Urine Therapy for Weight Loss
As badly as you may want to lose weight, the thought of drinking your own urine to accomplish that goal is probably repellent to you, a fairly widespread initial reaction in most Western cultures. Urine therapy, however, has been used for thousands of years by Eastern cultures and is also practiced by some Native American tribes. An abundance of anecdotal evidence points to the effectiveness of urine therapy in fighting the battle of the bulge.
Is Urine Dirty?
Flora Peschek-Böhmer and Gisela Schreiber, authors of 1999's "Urine Therapy: Nature's Elixir for Good Health," claim that "urine is absolutely sterile for the producer's own body" in the first 15 minutes after it's produced. Peschek-Böhmer, who operates a naturopathic medical center in Hamburg, Germany, also claims that a poorly cleaned toilet poses a greater threat to your health than drinking your own urine. Contrary to popular belief, says Peschek-Böhmer, healthy urine doesn't taste bad but rather tastes somewhat bitter and salty. If you pinch your nose while drinking it, you won't taste anything.
Getting Started
If you decide to try urine therapy-or auto-urine therapy, as it's known when you drink your own urine-be aware that getting beyond that first taste is likely to be your biggest hurdle. Peschek-Böhmer suggests you get started by inserting your finger into your first stream of urine of the day. Shake off the excess and smell it. Not so bad, right? Now get really daring, and put your finger to your tongue. Again, you'll probably be surprised that the taste is not particularly unpleasant, although it may be a bit bitter, particularly early in the day.
Then try drinking a glass of your urine. It's best to capture urine from your first urination of the day, but let the initial stream pass before collecting a small glassful-about 8 oz.-of the morning mid-stream, as it's known. Then expel any remaining urine before drinking the glassful collected earlier. If you're still squeamish, follow Peschek-Böhmer's suggestion and hold your nose as it's going down.
Losing Weight
Peschek-Böhmer and Schreiber, along with Harald W. Tietze, author of "Urine: The Holy Water," and Dr. S.K. Sharma, author of "Miracles of Urine Therapy," all cite anecdotal reports of urine therapy's effectiveness in helping their patients to lose weight and improve overall health. Sharma reports on the case of a sales executive who traveled extensively and was not only overweight but also suffering from a host of other problems, including vision and hearing difficulties, shortness of breath and bleeding gums. After a few months of auto-urine therapy, according to Sharma, the executive had dropped roughly 40 pounds and reported a vast improvement in his other health problems.
Peschek-Böhmer and Schreiber cite the case of 34-year-old Andrea P., a sales clerk in a bakery shop, who was more than 65 pounds overweight when she consulted Peschek-Böhmer. Andrea had tried multiple diets with little success, but on auto-urine therapy she lost 50 pounds in a matter of months and was working on losing the rest.
Tags: Peschek-B hmer, auto-urine therapy, your urine, drinking your, drinking your urine
