Burrrrr!!! It's cold outside! Raw Food?!?!

Kelly wrote:

Hi Matt,
I have a question: My wife and I just finished a 15 day juice "feast" cleanse (loved it, the best ever!). Our intention is now to continue the adventure with as raw a diet as possible. One symptom both of us felt after drinking our green juice during the cleanse was feeling very cold in our hands and feet, & very sensitive to cool weather. I am curious what would remedy the "coldness" that the “take me off your list” lady you mentioned in your newsletter experienced. Just add warming herbs? Avoid/add certain foods? Just give it more time, a more transitional diet?
Thanks
Kelly

I feel one of the reasons that people get cold is definitely because of detoxification, as the 'poisons' within our cells are released into our bloodstream. I can see it now, someone who is detoxing...easily shivers. This is a detox symptom. When the bloodstream is not clean, our Vitality is suppressed and our energy isn't freely flowing. When you're f(e)asting like this, you are creating a healing crisis which will release endogenous poisons into the bloodstream. If you are not keeping up with RELEASING these poisons from the bloodstream (i.e. getting them OUT of your system, especially via colon cleansing), your vitality will be suppressed and you will easily be cold.

This can get quite confusing because it might seem like I'm contradicting what I just said in this next segment - bear with me ;). When you don't eat much food during a day, less energy is directed towards the digestion of food. If this is combined with keeping up with the elimination of any toxins entering your bloodstream, the overall effect is an increase in your vitality. This can actually make handling the cold much easier. The difference in this scenario is that your bloodstream is clean.
This can get quite complex. If you eat little in a day, and your bloodstream is clean, your vitality will be high (or even raise), because your energy will not be used up on digesting food, or sapped by a dirty bloodstream. Your energy will be more "Free-Flowing". If you persist eating small amounts like this, at some point your body will get enough vitality to give off even more endogenous toxins to cleanse you more on a cellular level, which can take you to the next level of cellular cleanliness.
I find this a bit IRONIC! This is the kind of the point at which you will experience detox and possibly get cold, however, just before a healing crisis like this, you probably could have handled the cold without a problem. So, while your body is actually reaching onwards into a stronger and more vital state overall, in the short interim of the healing crisis, as the cells cleanse themselves of toxins, we can feel cold, shaky, unwell, unstable and so on. It is just a stepping stone stage - nothing to be feared - you will come out the other side with a cleaner and stronger body as a result.
Additionally, for a guy like me who has been 100% raw vegan for 8 years, if I eat little in a day, it isn't actually so much of an improvement in my diet that it causes a healing crisis. Therefore, if I persisted eating like that, the detox wouldn't be so severe, compared to someone who eats, for example, a Standard American Diet.

As always, I recommend keeping the colon clean, so you keep up with these toxins being released into your system. If you do this, you should notice a shift in how you handle the cold. I notice that I generally don't have any problems in the cold, ESPECIALLY when I haven't eaten much on any particular day. As soon as I eat, my vitality goes down, due to my energy being utilized to digest the food and I feel cold. I remember doing an event in Chicago for example, close to winter time and it was cold outside. I didn't eat much all day and a few people walked back with me to my car. They were rather 'large' people, with warm clothes and jackets on and they were FREEZING. I took my shirt off and was changing into my comfortable clothes and I had NO issue with the cold whatsoever, in the freezing weather. I WAS PRACTICALLY NAKED! As soon as I ate though, I got a bit cold.

Fred once told me a story too, about how he was shoveling snow in his driveway and he had no issues in the cold. He felt like he could be wearing a T-shirt and not have a problem. However, as soon as he ate, he noticed that his vitality went down and the cold would affect him more.

I know that I get so complex on the simplest of questions. So, I asked Angela to give me user-friendly easy information that I could just pass on to you too ;).

Our Angela suggested:

drink warm drinks, like herbal tea - perhaps try having warmed soups etc too - if you can keep your finger in it without pain, that's ok...try foods straight from a dehydrator for example too...eat warming foods like hot peppers, cayenne and ginger, eat lots of heavier foods in winter time like nuts, seeds, avos etc, dress very warm, get good exercise to get your circulation going, like rebounding etc etc - lots to do to support your process... ;)

This initial 'Detoxification Period' is a lot more drawn out than many of us seem to think. TRULY stabilizing out on a 100% Raw Food Diet takes years. Literally, for the first 3 - 4 years, every once in awhile, I felt like the palms of my hands would turn numb. I wasn't scared because I intuitively knew my body just had work to do. This happened on and off for around 3 years! It was actually quite neat... Yeah... I guess I am kind of bizarre... I liked the numb hands... it was a little fun change. Then out of nowhere the numbness just stopped and never happened again. I finally caught up with what I was doing and stabilized out on my new 100% Raw Food Diet.

My GREAT friend Paul Nison just put a series of videos up on You Tube of one of his lectures. His jokes just keep me laughing through the entire lecture and it is soooo inspiring. There is a set of six parts and they are 10 minutes each. The videos can be seen HERE.

LASTLY... Calling All Colon Hydrotherapists!!! I get hundreds of people asking me where they can get a colonic from a GOOD THERAPIST! I am creating a list. The goal is to have an AMAZING colon therapist in each state and region, in every country where colonics are available. Each colon therapist who wants to be put on this list will go through the Matt Monarch 'WRINGER' to make sure they are the BEST of the BEST! Email me at matt@rawspirit.org.