Clean Gut: The Breakthrough Plan for Eliminating the Root Cause of Disease and Revolutionizing Your Health Paperback – December 30, 2014

I've read a lot of nutrition books, been on many diets... all in an effort to fix my nagging health issues: migraines, arthritis, heart palpitations, nerve pain, constipation, anxiety, bloating, on and off again mild depression, psoriasis... you name it. I've also been about 5-10 lbs. overweight for several years and I just wasn't able to control my eating (I am a pastry chef). I just got so fed up with our medical system... giving me antidepressants for my constant headaches (15 days out of the month on average) that may have worked short term, but then stopped leaving me with unwanted weight gain and severe withdrawal symptoms. Doctors were just always trying to put a bandaid on things with prescription drugs. Never did I really stop and think, "why"? or "could it be something I'm doing"? If I did, I just couldn't figure it out on my own. I blamed some of it on the Lyme disease for which I was treated for three years (thanks to my doctor refusing to test me saying "you don't have Lyme Disease"! and treating me like a hysterical woman. Then I saw Dr. Junger on Dr. Oz. I have really strong intuition and I heard myself saying "this is the answer!" It was truly an "aha" moment.I read Clean (Clean Gut wasn't out yet) and immediately followed Dr. Junger's plan to detox and find out what foods were causing my symptoms. It became so clear what my triggers were because I felt so much better while I was on the plan. I found that after I went off of it in Orlando (impossible to eat healthy at Universal!) that my hands were hurting (I had not noticed my arthritis went away too on the program!), I had migraines, felt bloated, tired and just plain awful again. I had none of these nagging issues while I was on Clean! I also learned to control my cravings for food and junk food and make healthy choices. Lost all my extra weight and learned tons about my body. I highly recommend everyone try it!!!So I was excited for Clean Gut to come out! I read it in a day and I think it's vital for anyone with health issues - serious or nagging chronic ailments like me to follow this plan and clean out your gut, in turn fixing a lot of the issues we Americans suffer from. There is a lot of information on the gut which for someone like me who needs things explained before I follow any advice is important. After doing the Clean detox, this diet looks like a breeze and I'm sure I can easily follow it. It's different from Clean because this is more focused on fixing your gut and resetting it after a lifetime of toxins, drugs etc... For someone like me who was on antibiotics for three years until my body broke down with chronic infections, it's clear I need to accomplish this. Additional foods are eliminated in Clean Gut (like beans) and you are eating two meals and one shake rather than the two shakes and one meal in Clean detox.Dr. Junger just sees through all the $#@$% that goes on in the medical industry and tells us what we need to do to fix things ourselves. It's that easy, but your doctor isn't going to tell you these things because there is no profit in that and maybe they just focus on the diseased leaves, rather than what's going on in the roots (a great analogy in the book) because that's what they were taught in medical school. I can't thank Dr. Junger enough for opening my eyes, and he should really feel like he has done something good for people.I feel in my gut (sorry for the pun), that I have finally found the answer to my problems... but I will update after I finish the plan!

To give a background on my opinion, I have two degrees in Biology, and a lot of experience reading and studying about health and nutrition, because I spent a lot of time healing myself with the help of many holistic practitioners. I care about my health, but like most people, I have habits that aren't that great, plus I had lifelong health challenges that handicapped me a bit in reaching my health goals. Yet I have enjoyed learning and applying a variety of methods and programs that have been a huge help to me. My husband and I went on the Paleo lifestyle two years ago, and we had great results. But I knew I needed more help to go to the next level. When I saw this book, I knew it was the next step for us.Dr. Junger writes compellingly about the relationship between gut health and all kinds of physical issues, but even more intriguing, he presents good evidence that strain on the gut can be a major contributor to depression and lack of intuitive guidance, because when the gut is stressed, it goes into survival mode instead of performing the nice functions that can make life happier or easier for you.My husband and I went on the 21-day cleanse. This is likely not going to be something for sissies. If you have a bad physical issue you are really wanting to fix or you are a highly motivated person seeking to take their health to the next level, this could do it for you. But let me warn you, it is tough. You are asked to give up a bunch of foods, take a bunch of supplements and then slowly reintroduce and test each one after 21 days. The results, if you make it that far, will surprise you.I can't guarantee results are the same for everyone. I am sure they are not. But we lost 5-7 pounds without trying, and we aren't that overweight. We were exhausted the first few days, had cravings during the first couple weeks, and made it through the 21 days finally.Besides losing weight easily, we found our fingernails were stronger and faster growing than ever before. I discovered secondarily (after researching on Google and following and intuitive hit of my husband's) that my stomach pain was lifelong gastritis, and that avoiding the enzymes avoided pain, but embracing them on a careful plan scrubbed my stomach clean and I no longer have the stomach aches that have plagued me for my whole life of 62 years. At least, I haven't had one in a week, and that's a long time for me to go without one. Even just fixing that was worth it to me.Plus, we came out of the program not wanting to 'bad' foods we had been ingesting. We quit drinking wine and eating potato chips. We aren't buying chocolate and candies, though we never ate a lot of them. We just aren't drawn to them anymore. I never dreamed we would find it that easy.I think you need to be pretty motivated to complete this program, but if you do, it can change your life. We will be doing it once a year from now on, as I know it is a good thing to do regularly. If you want to improve your health, improve your digestion. This is a great way to do it.