The most fundamental truth regarding weight loss, a truth that you must repeat over and over to yourself is that reducing your calories is not the way to lose weight. Not if you expect to lose it and keep it off, and not if you expect to retain your healthin the process.  Being overweight is almost always a matter of an unhealthful, slow metabolic rate. The only way to lose the excess fat is to change the slow metabolism. Too many people are destroying themselves when they try to reduce the calories. The weight comes right back on and they fight this frustrating issue throughout their lives. What these people need is someone who understands the seven essential points regarding weight loss.



You do not need any more gimmicks.

One of the most popular ones is the weight loss beverage. These are known as “diet drinks", “protein shakes", “instant meals" or any other colorful names they come up with.  These concoctions fail so miserably.  How? Let me tell you.

1.      Most powders have no more than 10 grams of protein per serving. This isn’t weight loss it’s starvation. It will cause your lean body mass to catabolism (eat itself).  It will lower your blood sugar. It is guaranteed to drag down your metabolism slower and slower.

2.      Read the list of ingredients. The major components are powdered soy, powdered milk and corn syrup. Yummy. These are extremely difficult to digest and assimilate. By the time all these are processed, most nutrients (more than 75% in some cases) are completely gone. You should assume this is the case with all other “vitamin fortified" foods. This is a big scheme. Don’t fall for it.

3.      A major portion of the ingredients that have been added are vitamins because they want you to think that “vitamins give you energy", and “help you burn fat" and that they are “natural diuretics" and other such nonsense. When you take vitamins and minerals out of proportion you are depleting your body of those minerals and trace minerals. You need to find out what you are missing in your body chemistry. Don’t think that taking supplements like Calcium and Vitamin A are all you need. What about the synergists to these?

The biggest joke of all regarding these weight loss concoctions is what's in their barest form---a “food" that contains about 80 calories with 10 grams of protein. Do you know how easily and inexpensively you can duplicate those numbers with real food?  How about an egg and a half a slice of whole wheat bread?  Or simply eat a cup of low fat yogurt and you’ll come pretty close. Do you understand the false claim that there is anything magical about these weight loss beverages?  For a fraction of the cost you could obtain the same number of calories and the same grams of protein with real nutritious food. How many people do you know are drinking this garbage? Explain the truth to them now. It is a ridiculous waste of money and in the long run they will make their weight problems worse.

What about the B6 injections for losing weight? These are popular among weight loss gurus because everyone knows B6 is a “natural diuretic". You should understand by now that megadoses of any single nutrient completely wreck havoc with your metabolic balance not to mention the problems with trace minerals. As far as I know no one ever lost either fat or fluid that stayed lost for more than a few weeks from taking B6.

Speaking of losing fluid, what about this idea of using diuretics as part of the weight loss program? After all, with the combination of a fluid pill and severe caloric restriction anyone can drop 10-20 pounds in a couple of weeks, no sweat. Do diuretics do anything to favorably influence the causes of obesity? Certainly not. The fluid weight is not the cause of the problem. What, then, is the cause of fluid retention?  The same thing that causes excess weight…a body chemistry that is out of balance.  A body chemistry that needs balance restored. Blowing holes in your kidneys so that water, along with precious minerals such as potassium and magnesium are lost only makes the metabolic imbalance worse.  It gives you the illusion that something beneficial has happened while allowing the true causes of the problem to go uncorrected. Here’s what to do: replace some carbohydrate with a little protein and get on a low intensity, long duration exercise program and the fluid retention problem will probably be history you can share with your grandchildren. 

One more of the four tricks the weight loss program is to chemically block normal, healthy fat storage. There are a number of these and they all miss the point. They do not move toward a normalization of metabolism but rather add one more problem to the already deranged body. Fat storage and utilization is absolutely essential to normal health. In fact, it is absolutely essential to produce the hormones that are necessarily a part of improving the sluggish metabolic rate. Even if these drugs worked (some call them natural) they would have a temporary effect, because the day the person quits taking them the body will start storing fat again.

Try this:

Cruciferous vegetables like kale, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, radish, and kohlrabi have a powerful healing affect on the body organs of metabolism. Have you had any lately? Eaten raw, they should be a large part of your diet.