The topic: America’s expanding waistline.
Why is it happening and what do we do about it?
by Jonny Bowden, M.A., C.N., CNS
 |
| Oz Garcia |
Oz Garcia is an internationally
known expert on the
applications of nutritional
medicine to a wide variety
of health conditions. His
center in New York (212-
362-5569) is one of the top
antiaging facilities in the
country. His best-selling
book, Look and Feel
Fabulous Forever discusses the latest advances in
antiaging techniques. He can be reached through
www.ozgarcia.com
JB: Your last book, Look and Feel Fabulous
Forever, talks about what we can do to create
glowing health well into old age, but I’m not so
sure a lot of us are going to be around long
enough to put it into practice. We’re eating
ourselves to death. What’s going on here?
OG: It’s pretty simple. Our genes are just not
programmed for this dietary environment.
JB: How so?
OG: There’s an enormous disconnect between
the nature of the human animal and the
modern dietary landscape. Our genetic
makeup is that of the hunter-gatherer—we
were designed to be on the run, hunting and
gathering our food, and we have an appetite to
match that primitive existence. Now we do
our hunting and gathering in 24-hour supermarkets.
JB: It’s almost like there’s a war going on
between our genetic inheritance and the commercial
food environment.
OG: Exactly.
JB: Can we win the war?
OG: I’m not sure we can. It requires a wholesale
change in the whole way we look at food.
Right now it’s all about the American ethic of
“bigger, better, faster.” If you took the average
American into, say, a Thai restaurant and
showed him subtle tastes like lemongrass and
thyme, it wouldn’t even register on his radar
screen.
JB: And that matters because. . . ?
OG: Because in this environment the palate
becomes very narrow. Our appetites become
so blunted that we can only respond to the
sweetest, the saltiest, the crunchiest. Our
brain chemistry literally becomes damaged—we become like dietary zombies. The
idea of eating to increase intelligence, to
build up resistance, to live longer and
healthier is foreign to us. We eat only to deal
with appetite.
JB: So what should we do?
OG: We need to develop a certain kind of
intelligence about food, just as we develop a
financial intelligence or a social intelligence.
We need a dietary and food intelligence. And
we need to make that an educational priority.
Not just a course in school, like home economics,
but literally embedded in the fabric of
the culture.
JB: Do you see that happening?
OG: I’m not optimistic. Look, run the numbers.
The meat and agricultural industries produce
some 1500 surplus calories a day per
person, far more food than the average consumer
needs. If the automobile industry produced
twice as many cars as there were people
in America, what would they do, assuming
there were no incentives to cut back on production
or no other markets?
JB: They would convince everyone in America that they needed two cars.
OG: Exactly. And that’s what we’re facing. As
long as there is this kind of mass production of
excess food, the food industry is going to keep
dreaming up ways to sell it to us, making it
sweeter, tastier, richer and conditioning our
already damaged appetites to want bigger and
bigger amounts of it.
JB: What do you think needs to happen?
OG: We need a complete transformation in
public policy. Until it becomes a priority to
get fast foods out of the school, to get education
about nutrition into the curriculums, to
stop promoting the biggest junk on the planet
in the most gigantic portions imaginable,
we’re going to have an upward battle on our
hands.
 |
| David Leonardi |
David Leonardi, M.D., is
the founder of The
Leonardi Medical Institute
for Vitality and Longevity
in Denver, Colorado and a
well-known specialist in
diabetes prevention and
treatment. A much-in demand
lecturer at conferences
and workshops, Dr. Leonardi is board
certified both in Anti-Aging Medicine and
Emergency Medicine. He is a professional member
of the American Diabetes Association and is on the
ADA Council for Nutritional Sciences and Metabolism.
He can be reached at www.DrLeonardi.org
JB: Let’s free associate. I’ll make a statement, you give me the first word that comes to mind.
DL: Fine.
JB: Americans are getting fatter.
DL: Carbohydrates.
JB: Do tell.
