Be Fruitful and Flourish

Fit for Life: Not Fat for Life
by Harvey Diamond

Book Description

• Have you struggled with diet after diet only to gain back all the weight you've lost-and them some?

• Do you find it increasingly difficult to separate hype from hope where diets and nutrition are concerned?

• Does weight-loss confusion and frustration make you feel like you're at the end of your rope with nowhere to turn?

• If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you are not alone. But take heart: This book provides the answers to all of them.

Discover the secret to lifelong weight loss, wellness and longevity.

Rather than the dizzying array of conditions that confuse and frustrate, this revolutionary book reveals that there is only one concept to grasp and only one action to take. If you want to lose weight and live healthy, eat less dead food. It's that simple.

This book offers not a diet, but a lifelong way of eating that allows the eating experience to remain a joyous one, rather than a clinical endeavor of measuring portions, counting calories, calculating grams of fat, carbohydrates and protein, or ingesting meal replacements. It will teach you how to eat any food in the most healthful way so there is no feeling of depravation. As you embark on this life-changing journey, you will experience the surge of energy and well-being that only come as the result of properly fueling your body. Providing deliberate, gentle and forgiving guidance every step of the way, Fit For Life, Not Fat For Life will become your trusted source and companion as you create a new way of eating and living, free from weight gain and poor health.

Chapter 2

Key To Success #2 - Be Fruitful and Flourish

There's a might big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good.

-Burton Hillis

This is why the all-protein diets are so dangerous. They are classic, textbook examples of “weight loss at any cost.” They will result in weight loss, but it is with no regard for the damage that may be done to a person's health. Weight loss is achieved by so severely restricting carbohydrates that it tricks the body into thinking it's sick. Let me explain. If you look through the Merck Manual, which is an encyclopedia of the thousands of possible illnesses the human body can experience, you will notice that the one most common symptom of disease is the loss of appetite. The more catastrophic the disease (cancer, AIDS, etc.), the more likely there will be no appetite for food. The reason for this is obvious. When the body is sick it needs all the energy it can muster to heal itself. Since digestion requires so much energy, the appetite is shut down so available energy can be used for healing, not digestion.

When the body is fed lots of protein foods and simultaneously deprived of the carbohydrates it needs to carry out all the functions of life, two things happen. First, morning, noon and night the body is taxed and overworked by having to expend so much of its available energy converting the protein into the carbohydrates it needs. Second, the body, which essentially feels threatened because it doesn't have the fuel energy it needs to sustain itself, shuts down the appetite, as though it were sick, as it tries to conserve what energy it has. Weight is lost, but overall health progressively and steadily deteriorates because the body is consistently deprived of the one most important food for fuel: carbohydrates.

Even starches (pasta, bread, grains, etc.), which are at least already carbohydrates, unlike protein and fats, also have to go through a conversion process, because all starches are polysaccharides and can only be made available to the body (brain) in the form of glucose after they have been converted into monosaccharides. Again, an energy-intensive process.

Quiz time! Guess what one food in all the natural world is a monosaccharide without having to go through even the least bit of conversion to be so? Yes! That's right, fruit! A+ for you. The sugar in fruit, namely fructose (not porktose you notice), passes through the stomach and is absorbed through the walls of the intestines without undergoing any digestion. This leaves a great surplus of body energy available for living and all the activities that make living a joy. So not only does fruit not require any energy to be broken down, but it makes energy available faster and more efficiently than any other food in existence-an unbeatable combination.

In the vast array and variety of foods in the human diet, fruit stands entirely alone in its uniqueness. All foods-all-require time in the stomach for digestion. All except fruit.

The more quickly and efficiently food leaves the stomach the better. Why? Ever notice how tired you are after a big meal? Think back to last Thanksgiving. Ever hear of the afternoon siesta? The reason you feel tired after eating is because food in the stomach is a number-one priority in the body. The more you eat and the longer it has to stay in the stomach, the more energy you have to use and the more tired you will be.

Here's something you probably didn't know: Digestion requires more energy than anything else you can do. All the energy your body will use to digest the approximately seventy tons of food you will eat in this lifetime is more than all the energy you will expend for everything else in your lifetime combined! You don't have to have an IQ over 200 to figure out that anything you can do to optimize the efficiency of your digestive processes would be an extremely wise thing to do.

There are many ironies in this life we are all journeying through, and I can think of no other irony more bewildering than the one associated with the lack of high regard for the one food that most surely deserves it more than any other. Here is a line of reasoning that we may consider with profit: Whereas it follows that fruit, fulfilling the requirement for nutrients and energy more fully and perfectly than any other food, could reasonably be expected to comprise the bulk of our diet, does it not speak loudly to the abnormality of our Western diet that fruit is relegated to the last place on the menu as almost an afterthought, and is all too often used merely for ornamental purposes?

© 2003 Health Communications, Inc.

About the Author

Harvey Diamond is the world-renowned coauthor of the #1 New York Times best-seller, Fit for Life, which held that position for an unprecedented forty straight weeks and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. Mr. Diamond has dedicated thirty-plus years of his life to the development of a truly healthy lifestyle. In pursuit of that goal, he overcame a debilitating, longtime digestive disorder, ended his migraine headaches, lost over fifty pounds, and in a stunning validation of his methods, triumphed over a condition called peripheral neuropathy (brought about by Agent Orange poisoning while serving his country in Vietnam). His energy, charisma and relaxed, conversational style have made him a sought-after guest expert on countless radio and television shows, including: Oprah, Geraldo, Nightline, Larry King Live, Live with Regis, The Today Show, and many others.