If you are looking for ways to improve your health, I hope that this testimony will be encouraging. 

We started our serious journey to health in 2000 when we found out that our oldest daughter, Amber, then 16, had a pituitary gland brain tumor. She was having severe headaches and had gone 85% blind in one of her eyes.  The surgeon told us that the tumor was fast growing and that immediate surgery would be the only way of recovery. There was a 50% chance that her vision wouldn’t come back and that she would have to be on hormones for the rest of her life.  

We chose not to have the surgery; instead we followed the steps I have listed below.  The headaches went away in the first month. Her eye sight got slightly worse before it got better, but she started regaining her sight at the three month mark. It took about 10 months before her eyesight was back to normal.  We took her back to the eye doctor a year from when she had been diagnosed with the tumor.  He was very surprised that her eyes were back to normal without having the surgery and was very interested to know what we had done. She recently had another MRI done to see how she is doing and there is no sign of any tumor. She also consulted an Endocrinologist (a hormone doctor) to make sure her hormone levels were balanced and he refused to believe she had had a tumor at all. She had to actually track down the doctor’s report to show him. Praise the Lord!

What We Did

Prayer

When we found out that our daughter had a brain tumor we immediately cried out to the Lord. We praise the Lord for the wisdom that he gave us and for the healing he gave Amber. Daily time in the Lord’s presence was a life line for us. It was a time to renew our minds in the word and remember that all things are possible with him, he is our healer. Every breathe we take comes from him.  It was a time to lay the stress and anxiety at his feet and gain new strength and hope.  It was a time to set our face like flint and set a goal to take every discouraging thought captive and choose to trust him in the midst of it all.  It was a time to let the Lord hold us close and know that he loves us and will see us through. The word says that “a cheerful heart is good medicine.” Find scriptures that are encouraging and faith building and tape them where you will see them often.

Juicing

Juicing was the second most important thing we did to get Amber well.  Juicing provides the needed nutrients for healing.  Our fruits and vegetables are not as nutrient rich as they were in the past.  Juicing removes the fiber so that more nutrients can be consumed, I can drink the juice from 5lbs of carrots each day where as, I can't eat 5 lbs. of carrots.  It takes nutrients/energy to digest our food. For example, when you eat a carrot it takes most of the nutrients from the carrot just to digest it.  The nutrients that are left can be used by the body to fuel your normal activity.  It takes even more nutrients for the healing process to take place. If you are not providing your body with the necesary nutrients then healing can not take place.  Most of us don't eat enough nutrient rich foods in our busy fast paced lives. Because juicing removes the fiber, fewer nutrients are used up in the digestive process and can go straight to cellular level, providing more nutrients for healing.  Sadly, all bottled, canned, and frozen juices have been pasteurized and are therefore dead and cannot be used to restore life and health to our bodies.

*We juiced 2 quarts of fresh fruits and vegetables each morning for Amber. We used 8 oz. jars and stored them in the refrigerator.  We gave her 8 oz. every hour.  You wouldn’t have to be as regimented as we were.  You can keep a quart of juice with you and sip on it throughout the morning and get through the 2^nd quart in the afternoon.  Most of her juices had a base of carrots and Granny Smith apples and then we would add different vegetables; beets, kale, celery, etc. We had a urinalysis done, through Dr. Robbin's clinic, to determine what nutrients she was low in.  Amber was low in calcium and vitamin C so we often juiced baby spinach or parsley with the carrots and apples. We used an electric citrus juicer to juice grapefruit as it is rich in vitamin c.  We used the chart from Dr. Norman Walker’s book, Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices, to see what fruits and vegetables were high in calcium and vitamin C. It isn’t really necessary to know what you are low in.  Juicing a variety of vegetables will ensure that you are getting a wide range of nutrients.  Green leafy vegetables are nutrient rich and should be used generously.

