Everyone knows that Americans are overweight. Over 2/3 of us are overweight, obese, or super-obese, and the excess weight is accompanied by substantial health problems from type 2 diabetes, to arthritis, to greater risk for cancer, heart disease, and dementia, as well as shortening of lifespan. Men, women, Democrats, Republicans, white people, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, even teenagers, younger children, and infants are overweight.
No surprise: many companies sell commercial weight loss programs to enterprise on these trends. Watch TV or look through magazines and you can’t avoid ads with Oprah Winfrey promoting Weight Watchers, Marie Osmond promoting NutriSystem, or the pitches to buy the pre-prepared meals from Jenny Craig. You can throw away a ton of money buying meal replacement shakes, subscription meal plans, nutritional supplements, prescription drugs, even weight loss surgery that your doctor is selling to support his local healthcare system and boost his/her end-of-quarter bonus.
But understand these 5 basic principles and you can enjoy weight loss rapidly, effortlessly, and inexpensively. It does NOT involve cutting calories, reducing fat, extreme exercise, certainly not drugs or procedures. It applies simple logic and recent science to craft a hugely effective way to lose weight.
1) Cutting calories is useless–Yes, you can lose weight upfront, but the reduction in metabolic rate that develops over time will cause you to regain the weight. This is an effect that can persist for years, eradicating your ambitions to lose weight. It is not clear how quickly this effect applies–2 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. But the near-term weight loss success is replaced by long-term weight regain.
2) Cutting fat and/or calories set you up to develop gallstones. We now know this from studies in which the gallbladder was visualized with ultrasound over time. People following low-calorie and/or low-fat diets develop gallstones at an alarming rate. Gallstones develop when you fail to consume foods that provoke gallbladder contraction to expel bile, allowing bile to stagnate, crystallize and form stones.
3) Everything in moderation sets you up to fail because it means that you are still including foods that provoke insulin and stimulate appetite. “Everything in moderation” is the mantra of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as they enjoy generous donations from Coca Cola, PepsiCo, and others, and say things like “Go ahead and enjoy your Coke, but just exercise an additional 30 minutes when you do.” Of course, that is ridiculous advice, as exercise cannot undo all the adverse effects (glycation, dysbiosis, small LDL particle formation, de novo lipogenesis, etc.) of consuming such garbage.
4) Gliadin-derived opioid peptides from wheat and related grains keep you hungry, causing you to battle hunger and cravings as long as anything made of wheat or grains remains in the diet—whole wheat, whole grain, multigrain, organic, sourdough fermented, etc., it makes no difference. Removing them 100% sets you free and puts you back in marvelous control over appetite and impulse.
5) Taking steps to reduce insulin allows fat to be mobilized from fat stores. This involves correction of common nutritional deficiencies: vitamin D, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, and iodine, as well as efforts to cultivate healthy bowel flora, deficiencies/disruptions that are common in modern life due to living largely indoors, drinking filtered water, not consuming organ meats, exposure to pesticides/herbicides, etc.
These are strategies that cost little, don’t involve silly prescription drugs, certainly do not involve medical procedures, require no counting calories or points, and involve no meal subscription plans. If that Walmart shopper tells you that she can’t lose weight because she can’t afford the cost of enrolling in a weight loss program, tell her that weight loss should cost as much as a quart of milk or a dozen eggs, yet the health benefits are priceless. Your doctor didn’t tell you any of this? If truth in health is your goal, join our conversations in the Undoctored Inner Circle.
