In general, I want to talk in more detail about the method of therapeutic mastication, given its exceptional value, especially when combined with therapeutic fasting.
How to lose weight without dieting? Many people dream of losing weight or gaining weight by continuing to eat as before. Such a goal is quite achievable if you chew food very carefully. This method at the beginning of the last century actively promoted the American physiologist Horace (Horace) Fletcher. At the age of 44, he became seriously ill, so much so that no company did not want to pay him insurance. Doctors found him a whole “bouquet” of ailments: overweight, heart and vascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders. It was his stomach that bothered him the most. Observing the work of the gastrointestinal tract, Fletcher noticed that the food, maximally saturated with saliva, disappears from the mouth without swallowing movements. This discovery was later called “Fletcher’s food probe”.
According to his recommendations, each bite of food requires at least 30 chewing movements, and the “food probe” effect works when there are more than 100 of them. Having changed his old eating habits, the scientist soon got rid of excess weight, forgot about his illnesses, began daily exercise and regained his athletic form as in his youth. Surprisingly, but now he had 3 times less food than before. His taste sensations became brighter, so that every meal turned into a small feast!
How to regulate weight? The famous Fletcher experiment at the American military academy at West Point made a huge impression. Two groups took part in it: full officers and thin soldiers. During the experiment, with the same diet, they all gained normal weight only through proper chewing: officers lost weight, and soldiers got better. As a result, it was proved that careful chewing of food alone improves health and helps to regain normal weight. A follower of this method was the famous American millionaire John D. Rockefeller, who lived to the age of 98.
The benefits of thoroughly chewing food have long been known in the East. Yogis claim that digestion (and even absorption of energy from food) begins in the oral cavity, and food is well assimilated by the body only if it is well pulverized by chewing and abundantly moistened with saliva. Many people remember the famous yogic motto: “Liquid food – eat, solid food – drink”. It means that even liquid food (juices, broths, milk, etc.) should be chewed in the mouth, mixed with saliva. And solid food should be chewed longer than usual, turning it into liquid food. Yogis chew each bite 100-200 times, and not for nothing: an experienced yogi can be quite satiated with one banana or a crust of bread. It is noticed that full people are characterized by too fast eating. In this case, the satiety center in the brain does not have time to turn on. Usually it takes 25 30 min. And no matter how much you eat during these minutes, true satiety will come later, so it is hardly worth rushing.
Active chewing improves blood supply to the brain, heals the nasopharynx and gums, protects teeth from tooth decay (saliva neutralizes acid and sugar of food). For a more efficient functioning of the GI tract, it is also useful to exercise the abdominal muscles, as yogis do. Get into a squatting, cat pose (bidalasana). In this pose, the movement of the abdominal muscles is well felt. With an exhalation gently tighten the abdomen, as if trying to bring the navel closer to the spine, with an inhalation release. Repeat 10 times, spending about 1 second for each movement. After a short rest, repeat. In total, make 3 series of such movements. Sitting in a cross-legged pose, lean forward, resting your hands on your knees. As you exhale, firmly tighten the front wall of the abdomen. While the natural breath hold lasts, repeat the pull-up up to 10 times. As soon as the urge to inhale appears, immediately release your abdomen. This exercise is only performed on an empty stomach. Tummy tuck is a powerful means of improving digestion and healing internal organs, so try to do it regularly.
I like the detailed description of the method of therapeutic (thorough) chewing by R. G. Shavkunov the most.
Chewing your food for a long time is the way to a healthier gastrointestinal tract and the entire body.
I applied the method of therapeutic chewing in Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, where I led a health group. The effect was amazing – 200 people forgot about their diseases, became healthy and ran 10 km every day, and 50 people ran a super marathon: 250 km 50 km a day. Naturally, there was a great interest in learning those regularities and mechanisms of the human body that help to awaken such great possibilities.
The proposed system of prolonged therapeutic chewing has been tested on myself and others many times over a period of 12 years. It has always produced the expected positive results.
How do we usually eat? We never think about it. For us, the main factor is time. We don’t have time to eat, we don’t have time to eat. In the morning we are late, grab a piece of bread or something else and swallow it on the go. Lunch is 40-50 minutes: we have to talk, rest, play chess, dominoes, but not food. It goes in parallel, on the move. In 5-10 minutes we are satiated.
What we eat is something tasty and quick, i.e. food has become a true pleasure, even a pastime. Or it can be the other way around. We can sit at the table for hours, devouring untold amounts of food and, worst of all, we enjoy it.
