We are often asked in lectures, stores or doctor’s offices; what is the optimal diet for someone either trying to lose weight and keeping it off or someone who has fatty liver and wants to recover? Therefore, we having included diet guidelines below that should be followed in these cases. This is a quick but comprehensive list that should you should find very helpful.
Dieting Guidelines:
- Drink a lot of water and avoid any other liquids unless it is juice made fresh from a fruit or a vegetable. Take your weight in lbs, divide that by 2 and that is the number of ounces you should be drinking per day. (e.g. – 150 lbs = 75 oz of water/day)
- Eat snacks that include nuts and seeds with cranberries. The nuts will provide protein, which makes one feel full faster and provides healthy fats. The cranberries provide a little sugar to take care of those cravings in a healthy way (don’t overdo them). Bring a container to work and leave it on you desk.
- Incorporate cinnamon as much as you can. It is a natural blood glucose stabilizer. This also reduces sugar cravings.
- Also drink a papaya shake; papaya, almond milk, cinnamon, cane sugar, vanilla extract. In the summer; berries with yogurt.
- Avoid cereal at all cost…. there is no nutritional value at all!! There are hardly any exceptions to this rule. Making cereal is a very intense process and nutritional components don’t survive.
- Look at this pH chart. Avoid acidic foods as much as possible and include Alkaline.
- Avoid carbs; eat less breads, less pasta, less rice.
- Reduce red meats as much as possible from your diet. Notice I said I still eat red meat. There is a lot of research behind vegetarians living longer then others. The main reason why I say to reduce meat consumption is because it is vastly adulterated with hormones, antibiotics and GMOs. Many unhealthy animals are now making it into our grocery stores.
- However, don’t rule foods out. This sounds counter intuitive. With the exception of sugary foods you don’t want to make foods off limits (cut out sugar if you can, substitute honey, stevia and cane sugar where possible). There is a part of your physiology that yearns for what it can’t have. If you allow it but don’t eat it often, your body feels the freedom to have it without making it the forbidden fruit.
- Buy smaller plates, choose smaller carts at the grocery store. Believe us, it works.
- Spiritual & Psychological: like drugs and sex, food can be an addiction that is filler for something else that is missing. Life events that cause us to feel helpless like that experienced by children who must depend on adults as protectors can trigger needs that aren’t easily fulfilled. Our minds therefore, use addictions as a chemical escape. Recognize this and have some compassion for yourself as the first step. DO NOT JUDGE YOURSELF for It perpetuates this cycle. Realize you’re not perfect, no one is. Take one step at a time day by day. It is the journey not the end we are after. To change the present, … let go of the past. Your mind enjoys living in the past or the future. Once you become the observer of your mind, you break the cycle.
Diet Don’t List:
- Do not starve yourself, ever.
- Do not to eat after 8:00 PM.
- Don’t count calories. If you are following these rules its not necessary.
- Avoid processed foods…… Shop along the outer refrigerated sections first. The middle isles are full of GARBAGE.
- Never, never, never eat anything with high fructose corn fructose (HFCS) in it. Avoid products with a high glycemic index. This especially includes agave…. it actually has a higher index than HFCS.
- The reason to avoid HFCS: it’s a major predictor of diabetes as well as weight gain. It reduces the body’s ability to regulate sugar. It actually reduces cell sensitivity to insulin. The pancreas then makes more insulin and the liver is charged with ridding the body of both sugar and insulin. All the while you gain weight. It all leads to a very unhealthy cycle, ending with Type II Diabetes.
