Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
What, Why, and What’s in It for Me?
Lights flashing and sirens blaring, the ambulance races towards the hospital. Inside the ambulance Mary, a middle-aged woman, lies on a gurney, struggling with chest tightness, sweating, and dizziness.
Within an hour of her arrival at the hospital, Mary undergoes an angioplasty procedure: A wire is inserted into her occluded coronary artery, and then the artery is opened by inflating a small balloon inside. Finally, a “stent,” which resembles the small spring inside a ballpoint pen, is inserted in the left proximal Left Anterior Descending (LAD) artery (one of the heart’s main arteries, aka the “widow-maker”), to prop it open permanently. Blood flow is restored to her heart. Several days later, she walks out of the hospital. The marvels of modern medicine have saved her life.
Though many catastrophic emergencies can now be treated with modern medical techniques, millions of people every year are still diagnosed with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and stroke. And these diseases seem to be striking people at a younger and younger age. What is the cause of this epidemic? Do we simply need to have more ambulances and high-tech life-saving procedures? Or is there a deeper reason for this widespread problem? Why is it that the US spends more money than any other nation on healthcare, yet has the fattest, sickest population of any country in the world? Are we ignoring the root causes of chronic disease and simply trying to fix the problem by throwing money at it?
As I started pondering these questions, I suddenly realized that many of my own relatives were in the same predicament as Mary. Even though most of them appeared lean, with skinny faces, arms, and legs, they had visible belly fat — prominent bulges in their mid-sections — fitting the proverbial definition of “thin outside, fat inside” or TOFI, as it is commonly known.
At the same time, in my practice, I was observing that with just a little weight loss — as little as 7% of starting weight or only 10, 20, or 30 pounds for many people — my patients’ need for blood pressure or diabetes medication was drastically reduced; even their heart-related symptoms were improving. They were starting to have a lot more fun and freedom, to say “Yes” to life’s wonderful adventures more often, and to participate and engage in activities with their children and grandchildren.
Instead of treating a dangerous condition resulting from chronic disease, I thought, what if we implemented proven lifestyle changes before the disease reached the critical stage?
As I started to scour the research, I found mentors in Drs. Joel Fuhrman and Neal Barnard who were already working with thousands of people and helping them reverse chronic diseases and regain their vitality. Other really smart colleagues like Drs. Michael Roizen, Mladen Golubic were getting amazing results, while pushing for change at a policy level. I am immensely grateful to all of them for guiding the way and influencing my thinking about the reversibility of most chronic disease.
Thus started an experiment in using lifestyle optimization as the primary treatment for chronic disease. The results have been astounding. When we shift the focus to correcting the lifestyle factors that leads to the disease, we are essentially treating the root cause. At that point, we can start thinking about prescription medications and procedures as a supplement to the first priority, which is treating the causes.
What are the essential ingredients of lifestyle that can reverse disease and add life to your years and years to your life?
1. Impeccable Nutrition. Eat enough highly nutritious foods that are not calorie dense; maximize nutritional content while minimizing empty calories. The food that we need provides fuel as well as information and intelligence from the environment and needs to be as nutritionally complete as possible. It needs to be satisfying and delicious because it is our most primal need. We need to be mindful of the toxins from the environment and to choose foods that minimize these toxins.
2. Optimal hormone balance. Eat the right foods and avoid hormonally dangerous ones (like dairy and alcohol). At the same time, make good lifestyle choices in terms of physical activity, stress management, meditation, and sleep hygiene to maintain optimal hormone balance.
3. Regular exercise. Move your body with joy and abandon as it is meant to be moved. Find enjoyable physical activities. Exercise also has benefits in terms of brain health — memory and mood — as well as heart health, metabolic, bone, and muscle health. Do you want to know the secret to Turbo Metabolism in three words? Activate big muscles.
4. Stress management and quality sleep.This combination is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle and the most critical emotional resilience component of this book’s strategy. Toxic load can also be caused by unmanaged repeated and prolonged psychosocial stress and lack of sleep. We need to be mindful of the importance of avoiding toxicity in our physical, psychological, and social environment as well.
5. Social connections. Loving, supportive relationships, meaning and purpose in life and involvement in family and community can make a huge difference in health and longevity. Meaningful social connections help build emotional resilience, which is a foundation for healthy eating and active living.
When you start to master these five factors — of which nutritional excellence is the most important, lean muscle mass is the key and emotional resilience is the foundation — you can improve quality of life, reverse disease, and enhance your health.
Recipe for Disaster
It might be the modern day equivalent of the “Trojan Horse.” If an enemy wants to conquer us, all they need to do is get us addicted to a diet of processed food loaded with sugar, fat, and salt and stripped of protective natural disease-fighting super foods (the “good stuff” found in plants that provides information and intelligence, not just calories), and they can incapacitate a large proportion of our population with chronic disability and disease.
Currently, 70% of Americans are overweight or obese and this number is projected to be even higher in the next decade, as childhood obesity, which has tripled in the last 30 years, continues to increase. Over 100 million Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes, with increased risk of amputations, heart disease, and blindness. This means almost half of our population either has “diabesity” (obesity with insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, or diabetes) or is getting there quickly.
This horrifying trend is also an urgent matter of economic viability and national security that should be part of the conversation on national policy right now. The US has already lost its manufacturing base to China, and much of what we have left is the service industries. The 17% of our GDP (gross domestic product, the official measure of the size of a country’s economy) that we spend on disease-care is unsustainable.
