Could anyone recommend a natural laxative or something that aids being "regular"?

I have recently switched to a mostly raw foods diet and, a coffee drinker for the past 10 years, my body is now rejecting coffee. I know that the raw food diet is supposed to take care of this on my own but still - any recommendations that don't have harmful effects?

Thanks!

Bell

-Additional fluids and bulk should handle it. Drink plenty of water when you are not eating. Eat plenty of greens and bulk. Drink fresh squeezed citrus during other times to stimulate your bowels.

-Utilize fresh water enemas no more than 1-2 times weekly if this is helpful to you - and it's your thing.

-Do plenty of core abdominal work to keep everything moving around! LOL.

-David Mason

Thanks David. Yes, the fun, embarrassing topic. So you really don't know of anything natural that anyone takes on top of au natural? digestive enzymes?

I will try the bulk, and faith approach I suppose.

Bell

I take both digestive enzymes and probiotics and this really tends to help with constipation. Also, both digestive enzymes and probiotics are useful for eliminating endogenous toxins from the body, which get really stirred up when first transitioning to raw and the cleansing process begins in earnest.

There are people who will tell you that digestive enzymes and probiotics are "addictive". This is hokum. Each of us are allotted a certain amount of enzymes when we come into this world. Once they are used up they can not be replenished. This is, in fact, one of the strongest factors supporting an all raw or high raw diet to begin with. Raw foods contain their own enzymes and so more easily digest in the body without taxing the enzyme stores of the body itself, leaving these extremely valuable helpers to do their magic in healing and repair.

If you are under 30 you probably have more enzyme reserves than I do at 49. This is why 15-20 year olds can eat double whoppers with little upset and 35-40+ year olds simply can not. It's all about the enzymes. Also, if you are over 30 and yo-yo-ing AT ALL (between all raw and occasional cooked binges) then I highly recommend the use of digestive enzymes for damage control. Damage control is not optimal and can keep your digestive system in a state of trauma, particularly if you are older rather than younger, but being human and transition being difficult, I suggest having enzymes on hand.

Let me also say that it is far better to plan small amounts of cooked food into your dietary transition than it is to go prematurely all raw and yo-yo or binge.
Our bodies, being highly adaptable, will get "used" to all raw surprisingly quickly and will therefore become less and less tolerant of cooked food. In my experience, even 3 weeks raw will "set" your body to raw and will make you much less tolerant to cooked, which means that cooked food after a certain time raw will quite literally traumatize your system. I don't find that this is talked about enough, but was quickly apparent to me.

~Kathleen

Kathleen, that is very helpful. thank you. Going to give them a shot.

Do you recommend any brands?

Bell

cassia pod beans "disks"
flax seeds

Bell,

When I quit coffee, my body had a horrible time digesting. This is because my body became addicted to coffee as far as my digestion went. Without the coffee, my digestion became totally sluggish, and things didn't want to digest.

What was going on is that once I quit the coffee, my body was super fatigued. I had accumlulated so much sleep debt over a 12 year period of not sleeping much and taking coffee to compensate that when I quit the coffee, my body went into a significant state of chronic fatigue.

I could have started taking laxative or supplements and digestive enzymes to aid in the problem, but this will not heal the cause of my lack of ability to digest. What my body needed was tons of rest, and for me to learn how to eats foods that are easy to digest until my body's vitality returned to normal.

After I quit the coffee, I started the raw diet and my digestion started to work again. The chronic fatigue temporarily went away (but came back 9 months later) and what ultimately healed the chronic fatigue is getting tons of sleep. The 2nd time I got chronic fatigue I slept 16-18 hours a day for an entire month, and the next month I slept only 14 hours a day, and each month it reduced. During this time I didn't work.

What worked for me in terms of digestion when the chronic fatigue hit was to eat mono meals of fruits or salads. This was the easiest to digest, and as my body became more and more rested its digestive strength improved.

Bryan,
I think you've got a point. Though I only drink one to two cups in the morning and sleep like a log (a lot at night), so our situations might be slightly different but I do need to have some patience. The mono meals are a good idea too.

Thanks.

Caitlin

Hi Caitlin,

Naw, I don't recommend any particular brands. I tend to switch out brands and try new products from time to time. Currently I am using Natures Plus "Acti-Zyme" which is a full spectrum enzyme (enzymes which break down carbs, fats, and proteins) and includes FOS which sponsers accelarated flora growth.

Bryan does make good points. One of the most valuable aspects of Natural Hygiene in my opinion is that it encourages a !00% natural approach to healing the physical body and discourages shortcuts. Basically I too believe that if we get out of the way the body will heal itself. Enemas, colonics, laxatives and etc. can be abused. People can and do become dependent on these things and actually become "colonic or enema or laxative bulimics", using these methods to compensate for failures to change the diet or lifestyle. One can't be sure that they are immune to such abuses. I safeguard against this by never using laxatives or enemas after a slip up. I suffer the consequences instead and wait until I'm back on track for several days running before using any cleansing methods.

Personally, I don't see the same danger in enzymes. They work slowly and so do not provide immediate gratification (which is why enemas and colonics and laxatives can become problematic); they are made up of totally natural ingredients, ie foodstuffs and very gently assist the body. If you could eat a salad of papaya and pineapple and avocado everyday you would be essentially putting the same enzymes in your body as you do when taking an enzyme supplement, more or less. Many experts say that after a significant time on an enzyme-rich diet supplementation is no longer necessary. In the meantime, in my experience, they can be a good aid.

