Synopsis
Book by Haas MD Elson Haas MD Elson M Stauth Cameron
Extrait
1
IT'S NOT FAT
I have excellent news. It's something you haven't heard
before. It's very important.
* You're not nearly as overweight as you may think. Much of your weight
isn't even fat. It's false fat--the bloating and swelling caused by
allergy-like food reactions--and you can shed it almost immediately.
* This false fat is not your fault. You are not a glutton. You're not
lazy. You just have a very common metabolic problem: food reactions.
* You can solve this metabolic problem. The problem is not permanent,
and it's not hard to correct. You can solve it over the next few days.
It need never return.
* When you do solve this problem, you'll regain your power over food. As
your false fat fades, so will your food cravings and certain metabolic
disorders (such as hormone imbalances). Without these food cravings and
metabolic disorders, you'll begin to lose your true fat, steadily and
surely. Even if you now lack full control over your eating habits, you
can take charge again by correcting your food reactions. You can start
taking charge today.
I urge you to carefully consider this great news. It will be your key to
having complete power over what you eat, and over the biochemical
reactions that foods cause in your body. When you have this power, you
will have an entirely new way to solve your weight problem.
You have nothing to gain but knowledge, and nothing to lose but the
false fat that's hurting your appearance and the true fat that's hurting
your health.
When you conquer your food reactions, your appearance, your health, and
your zest for life will improve immeasurably. Things will get better
because you will make them get better. You will finally have that power.
It's true: Knowledge is power.
You really must use the power that this knowledge provides. You owe it
to yourself. You're worth it.
And here is why you probably will use this power: Using it will be more
pleasant than not using it. For the first time in your life, you are
going to enjoy being on a diet. In fact, like most of my patients, you
will almost forget that you are on a diet, because the False Fat Diet is
quite different from every other diet you've ever been on. It is not
based on reducing the quantity of your food. It is based on improving
the quality of your food.
This diet is not even ultimately intended to make you thin--it is
intended to make you healthy. As I often tell my patients, "If you
strive for thin, you'll never win. Strive for health and thin will
follow."
Thus, in the conventional sense of the word, this is not even a diet. It
is an eating strategy. It's a scientifically designed method of giving
you power over food, so that you can make smart food choices.
No one else can make these choices for you, because each of your food
choices must be carefully individualized. Every person reacts
differently to different foods. You are a unique being with your own
special biochemistry and your own one-of-a-kind environment and
activities. There is only one you, doing what you do, eating what you
eat, and meeting the demands that you meet.
Nonetheless, every other diet you've ever been on has been designed for
other people by other people. They have been one-size-fits-all diets,
and that approach simply doesn't work. This time, with The False Fat
Diet, you'll help design your own personalized diet, free of your own
reactive foods. This diet will be your diet. Yours alone. That's why it
will work.
With the help of this book, you'll learn about the qualities and
chemistries of various foods. More important, though, you'll learn about
your own unique body. You'll learn which foods are good for you and
which aren't--and I promise some surprises.
Right now, you may know which foods are healthy for most people. But if
you're basing your own food choices on just this knowledge, you may be
doing yourself more harm than good--because you are not most people.
You're you, and the only diet you'll ever fully succeed on will be your
own individualized diet, free of the particular foods that are healthy
for most people, but harmful for you.
After years of trying unsuccessfully to lose weight, you may be feeling
confused, powerless, frustrated--and hungry. Don't despair! Many of my
patients felt like that before they tried this approach. But most of
them have succeeded beyond their dreams.
Now it's your turn.
It has taken me approximately 20 years to develop and refine the False
Fat Diet. During this time, I have placed hundreds of overweight
patients on the diet and have consistently achieved good, and often
remarkable, results.
The False Fat Diet is based upon a simple, inarguable medical fact: When
people regularly eat foods to which they are reactive, they invariably
suffer (1) tissue swelling, (2) abdominal bloating, and (3) metabolic
disturbances that cause weight gain.
