Does losing weight and staying healthy feel like a battle? Well, it's really a war. Your enemies are your own genes, backed by millions of years of evolution, and the only way to win is to outsmart them. Dr. Steven Gundry's revolutionary book shares the health secrets other doctors won't tell you:

• Why plants are "good" for you because they're "bad" for you, and meat is "bad" because it's "good" for you

• Why plateauing on this diet is actually a sign that you're on the right track

• Why artificial sweeteners have the same effects as sugar on your health and your waistline

• Why taking antacids, statins, and drugs for high blood pressure and arthritis masks health issues instead of addressing them

Along with the meal planner, 70 delicious recipes, and inspirational stories, Dr. Gundry's easy-to-memorize tips will keep you healthy and on course.

Is this you? Your skin is clear and unwrinkled, your slim body moves with ease and grace, and you're blessed with strength, stamina, and good health. You look 45 tops, but here's the zinger: you're really 70. No way, you say.

Forget 70; let me introduce you to Michelle (a pseudonym, as are most patient names). At our first meeting, I saw a striking, thin, erect woman who appeared to be about 65. I looked at the chart again and thought I had the wrong examination room. Her age was listed as 95! Michelle had recently seen me on television and said I was the first doctor who talked like one she met when she was 20, who had changed her life. His message was succinct: Go home and throw out every white food in your pantry and never eat such food again. For 75 years, she had done just that. In that time, she had buried two husbands, including a physician, who told her that her eating habits were crazy. He was long dead, but here she was, her perfect skin radiating health. Unlike many women in Palm Springs, she had never had plastic surgery.

When I took Michelle's temperature, it was 95 degrees, meaning she had a low, and therefore efficient, metabolic rate. Her blood pressure was an exemplary 95/55. When her blood samples were analyzed, as I expected, they were perfect: low cholesterol, no evidence of inflammation. An active businesswoman, Michelle is now 96 and still shows no signs of aging. Why would she? Her longevity genes are activated, preserving her from harm. Rather than being in survival mode, she exists in what I call "perfect efficiency." which is what I hope to attain - and the same goal I have for you. Live long and prosper, Michelle.

Is this you more like you? You weigh more than you did in high school. Perhaps a lot more. You pop one or more daily pills for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, acid reflux, depression, and/or arthritis. You may be sending your dermatologists children through college by having benign "skin tags" burned off your neck and armpits. While you're there, you may get treated for adult acne. If you're a woman, your hair may be thinning. Perhaps you've had some colon polyps and/or breast lumps removed. Am I hitting a little too close to home? If so, what if I suggested that even if you do not already have diabetes, hypertension, heart and vascular disease, cancer, or another life-threatening disease, you've got a lot in common with people who do?

What if I could demonstrate that you and they have all unwittingly set into motion what I call "killer genes," which caused these and other unforeseen consequences? Preposterous? Until six years ago, I certainly would have thought so, but now I am convinced that these seemingly chance events are, for a great many of us, predictable outcomes. And, to a large extent, it's our Western diet and lifestyle that are making us sick and ultimately killing us-although paradoxically, as you'll soon learn, they suit our genes just fine.

Sadly, as a heart surgeon, I don't see many people like Michelle - at least initially. Many of my patients are severely ill and often prematurely aged. Most are also overweight. Why some people like Michelle seem to have sipped from the fountain of youth even as they near the century mark, while most of us are wrinkled, arthritic, overweight, and plagued with complaints by the time we're eligible for AARP membership, has long been a mystery. Is it luck? Good genes? Over the last five years I have unraveled much of that mystery. Yes, our genes play a major role, but not in the way we have been led to believe. Michelle did not inherit "good genes." Quite the opposite: since her life-changing encounter 75 years ago, she has been instructing her genes to "be good"! I've also discovered how to do the same no matter what genetic cards a person has been dealt. What I have found argues powerfully for a major and immediate change in lifestyle. Dr. Gundry's, Diet Evolution is based on radically simple, but simply radical changes that will make you slimmer, fitter, and healthier. You may well become another Michelle!

Copyright © 2008 by Dr. Steven R. Gundry.

Tags: Diets and Weight Loss

About the Author

Steven R. Gundry, M.D., F.A.C.S., F.A.C.C., is the inventor of some of the most widely used heart-surgery devices and is renowned as an infant heart-transplant surgeon. Now, through his Center for Restorative Medicine, he helps patients avoid cardiac and other surgical procedures by using nutrition to reverse heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. By bridging the gap between Dr. Atkins and Dr. Ornish and combining the best of the raw-foods and sugar-free plans, Dr. Gundry brings us to the next stage of diet evolution.