Question: Is there any particular weight-loss diet that you think is better than the others? S. B. - Sausalito, California Answer: Two out of three Americans are overweight, so it is not unusual to be seeking a weight-loss diet. Of the many available diets such as the Atkin's, South Beach, and Zone, I don't favor any of them. They are most likely dangerous to health if pursued for a long period. In fact, problems with low-carb/high-protein diets have been surfacing, including kidney impairment, bone loss, heart arrhythmias, low energy, constipation, and problems with concentration. The British government's Medical Research Council has condemned low-carb diets because they are known to cause kidney damage. I look on all of these diets as fads. They sell lots of books and products and make lots of money, but do little lasting good. In 2010, Americans spent over $42 billion trying to lose weight, and they obviously didn't succeed. A study by the National Institutes of Health foun…

. . .  spinach makes you strong A study just in from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has proven cartoon character Popeye, who downed a can of spinach whenever he needed extra strength, knew what he was doing. In tests with mice, nitrates, which are found in vegetables like spinach, beets (root), chard and lettuce, had a powerful effect on boosting muscle strength. The particular muscles strengthened, the so-called “fast-twitch muscles,” are those used in lifting weights or sprinting up a steep hill. The researchers discovered that nitrates stimulate production of two proteins which release calcium into muscle. Calcium is used in muscle contraction, and the more calcium that is available, the stronger the contraction will be. Stronger contractions build muscle strength; when muscles are stronger, they don’t need to contract as frequently and don’t fatigue as quickly. The amount of nitrate needed was what you could expect to find in either half a pound of spinach or 2-3 beets…

. . . why gluten in your diet could be making you fat! The buzz at the Beyond Health office these days is from customers who tell us they’ve been losing 10, 20 and even 30 pounds by doing nothing else except cutting out wheat! Of course we’re all biologically unique, and this doesn’t work for everyone, but wheat (and the gluten in wheat) isn’t healthy for anyone, so if you’re looking to lose excess weight, going gluten-free is certainly worth a try! Why would eating wheat make you fat? Well, you might be one of the up to 50% of the US population that has a gluten allergy or sensitivity and is “gluten intolerant.” Food allergies and sensitivities can cause both water and fat retention. I’ve known people who lost almost 10 pounds in the first week after giving up gluten, most of it water-weight. It takes longer to release the fat, but that comes off in time too. Also, we often become addicted to foods we’re allergic to, leading to intense cravings for these very foods and compul…

If you are more than five pounds over your normal weight, you need to read my book Never Be Fat Again.  A catastrophic epidemic of overweight disease is sweeping America.  More than two-thirds of all Americans are overweight.  This is not a cosmetic problem - it is a serious, chronic and degenerative disease.  Even a few extra pounds will accelerate aging, increase susceptibility to cancer and other diseases, increase disability and shorten life.  Overweight is not a benign disease, and no one should be or needs to be fat.  Lean people live longer, have less disease, less disability, more energy, and a higher quality of life. While millions spend billions trying to lose weight, this epidemic is getting worse every year.  More than one-third of our children are overweight.  Because of this, life expectancy is expected to turn down, after two hundred years of increases. When I look at this problem, I wondered why, after all those diets and all that money, time, effort, diet books,…

Perhaps you’ve been pleased with how you’ve been eating. You’re following Raymond Francis’s book, Never Be Fat Again, eating a nutrient dense diet, taking good supplements, avoiding toxins and exercising. You’ve given up counting calories and diets that made you feel deprived, stressed and irritable, and you’re quite happy losing weight slowly but steadily.  You’re feeling like you’ve finally got a handle on this thing called food. Then it happens. At the Farmers Market you’re hungrier than you anticipated. A baker there sells organic, gluten-free, whole grain muffins.  Although carbohydrates are a problem area for you, you’ve had these particular muffins before without difficulty, so you eat one, and it hits the spot. Back home you get a distressing phone call from a friend that makes you feel anxious. Making lunch, you add wild rice to your chicken-vegetable soup.  You mean to add only half a cup, but end up adding a cup and a half. After finishing the soup you’…

