A victory over excess weight

Your body is the baggage you must carry through life.

The more excess baggage, the shorter the trip.

Arnold H. Glasow

Once again, a victory over excess weight is a major challenge because you must break the insulin addiction to get rid of all those extra pounds.

Normal weight: the first stage of getting to orbit

Rule number one: no foods that stimulate the release of insulin.

The dangers of excess weight can be overcome stage by stage.

Imagine a spaceship that gets to orbit by disposing of previous-stage rocket engines once they have done their job. The initial or booster stage involves three rules.

First, eat no foods that stimulate the release of insulin. This includes sugar and readily digestible starch (e.g., white flour). Some honey with your tea or dried fruit for dessert (though certainly not jam!) is allowed, but don’t even dream of your coffee “with just a wee spoon of sugar.”  Soft white bread, cake, cookies, candies, and pasta must also be excluded from your diet (though an occasional baked potato won’t hurt).

These restrictions are not temporary. You commit to them for a long time to come, maybe for good. Don’t panic, however. After a few months on this diet, you will start hating the taste of tea or coffee “ruined” with sugar. You won’t understand why people enjoy rich pasta that makes you breathe heavily for hours as if you have just run a marathon.

Rule number two: no snacks between meals.

Rule number two: no snacks between meals. You may have two, three, or even four meals a day at the beginning, but stop having all those extra snacks. Enjoy your food at the table to your heart’s content but otherwise take only water, simple and pure, until your next meal. God forbid you drink Pepsi, Coke, or any other sweet sodas. These can restore your insulin addiction in no time. And remember, even dried fruit and nuts, not to mention chips, are also out.  Just lock your voracious mouth – and your body will gradually activate the anti-insulin mechanism of energy production from internal fats and glycogen.  This mechanism is the cornerstone of any meaningful weight loss program.

Sweet things cost a bitter price.

Leonardo da Vinci

Rule three: eat only as much as fits on a single plate.

Rule three: eat only as much as fits on a single plate. No second helping.  Better limit yourself to one course, but if several courses are served, do not reach for a second helping! Slap yourself on the wrist if your hands are too greedy. Otherwise, you’ll have to crawl rather than walk away from the table. Your weight will keep growing regardless of any diets, pills, and exercise. If you succeed in striking this deal with your stomach, moving to the second stage would be easy.

Second stage: the input-output ratio

This second stage is a bit more complicated, so those who did not manage to pass stage one need not go further. Many people follow tough diets and shed some fat together with muscle tissue but soon gain more weight than they lost in the form of pure fat.

Since muscles act as a fat-burning furnace, your future fight with the “force of gravity” thus becomes even more of a challenge.

The essence of stage 2 is to modify the ratio between “input, output, and consumption.”

To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy Meals.

Benjamin Franklin

The essence of stage 2 is to modify the ratio between “input, output, and consumption.” The input may be reduced by cutting the size of the plate you used in the first stage.  Also, everything you take in should immediately proceed to the exit without staying in your body for too long. Normal active work of the large intestine is the core of healthy metabolism. Fixing this organ and setting it to work properly is a separate subject.

To put it briefly, however, the clue is conditional reflex retraining in combination with gentle stimulation. In other words, the large intestine must empty itself at a certain point after each meal. Though at the initial stage, you may need a mild laxative, remember you don’t want to destroy the natural reactions of the large intestine and make it dependent on drugs. Rather, delicately promote natural bowel movements and proper reflexes. This orderly work of the large intestine is the first key to the second stage of boosting our “weight loss spacecraft.”

The second key at this stage is the right diet, including dried apricots, prunes, cabbage, and greens. Salads dressed with olive oil and lemon juice stimulate the large intestine. They are also good for the gallbladder that produces bile, the best accelerator of bowel movements, Finally, don’t forget an increase in physical activity.

Do not stop moving if you sweat: your goal is to increase the number of your muscle fibers. Making one and the same group of muscles work all the time makes little sense since you just burn their glycogen to have it replenished later. If, however, you keep using new muscles in your movements, they start growing. This growth increases the ratio of muscle mass to fat and expands the furnaces where your fat will burn even without major dietary restrictions.

Please remember that all the processes described above take months rather than weeks since we are talking about complete retraining of the body. If you don’t want to pursue this painstaking path, forget about losing weight and reclaiming the beauty of your body.  All other paths that promise fast results are like free cheese that can only be found in a mousetrap.

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