An Important Discovery
Hunger is an experience that many people fear. It seems absurd that fear of starvation could exist in the most overfed population
in human history. However, our obsession with food and eating is undeniable. People often react with abject fear when contemplating
going without food for even short periods of time. Continuous eating not only undermines healthy weight loss, it is just plain
unhealthy. Eating the wrong (low-nutrient) foods leads to what I call “toxic hunger” and the desire to overconsume calories.
When we do not meet our micronutrient needs, we do not feel well unless our digestive tract is continuously at work. Toxic
hunger overrides the natural instinct that controls appetite and leads to a dramatic increase in calorie consumption.
I have observed that a diet style sufficiently high in micronutrients can decrease sensations leading to food cravings and
overeating behaviors. The sensations commonly and traditionally considered to be “hunger,” and even reported in medical textbooks
as such, disappear for the majority of individuals after eating this micronutrient-rich diet. A new sensation, which I call
“true hunger,” arises instead. Understanding the science and human physiology behind this important distinction is important.
Everybody You Know Is a Food Addict
When our bodies have become acclimated to a noxious or toxic agent, it is called addiction. Indulging in the addiction is
mildly pleasurable, but if we stop taking the substance, such as nicotine or caffeine, we feel ill as the body mobilizes cellular
wastes and attempts to repair the damage caused by the exposure. This is called withdrawal. If you drank four cups of coffee
or caffeinated soda every day, you would get a withdrawal headache when you tried to stop the habit. To feel better, you could
take more caffeine (or other drugs) or eat food more frequently, which would help, because eating and digesting retards detoxification
or withdrawal. Similarly, toxic hunger is heightened by the consumption of caffeinated beverages, soft drinks, and processed
foods. It occurs predominantly after digestion ceases and the digestive tract is empty, and it can make a person feel extremely
uncomfortable if he or she does not eat or drink a caloric load (to inhibit detoxification) for relief.
The confusion is compounded because when we eat the same heavy or unhealthful foods that are causing the problem to begin
with, we feel better while the detoxification process is halted or delayed. This makes becoming overweight inevitable, because
if we stop digesting food, even for a short time, our bodies will begin to experience symptoms of detoxification or withdrawal
from our unhealthful diet. To counter this, we eat heavy meals that require a long period of digestion, or we eat too often
and keep our digestive tract busy and overfed almost all the time to lessen the discomfort from our stressful diet style.
Our body cycles between periods of digestion-assimilation (anabolic phase) and utilization of the stored calories (catabolic
phase), which begins when the digestive process ends. During the anabolic phase, the absorbed glucose is stored in the liver
and muscle tissues as glycogen, to be broken down and utilized at a later time when we are not eating and digesting. During
the catabolic phase, we “live off” the nutrients stored in the anabolic phase. The breakdown of stored glycogen is called
glycolysis, and it is during this process that our body swings into heightened detoxification activity.
When we are breaking down our body fats and glycogen stores, the body is exposed to more released cellular toxins, and elimination
and detoxification are increased accordingly. This elimination of toxins can cause discomfort, especially when our tissues
have an excessive toxic burden. These uncomfortable symptoms are not caused by “lower blood sugar,” though the symptoms occur
in parallel with low blood sugar. When our diet is low in phytochemicals and other micronutrients, we build up more intracellular
waste products. It is well accepted in the scientific literature that toxins such as free radicals, advanced glycation end
products (AGEs), and lipid A2E build up in human tissues with diets low in antioxidants and other micronutrients and that
these substances contribute to disease.1
It has been noted that overweight individuals developed more oxidative stress (as a result of free-radical damage) when fed
a low-micronutrient-containing meal compared to normal-weight individuals. Increased peroxidases and aldehydes, derived from
damaged lipids and proteins, were measurable in the urine.2 This indicates that people prone to obesity experience more withdrawal symptoms, directing them to overconsume calories.