DL: People are overindulging—and that’s putting
it mildly—in carbohydrates. We’re
overeating everything, actually, but carbohydrates
are the main offender. Despite everything
we’ve learned about the effect of food on
our hormonal system and how it leads to
weight gain, we keep on eating the stuff that
does the most damage.
JB: How do hormones come into play? Isn’t it all about the calories?
DL: Not even close. Of course calories matter, but they are far from the whole story.
JB: So tell us why hormones are so important.
DL: It’s pretty simple. You eat food and your blood sugar goes up. When you eat certain kinds of foods like high-glycemic carbohydrates, it goes up even higher. When your blood sugar goes up, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin. The higher your blood sugar, the more insulin is needed to bring it down. Insulin is a fat storing hormone and equally important, a fat retaining hormone.
JB: What happens next?
DL: It’s virtually impossible to lose weight
with high insulin levels. Eventually you’ll gain more body fat. Now your sensitivity to insulin
decreases. Next time you eat, you need even more
insulin to bring your blood sugar back down.
JB: You actually have a name for this kind of thing.
DL: Yes, I call them “cycle-makers,” vicious
cycles that promote diabetes and obesity.
JB: For example?
DL: You eat high glycemic carbs, your insulin
goes up, your fat accumulates, you become
more insulin resistant and eventually, if this
cycle continues, you either increase your risk
for heart disease by developing Syndrome X,
or you become full-blown diabetic. In most
cases you also gain a ton of weight.
JB: Tell us what “high-glycemic” means.
DL: It’s just a simple way of measuring the
effect food has on blood sugar. The higher
your blood sugar goes after you eat a food, the
higher the glycemic index of that food. Even
better is to use the glycemic load, a measurement
that also factors portion size into the
equation.
JB: So what’s an example of a “cycle-breaker?”
How does a person get out of this mess?
DL: Well there’s two categories of cyclebreakers.
One is obviously diet: protein, fat
and low-glycemic carbohydrates.
JB: Examples?
DL: Green leafy vegetables, crunchy high fiber
cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, low sugar
fruits like berries, that kind of stuff. And of
course, protein, which has much less of an
effect on insulin, and fat, which has no effect
on insulin at all.
JB: What’s another category of cycle-breaker?
DL: Exercise. Good old-fashioned exercise. It
increases insulin sensitivity, it creates a
demand for sugar from the muscle cells and it
burns up calories. It also protects your heart
and extends your life. What more could you
ask for?
 |
| Shari Lieberman |
Shari Lieberman, Ph.D., CNS, is one of the most
respected authorities on
nutrition in the country
and the author of the definitive
bestseller, The Real
Vitamin and Mineral Book.
She is a Certified Nutrition
Specialist (CNS) a fellow of
the American College of
Nutrition (FACN), a
member of the New York
Academy of Science and the American Academy of
Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M). Author of two bestselling
books, Get off the Menopause Roller-Coaster
and Dare To Lose, she has developed her own natural
supplement line which can be found on
www.drshari.net.
JB: We’re here to talk about obesity and overweight
and the crisis in America, but you’ve
been all over the news recently with this,
haven’t you?
SL: I’ve been on CNN, MSNBC, you name it.
This is too important not to get the word out
about what’s going on and what needs to happen.
JB: So why are Americans so fat?
SL: Completely unconscious eating. Unconscious in the sense that people are not
only totally unaware of what they’re eating,
they’re also unaware of the consequences of
what they’re eating.
JB: Explain, please.
SL: Look, we’re assuming that because
McDonald’s puts up a nutritional label, people
know what it means. I’m not at all convinced
that people understand what they’re being told
about food. Take smoking. Does the average
teenager really understand what “increase your
risk” means? I don’t think so. They never saw
someone actually dying of lung cancer. I’d like
to give some of them a little tour of Sloan
Kettering. People need to be able to connect
their behavior with a strong visceral experience
of the consequences of that behavior.
