You know what? I suspect you won’t take my food advice well. And you’ll most likely be offended. But please think of it as something to consider if you’ve been battling any of the symptoms I’ve described.  

People I’ve not seen for years ask what my ‘secret’ is. If they were truly keen, I’d refer them to Dr Walker’s books.

But to you, it’s this:

Select, separate and time your food. 

My old eating habits took months to break, but I was determined. Being disciplined was the most difficult, but it was key to achieving my goal.

I totally cut out cola drinks, biscuits and lollies. You will not find them anywhere in my home. 

It suited my lifestyle to mix carbs with meat, but my portions of rice, noodles and pasta are now smaller.

I also have a weakness for crafted bread like sourdough, but by cutting out the ‘bad’ carbs and sugary drinks, I can enjoy 3 to 4 slices a day without putting on a gram!  

I have fish, especially sardines and salmon, choose turkey over chicken, and have smaller meat portions. 

Alcohol? A beer now and then is fine, and so’s wine. But don’t drink just because everybody else is, especially with meals (sorry). If you do, start cutting down. It’s an insult to your liver! 

I didn’t want to be an old woman with a distended stomach and flabby waist. I wanted to walk with a smile and steady stride, my head held high, loving my life.

Dr Walker wrote this:

‘Your body is the house in which you live. …

‘Your home needs, at the very least, periodical attention … every function and activity of your system, day and night, physical, mental and spiritual, is dependent on the attention you give to it.’¹

Won’t you quickly fix your clogged plumbing, leaky roof or rising damp?  Why not give the same attention to your body?

But please see your GP first if you have any health concerns at all. ‘No time’ is no excuse. A blood test, X-ray or scan will either put your mind at ease or fix something urgent.

Dental checks every 6 months are mandatory. You don’t want tooth decay and gum disease. Bad breath may reveal more than the onions you ate; mouthwash does not remove all your plaque and bacteria.  

In my opinion, the following tests are non-negotiable, and more so if you’re over 50: 

1. WOMEN:  Monitor your blood pressure. Check your breasts regularly for lumps, and schedule mammograms; these are free in Australia every two years from the age of 40. Bone density screening is also important.

2. MEN AGED 55 AND OVER:  Have your blood pressure regularly checked by your GP, and have annual PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood tests.

3. TO ALL AGED 50 AND OVER:  Do a bowel screen test via a home screening kit. Screening kits are provided free in Australia every 2 years to those in this age group. Get on your butt and do the test!

If a colonoscopy is recommended, it will remove polyps in your colon quickly before they become cancerous; you’re blissfully asleep and won’t feel a thing. I was 55 when I had my first colonoscopy. Polyps were removed early on, and I was all clear after my fourth one in 2017. 

Now – let’s start cleaning your house!

1. Stock up with fresh fruit. They are your body’s cleansers. Buy fruits in season, and don’t forget lemons, grapefruit and oranges. They’re abundant and cheap.

I juice half a grapefruit, half an orange, and a bit of lemon the night before. First thing in the morning, I top this up with warm water in a large glass (at least 600ml).

I recently read that eating citrus zest effectively doubles the speed that DNA is repaired.² It has more Vitamin C than the fruit itself, and contains anti-inflammatory, antioxidant bioflavonoids and collagen. Good value for money don’t you think?  

I now cut my grapefruit and/or orange in bite-size quarters, peel off the outer skin to leave the white pith. I eat most of it in the morning, or add it to my salad before dinner. Try it. Watch how to properly skim your grapefruit and orange here. 

2. Next, stock up on salad vegetables. They’re your body builders. 

Aim for at least 1 large raw salad meal a day – before your main meal. ‘Salad’ means no fancy dressings. Have another look at Dr Walker’s Food-Control Guide.

Every raw salad you prepare has LIFE, with all-important cellulose and fibre. It is nature’s broom to help remove accumulated waste matter from your colon. 

Having it first before your cooked meal gives your body a better chance of absorbing the wonderful properties found only in raw food. Would you mix unleaded E10 with high-performance octane in your precious car? I think not.    

Now watch my friend Deb present her beautiful beetroot salad. 

As a start, pick a few greens – cos lettuce, celery, rocket, parsley, cucumber or coriander. But do add fennel – a lovely, fibre-rich winter vegetable.  

If you’re busy, simply cut a stalk or two of celery, a few leaves of cos lettuce or fennel, and an apple instead of dressing. You’ll love biting into fennel or celery … so refreshing. Tomato, by the way, is a fruit. It can be eaten with lettuce, beetroot or grated carrot, or just with avocado or grated cheese. Parsley or spring onions to garnish. Lovely. 