It is a vicious cycle that both promotes the problem and prevents its resolution. Subjects fed healthier diets did not build up these inflammatory markers.3 When we consume excess animal proteins (which create excess nitrogenous wastes) and don’t eat sufficient phytochemical-rich
vegetation, we exacerbate the buildup of metabolic waste products in our body.4
THE BLOOD SUGAR CURVE
As the hours go by and we have not eaten, glycogen stores are utilized for energy (glycolysis). Glycolysis occurs after digestion
ceases and is a perfectly comfortable state not accompanied by symptoms in a healthy individual eating a healthy diet. As
we continue to burn off the glycogen stores, true hunger eventually kicks in, signaling the need for calories before gluconeogenesis
begins. Gluconeogenesis is the breakdown of muscle tissue that occurs to supply the body with glucose when there is no glycogen
left. The body cannot make the glucose it needs to fuel the brain from stored fats, but it can make glucose from amino acids
derived from muscle tissue. True hunger is protective of our muscle mass and gives us a clear signal to eat before gluconeogenesis
begins.
True Hunger or Toxic Hunger?
What I have observed and quantified with thousands of individuals is that the drive to overconsume calories is blunted by
high micronutrient consumption. The symptoms that were thought to be hypoglycemia or even hunger, which occur as soon as glycolysis begins, simply disappear after eating very healthfully for a few months. After that two-to four-month window, when micronutrients
in the body’s tissues have accumulated, the symptoms of fatigue, headaches, irritability, and stomach cramps go away, and
people get back in touch with true hunger, felt primarily in the throat. True hunger makes eating more pleasurable, and this
sensation better directs us to a more appropriate amount of calories for our body’s biological needs.
In our present toxic food environment, many have lost the ability to connect with the body signals that tell us how much food
we actually need. Nature has given our bodies the beautifully orchestrated ability to signal precisely how much to eat to
maintain an ideal weight for long-term health. I have documented this process, demonstrating that this otherwise poorly studied
phenomenon is real. It has resulted in thousands of people losing dramatically large amounts of weight. Hundreds have lost
more than a hundred pounds, some more than three hundred pounds, without surgical interventions and with lasting success.
Healthful eating is more effective than portion control for long-term weight control. It modifies and diminishes the sensations
of toxic hunger, enabling overweight individuals to be more comfortable eating fewer calories.
True hunger signals when our bodies need calories to maintain our lean body mass. If you ate food only when experiencing true
hunger, you could not become overweight to begin with. If you have a significant layer of fat around your waist, it means
you have regularly consumed food in response to toxic hunger or have eaten recreationally. The body does not store large amounts
of fat when fed a wholesome natural diet and given only the amount of food demanded by true hunger.
True hunger is felt in the throat, neck, and mouth, not in the stomach or head. It is not uncomfortable to feel real hunger;
it makes food taste better when you eat, and it makes eating so much more pleasurable. There is nothing fluttering or bouncing
around, it is not painful, and you know when you feel it that it is a normal reaction that signals a need for food. It tells
you that the body is physiologically ready to digest food and the digestive glands have regained their capacity to secrete enzymes appropriately.
The result is that you feel better and do not overeat.
True hunger requires no special food to satisfy it. It is relieved by eating almost anything. You can’t crave some particular
food and call it hunger; a craving by definition is an addictive drive, not something felt by a person who is not an addict.
Remember, almost all Americans are addicted to their toxic habits. A disease-causing diet is addicting. A health-supporting
diet is not. You do not have to carry around a calculator and a scale to figure out how much to eat. A healthy body will give
you the correct signals. To achieve an ideal weight and consume the exact amount of calories to maintain a lean body mass
that will prolong your life, you must get back in touch with true hunger. Eat when hungry and don’t eat when not hungry.
More frequent eating has been shown to lead to more calories consumed by the end of the week.5 In addition, in scientific studies reduced meal frequency increased the life span of both rodents and monkeys, even when
the calories consumed each week were the same in the group fed more frequently and the group fed less frequently.6 The body needs time between meals to finish digesting, because when digestion has ended, the body can more effectively detoxify
and promote cellular repair. To maximize health, it is not favorable to be constantly eating and digesting food.
Wait until you feel hungry to eat. Try to eat less at dinner so you are hungry for three meals per day. Get your body into
a regular schedule, eating three meals per day, without overeating at any one meal. If you do not feel hungry for the next
meal, delay eating or skip the meal entirely. Next time, eat much less until you get better skilled at eating the appropriate
amount so that you feel hungry in time to eat again at the next mealtime. It is permissible to eat two meals a day instead
of three if you are hungry for only two meals. For most people who exercise regularly, three meals with no snacking is the
norm. We actually require less food than most people realize. Once we get rid of the perverted toxic hunger, our central nervous
system can accurately measure and give us the right signals for maintaining our ideal weight on the right amount of calories.
