Pour It Out
Just as in the Drip It Out method, the “Pour It Out” method is not about dehydrating, it is about rehydrating. By drinking enough pure, clean water each day, you can keep your body functioning optimally, like a finely-tuned machine. The body needs lots of fresh, clean water to continually flush out the environmental toxins and metabolic byproducts building up inside you every minute of every day. By drinking an adequate amount of water and reducing your sodium intake, you will force the toxins to pour out of you with your urine, leaving behind pure, clean plasma ready to circulate your system. Dehydration or too much sodium and not enough potassium can slow down this process, causing you to bloat and hold on to filthy waters rife with toxins and impurities.
A grown man should drink about 120 ounces or 15 cups or 1 gallon of water daily.
A grown women should drink about 100 ounces or 12 cups or 3/4 of a gallon daily.
Drinking a tall glass of water should be one of the first things you do each morning. This will help flush away the waste built up while you were sleeping. Caffeinated beverages and alcohol are not a substitute for water and should be kept down to 0 to 2 servings daily. Catching a cold? Every mother knows you need to drink plenty of liquid to get you better quickly. What’s the best kind of liquid to drink? You guessed it, water! The truth is, you are living in a perpetual battle with bacteria, fungus and viruses. Water is the antidote. It flushes out these microscopic predators, giving you the power to defend against them.
If you ever crave salt, it is probably because what you really need is more water. Your body uses salt to hold on to water in times of drought. Normally, in the United States, clean water is fully accessible, but if you are not hitting the water fountain often enough your body will tell you to eat more salt because it thinks you’re living in a drought. Salt will help you hold on to your water longer, but you don’t want to hold on to water. Water retention causes bloating, hypertension, congestive heart failure, unnecessary weight gain and other unwanted effects.
Aside from all of that, that water is filthy. You wouldn’t keep your old bath water around day after day, would you? The water inside you needs to flush away down the drain, taking with it all kinds of toxins and byproducts your body has no use for. Holding on to this dirty water is unhealthy and, in fact, adds to your body weight and keeps you in a contaminated state.
If you live in a chronic state of borderline dehydration and filthy water stagnation, you will probably crave salt often enough to create a habit, or should I say, an addiction to salt. You will grab the saltshaker before tasting your food. Your friends and family may notice your addiction to salt, but as with other addictions, the warnings go unheeded and kicking the habit seems to become an impossible feat. Only when high blood pressure, congestive heart failure or kidney disease strikes, will you hear it from your doctor. Even then, many primary care physicians are more likely to start you on various blood pressure medications including diuretics, rather than offer you the simple advice to “lay off the salt and drink more regular water.” It's not entirely their fault either. When doctors do recommend a low salt diet to their patients, many people tend to ignore this advice, opting for an anything goes, all-you-can-eat lifestyle and the problem snowballs out of control from there.
The key point to remember her is that lack of water in your diet causes cravings for salt. Once the cause is removed (by drinking more water regularly) the craving can be silenced. Then it is only the habit of eating excess salt that you need to contend with. Consider this, the American Medical Association (AMA) estimates that 400 people a day die in the United States solely due to the unwanted effects of consuming excess sodium. That's almost 150,000 people dying annually as a direct result of eating too much salt!
So how do you kick the salt habit? First of all, get enough water. The next most important thing you can do is avoid processed food and fast food restaurants entirely. The grand majority (75%) of salt in the American diet comes from mostly from two major offenders. Pre-packaged processed foods and unhealthy restaurant meals use salt as a preservative. Processed food and unhealthy restaurant companies want their products to last as long as possible without decay. Loaded with salt as a preservative, even bacteria and fungus refuse to indulge.
Try introducing new flavors to your meals by adding plenty of herbs and spices, instead of regular table salt. Keep regular table salt off the table and remember to use only sparingly when you do. When you go out to eat, ask the waiter to have the chef “hold the salt”. You pay good money for fine chefs to create delicious meals seasoned just right for optimal flavor. You can always add the salt after the food comes out if it’s needed.
Remember to check the sodium content on labels of all packaged food you consume. Try to keep your sodium consumption down to 1500mg (1.5grams) a day. According to the Institute of Medicine, greater than 95% of men and 75% of women regularly consume toxic levels of sodium at 5.8grams or more every day. It's no wonder so many of us are suffering from hypertension and obesity.
When you feel you just have to have salt, natural, unrefined sea salt is a much better alternative to regular table salt, due to its varied minerals and trace element assortment. Naturally blended unrefined sea salts have more of what your body needs for many of its basic bodily functions. Regular table salt is highly refined to greater than 99% sodium and chloride so the other valuable natural minerals that have been extracted can be sold to you separately for a higher price at the pharmacy.
We are used to seeing white crystalline salt. I’ll admit it is very pretty, but absolutely unhealthy. Refined table salt is bleached and stabilized with dextrose (a sugar) and aluminum silicate to keep it looking the way it does. Potassium iodide is added to prevent hypothyroidism, but just like all other highly processed foods, it just isn’t natural. It is a highly refined and concentrated dose of what you crave, handily packaged to look pretty and neat. Eating it will kill the craving, but you remain deficient of other important minerals you need. In nature, those minerals are all blended, but the sodium is the only one recognized by your tongue.
Salt is necessary for life, but, as always, the natural form is a much healthier alternative to the adulterated, highly-refined commercial form of the product. Avoiding table salt completely may lead to an iodine deficiency if your diet is deficient, but this can be avoided by eating natural forms of iodine found in many foods. Iodine can be found in fish, shellfish and seaweed, as well as in milk, all dairy products and eggs.
For the "Pour it Out" aspect of the 5 Finger Diet to work there are three important components to practice: In addition to adequate rehydration, and eliminating the table salt habit, and you must also keep your potassium levels up.
Potassium works together with sodium to keep your muscles and nerves functioning properly. Too much or too little potassium can cause your heart, intestines and other organs to malfunction. Of course, the best way to maintain the right amount of potassium at all times is to eat a healthy diet. A diet rich in potassium can be obtained by simply (you guessed it) eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and nuts. Legumes (beans) are also high in potassium, as are all types of meat, poultry and fish. Now you see how these things are all tied together. One compensates for another, but your whole system can be optimized through reverting back to nature and making natural, whole food choices.
Keeping your sodium low and your potassium high will help prevent water retention and bloating with excess pounds of stagnant "water weight." A low sodium diet has been proven to help prevent and treat hypertension and thereby help prevent hardening of the arteries, which leads to heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and more. Simply reducing your salt consumption can help you look and feel vibrant and young. Not to mention keep you off expensive, side-effect-causing blood pressure medications and diuretics. Now add the benefits of drinking plenty of water, and you have the recipe for renewed energy and vitality!
TIP: Drink most of your water early in the day to avoid frequent trips to the bathroom at night. Two glasses of water should be taken with each meal during the day, especially with breakfast.
CAUTION: People with pre-existing kidney disease should avoid overloading on salt, water, potassium or proteins. Consult your doctor before trying this part of the diet if you have chronic kidney disease, renal failure or are on dialysis.
Pour It Out
The 5 Finger Diet By Dr. Allan