Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (2 page)

I have cared for more than ten thousand patients, most of whom first came to my office unhappy, sick, and overweight, having tried every dietary craze without success. After following my health-and-weight-loss formula, they shed the weight they always dreamed of losing, and they kept it off. For the first time in their lives, these patients had a diet plan that didn’t require them to be hungry all the time.

Most patients who come to me say that they just can’t lose weight, no matter what they do. They are not alone. It is almost universally accepted that obese patients cannot achieve an ideal weight or even an acceptable weight through traditional weight-loss programs. In one study of sixty overweight women who enrolled in a university diet-and-exercise program, none achieved her ideal weight.

My diet plan and recipes are designed for the hardest cases and those who have failed to lose the desired weight on other plans. Following the dietary advice offered in this book, you will achieve remarkable results, regardless of your previous experience. Weight loss averages fifteen pounds the first month and ten pounds each month thereafter. Some people lose as much as a pound a day. There is no hunger, and you can eat as much food as you desire (usually more food than you were eating before). It will work for everyone.

My patients experience other benefits as well. Many of them once suffered from chronic diseases that required multiple medications. A substantial number of my patients have been able to discontinue their medications as they recover from angina, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma, fatigue, allergies, and arthritis (to name just a few). More than 90 percent of my diabetic patients who are on insulin at the time of their first visit get off all insulin within the first month.

When I first saw Richard Gross, he had already had angioplasty and bypass surgery, and his doctors were recommending a second bypass operation because his chest pain had recurred and catheterization showed two out of the three bypassed vessels were severely blocked. Because he had suffered brain damage from the first bypass, Richard did not want to undergo another operation. Needless to say, he was very motivated to try my noninvasive approach. He followed my recommendations to the letter, and within two months on the plan his chest pains disappeared. His blood pressure normalized, his total cholesterol came down (without drugs) to 135, and he no longer required the six medications he had been taking for angina and hypertension. Now, seven years later, he is still free of any signs of vascular insufficiency.

I see numerous patients whose physicians have advised them to have angioplasty or bypass surgery but who have decided to try my aggressive nutritional management first. Those who follow the formula described in this book invariably find that their health improves and their chest pains gradually disappear. Of hundreds of cardiac patients treated in this manner, all but a few have done exceptionally well, with chest pain resolving in almost every case (only one went to repeat angioplasty because of a recurrence of chest symptoms), and I have had no patient die from cardiac arrest.

With the help of their doctors, most patients can slowly reduce—and eventually cease—their dependency on drugs. This program often enables my patients to avoid open-heart surgery and other invasive procedures. It often saves their lives.

However many details I provide of my patients’ success, you
are right to be skeptical. Thousands of patients with successful outcomes does not necessarily translate into your individual success. After all, you might point out, weren’t these patients motivated by severe illness or the fear of death? Actually, many were relatively healthy people who came to me for routine medical care. They found a hidden benefit, and just decided to “eat to live” longer and healthier and lose the extra weight they did not need to carry, even if it was only ten to twenty pounds. When faced with the information in this book, they simply changed.

These results sound fantastic, and they are. They are also true and predictable on my program. The key to this extraordinary diet is my simple formula: H = N/C.

Health = Nutrients/Calories

 

Your health is predicted by

your nutrient intake divided by your intake of calories.

H = N/C is a concept I call the
nutrient density
of your diet. Food supplies us with both nutrients and calories (energy). All calories come from only three elements: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Nutrients are derived from noncaloric food factors—including vitamins, minerals, fibers, and phytochemicals. These noncaloric nutrients are vitally important for health.
Your key to permanent weight loss is to eat predominantly those foods that have a high proportion of nutrients (noncaloric food factors) to calories (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins). In physics a key formula is Einstein’s E = mc
²
.
In nutrition the key formula is H = N/C.

Every food can be evaluated using this formula. Once you begin to learn which foods make the grade—by having a high proportion of nutrients to calories—you are on your way to lifelong weight control and improved health.

Eating large quantities of high-nutrient foods is the secret to optimal health and permanent weight control. In fact, eating much larger portions of food is one of the beauties of the Eat to Live plan. You eat more, which effectively blunts your appetite, and you lose weight—permanently.

Eating to live does not require any deprivation. In fact, you do not have to give up any foods completely. However, as you consume larger and larger portions of health-supporting, high-nutrient foods, your appetite for low-nutrient foods decreases and you gradually lose your addiction to them. You will be able to make a complete commitment to this diet style for the rest of your life.

By following my menu plans with great-tasting recipes, you will significantly increase the percentage of high-nutrient foods in your diet and your excess weight will start dropping quickly and dramatically. This will motivate you even more to stick with it. This approach requires no denial or hunger. You can lose as much weight as you want even if diets have never worked for you in the past.

This book will allow everyone who stays on the program to become slimmer, healthier, and younger looking. You will embark on an adventure that will transform your entire life. Not only will you lose weight, you will sleep better, feel better physically and emotionally, and have more energy. You will also lower your chances of developing serious diseases in the future. You will learn why diets haven’t worked for you in the past and why so many popular weight-loss plans simply do not meet the scientific criteria for effectiveness and safety.

My promise is threefold: substantial, healthy weight reduction in a short period of time; prevention or reversal of many chronic and life-threatening medical conditions; and a new understanding of food and health that will continue to pay dividends for the rest of your life.

