Losing Weight with Bentonite Clay?

I've lost thirteen pounds in the last four to five weeks, plus am sleeping better this week, don't seem to have sugar cravings (and I'm addicted to sweets, so this is a biggie) and have no clue why I'm so blessed with improved health. Therefore, I'm racking my brain to pinpoint the cause so I can continue the effect. On purpose.

The only things that I've changed have been drinking less coffee (OMG, never thought I'd ever say that). Instead I'm drinking a ton of Tradewinds flavored unsweetened black teas and now homemade (unsweetened) green tea. I recently incorporated a homemade remineralizing toothpaste I found on the Net (recipe here: http://thepaleomama.com/2013/12/diy-remineralizing-toothpaste/). Oh, yeah. I'm also using helichrysum essential oil in my antiaging skin lotion (somewhat daily), as it is supposed to help dry skin, get rid of liver spots and be good for overall liver health.

The particular homemade toothpaste I chose uses bentonite clay. A quick Internet search did find hits for weight loss associated with bentonite clay as well as food grade diatomaceous earth. But the toothpaste is spit out, while the diatomaceous earth is dissolved in water or juice and to be consumed. Thus the "food grade" preference.

But I'm not swallowing my homemade toothpaste. Yet, if I brush for two minutes, I guess my mouth will absorb some of that through sublingual administration, right?

Anyway I also recently read a couple informative books by Dr. Sandra Cabot on liver health: The Liver Cleansing Diet and Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It. I learned several things reading both, but the few that stand out the most are this:

1. The liver is the only fat-flushing organ in our body.
2. The liver is like the trash man. If no one comes to cart off your trash, diseases abound. So a damaged liver isn't capable of doing its job fully and opens us up to ill health (and weight gain or the inability to lose it).
3. If you treat the body through the skin (like stop-smoking patches and hormonal creams), you actually bypass the liver, so you let it focus on other things.
4. Fatty liver can, of course, be caused by too much drinking, but fatty liver can also be caused by too much sugar. Wow.

Dr. Cabot states that, if we focus on detoxing the liver, giving it a few weeks to purge itself of the fat-trapped toxins in that organ so it can then do its job better, afterward the weight will come off (or weight gain will ensue, as your particular body needs).

So maybe that's what I did with my half-gallon-a-day tea habit and my homemade toothpaste and adding helichrysum essential oil to my beauty ritual (such as it is)?

I am not following Dr. Cabot's eight-week program but am incorporating more liver-friendly foods, hopefully each day. And I'm not able to do organic either. That's why I'm surprised by the weight loss, because I really haven't done anything drastic with my eating habits.

The only exercise I get is cleaning the house and mowing the lawn.

Has anybody else found this link between bentonite clay (and/or helichrysum) and weight loss to be true? Don't tell me it's because I gave up coffee ... please! Ha! Although, after finding the Bulletproof coffee recipe earlier this year, I was drinking far less coffee a day anyway. But now I actually don't have coffee daily. That may change when winter sets in. Still, it's something to consider.

FYI: I'm not affiliated with any of the particular products noted herein and am not otherwise being paid to advertise them. I just list them here as something I've used which may (or may not) be the current cause of my weight loss.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
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What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

You Are Your Greatest Asset

You are your greatest asset.  I love that quote, courtesy of Logan Marshall's article for Write to Done:  Unmissable Articles on Writing entitled "Instant Flow:  How to Train Yourself to Think Creatively."  Here's the link:

http://writetodone.com/2012/04/10/instant-flow-how-to-train-yourself-to-think-creatively/

All the wonderful things I love about Logan's article include:

• Notice the word "train" in the title?  Yes, authors should train like an athlete.  Our mind, body and soul are connected.  We need to see to the health of all to be fully in creative mode.  Plus haven't you heard the definition of stress/worry as putting your mind and your heart at war?  Internal peace is when our mind, body and soul are in agreement.
• My new mantra is:  I am my greatest asset.  We should never lose sight of that fact.  Check the Bible:  we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the very image of God.  Check with any scientist:  we are the greatest machine ever created.  We are worth billions when you break us down to our individual parts; just the minerals in our body alone make us priceless.
• I would alter his first two steps, running and meditation, to fit my personal lifestyle and comfort level.  It would become fast walking and prayerful introspection.  Just my own take on his wise words.
• His point three:  Eat clean, healthy foods.  Amen.  Let our food be our medicine and medicine our food.  I believe foods as God made them trumps anything man-made every time.  I'd go fully organic if I could.  In the meantime, I eat from the perimeter of the grocery story, where foods don't have "Ingredients" lists with multiple entries and mostly chemical-sounding names.  A banana is a banana.  I buy beef roasts, whole chickens, eggs, bacon, strawberries, roma tomatoes, avocados, etc.  
• His point four:  Super hydrate.  The first symptom of dehydration is sometimes confused as hunger.  You are really down a quart when you have a dry mouth and are craving water.  If you've gone so far as to have a sick-to-your-stomach feeling, you are one step away from a ride in an emergency vehicle.  I once had an ND tell me to drink reverse osmosis water.  I choose for me, personally, to go with spring water--naturally from the earth as God intended, complete with minerals.  Remember the therapeutic value of soaking in a natural hot spring?  Because of all the body-healing minerals it contains?  I think drinking the cooled equivalent does a body good, IMO.  In the two to three years since I've been going this route, my normally freckled skin is much less so.  Nice!
• His point five:  Get enough sleep.  I so agree.  For decades I awoke by a dreaded alarm clock.  Hated it.  And for decades wasn't getting what my body wanted--eight full hours of sleep.

The only item I would add to his great plan is to go to bed each night thinking about the most efficient and productive and goal-rendering use of your time for tomorrow.  What two things do I really need to tend to?  Wait for the response.  If you have any snags still pending and thwarting you, ask God for the answer while you sleep.  It works for me.

I'm one of those authors who ponders my new novel in my head for a length of time.  It could be two days.  It could be over two months.  It could be remembering an idea I had in my twenties, wrote into a short story back then and have since lost, but the concept resurfaced.  Maybe I'm to write it now.

So my before-bed activity of planning and seeking is a no-brainer for me.

It is said that all our answers are within.  Any wisdom we may need resides inside us.

There's an old myth told about the gods wanting to hide treasure from God's favorites, his people.  After all, God favors us to his angels, to his animals, to everything else He created.  So the gods sought for a place to hide away this source from God's pet humans.

"In the sky?" one suggested.

"No they will go to the moon and beyond and will find it," another explained.  "How about in the sea?"

"No, their curiosity will have them delving deep into the waters," a third countered.

"What about burying it in the mountains?" a fourth proposed.

"The gold and silver will lure them there," a fifth argued.

There was a long pause as the little gods pondered this.

Finally one spoke up.  "What if we hide it within them--in their heart, their soul, their minds?"

One by one, the other false gods nodded.

"Done," they agreed unanimously.

Worth a bit of time to check it out, huh?

Good luck, athletes!

And don't forget:  YOU ARE YOUR GREATEST ASSET.