How to get healthy and end food cravings
66The principles of a healthy diet that
controls cravings and generates rapid
improvements in dozens of metabolic
diseases are now established and proven.
Even governmental authorities are now
recognizing the general outlines of the
program, even while they disagree on the
details.
The anti-inflammatory diet recommended
by Dr. Weil, Dr. Perricone, Dr. Sears and of
course myself too is the main diet to restore
human health while controlling cravings and
reversing heart disease, diabetes, and most
other metabolic conditions related to inflammatory
status.
The main principles are:
1. Balancing the omega-6 and sat-fats with long
chain omega-3 fats from either fish oil or blue algae
sources (not flax oil or plant sources). The ratio should
be about 1/1 or at worst 1/2. Current American's eat
about 1/20 or 1/50 omega-3 to omega-6 plus sat-fats.
2. Avoiding processed, concentrated sugars and syrups
like high fructose corn syrups, table sugars and artificial
sweeteners.
3. Avoiding processed and refined grains, pastas, pastries, cereals,
baked breads and desserts containing them.
4. Increasing whole and fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables that
are high in colorful, flavorful anti-oxidents, polyphenols, and healing
spices such as ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, peppers, and both brown and
green teas.
5. Limiting grain-fed animal flesh or grain-fed farmed fish from the
diet. These are high in omega-6 and saturated fats. Using only wild and
free-range meats and fish will increase long-chain omega-3 and decrease
sat-fats in the diet.
6. Add whole fresh or lightly roasted nuts, including walnuts, almonds and many other varieties. At least a handful every day.
7. You must move at least 40-45 minutes per day. Eating healthy foods
is not enough. Insulin resistance is reduced, and inflammation lowered
when a good diet is backed by enough daily exercise.
8. Eat frequently through the day, taking small meals of a saucer-sized
serving of your veggies and meats... up to 6 or 8 times per day, ending
about
3 hours before bedtime. Avoid large platefuls of food. Eat about every 2-3 hours.
9. Don't fry or grill at high temperatures. Avoid browning or burning
your foods. This produces cancerous, inflammatory chemicals that
prevent your body from healing itself. The crispy brown or black edges
on fried foods called "glycenated proteins" actually stimulate the
production of pre-cancerous and pro-inflammatory chemicals by DNA in
the mRNA in many cellular tissues throughout our body. We need to avoid
them very carefully. Use steaming, light sautes, boiling or brief
low-temp baking. Stir-frying is great. Add water to your frying pan or
wok to lower the temperature. Avoid smoking temperatures when cooking
with olive oils or coconut oil, or canola oil. Avoid other oils
entirely. Don't overcook.
10. Snack throughout the day on sliced fresh fruit, crisp raw veggies,
and fresh nuts. Don't let yourself get hungry. Always have a little
plastic baggie or snap top container handy of pre-cut healthy snacks to
much on. And, munch away!
Those are some guidelines.
I'll be writing some more about this in future hubs. In the meanwhile, you can find more details about this health program on my million page health web-site: http://www.level1diet.com -- it's all free, you don't even have to register or anything. It's my way of "paying back" to the thousands of scientific researchers who've paved the way to my own dramatic return to health and weight loss.
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Comments
The human body requires
minerals like magnesium, sulfur, potassium, calcium, zinc, iron and some others. These minerals do not exist in sufficient quantities in foods that are basically high in sat-fats like fatty meats and oils themselves. We all need to eat vegetables and fruits and whole seeds and nuts to obtain these minerals, plus the vital anti-oxidants and polyphenols, etc they contain.
Eating a diet 'high in fats' usually means neglecting these nutrients found mainly in veggies, fruits and nuts. This will over time result in major nutritional and chemical deficiencies. Those deficiencies will end up producing major health problems.
While people differ in their responses to nutrients and drugs too, they do not differ in their overall need for nutrients that are derived largely from plants.
There are notable exceptions to plant-based eating populations, but in considering these people such as the Eskimos or Inuits, we need to understand that these people don't tend to live as long as people who live on largely plant based diets, and they are eating a wild, natural diet... not one based on modern high fats as we might do down here in the lower 48.
