Fit for Life: Not Fat for Life - Softcover

Diamond, Harvey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0757301134 ISBN 13: 9780757301131

Publisher: Hci, 2003

Synopsis

The author of Fit for Life offers a lifelong way of eating that allows the eating experience to remain a joyous one--rather than a clinical endeavor of measuring portions, counting calories, calculating grams of fat, carbohydrates, and protein, or ingesting meal replacements--teaching readers to eat any food in the most healthful way so there is no feeling of deprivation. Original. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Harvey Diamond is the world-renowned coauthor of the #1 New York Times best-seller, Fit for Life, which held that position for an unprecedented forty straight weeks and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. Mr. Diamond has dedicated thirty-plus years of his life to the development of a truly healthy lifestyle. In pursuit of that goal, he overcame a debilitating, longtime digestive disorder, ended his migraine headaches, lost over fifty pounds, and in a stunning validation of his methods, triumphed over a condition called peripheral neuropathy (brought about by Agent Orange poisoning while serving his country in Vietnam). His energy, charisma and relaxed, conversational style have made him a sought-after guest expert on countless radio and television shows, including: Oprah, Geraldo, Nightline, Larry King Live, Live with Regis, The Today Show, and many others.

Reviews

Coauthor of the bestselling Fit for Life, Diamond here advocates a lifelong diet composed of 50% raw (living) food and no more than 50% dead (cooked) food in order to lose weight and maintain maximum physical and mental health. He offers himself up as a personal example of someone who overcame his medical problems by adhering to this nutritional program. Exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and 50 pounds overweight, Diamond is convinced that eating living food is what restored his heath. The details of this somewhat unusual way of eating are conveyed in an easy conversational style, and the author clearly explains (sometimes overexplains) how the digestive process works more efficiently when less cooked food is consumed. The program comes across as palatable rather than rigid, because Diamond repeatedly suggests it be followed in a relaxed flexible manner and that occasional deviations are to be expected. According to the author, only fresh fruit juices and fruit (the best possible food) should be eaten before noon. Lunch and dinner may consist of either a protein or a starch (but not both) with cooked vegetables and a hearty salad. He strongly argues against the consumption of dairy products (calcium is readily available through raw foods) because they are hard to digest. He is further convinced that young children should drink breast milk, not cow's milk or formula.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from Chapter 2
Key To Success #2 - Be Fruitful and Flourish

There's a might big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good.
ùBurton Hillis

This is why the all-protein diets are so dangerous. They are classic, textbook examples of "weight loss at any cost." They will result in weight loss, but it is with no regard for the damage that may be done to a person's health. Weight loss is achieved by so severely restricting carbohydrates that it tricks the body into thinking it's sick. Let me explain. If you look through the Merck Manual, which is an encyclopedia of the thousands of possible illnesses the human body can experience, you will notice that the one most common symptom of disease is the loss of appetite. The more catastrophic the disease (cancer, AIDS, etc.), the more likely there will be no appetite for food. The reason for this is obvious. When the body is sick it needs all the energy it can muster to heal itself. Since digestion requires so much energy, the appetite is shut down so available energy can be used for healing, not digestion.

When the body is fed lots of protein foods and simultaneously deprived of the carbohydrates it needs to carry out all the functions of life, two things happen. First, morning, noon and night the body is taxed and overworked by having to expend so much of its available energy converting the protein into the carbohydrates it needs. Second, the body, which essentially feels threatened because it doesn't have the fuel energy it needs to sustain itself, shuts down the appetite, as though it were sick, as it tries to conserve what energy it has. Weight is lost, but overall health progressively and steadily deteriorates because the body is consistently deprived of the one most important food for fuel: carbohydrates.

Even starches (pasta, bread, grains, etc.), which are at least already carbohydrates, unlike protein and fats, also have to go through a conversion process, because all starches are polysaccharides and can only be made available to the body (brain) in the form of glucose after they have been converted into monosaccharides. Again, an energy-intensive process.

Quiz time! Guess what one food in all the natural world is a monosaccharide without having to go through even the least bit of conversion to be so? Yes! That's right, fruit! A+ for you. The sugar in fruit, namely fructose (not porktose you notice), passes through the stomach and is absorbed through the walls of the intestines without undergoing any digestion. This leaves a great surplus of body energy available for living and all the activities that make living a joy. So not only does fruit not require any energy to be broken down, but it makes energy available faster and more efficiently than any other food in existenceùan unbeatable combination.

In the vast array and variety of foods in the human diet, fruit stands entirely alone in its uniqueness. All foodsùallùrequire time in the stomach for digestion. All except fruit.

The more quickly and efficiently food leaves the stomach the better. Why? Ever notice how tired you are after a big meal? Think back to last Thanksgiving. Ever hear of the afternoon siesta? The reason you feel tired after eating is because food in the stomach is a number-one priority in the body. The more you eat and the longer it has to stay in the stomach, the more energy you have to use and the more tired you will be.

