Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (4 page)

This book may not appeal to individuals who are in denial about the dangers of their eating habits and those of their children. Many will do anything to continue their love affair with disease-causing foods and will sacrifice their health in the process. Many people prefer not to know about the dangers of their unhealthy
diet because they think it will interfere with their eating pleasure. They are wrong. Healthy eating can result in even more pleasure.

If you have to give up something you get pleasure from, your subconscious may prefer to ignore solid evidence or defend illogically held views. Many ferociously defend their unhealthy eating practices. Others just claim, “I already eat a healthy diet,” even though they do not.

There is a general resistance to change. It would be much easier if healthful eating practices and the scientific importance of nutritional excellence were instilled in us as children. Unfortunately, children are eating more poorly today than ever before.

Most Americans are not aware that the diet they feed their children guarantees a high cancer probability down the road.
¹³
They don’t even contemplate that eating fast-food meals may be just as risky (or more so) as letting their children smoke cigarettes.
¹⁴

You wouldn’t let your children sit around the table smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, because it is not socially acceptable, but it is fine to let them consume cola, fries cooked in trans fat, and a cheeseburger regularly. Many children eat doughnuts, cookies, cupcakes, and candy on a daily basis. It is difficult for parents to understand the insidious, slow destruction of their children’s genetic potential and the foundation for serious illness that is being built by the consumption of these foods.
¹⁵

It would be unrealistic to feel optimistic about the health and well-being of the next generation when there is an unprecedented increase in the average weight of children in this country and record levels of childhood obesity. Most ominous were the results reported by the 1992 Bogalusa Heart Study, which studied
autopsies performed on children killed in accidental deaths. The study confirmed the existence of fatty plaques and streaks (the beginning of atherosclerosis) in most children and teenagers!
¹⁶
These researchers concluded: “These results emphasize the need for preventive cardiology in early life.” I guess “preventive cardiology” is a convoluted term that means eating healthfully.

Another autopsy study appearing in the
New England Journal of Medicine
found that more than 85 percent of adults between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-nine already have atherosclerotic changes in their coronary arteries.
¹⁷
Fatty streaks and fibrous plaques covered large areas of the coronary arteries. Everyone knows that junk foods are not healthy, but few understand their consequences—serious life-threatening illness. Clearly, the diets we consume as children have a powerful influence on our future health and eventual premature demise.
¹⁸

There is considerable data to suggest that childhood diet has a greater impact on the later incidence of certain cancers than does a poor diet later in life.
¹⁹
It is estimated that as many as 25 percent of schoolchildren today are obese.
²⁰
Early obesity sets the stage for adult obesity. An overweight child develops heart disease earlier in life. Mortality data suggests that being overweight during early adult life is more dangerous than a similar degree of heaviness later in adult life.
²¹

New drugs are continually introduced that attempt to lessen the effects of our nation’s self-destructive eating behavior. Most often, our society treats disease after the degenerative illness has appeared, an illness that is the result of thirty to sixty years of nutritional self-abuse.

Drug companies and researchers attempt to develop and market medications to stem the obesity epidemic. This approach will always be doomed to fail. The body will always pay a price for consuming medicines, which usually have toxic effects. The “side”
effects are not the only toxic effect of medications. Doctors learn in their introductory pharmacology course in medical school that all medications are toxic to varying degrees, whether side effects are experienced or not. Pharmacology professors stress never to forget that. You cannot escape the immutable biological laws of cause and effect through ingesting medicinal substances.

If we don’t make significant changes in the foods we choose to consume, taking drugs prescribed by physicians will not improve our health or extend our lives. If we wish true health protection, we need to remove the cause. We must stop abusing ourselves with disease-causing foods.

In the Nurses’ Health Study, researchers examined the association between body mass index and overall mortality and mortality from specific causes in more than 100,000 women. After limiting the analysis to nonsmokers, it was very clear that the longest-lived women were the leanest.
²²
The researchers concluded that the increasingly permissive U.S. weight guidelines are unjustified and potentially harmful.

