The False Fat Diet: The Revolutionary 21-Day Program for Losing the Weight You Think Is Fat Mass market paperbound - 2001

First line

I have excellent news.

From the jacket flap

It's a fact: not all weight is really fat. Much of being overweight is caused by allergy-like food reactions. This "false fat" is easy to put on, but it can be hard to take off. Now you can do it--this week--with the revolutionary False Fat Diet. In just a few days, you can lose 5-10 pounds--and 10-20 pounds within two or three weeks. This healthy, practical 21-day nutritional program includes
- Identifying which foods you react to--and replacing them with the right foods for your body chemistry- False Fat Week--the amazing 7-day period when your swelling and puffiness subside, as you lose ten pounds
- The Balance Program--a personally customized diet that returns your metabolism to normal, and takes pounds off steadily as you reach your ideal weight- Delicious, easy-to-prepare, reaction-free recipes, created with popular, health-conscious chefs, that don't drastically cut calories the way other diets do
This scientific, no-hunger, individualized regimen is the only diet that can work for everyone.

Excerpt

1

IT'S NOT FAT
I have excellent news. It's something you haven't heard
before. It's very important.

* You're not nearly as overweight as you may think. Much of your weight
isn't even fat. It's false fat--the bloating and swelling caused by
allergy-like food reactions--and you can shed it almost immediately.

* This false fat is not your fault. You are not a glutton. You're not
lazy. You just have a very common metabolic problem: food reactions.

* You can solve this metabolic problem. The problem is not permanent,
and it's not hard to correct. You can solve it over the next few days.
It need never return.

* When you do solve this problem, you'll regain your power over food. As
your false fat fades, so will your food cravings and certain metabolic
disorders (such as hormone imbalances). Without these food cravings and
metabolic disorders, you'll begin to lose your true fat, steadily and
surely. Even if you now lack full control over your eating habits, you
can take charge again by correcting your food reactions. You can start
taking charge today.

I urge you to carefully consider this great news. It will be your key to
having complete power over what you eat, and over the biochemical
reactions that foods cause in your body. When you have this power, you
will have an entirely new way to solve your weight problem.

You have nothing to gain but knowledge, and nothing to lose but the
false fat that's hurting your appearance and the true fat that's hurting
your health.

When you conquer your food reactions, your appearance, your health, and
your zest for life will improve immeasurably. Things will get better
because you will make them get better. You will finally have that power.
It's true: Knowledge is power.

You really must use the power that this knowledge provides. You owe it
to yourself. You're worth it.

And here is why you probably will use this power: Using it will be more
pleasant than not using it. For the first time in your life, you are
going to enjoy being on a diet. In fact, like most of my patients, you
will almost forget that you are on a diet, because the False Fat Diet is
quite different from every other diet you've ever been on. It is not
based on reducing the quantity of your food. It is based on improving
the quality of your food.

This diet is not even ultimately intended to make you thin--it is
intended to make you healthy. As I often tell my patients, "If you
strive for thin, you'll never win. Strive for health and thin will
follow."

Thus, in the conventional sense of the word, this is not even a diet. It
is an eating strategy. It's a scientifically designed method of giving
you power over food, so that you can make smart food choices.

No one else can make these choices for you, because each of your food
choices must be carefully individualized. Every person reacts
differently to different foods. You are a unique being with your own
special biochemistry and your own one-of-a-kind environment and
activities. There is only one you, doing what you do, eating what you
eat, and meeting the demands that you meet.

Nonetheless, every other diet you've ever been on has been designed for
other people by other people. They have been one-size-fits-all diets,
and that approach simply doesn't work. This time, with The False Fat
Diet, you'll help design your own personalized diet, free of your own
reactive foods. This diet will be your diet. Yours alone. That's why it
will work.

With the help of this book, you'll learn about the qualities and
chemistries of various foods. More important, though, you'll learn about
your own unique body. You'll learn which foods are good for you and
which aren't--and I promise some surprises.