We forget that we have to pay for it, sometimes cruelly: cut off 3/4 of the stomach, pancreatitis, cholecystitis and many other diseases. All living things in nature (except modern man) treat the process of digestion with great attention, trying to get from this process all that is laid down by nature.
Modern medicine defines digestion as a physiological process by which food entering the digestive tract is processed (mechanically and chemically), which is necessary for its assimilation by the body. The proteins, fats and carbohydrates contained in food can be digested only after being broken down into simpler chemical compounds. The breakdown of these nutrients occurs in the digestive tract with the participation of gas pedals of chemical reactions – biological catalysts or enzymes that are produced by cells of digestive glands (salivary, gastric, pancreatic, intestinal) and are part of the juices secreted by these glands in the lumen of the digestive tract. Subsequent absorption of the broken down products and their transportation within the body ensure their supply to the cells in need.
The works of I.P. Pavlov established the following:
● The digestive glands are controlled by the nervous system.
● The amount of juices secreted, their composition and properties depend on the composition of food and other conditions (e.g., mood).
● All parts of the digestive apparatus work in a coordinated way, interacting with each other.
● The work of the digestive glands changes as we move from one food regimen to another.
Food processing during prolonged chewing occurs as follows. The food crushed by teeth comes into interaction with saliva and chemo receptors of the oral cavity, which send information about the chemical composition of food to the brain, from which in turn receives information about the necessary correction of the chemical composition of saliva to create the best conditions for its further processing and digestion. Part of the food taken into the mouth, processed by saliva, is absorbed into the blood directly in the oral cavity. This allows you to process a significant part of the carbohydrate component, the fastest way to meet part of the needs of cells in the body in nutrition, eliminate overeating and create the most favorable conditions for food processing in the stomach, 12-rectum, small and large intestine. In this case, the carbohydrate component (bread, porridge, pasta, potatoes) is processed mainly in the mouth, 12-rectum, and the protein component (meat, fish, legumes) is processed in the stomach.
The most favorable conditions are created for separate digestion and the most complete assimilation of proteins, carbohydrates and other nutrients coming with food. We get the feeling of satiety with food significantly faster with less of its consumption by 2-4 times. Energy expenditure on food processing is significantly reduced, and the saved energy is used by the body to restore and revitalize all parts of the gastrointestinal tract. And all this can be obtained after a 5-week cycle of long-term therapeutic chewing according to the following scheme.
Therapeutic chewing scheme
● First week – every spoonful of food put in your mouth (breakfast, lunch, dinner) chewed for ONE minute
● Week 2 – TWO MINUTES
● Week 3 – THREE minutes
● Fourth is TWO minutes
● Fifth, one minute.
Chewing is ideal: one chew for each existing tooth and three chews for each missing tooth. As a result, a conditioned reflex for prolonged chewing of food (30-40 seconds) is formed. Experience shows that prolonged therapeutic chewing treats almost all diseases, because during chewing in this process involves all systems of the body: digestive, nervous, endocrine and others. First of all, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract are treated: peptic ulcer, gastritis, duodenitis, pancreatitis and even diabetes. Normalizes the work of the esophagus (eliminated its diverticula) and large intestine. The liver is cleaned, nervous diseases and thyroid diseases, appendicitis are treated. At the same time there is a process of normalization of weight: for five weeks, excess weight is reduced by 5-10 kg, and insufficient weight comes to normal. The metabolism is normalized.
Let’s look at two examples of meals
The first one
Fast eating, attention to the process of eating is absent, and similar circumstances. The food, not lingering in the mouth, quickly enters the stomach, where hydrochloric acid is produced in the upper part. Its action upon the mixture of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates causes fermentation and the formation of a brogue, and the secretion of alcohol. From this mixture it is possible to brew moonshine. Next, the food should be alkalized and go into the duodenum, but it is not allowed by the gatekeeper (valve from the stomach to the duodenum), until the pH (indicator of the chemical composition of food) is not equal to 7.8 (this is the value of pH in the duodenum). A healthy gatekeeper waits until the pH reaches this value. The body expends energy and resources on this. But this happens when you are young.
Over the years, due to a decrease in the energy capabilities of the body when eating quickly, the gatekeeper becomes anemic, and it stops working. As a result, undigested food goes to the duodenum, and that either because of the inconsistency of the pH of the incoming food to the pH, which is laid down by nature in the program of its work, returns it back to the stomach, or to the small intestine, which, if healthy (has the necessary enzymes and vitamins due to the presence of the right bacteria), can digest this content.
