say the whole thing is quackery, that there is no basis to any of it. That the body has its organs of detoxification, they know how to do what they need to and if you leave things alone, everything will work as it should.

Well, that explanation is not good enough for me. It is like saying that the body has its muscular system that will take you here and there, and if you leave things alone, everything will work as it should. But look at what happens when we understand the muscles, and how they respond differently to different kinds of exercise, and how it responds to different kinds of diets. We have developed gyms, treadmills, elipticals, weights, gear, technology, services, foods, supplements and a whole culture that have yielded miraculous ways of shaping your body, gaining strength, agility, elasticity and many other benefits. Plus this industry has provided thousands of jobs.

A similar thing is happening with the understanding of detoxification. Spas, chefs, blenders, colonics machines, detox supplements and many other supporting services, activities and tools are appearing every day.

Some are excellent, some are good and some are dangerous. To give you the distinctions you need to figure these things out is my intention behind CLEAN.

And last , but not least, to give you a day by day guide to a 21-day detox program that can change your life while you live your life. Detoxing while living a busy life is not easy. Especially at the beginning. Most people need to stop everything and take a few days off, retreating into a spa and focusing on detox alone. The CLEAN Program described in the book, with Recipes by Jill Pettijohn, life food chef and detox expert, can be done while working, taking care of your family, and even working out. CLEAN will teach you what toxicity is, what and where these toxins are, how we are exposed to them, how we absorb them, what and where damage is caused and more importantly, what to do about it. It will teach you how to slow down the workload of your digestive system so that the detox systems can work at maximum intensity. But it doesn’t stop there. It teaches you what happens when detox in ON. How to support it and what to do when you encounter the most common obstacles.

It is undeniable that the earth has a fever. Global Warming is “An Inconvenient Truth”.

But a fever is just a symptom. In my opinion, the cause behind this fever is toxicity. Toxic thoughts, toxic emotions, toxic relationships, toxic governments, toxic financial institutions…..modern life in the modern world is toxic. And the biggest source of toxicity is through the chemicals we manufacture to use in our homes, our clothes, to clean our houses, to put in our cosmetics and pretty much everything else. The one thing that is mind blowing to me, that I still cannot wrap my mind around, is that the chemicals that kill us for sure over time are in what WE EAT. Yes, we don’t eat food any more, we eat chemical concoctions that look like food. 90% of what humans consume, wild animals won’t even go near if found in their natural habitats.

Global toxicity is “Another Inconvenient Truth”. Educate yourself about it. Spread the word. For more info go to www.cleanrevolution.tv.

In the meantime, don’t eat anything that you wouldn’t find in nature if you had to go look for your own food. When you walk in the supermarket, Imagine you are hunting, gathering or fishing in the wild. Nothing in the wild comes in cans, boxes, jars, bags or tubes.

With love and respect, and a CLEAN warm hug,

Alejandro