Right now, you may know which foods are healthy for most people. But if
you're basing your own food choices on just this knowledge, you may be
doing yourself more harm than good--because you are not most people.
You're you, and the only diet you'll ever fully succeed on will be your
own individualized diet, free of the particular foods that are healthy
for most people, but harmful for you.

After years of trying unsuccessfully to lose weight, you may be feeling
confused, powerless, frustrated--and hungry. Don't despair! Many of my
patients felt like that before they tried this approach. But most of
them have succeeded beyond their dreams.

Now it's your turn.

It has taken me approximately 20 years to develop and refine the False
Fat Diet. During this time, I have placed hundreds of overweight
patients on the diet and have consistently achieved good, and often
remarkable, results.

The False Fat Diet is based upon a simple, inarguable medical fact: When
people regularly eat foods to which they are reactive, they invariably
suffer (1) tissue swelling, (2) abdominal bloating, and (3) metabolic
disturbances that cause weight gain.

The tissue swelling and abdominal bloating create a false fat that looks
exactly like fat, but is not "true fat," or adipose tissue. This false
fat often adds the appearance of an extra 10 to 25 pounds. The food
reactions that cause false fat are almost never corrected by
conventional weight loss diets.

In addition, metabolic disturbances caused by food reactions create not
just false fat, but also true fat. They create excess adipose tissue by
disrupting the metabolism, by disturbing hormonal balance, and by
creating intense food cravings. Millions of people have become obese
because of these factors.

When my patients go on the False Fat Diet, most of them lose the false
fat of bloating and swelling very quickly and then lose their extra
adipose tissue gradually and steadily.

Over the years, I have seen patients try to lose weight with a number of
other approaches, but no other weight control diet has been nearly as
effective as my False Fat Diet. Other diets fail to keep weight off
permanently because they ignore the terrible burden that food reactions
place upon the body. When this burden is removed, most patients respond
wonderfully well.

Clinical, controlled studies support my belief in the power of this
diet. One important study is detailed on page 15. They irrefutably
demonstrate that many people who have failed on other diets succeed with
this approach.

Food reactions are not the only reason people gain weight. However, they
are an extremely important reason--one that has gone largely unreported,
except in the medical literature. In actuality, an estimated 80% to 90%
of all significantly overweight people suffer from these reactions and
can lose weight if the condition is corrected.

Food reactions consist of food allergies and food sensitivities, which
are similar to allergies. Some doctors refer to all food reactions as
allergies, but most physicians feel that the term reactions is more
accurate, because it's more inclusive. Strictly speaking, classic food
allergies are relatively rare. Food sensitivities, however, are
extremely common.

The incidence of food allergies and sensitivities has recently begun to
increase dramatically for several reasons. The primary reason is that we
eat too many staples, such as wheat, eggs, and milk, which exhaust our
bodies' abilities to digest them. Also, we eat too many packaged,
processed foods, which are loaded with reactive fillers and chemicals,
such as corn syrup, wheat gluten, and MSG. Obesity and digestive
problems, both very common health problems nowadays, also contribute to
food reactions.

The increasing incidence of food reactions is mirrored by a recent sharp
increase in obesity, which rose from 25% of the population in 1985 to
33% today. If this rate continues, by the year 2030 most people in
America will be obese. Childhood obesity has doubled since 1980. Even
now, 60% of the population, while not obese, is overweight. Currently,
obesity kills 300,000 Americans each year--more people than any other
factor except smoking. Overconsumption also stresses digestive functions
and leads to inefficient breakdown of foods and malabsorption of large
molecules of food, which sets up food reactions.

Therefore, I believe that the important effect that food reactions have
upon weight control and digestive health must be brought to the
attention of the American public and the world. At this point in the
history of public health, few things are more vital.

Why This Diet Has Been Successful

The False Fat Diet has been successful because it corrects a serious
biological flaw that has been proven to trigger weight gain.