JB: And how would you do that with food?
SL: I’ll give you an example. I had a patient in
Sloan Kettering who was absolutely, completely
obese. She wasn’t interested in talking
to anyone about her weight. Well darling, you
know how I am, I’m direct, right?
JB: To put it mildly.
SL: So I went in, sat down and said to her, do
you have grandchildren? She said yes. I said do
you want to be around for them? She said, of
course. I said good, well, let me tell you what’s
going to happen. You’re going to become diabetic.
You won’t have any circulation so your
toes are going to get gangrene. They’re going to
stink to high heavens. You’re going to eventually
lose them, possibly your feet as well. The
blood won’t be able to circulate in the small
capillaries of your eyes and you may get
cataracts or go blind. You won’t be able to see
your grandchildren.
JB: Wow, you’re tough.
SL: You know what happened though?
JB: What?
SL: Next day she calls me into her room and
says, “I’m ready to talk now.” I mean, look,
nobody at Sloan Kettering had told her this is
what’s going to happen. We need to start getting
this message out to kids and to their parents.
You think parents want their kids to be
obese? Of course not. They just don’t have a
clue how to feed a child. It’s a job. And if we
don’t teach them how to do it, it’s going to get
worse.
JB: So what should be done?
SL: We need education, and we need it bad,
and we need it now. And I’m not talking about
someone coming in and saying, “OK children,
let’s talk about the food pyramid.” I’m talking
about making it interesting. And exciting. You
can’t just say to them, “Don’t eat
this” . . . you’ve got to give them alternatives.
Maybe you literally have to go in and teach the
parents how to make baked sweet potato fries.
JB: What about the social policy issues involved?
SL: When we wanted to get drugs out of the
school we worked on getting the drug dealers
out. Maybe we have to do the same thing here.
We’ve made “happy meals” and “children’s
food” synonymous with the worst crap on the
planet. Maybe we need to start looking at who
is responsible for selling these kids “happy
meals” in their own lunchroom, and getting
their butts out of the schools.
 |
| Kelly Brownell |
Kelly Brownell, Ph.D.,ß is the
director of the Yale Center for
Eating and Weight Disorders
and the chairman of the psychology
department at Yale
University. A highly respected
expert in obesity, he has published
14 books and more
than 200 scientific articles and
chapters and has won numerous awards and honors.
Dr. Brownell has been an outspoken advocate for
change in the area of food politics and his recent
book, Food Fight is must reading for anyone concerned
with the future health of the country.
JB: What’s the number one thing to be done
about the obesity epidemic?
KB: Prevention.
JB: Why?
KB: Obesity is very, very difficult to treat once
you’ve got it. It only makes sense to focus on
prevention.
JB: Why do we have this epidemic in the first
place?
KB: Well, there are several reasons. First and
foremost is that we live in a toxic environment.
We’ve got a bad environment both for food and
for physical activity. That’s number one and
that’s what has to change. You start by focusing
on preventive strategies and that means
focusing on children and focusing on schools.
JB: So what are you calling for?
KB: Get rid of soft drinks in the schools. Get
rid of the snack foods. Fill the vending
machines with waters and juices. Shape up the
school lunch programs. Eliminate all that
channel 1 advertising.
JB: You’re talking about a wholesale change in
the way the food industry does business with
the schools.
KB: Exactly.
JB: What about outside the school?
KB: The entire way food is marketed to children
in our society is completely out of control.
I propose that we start placing taxes on
advertisements for unhealthy food. That
money could go into a kind of nutritional
“superfund” to be used to get the word out
about healthy alternatives to the junk that’s
being pedaled to kids. Use that money, for
example, to hire Britney Spears to do a commercial
for water.
JB: Does that mean we’ve completely lost the
war when it comes to the 60 percent of the adult
population that’s either overweight or obese?
KB: No, but I believe the nation will take
more immediate and aggressive action if we
frame this in terms of protecting children. If
there’s going to be victory against obesity, it’s
going to be won in the school system.