The main principle of this book is that for both optimal health and weight loss, you must consume a diet with a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio.
Very few people, including physicians and dietitians, understand the concept of nutrient-per-calorie density. Understanding this key concept and learning to apply it to what you eat are the main focus of the book—but you must read the
entire
book. There are no shortcuts.

I have found that a comprehensive education in the subject is necessary for my patients to achieve the results they are looking for—but once they understand the concepts, they “own” them. They find it much easier to change. So make no mistake: the complete knowledge base of the book is essential if you want to achieve significant success, but I know that after you read this book you will say, “This makes sense.” You will be a weight-loss and nutrition expert, and by the end you will have a strong foundation of knowledge that will serve you (and your newly slim self) for the rest of your life.

Why should you wait until you are faced with a life-threatening health crisis to want health excellence? Most people would choose to disease-proof their body and look great now. They just never thought they could do it so easily. Picture yourself in phenomenal health and in excellent physical condition at your ideal body weight. Not only will your waist be free of fat but your heart will be free of plaque.

Still, it is not easy to change: eating has emotional and social overtones. It is especially difficult to break an addiction. As you will learn, our American diet style is addictive, but not as addictive as smoking cigarettes. Stopping smoking is very hard, yet many still succeed. I have heard many excuses over the years, from smokers aiming to quit and sometimes even from failed dieters. Making any change is not easy. Obviously, most people know if they change their diet enough and exercise, they can lose weight—but they still can’t do it.

After reading this book, you will have a better understanding of why changing has been so extremely difficult in the past and how to make it happen more easily. You will also discover dramatic results available to you that make the change exciting and well worthwhile. However, you still must first look deep within yourself and make a firm decision to do it.

I ask you to let me make my case, and try this plan for six weeks. After the first six weeks—the hardest on the plan—it becomes a lot easier. You may already have strong reasons to make a commitment to the Eat to Live plan, or you would not be reading this.

Even with patients determined to quit smoking, I insist that if they are faced with significant work-related stress, have an argument, get in a car accident, or experience any other calamity, they should not go back to smoking and use smoking as a stress reliever. I admonish them, “Call me, wake me in the middle of the night if you have to; I will help you, even prescribe medication if necessary, but just don’t give yourself that option of self-medicating with cigarettes.” It is not so different with your food addictions—accept no excuse to fall off the wagon in the first six weeks. You can break the addiction only if you give your body a fair chance. Do not say you will give it a try. Do not try; instead, make a commitment to do it right.

When you get married, does the religious figure or justice of the peace ask, “Do you swear to give this person a try?” When people tell me they will give it a try, I say don’t bother, you have already decided to fail. It takes more than a try to quit addictions; it takes a commitment. A commitment is a promise that you stick with, no matter what.

Without that commitment, you are doomed to fail. Give yourself the chance to really succeed this time. If you commit to just six weeks on this program, you will change your life forever and turning back becomes much more difficult.

Make a clear choice between success and failure. It takes only three simple steps. One, buy the book; two, read the book; three, make the commitment.

The third step is the difficult choice, but that is all it is—another choice. Don’t go there yet. First, read the entire book. Study this book; then it will become easier and logical to take the third step—making the commitment to follow the plan for at least six weeks. You must have the knowledge carefully and elaborately described in this book before that commitment is meaningful. It is like getting married. Don’t commit to marriage unless you know your partner. It is an educated choice, a choice made from both emotion and knowledge. The same is true here.

Let me thank you for beginning the journey to wellness. I take it personally. I sincerely appreciate all people who take an interest in improving themselves and taking better care of their health. I am committed to your success. I realize that every great success is the result of a strong and sustained effort. I have no aspirations to change every person in America, or even a majority of people. But at least people should be given a choice. This book gives everyone who reads it that choice.

A lifetime of compromised health does not have to be your destiny, because this plan works and it works marvelously. If you weren’t sure in the past that you could do it, let me repeat that taking that big step makes all the hard work worthwhile, because then you get the results you desire.

You have my respect and appreciation for making that choice to help yourself, your family, and even your country by earning back your health.

Put my ideas through this six-week test before evaluating your progress or deciding how healthy you feel. Do the grocery shopping. If you have lots of weight to lose, begin with my most powerful menu plans and instructions, without compromise, for the full six weeks. You will find the physiology of your body changing so significantly that you will never be the same. Your taste buds will become more sensitive, you will lose most of your cravings to overeat, you will feel so much better, and you will see such remarkable weight-loss results that it will be difficult ever to go back to your former way of eating. If you are on medication for diabetes or even for high blood pressure, make sure your
physician is aware of your plan at the outset. He or she will need to monitor dosage to avoid overmedication. Read more about this in chapter seven.

Here is how the book works: Chapters one through four, considered together, are designed to be a comprehensive overview of human nutrition. The foundation of your success is based on the scientific information contained in these four chapters. In chapter one, you will see the problems with the standard American diet and learn how our food choices have the power to either cut short or add many years to our life. You may think you know all this, but let me surprise you with all that you don’t know. Chapter two explains why obesity and chronic disease are the inevitable consequences of our poor food choices. I explain the link between low-nutrient foods and chronic disease/premature death as well as the connection between superior health/longevity and high-nutrient foods. In chapter three you will learn about those critical phytochemicals and the secret foods for both longevity and weight control. You will also learn why trying to control your weight by eating less food almost never works. The final chapter of this section of the book explains the problem with a diet rich in animal products and puts into perspective all the misleading advertising claims about foods that people have accepted as truth.