Allergic Fluid Retention: How Your Favorite Foods Could be Turning You into a Sponge
One of the biggest causes of fluid retention is food allergies (also known as food intolerance). This type of fluid retention means that you start holding on to water after eating certain foods. These foods vary from person to person. There is nothing wrong with the foods themselves – allergy means having an abnormal reaction to something.
Most people are completely unaware of their food allergies. If you eat a problem food (such as flour in bread, cake or pasta) several times every day
* Your body will never get the chance to release the excess fluid
* You will probably not realize that it is fluid
* You will not understand why you cannot lose weight.
The Waterfall Diet is not just therapeutic – it incorporates a really reliable self-test for food allergies. At the same time as you lose your allergic fluid retention you will find out which foods were causing it and can then concentrate on avoiding them.
Protein Helps You Release Excess Fluid.
Are You Getting Enough?
A lack of protein in your diet can cause fluid retention. We have all seen pictures of third world children with big bellies swollen by fluid retention, and matchstick arms and legs. The technical name for their condition is known as “protein-energy malnutrition” and means that they are not consuming enough protein or enough calorie-rich foods in general. The lack of protein prevents their liver from making enough of a substance called albumin, which is essential to prevent fluid retention.
It seems impossible that in the affluent West anyone could suffer from a protein deficiency. In fact most books on nutrition warn us that we are probably eating too much protein and should concentrate more on fruits and vegetables. But some people take this too literally. Fruitarian” diets and strict vegetarian diets which include too few protein-rich plant foods can lead to severe fluid retention. The Waterfall Diet book provides plenty of advice for vegetarians on how to avoid this problem.
Your Personal Waterfall
Making Your Kidneys Work For You
Rarely do we get any nutritional advice for the benefit of our kidneys, yet they are the most important organ for controlling your fluid balance. If you had no kidneys, all the fluid you drink would accumulate in your blood and around your body’s cells, and all the waste products normally excreted by your kidneys would stay inside you and poison you. You would become very ill, and death would soon follow.
Kidney stress over many years can lead to kidney damage and a reduced ability to siphon excess fluid out of your body. Modern eating habits are responsible for much kidney stress, with their excess of salt and sugar and relative lack of vitamin B6 and the minerals magnesium and selenium. Mercury (as found in tooth fillings) and other toxic substances can also have harmful effects on your kidneys. The Waterfall Diet is ideal for helping to prevent ailing kidneys from getting worse and can even reverse certain kidney ailments.
The Medicines That Can Make You Fat.
What Is Your Doctor Prescribing?
Under the law, proof is not required that a medicine be safe, only that its benefits should outweigh its side effects. Fluid retention can be a side effect of a surprisingly large number of both necessary and unnecessary prescription drugs, particularly female hormonal treatments, painkillers, steroids and blood pressure medications. The Waterfall Diet book gives more details.
By restoring normality to your body’s functions, the Waterfall Diet could in time even help you to stop needing these medications.
How Polluted Are You?
Your Body May be Using Water to Dilute Toxins
Two main types of fluid retention can be caused by internal pollution – by the presence of high levels of substances in your body that should not be there. One type is cellulite, and the other is due to pollution-related inflammation. The Waterfall Diet is ideal for helping to remove some of the pollutants which cause these problems.
Your Personal Plumbing System Looking After Your Blood and Lymph Vessels
There are an estimated 25,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. The Waterfall Diet book explains the normal fluid exchanges that take place between your blood vessels and the cells of your muscles, organs and other tissues, and what happens when things go wrong. It also tells you about your lymphatic system, whose job it is to collect excess fluid and return it to your blood. Congestion of your lymphatic system can be a major cause of fluid retention. The book describes how to revive a sluggish lymphatic system with special massage, and gives details of herbs that doctors in Australia, Germany and Italy prescribe to help drain excess fluid out of the tissues. (These are not diuretic herbs, which simply stimulate the kidneys and should be used with caution since all diuretic substances can worsen some types of fluid retention).
Fluid Retention Caused by Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies
It is perfectly possible to have symptoms of vitamin or mineral deficiencies even if you eat a healthy, nourishing, well-balanced diet. The reason is that some people do not absorb and assimilate all nutrients properly.
Would you know if you had a nutritional deficiency? Not necessarily. A lot of the symptoms are things we take for granted: bad skin, getting tired easily, not sleeping well, mood swings, bad nerves, period pains. Good fluid balance depends on a lot of different micronutrients: vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, flavonoids and so on. The Waterfall Diet looks at some of the ways in which deficiencies can affect your fluid balance, even causing fluid to build up in your legs or joints, where it may be diagnosed as varicose veins or arthritis.
WARNING!
Drinking less fluid will not cure fluid retention, and could make it worse. Tea, coffee and alcohol are the worst drinks for fluid retention sufferers. Plain water is the best. “Water tablets” (diuretics) should not be used unless prescribed by a doctor, as they can worsen some types of fluid retention. If you have been given a special diet by a hospital dietitian and told that it could be dangerous for you to deviate from that diet, then you should ask your dietitian’s advice before considering the Waterfall Diet.