JB: But could this really work? These schools
are desperate for money and every fast food
franchise is rushing to give it to them in
exchange for prime product placement.
KB: But at what price? There are actually several
examples of schools that have gotten rid of
things like sodas and have done okay. Los
Angeles just kicked this stuff out of their
school system. The school has to be the first
battleground if we’re going to make any
headway with this.
JB: Maybe I’m cynical. I could just see the big
food conglomerates lining up their experts to
debate what an “unhealthy” food is. Before
you know it, they’ll convince you that French
fries are a health food.
KB: Sure. But look back at the tobacco
industry. Thirty years ago, did you ever think
there would be lawsuits against Phillip Morris?
That there would be a ban on smoking in
public? That there would be tough restrictions
on advertising? Maybe with the food industry
it wouldn’t take 30 years. Maybe it would only
take three years this time.
JB: I hope you’re right. But I think you’re being really optimistic.
KB: Things can change. They do and they will.
 |
| C. Leigh Broadhurst |
C. Leigh Broadhurst, Ph.D., is a research geochemist
with the U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture, Agricultural
Research Service and the
University of Maryland and
is widely regarded as an
authority on phytochemicals.
She is a lecturer, consultant,
educator and
author for the natural products industry and the
author of Diabetes: Prevention and Cure. Her most
recent book is The Whole Family Guide to Natural Asthma RELIEF.
JB: Let’s make up a hypothetical overweight client.
CLB: Okay.
JB: I’m 75 pounds overweight. I’ve tried every diet. I’m exercising regularly. Nothing’s happening. What’s your first step?
CLB: If I see a person who has really
intractable obesity—I’m talking about
someone who is genuinely trying very hard
and not getting any RELIEF, making no
progress whatsoever—I’m going to look for
food allergies. I think this aspect of obesity and
overweight gets overlooked.
JB: Really?
CLB: Very often the person who can’t lose
weight no matter what is eating the same
things over and over. My experience is when
you see this kind of client, there’s a big allergenic
component in his diet, and it’s often
overlooked.
JB: How would you proceed?
CLB: You need to listen very carefully while
they tell you everything about what they eat.
It’s not enough to just look for the obvious
things like too much food, too many calories.
There’s going to be some food or class of food
that they just can’t give up. They’re going to
tell you, “Listen, I’ll change anything about
my diet, but I can’t give up my ice cream.”
That’s going to be your first clue.
JB: Clue to what?
CLB: To the addictive/allergenic substance.
The very food they’re addicted to is also the
one that’s causing the problems.
JB: Can you elaborate more on this
allergy/addiction connection?
CLB: Well, think about it. No one smokes
because it’s so wonderful. They smoke because
it feels so bad to quit. The body produces
endorphins to fight the bad reaction to the
drug or food. We can easily become addicted
to those endorphins at the same time that the
food or drug is wreaking havoc in the body.
JB: And how does that connect to weight?
CLB: Because that allergenic reaction to a
food causes an immune system reaction that
results in massive edema. These people are just
swollen everywhere. They’re carrying a ton of
bloat and water. You get them off the one food
that’s causing the problem and they could drop
as much as 15 pounds. If that happens, believe
me they’re going to listen to you. That’s when
you can start making other changes in their
diet and this time they’ll do it.
JB: Dr. Elson Haas wrote a book about that very phenomena. He called it False Fat.
CLB: I’ve had people who had this reaction to
dairy, for example. I told them “Look, you can
eat anything you want to. Binge away. Eat
7,000 pounds of cake if you want. There’s only
one thing you cannot do: you cannot eat dairy.
Absolutely none for the next two weeks.”
Without changing anything else they’ll come
back two weeks later and 15 pounds lighter.
JB: What about when the food allergies aren’t so obvious?
CLB: They’re not always obvious at all.
