Dr. Heidi Introduces ER live...

Here is the ER Fat Burn info call we did Thursday evening, August 28.

Give it time to download ok?

Part I (45 minutes)

Part II (35 minutes - Q & A)

If you prefer to see an animated cartoon I made, go here.

Dr. Heidi's website describing the ER Fat Burn program is here.

Her first week at the gym...

Thanks, Gwen! (Warning: a few swear words towards the end.)

A WOMAN'S WEEK AT THE GYM

This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine.

"Dear Diary,

"For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

"I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Brad, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

"_____ MONDAY: Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Brad waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!!

"Brad gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring! Brad was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!

"_____ TUESDAY: I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Brad made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Brad's rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT-!! It's a whole new life for me.

"_____ WEDNESDAY: The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn't try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.

"Brad was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.

"My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Brad put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Brad told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other shit too. _____

"THURSDAY : Brad was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't help being a half an hour late, it took me that long to tie my shoes. Brad took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent some skinny bitch to find me. Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine -- which I sank.

"_____ FRIDAY : I hate that Brad more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, little #@*.

"If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it. Brad wanted me to work on my triceps. I don't have any triceps! And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich.

"The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

"_____ SATURDAY : Brad left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing him made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.

"_____ SUNDAY : I'm having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter (the little shit) will choose a gift for me that is fun -- like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds."

To the gym, anyone?

New animation I just did to introduce the ER program startingSept 6, which, um, requires no exercise.

Weight, Weill and Taubes...

The opinions and controversy continue...but this is enlightening of the attitudes out there...

Journalist Gary Taubes wrote the 600 page book - Bad Calories, Good Calories. It's challenging old beliefs about why so many people are overweight (and don't feel good). MD Andrew Weill endorses it, saying that most of the beliefs and causes given for overweight and obesity the last 50 years are based on "nothing." That's even though he has his own books and diets he promotes.

Taubes' book, plus 15 intense years in nutrition and weight field and personal work with hundreds of clients, is part of the basis of Dr. Heidi's ER Fat Burn Cycle of her ER program.

New Cartoon: Is ER like Atkins?

Click here for the latest Big Screen 4 minute cartoon intro to the ER weight control program.

Just getting started learning how to do this stuff. Suggestions welcome!

If you have a slow connection, the sound will hiccup. Remember - turn on your sound!

Below is the YouTube version. Not as beautiful, but it works.

Click here to hear part I a recent call (45 minutes, part I) where Dr. Heidi introduced ER Fat Burn Formula.

Part II Click here to hear part II 35 mins (Q & A)

"Why not just buy the Atkins or South Beach Diet book?"

I mean if it's just low carb. (Which it's not just). That's way cheaper than paying for the ER Fat Burn program (which is $445+ depending on your option).

So wrote one gal.. (Forget that the ER I fat burn stage is just one of the cycles in the ER program...)

Still, good point.

Years ago I was at Harvard and got a Master's degree. I don't recall what the tuition was, but it was in the tens of thousands of dollars for a packed one year course of study.

I guess I could have just bought the books assigned for the classes and done it myself.

Would have been waaaay cheaper.

But I wanted teachers to guide me, to instruct me. I wanted to be around other students who were going through the process and looking for the same things I was.

I wanted to immerse myself because then I knew I'd do it. I wanted an experience. And so I paid the big dollars because that is what I wanted. AND I bought the books.

So it all depends on what one seeks. Do you want an experience or a how-to book? (yes the ER book is in the works) Depending on what you want, you buy the books or manuals, or, you seek out an experience and immerse yourself with guides and like-minded people on the same journey with you.

Think?

A little movie is coming about ER soon. Heheh.

Behind the scenes about exercise and weight

I've always been a fitness nut. I run or play tennis every day and have for probably 30 years. I miss exercise maybe one day a month. The other days - I go an hour at least. Love it.

This past Spring, I decided to learn how to film, and Dr. Heidi's nutrition course in CA was perfect timing. So I went out there. Once a week, I was in on the 4 hour seminar with her students. Of course me with all my camera gear.

It happened that I'd let myself go a little. Wine too often at dinner a few months in a row put on some weight in the middle I didn't want. The evening desserts, even though they were raw yogurts with a little maple syrup, were becoming too regular.