Dr. I-Min Lee, of the Harvard School of Public Health, said her twenty-seven-year study of 19,297 men found there was no such thing as being too thin. (Obviously, it is possible to be too thin; however, it is uncommon and usually called anorexia, but that is not the subject of this book.) Among men who never smoked, the lowest mortality occurred in the lightest fifth.
²³
Those who were in the thinnest 20 percent in the early 1960s were two and a half times less likely to have died of cardiovascular disease by 1988 than those in the heaviest fifth. Overall, the thinnest were two-thirds more likely to be alive in 1988 than the heaviest. Lee stated, “We observed a direct relationship between body weight and mortality. By that I mean that the thinnest fifth of men experienced the lowest mortality, and mortality increased progressively with heavier and heavier weight.” The point is not to judge your ideal
weight by traditional weight-loss tables, which are based on Americans’ overweight averages. After carefully examining the twenty-five major studies available on the subject, I have found that the evidence indicates that optimal weight, as determined by who lives the longest, occurs at weights at least 10 percent below the average body-weight tables.
²⁴
Most weight-guideline charts still place the public at risk by reinforcing an unhealthy overweight standard. By my calculations, it is not merely 70 percent of Americans who are overweight, it is more like 85 percent.
²⁵

As a good rule of thumb: for optimal health and longevity, a man should not have more than one-half inch of skin that he can pinch near his umbilicus (belly button) and a woman should not have more than one inch. Almost any fat on the body over this minimum is a health risk. If you have gained even as little as ten pounds since the age of eighteen or twenty, then you could be at significant increased risk for health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. The truth is that most people who think they are at the right weight still have too much fat on their body.

A commonly used formula for determining ideal body weight follows:

Women:
Approximately ninety-five pounds for the first five feet of height and then four pounds for every inch thereafter.

 

5'4"	95 + 16 = 111
5'6"	95 + 24 = 119

 

Men:
Approximately 105 pounds for the first five feet of height and then five pounds for every inch thereafter. Therefore, a 5'10" male should weigh approximately 155 pounds.

All formulas that approximate ideal weights are only rough guides, since we all have different body types and bone structure.

Body mass index (BMI) is used as a convenient indicator of overweight risk and is often used in medical investigations. BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters (squared). Another way to calculate BMI is to use this formula:

A BMI over 24 is considered overweight and greater than 30, obese. However, it is just as easy for most of us merely to use waist circumference.

I prefer waist circumference and abdominal fat measurements because BMI can be inaccurately high if the person is athletic and very muscular. Ideally, your BMI should be below 23, unless you lift weights and have considerable muscle mass. As an example, I am of average height and build (5'10" and 150 pounds) and my BMI is 21.5. My waist circumference is 30.5 inches. Waist circumference should be measured at the navel.

The traditional view is that men who have a waist circumference over forty inches and women with one over thirty-five inches are significantly overweight with a high risk of health problems and heart attacks. Evidence suggests that abdominal fat measurement is a better predictor of risk than overall weight or size.
²⁶
Fat deposits around your waist are a greater health risk than extra fat in other places, such as the hips and thighs.

What if you feel you are too thin? If you have too much fat on your body but feel you are too thin, then you should exercise to build
muscle
to gain weight. I often have patients tell me they think they look too thin, or their friends or family members tell them they look too thin, even though they are still clearly overweight. Bear in mind that by their standards you may be too thin, or at least thinner than they are. The question to ask is, is their standard a healthy one? I doubt it. Either way:
Do not try to force
yourself to overeat to gain weight!
Eat only as much food as your hunger drive demands, and no more. If you exercise, your appetite will increase in response. You should not try to put on weight merely by eating, because that will only add more fat to your frame, not muscle. Additional fat, regardless of whether you like the way you look when you are fatter or not, will shorten your life span.

Once you start eating healthfully, you may find you are getting thinner than expected. Most people lose weight until they reach their ideal weight and then they stop losing weight. Ideal weight is an individual thing, but it is harder to lose muscle than fat, so once the fat is off your body, your weight will stabilize. Stabilization at a thin, muscular weight occurs because your body gives you strong signals to eat, signals that I call “true hunger.”
True hunger
maintains your muscle reserve, not your fat.

The evidence for increasing one’s life span through dietary restriction is enormous and irrefutable. Reduced caloric intake is the only experimental technique to consistently extend maximum life span. This has been shown in
all
species tested, from insects and fish to rats and cats. There are so many hundreds of studies that only a small number are referenced below.

Scientists have long known that mice that eat fewer calories live longer. Research has demonstrated the same effect in primates (i.e., you). A study published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
found that restricting calories by 30 percent significantly increased life span in monkeys.
²⁷
The experimental diet, while still providing
adequate
nourishment, slowed monkeys’ metabolism and reduced their body temperatures, changes similar to those in the long-lived thin mice. Decreased levels of triglycerides and increased HDL (the good) cholesterol were also observed. Studies over the years, on many different species of animals, have confirmed that those animals that were fed less
lived longest. In fact, allowing an animal to eat as much food as it desires can reduce its life span by as much as one-half.

High-nutrient, low-calorie eating results in dramatic increases in life span as well as prevention of chronic illnesses. From rodents to primates we see: