The Diet

Fibre

Probably the most astounding thing about this program is how really easy it is to follow.

The diet of high fibre strategy is formulated to provide your body with the food it is designed to consume.

Technology has revolutionised the food that most people eat today compared with what was consumed only 100 years ago.

Yet it would take our bodies thousands of years to evolve to the stage where it could properly digest the food we now eat.

For the average person most of the calories required are just for maintaining the basic body functions such as digestion, breathing etc.

Since the typical modern diet is so mismatched of the human body in evolutionary terms, we need to rematch this evolutionary balance in order to attain successful and permanent weight loss-as well as good health.

The High Fibre diet strategy is formulated to provide your body with the food it is designed to consume

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So what foods is our body is designed to eat?
Anthropologist's have discovered that our early ancestors ate mainly fruit, and that our current digestive system is very similar to our fruit eating cousins, the apes. However, we are not suggesting that the only way to slimness, health and happiness is to live on bananas and grapefruits.

Just remember that fresh fruit is a very important part of a healthy diet and the nutrients it provides give us a good indication of what our bodies need.

Most people feel that they already know what is good for them-or, at least, they know what they like!-And in the wake of pronouncements by experts about what we should or should not be eating, the issue has almost become one of human rights for some junk food addicts! Yet although we may think that our eyes, noses and mouths tell us what is good, our senses sometimes deceive us.

These reactions are leftover from prehistory when initially mothers milk, and then the ripe fruits which forms the basic diet by ancestors, would be sweet and - in the case of fruits - shiny and highly coloured.

Our senses are now being tricked, so that our primeval reactions to sweet, shiny, brightly coloured (but healthy) foods are being abused by food industry dedicated to making it sweet, shiny, highly coloured - and processed - products attractive and profitable, regardless of the cost to our health.
Their success and deceiving our senses is illustrated by the fact that some people are now being diagnosed as suffering from marginal malnutrition as a result of living on junk food and in children this has been linked with learning difficulties. So what food should we be eating and how do we avoid junk food?.

Not All Food Is the Same
food is the fuel on which our bodies run, and it will work better when running on high-quality fuel. The quality of food is determined by the extent of which it provides the nutrients essential for creating and maintaining life, for providing energy and growth and repairs.
These nutrients are: vitamins, minerals, amino acids (from protein), glucose (from carbohydrates), lipids (from fats) and water.

We also need fibre to help food and waste products passed smoothly through our digestive system.
However different foods provide varying amounts of these nutrients and also different amounts of calories (the units used to measure the amount of energy and food). If we consume too many calories, the surplus is stored in our bodies as fat.

The answer is they all contain roughly the same amount --

1300 calories

In fact, they have about as many calories as the daily allowance in most standard diets.

You could choose any one of them for your daily diet and probably lose weight, but there are two major problems.

Firstly, they contain entirely different quantities, and quality of nutrients.

A comparison between the chocolate and the celery highlights the difference.

                        Fat   Fibre   Vit C    Sugar   Calories
8 oz chocolate   65 g   -             -       100 g        1300

50 sticks celery -    190 g   750 mg      -             1300

To our bodies either of these present something of an over dose, but they react quite differently to overdosing on the vitamin C and fibre (which can be expelled quite easily and healthily) as compared with the fat in the sugar (which only serve to make as fat and unhealthy).

When you see a chocolate bar advertised as a high-energy snack, what this really means is a highly fat and sugar snack.

Secondly, the list demonstrates one other important quality that some foods are easier to eat than others.

For instance, the big Mac french fries and thick shake can be devoured in as little as 2 to 3 min by voracious youngsters outside a fast food outlet-just as a snack. And for those of us with a sweet tooth - how long would the chocolate last fall?. Nor would it stop us feeling hungry for the rest of the day considering the effects of the sugar it would make us hungrier!

But how long would it take is to eat eight baked potatoes, or 65 figs, or worse still 250 sticks of celery? For most of us it would be physically impossible to consume most of these within the course of a day, because we have natural control mechanisms which restrict their appetites than natural foods and tell us that we are full.
One of our biggest allies in this is fibre, which would be present in large quantities in these amounts, but hardly (or not at all) in the process snack or chocolate.

Incidentally we can see here the origin of certain "miracle food" diets, based on eating unlimited quantities of one particular food or another. It is practically impossible to overheat on one type of food - as long as it is natural and unprocessed -but this is unlikely to provide all the nutrients needed by the body and so will not be healthy.

The Food We Need And The Food We Eat.

We have already established that the nutrients we need are vitamins, minerals, amino acids (from protein) glucose (from carbohydrates), lipids (from fats ) and water, plus fibre. 100 years ago, eating a reasonable quantity of variety of the food is available would have probably given sufficient amounts of all the nutrients needed, without making us fat. However, the changes in the average diet since then have sent these nutritional requirements out of balance.

Vitamins and Minerals.

These are required only in small doses and are supplied by a balanced diet of different foods. Severe cases of vitamin deficiency are rare in Western countries but their resort was a problem where diets have too little food, or to few variations of nutritious food. Of the many dieters falls victim to vitamin and mineral deficiencies because their diets concentrated on one particular type of food, the High Fibre diet is well balanced and in combination with some exercise will ensure that you become slim as well as properly nourished!
Amino Acids.
These are needed to build muscles, blood, skin, hair, nails, and the internal organs, and are essential in our diet. They are made from proteins, and it is highly unlikely that anyone in a western country would eat insufficient protein.

If anything, we far more than we need, which gives rise to a number of problems. Firstly, protein is normally found only in foods which are quite high in fat, such as cheese (33% fat) and roast meat (26% fat), so that by eating more protein than we need, we also consume far more fat than we need. However we can keep excess fat to a minimum by eating lean meat, chicken, whitefish and low-fat cheese.

Glucose.
Provides our basic supply of energy and is produced from the digestion of carbohydrates. The Western diet does not tend to be high in carbohydrates -but unfortunately the wrong kind. This is led to much confusion for dieters, who associate all carbohydrates fattening foods. A diet should be high in complex or unrefined carbohydrates such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains cereals and cereal products such as wholemeal bread. One reason for this is that it ensures that we eat plenty of fibre, is fibre is in fact part of complex carbohydrates for which the body does not digests.

Lipids.
Lipids are the most concentrated source of energy in the body, acting as an energy store and a carrier for certain essential vitamin , as well as protecting the organs and insulating the body. They are supplied to the body from the facts that we eat, therefore some fat in the diet is essential. The problem is that we all tend to eat far too much fat - often without realising it; in fact, on average 40% of their calories come from fat!.
Fat contains twice as many calories as protein or carbohydrate, weight for weight, and usually comes in very concentrated form: 1 ounce of butter contains over 200 cal, about the same as three slices of bread or 40 sticks of celery. Animal fat increases cholesterol levels in the blood, which are linked to a variety of health problems.

Water
Pure Water is a liquid fuel upon which your body depends. It is vital for the correct operation of the liver and kidneys, which flush away toxins, as well as for a whole host of other important biological functions. In the Western diet water tends to come from polluted sources such as tea, coffee and alcohol, which are loaded with toxins. Alcohol by far is the worst problem in that it is high in calories, stimulates the diet and dehydrates the body.
Have bodies need water in as pure state as possible -remember that some fat is caused by toxins which the body cannot eliminate, and the best way to ensure that the liver and kidneys are operating at maximum efficiency to clear toxins is to drink as much pure water as you can.
Tapwater is no longer as pure as it should be in many places in the world, and is best filtered before drinking. Some of the most expensive spring waters -including those in fancy packages - can give you a most unwelcome dose of sodium and nitrates amongst other things, especially if you drink several litres per day. So choose carefully and ensure that you by the brands with the lowest sodium nitrate content.

Fibre.
Fibre is the indigestible part of carbohydrates, and although it cannot make you lose weight by itself, it plays a very important role in a healthy diet.
As far as losing weight is concerned, fibre content is vitally important. It requires more chewing, so that we cannot just swallow it without realising how much we are eating, it absorbs water and swells in the stomach so that we feel full sooner. The fibre in naturally sweet foods, such as dried fruit also prevents the rebound effect of refined sugars.