Throughout the history of medical weight control, the most successful
diets have been those that did not radically restrict calories, but
instead corrected the metabolic problems that most often cause weight
gain. For example, the Sugar Busters diet helped people by showing them
how to correct the biological flaw of insulin instability. Other
successful approaches have included boosting the body's fat-burning
thermogenesis and correcting deficiencies in the brain chemicals that
make people feel satisfied after eating. Correcting biological flaws is
a medically sound approach, because old-fashioned, caloric-restriction
diets have been proven ineffective. They trigger the starvation
response, which slows the metabolism and makes the body hoard its fat.

However, even the most successful prior diets have overlooked a
critically important factor: Most overweight people have individualized
food allergies and sensitivities that subvert the one-size-fits-all
diets, in which all dieters eat the same foods. Therefore, some of the
most popular diets have had high failure rates.

By correcting the common biological flaw of food reactions, though, the
False Fat Diet achieves unprecedented rates of adherence and success.

How It Works: A Quick Overview

The False Fat Diet begins when you determine your own reactive foods,
using either a blood test or an elimination diet, in which you eliminate
foods, then reintroduce them gradually, to see which ones cause
problems. I'll soon tell you about each method.

After you determine your reactive foods, you begin to avoid them during
the first phase of the diet, the Cleansing Phase, which lasts about a
week. During this initial phase, you may even experience withdrawal
symptoms, such as food cravings, irritability, or headaches, as your
body is cleansed of chemicals from reactive foods and as your metabolism
begins to normalize. These temporary symptoms are a sure sign that the
diet is working.

Then you quickly shift into the second phase of the diet, which is False
Fat Week. During this 7- to 10-day period, you will lose your bloating
and swelling and look 10 to 25 pounds thinner. Your energy, motivation,
and well-being will begin to soar.

Then you progress to the third phase of the diet, the Balance Program,
which lasts as long as you want. In the Balance Program, you can eat a
varied, balanced assortment of nonreactive foods. During this phase, you
will probably lose significant amounts of adipose tissue as your
metabolic function improves and your food cravings vanish.

On the Balance Program, you begin to rebuild your metabolic health, and
overcome your food reactions. After 2 to 3 months, you can sometimes
begin to eat even your most reactive foods, without incident. Therefore,
the Balance Program becomes easier as time passes.

During the Balance Program phase, you'll also learn to balance your
lifestyle, as well as your diet, by exercising and reducing stress.
You'll discover that when you proactively follow a healthy, balanced
lifestyle, your weight will naturally diminish and you'll begin to feel
abundantly healthy.

Because the long-term Balance Program is relatively easy and pleasant,
adherence to the diet tends to be excellent. Another major reason
dieters stick to the diet is because it often stops other common
problems caused by food reactions, such as migraines, heartburn,
insomnia, skin rashes, irritable bowel syndrome, nasal congestion,
sinusitis, and recurrent infections. Becoming free from these common
problems is extremely motivating.

During the Balance Program, the maintenance phase, you are free to make
your own food choices from a broad variety of nonreactive foods. In my
medical practice and in this book, I provide several sample menu plans,
with recipes, that serve as guidelines for dieters. The sample menu
plans consist primarily of fresh, whole, unprocessed foods, such as
vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, fowl, and legumes. The diet does not
focus on caloric restriction, although most healthy, nonreactive foods
do tend to be naturally low in calories. As a rule, it's much easier for
dieters to stick to healthy foods on this diet than it is on other
diets, because they are no longer driven by reactive food cravings.

The principle behind this diet is simple: When people stop eating their
own particular reactive foods, their health almost always improves and
their weight normalizes. This uncomplicated principle is powerful--and
proven.

Five Innovations

Because this diet is a new, unique approach, it adds five important
innovations to the battle against obesity. They are:

1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.

2. This diet creates permanent loss of adipose tissue through
avoidance of reactive foods.

3. This diet actually feels good.

4. This diet is notably proactive.

5. This diet is individualized.

Now I'll explain these innovations in a little more detail.