You will eventually develop the skill of knowing the right amount of food to eat at each meal, because it relieves your hunger,
you feel satisfied (but not full), and you are hungry again in time for the next meal.
You May Feel Poorly at First
Try to stop a sugar addict from eating sweets or take the colas, pizza, and burgers away from a fast-food addict, and wow,
do they feel ill. This is called withdrawal. When we stop doing something harmful to ourselves, we feel sick as the body attempts
to repair the damage caused by longtime exposure to noxious substances, reduces tolerance, mobilizes cellular wastes, and
deals with empty receptor sites. If you quit smoking, even when there is not a molecule of nicotine left in your body, you may still
feel ill as your body is actively engaged in the repair of damage caused by the offensive substance. All of a sudden the long-term
smoker finds he is feeling worse from having stopped smoking, not better. The nicotine may be gone, but he starts coughing
more and bringing up mucus. As a degree of health returns, the body becomes less and less tolerant of the abnormal noxious
irritants that have built up over time. Because of the restored ability to repair damaged cells, inflammation may increase
temporarily as the tissues become more reactive to the waste products that were retained there. Inflammation serves a corrective
function here as the body’s immune system reacts protectively to remove noxious substances and restore cellular function.
Toxic food works the same way. After moving on to a truly healthful diet, the body’s enhanced self-repair mechanisms bring
about symptoms, sometimes even brief low-grade fevers, emotional instability, fatigue, and headaches. Don’t be alarmed if
during the first week or two of healthy eating, you feel worse and the desire to use food to curtail discomfort is heightened.
This usually passes within the first four days.
Why Diets Fail
The American press, diet books, and even most of the scientific research community are thoroughly confused about nutrition
and dieting. Almost every article on the topic discusses some magic food, supplement, metabolism booster, or ratio of fat,
carbohydrate, and protein that can solve all your weight problems. Research articles continue to test diets low in fat, high
in fat, low in carbohydrates, and high in carbohydrates, and the media continue to report the successes and failures of these
diets. It goes on and on in circles, but trying to micromanage carbohydrate, fat, or protein intake will not increase your
health and longevity. Even worse, that sort of dieting encourages temporary fluctuations in caloric intake, leading to unsustained changes in body weight, often called yo-yo dieting. These diets hardly work and are
bad for your health because it is not healthy to lose and gain weight over and over. They demonstrate that any diet that does
not address micronutrient quality is not very effective.
What you are learning here is different, as it is not some perfect ratio of fat, carbohydrate, or protein that will lead you
to your ideal weight and superior health. Sure, we need to eat less fat, less protein, and fewer carbohydrates, the only three
sources of calories in food. Obviously, we need some calories, but we want to make sure that the fat, protein, and carbohydrates
that we choose to eat are whole foods and as nutrient-dense as possible. The healthiest way to eat, and the way to make you
naturally and automatically desire fewer calories, is to understand the concept of nutrient density, to eat healthfully to
remove your food addictions, and to allow the body to reprogram your tastes. Eating pleasure is enhanced because you eat when
hunger is present. You will find that your taste preferences adapt to what is eaten regularly, and improved nutrition enhances
the taste apparatus.
Although diet books are everywhere, it is estimated that more than 75 percent of all Americans are overweight.7 Investigations report such a sweeping and rapid increase of obesity globally that it is considered a serious medical epidemic,
affecting a significant portion of the world’s population.8 The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the spread of processed food and American fast food worldwide has made
obesity and the diseases of low-nutrient, high-calorie eating bigger contributors to premature death worldwide than starvation.
WHO has stated:
Because being overweight or obese dramatically increases the risk of all the major causes of death, the spread of America’s
toxic food industry may be the most serious health issue facing the modern world. Ideal body weight and overall health are inseparable.
A weight-loss program can be considered successful only if the weight loss is permanent and safe and it promotes overall health.
Temporary weight loss is of little or no benefit, especially if it compromises your health. The confusing diet wars and opposing
opinions among diet authors are paralyzing the potential to improve the health of millions of suffering individuals.
In the classic portion-controlled (calorie-counting) diet, it is likely that the body will not get adequate fiber or nutrients.
