Customer Reviews

Rejuvenate: A 21-Day Natural Detox Plan for Optimal Health

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was the first detox book I have read.

It involves a lot of planning & preparing.

What I gained from the book: rediscovered taking baths, understanding how my colon should properly function (& how my protruding stomach was due to a bloated dysfunctional colon), some wonderful liquid concoctions & that my menstrual cycle is necessary for cleansing & how to help it along. I saved the activities for those weekends or nights when I didn't have responsibilities to deal with & my boyfriend in the house. They served as a nice treat.

The most visible improvement was my skin. About more than a year ago I started getting really bad acne again, since about 6 years ago. The Rejuvalac drink seemed to clear it up. In fact I stopped using it & the spots (which I believe were due to some bacterial imbalance) came back. I then started to drink it again & it's been about 3 months & still clear. You need to hold your nose when you drink it but it doesn't have a bad taste.

By the second week I unfortunately gave up. I work full time, go to school and the plan is just too complicated and time consuming for me right now. Its been about 4 months since I started it & I still try to do some of things suggested in the book though. I have gone back to some of my bad habits though.

Unlike one review, and i've reread the book a couple of times, I don't remember the author claiming that her food combining principles are the reason that will help one lose weight. She only claimed that eating certain foods together leaves gases in your stomach, which makes one's stomach protrude. And she only claimed, as a by the way benefit, that one would 'may' lose some weight while following this.

The program is time consuming & somewhat expensive. The book does say that doing the entire program is somewhat impossible but the author wanted to give enough so that the individual readers can tailor/omit things. I live in hippie town San Francisco so finding the ingredients at my local organic, non-meat, bulk food, co-op health food store was easy enough (though time consuming & expensive). I can only assume it would be hard trying to find all of it if I didn't live in this diverse city though.

I gave the book 4 stars for the wealth of information the book provides. I give myself 1 star for not following thru. But I plan to revisit the book once (if) I get it back from my friend.
Once I finish school this next year I plan to see if I can do the entire program all the way through.

I picked up this book after quitting smoking to go through a whole body detox and found a lot of the information useful and compelling. At the same time, it is very difficult and down-right complicated to work full time and follow the daily tea drinking at special times, exercise, bathing rituals, and lengthy food preparation, etc. I found I had to pick 2 or 3 items out of the schedule for a day but never managed to fit in everything recommended except almost everything on a weekend. Silver provides an extensive shopping list with some hard to find and many(!) expensive items although she does state several times that you should adapt the plan to whatever works for you. I am glad I bought the book as I learned many things about digestion, nutrition and overall health and have adopted some of the recommendations but definitely have not been able to go through the full plan.

I've used this book's detox programme twice, once six years ago and once this month, September 2004. I've found it really effective. The first time I did it I felt great, plus I lost 16 pounds and 2 inches off my waist, and kept it there for 4 years! So I recently detoxed again because I do like cookies etc! It worked well again. I found the book's format was very readable, and the articles for each day were interesting. For the daily menus during the 21 day prgramme, I would have preferred it presented more in simple lists and tables, not so many wordy paragraphs. I had to search for the information and write up my own schedule and shopping lists. But that's not much work, and if you really want the detox to succeed, it's worth that effort. Very good; reccomended.

I am in the first week of this program and think it is excellent. It can be time-consuming, but so is anything worthwhile - this is truly beneficial. I just have to plan things out carefully, but have little difficulty executing. One of the more expensive parts is the purchase of the essential oils. My recommendation: buy them at different times (ahead of time) rather than all at once - they'll keep. My one complaint: I get the feeling the author thinks we all live in southern California. Unfortunately, both the weather and some of the items on the grocery list may present challenges. But again, this program is worth the effort and expense!