So I put on like 7-8 pounds and I hated how it looked and felt.

Anyway, during this 7 week nutrition course, Dr. Heidi assigned all the students to select a different eating and drinking regime so they could experience the effects.

They all chose an approach from the many options offered by different doctors and nutrition experts that Dr. Heidi presented during the course.

For herself, Dr. Heidi decided to do a "beast and blubber" extreme regime. Inspired by Gary Taubes' book, Bad Calories, Good Calories. (Dr. Heidi does NOT recommend the B&B regime to ER Fat Burn participants. It was her personal experiment. She'd tried everything else.)

She went from eating almost nothing but organic veggies and salads to only fish, chicken, and beef. All grass-fed, pastured, nothing from any industrial feed lot.

So I decided to do that too, although not quite as extreme. I went from one giant salad a day to one per week. Veggies were cut back 80%. For 6 weeks.

Of course, I did my daily runs as I've done all these years.

Results: 6 weeks later, the extra 7-8 pounds were gone. I felt like my old self again.

I'm less extreme now, but have discovered that my body doesn't need as many veggies as I thought it did, especially when I don't eat any junk carbs or industrial food.

So for me exercise had nothing whatever to do with the weight and lump loss.

Like the famous guru said, "Believe nothing. Try it for yourself and see if it agrees with you or not." Different strokes for different folks. I try something different only if what I've been doing before isn't giving me the results I want. Since I don't pretend I can predict, I test new things.

You?



Sept Extreme Regime starts SAT, Sept 6 (that's the first group call).
3 Active spots left. See here.

P.S. Speaking of runners, Danish investigators reported that they trained sedentary individuals to run marathons. After an 18-month training period, the 18 men in the study lost an average of 5 lbs of body fat. The 9 women had no change in body composition. (Reported in Taubes, p. 267.)

Dr. Hedi's ER Fat Burn program is a first practical application of Gary Taubes' meticulous analysis of 150 years of weight and obesity research described in his 2007 601-page book (featured in the NYTimes), Bad Calories, Good Calories. Dr. Andrew Weil has fully endorsed Taubes' work, telling Larry King Live:

"[Gary Taubes] has done a meticulous job of showing that many of the assumptions that are held by the conventional medical community simply rest on nothing…It’s very important to get these out to the medical community because a lot of the ways we try and prevent and treat obesity are based on assumptions that have no scientific evidence.” (emphasis added, KK).

Should fat people just vomit?

That's what one commenter on this blog (Shelley) suggests to people in the ER Fat Burn program who had lost weight without exercising.

Appalled that ER Fat Burn does not mandate exercise to lose weight, she asks the participants: "if losing weight is your only goal, why not eat whatever you want and then just go to the bathroom and stick your fingers down your throat."

This commenter is not alone in insisting that overweight people must exercise to lose weight. If they don't exercise, that means they're lazy. And they might as well do what desperate people do...become bulimic.

Another commenter to the same post (Nancy) wrote:

"Some trainers and weight-loss experts automatically equate weight with laziness. There's a real Puritan streak making itself known here:

Fat= lazy = bad.
Exercise = penance = redemption."

Seems intuitive, doesn't it? Even the Surgeon General and the USDA insist on "physical activity" to overcome the nation's obesity and overweight.

But is that right? It was also "obvious" once upon a time that the earth was flat.

Rigorous research surveys of the effects of exercise on weight loss, show that

"it takes far too much activity to burn up enough calories for a significant weight loss." -Feinstein, Journal of Chronic Disease (in Taubes, 2007 p. 260).

And

"Recent reports from the USDA have advocated ever more physical activity for adults -- now up to ninety minutes a day of moderate-intensity exercise. They have done so precisely because the evidence in support of the [weight loss-exercise link] hypothesis is so unimpressive." -Taubes, 2007 p. 268.

One reason exercise doesn't work for weight loss: it works up an appetite. Are you one of those who after a good workout, stops at a Starbucks for that latte and sweet thing? I know I did.

Another reason: relatively few calories are burned up in exercise. Ever notice the tiny number of calories you burn after 30-40 minutes on the treadmill?

A scientist at the University of Michigan calculated that a 250-lb man would "have to climb 20 flights of stairs to rid himself of the energy contained in one slice of bread!" (Taubes, 2007, p 260)

What if exercise is not critical for weight loss? It may be good for circulation, energy, and general well being, but may be of limited value for weight loss.