For the first week we had Amber juice fast.  We wanted all of the nutrients to go to cellular level to jump start the healing process.  Just a word of warning:  Juicing will often cause a healing crisis, making you feel worse.  Please don’t think that you are feeling sick because the juice is not agreeing with you.  Your body is doing some much needed house cleaning and toxins are being dumped. Stick it out and in the end you will feel better.  Juice fasting may cause an even greater healing crisis. If your body is very toxic you may need to take it a bit slower and eat some raw fruits and veggies along with your juice each day.  Dr. Joel Robbins book, Juicing for Health talks more about juice fasting.

The best juicers for the money are the Green Power or the Champion. These juicers, however, are slow and if you are busy and on the run you might become discouraged and not juice at all. The centrifugal juicers, although easier to use, don’t break apart the fibers enough to get all the nutrients out and don’t juice the greens well enough. They also produce too much heat destroying up to half the enzymes. They are still better than not juicing at all, so if you are busy and don't think you have the time I would recommend getting this kind of juicer.  The Juiceman juicer is good.  I have a L'equip juicer that I am currently using and it works great. Just look for one with a wide mouth. The Norwalk is a great juicer,if you are serious about juicing, but it is expensive. It takes up a lot of counter space and you will have to keep buying new bags.  It is, however, the best that we have used for getting all the nutrients out of the pulp, while keeping the enzymes alive.

Green smoothies are a painless way to add more greens to your diet, but they should not completely replace the juicing.  I have a green smoothie recipe that you can try in the recipe section. 

Diet

Along with juicing, your diet is your medicine (or your poison.)  Our Nation is sick from eating such a nutritionally dead diet.  We eat to please our taste buds rather than eating to fuel living cells. Fruits and vegetables contain the nutrients, fiber, and enzymes that we need to have healthy bodies.  Cooking our food destroys important enzymes that our bodies need.  We can’t feed living cells with dead food.

*We had Amber eat all raw fruit, vegetables, and nuts for the first three months.  After the first three months we had her eat 85% raw and 15% cooked, following the Hallelujah Diet.  (If Amber’s health issue had not been as serious we would have started out with the 85% raw and 15% cooked.) Don’t be overwhelmed when you look at what we did.  You can start by adding in more raw fruits and veggies to what you are eating and slowly eliminate the most harmful things like sugar, coffee, meat, and fried foods. A great coffee substitute is called Cafix crystals.  You can buy it at the health food store. It is wonderful with some flavored Agave syrup and organic cream. I like it better than coffee.

If you are very sick then I would want to get started quickly as it takes a few months to build up the immune system so that your body can fight the illness. You may like junk food as much as we do and find it hard to give up.   We are learning how to "eat to live" and not "live to eat" and our taste buds have slowly come in line.

Breakfast-Fresh vegetable or grapefruit juice or, if needed, fruit

Lunch- Fruit, an almond shake, a green smoothie, or a veggie plate with some almonnaise

Supper- A large restaurant size salad using fresh Romaine, leaf lettuce, or leafy greens (not iceberg,) with any added veggies as the main course with homemade salad dressings and a cooked item as a side (ex. A baked potato, baked potato wedges, brown rice, millet, or steamed veggies)  It's a good idea to vary what you put in your salad so that you are getting a variety of nutrients.

We removed: all dairy, meat, roasted nuts and seeds, fried foods, refined or enriched grains (white flour products, breakfast cereals, white rice), all sugar and artificial sweeteners, salt, anything canned or processed including fruits and vegetables, chocolate, coffee, caffeinated tea, peanut butter, margarine, shortening, anything with hydrogenated oils, distilled vinegars, store bought mayonnaise, catsup, and salad dressings containing sugars and distilled vinegars and preservatives.

We added: cold pressed olive oil, flax seed oil, unrefined sea salt, raw apple cider vinegar, herbal teas, raw almonds, pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds, carob, date sugar, unsulfured dried fruit, whole grains, sprouted grains and seeds and homemade almond milk. We made our own mayonnaise using almonds. I’ve included the recipe in the recipe section.  You can buy some good healthy, dairy free mayonnaise from the health food store. My favorite is called Vegenaise. I also buy a rice cheese that we started using after Amber was well on the road to recovery. It is shredded and can be purchased from the Health food store.

