Gillian McKeith's Food Bible (47 page)

Weight-loss inhibitors

Excessive unhealthy food intake

Lack of exercise

Yeast overgrowth

Mineral and vitamin imbalances

Insulin imbalances (caused by too many sugary carbohydrates)

Food intolerances

Poor digestive function

Poor adrenal function

Poor metabolic function

Sluggish liver

Thyroid problems

Water retention

Excessive unhealthy food intake

Eating bad food can inhibit your ability to lose weight. Most junky foods contain unhealthy fat, added white sugars, additives, and/or artificial sweeteners. So what you are really getting is empty, high calories with little nutritional value. As a result, you never feel truly satisfied. Your body ends up craving and you respond by eating more of the same old rubbish, easily piling on the pounds.

Lack of exercise

Exercise burns calories and also increases muscle mass. Muscle burns more calories when at rest than other body tissue. If you don’t move that bum, then watch the weight creep on. You might not feel like doing exercise at first but find something that you love, get started, and you will be on a natural high as well as trim and slim.

Cravings

Added sugars in food is one of the worst advents of our modern society. You crave sugar if your blood-sugar levels are constantly out of balance by eating sugary foods; if you have nutrient deficiencies, yeast overgrowths; and if you eat a diet high in refined, processed carbohydrates. You end up becoming the victim of a roller coaster of soaring and plummeting sugar levels. This is why if you eat just one chocolate cookie, you crave more. The sugar gives you the rush, but an energy drop is never far behind. The best way to beat the sugar fix is to go cold turkey: no sugary foods or sweets for a month. The herb astragalus can give you a natural energy lift (500 mg daily).

Eat a balanced, nutrient-rich diet to break the cycle of cravings, sugar, and weight gain. Eating well not only nourishes your body but regulates your blood-sugar levels so that you don’t get those lows.

Certain foods help to regulate blood-sugar levels and tame sugar cravings. Whole grains and fresh veggies are great choices. Yams, sweet potatoes, and squash help to curb a sweet tooth, too.

Support your system with live nutrient-dense superfoods like spirulina or liquid algae. A liquid mineral supplement that contains chromium, manganese, and magnesium is important, too. Deficiencies of any one of these three minerals cause sugar cravings (more than 80 percent of chromium is destroyed in the processing of foods). I often ask my clients to take half a teaspoon of L-glutamine powder before meals to inhibit carbohydrate cravings.