The benefit of having a substantial salad before your usual cooked lunch or dinner keeps your hunger in check and stops you overeating or snacking in between.

Why raw salad?

Having raw salad vegetables is always better than taking pills, which merely imitate the vital nutrients found in such food. While vitamin supplements are essential during adolescence, pre- and post-pregnancy and for specific conditions, the raw veg formula is the only one that will keep you young. 

It’s fine to take supplements and probiotics, but don’t replace a bad diet with vitamins or herbal remedies. You won’t be ‘healthier’ taking over-the-counter immunity boosters while still eating food that’s bad for your gut! 

Raw salad = fibre = happy colon = strong immune system = fewer sick days!  

Dr Walker’s Diet & Salad has 70 great recipes, with menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner, healthy salad dressings, and lovely flourless desserts.³ Online raw salad recipes are fine too – again, just omit the fancy dressings, starch or carbs.

Also remember to chew your food – it stimulates your salivary glands to produce enzymes, starting the digestive process.  

OK – I’ve given you enough for now to get you on the road to better health.

Fancy a colonic hydration?  Don’t squirm – it’s got many benefits. Not that you should have one, but please read my next post. 

7. Steps to a clean colon

  ¹ Walker, N.W. (1979). Colon Health: The key to a vibrant life, p.3. O’Sullivan Woodside & Co: Phoenix, Arizona.

² Greger, M. (2019). Health benefits of citrus zest. Retrieved from https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/02/05/health-benefits-of-citrus-zest/

 ³ Walker, N.W. (1940/1970). Diet & Salad. Norwalk Press: Summertown, Tennessee.

You will very likely object to Dr Walker’s prescription. 

‘How can I NOT have my spag-bol, meat pie and chips? Bread rolls, rice or pasta with my mains? Wine with my meals? Dessert??’ 

‘I always have fruit and sugar with my cereal – what a load of RUBBISH this is!’

Dieticians or nutritionists among you might say, ‘Never heard of Dr Walker – food gets digested altogether anyway!’

What did I do?

Reading Dr Walker’s 3 books set me thinking.

I knew it would be difficult to follow the ‘no starch with protein’ rule, so I first tried eating fruits on an empty stomach.  

I desperately wanted to get rid of the stomach cramps (and my antacid-dependence) every time I had fruit after a meal (esp. watermelon).

I bought a plastic fruit squeezer for $2.00. And got rid of the bottled orange juice. 

First thing in the morning before my wakey-wakey cup of tea, I squeezed half a fresh orange, half a grapefruit and a teaspoon of lemon juice in a large glass diluted with warm water. 

Surprisingly, my mother’s warnings of oranges being ‘too acid’ and the cause of my ‘stomach pains’ didn’t occur. I actually felt good.

I waited 30 minutes, showered, dressed, and then had my tea and breakfast – enough time for the fruit to go through my system. 

Second, I avoided all soft drinks before, during and after food.

Third, I said goodbye to dessert after main meals.

Result? No more stomach cramps. No more bloating. No gas. No antacids. 

It was not easy to resist the after-dinner creme caramel and coffee. Not easy, with my brain signalling ‘You’re not yet full!’, and my stomach urging, ‘Go on, there’s more room – have that custard tart in the fridge … ’

‘Overloading the stomach overtaxes all functions of the body and shortens life.’¹

I discovered that after an hour or two (depending on my food intake), I felt completely full and lost the urge for something sweet. My body had by then converted the starch in my meal to sugar, and my craving for dessert had GONE.

Forty years on from that initiation, I don’t have a distended abdomen or a flabby waist. I’m totally content after a meal, with no desire to look for ‘something sweet’. 

This may not work as well for you – perhaps I was lucky, but it’s worth a try. If nothing else, you’ll limit the insulin the pancreas has to produce to control your blood sugar.  

Information on insulin resistance from the NHS in the UK can be found here. 

I do recommend you also read Dr Walker’s Colon Health in its entirety. It will help you understand how your colon works together with your glands, hormones and vital organs to keep your body healthy. For instance: 

‘You will better understand how your body functions and better able to cope with your own aches and pains.  

‘This may even help you avoid the pitiful state of premature senility so prevalent today.’²

After initiation
 

My next goal was to reduce my consumption of carbohydrates, and refined carbs especially. It was hard. I so loved rice and having a muffin with my cappuccino.

