INTRODUCTION
What Is the 10-Day Detox Diet?
If you’re one of the millions of Americans suffering from obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, or even just plain feeling crummy as a result of the Standard American Diet (SAD), The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet is for you. It provides a step-by-step guide for losing weight and even reversing disease. Follow it for just ten days and your life will never be the same!
The 10-Day Detox Diet outlines a way of eating that will help you reverse the food addiction brought on by the $1-trillion industrial food system—the system that turns sugar, salt, and fat into druglike foods that hook you with every bite. This steady stream of hyperprocessed, highly palatable, intensely addictive foods sabotages your brain chemistry, your waistline, and your health. The way to reclaim your health and your life starts with what I call food rehab. It means a dramatic shift, but it will provide you with the fundamental skills you need to lose weight, change your biochemistry, and kick your addiction forever!
In a recent study, Harvard professor Dr. David Ludwig explains why for the first time. It turns out that it’s not overeating that makes you fat; it’s being fat that makes you overeat. When you consume refined carbohydrates such as bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, and any form of sugar, you make a certain kind of fat called visceral adipose tissue (VAT). This is no ordinary fat. It is super fat. Hungry fat. Dangerous fat. This fat starts an inexorable cascade that leads to obesity. It’s like falling down an icy slope where it’s almost impossible to stop yourself. We ordinary mortals are no match for this hungry fat.
Here’s what happens: VAT cells suck up much of the available fuel in your bloodstream (glucose, fats, ketones). Your body then thinks, “Oh, jeez, I am starving. I better eat more and slow my metabolism, so I don’t die.” The problem is that anything you eat gets sucked up into those fat cells around your belly, leading to a vicious cycle of hunger, overeating, fat storage, and a slowing down of your metabolism. No wonder we gain weight and can’t lose it.
The key trigger for all of this is a hormone that we all need, albeit in moderation: insulin—the fat storage hormone.
If we make too much insulin, it drives the fuel from our blood into our fat cells. Too much insulin also does a lot of other bad things, such as cause heart attacks, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
What causes insulin to spike? Not all calories are created equal: Sugar and refined carbohydrate calories are the culprits. Most Americans eat, on average, about 152 pounds of sugar and 146 pounds of flour a year (combined, that’s almost a pound of sugar and flour per person, per day).
The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet is scientifically designed to stop this vicious cycle quickly. Think of it as your ice axe and crampons to halt your descent down the slippery slope of obesity and chronic disease. It will quickly block the hormones and brain chemicals that make you hungry and crave sugar and carbs. And instead of storing fat and being burdened with a slow metabolism, you will burn fat and speed up your metabolism.
Once you enjoy all of the healing benefits of the 10-Day Detox Diet, my guess is that you’ll want to incorporate many of the elements into your life. That’s why I’ve written this cookbook: to review the principles of the program and help support you with information and recipes so you can continue on your path to good health. After all, food is medicine, and I believe you’ll find that it’s even more powerful than anything you will find in a pill bottle.
The recipes in this book follow the principles of the 10-Day Detox Diet. I have also included recipes for you to enjoy when the ten days are over—during what I call the “transition phase.” After all, better health doesn’t start and end in ten days. It’s a lifelong journey. I’ve set out to make that journey both doable and delicious.