The body will have a compounded sensation of hunger, cravings, and addictive withdrawal, which for most is simply overwhelming.
This dieting philosophy invariably results in people losing weight then gaining it back. Calorie counting simply doesn’t work
in the long run. A diet based on portion control and calorie counting generally permits the eating of highly toxic, low-nutrient
foods and then requires us to fight our addictive drives in the attempt to eat less. This combination undernourishes the body,
resulting in uncontrollable and frequent food cravings, along with a heightened desire for concentrated calories. This low
micronutrient intake in conjunction with withdrawal symptoms can lead to perverted cravings, such as the desire to eat junk
food, drink alcohol, or take drugs. Cravings are not the result of hunger; they are the result of toxic habits. Anyone seeking
to adopt a healthy diet must accept that there will be a period (generally six weeks or less) during which the body will attempt
to detoxify. You may feel ill during this time, and true hunger may be absent the entire time. Without an adequate education
in superior nutrition and solid principles to stick to, dieters flounder and fail, bouncing from one diet to another, always
losing a little and regaining, frequently regaining more than they lost.
Misinformation works hand in hand with self-deception. Countless diets advertise that you can eat all the foods you love and
still lose weight. Consequently, why would anyone want to completely revamp his or her diet? It seems as though it would be
far easier to eat less of something that you love than it would be to switch to eating something that you may not currently
like. The problem is that in practice, eating less of the same things has been proven not to work. Studies have shown that
portion-control diets result in significant weight loss that is maintained over five years for fewer than three people out
of one hundred.10
It is merely a matter of time before those trying to keep their portions small increase the amount of food they are eating.
The amount of fiber in these diets is insufficient, and the nutrient density is poor. These diets restrict calories, but because
the food choices and meal plans are so calorie-dense, dieters must eat tiny portions in order to lose weight. These choices
don’t satisfy their desire to eat, and they wind up craving food and becoming frustrated. When dieters can’t stand eating
thimble-size portions anymore and finally eat until satisfied, they put weight on with a vengeance. These diets are founded
on weak science and perpetuate nutritional myths. To become healthy, disease-resistant, and permanently thin, you can’t escape
the necessity of eating large amounts of nutrient-rich, healthy food.
Are You Dying to Lose Weight?
Many of the most heavily promoted and bestselling diet books are also among the most dangerous. Some of the more popular books
and websites promote high-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary patterns, emphasizing how dangerous it is to ingest white flour,
sugar, and corn syrup. Of course I agree with the dangers of consuming high-glycemic junk, but I think it is time to put these
high-protein diets to bed. There should be no controversy here. High-protein diets are not life span favorable, they do not
offer the anti-cancer protection inherent in a diet much richer in plant-derived micronutrients, and they are not cardioprotective.
In fact, even when they result in some weight loss, they can still raise LDL cholesterol and cause or permit the advancement
of heart disease.11 The mild degree of weight-loss success they offer a minority of people, from the removal or reduction of dangerous, low-nutrient
carbohydrates, is simply not good enough.
The popularity of these books is evidence that people are looking for a way to lose weight without having to curtail their
dangerous love affair with rich, unhealthful foods. They preach what people want to hear: you can eat lots of fat, cholesterol,
and saturated fat and still lose weight. This illicit romance can lead to tragic consequences.
High-protein-diet gurus typically promote the idea that their recommended diet is the healthiest. They would have their devotees
believe there is a worldwide conspiracy of more than 3,500 scientific studies involving more than 15,000 research scientists
reporting a relationship between the consumption of meats, poultry, eggs, and dairy products and the incidence of heart disease,
cancer, kidney failure, constipation, gallstones, diverticulosis, and hemorrhoids, just to name a few health problems. The
point here is not to be confused about nutrition and health by misinformation; we need to strive to eat far fewer animal products
and more high-nutrient plant foods. Many of these diets have people afraid to eat healthful fresh fruits because they contain
carbohydrates. Fruit consumption, however, shows a powerful dose-response association with a reduction in heart disease, cancer,
and all-cause mortality.12
Due to its emphasis on eating more animal products and fewer carbohydrates, the popular Atkins diet is a prototype of dietary
misinformation. Tragically, an otherwise healthy sixteen-year-old girl died after following the Atkins diet for three weeks.
