Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (5 page)

• Resistance to experimentally induced cancers
  

• Protection from spontaneous and genetically predisposed cancers
  

• A delay in the onset of late-life diseases
  

• Nonappearance of atherosclerosis and diabetes
  

• Lower cholesterol and triglycerides and increased HDL
  

• Improved insulin sensitivity
  

• Enhancement of the energy-conservation mechanism, including reduced body temperature
  

• Reduction in oxidative stress
  

• Reduction in parameters of cellular aging, including cellular congestion
  

• Enhancement of cellular repair mechanisms, including DNA repair enzymes
  

• Reduction in inflammatory response and immune cell proliferation
  

• Improved defenses against environmental stresses
  

• Suppression of the genetic alterations associated with aging
  

• Protection of genes associated with removal of oxygen radicals
  

• Inhibited production of metabolites that are potent cross-linking agents
  

• Slowed metabolic rate
  ²⁸
  

The link between thinness and longevity, and obesity and a shorter life span, is concrete. Another important consideration in other animal studies is that fat and protein restriction have an additional effect on lengthening life span.
²⁹
Apparently, higher fat and higher protein intake promotes hormone production, speeds up reproductive readiness and other indicators of aging,
and promotes the growth of certain tumors. For example, excess protein intake has been shown to raise insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) levels,
³⁰
which are linked to higher rates of prostate and breast cancer.
³¹

In the wide field of longevity research there is only one finding that has held up over the years: eating less prolongs life, as long as nutrient intake is adequate.
³²
All other longevity ideas are merely conjectural and unproven.
³³
Such theories include taking hormones such as estrogen, DHEA, growth hormones, and melatonin, as well as nutritional supplements. So far, there is no solid evidence that supplying the body with any nutritional element over and above the level present in adequate amounts in a nutrient-dense diet will prolong life. This is in contrast to the overwhelming evidence regarding protein and caloric restriction.

This important and irrefutable finding is a crucial feature of the H = N/C equation. We all must recognize that if we are to reach the limit of the human life span, we must not overeat on high-calorie food. Eating empty-calorie food makes it impossible to achieve optimal health and maximize our genetic potential.

An important corollary to the principle of limiting high-calorie food is that the only way for a human being to safely achieve the benefits of caloric restriction while ensuring that the diet is nutritionally adequate is to avoid as much as possible those foods that are nutrient-poor.

Indeed, this is the crucial consideration in deciding what to eat. We need to eat foods with adequate nutrients so we won’t need to consume excess “empty” calories to reach our nutritional requirements. Eating foods that are rich in nutrients and fiber, and low in calories, “fills us up,” so to speak, thus preventing us from overeating.

To grasp why this works, let us look at how the brain controls our dietary drive. A complicated system of chemoreceptors in the nerves lining the digestive tract carefully monitor the calorie and nutrient density of every mouthful and send such information to the hypothalamus in the brain, which controls dietary drive.

MORE NUTRIENTS AND FIBER WILL REDUCE YOUR CALORIC DRIVE

There are also stretch receptors in the stomach to signal satiety by detecting the
volume
of food eaten, not the
weight
of the food. If you are not filled up with nutrients and fiber, the brain will send out signals telling you to eat more food, or overeat.

In fact, if you consume sufficient nutrients and fiber, you will become
biochemically
filled (nutrients) and
mechanically
filled (fiber), and your desire to consume calories will be blunted or turned down. One key factor that determines whether you will be overweight is your failure to consume sufficient fiber and nutrients. This has been illustrated in scientific studies.
³⁴

How does this work in practice? Let’s say we conduct a scientific experiment and observe a group of people by measuring the average number of calories they consumed at each dinner. Next, we give them a whole orange and a whole apple prior to dinner. The result would be that the participants would reduce their
caloric intake, on the average, by the amount of calories in the fruit. Now, instead of giving them two fruits, give them the same amount of calories from fruit juice.

