Cleansing Reactions / The Healing Process

After years of being on the SAD (standard American diet), most people need to gradually switch over to a healthy diet, and more importantly, cleanse the intestinal tract and get t functioning properly first. When your intestinal tract is functioning optimally, you will have an unforced bowel movement after every meal (just like a baby).
Dr. Richard Anderson's book, Cleanse & Purify Thyself (book one), explains the negative side of a quick dietary transition without opening the eliminative channels first. "The problem with going on a raw-food diet without cleansing is this: When the average person goes on raw foods, even for a few days, the body begins to cleanse. What's wrong with that? Well, it brings up cleansing reactions. The average person is full of toxic waste that a completely raw-food diet, without complete intestinal cleansing, could stir up more problems than most people want to handle. Fruits are the most cleansing of all. Vegetables do not cleanse nearly as rapidly. It is ironic that because of cleansing reactions, it sometimes appears that eating fresh raw food makes a person sick, while eating cooked or junk foods makes a person feel temporarily better. All that has really happened in this scenario, however, is that the eating of junk foods has stopped the cleansing process."
"Cleansing reactions on a raw-food diet, without cleansing the digestive tract first, can be so severe for the average person, that a lack of energy; a "spacey" feeling; eruptions of the skin; and overloads on the kidneys, liver and other organs can be weakening to the point of ineffectiveness."
Dr. George Malkmus explains in his videotape, How To Eliminate Sickness, that when we stop eating the "worldly garbage" (chemical-laced, over-processed, cooked foods and so forth), the body has a chance to flush the built-up toxins out of the tissues for disposal. He jokingly claims that the body says, whoopee, it's time to clean house.
I do not recommend a pregnant woman dramatically change her diet to raw foods because the toxins released from storage in her body could possibly harm the fetus or shock the system in such a way as to trigger a miscarriage.
My advice to you: transition slowly. If you feel cleansing reactions at inappropriate times, back off a bit by eating foods like steamed vegetables and brown rice. Don't assume that all problems or symptoms are cleansing reactions. If they are severe or persist, see your allopathic doctor (regardless of what anyone says) because they have been thoroughly trained in the art of diagnosis.
Remember: cleansing reactions should only be temporary. After they run their course, you might feel better than you have ever felt in your life!
Brian Clement has come up with guidelines for understanding the processes taking place inside your body during your detoxification. "Actually, 60 percent of accumulated wastes will be released in the first seven days of your program [the Hippocrates Health Program], but complete healing and restorat ion of the body takes a number of years and breaks down into stages of 7-year increments. It will take the first seven years to completely rebuild the body in the following phases.
1 day-r/2 years....Digestive cleansing-major fat deposits and calcifications removed.
1/-2 years Deep tissue cleansing and joint cleansing.
2-5 years Bone structure, cartilage, and further joint cleansing.
5/2-6% years Organ re-positioning and renewal.
6%-7 years Brain tissue and neurological cleansing.

Cleansing reactions may ensue as layer after layer is stripped away. But you will feel better and better as time passes. Due to the body's cellular intelligence, every part is affected by the whole. And, when one part is renewed, this leads to greater and greater integrity and harmony within the whole being." (Clement, pg. 54)
My digestive cleansing process took approximately one year. In that year, every time I had a bowel movement if felt as if my feces were coated with sand. This was the accumulation of 30 years of eating the SAD diet. During that 30 years sometimes I consumed cold pizza leftovers for breakfast, fast food chicken sandwiches at 2:00am, and chunks of cheese the size of ping-pong balls. I almost always consumed a full meal late at night before bed. The result of that diet was the debris that took a year to come out from my intestine. Now instead of a spare tire, I have a washboard stomach!