Learn to read labels to look for preservatives, sugars (dextrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, evaporated cane juice,) dyes, the term "enriched" (that means they have striped out all the good nutrients and sprayed on synthetic vitamins,) and hydrogenated oils.  We did most of our shopping in the fresh produce section.  Sam’s and Costco have inexpensive produce.  The carrots at Costco are the cheapest organic carrots that I have found.  Organic is preferable but we were buying 70 lbs of carrots a week, and apples, oranges, grapefruit, and romaine lettuce by the case and couldn’t afford to buy that quantity in organic.  Don’t panic!  Amber didn’t eat all that produce herself. The whole family joined her and there are six of us. :0) We always got comments at Sam’s when people saw 70lbs of carrots in our cart. It was usually, “You must have horses or a lot of rabbits!”

Exercise

*We had Amber exercise 4 or 5 days each week.  She went for brisk walks and went bike riding.  We bought a rebounder which is great aerobic exercise without stressing the joints. We started a square dance club that met weekly to add some interest and fun to her dreaded exercise regime. The square dancing added some laughter into her life as well.  We didn’t have her doing any intense exercising as we still wanted most of her energy for healing.

Colonics or Enemas

Most of us have eaten the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) for years.  Many of our health issues come from a toxic colon.  Think about a straw that you have sucked white flour paste through day after day without cleaning it.  You end up with a thick coating inside of the straw which has become pretty foul and very dysfunctional.  That is what happens inside our colons after eating white refined flour products and other processed foods day after day, year after year.  The toxic debris that sits in the colon ends up being reabsorbed into the body causing major health issues throughout the whole body.

*We gave Amber a colonic once a week.  A colonic takes about an hour and flushes the colon out with water, removing the old toxic debris.  We bought our colonic board from Dr Joel Robbins.  If you don’t want to buy your own board you can find a colonic operator in your area.  An enema will work as well if colonics are not available, but will only clean 18 inches of the colon.  Raw fruits and veggies act like a broom to help sweep out the colon. Hallelujah Acres also has a fiber cleanse that helps to clean the colon. Cooked foods will not help clean the colon.

Rest

While Amber was sick she went to bed at 9:00. It is important to get enough sleep as healing takes place while we sleep.  I have read that the hours before midnight are the best.  8 or 9 hours of sleep each night are ideal.

Supplements

We gave Amber a few supplements to help build her immune system more quickly.  She took calcium, benefin, and a few others specifically for her pituitary gland prescribed by Dr. Robbins. Most vitamin supplements are made with synthetic ingredients that are not usable by the body.  Be sure that you are taking whole food supplements that have been processed without heat. We added Digestive Enzymes, Probiotics, Udo’s oil( Omega 3 and 6), Barley Max, and 8 oz. of distilled water with fresh squeezed lemon juice daily (to help cleanse the toxins from her liver.)

Lemon juice tip-  We use lemon juice all the time.  To save time I buy a bag of lemons from Sam's and juice the whole bag using my electric citrus juicer.  I then pour the juice into ice cube trays and when they are frozen I empty the trays into a ziplock.  Everytime I need fresh lemon juice I can just reach in the bag.

Water

We bought a water distiller from Sears (Hallelulia Acres has one, too.) We ran all of our drinking water through it.  If you are on city water I would definitely want to get rid of the harmful chemicals that are put in the water.  The best water filter for city water is the reverse osmosis.    


Healthful eating needs to be a lifestyle not a short term diet.  When we get off track we don't beat ourselves up about it, we just pick up where we left off. Isn't the Lord good to give us what we need for healing and maintaining a healthy body. 

I pray that you have been encouraged and this information has been helpful.I would be happy to encourage you personally, if you would like to write me a note. 

Blessings,

Christy

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