Innovation 1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.

False fat is the unattractive bloating and swelling that makes people
look and feel far more fat than they really are.

No other diet ends the food allergies and sensitivities that cause false
fat. Often, people on other diets look overweight even after their
body-fat ratio has significantly improved because their bodies still
bulge with reactive bloating and swelling.

The human body is composed of approximately 60% to 70% water by weight,
and the vast majority of overweight people carry at least 5 to 10 extra
pounds of water weight at all times. This added poundage is almost
always the result of chronic swelling, or edema, in the tissues, caused
by food reactions.

Unlike the temporary loss of water weight that occurs on some
conventional caloric restriction diets, the loss of water weight on the
False Fat Diet does not occur because of the short-lived effect of
ketosis, the urinary flushing of the fat by-products called ketones.

Instead, it occurs because of ongoing avoidance of the reactive foods
that directly cause systemic edema. A loss of at least 5 to 10 pounds
happens almost immediately and can endure forever. If the person is
notably obese, the water weight loss is even greater. I have observed
permanent decreases in tissue swelling in almost all of my weight-loss
patients, with an accompanying loss of weight.

Although the false fat of edema is not adipose tissue, it is notably
uncomfortable and unattractive, as every woman who gains water weight
prior to menstruation already knows. In fact, people with allergic
reactive edema frequently look even fatter than people who have more
true fat, because edematous puffiness generally collects in the places
that are most noticeable--in the face, the abdomen, the buttocks, the
thighs, and the ankles. In the face, it often creates a plump, puffy
appearance and a sagging double chin. In the thighs, it contributes
greatly to the dimpling of cellulite; that's why temporary gimmicks,
such as thigh wraps that squeeze water away, improve the appearance of
cellulite for a short time.

Food allergies and sensitivities cause edema in much the same way that
hay fever allergies cause the nasal tissues and eyes to become swollen
and watery. When the digestive system is not able to break down foods,
food molecules enter the system only partly digested. The immune system
then targets these molecules as foreign invaders. It surrounds them with
water, as part of the inflammatory response, in an attempt to flush them
away. As more reactive foods are introduced, cells become congested with
water, resulting in tissue swelling. Fortunately, hay fever season ends
when pollen production stops. Food allergies and sensitivities, however,
continue indefinitely; their season never ends--unless we end it.

The only way to overcome this phenomenon permanently is to avoid
ingesting the reactive foods or to overcome your reaction to them. The
False Fat Diet is the only diet that helps patients achieve both of
these objectives.

As cellular swelling and tissue swelling subside, generally during the
first week of the False Fat Diet, so does abdominal bloating. Abdominal
bloating, which can add two to three inches to the waistline, is partly
caused by the chronic retention of gas in the GI tract, particularly in
the small intestine, where reactive foods "stall." Partially digested
dairy products, for example, often ferment in the intestine for more
than a day and cause considerable bloating. In addition, gut tissues
themselves often swell with fluid and distend the abdomen. This
abdominal distension caused by gas and fluid can create a "pregnant" or
a "beer belly" look. Because the intestines are more than 20 feet in
length, but are compressed into a small area, even moderate increases in
gas and fluid retention greatly increase the gut's volume. When people
on other diets fail to overcome this bloating, because they are still
consuming reactive foods, they typically become discouraged.

On the False Fat Diet, my patients have found that this bloating was
mostly resolved within three to five days. Many patients have quickly
achieved flat stomachs, often after years of unproductive sit-ups and
skipped meals. Bloating never returns, if the patient adheres to the
diet and then overcomes his or her food reactions. In almost all cases,
this quick success is very motivating.

As patients swiftly shed the false fat of edema and bloating, they often
achieve the permanent appearance of a 15- to 25-pound weight loss. These
fast, enduring results propel dieters into the Balance Program, which is
the most rewarding phase of all. In this phase, they cast off resistant
pounds of true fat.