The tissue swelling and abdominal bloating create a false fat that looks
exactly like fat, but is not "true fat," or adipose tissue. This false
fat often adds the appearance of an extra 10 to 25 pounds. The food
reactions that cause false fat are almost never corrected by
conventional weight loss diets.
In addition, metabolic disturbances caused by food reactions create not
just false fat, but also true fat. They create excess adipose tissue by
disrupting the metabolism, by disturbing hormonal balance, and by
creating intense food cravings. Millions of people have become obese
because of these factors.
When my patients go on the False Fat Diet, most of them lose the false
fat of bloating and swelling very quickly and then lose their extra
adipose tissue gradually and steadily.
Over the years, I have seen patients try to lose weight with a number of
other approaches, but no other weight control diet has been nearly as
effective as my False Fat Diet. Other diets fail to keep weight off
permanently because they ignore the terrible burden that food reactions
place upon the body. When this burden is removed, most patients respond
wonderfully well.
Clinical, controlled studies support my belief in the power of this
diet. One important study is detailed on page 15. They irrefutably
demonstrate that many people who have failed on other diets succeed with
this approach.
Food reactions are not the only reason people gain weight. However, they
are an extremely important reason--one that has gone largely unreported,
except in the medical literature. In actuality, an estimated 80% to 90%
of all significantly overweight people suffer from these reactions and
can lose weight if the condition is corrected.
Food reactions consist of food allergies and food sensitivities, which
are similar to allergies. Some doctors refer to all food reactions as
allergies, but most physicians feel that the term reactions is more
accurate, because it's more inclusive. Strictly speaking, classic food
allergies are relatively rare. Food sensitivities, however, are
extremely common.
The incidence of food allergies and sensitivities has recently begun to
increase dramatically for several reasons. The primary reason is that we
eat too many staples, such as wheat, eggs, and milk, which exhaust our
bodies' abilities to digest them. Also, we eat too many packaged,
processed foods, which are loaded with reactive fillers and chemicals,
such as corn syrup, wheat gluten, and MSG. Obesity and digestive
problems, both very common health problems nowadays, also contribute to
food reactions.
The increasing incidence of food reactions is mirrored by a recent sharp
increase in obesity, which rose from 25% of the population in 1985 to
33% today. If this rate continues, by the year 2030 most people in
America will be obese. Childhood obesity has doubled since 1980. Even
now, 60% of the population, while not obese, is overweight. Currently,
obesity kills 300,000 Americans each year--more people than any other
factor except smoking. Overconsumption also stresses digestive functions
and leads to inefficient breakdown of foods and malabsorption of large
molecules of food, which sets up food reactions.
Therefore, I believe that the important effect that food reactions have
upon weight control and digestive health must be brought to the
attention of the American public and the world. At this point in the
history of public health, few things are more vital.
Why This Diet Has Been Successful
The False Fat Diet has been successful because it corrects a serious
biological flaw that has been proven to trigger weight gain.
Throughout the history of medical weight control, the most successful
diets have been those that did not radically restrict calories, but
instead corrected the metabolic problems that most often cause weight
gain. For example, the Sugar Busters diet helped people by showing them
how to correct the biological flaw of insulin instability. Other
successful approaches have included boosting the body's fat-burning
thermogenesis and correcting deficiencies in the brain chemicals that
make people feel satisfied after eating. Correcting biological flaws is
a medically sound approach, because old-fashioned, caloric-restriction
diets have been proven ineffective. They trigger the starvation
response, which slows the metabolism and makes the body hoard its fat.
However, even the most successful prior diets have overlooked a
critically important factor: Most overweight people have individualized
food allergies and sensitivities that subvert the one-size-fits-all
diets, in which all dieters eat the same foods. Therefore, some of the
most popular diets have had high failure rates.
By correcting the common biological flaw of food reactions, though, the
False Fat Diet achieves unprecedented rates of adherence and success.
How It Works: A Quick Overview
The False Fat Diet begins when you determine your own reactive foods,
using either a blood test or an elimination diet, in which you eliminate
foods, then reintroduce them gradually, to see which ones cause
problems. I'll soon tell you about each method.