What then?

One answer: Change what we eat and what we don't eat. That's the basis of the ER Fat Burn program. It teaches participants how to forage for real fat burning foods that match their body type and health conditions. So far, so good. See here and here.

Bottom line: test in your own body and see what works for you.

Reference: Good Calories Bad Calories, Gary Taubes, 2007.

Related posts.
Are you losing sales because of your appearance?
Pills and shakes are not enough
"I was afraid to sign up for ER."
"I'm 55. I lost 20 lbs in 5 wks. Soon I will exercise."
Should fat people just vomit?

"I'm 55. I lost 20 lbs in 5 wks. Soon I will exercise."

"Even my pajamas were tight."

Just before ER.
5 weeks into ER

"At the end of the 5-week ER Fat Burn program:
I've lost 20 pounds and
4 inches in my bust
5 inches in my waist, and
4 inches in my hips.
I didn't exercise. But now I might."

Carol Raynor emailed her story after ER (Fat burn)

"I’m a country girl who was raised on meat, vegetables and potatoes. That is what I thought was healthy. I have always carried too much weight.

"I would diet by cutting out desserts, not eating pizza, or going on a liquid shake diet (whatever the latest fad was).

"I knew I was at my maximum weight (170 lbs – 5 feet tall) when I weighed the same as my husband who is 8 inches taller than me. He took a picture of me in May (me in blue above). When I saw it – I was sick about myself. All I could think was “I HAVE to diet again.”

"In July I was getting ready to spend money on yet another diet program (nutra-systems). After all it worked for all those people on the TV, right?

"I was emailing Kim while on the introduction call to Extreme Regime asking if this would really work. What no one knows until now – I was crying the whole time of the email and call. I joined the program in desperation.

"Because I felt "ugly". My sex drive was gone and I have a wonderful husband. My legs were "skuffing" together, my skirt was cutting me in the middle, and I had to wear over blouses to hide the rolls. This May picture showed it all and I was sick. It was so hard to feel romantic when there was nothing to cover up the weight. Even my pajamas were tight.

But now, after ER, that's history.

"My three ER Surprises:

1) The foods I was allowed to eat - and, I didn’t have to eat the ones I didn’t like

2) That fat (the right kind) was good for me, and

3) I wasn’t required to exercise or count calories (can you say paradigm shift!)

"Deep down I did NOT believe it would work. But I was willing to give it a try. I was desperate. It IS weird. Giving up white rice (aren’t grains healthy?), cold cereal before bed (aren’t milk and cereal wholesome?) and peanut butter sandwiches...These are things I thought would be hard, because I had them everyday. But it wasn’t. I stayed full on the allowed foods.

"I’m at the end of the 5-week program and have lost 20 pounds, 4 inches in my bust, 5 inches in my waist, and 4 inches in my hips. I've made a permanent life style change. I’m going to audit the Sept ER I program this time to continue to reinforce what I have learned."
-Carol.

Exercise not required (but ok if you do) for ER Fat burn phase. For good reason. Other changes work better, faster. :) They used to think the world was flat too, once upon a time. Seemed perfectly natural. Only it wasn't.

"I was afraid to sign up for ER."

"Now is the end of the 5th week of ER I, I’ve lost 11 lbs, 3 inches from my waist and 1+ ½ dress size.

"I went shopping the other day for an outfit for a wedding, I was ecstatic when I can actually wear my normal size and went down a size in pants. I was so happy I wanted to scream from the dressing room.

You know what … the challenges have been forgotten and I don’t miss the white rice like I thought I would."

Wanda. (picture before ER)

Here's the rest of Wanda's email that came two days ago. Right after the end of ER I (5 week fat burning program that started in July - over the phone.)

Hello Dr Heidi,

"I was very reluctant to sign up with ER...

"I’ve been carrying around these 15-20 lbs for the past 15 years or so...
I believe the ideal weight for my height is somewhere between 110-115 lbs.... I’m older now (not that much older), and I don’t expect to weigh the same as 30+ years ago. I wanted to get to my ideal weight.