Innovation 2. This diet creates permanent loss of adipose tissue through
avoidance of reactive foods.

As false fat dissolves, so does true fat. The same reactive false fat
foods that cause swelling and bloating also trigger biological disasters
that usually result in weight gain. The two primary disasters are food
cravings and metabolic disorders.

Food Cravings

Food reactions are the single most common cause of the cravings that
destroy diets. These cravings, which are far harder to resist than mere
hunger, are similar to the physical urges experienced by alcoholics or
cigarette smokers.

As long as a reactive food is in a person's system, it prevents
discomfort, just as drinking alcohol prevents an alcoholic's discomfort.
Food reactions can even cause the release of the body's own opiates,
which is partly why you can become "addicted" to certain foods. As
reactive foods begin to leave the system, though, discomfort begins--just
as anxiety and malaise occur when an alcoholic stops drinking. The
withdrawal symptoms of food allergies and sensitivities are strongest
for about two days, until the reactive foods are cleared from the body.

Conventional diets, unfortunately, usually allow people to eat reactive
foods almost every day, and this perpetuates the allergic addiction of
food reactions, just as ingesting alcohol or drugs every day would whet
the self-destructive appetites of substance abusers.

For many years, it was presumed that most overweight people lacked
willpower, but recent research on weight control indicates that
overweight people have essentially the same level of emotional strength
as thin people. A great many overweight people aren't weak--they're just
trapped by the overpowering force of allergic addiction.

Many overweight people develop reactive cravings for junk food and
sweets, but others crave "healthy" foods. One patient of mine, for
example, gradually developed a reactive craving for orange juice and
grape juice, and ended up drinking about 1,000 calories' worth of these
juices every day. She was convinced that juice was healthy for everyone.
But she had never been informed that the tartaric acid in grapes and the
citric acid in oranges can cause reactions in some people.

Metabolic Disorders

Food allergies and sensitivities contribute strongly to several
catastrophic disorders of metabolism:

* They interfere with the hormonal balance of the endocrine system,
including the thyroid and adrenal glands. This makes it harder for the
body to burn stored fat.

* They disturb insulin levels, even in people who are able to maintain
normal function of the thyroid and adrenals. This signals the body to
convert food energy into fat, and also contributes to hypoglycemia.

* They cause mood chemistry disruptions. Food reactions cause levels of
the calming neurotransmitter serotonin to plummet, leading to
depression, anxiety, and compulsive urges, all of which commonly trigger
overeating. Serotonin instability also exacerbates many physical
disorders, including migraines, premenstrual syndrome, fibromyalgia, and
irritable bowel syndrome. These troublesome conditions often disrupt
healthy eating patterns.

* They cause energy and immune dysfunction. Food allergies and
sensitivities markedly decrease energy, contribute to

insomnia, and dysregulate immunity (because food reactions are usually
malfunctions of the immune response). All three of these problems
interfere greatly with the ability to exercise. They also contribute
markedly to the previously mentioned metabolic disorders.

In addition, food allergies and sensitivities indirectly contribute to
the occurrence of candida yeast colonization in mucosal membranes, which
causes symptoms similar to those of chronic fatigue syndrome and causes
bloating. Unfortunately, yeast colonization then exacerbates food
reactions.

The biological disasters that accompany chronic food reactivity occur in
a self-perpetuating cycle, as you can see in the diagram on page 14.

Innovation 3. This diet actually feels good.

When I put patients on the False Fat Diet, I am helping cure them of a
serious medical disorder--the medical condition of food reactions. Like
patients who suffer other medical conditions, these patients, when cured
of their allergies and sensitivities, feel better. They have notably
more energy. They have better cognitive function. They have fewer aches
and pains, in both joints and muscles. Their moods improve appreciably,
and they experience significantly less depression, anxiety, and
compulsivity. They experience fewer minor illnesses. They breathe more
freely. They have far fewer PMS symptoms. They have much less heartburn
and gastroesophageal reflux. They have fewer migraine and tension
headaches. They are far less likely to suffer from irritable bowel
syndrome, eczema, hives, recurrent urinary tract infections, or
recurrent vaginitis. They have less insomnia. And, of course, they have
fewer cravings for foods.

