Lose the Weight You Hate

Finally, a weight loss book that not only is enjoyable to read, but is also jam packed with "how-to-do-it" based on 20 years of clinical practice and obesity research. The No-Amylose Diet (bet you haven't tried it yet) is a fresh approach to a tired subject that usually features some variation on the wrong-headed ideas that "the way to lose weight is to cut back on calories, avoid fat and get small amounts of exercise regularly." Sorry, we have tried that approach for years and it just doesn't work. Just look at the maintenance rate for patients who use the "expert advice." Less than 10% of patients lose 30 pounds and less than 5% of that group keeps the weight off at 1 year follow-up. That advice is worthless, yet just look at the New Years' resolutions to push away from the table and go for a 30 minute jog. That's no way to lose weight! It won't work for very long.

And it can't. Fat storage is a complex process that is based on genetically controlled insulin levels and the response of insulin to the rate of rise of blood sugar following a meal. The controlling factor on insulin release isn't the number of calories we eat, but the effect of those calories on blood sugar. Foods that turn to sugar (glucose) quickly, like all amylose starches, corn syrup (low-fat foods make us fat), maltodextrins and table sugar (sucrose) set off the insulin fat storage machinery like crazy. Most of us with weight problems really aren't self-indulgent overeaters. Most of us hate our extra weight and wish we could eat like those skinny friends of ours who eat more than we do!

Lose the Weight You Hate takes us seriously, as well as our obesity related health problems. Cholesterol? Boy, have we been sold a bill of goods! Learn what really is going on with cholesterol (Chapters 10 and 11) before you swallow another statin drug that you might not need. How about the CDC talking about the national explosion of diabetes and obesity? They want us to think it is all because of our triple cheeseburgers and fries. Wrong! The chapter (14) on environmental acquisition of diabetes and obesity will knock your socks off. Learn what immune system factors, pro-inflammatory cytokines (yes, it is time to learn the medical terms), do to our insulin receptors (and therefore our insulin storage of the sugar we eat as fat). Look why our environmental exposures are the greatest threat to our waistlines. But there is hope when facts about the health effects of our changing lifestyles and our increasing use of chemicals act as a basis for improved weight control.

Even better, Chapter 13 will show you how an FDA approved medication, Avandia, currently marketed to help treat diabetes, actually is a fantastic weight loss aid in those folks with "insulin resistance." In an academic paper, featured at the 83rd Endocrine Society meetings this past June (2001), the author proves that avoiding amylose and adding Avandia gave the most difficult weight loss patients he treats a terrific boost in burning fat. Moreover, look where the ladies lost the weight-their hips! How many patients would like to lose their tummy safely, with a diet that is a new, enjoyable lifestyle not an exercise in self-torture.

Speaking of exercise, if you are like most of us, you don't have the minimum of 12 hours per week (that's right, 12 hours)to sweat off those few pounds. Quit being a masochist! If you want to exercise and have the time, great, have fun. But don't think that walking 3 miles an hour will do anything significant for a jelly roll. It just won't work. With 18 chapters, case studies and 50 enjoyable original recipes mixed in with hard science and an amusing outlook on life and weight loss, Lose the Weight You Hate is worth reading over and over again. 455 pages, index, glossary and appendices and a chapter on Childhood Obesity complete the text.

Ritchie C. Shoemaker MD is board certified in Family Practice. He has practiced in a rural area of Maryland, between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean for 23 years. Named Maryland's Family Physician of the Year 2000, and finalist (1 of 5) as the National Family Physician of the Year 2002, Shoemaker combines a career as a bedside doctor with a passion for making the biochemistry that underlies how things work in the human body abundantly clear to his patients and readers. Shoemaker is an acomplished writer, having published 4 books, numerous scientific articles and multiple essays previously.His interest in weight loss started in medical school in his role as a primary care advocate at a tertiary care institution, Duke University. Much of what was taught then (and still today!) about weight loss just doesn't fit the physiology of what actually happens. Thinking "outside the box" seems to be Shoemaker's basic lifestyle. A simple example is Shoemaker's use of a diabetes drug, Avandia, with his No-Amylose diet. With FDA and IRB approval, Shoemaker showed that the drug is safe in non-diabetics, activates uncoupling proteins, primarily in fat cells, that directly burn fat. The results, not found when Avandia is used without the No-Amylose diet, are astounding. By looking at how things work, Shoemaker showed that the most refractory weight loss patients "burned their hips." His presentation to the Endocrine Society 83rd annual meeting, 6/01, was selected as 1 of 150 papers for special media attention (out of 2400 papers presented). Recently, GlaxoSmithKline sent out a copy of Shoemaker's paper to each of its diabetes sales force due to the number of physician inquiries about the use of Avandia in weight loss.

Shoemaker continues to practice full time, though his patient load increasingly comes from patients all over the country seeking help with illnesses characterized by chronic fatigue and multiple other symptoms related to environmental exposures to neurotoxin forming organisms, including toxin forming fungi (sick building syndrome), dinoflagellates (Pfiesteria is endemic in the Pocomoke River), including ciguatera, blue-green algae and chronic Lyme Disease. His collaboration with researcher Dr. Ken Hudnell, neurotoxicologist, has generated several academic papers already. They have abstracts on several topics that promise to "revolutionize" thinking about biotoxins, pro-inflammatory cytokines and their combined role in human health and illness.

Shoemaker takes his science seriously, but not to the point that the reader will be turned off. His approach to dieting parallels his approach to life-make it full, make it fun, make it right.