I recently found a great science-based book that explains exactly why we’re so addicted to our ‘pleasure foods’:  How to Eat like the Animals, by Professors David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson. Put simply, we should substitute processed ‘factory’ food for food that’s actually grown. In a Sydney University press release of the book, Professor Simpson says: 

‘We have made low-protein processed foods taste unnaturally good. … We’ve diluted protein in the food supply with ultra-processed fats and carbs. We’ve also disconnected the brake on our appetite systems by decreasing dietary fibre. Perfect for getting us to eat and buy more but devastating for our health.’³

But it was only when I was pushing 40, going from a size 8 to a 12, that I was forced out of my carb-cocoon. The thought that I would soon be a size 14 scared the hell out of me!

I decided to deal with my rice addiction first, slowly reducing it by just a little each day. I also had half a muffin with my cappuccino, sharing the other half with a friend.  

I found that by adding protein and reducing carbs (e.g. having cheese or an egg with toast for breakfast instead of jam), I fought off the craving of wanting more. 

It took time. But by 6 months, I was down to a size 10. As I got used to less rice, my craving disappeared. I also found that the milk in the cappuccino fully sustained my hunger so I could dodge the muffin.

A year later, I returned to my original size 8 and felt incredibly liberated! Slow and steady was the only way I could achieve this result. 

I still missed the pleasure of at least having some of my favourites – cheesecake, caramel custard, chocolate tarts. I figured, ‘Why not have a small slice mid-afternoon with my cup of tea??’ It seemed the perfect time – not too soon after lunch and at least 2 hours before  dinner. If I didn’t have a cake then, a slice of toasted rye or sourdough bread with peanut butter did just fine. 

In my opinion, leaving a ‘space’ between meals to indulge in something sweet will not make you put on weight, as your metabolism will burn it up much quicker. Having your snack at this time will also prevent you feeling ‘starved’ before dinner time, and craving anything salty, fatty or fried. For me, it was ‘Kettle Chilli Chips’, beckoning while I tossed the salad …

So, a fast metabolism is the key. Dr Ross Walker, a regular health contributor on Sydney’s 2GB radio, says:

‘Metabolism plays a significant part in weight loss’.

To conclude, do enjoy your buffets and dinner parties. But you’ll feel much better if you cut the wine and limit the starch. The decadent dessert? Politely ask if you could pack it up and take it home!   

 ¹ Walker, N.W. (1940/1970). Diet & Salad, p.109. Norwalk Press: Summertown, Tennessee.

 ² Walker, N.W. (1979). Colon Health: The key to a vibrant life, p.27. O’Sullivan Woodside & Co: Phoenix, Arizona. 

 ³ The University of Sydney. (2020, May 6). How to eat like the animals for good health: What nature teaches us about the science of healthy eating [Press Release]. Retrieved from https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/05/06/How-to-eat-like-the-animals-for-good-health.htm

6. Lose Weight, feel fit – no drugs or fad diets

Dr Walker’s Food-Control Guide – the Basics¹

Concentrated carbohydrates – examples as given above – should be eaten alone and not with fruits, vegetables or proteins. 

Fruits are the body’s cleansers and comprise between 75 to 90% water. Raw juice from all fruits contains the finest organic water available. Eaten on their own, fruits have an alkaline effect on the body. Eating fruits on their own is crucial to detoxify your system and save you money; you won’t need to buy ‘detox’ kits.

And don’t waste your time with smoothies. Pulverising incompatible fruits and grains into liquid nothingness is not nearly as good as crunching an apple.  

Concentrated starch and sugars (e.g. bread, bananas) and grains (e.g. oatmeal, cereals) eaten with fruit will ferment and turn acidic. Hence the ‘bloating and gas’ – words that advertisers love – and eventually, the distended stomach. 

To quote Dr Walker: 

‘Destructive fermentation and putrefaction in the body result from eating at the same time foods containing concentrated sugar and starch carbohydrates with concentrated proteins or with acid fruits. 

‘A chemical reaction, frequently called acidosis is likely to result.’²

Those points again:

• Fruit (except bananas), protein and vegetables: OK together

• Fruits are best eaten alone as they are the body’s cleansers

• Acid-tasting fruit (e.g. lemon) in fact has an alkaline reaction in the body 

• Melons – eat alone or leave alone: they’re very high in sugar!
  
• Sugars and starch carbohydrates: eat alone

• Proteins – e.g. meat, chicken or fish should not be eaten with starchy foods such as rice, potatoes or pasta.

