Disease Proof

Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live.

You may already know that the conventional "solution" to being overweight--low-calorie dieting--doesn't work. But you may not know why. It is for this simple yet much overlooked reason: for the vast majority of people, being overweight is not caused by how much they eat but what they eat. The idea that people get heavy because they consume a high volume of food is a myth. Eating large amounts of the right food is your key to success and is what makes this plan workable for the rest of your life. What makes many people overweight is not that they eat so much more but that they get a higher percentage of their calories from refined fat and refined carbohydrates, or mostly low-nutrient foods. Plus, this low-nutrient diet establishes a favorable cellular environment for disease (like cancer, heart disease, and dementia) to flourish.

As long as you are eating so many low-nutrient foods, it is impossible to lose weight healthfully. In fact, this vicious combination of sedentary lifestyle and eating typical "American" food should make normal people overweight. It is perfectly normal to become a "food-addict," eating more calories when the body requires, when your intake of micronutrients is so low. This low nutrient intake leads to cellular toxicity creating an internal environment when cravings, and ill-feeling ensue if the body is not continually overfed. It is similar to the way a heroin or nicotine addict, who needs their regular fix, or withdrawal will begin and they will feel too uncomfortable. The standard (low phytonutient) diet leads to discomfort (headaches, weakness, abdominal spasm and fluttering, mental confusion and more) the minute your stomach empties for a few hours.

Eat To Live is the only dietary style that recognizes "toxic hunger" as the cause of obesity and that the nutrient-per-calorie density of foods must be considered when trying to fuel the body for health. Because eating more high-nutrient foods and recipes end toxic hunger, they put an end to dieting forever.

I started the Eat to Live program on Monday of this week and have been consistent with eathing no animal products and LOTS of fruits, vegetables and beans. Today is Friday and I am sluggish, have a monstrous headache and just plain exhausted. I have some important manuscripts to read for work and can't concentrate on them! When can I expect this to pass and start to feel better?
By the way I have lost 6 pounds since Monday. I know it is fluid but is is encouraging!
Diana

Hi Diana,
Congratulations on the decision to take charge of your health. The detoxification/withdrawal process usually only lasts 6 - 10 days. I am sure you will feel much, much better each passing day ahead. In another week you will feel great. Each person is different.

"Low calorie dieting doesn't work."

You need to define your terms and then supply sources for this claim. Certainly low calories do produce weight loss. Do you mean to say that a plan to lose weight by reducing calories is not effective in the sense that many people end up going back to their old ways?

Or are you referring to the "95%" urban legend? That's been dealt with by Snopes and the NY Times "Really?" column, to which I refer you.

Hey Stephen,

I did some research in order to properly address your concern about Dr. Fuhrman's stance on low-calorie dieting. Throughout the first chapter of his book Eat to Live he explains why this type of dieting is destined to fail. The following is an adaptation from several sections of the first chapter. This should help clarify what Dr. Fuhrman is saying. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Americans have been bombarded with a battery of gimmicky diets that promise to combat obesity. Almost all diets are ineffective. They don't work, because no matter how much weight you lose when you are on a diet, you put it right back on when you go off. Measuring portions and trying to eat fewer calories, typically called "dieting," almost never results in permanent weight loss and actually worsens the problem over time. Such "dieting" temporarily slows down you metabolic rate, so often more weight comes back than you lost. You wind up heavier than you were before you started dieting. This leads many to claim, "I've tried everything, and nothing works. It must be genetic. Who wouldn't give up?"

This is especially discouraging for the dieter because after spending so much money attempting to lose weight, 95 percent of them gain all the weight back and then add on even more pounds within three years.1 This incredibly high failure rate holds true for the vast majority of weight-loss schemes programs, and diets.

Regardless of your metabolism or genetics, you can achieve a normal weight once you start a high-nutrient diet style. Since the majority of all Americans are overweight, the problem is not primarily genetic. Though genes are an important ingredient, physical activity and food choices play a far more significant role. In studies on identical twins with the tendency to be overweight, scientists found that physical activity is the strongest environment determinant of the total body and central abdominal fat mass.2 Even those with a strong family history of obesity effectively lose weight with increased physical activity and appropriate dietary modifications.

Most of the time, the reason people are overweight is too little physical activity, in conjunction with a high-calorie, low-nutrient diet. Eating a diet with plenty of low-fiber, calorie-dense food, such as oil and refined carbohydrates, is the main culprit.

To achieve the results in preventing and reversing disease, and attaining permanent health body weight, we must be concerned with the nutritional quality of our diet.

1. Foryet, J. Limitations of behavioral treatment of obesity: review and analysis. 1981. J. Behav. Med. 4: 159-73.

2. Samaras, K., P.J. Kelly, M.N. Chiano, T.D. Spector, and L.V. Campbell. 1999. Genetic and environmental influences on total-body and central abdominal fat: the effect of physical activity in female twins. Ann. Intern. Med. 130 (11): 873-82.