What will happen? They will eat the same amount of food as they did when they had nothing at the beginning of their meal. In other words, the juice did not reduce the calories consumed in the meal—instead, the juice became additional calories. This has been shown to occur with beer, soft drinks, and other sources of liquid calories.
³⁵

Liquid calories, without the fiber present in the whole food, have little effect in blunting our caloric drive. Studies show that fruit juice and other sweet beverages lead to obesity in children as well.
³⁶

If you are serious about losing weight, don’t drink your fruit—eat it. Too much fiber and too many nutrients are removed during juicing, and many of the remaining nutrients are lost through processing, heat, and storage time. If you are not overweight, drinking freshly prepared juice is acceptable as long as it does not serve as a substitute for eating those fresh fruits and vegetables. There is no substitute for natural whole foods.

There is a tendency for many of us to want to believe in magic. People want to believe that in spite of our indiscretions and excesses, we can still maintain optimal health by taking a pill, powder, or other potion. However, this is a false hope, a hope that has been silenced by too much scientific evidence. There is no magic. There is no miracle weight-loss pill. There is only the natural world of law and order, of cause and effect. If you want optimal health and longevity, you must engage the cause. And if you want to lose fat weight safely, you must eat a diet of predominantly unrefined foods that are nutrient-and fiber-rich.

Your body weight may be affected slightly by genetics, but that effect is not strong. Furthermore, I am convinced that inheriting a
slow metabolic rate with a tendency to gain weight is not a flaw or defect but rather a genetic gift that can be taken advantage of. How is this possible? A slower metabolism is associated with a longer life span in all species of animals. It can be speculated that if one lived sixty thousand or just a few hundred years ago, a slower metabolic rate might have increased our survival opportunity, since getting sufficient calories was difficult. For example, the majority of Pilgrims who arrived on our shores on the
Mayflower
died that first winter.
³⁷
They could not make or find enough food to eat, so only those with the genetic gift of a slow metabolic rate survived.

As you can see, it is not always bad to have a slow metabolic rate. It can be good. Sure, it is bad in today’s environment of relentless eating and when consuming a high-calorie, low-nutrient diet. Sure, it will increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease and cancer, given today’s food-consumption patterns. However, if correct food choices are made to maintain a normal weight, the individual with a slower metabolism may age more slowly.

Our body is like a machine. If we constantly run the machinery at high speed, it will wear out faster. Since animals with slower metabolic rates live longer, eating more calories, which drives up our metabolic rate, will cause us only to age faster. Contrary to what you may have heard and read in the past, our goal should be the opposite: to eat less, only as much as we need to maintain a slim and muscular weight, and no more, so as to keep our metabolic rate relatively slow.

So stop worrying about your slower metabolic rate. A slower metabolic rate from dieting is not the primary cause of your weight problem. Keep these three important points in mind:

1. Resting metabolic rates do decline slightly during periods of lower caloric intake, but not enough to significantly inhibit weight loss.
   

2. Resting metabolic rates return to normal soon after caloric intake is no longer restricted. The lowered metabolic rate does not stay low permanently and make future dieting more difficult.
   

3. A sudden lowering of the metabolic rate from dieting does not explain the weight gain/loss cycles experienced by many overweight people. These fluctuations in weight are primarily from going on and getting off diets. It is especially difficult to stay with a reduced-calorie diet when it never truly satisfies the individual’s biochemical need for nutrients, fiber, and phytochemicals.
   ³⁸
   

Those with a genetic tendency to be overweight may actually have the genetic potential to outlive the rest of us. The key to their successful longevity lies in their choosing a nutrient-rich, fiber-rich, lower-calorie diet, as well as getting adequate physical activity. By adjusting the nutrient-per-calorie density of your diet to your metabolic rate, you can use your slow metabolism to your advantage. When you can maintain a normal weight in spite of a slow metabolism, you will be able to achieve significant longevity.

Science and the development of modern refrigeration and transportation methods have given us access to high-quality, nutrient-dense food. In today’s modern society, we have available to us the largest variety of fresh and frozen natural foods in human history. Using the foods available to us today, we can devise diets and menus with better nutrient density and nutrient diversity than ever before possible.

This book gives you the information and the motivation you need to take advantage of this opportunity to improve your health and maximize your chances for a disease-free life.

You have a clear choice. You can live longer and healthier than ever before, or you can do what most modern populations do: eat to create disease and a premature death. Since you are reading this book, you have opted to live longer and healthier. “Eat to live” and you will achieve a happier and more pleasurable life.