Dr Walker also tells us that if we drastically reduce, and preferably completely eliminate, all cooked starches and meat, our health will significantly improve: 

‘Eating concentrated starches in excess results in inorganic calcium deposits in the cartilage of the joints … ’³

‘Eating of meat increases the body’s acidity. The processes of digestion and the breaking down of meat produces uric acid. The accumulation of uric acid acid in our system causes the pain and discomfort of rheumatism, neuritis and sciatica.’⁴

In my next blog, you’ll FEEL BETTER … even if you only change some of your eating habits. Read Walker’s formula … or yours?

 ¹ Walker, N.W. (1940/1970). Diet & Salad, adapted from ‘Food-Control Guide’, p.68. Norwalk Press: Summertown, Tennessee.

 ² Walker, p.25.

³ Walker, N.W. (1936/1976). Raw Vegetable Juices, p.135. Pyramid Publications: New York, New York.

 ⁴ Walker, Diet & Salad, p.66.

Your colon’s health and digestive processes can be optimised in several ways, and you can easily do this without pills, herbs or drugs. How? By eating the right foods at the right time.

I understand changing some of your cherished eating habits will not be easy at first. Habits are hard to break. I’d say our love affair with wrong foods developed as children: we were bribed with chocolate, ice-cream, cake and soda-colas – and we do the same to our kids who have become addicted like us.

There is evidence that a regime of healthy eating, if followed, will keep your metabolism pumping, your weight stable and your poo in excellent ‘shape’ even as you age. 

It’s hard at first to unlearn bad habits; focus on applying the rules, stick with it and it will soon become second nature!

Enzymes are the engine

In Dr Walker’s words: 

‘What do we prize above and beyond everything else? Our LIFE.’ ¹

LIFE is one thing no scientist, chemist, inventor or any other human being has ever been able to create. Is it not intelligent and rational to consider that regeneration and replenishment of the life in your body must essentially come from the LIFE in the food we eat?

YES! That makes sense. Let me tell you what I’ve learned that many of us don’t know.

Foods in their natural raw state comprise atoms and molecules. Such active atomic life is classified as enzymes. Without enzymes, our bodies simply cannot function.

Enzymes enable us to digest food and to absorb it into our blood. In the mouth, stomach, intestines and through the entire digestive system, innumerable enzymes are involved in digesting and assimilating our food. 

However, enzymes are only present in raw foods: they are sensitive to temperatures above about 47°C, become sluggish above 49°C and completely die at 54°C.

More cooking = less enzymes = ‘dead’ food. 

As we age, our natural enzyme production decreases. I have been taking Vitalzym Extra Strength© gel capsules to maintain normal enzyme levels. But please check other brands on the market to see which is best for you. 

Food should be properly selected and most of it should be raw, uncooked and unprocessed. In this state, your body’s cells and tissues are nourished in the speediest and most efficient manner possible. Dr Walker warns that if we don’t eat the kind of food which will nourish our bodies constructively, we’ll not only die prematurely but suffer along the way. 

I am not suggesting that we stop cooking and become chomp-carrot rabbits. But you will probably say, ‘I love my food! I have one life and I’m going to enjoy it!!’  

I believe you can, not by being imprisoned by a diet foreign to your lifestyle but by being smarter in choosing what and when you eat – even if you have allergies or intolerance to foods like dairy, wheat or nuts.   

In fact, most of Dr Walker’s suggestions will suit you perfectly.  

Your one life is your only life – I don’t want you to spend what’s left of it getting repeat prescriptions of Sevikar, Lipitor, Mobic, or Mylanta.   

Getting better with Walker

Now take a close look at Dr Walker’s colon therapy chart below:² 

You’ll see that each section of the colon relates to different parts of the body. Common ailments and deficiencies result in areas where the colon is sluggish and unable to do its job. This may be similar to reflexology principles, but it is more science-based.

Years of eating cooked, canned and processed foods have merely sustained your life – hardly any organic nourishment was eaten to regenerate the body’s cells and tissues. 

We have abused our colon, and prevented it from doing its job.

So by the time we’re 30, we find ourselves in a neglected body with perhaps a foggy mind –  all degenerating rapidly and headed for a future of prescribed drugs to ‘treat’ the diseases ailing us.  

The drugs will no doubt do their job and save your life. You’re feeling better, you take your medications religiously and all’s well again.  

But please don’t let this illusion of ‘being cured’ lull you into complacency.

All drugs have side effects. How much will vary. Eventually your medications will have to be changed to either reduce your dependence or reduce on their side-effects.

You can choose to be PROACTIVE: 

Eat more raw, organic food.

Reduce your weight.

Exercise. 

All can be done successfully … in my next instalment

 ¹ Walker, N.W. (1940/1970). Diet & Salad, p.8. Norwalk Press: Summertown, Tennessee.

 ² Walker, Diet & Salad [back cover]