Because of the work I do as a phytochemist,
I’m very aware of the alkaloids that will be
found across a seemingly disparate group of
foods or substances. For example, people who
are allergic to latex almost always have a
problem with tropical fruits, especially papaya.
JB: That kind of information would be so important for clinicians to have.
CLB: There’s a pretty comprehensive list of cross-reacting substances in my asthma book.
JB: What else can you say about this addiction/allergy connection?
CLB: Well, we know that addicts seem to have an inherently lower number of endorphin receptors than people with non-addictive personalities, so it makes sense that they would need more endorphin producing substances in order to feel good.
JB: Okay, but the genetic pool wouldn’t have
changed in a hundred years. Why didn’t we
have this kind of obesity 100 years ago when,
in all probability, there were the same percentage
of people pre-wired for addictive personalities?
CLB: Access. There’s 100 per cent access to
cheap food in great volume. That’s something
that didn’t exist 100 years ago.
 |
| Ann Louise Gittleman |
As millions of television viewers have seen on “Dr. Phil” and “The View,” Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., CNS, is one of the most
respected and innovative nutritionists in America today. The award winning author of 20 books on health with over 3.5 million
copies in print, she currently has two NY Times and USA Today bestsellers: Before the Change and The Fat Flush Plan. She can be contacted at www.fatflush.com
JB: In your book, The Fat Flush Plan, you discuss
what you call the five hidden weight gain
factors. I wonder if you would take a couple of
those factors and comment on them.
ALG: Any particular preferences?
JB: I’ve always loved the fact that you are one
of the few people to really address the liver in
the weight loss equation. Why don’t you start
by elaborating on that a bit?
ALG: Sure. Remember that the liver has about
400 or so jobs to do in the body and one of
them is to cleanse the system of toxins. It’s also
the body’s main fat-processing plant. If it’s
clogged up, it is not going to be operating at
top efficiency and it’s not going to be emulsifying
and processing fat properly.
JB: In your book you refer to this state of
affairs as “toxic liver.”
ALG: Exactly. When the liver is overwhelmed
by toxins, it no longer performs as it should.
Hormone imbalances can develop. You may
wind up with fatty liver. You’re definitely going
to have trouble losing weight.
JB: With so much exposure to chemicals,
toxins, pesticides, environmental estrogens,
medications and all the rest, I would guess that
toxic liver is not uncommon.
ALG: Right. And the symptoms are pretty
extensive. You can gain weight easily, especially
around the abdomen. You can get bloating,
fatigue, mood swings, depression.
JB: Give me an example of how this might work.
ALG: Okay. A toxic liver would not be able to
break down the adrenal hormone aldosterone,
which would cause you to accumulate sodium
and water. There’s your bloating. A toxic liver
can’t process glucose effectively, so you can
easily experience hypoglycemia, sugar cravings,
weight gain and Candida overgrowth. In
my opinion, the health of the liver is essential
to a successful weight loss program for any
individual.
JB: What do you recommend that people do to address this?
ALG: In The Fat Flush Plan I recommend a
daily cocktail of unsweetened cranberry
juice and water plus psyllium or flaxseeds for
fiber. This combo helps with detoxification.
I also have my clients use hot water and
lemon to support bile formation for optimal
fat metabolism. Then I recommend various
liver friendly nutrients, supplements and
foods.
JB: Another of your five hidden weight gain factors is stress.
ALG: The contribution of stress to weight gain is enormous. It’s just now beginning to be appreciated.
JB: And the mediating factor is cortisol.
ALG: Yes. Under stress the adrenals release
high levels of cortisol which stimulates your
appetite to replenish fuel. All this worked great
in hunter-gatherer times when stress hormones
were a kind of “fifth gear” or turbocharge
for emergencies. But in today’s world
we are under constant assault from stressful
situations and that cortisol is running wild
through our bloodstream causing the activation
of enzymes that cause fat to be stored,
especially in the central abdominal region
where the fat cells have four times more cortisol
receptors than elsewhere.
JB: So the saying “stress makes you fat” is basically correct.