More recent popular diets are also dangerous. I consider the South Beach diet one of the most dangerous diets because the
three phases encourage people to go on and off a ketogenic diet, which can cause electrolyte shifts leading to life-threatening
cardiac arrhythmias.13 There was a tremendous explosion in sudden cardiac deaths in young and middle-aged women that occurred in parallel with the
period of popular enthusiasm for these carbohydrate-restricted, high-protein, ketogenic diets. This was first reported at the American Heart Association’s forty-first annual conference in 2001 after a national surveillance study
was performed by Dr. Zheng and his colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).14 Similar deaths were seen in the past related to liquid high-protein diets.15 A coincidence? I doubt it; this should not be taken lightly.
The medical literature has shown that ketogenic diets can cause a pathological enlargement of the heart called cardiomyopathy,
which is reversible, but only if the diet is stopped in time.16 In The South Beach Diet, written by a cardiologist, the reader is led through a series of dietary phases that cycle back and forth between weight
regain and carbohydrate restriction. Allowing one’s weight to fluctuate up and down is risky. It can lead to heart problems
and increase the presence of the most dangerous type of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque, increasing heart attack risk. When
you have a cardiologist recommending weight cycling and recurrent ketogenic carbohydrate restriction to vulnerable heart patients,
it is not just irresponsible but illustrative that incorrect dietary advice can become deadly.
As discussed in chapter four, high levels of animal protein show a strong correlation with higher cancer incidence. Hundreds
of scientific studies have documented the link between animal products and certain cancers:
- Increased risk of epithelial and lung cancer17
- Increased risk of pancreatic cancer18
- Increased risk of colon cancer19
- Increased risk of stomach and esophageal cancer20
- Increased risk of bladder and prostate cancer21
- Increased growth of mammary tumors22
Although it would be wrong to say that animal foods are the sole cause of cancer, it is now clear that increased consumption
of animal products combined with decreased consumption of fresh products has the most powerful effect on increasing one’s
risk for various kinds of cancer. Most medical researchers agree that meat consumption is an important factor in the etiology of human cancer.23 In fact, reducing animal protein in the diet may be the most important dietary intervention one can take to reduce cancer
risk.24 High-protein weight-loss diets promoting high-animal-product and low-plant-product (carbohydrate) consumption are not only
unhealthy; they could be fatal.
Short-Term Benefits, Long-Term Dangers!
Besides all the dangers reviewed here, it should be clear that eating meat actually correlates with weight gain, not weight
loss, unless you radically cut carbs from your diet to maintain a chronic ketosis.25 Researchers from the American Cancer Society followed 79,236 individuals over ten years and found that those who ate meat
more than three times per week were much more likely to gain weight as the years went by than those who tended to avoid meat.26 The more vegetables the participants ate, the more resistant they were to weight gain.
If increasing one’s risk of heart attack and cancer isn’t enough of an argument against high-protein diets, the science is
conclusive that they also cause kidney damage, kidney stones, and gout.27 Many people develop kidney problems at a young age under the high-protein stress. Due to the accumulated research, the American
Kidney Fund’s medical advisory panel issued a press release stating that high-protein weight-loss diets can result in irreversible
scarring in the kidneys. This is also observed in bodybuilders who consume excess protein in an attempt to pack on more muscle.
The only treatments are dialysis and kidney transplantation. This research shows that kidney function is impacted even in
healthy athletes. That should send a message to anyone who is on a high-protein weight-loss diet.28
Overweight individuals are likely to have some kidney damage already, since almost 25 percent of people over age forty-five,
especially those with diabetes or high blood pressure, have a degree of kidney impairment. Researchers have concluded, “The
potential impact of protein consumption on renal function has important public health implications given the prevalence of
high protein diets and use of protein supplements.”29 Diabetics are at increased risk of kidney disease and are extremely sensitive to the stress a high-protein diet places on
the kidney.30 In a large, multicentered study involving 1,521 patients, most of the diabetics who ate too much animal protein had lost
over half of their kidney function, and almost all the damage was irreversible.31
Blood tests that monitor kidney function typically do not begin to detect problems until more than 90 percent of the kidneys
have been destroyed.
