Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1: Someone Like You…
Every mighty oak was once a nut that stood its ground.
Weight gain, bloating, and those stubborn fat deposits on your hips, thighs, and buttocks -- the very thought rattles your senses, not to mention your self-esteem. It's downright frustrating, to say the least. And believe me, you're not alone. There are more than 100 million of us currently fighting the infamous battle of the bulge. For most of us, it's a rigorous combat at best, trying one diet plan after another. Some regimens are too hard to follow, whereas others lack any real variety or satiety. In the end, we usually wind up back where we started -- unhappy and over-weight once again.
Over the years, I've had my own struggles with weight gain. Right from the start, I had to deal with a stacked deck, genetically speaking. Part of my body shape -- the proverbial pear -- I inherited from my mother and her side of the family, judging from the pictures of my maternal
grandmother, aunts, and female cousins that graced our den wall when I was growing up. And like me, all the women on my mother's side were always on a diet, trying to lose those infamous last 10 to 20 pounds that seemed to stockpile below the waist.
On my father's side, my family history of diabetes didn't help matters any. From as early as I can remember in both junior high and high school, I suffered from low blood sugar, or "reactive hypoglycemia." I was always craving something sweet (such as cookies, candy, cake, or ice cream) to raise my blood sugar, which really piled on the pounds. I simply couldn't find the time to eat on schedule. Back then (much like today), I was too busy being responsible and a caretaker
for everyone else -- being a high school correspondent for the Hartford Courant newspaper, serving as the president of the Service Club, and teaching religious school after regular school -- that I ignored my own body. So it's no wonder that I was always going up and down on the weight scale.
My use of food as an anesthetic to offset the stress of a competitive college environment during my freshman and sophomore years only compounded the matter. I would drift into one dorm for lunch and then into another one for yet another meal. In fact, men used to love to take me out because I didn't drink but had a hearty appetite. The truth is that I could eat anyone under the table. In addition, my body never seemed to firm up the way some women's do when they exercise. Moreover, I had to literally force myself to exercise anyway.
THE FAT FLUSH GENESIS
I spent my junior year abroad in London. There I started to frequent health food restaurants. Vegetarianism and drugless healing fascinated me. My whole life took an about-face once I began a program of cleansing and detoxification. (Which, by the way, helped me lose fat from those stubborn hips of mine rather effortlessly!) For the first time, I realized that whole foods, herbs, and dietary supplements could become a path not just to healing and wholeness but also to weight loss. Back in the United States, after I graduated from college I decided to enroll in the New York Institute of Dietetics as part of the Dietetic Technician Program. Later, I received a master's degree in nutrition education from Teachers College at Columbia University. Later on, I became a certified nutrition specialist (C.N.S.) with accreditation from the American College of Nutrition.
It was a classroom experience at Columbia, however, that foreshadowed the nature of my professional journey and eventual Fat Flush discovery. While I was a student there, I heard the "Lamppost Story," which continues to this day to motivate me. It goes something like this:
A gentleman goes out for a walk on an extremely dark evening and arrives at his destination, only to find that he has lost his wallet along the way. He immediately retraces his steps and starts looking for the wallet under the lamppost, where there is light. But he is unable to find his wallet because he had really lost it in the dark, where the light didn't reach. The moral of the story is that the answers are out there somewhere; you just have to look in the right places that have yet to come to light.
Inspired by this to search for answers beyond where the light was already shining, I was convinced that the real answers to weight gain, cellulite, and bloating were out there somewhere. I believed that we had yet to search in the right places, evidenced by the enormous amount of unsuccessful diet plans. Thus I embarked on a quest to find the missing links to weight loss. In my heart, I knew that the answer wouldn't be like any other diet plan. It had to be a program that addressed the underlying sources of weight gain and also embodied sound nutritional guidelines.
Today, while many women in their thirties, forties, and fifties are concerned about their changing shape, I've been able to keep my body pretty much fat-resistant for nearly three decades now. And that's despite my heredity. I found that once I had discovered an entirely new approach to managing my weight, it no longer mattered how the genetic cards were stacked.
That approach is my Fat Flush Plan -- a program based on a unique diet model using healthful essential fats, balanced proteins, colorful carbohydrates, and a strict daily routine. It is designed to address and correct the most prevalent underlying causes of weight gain. These unseen causes have nothing to do with your genes. Instead, they reflect simple body chemistry imbalances that you probably never suspected. I call them the five hidden weight gain factors, which are the key to just about all of our overweight and obesity issues. You'll find that most diet plans typically target only one or two of these factors, which may explain why they don't work in the long term and cause recurring weight gain.
Ignored, overlooked, or simply not taken seriously enough, the five hidden weight gain factors include the following: an overworked liver, lack of fat-burning fats, too much insulin, the stress-fat cycle, and a unique take on "when fat is not fat." These factors are caused by a stagnant lymph system, sneaky food allergies, birth control pills, hormone-replacement therapy, and medications. You will learn all about these problematic factors in the next chapter, along with the scientific developments behind each factor that have reached a critical stage only in the past decade.
The discovery of my Fat Flush Plan didn't happen overnight. It progressed naturally out of every area of my life, from my personal weight control quest and working alongside my nutritional mentors to a wide variety of professional experiences spanning my entire career in counseling, consulting, and researching.
Early in my career, I had the privilege of working beside such nutritional pioneers as Hazel Parcells, Ph.D. and Nathan Pritikin. Their contributions helped me on my own weight control journey, which in turn enabled me to assist thousands of my own clients in their weight control
efforts. In fact, when my first book, Beyond Pritikin, came out, my private practice in California grew, and soon people everywhere were resonating to my message that essential fats were absolutely necessary for rapid weight loss, longevity, and good health. For years I had a thriving practice that included sports figures, movie stars, fashion designers, producers, and members of the Joffrey Ballet. In this way, I was helping others who in turn were helping me fine-tune my program and stay on track myself as the messenger of a new weight loss approach.
Copyright ©(2002) by Ann Louise Gittleman.