And if there is dysbacteriosis, the food goes into the large intestine, where it adheres to the walls and the nutrients the body needs are sucked out of the mix. Whereas this is supposed to happen in the duodenum. As a result, not the walls of the large intestine are formed in the form of stones, to get rid of which is very difficult or impossible. This is the source of all diseases.
In the part of the large intestine where the buildup and stones were formed, its reflex activity decreased. The active points of many organs became stuck. They lost connection with the food that is there at the moment. The connection of the control system of digestion, absorption and excretion with the contents of the large intestine was interrupted. So, if it is in the sigmoid colon, it gives rise to prostatitis, diseases of the genital organs, infertility, etc. The buildup itself tends to grow and can reach several kilograms, changing the location of the abdominal organs and disrupting their work.
In addition, the proteins contained in such a mixture begin to undergo the process of putrefaction, contributing to the death of the microflora necessary for the body, lowering immunity, the production of the necessary substances inside the body in the amount it needs at the moment. Therefore, among people with this attitude to nutrition, practicing doctors, as a rule, do not meet adults with a perfectly healthy gastrointestinal tract. Nutrition is an ancient, very important biological function of the body. When we read the newspaper, talk, watch television, eat standing up, we voluntarily unbalance the mental process associated with the function of nutrition, causing harm to the body, which sooner or later may manifest itself in gastrointestinal disorders, nervous disorders and other directly or indirectly related to nervous activity and painful manifestations.
Filling the consciousness with other information not related to digestion, negative emotions lead to a decrease in blood circulation in the digestive system, creating a chain of various, interrelated changes in the activity of the glands of internal secretion and the work of gastrointestinal microflora. Therefore, a person should not eat in an excited state, but should take food slowly, concentrating on the sensations in the area of the tongue and palate.
Second
We are strictly self-aware: we chew our food slowly and well, so that it turns into a soft mush and slides down your esophagus as if by itself. Then such food will be easily digested, and you will not experience in the stomach or intestines any unpleasant sensations, no heaviness, no pain at different content of the original food. The taken food will be easily digested in your body, which will digest its useful components and suck into the blood everything necessary for muscle strength and energy, in short, for life. All unnecessary substances and toxins such an organism will be able to eliminate through fecal excretions and urine, providing both digestion and production of substances needed by the body. The entire microflora of the gastrointestinal tract will work in an optimal mode. Since digestion will be excellent, the excretion of wastes will also take place without any difficulty. Every morning when you get out of bed, you will experience the natural need to empty your bowels without the use of medication. Your stools will always be regular, normal and easy. At the same time, you will have an excellent sleep.
During eating, the receptors of the tongue and palate send impulses to the nervous system that carry information about the nature of the food being eaten. At this time, it is necessary to keep the tongue in contact with the food for a long time, increasing the time of eating. Distraction by other mental activities interferes with the control of the eating process. Consciousness must monitor what is happening in the mouth. Meditation (concentration of attention on the process of food processing in the mouth) during eating contributes to a faster occurrence of the feeling of satiety and is a remedy against obesity. Therefore, eating should be done in a pleasant and relaxed environment and can be done by anyone, wherever he is. Successes in quick elimination of symptoms of diseases (not their causes) with the help of various medications allowed the founders of modern medicine to push Fletcherism into the shadows. But the modern crisis of the same medicine makes it urgent to return to fletcherism and its modifications. The author’s experience and practice confirm this. The method of prolonged mastication has a number of advantages over separate nutrition.
They boil down to the following:
● Therapeutic chewing is available to everyone and does not require medical supervision.
● Therapeutic chewing is a process of separate nutrition in its purest form, since any food consisting of proteins, fats and carbohydrates is digested separately: in the mouth and small intestine its carbohydrates are digested, and in the stomach its protein components are digested.
● The body smoothly and gradually with the usual diet brings to normal all systems of the gastrointestinal tract and restores the natural capabilities of the immune system without disturbing the established system of biorhythms of the body.
● Therapeutic chewing requires the least amount of energy to restore the body’s systems compared to other methods. Therefore, the resulting savings in body energy allows the body to realize its greatest restorative potential.
● It provides recovery of the whole body and its systems: digestive, nervous, immune and others.
● A significant reduction in food intake (2-4 times) prevents the appearance of excess weight after a course of therapeutic chewing, reduces the cost of food, reduces the amount of toxins formed in the body, facilitating the work of excretory systems, contributing to their recovery.
A conditioned reflex is naturally developed – a habit of prolonged chewing after the end of the therapeutic cycle, which can persist for years with occasional repetition of the therapeutic chewing cycle. This method in combination with any kind of fasting gives amazing effects of weight loss andrecovery ofthe gastrointestinal tract and the whole organism.