My wife and I have done this cleanse for five years now and will be soon starting for the sixth year. We do it in Jan/Feb every year as a way to recouperate from the holidays and kick-off the year feeling great. As others mention in their reviews, after only 21 days, I feel completely different, lighter (a by product of the cleanse is that you can lose significant weight - a lot of it is water weight which your body usually retains so it can "flush" out the toxins that comes from eating commerically packaged food so a portion of the weight loss comes from the fact that as your body sheds the water when all you eat are organic foods, drink filtered water and no garbage - alcohol, refined sugar, packaged foods, etc.), your skin truly does glow, more energy, and an all-around feeling of well-being. About 20 co-workers have incorporated this into their lives and many friends have also done it simply by seeing the effect it has on me (my wife and I don't really evangalize it among our friends/family). This is one of the only times I've talked the cleanse diet up in public. Yes it's a bit time consuming as you make most of the food from scratch but that's the whole point. For three weeks, you hit the pause button on your normal intake of food, and shift your daily consumption routines and get really aware and focused on what you put into your body. Really convienent food tends not to be very good for... which shouldn't be news to anybody. Those who are lazy and have no will power will not enjoy or complete this relatively short but highly effective regime.

This book is full of great tips for eliminating bodily toxins- and it's all easy to do. I've noticed such a positive difference in the changes I've made to my diet.

I spent a great deal of money to do this 21 day Rejuvenation diet, as I was into the 3rd week I couldn't believe my eyes: pages 257 - 288 were missing.
I really like Helene Silver's holistic approach to detoxing but it was incredibly time-consuming and expensive if you bought everything she recommended, which i didn't. If I can get a decent copy of this book I plan to do it again in the Spring, but now I will know what I'm getting into and can plan to set aside more time to do it more completely. I highly recommend skimming thru the whole book (to make sure all the pages are there!) and to mentally prepare yourself for all that is involved. It's alot more than just a diet, it's a whole lifestyle including exercise, breathing exercises, massage, colon cleanse and especially aromatherapy baths each night. I lost 10 pounds just by following the diet but I am sure I would have gotten alot more out of it had I had the time to do everything she recommended.

I echo R. Deal's review sentiments and have a few things to add:

1. Do the entire program with a partner at home! If your spouse or s.o. is eating pizza and Cheetos while you're eating raw veggies and drinking sprouted barley water, it's going to be hard.
2. It can be expensive. When I did the 21 day program, I spent over $400 on the list of things to get just to get started. However, that was eating for two replacing the normal food budget in addition to not eating out. Think big picture.
3. The first few days while my body was exorcising the toxins, I was a real grump and had a constant headache. Once I made it past that hurdle, I felt great. Once I finished the program, I felt amazing.
4. Don't use this as a weight loss method. One of the lamest reviews on this book, from hungrylady or whatever her name was, I believe was way off base. This is a cleansing program as well as a way to learn what foods do to your body and how you can make improvements in diet after the program is over.
5. Use the whole 21 day program if you have the time and are not traveling. Slow down, be methodical, be thoughtful and it will be a great experience.

I also recommend doing two colon-blows at your local colonic house. Once in the first week to help with the toxin evacuation and once at the end of the program. Talk about feeling cleansed.

This book outlines a diet that is a huge waste of time. The diet is impractical, the sections are poorly organized, the shopping lists are worthless (they omit many items needed for meals) and the premise of the whole process is based on pseudo-science and new age mumbo-jumbo. You'd be better off going on a strict, vegan, no protein, no carb diet for three weeks than trying to adhere to this crazy diet! The weight loss experienced by this diet would be due solely to the lower caloric intake and have nothing to do a some 'magical' combinations of 'problem foods' that you have avoided. Of course, my 'problem food' combination is a big mac, french fries and a milkshake -- so maybe it does help???

This book outlines a diet that is a huge waste of time. The diet is impractical, the sections are poorly organized, the shopping lists are worthless (they omit many items needed for meals) and the premise of the whole process is based on pseudo-science and new age mumbo-jumbo. You'd be better off going on a strict, vegan, no protein, no carb diet for three weeks than trying to adhere to this crazy diet! The weight loss experienced by this diet would be due solely to the lower caloric intake and have nothing to do a some 'magical' combinations of 'problem foods' that you have avoided. Of course, my 'problem food' combination is a big mac, french fries and a milkshake -- so maybe it does help???