~Kathleen

flaaaaxxx seeds for squirty poos...if you eat to many...

While this is not a laxative, try eating 2 heads of romaine lettce every day. You'll find that you have great bowel movements.

Thank you Bell for starting this thread.

I was on a predominantly raw diet, started to eat more cooked, but "acceptable" vegan foods such as brown rice, legumes (tons of hummus!). I would try to combine as well as possible, like, only rice and veggies, or only beans and veggies (non-acidic). Then they mixed one day, leading to more and more complex combinations.

So the past few months have involved more cooked than raw, and that's caused a digestive strain. I have used Senna herbal tea to aid in expelling. I think it's a bit harsh, though, and find it unnatural. I think that eating as simply as possible is the best bet.

Brian, as you were in the midst of detox, spending 14 hours or so asleep at a time or per day, what was your diet like? Did you eat much during this period? If so, is this when you started with mono meals? And did you consider which nutrients might be most essential, such as carbs, fats, protien? Did you have cravings then?

A month before my detox (and before that), my raw diet looked like:

8am: 1 cantalope
10am: 2 pounds of grapes
12pm: salad - 1/2 bunch kale, 1/4 pound spinach, tomatoes, 2 avocados, 1/4 cup olive oil, Braggs liquid aminos, apple cider vinegar, 1 clove garlic, cumin
6pm: another salad like the one at lunch

As you can see, it was a very stimulating diet with lots of fat. Also during that period I would eat raw gourmet stuff at a raw restaurant 1 to 2 times a week. The 3 to 4 weeks before my detox, I moved to a high fruit diet, no salt, spices, or condiments, and much lower fat. I would eat 3 meals, mostly mono eating during the detox. During this transition from high fat to low fat, I didn't eat the raw gourmet foods at all and when I went to raw potlucks I only ate my own foods. During this time I did not experience cravings.

I have made changes since then, like adding more greens, and not eating before noon. I will allow myself some raw gourmet food once a month or so, unless I make a weekend trip to San Francisco, which will increase the number of raw gourmet meals. I've let go of being strict around the gourmet stuff, but I detox the day after eating those foods. I suspect at some point I'll get tired of the post-raw-gourmet food detox.

What I ate today was:

2pm: 9 pound watermelon (baby crimson)
6pm: strawberry smoothie - 8 bananas, 1 pint of strawberries
7pm: salad - 8 ribs celery, 2 cucumbers, 4 heirloom tomatoes, 8 tomatillos, 1 bell pepper, cilantro

When I eat a lot of fruit, I don't have cravings. When I eat a salad with fat, if I haven't had enough fruit before I eat my fatty meal, I sometimes will crave something sweet after the fatty meal is done. After the fatty meal, the only thing I could eat that is sweet that might not be a totally horrible food combining is some acidic fruit, say like a few oranges.

Thanks for your response, Brian.

I was very curious as to what your diet was like as you detoxed and experienced CFS symptoms. It looks like you were mostly raw with a few condiments.

Were you doing any exercise or physical activity before the CFS symptoms began? I know that you currently practice Yoga, had you been involved with anything physically before the detox bega ?

Hope nobody minds my jumping in here.

I'd just like to add that in my opinion, no matter how well we eat, our bodies need exercise for good digestion and regularity. The older we get, the more this is true.

For me yoga works really well for elimination. Walking and/or running a few miles several days a week is also very effective.

Enzyme supplements and such may be helpful, but there's nothing like outward movement for stimulating inward movement. There's just no magic pill that will do it for us - IMO that was never Nature's plan. When we are NOT moving, we send a signal to our body that it is no longer useful in its present form; and the body will respond by stopping our elimination channels so that the accumulated toxins can hasten our demise. This will allow Nature to put our body materials to some useful purpose - like feeding a tree somewhere. In other words, by not moving, we are telling our body that we'd be better off dead, and the body will oblige us accordingly by shutting down our elimination systems.

Not all toxins inside us come from bad food or environment - our bodies are in a constant state of decay and renewal, and if elimination is stopped, the decay becomes toxic.

The body: use it or lose it (everybody's heard that of course)!

Use of senna as a laxative is especially undesireable IMO, because it can cause the body to become temporarily unable to function on its own. That leaves us worse off than we were before. We're better off not using it at all.

If someone is so severely affected by their detox that they feel most comfortable just resting, then it's probably best to do what feels right in the short term. Doing too much of everything all at once - good diet, quitting old habits, exercise program, etc. - can cause an overload of toxic substances to be released into circulation, bringing on more severe detox symptoms. But if a person is eating a nutritious raw food vegan diet or following a sensible transition plan, they should be able to ease themselves into an excercise routine - the sooner the better IMO. Start slow, work into it.

For many, finding and following a sustainable raw food diet takes years. Exercise will help give you the awareness and the willpower to achieve your dietary goals.

Besides all that, I think that if a person is into being raw food vegan, then they're probably wanting to improve their health. Exercise is essential for good health. Let's be STRONG raw food vegans! We can do it!

Best wishes, Ally



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2006 06:28AM by Ally.