I have seen this occur in hundreds of allergy and overweight patients.
The table on page 15 presents the results of a study of improvements in
the quality of life of patients on an allergy-free weight-loss diet. All
of the patients in this study identified their food reactions by using
the ALCAT cell-reaction testing system, which I'll describe later.

No other diet offers these improvements in quality of life.

Of course, many diets justifiably claim that when patients overcome
obesity, they become less susceptible to heart disease, diabetes, and
some forms of cancer. However, with most other diets, you've got to
suffer to get there. With the False Fat Diet, getting there is half the
fun.

The False Fat Diet feels good simply because people who engage in it are
generally cured of a medical disorder and become healthier. With the
False Fat Diet, patients don't become healthy by becoming thin, they
become thin by becoming healthy.

Obviously, these quality-of-life side benefits are a tremendous
motivating factor for patients. By far the biggest reason that people
fail to achieve long-term success on most diets is because the diets are
unpleasant. My patients, though, tend to have superior long-term
adherence rates because they feel good on this diet.

Furthermore, they don't feel good when they go off the diet and eat
their reactive foods, because their uncomfortable symptoms return. This
negative reinforcement also makes adherence easier. It's similar to how
easy it can be to avoid red wine after you've learned that it gives you
migraines. You may miss the wine somewhat, but your main association
with it is pain, not pleasure.

Innovation 4. This diet is notably proactive.

On most diets, it's not what you do that counts, it's what you don't do:
You don't eat much. Often, the very best thing the dieter can do is to
passively do nothing.

On the False Fat Diet, which focuses more on regaining health, fitness,
and body shape than losing scale weight, patients participate in their
own recovery from food reactions and obesity. They actively rebuild
their health by following a systematic program of rejuvenation.

The simplistic notion that weight control depends almost solely upon how
much you eat and how many calories you burn through exercise is
outdated. Even the most deadly diseases, such as cancer and
cardiovascular disease, are caused by multiple factors and respond best
to multidimensional healing approaches--and weight control is no
different. Weight control is not as simple as "You are what you eat."
Your weight is also influenced by what you breathe, what you do, what
you drink, and even what you think. For example, toxins that congest the
liver deter the liver from emulsifying fat. Therefore, the toxic
additives in a synthetic nonfat food might cause a greater weight gain
than ingestion of a similar full-fat, natural food. Toxin-induced weight
gain is common because so many artificial flavors are added to foods,
along with preservatives and fillers. (In fact, the average person eats
about 5 pounds of these additives each year.)

By the same token, chronic exposure to stress impairs adrenal and
thyroid activity, which can result in weight gain--even without
overeating.

Therefore, my weight control patients engage in comprehensive,
individualized health-building programs. They practice various
detoxification measures, such as short cleansing fasts, intestinal
cleansing, saunas, dry skin brushing, and use of detoxifying herbs and
nutrients. They take individualized dietary supplements to nurture their
organs and glands of digestion and immunity, to increase energy, and to
stimulate and support metabolism. They do aerobic and weight-training
exercise, not just to burn calories, but also to eliminate toxins and
improve metabolism. They practice various forms of stress management.
They also work on curing individual metabolic problems, such as
candidiasis.

All of these efforts help their bodies overcome allergies and
sensitivities and regain health. In addition, these activities help
shift people's focus away from scale weight to health and vitality. When
my patients embrace the concept of becoming as healthy as possible,
their food reactions invariably diminish, and their weight decreases
almost automatically.

Furthermore, when my patients stay busy by proactively participating in
a multifaceted program, it often ends their emotional obsession with
food. This obsession is relatively common among dieters, especially when
they have fought allergic addictions during years of restrictive diets.