As we all know, weight loss is a HUGE market. There are 1,001 products and programs out there that promise to help our increasingly obese nation shed excess pounds. But, as Raymond Francis pointed out in his breakthrough book, Never Be Fat Again, most of them miss the mark. The only truly effective way to lose weight and keep it off is by addressing excess weight as a health issue. By shifting your focus to becoming truly healthy, the pounds fall off by themselves or are lost with minimal effort. Our bodies were built to be self-regulating. When each one of our cells is operating as it should, our appetites are regulated to eat only what we need; our thyroid glands regulate metabolism so that we burn most of the calories we consume as energy to maintain body temperature and to use as fuel; and many other body systems that affect weight, such as blood sugar, hormone balance, and pH, are regulated as well. The result? An ideal weight. So the trick to losing weight and keeping it o…

It may seem like a simple mathematical equation:  One pound equals about 3,500 calories. If you want to lose one pound, you simply eat less and/or exercise more so that you consume 3,500 less calories than you’re burning. But the truth is more complex. Although if you eat less and exercise more, you can lose weight, most people who take this limited approach have a hard time and often wind up like our friend Debby who reported, “I exhausted myself losing five pounds, but they found me again!” As Raymond Francis says in Never Be Fat Again, overweight is a disease, a disease that can only be cured by normalizing body chemistry. This is done by permanently adopting a holistic lifestyle that supplies the body with all the nutrients it needs to be healthy, and eliminates toxins that interfere with good health. A body in optimal health sustains self-healing, self-regulating mechanisms that automatically shed excess pounds and then maintain a healthy weight. Regular exercise is…

Could sleeping more help you shed those extra pounds?  If you’re one of the 40% of US adults who get less than the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a night, ABSOLUTELY! Although getting more sleep than you need won’t help you lose weight, sleep deprivation makes losing weight a lot more difficult, and gaining it a lot easier.  Some scientists propose that a dramatic increase in the number of Americans who aren’t getting enough sleep may be a major factor in our obesity epidemic. How does sleep deprivation mess with your weight?  By messing with your hormones! Leptin is a hormone that lets you know when you’ve had enough to eat by reducing your appetite.  Sleep deprivation decreases leptin (in one study, by 18% after two days of sleep restriction). Ghrelin is a hormone that stimulates appetite.  Sleep deprivation increases ghrelin (in the same study, by 28%). Sleep deprivation causes insulin resistance. This means the calories you eat tend to get…

Life is hard enough without making losing weight more difficult than it needs to be.  Some helpful scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School proved that you don’t need to restrict calories or saturated fat to lose weight as long as you’re getting adequate dietary fiber! These scientists found 240 pre-diabetic patients and assigned them to one of two groups. The first group followed a weight-loss diet that restricted calories and saturated fat. The second group was simply asked to get at least 30 grams of fiber daily from a high-fiber diet, including plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Neither group was asked to change their exercise habits. At the end of one year, both groups had lost the same amount of weight.  In addition, both groups had had similar drops in cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and inflammation.  In other words, both groups reduced their risk factors similarly for diabetes…

Beyond Health’s approach to weight loss, presented in Raymond Francis’ Never Be Fat Again, (NBFA) is based on the theory of one disease and two causes. We say there is really only one disease—malfunctioning body cells, and two reasons why cells malfunction—they are deficient in needed nutrients and/or they are being poisoned by toxins. Overweight is a type of disease, and as better health is achieved, the body will naturally lose excess weight.Intuitive eating (IE) is an anti-diet approach to weight loss which seeks to help people regain a lost or weakened ability to “hear” and respond to body cues relating to hunger and satiation. Regaining this ability, it is hoped, will lead to losing excess weight. Both IE and NBFA agree that diets don’t work. Thought they can lead to short-term weight loss, most of this weight is regained over time. They also agree that diets are usually harmful and enforce the bad habit of overriding internal body cues. Following the strategies of IE that we…

. . . a misleading new study from CanadaAmericans keep getting fatter. In the past 15 years adult obesity has approximately doubled in 17 states according to a survey sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twenty years ago, not one state had an obesity rate of more than 15%. Now, only Colorado, with 19.8% obese, has an obesity rate of less than 20%. In twelve states, the obesity rate is above 30%.As obesity becomes more normal, it's become more socially acceptable and less cause for concern. In the same way that many people consider themselves healthy even though they're taking several different medications, the overweight and even the obese now tend to see themselves as fundamentally healthy. A new study from Canada feeds this misperception.Published last August in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, this study used a new rating system called the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) to categorize the obese. It puts them into five categories according to the prese…