A Diet of Nutritional Excellence
There is an important take-home message here—and that is to understand how critical a life-or-death issue nutrition is. We
must get this right. Humans are primates, and all other primates eat a diet of predominantly natural vegetation. If primates
eat some animal products, it is a very small percentage of their total caloric intake. Modern science shows that most common
ailments in today’s world are the result of nutritional ignorance. However, we can eat a diet rich in phytochemicals from
a variety of natural plant foods that will afford us the ability to live a long and healthy life.
I always try to emphasize the benefits of nutritional excellence. With a truly healthy diet, you can not only expect a drop
in blood pressure and cholesterol and a reversal of heart disease, but your headaches, constipation, indigestion, and bad
breath should all resolve. Eating for nutritional excellence enables people to reverse diabetes and to gradually lose their
dependence on drugs. You can expect to reach a normal weight without counting calories and dieting, as well as achieve robust
health and live a long life free of the fear of heart attacks and strokes.
Nutritional excellence, which involves eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and beans, does not have to exclude all animal
products, but it has to be very rich in high-nutrient plant foods (which should make up well over 80 percent of your caloric
intake). No more than 10 percent of your total calories should come from animal foods. There is insufficient data at this
point to suggest that there is a clear longevity advantage to adhering to a vegan diet (one that is entirely free of animal
foods). However, the scientific literature suggests that there is a longevity advantage to dropping your animal-food consumption
to as little as one or two servings per week. The most consistent finding in the nutritional literature based on every epidemiological
study is that as fruit and vegetable consumption increases, chronic diseases and premature deaths decrease.
My Eat to Live dietary approach has already been tested and shown to be the most effective diet style for lowering cholesterol,
as reported in the medical journal Metabolism.32 A recent study also showed that participants who followed my plan for two years lost more weight and kept it off better than
those following diets previously studied.33
Longevity and disease protection should be the ultimate goals of dietary advice; you can lose weight snorting cocaine and
smoking cigarettes. When you settle for second-class nutritional advice, you doom yourself not only to a shorter life but
also to a poor quality of life in your later years. Humans can survive long enough to reproduce with varying diet styles,
but we can use nutritional science to greatly extend the potential of human health and enable a quality life expectancy. We
can do better than our parents and better than our ancestors. We have an unprecedented opportunity in human history to live
longer and better than ever before. The high-protein, high-animal-product promoters, who appeal to those people with that
dietary preference, mutilate the nutritional science to promote their agenda, destroy life-enhancing opportunities for millions,
and perpetuate needless premature deaths.
Eat to Live means the weight-loss benefits are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of scientific studies are demonstrating the potential of foods to extend your life span and offer dramatic protection against cancer. What makes Eat to Live unique among diet styles is that it encourages the consumption
of nutrient-rich produce, particularly those foods with dramatic health benefits. The result is that these disease-protective
biochemical nutrients reduce food cravings, remove food addictions, and curtail overeating behavior. Without this knowledge,
and without the attention to nutrient quality, diets are doomed to fail.
You can’t get to an ideal level of dietary protection, which includes enough of these fruit and vegetable super-foods, unless
you significantly reduce your consumption of animal products, processed foods, oils, flours, and sweeteners. This leaves caloric
space and stomach space for a sufficient amount of highly protective foods. This is what Eat to Live is all about. When you
eat sufficient volumes of beneficial foods in delicious and satisfying ways, you will not have room for the other foods that
are not health-promoting, and you will eventually lose your desire for them.
The chicken, pasta, and olive oil diet is the perfect formula for mediocre health and a poor life expectancy. Chicken, oil,
and pasta are all low-nutrient foods. Not grain-based, meat-based, or corn-based, a nutritarian diet is based on high-nutrient
plant foods of varying colors. I coined the word nutritarian to represent a person whose dietary focus is on eating healthful, nutrient-rich foods. A nutritarian recognizes that nutrient-rich
produce has disease-preventive, therapeutic, and life-extending properties.
Can you imagine what would happen to our nation’s growing health-care costs; our epidemic of obesity, cancer, and diabetes;
and our suffering economy, overburdened with out-of-control medical costs, if all Americans did these things?