The human heart and circulatory system requires about 1.5 grams of potassium per day, and almost as much calcium, and about half as much magnesium. Plants are the best sources of those minerals. Every insulin molecule is centered around a single molecule of zinc. Deficiencies of minerals like these are common in about 80% of Americans, and directly related to metabolic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer, among others.
When considering which diet to follow, we need to understand that almost any diet we would consider can get us past our 30s or 40s and maybe even into our 60s.
So, which is the best diet? The answer is the diet that will enable us to live strong, vital, active and productive lives well into our 90s and beyond.
There is no doubt that the best diet for achieving such vital longevity is a largely plant-based diet that is high in omega-3 from fish or algae, high in anti-oxidants, high in fiber, high in 'medicinal herbs' like green teas, ginger, cinnamon, hot peppers, turmeric, and that contains a wide variety of whole seeds, nuts and seasonal fresh fruits. An active lifestyle is also essential.
Some people also would add that fresh water, sunlight and good friends are also needed, of course.
I would point out that as we get older, it becomes increasingly obvious that the people around us who are surviving into their 90s are seldom on the Atkins low-carb diet, or anything similar.
A few more thoughts...
The argument between high fat and high fiber high anti-oxidant or 'high carb' diets rages only among the young.
By the time the participants in this discourse get into their 80s or 90s, those believing in the high fat philosophy aren't around to continue the dialog... ;-)
The devil is in the details here. We need to understand that not all high carb diets are the same.
A carb is not merely a carb. We need to exclude most popular carbs from our design of the best high carb diet. No processed sugars, grains, breads, pasta, pastries, candies, pies, etc. Only high fiber, high anti-oxidant fruits and colorful chewy vegetables, sprouts, leaves, stems, tubors, legumes, peas, beans, whole nuts and whole seeds, and so on.
Avoiding extracted and processed oils from most plants that are high in omega-6 or saturated fats, and avoiding sweetened foods of any kind, plus avoiding cereal grains like rice and wheat that are unusually high in easily digested starches will force us to eat the lower energy density, slowly digested and highly nutritious foods that make us healthy, and keep us slim.
There are many studies now published that have reviewed all the diets to answer this question. Populations around the world live longer, more productive lives on a high fiber, high anti-oxidant diet, similar to that I recommend at Level1Diet.com.
This diet is NOT low in fat. Lower maybe than high fat diets like the Atkins, of course, but not really low. It is simply that the fats in this diet come from vegetables, fish oils, fish, olives, avacados, nuts, seeds and so on.
Americans have been used to eating a low mineral content, low fiber, high sat-fat, high omega-6, and high sugar diet for about 50 years or more. It is no accident that our explosion of metabolic diseases like diabetes, heart diseases and cancer has accompanied the invention and popularization of high omega-6 margarines, vegetable cooking oils extracted from soybeans, corn and similar seed-oils, and high fructose corn syrups over this period.
The UCLA clinical study performed on men with diabetes and heart diseases a few years ago showed that when these men with overt diseases were exposed to a supervised program based on a diet similar to my diet, and with daily supervised treadmill exercise where they sustained their 'maximum heart rate target' for 45 minutes produced amazing results... the participants reversed diabetic and cardiovascular disease symptoms in only 3 weeks! They had to have major changes in their drug prescriptions -- most medications were completely stopped by the physicians.
This diet program simply works, and works rapidly and thoroughly for people who try it. It reverses diseases, and improves and lengthens our lives.
I have now been generally asymptomatic for diabetes for over 3 years using this diet. I have lost 125 pounds and am still losing. I take no medication other than natural supplements, diet and exercise. And, in reading thousands of peer reviewed studies, I continue to see growing support for this program and lifestyle from around the world, in every culture and ethnotype.
The science is merging our understanding around this model. In a few years or another decade or two, there simply won't be an arguement of any weight against this trend.
Let's hope we all live long enough to see that day.
Level1diet, thanks for the detailed responses. I agree that it helps to eat fruits and vegetables and legumes and tubers for their rich non-caloric nutrients. However, one can contrive to do this without having the majority of calories come from carbs.