Here's something you probably didn't know: Digestion requires more energy than anything else you can do. All the energy your body will use to digest the approximately seventy tons of food you will eat in this lifetime is more than all the energy you will expend for everything else in your lifetime combined! You don't have to have an IQ over 200 to figure out that anything you can do to optimize the efficiency of your digestive processes would be an extremely wise thing to do.

There are many ironies in this life we are all journeying through, and I can think of no other irony more bewildering than the one associated with the lack of high regard for the one food that most surely deserves it more than any other. Here is a line of reasoning that we may consider with profit: Whereas it follows that fruit, fulfilling the requirement for nutrients and energy more fully and perfectly than any other food, could reasonably be expected to comprise the bulk of our diet, does it not speak loudly to the abnormality of our Western diet that fruit is relegated to the last place on the menu as almost an afterthought, and is all too often used merely for ornamental purposes?

Tips and Hints for Eating Fruit 'til Noon

1. When first awakening in the morning, it is beneficial to drink a glass of water to wash through the digestive tract. This can have a squeeze of lemon in it or not.
2. All fruit and fruit juice must be fresh. Nothing cooked, canned or processed in any way. Nothing pasteurized.
3. You can have as much or as little as you desire up until noon. Some people are fine with only a small amount of fruit and desire no more. Others want to "graze" all morning on different fruits and juice. Either is fine. Figure out what is best for you and do that.
4. Fruits such as bananas, raisins, dates and all dried fruits (figs, pineapple, mango, papaya, apples, apricots) are more concentrated and will stay in your stomach longer than the watery fruits, so you will feel full longer. It is essential, however, to not eat fruit dried with chemicals such as sulfur nitrite. Eat only naturally dried fruit. It will say on the package if it is sun-dried or dehydrated or if it contains sulfur nitrite, or your grocer will be able to tell you. Health-food stores usually have naturally dried fruit. Also food dehydrators have become popular as of late. They are inexpensive and valuable far beyond their cost. Since dried fruit is concentrated versus fresh fruit, which has a higher water content, it is extremely important that you only eat very small amounts of dried fruit. The bulk of what you eat should be the high-water-content fruits. As you know, you may have as much fresh fruit as you desire, but dried fruit, unlike fresh fruit, can be overeaten.
5. Some people want to know if it's all right to have nothing in the morning except water. Yes. What you are trying to do is not interfere with the elimination cycle with food that requires digestion. But unless you are one of the minuscule number of people who simply do not like to eat fruit, it is important that you eat some fruit every day, and in the morning is when you can be sure there is nothing else in the stomach that will cause fruit to spoil.
6. After drinking juice, which is primarily water, you can eat other foods after about ten to fifteen minutes have elapsed. After eating whole fruit or a smoothie [see next page], wait about thirty to forty minutes before eating other food. After eating bananas, raisins or dried fruit, you should wait about forty minutes. Once you have eaten something other than fruit, you should wait at least three hours before eating fruit or drinking juice again. The only exception to this is that if you have raw vegetables by themselves without dressing or dip, fruit can then be eaten about twenty to thirty minutes later. If you wish to have fruit as a snack or at night before bed, be sure that at least three hours elapse after eating anything cooked and about one and a half to two hours after eating a salad.
   
   A smoothie is made by putting into a blender chunks of frozen bananas (freeze peeled bananas in an air-tight container), fresh apple or orange juice, and whatever fresh or frozen fruit you like, such as strawberries, blueberries or other berries, peaches, etc. It blends into a delicious shake. Its thickness depends on the amount of bananas used. Some people like the bananas at room temperatureùit's just a matter of taste. Experiment with these; they are delicious and fun. A day rarely passes that I don't have one of these treats.
   
7. Whenever drinking juice (or a smoothie), it is extremely important that you do not gulp it down. It should be consumed slowly. Drinking a glass of orange juice in two big gulps is not good for you and can cause your stomach to become upset. Take only one mouthful. Swish it around in your mouth one time to mix it with saliva and then swallow. In other words, "chew" your juice. This is not a small matter. Drink your juices slowly; do not gulp them down.
8. The question often comes up if it is all right to continue having juice after noon, or whether it is necessary to eat something else at twelve o'clock. No, it is not necessary to eat something other than fruit at noon, unless you are hungry for something else. Many people, myself included, on numerous occasions have only fruit and fruit juice until the evening meal. Sometimes you simply won't feel like eating anything other than fruit, and you should not feel you must eat if you are not hungry. As you progress with this, there will even be days when you have only fruit and fruit juice the entire day. It's a totally natural thing; sometimes you just won't feel like eating. Those are truly super-high-energy days. As time goes by, and you become more familiar with eating fruit correctly, you will find there are a multitude of ways to provide your body with fruit. It's something that automatically happens and becomes clear to you over time. For now you should focus on having fruit exclusively 'til noon, and the rest will unfold and become familiar to you as a natural progression.

¬2003. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Fit For Life, Not Fal For Life by Harvey Diamond. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hci
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0757301134
• ISBN 13: 9780757301131
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392