Book Review: Heal Yourself 101 by Markus Rothkrantz

This book came as a timely resource for me because I started reading it right when I started fasting for Ramadan, and in the book Markus writes a lot about fasting as the most effective way to detox and cleanse the body. Besides that, I learned so much from this book that it has become a valuable resource to my life. 

As the name implies, Heal Yourself 101 is a self-empowerment resource that teaches, in very simple language, the fundamental principles to achieving optimum health and wellness. The book teaches you how to heal yourself by making simple but necessary adjustments to your lifestyle, such as adopting a raw food lifestyle, doing regular cleansing, staying active, developing a positive and peaceful attitude towards life, and living life to the fullest. 

At this point, I can hear you thinking “as if it's that easy”. While I can appreciate the difficulty of adopting a healthy lifestyle cold turkey, it’s worth making the effort when you consider the end goal. This book is super helpful for anyone who’s willing to take a swig at becoming healthier and taking their lives to the next level.  

 Markus starts the book with the powerful testimonial of his own transformation, from being disease ridden and unfulfilled, to where he is now - a healthy, fulfilled and successful author of best-selling books, and a renowned international speaker. 

He also touches on the amazing phenomenon of how people from all around the world, are healing from all kinds of terminal diseases by adopting a raw living foods lifestyle. The book basically covers the following themes:                                                                                                                                       

DETOX- CLEANING UP

As they say ‘cleanliness is close to godliness’. In this book, Markus encourages the reader to let go of any excess in their lives, starting with the excess food in their bodies to the excess junk in their homes. 

The goal is to let go, start from scratch and allow nature’s wisdom to take over. And one can start  by cleansing the body through fasting, enemas, colonics, you name it! Just anything that will help you clear your body of any impediments that may be standing in the way of you experiencing your greatest self. 

THE CASE FOR A LIVING FOODS DIET

Markus also makes a subtle case for the raw foods lifestyle by debunking the myths surrounding it, such as the misconception that raw foodists don’t offer enough protein. He also sets the record straight  about the most common faux pas that raw foodists make which can lead to gastrointestinal distress or excessive weight loss.

The main mistake that ANYONE can make (and MOST of us do make) is to not cleanse the body, through colonics, enemas or fasting. As Markus puts it “a raw food diet makes your body detox. It pulls years and decades of toxic garbage from your cells and fills up all your "garbage cans"- your lymph system is overburdened, you liver and kidneys fill up suddenly with waste and your elimination system is overwhelmed from this mass exodus. If you don't send in more help to carry this stuff away, it will reabsorb into your blood stream and make you more sick and toxic.” So cleansing is a MUST!

Thereafter, Markus gives simple yet delicious and exciting recipe ideas that anyone can implement `to maintain a living food lifestyle and achieve the life changing results that come with this lifestyle.  

MY FAVOURITE PARTS OF THE BOOK

What I love about this book is the direct and easy to understand language that Markus uses to expound all of the scientific facts that support his findings. He actually goes in depth about how the body is affected by all of the toxic cooked food and dairy that we eat, from clogging the arteries to depleting the bones of calcium. 

It becomes very clear from reading the research in the first few chapters of the book that our modern diet actually prohibits us from achieving the highest level of health and wellness that would enable us to experience life to its fullest potential. 

I also learned that humans don’t have to age and that we’re the only species on earth whose physical organism actually deteriorates with time. Other animal species don’t degenerate in health as they get older, because you never see wild animals getting white hair and brittle bones as they age, all they do is to just mature and maybe even slow down but they do not deteriorate in health as we do. So this book revealed to me the possibility of agelessness and it’s a subject that I plan to explore in-depth in the future. 

YOU ARE WHAT YOU CONSUME

Markus also talks about how everything we consume makes us who we are, from the food we eat to the books we read and the content we watch. Everything creates and builds our physical and emotional bodies. 

That's why it's important to be vigilant about what we consume mentally and physically because it can affect how we feel about ourselves, how we see the world, how we look and behave. Most importantly, what we consume affects the way in which we create our reality, because the quality and content of what you consume is reflected or revealed in your life and how you create your life through your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. 

And you can either create your life consciously or unconsciously. The path to conscious creation starts with clearing out all the clutter in your life. You can do this by cleansing your body and that’s what this whole book is about. 

It’s a reminder of how to cleanse ourselves so that we can create the life we prefer from a space of clarity. It’s about being able to experience life fully and appreciate all the best that life has to offer. I mean, having a human body is the ultimate way to experience this world and this reality on earth, so having a clean vessel (body) is the ultimate way to experience life to the fullest!

CLOSING THOUGHTS 

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to realise their full potential. Markus really went all out, did all the research and gave his heart to this book. You can tell from reading the book that he speaks from the heart and from his own experience. That means a lot in a world where people are peddling facts that they have no experience of just for the monetary value.

Lastly, I was very impressed with the well-researched quality of the content in the book and it’s one of those books that I’ll probably read again and again. Some of the chapters have incredibly relevant and inspiring knowledge on the living foods lifestyle. 

Whether you think you’re healthy or unhealthy, just read this book! Consuming life changing knowledge like this is one of the best investments you can ever make. 

Well done, Markus!