An Ideal Food Plan

An ideal food plan includes 50% vegetables and legumes, 25% fats (healthy fats) and 25% protein, whole grains and seeds, especially flax. This may vary according to your metabolic specifics. But 50% vegetables is a foundation. Eating right may be the solution to many of the common health problems presently affecting modern society including such conditions as allergies, diabetes, endocrine disorders, heart problems, cancer etc. It can help you on a road to wellness that you may have never experienced before.

This is a general guideline to weight loss and maintaining weight loss and an enhanced state of health and well-being. Being overweight, which afflicts millions of Americans, increases our risks for Alzheimer’s disease, several forms of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, fatty liver, and other illnesses. Metabolic Syndrome, which you may have read about, is excess weight with low physical activity, leading to high triglycerides, high insulin levels, and consequent insulin resistance, hyper-coagulation, and vascular disease. Cancer cells want stagnant blood that increases coagulation.

Fat tissue generates a substance called aromatase, which increases the conversion of testosterone to estrogens. This is not a positive development. Breast and other cancers are treated with aromatase inhibitors in modern medicine to prevent this conversion. You can do this with food and herbs daily.

Americans get 40% of their food intake from fast food. If you are eating this way, then losing weight, keeping it off and achieving good health will likely elude you. It goes without saying that Coca Cola has 12 tsp. of refined sugar per can or bottle, and Snapple has more. You must avoid these drinks.
Diets do not work. One-fourth of people gain weight on diets. In the Japanese culture, where people are generally slim, Sumo Wrestlers are able to put on weight by eating and then dieting, eating and then dieting.

The idea is to balance caloric intake and energy expenditure. It is about energy intake versus energy expenditure. We increase energy expenditure in three ways:

1. physical activity, keeping warm, and mental activity
2. energy to metabolize foods
3. resting energy, in sleep and rest. In sleep we go into fat burning mode.

Forget the health food bars, the diets, and the low fat or no fat diets. These generally do not work long term in supporting weight loss. On the contrary, the low fat or no fat diets promote high insulin levels, which leads to obesity and chronic disease.

The problems associated with fad diets include:

• Decreasing our metabolic rate
• Increasing leptin resistance (leptin is a fat monitoring hormone)
• Lowering the metabolic activity that stimulates thermogenesis, so we get more fat accumulation in adipose tissue
• Increasing catabolic or breakdown activity for daily energy needs, resulting in lean tissue depletion. This happens in high protein diets
• Disruptions of our neuroendocrine system, with alterations of various hormones

On a deeper level, most of us have in our gene memory, the memory of a time of starvation. So we subconsciously think we must make more fat, because more fat is needed in times of survival.

The central idea is to maintain and increase lean muscle mass.

Based on human evolutionary history and physiology, this food plan should be your most natural and optimal diet. It reflects what our Paleolithic ancestors (i.e., before agriculture) evolved eating over a million years and, as such, has the highest potential of supporting healing and preventing disease. In addition, this diet is naturally alkalizing, which is considered by some people to be healthier than the typical American acidifying diet.

It will take at least 2 to 3 months to re-establish a normal hormone balance, including insulin sensitivity. If there is severe insulin resistance or obesity, it could take much longer to stabilize. However, most people will experience some improvements early on in the program. With time, you should notice less symptoms of your disorder and improvements will be noted though lab values, blood pressures, energy, loss of weight (especially abdominal), and loss of carbohydrate cravings. In time, the goal is to be able to eat ALL FOODS.

With this food plan you should not be hungry until it is time for the next meal. If this is happening, try increasing the non-starchy vegetables, nuts, fats and/or protein intake in the meals. Do not avoid naturally fatty foods, but limit saturated fats. Avoid hydrogenated oils and fried foods. Try to eat for hunger and not emotional reasons. If you must eat for emotional reasons, eat non-starchy vegetables or lean protein. Snacks should be non-starchy vegetables, nuts or protein foods.

Some of the information included on this page is borrowed with permission from Robert Zieve, MD, www.pinetreeclinic.com