ALG: Very much so. And that’s another
reason why a successful attack on weight for
any individual has got to include a whole
lifestyle adjustment that incorporates stress
management as well as detoxification for liver
health.
Jonny Bowden interviews Jonny Bowden
M.A., C.N., CNS
 |
| Jonny Bowden |
Jonny Bowden, M.A.,
CNS, is the author of
Living the Low Carb Life: A
Complete Guide from Atkins
to The Zone. An associate
editor of totalealth, he has
been the resident weight
loss and nutrition expert
for i-Village.com for seven
years. He maintains a busy
nutrition practice in Los
Angeles specializing in
weight loss and also consults
by phone and e-mail. He can be reached at
www.jonnybowden.com
JB: You’re a clinical nutritionist specializing in
weight loss and you’ve talked to some of the
top experts on weight loss in the country both
for this article and in researching your new
book, Living the Low Carb Life. What are the
take home points?
Jonny: Well, we have this enormous problem
that can be attacked from one of two directions.
On the one hand, we have the environment
which, as Dr. Brownell eloquently points
out, is the most toxic food environment in history.
We definitely need to focus on changing
that if we’re going to make any headway in
turning things around. On the other hand, we
have the individual struggling with weight and
hunger—forgive the pun—for strategies that
are going to work.
JB: Okay, let’s talk about the first front: the
environment.
Jonny: Well, there’s the wonderful activist
approach of Dr. Brownell that targets social
policy and the existing quagmire of big food
economics. And then there’s ongoing research
trying to figure out exactly what eating patterns
are responsible for us being so fat.
JB: Examples?
Jonny: There’s the epidemiological research,
particularly of the Walt Willett group at
Harvard, that is trying to identify everything
that correlates with obesity—and also heart
disease, stroke, hypertension, Syndrome X,
diabetes and all the other related conditions.
What foods are people eating a lot of in societies
where obesity and its relatives are most
prevalent? That kind of research should ultimately
dovetail nicely with the social activists.
It should give us some scientific ammunition
to use when we go after the producers of the
kind of junk food that’s making us die early
deaths.
JB: So we’re looking for the kind of eureka research experience of finding that everywhere
there’s cigarette smoking, there’s also lung
cancer.
Jonny: Exactly.
JB: But you have some criticisms of that
approach, don’t you?
Jonny: I think there’s always a danger when
you draw conclusions about cause and effect
from epidemiological research. In lab rats
and college sophomores you can control
most of the extraneous variables that could
screw up an experiment. You can’t control
people in free living situations like you do
lab rats. In real life, there are hundreds of factors
that are clustered together and it’s not
always easy to separate them clearly and
reach a definitive conclusion like “cigarettes
cause lung cancer.”
JB: Give us an example.
Jonny: Sure. When you look exclusively at
what gets found with what, certain elements of
the diet, like saturated fats, for example, tend
to get blamed somewhat unfairly because they
are so frequently found together with much
more dangerous elements like excessive sugar
intake and trans fats. It’s kind of like they hung
around with the wrong crowd and got blamed
for its transgressions. It is hard to make policy
decisions based on mere associations. For
example, diabetes went up considerably
during the years of the Clinton administration.
So if we get rid of Clinton, diabetes
should go down, right?
JB: No. Because correlation is not cause.
Jonny: Exactly. And people tend to lose sight
of that. Remember, people who eat lots of
meat, for example, also tend not to eat vegetables.
They eat low fiber diets. They get
their meat from the hot dog vendors at ball
games and from the deli department in
Safeway. They drink a ton of soda. So which
factor or combination makes them fat and
unhealthy? This is the problem in making
conclusions about what foods cause disease
states.
JB: So because of this ambiguity, you have the
big food companies crying that “any food can
be part of a healthy diet”.
Jonny: Yes, which is also the idiotic position of
the American Dietetic Association.
JB: Why is it idiotic?