Eat to Live isn’t for everyone. Some people may decide to ignore the life-enhancing information presented here. A multitude
of health promoters offer diets, nutritional supplements, surgical procedures, and even drugs with the promise of weight loss
without changing the way you eat. This promise alone is enough to keep people from doing the work to change; it gives the
subconscious a way out. The subconscious mind is not logical. Many of these diets have been debunked, but that doesn’t damage
their allure.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Occasionally, I meet someone who tells me, “I read Eat to Live. I know that it makes sense. But I can’t eat like that.” Or, “I read your book, but I could never be a vegetarian.” Most often
it turns out that the person didn’t read the book in its entirety, just skimmed it. These individuals fear that healthful
dietary changes will remove all the pleasure from their lives.
Habits are hard to break, no question about it. Some people cannot be convinced by all the best science in the world that
it is better to eat healthy foods. Nothing short of disease, fear, or pain (and often all three) will motivate them to change.
Toxic eating can be just as addictive as smoking or taking drugs. The same steps are necessary to overcome the addiction.
The first step is to recognize that you have a problem and that it is an addiction. Knowledge can help defeat addictions.
It also helps to have a support system of others to reinforce the reality that any temporary suffering incurred as a result
of change will bring about a much more pleasurable and happier life.
Addictive behavior can seem like an effective way to escape sadness, loneliness, and fear because it brings momentary pleasure.
It is difficult to break old, addictive eating habits and form new, healthy ones. One of the difficulties is the immense power of addiction, which makes the human mind anxious to rationalize
and justify bad habits. As a result, people often fail before they even attempt to change. They either use denial about the
vital necessity of change—the need to improve their health and happiness—or they simply give up without even trying, thinking
that change is too difficult. Keep in mind, part of you (your intellect) wants to change and be healthy. It wants the suffering
caused by your bad habits to end. But part of you (part of your subconscious) does not want to change. It wants to avoid conflict
and the discomfort that comes with withdrawal from your addictive bad habits. That part of you wants to pretend that things
are just fine the way they are, thank you, and it can come up with some mighty convincing reasons why you should not follow
the Eat to Live plan. Here are some common ones:
- It’s too radical a change.
- There’s not enough protein.
- I will get too thin and my skin will wrinkle.
- My family won’t eat this way.
- It is too difficult to eat this way on the road.
- There is nothing to eat in a restaurant.
- I’ve tried dieting before, and I know I’ll just gain all the weight back.
- I really don’t like vegetables.
Addictions affect our ability to think rationally; they prejudice our judgment in favor of maintaining the addiction. That
is why it is so difficult even to decide to change, much less actually change. Those addicted to rich, heart attack–causing
foods are more than happy to believe the lie that a low cholesterol level is not desirable and readily parrot high-protein
enthusiasts who spread the myth that low cholesterol is dangerous. Many people addicted to animal foods would embrace the
belief that the earth is flat if they could use it to justify their consumption of fatty meats, butter, and cheese.
The modern food and drug industry has converted a significant portion of the world’s people to a new religion—a massive cult
of pleasure seekers who consume coffee, cigarettes, soft drinks, candy, chocolate, alcohol, processed foods, fast foods, and
concentrated dairy fat (cheese) in a self-indulgent orgy of destructive behavior. When the inevitable results of such bad
habits appear—pain, suffering, sickness, and disease—the addicted cult members drag themselves to physicians and demand drugs
to alleviate their pain, mask their symptoms, and cure their diseases. These revelers become so drunk on their addictive behavior
and the accompanying addictive thinking that they can no longer tell the difference between health and health care.
The benefits of a diet based on nutritional excellence accrue over time, and achieving them takes some effort. But Eat to
Live does not have to be an all-or-nothing decision on day one. Incremental improvements bring benefits, too, and change can
take place over time. Healthy foods taste fantastic, but you may have to rehabilitate your taste buds and take some time to
learn new cooking techniques and recipes to appreciate them.
Instead of searching for weight-loss gimmicks and tricks, adopt a resolution to be healthy. Focusing on your health, not on
your weight, will eventually result in long-term weight loss. Eating a healthy diet, one that is rich in an assortment of
natural plant fibers, will help you crave less and feel satisfied without overeating. Other diet plans fail because they cater
to modern American tastes, which include too many processed foods and animal products to be healthy. Stop measuring portions
and trying to follow complicated formulas. Instead, eat as many vegetables, beans, and fresh fruits as possible, and less
of everything else. Don’t succumb to those other plans, which are an insult to your body as well as your intelligence.
