Here is some of the background for my diet recommendations. You will note that there are 3 references on the previous post. They are the source of the three principles that I recommend for finding a healthy diet, and I expand upon them briefly below.
1. Eat real food (Michael Pollen). You know what real food is. It is non-processed food. The bread and cereal that we eat each day is highly processed. Even the grain itself has been genetically modified from what it once was just a few generations ago. When choosing food to eat, choose foods with fewer ingredients and less processing. Ideally eat all non-processed foods - real meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables. When you can't figure out what to eat, always go towards the real food, the unprocessed food. No matter what it is, it will be better than the alternative.
2. Maximize the nutritional quality of the food you eat (Dr. Joel Fuhrman). Fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, raw or lightly cooked, have the most nutrients per gram of food per calorie eaten. That's why my "low carb" approach still allows fruits that may have high sugar content. If you eat the whole fruit, not just the juice, you get all the nutrient value along with the sugar. That's OK, and no-one ever got fat eating fruit.
3. Carbohydrates in the modern diet are the cause of most obesity, diabetes and even high cholesterol and heart disease (Gary Taubes). Bread and cereal are the biggest hidden culprits. Everyone on any diet knows that they should avoid cookies and cakes and pies and candy, but they think that bread and cereal are healthy. They think if they eat whole grain breads and cereals they get lots of nutrition. We've been sold a bill of goods. Drs. Kelloggs and Post were revolutionary in their time, but modern highly processed cereals and breads are just loads of carbs that make us fat, and salt that raises our blood pressure and stresses our kidneys. That goes for bagels and croissants and muffins and all those baked goods. Chips and crackers are the worst. Just say no and walk on by.
I have been counseling my patients to lose weight for 40 years. I have recommended calorie counting, fasting, behavior management, Weight Watchers, Jennie Craig, Dean Ornish low fat and South Beach. This is the first diet program that has worked for me and my patients (I lost 10 pounds on my first attempt).
This is not a low fat diet! You can eat eggs and cheese and meat, but the meat should be fresh pork, chicken beef, seafood, etc. Avoid sausage and hot dogs, bacon and other highly processed meat. Potatoes and pasta are high carb and need to be limited, but not eliminated from the diet. The same is true for fruit juice and nuts and dried fruit. Some is OK, but don’t make it a staple of your diet or a habit. Cooked oatmeal, not the instant type, is close to a real food and can be eaten also in limited quantity.
I recommend that you read any of the three books on the reading list. Also, watch the video, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead which you can download from Netflix.
Read the first blog again, print it out, and give it a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
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