Jonny: It’s not technically idiotic—technically,
for example, if you did everything right, you
could eat M&Ms every day and still lose weight.
So technically, any food can be part of a healthy
lifestyle just like heroin could be—but the statement
itself leads to idiotic conclusions. It promotes
the idea that there are no “bad foods,”
that all foods are equal and that there’s no basis
for saying “you’re killing us by saturating the
environment with supersized French fries.” It’s
the food equivalent of cultural relativism. The
fact is, it’s not all a matter of opinion—some
food is really, really bad stuff.
JB: So we have a toxic food environment and
that clearly needs to be addressed. Now what
about the individual? What changes do Mr.
and Mrs. Jones need to make to control their
weight?
Jonny: I think we have to get away from the
excessive concentration on calories and start
looking at the hormonal effect that food has
on our bodies. This is where controlled carbohydrate
eating comes in. It’s simply not possible
to lose weight when you’ve got excessive
levels of insulin carousing through your bloodstream.
Insulin prevents fat burning. And
excessive carbohydrates are the greatest cause
of raised levels of insulin.
JB: Are you saying calories don’t count?
Jonny: Not at all. No responsible advocate of
controlled carbohydrate eating would say that.
I’m saying we should stop focusing on calories
exclusively.
JB: But carbs aren’t the only thing that can
raise insulin are they?
Jonny: No. Protein does, but to a lesser extent.
Overeating does. But carbs are the worst
offender. And most of our junk foods—the
vast majority of the “toxic food environment”
we’ve been speaking about—are carb loaded
monstrosities with a hefty dose of trans fats for
good measure.
JB: What about the exercise side of the equation?
Jonny: I’ve got bad news for you. And it’s a
dirty little secret that no one likes to talk about
because we don’t want people to misinterpret
this and think that exercise doesn’t do any
good. We do want people to get off their butts
and get moving. But here’s the secret.
JB: I can’t wait.
Jonny: Exercise is a terrible way to lose weight.
JB: Explain please.
Jonny: It just doesn’t produce much weight
loss. The studies show maybe a couple of
pounds a month if you’re really lucky. Leigh
Broadhurst put it best when she said the kind
of exercise you’re talking about—to really
make a difference in the very overweight
person—is like two hours a day of hard exercise
in cold water without a wet suit.
JB: Why?
Jonny: Because the kind of exercise we suggest
people do—which is a good thing, by the
way—is simply ineffective against a 6,000
calorie a day diet filled with high carb, high
sugar, low fiber crap. It’s like erecting a nice
little picket fence around your house and
hoping it’s going to protect you from a hurricane.
JB: So what should we do?
Jonny: Well, we should definitely, definitely
exercise. In addition to protecting our health
and extending our life, it is one of the single best
markers for predicting if you’re going to keep
weight off once you lose it. People who lose and
don’t exercise rarely keep the weight off.
JB: I sense a “but.”
Jonny: But if you’re counting on a half hour
a day of walking to “get you into shape”
when you’re eating eight meals a week of
supersized food at McDonald’s, you’re
deluding yourself.
JB: So it all comes back to diet.
Jonny: It all comes back to diet. Our genes are
simply not programmed for this environment,
as many of our panelists have eloquently
pointed out. We’ve got perfectly fine genes—
but for the environment of the Savannah
Plain, not the environment of the 7-11. It’s as
if we packed for a trip to Alaska and we took
the absolute greatest clothes—all the latest
insulated, waterproof, zero temperature ready
parkas and down underwear—but then the
plane drops us off in the Virgin Islands.
JB: Okay, give us a to-do list to take home.
Jonny: We’ve got to eat the way we—meaning
all of us—were genetically programmed to eat.
That means food we could have hunted, fished
for, gathered, plucked or grown. And on top of
it, we’ve got to eat way less food, which completely
goes against all social policy and advertising
whose message is “eat more.”
JB: Anything else?
Jonny: Be suspicious of anything with a bar
code or any meal that has “Happy” as a prefix.
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