Sugars
refined sugar is probably the worst food of the lot. It is high in calories, has certain bad effects on our bodies, is putting most manufactured foods and yet has no nutritional value whatsoever. It certainly is not a food we have evolved to eat - refined sugar did not exist 250 years ago -yet the average Westerner consumes about 500 cal a day which is between one half and one third of the days calorific allowance on most diets.
The problem is made worse with convenience food whether sugar is effectively hidden. Apart from the obvious calorie problem posed for the diet by sugar, it also plays another devious trick: it is converted almost instantly to glucose, but not a form which is usable for energy. It is absorbed by the bloodstream through the roof of the mouth and so provides an instant "hit". Reacting to this overdose the body releases insulin to quickly lower the blood sugar level, the body craves more sugar - and feels hunger, even though there is no need for food.

Salt.
The typical Western diet contains very high quantities of salt although, as with sugar, much of this comes from processed foods where it is used as a preservative, leavening agent and flavour and handset. Salt is particularly associated with water retention and high blood pressure: it force of water out of the body's cells into surrounding tissue, so that the cells have to replace the lost water from the food we eat the liquids we drink. The body therefore becomes bloated with excess water, which causes a gain in weight. It also makes elimination of waste more difficult because the water needed for elimination has been devoted to replace that loss from the cells.

Food Basis of the High Fibre Diet.
It is --:
balanced in vitamin, minerals and other nutrients.
Low in fat.
High in water.
High in fibre.
Low in sugar and salt.

250 sticks celery ?

How digestion works and how it affects your weight.

The first stage of food digestion is in the mouth. Enzymes and saliva carry out the initial part of carbohydrate digestion; unless the food is properly chewed, saliva and its enzyme ptyalin, will not be generated, and the carbohydrates will pass into the stomach in a form which cannot be further digestive by the body. The body can only use the nutrients found in carbohydrates if these are properly digested - and they cannot go through the next stage of digestion in the stomach and small intestine unless they have already been partly broken down in the mouth.

Carbohydrates require and alkaline medium for further digestion in the stomach, and this is stimulated by the action of ptyalin in the mouth. The stomach is naturally acid, but not sufficiently so as to interfere with the level of alkalinity needed in the stomach to further break down the carbohydrates for their final stage of digestion in the small intestine.

However proteins require an acid medium for digestion. They are unaffected by ptyalin and their first stage of digestion is in the stomach, where the facts are broken up by hydrochloric acid. The enzyme pepsin then acts with the acid to digests proteins into amino acids. And if carbohydrates and protein are eaten together, the alkaline and acid medium is required for further effective digestion are interfered with or neutralised.

The effects of this varied considerably from person to person; in some people it makes little difference, whereas it can dominate the lives of others. The main result of inadequate protein digestion is allergies - and of inadequate carbohydrate digestion, flatulence and digestion.

But this imbalance body chemistry is also associated with constipation, other writers, diabetes, skin diseases, colds, headaches, tooth decay and obesity.
The rationale for this is while the body is trying to cope with the digestive chaos caused by eating carbohydrates and proteins together, it can also use its natural healing processes to deal with the routine health problems.

Changing the way that we combine foods is not a cure for the body's ailments: it simply removes the obstacles that prevent the body from healing itself.
Proteins can be defined as foods with more than 20% concentration of protein such as meat, poultry, fish and cheese. Although these do contain some carbohydrates it is in the form of glycogen which requires little digestion and so does not interfere with the acid medium necessary for proper protein digestion.
Carbohydrates can be similarly defiant as foods with more than 20% concentration of carbohydrate such as bread, cereals and potatoes. Although these contain some protein it is in an incomplete, and concentrated for and so does not interfere with the alkaline medium needed for proper carbohydrate digestion.

The one exception to the rule of the legumes - dried peas, beans, lentils and peanuts - which have high concentrations of both protein and carbohydrate.
The High Fibre Diet follows the principles of food combining - the basic rule of not eating concentrated carbohydrate and protein at the same meal.