After you determine your reactive foods, you begin to avoid them during
the first phase of the diet, the Cleansing Phase, which lasts about a
week. During this initial phase, you may even experience withdrawal
symptoms, such as food cravings, irritability, or headaches, as your
body is cleansed of chemicals from reactive foods and as your metabolism
begins to normalize. These temporary symptoms are a sure sign that the
diet is working.
Then you quickly shift into the second phase of the diet, which is False
Fat Week. During this 7- to 10-day period, you will lose your bloating
and swelling and look 10 to 25 pounds thinner. Your energy, motivation,
and well-being will begin to soar.
Then you progress to the third phase of the diet, the Balance Program,
which lasts as long as you want. In the Balance Program, you can eat a
varied, balanced assortment of nonreactive foods. During this phase, you
will probably lose significant amounts of adipose tissue as your
metabolic function improves and your food cravings vanish.
On the Balance Program, you begin to rebuild your metabolic health, and
overcome your food reactions. After 2 to 3 months, you can sometimes
begin to eat even your most reactive foods, without incident. Therefore,
the Balance Program becomes easier as time passes.
During the Balance Program phase, you'll also learn to balance your
lifestyle, as well as your diet, by exercising and reducing stress.
You'll discover that when you proactively follow a healthy, balanced
lifestyle, your weight will naturally diminish and you'll begin to feel
abundantly healthy.
Because the long-term Balance Program is relatively easy and pleasant,
adherence to the diet tends to be excellent. Another major reason
dieters stick to the diet is because it often stops other common
problems caused by food reactions, such as migraines, heartburn,
insomnia, skin rashes, irritable bowel syndrome, nasal congestion,
sinusitis, and recurrent infections. Becoming free from these common
problems is extremely motivating.
During the Balance Program, the maintenance phase, you are free to make
your own food choices from a broad variety of nonreactive foods. In my
medical practice and in this book, I provide several sample menu plans,
with recipes, that serve as guidelines for dieters. The sample menu
plans consist primarily of fresh, whole, unprocessed foods, such as
vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, fowl, and legumes. The diet does not
focus on caloric restriction, although most healthy, nonreactive foods
do tend to be naturally low in calories. As a rule, it's much easier for
dieters to stick to healthy foods on this diet than it is on other
diets, because they are no longer driven by reactive food cravings.
The principle behind this diet is simple: When people stop eating their
own particular reactive foods, their health almost always improves and
their weight normalizes. This uncomplicated principle is powerful--and
proven.
Five Innovations
Because this diet is a new, unique approach, it adds five important
innovations to the battle against obesity. They are:
1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.
2. This diet creates permanent loss of adipose tissue through
avoidance of reactive foods.
3. This diet actually feels good.
4. This diet is notably proactive.
5. This diet is individualized.
Now I'll explain these innovations in a little more detail.
Innovation 1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.
False fat is the unattractive bloating and swelling that makes people
look and feel far more fat than they really are.
No other diet ends the food allergies and sensitivities that cause false
fat. Often, people on other diets look overweight even after their
body-fat ratio has significantly improved because their bodies still
bulge with reactive bloating and swelling.
The human body is composed of approximately 60% to 70% water by weight,
and the vast majority of overweight people carry at least 5 to 10 extra
pounds of water weight at all times. This added poundage is almost
always the result of chronic swelling, or edema, in the tissues, caused
by food reactions.
Unlike the temporary loss of water weight that occurs on some
conventional caloric restriction diets, the loss of water weight on the
False Fat Diet does not occur because of the short-lived effect of
ketosis, the urinary flushing of the fat by-products called ketones.
Instead, it occurs because of ongoing avoidance of the reactive foods
that directly cause systemic edema. A loss of at least 5 to 10 pounds
happens almost immediately and can endure forever. If the person is
notably obese, the water weight loss is even greater. I have observed
permanent decreases in tissue swelling in almost all of my weight-loss
patients, with an accompanying loss of weight.
Although the false fat of edema is not adipose tissue, it is notably
uncomfortable and unattractive, as every woman who gains water weig...
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