The Power of Metabolism - Contradictions

Sections

Chapter: A Giant Problem

Contradictions

There are subjects that are controversial by nature. Topics like politics or religion. But the subject of dieting, in addition to being controversial, is full of contradictions. The contradictions between different diets range from eating lots of fat, lots of protein and almost no carbohydrates (Dr. Atkins' diet) to the exact opposite recommendation of eating no fat, no or very little protein and lots of carbohydrates (Dr. Pritikin's diet). Pritikin diet). These are contradictions to each other. As a result, the public is generally confused about dieting.

The reality is that when a person goes to a bookstore with the idea of looking for a book that recommends what kind of diet they should follow, they can be totally confused by an endless variety of different diets. Each one of them is recommended as the best diet. Many of the books are written by people with degrees in medicine, nutrition, physics or chemistry. They all recommend some type of diet that will solve everything for the person who wants to lose weight. The approaches are as varied as calorie control, fat reduction, vegetarianism, fruit juice diets, diets to eliminate dairy or wheat, diets to consume only products in their natural state and diets of a thousand other types. In short, confusion.

Then there are the fad diets: Atkins diet, Scarsdale diet, Pritikin diet, South Beach diet, Sugar Busters diet, Caveman diet and the list goes on and on, and it gets endless.

In my quest to find which diet worked best for me to lose weight I think I tried just about all of them. I found that the diet that made me lose the most weight was the Dr. Atkins diet which is a low carbohydrate diet. But, I noticed that this diet also made me horribly weak. I even got sick. I finally came to the conclusion that it is an extreme diet that cannot be used as a lifestyle because it is too limited in food selection and uses too much red meat and bacon which are not necessarily the best type of food for the body.

Searching and looking for alternatives I became interested in observing that people from the Mediterranean Sea have the lowest statistics of obesity and heart problems. That let me know that I should look at the type of food they eat in the Mediterranean area. I also observed that the diet of the Mediterranean Sea allows eating everything but without abusing refined carbohydrates such as bread, rice and sugar. In the Mediterranean we eat a lot of fish and seafood, a lot of salad and a very hard bread that contains a lot of fiber. There they drink wine, eat cheese daily and use hams such as prosciutto, which is a type of Serrano ham. In that area people do not use large amounts of sugar. In those countries they enjoy butter and practically everything is cooked with olive oil. I thought I could learn from them.

I was experimenting with different proportions of foods and found that if I reduced refined carbohydrates (bread, flour, rice, potatoes, sweets, sugar, etc.) I could lose weight without the need to totally eliminate carbohydrates. I realized that it was more a matter of the QUALITY of the carbohydrates than the quantity of the carbohydrates. I found that if I reduced industrial oils such as corn and vegetable oils and replaced them with olive oil I could lose weight. The use of vegetables and salads also became a help. I found that a moderate regimen of reduced refined carbohydrates accompanied by good protein (chicken, turkey, fish, seafood) and plenty of water produced a remarkable feeling of well-being.

Later, when I created Natural Slim, I applied this knowledge and began to see impressive results in people who ate this way. Person after person the fat was leaving the body and the person always felt very energetic and did not experience hunger or anxiety.

So the basic concept of a Mediterranean diet was what worked for me with thousands and thousands of people. Good proteins (meats, fish, seafood, whey protein), vegetables, salads, cheese, eggs and little bread, little flour, little rice, few starches (potato, cassava, yautia, etc.) and little sugar. I discovered that we don't have to forbid ourselves anything. It is a matter of avoiding or reducing those foods that reduce metabolism and make us put on weight: refined carbohydrates.

____________________________________

1 The Mediterranean refers to the area where the Mediterranean Sea is located where countries such as Italy, Greece, Israel and Egypt are located.