Innovation 5. This diet is individualized.

Conventional weight-loss diets recommend the same dietary program for
almost every person. Most diets do not even endorse the most rudimentary
elements of individualization, such as adjusting portion sizes in
relation to a person's weight and level of activity. For example, an
obese 250-pound male construction worker would be advised to eat the
same menu plan as a 130-pound female office worker.

The only recent diet that attempted to individualize its program was one
that based four diets on the four main blood types. My own clinical
observation of this diet was that it did work well initially for some
dieters--mostly those who significantly altered their food choices. In
fact, other diets also work well initially, when people radically change
the types of foods they eat. I believe that the reason this happens is
because engaging in full-scale dietary change generally forces people to
abandon the frequently eaten foods to which they've become reactive. If
someone has been eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for years,
they may lose weight when they switch to a higher-protein diet, since it
will exclude many of their reactive foods. Therefore, rigid, extremist
diets often work well in the early stages.

However, in the long term, people tend to develop new reactions to the
foods they eat too frequently. This undoubtedly contributes to the
eventual failure of many of the rigid diets.

On the False Fat Diet, though, patients comfortably participate for
years at a time in the Balance Program, in which they eat their own
varied, balanced regimen of wholesome, nonreactive foods. This prevents
new food allergies and sensitivities and provides the wide array of
nutrients the body needs to heal.

Each patient's program is somewhat different because each patient is
different. On this diet you will not only learn your own reactive foods,
but will also determine your own metabolic type. Your metabolic type
largely governs the general kind of diet that you will thrive upon. For
example, some dieters do best on an essentially vegetarian diet, while
others do better on a diet that contains a moderate amount of meat and
other animal protein. People with naturally efficient digestive
metabolisms tend to do better on slowly oxidized foods, such as meat,
while people with sluggish metabolisms generally fare better on quickly
oxidized foods, such as fruits and vegetables. You will determine your
own metabolic type by responding to the questionnaire in Chapter 9 on
page 244 - 245.

You will probably discover that the False Fat Diet will be a pleasant
return to the more balanced eating patterns you enjoyed before you began
to engage in extremist, one-size-fits-all diets. Many of my patients
have found that they can eat tempting foods that have long been denied
to them, as long as they stay away from their reactive foods.

To recognize your reactive foods, however, you need the help of either a
consulting physician or this book, because many reactive foods are
hidden. For example, if your reactive food is corn, you need to become
aware of all the foods in which corn products appear, including corn
syrup, which is placed in hundreds of processed foods.

When patients first consult with me, they often presume that they have
to give up all their favorite foods and suffer to be thin. But that's
just not true. When my patients begin the False Fat Diet and start
eating normal portions of a wide variety of foods, including foods that
they had denied themselves for years, it can feel like a homecoming.
Then when they quickly lose the swelling and bloating of false fat and
begin to drop pound after pound of true fat, they sometimes are
incredulous about the long melodrama of yo-yo dieting they had endured.
They sometimes ask themselves, "Is this really all there is to it? Why
didn't someone mention this sooner?"

The Development of the Diet:A Short History

The False Fat Diet was painstakingly developed through my large clinical
practice over more than two decades. Most of the people who have been on
the False Fat Diet have been my own patients or patients of my
associates at the Preventive Medical Center of Marin, north of San
Francisco. The first person to go on the diet, however, was not one of
these patients--it was me.

In 1975, when I was just beginning my medical practice, I attended a
lecture on the potential health benefits of short juice fasts. I decided
to go on a lemonade fast myself for a few days, to see if it would
produce any discernible improvements. I enjoyed it. It made me feel more
energetic and clearheaded. Hoping to prolong my improved sense of
vitality, I began to add foods back to my diet gradually, sticking to
just healthy, whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Then,
during the first ten days of my new diet, a remarkable thing happened. I
lost almost 15 pounds.

Media reviews

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