It is looking more and more probable that Type 2 diabetes will become a global epidemic (with projections that 1 in 3 individuals worldwide will eventually be affected), as the rest of the world becomes more affluent, relinquishes their original diet of real food in favor of a more westernized diet of processed junk mislabeled as food. Diabetes and metabolic diseases cost the US over $245 billion a year which exceeds the entire GDP of countries like Ireland, New Zealand, and Pakistan. Emerging economies like India now have 25% of the worldwide burden of metabolic diseases like diabetes and its accompanying curse of heart disease and strokes.
Right now, about 63% of US food intake is processed grains and 25% is animal food, leaving a mere 12% for plant food — and half of this is processed plant food, like French fries, potato chips, and ketchup.
Over 60% of our meals are prepared outside the home: When we let someone else take charge of our most vital interaction with the environment, we have no idea what we are being fed. Restaurant food is prepared to make it look and taste good, usually by adding lots of salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats.
Even when we eat at home, meals based on the USDA’s (US Department of Agriculture) “balanced diet” of faulty “food pyramids” and “broken plates” (government recommendations such as those listed in mypyramid.gov and myplate.gov, which is fueled and funded by the dairy, beef, grain lobbies) has exacerbated the situation. The USDA whose primary job is to protect the interests of our agriculture industry might have been giving well-intended advice (although I doubt it because of their inherent conflict of interest), but the unintended consequences have been disastrous.
The typical American eats “bit” (because it’s there) foods all day long — donuts, candy, and processed “treats” are ubiquitous. However, the reality is that they are not treats; they are as dangerous and addictive as street drugs. The processed food industry has figured out the formula for creating products that directly stimulate the reward centers of the brain (just like cocaine and heroin); as a result, the industry is sure “You can't just eat one.” Sadly, they are dead right, yet these substances are completely legal and socially acceptable.
Here’s the bottom line: “Diabesity” (insulin resistance), pre-diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity are man-made diseases. You may have been born with an increased genetic predisposition, but these conditions have manifested as a result of your decisions — whether they were intentional or not. Genetics is like a loaded gun: it’s up to you to pull the trigger. You are holding the solution literally in your own hands right now.
Insulin resistance and unleashed inflammation are at the core of most of the diseases of Western civilization. Having just a few extra pounds of weight, especially on your belly, starts this process.
Find Your Reasons Why
When you change your mindset, you can develop the motivation and ability to change your destiny. Something triggered you to pick up this book. When you buy in to the idea with your heart and soul and set up your environment for success, nothing can hold you back from living the life of your dreams.
Are you going to let anything stand in the way of awakening your inner “super-hero” and living the best life you can, starting right now?
Self-Examination Is the First Step
What is the purpose of your life on earth? Close your eyes for a moment and think about it. What kind of person would you like to be? What would like to have? What would like to offer to the world? What would you like to do, see, experience, and accomplish with your time and energy? What does your ideal universe look like in terms of your own self, your relationships, and your finances? What does health have to do with it? Why are you even reading this book?
If your goal is to live with meaning, purpose, and joy, to spend time with loved ones and to make valuable contributions to the people in your community, to have more beautiful, meaningful and enjoyable experiences, to learn new things and grow and contribute, you will need to optimize your health so that you have the vitality you will need for this journey.
Autonomy, freedom to choose, and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental to our existence as independent beings and yet these basic rights can be snatched from us if we are not healthy. So the goal of optimizing our health span is also fundamental to our existence. The end result should be more "life in our years,” i.e., a longer “health span.”
What would you be willing to give for an additional 5, 10 or even 15 years of vitality, productivity, fun, freedom, and enjoyment?
We have a culture of short-term fads and cycles: January to March is the time for making (and breaking!) New Year’s resolutions. April to June is the period for crash diets, for getting “ripped beach body abs and the perfect round tight booty” for the upcoming summer. June to September is the time for summer picnics and vacations with pizza, beer, and chips. October to December is the “holiday season” — watching football on TV and eating lots of beef, pork, turkey, pie, cookies, and cake, all washed down with alcoholic beverages wherever you go.
This book is not about the latest fad diet that might help you lose 21 pounds in 21 days. It is about changing your relationship with the environment. It’s about eliminating foods and habits that are making you weak and tired and replacing them with foods and activities that make you stronger. This includes optimizing food, water, and environmental exposures, as well as thought patterns. It’s not about deprivation or sacrifice but rather adopting an abundant new way of life that will give you the energy, vibrancy, and vitality that you deserve. It's about living life to the fullest, to enjoy every adventure life has to offer without any limitation or handicap, to be able to keep up with your kids and grandkids and to say “Yes” to more adventures, fun, and freedom!
Nutritional excellence, an active lifestyle, and emotional resilience form the 3 legs of the stool on which your health rests.
So, go ahead and be greedy! Create the perfect world for yourself, as you strive for optimal health: Taking care of yourself is the most profound way in which you can make a positive impact on the world around you.
The final goal is to get rid of the things that make us fat, hungry, tired and depressed and awaken the “super hero” within!
Rules to Live by
· Fads won’t change your life. Neither will pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, and beer.
· Your purpose in life is far more important than your next trip to the refrigerator.
· Don’t be satisfied with a recipe for disaster.
· Choose life. Invest in yourself.
· Nothing tastes as good as lean feels.
· There is nothing selfish about self-care
Facts: Your body is an amazing creation with an amazing ability to heal itself:
• Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour.
• The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.
• Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions
• Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents
• You use 200 muscles to take one step
• 10-50 trillion cells make up the human body