My interest in the high carb vs. high fat debate is not so much in finding the ideal diet in absolute terms, but the ideal diet for each person,realizing that we don't all the face the same circumstances or the same challenges. For instance, exercise is clearly good for us, but someone who is too fat to get through the door is going to have trouble exercising. So sometimes losing weight first helps one become active enough to exercise; we do what we can do easily first and then make progress. In the case of a person who is morbidly obese, a low fat diet is not the best way to lose weight. (This does not necessarily mean living on hot dogs and hamburger patties alone...)
On the other hand, another person might be chronically underweight to an alarming degree. That person might benefit from some grains, starches and sugars that we would not recommend for the average person. As each extreme case is resolved to a more nearly normal state, then each of the two people may end up eating a more nearly identical diet and stay healthy. But that's not without taking into account the underlying causes of the overweight or underweight states.
Tom and Aya, wow, you both have found your niches. Now write those books and help us all live long enough to see money flow once more into our pockets and outlive this depression we find ourselves in....wouldn't it be nice to live long enough to see "green?" as in cash? as in surplus?
The healthier we are, the lower health costs will become and we will be less dependent upon Uncle Sam to cure us.
This hub and the comments are a wealth of knowledge for long life!! Thanks!!=)) you make me proud..I say as I reach for an almond.
When I was rushed to the hospital by the ambulance in 2003, I was so heavy that I didn't actually know what I weighed. They sent 9 men to carry me out of the house.
Once I got to the trauma center, the doctors asked how much I weighed, and I told them that I stopped counting at 370 or so, because my scale would not weigh me anymore. That had been years ago, and I knew I was much heavier, probably well over 400.
My waste size was 64 inches. My height was 5'10". That I do know.
I was grossly, morbidly obese. I was only minutes from death. Sepsis had been established. My blood was not circulating due to a blood sugar of 800. Massive blood clots pervaded my body. My heart was beating rapidly, and irratically. I was panting for air. My blood had turned acid due to ketones. I had less than an hour to live.
The trauma team turned me around. Seven doctors and nurses worked on me for many hours. That night I was moved to the cardiac intensive care unit, where I stayed for 5 days.
I was a very sick boy. But I recovered. And over the next few months, I enthusiastically controlled my diet, based on the then popular "Zone" program. On that, I lost 55 pounds and regained an ability to exercise and to study and focus. I began to research health and diet, weight loss and diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Over the next 2 years of full time study, I developed the level 1 diet program. That program has more than doubled my weight loss, and enabled me to stop using the 8 different drugs that I had been using, including insulin and many other heart or diabetes related drugs. I am vigorous and alert and able to be productive day to day. I am seldom sick from anything and am still losing weight, 6 years later.
I think that the vast majority of people, whether fat or thin, would benefit from the overall approach that I've developed from searching the published health literature.
High fat diets can achieve faster weight loss results, but will do so at the expense of the person's health in other aspects. The UCLA study I link to on my exercise pages proves that we can return to health BEFORE we lose meaningful weight. This is remarkable news, but it is also my own personal experience.
That does not mean we should forget weight loss. That should be one of our goals, and is absolutely necessary for health. But, we should also avoid endangering our health by strategies aimed at weight loss alone.
The road you have traveled would help so many others....you've got to show you know where they are, and give them information, lists, make it easy because they think it's hard.
=))) keep going....
Thanks Marisue for your encouragement. I'm busily writing the guide to help people know that regaining health is easier than they think, and faster than they imagine... all by following a few simple rules.
Furthermore, I think it's important for folks to know that they don't have to be a scientist to get healthy. Understanding is nice, but not required. Following simple rules is enough.
If the human body required understanding to be healthy, the human race would have become extinct a long time ago.
good advice, as always....=))
Aya Katz says:
10 months ago
Level1diet, thanks for sharing this information.
Do you think that one diet is right for all people, or are there specific diets that are better suited for particular situations?
I've noticed that people who have always been slim seem to favor a diet low in fat. They do well on this diet, so they assume everyone would do well if they adopted their lifestyle choices. But the diet that works for highly active, high energy people is rarely a diet that works for someone with a different body type and energy level, in my experience.