Who wants to bet that a thick, juicy steak would satisfy your appetite more completely than a bowl of beans and peas? If you bet on the steak, you would be wrong. A recent study proved it. The reason beans and peas were more satisfying?  Fiber! Researchers fed 43 healthy, normal-weight young men a pork/veal dinner. The meal was 19% protein, 53% carbohydrate and 28% fat, and supplied 6 grams of fiber. The men’s appetites were then scored every half hour for the next three hours. At that point, they were given a second meal and told to eat as much as they wanted. The next day, the same men were fed the same meal, except that the meat was replaced by beans and peas. Although the percentages of protein, carbohydrate and fat were the same as in the first meal, the fiber content was now 25 grams.  The men’s appetites were again monitored, and after three hours they were given a second meal and told to eat as much as they wanted. The results? The men reported being less h…

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…

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…