"Here’s a list of things I was afraid of:

1) not having my normal menus
2) being restricted to how much to eat
3) having to count calories
4) having to cook a different meal for my family
5) having to buy frozen boxed meals (YUCK)
6) having to weigh my food in proportions
7) having to exercise like a mad woman

"ER showed me how to make changes to what I was eating and what not to eat. Though I have to say, the changes are totally opposite from what I’ve been doing all my life. Maybe that was the reason why I couldn’t get rid of the extra pounds. To eat more fat and no white rice, oh no! Isn’t some sort of protein, carb and veggies a normal diet?

"What … I have to do what? Me make kefir? What is kefir? Well, good thing I didn’t have to do that and there is an alternative to kefir, cuz I still can’t quite figure out what kefir is.

"What … I can have duck and I can have that too? Really? You mean I don’t have to eat things I don’t like and eat the things I do like but in a different way? Hooray!

"Finding all the recommended meats is an ongoing thing. I did buy almost all the core food, i.e.: Pops, Big B, coconut oil, cod liver oil, etc.

"I struggled at the beginning of the program. I was feeling so sick for about a week or so. With the help of the ER team, we were able to figure out what it was or it might even be coffee withdrawal. With the support and encouragement, I didn’t quit.

"Now is the end of the 5th week, I’ve lost 11 lbs, 3 inches from my waist and
1+ ½ dress size. I went shopping the other day for an outfit for a wedding, I was ecstatic when I can actually wear my normal size and went down a size in pants. I was so happy I wanted to scream from the dressing room. You know what … the challenges have been forgotten and I don’t miss the white rice like I thought I would.

"What keeps me going with this crazy weird program…my husband. Don’t tell him I told you this, but in 1985 he stopped drinking alcoholic drinks. He’s been dry for 23+ years without a relapse. One of their quotes in AA is “One Day At A Time”. If he can, I know I can.

"Even if I didn’t lose the amount of weight I’ve lost, I would do this program just to learn from the elite of the elites in food management. I already signed up for the next one.

"Life is precious and I will do whatever it takes to be healthy for my family and keep them healthy for me. Things are replaceable, we’re not.

"Thank you!
Wanda

"P.S. I did metabolic boosters, shake mixes, meal bars, teas, etc. I rather eat real food, personally."

Next ER I (Fat Burn) starts Sept 6, see here. 5 Active Spots available still.

Pills and shakes are not enough

If you're trying to lose weight and get your health back, pills and shakes are not enough.

How else can we explain why most Americans are so overweight? Including many folks selling health and weight loss supplements.

Pills and shakes have a place. Just not first place.

According to nutrition professor Dr. Heidi, to lose the weight and get your health back, there are five ordered strategies. From the most natural to the least:

1st. Optimize your daily food plan. Ask: what am I eating and how can I make it better? Get as close as possible to a real food plan (not calorie counting, starving, industrial food or rabbit food).

2nd. Amp up your food plan where necessary. Add super foods e.g. green powders, cod liver and coconut oil, herbs, Pops, etc.

3rd. If symptoms persist after a month of doing 1 and 2 above, or if your doctor prescribes it, add nutraceuticals e.g. Vitamin B, alpha lipoic acid, L-carnitine, CoQ10, L-glutamine, etc.

4th. If symptoms still persist, add pharmaceuticals your doctor recommends. Many do this strategy together with nutraceuticals.

5th. Last resort: surgery. E.g., stomach stapling (Bariatric surgery), etc.

If you had to choose between #5 and #1, would you consider an optimal ER daily food plan first? For four weeks? And THEN decide re #5?

Next: "Why I was afraid to sign up for ER." (see here.)

Are you losing sales because of your appearance?

Is it wrong to judge a book by its cover?

Maybe, but most of us do it.

And if you are selling a health or weight loss product, watch out!

Those eyeballs check you out. The brains instantly go, "Why should I buy any weight loss product from you? You're overweight (or not healthy looking) yourself. Obviously your product doesn't work."

And that's that. No sale. Of course they won't tell you why not.

Here's what you can do.

1. Lose weight and get healthy yourself. Fast. So you look the part. Or
2. Market a different product altogether where your appearance does not get in the way. Or
3. Find people to sell your weight loss products to who don't notice (or care) that you are overweight yourself.

If you're using weight loss products and they're not working fast enough, there's a reason. And it is NOT necessarily that the products or shakes don't really work that well.

Next.

Are safe kids becoming fat kids?

Are we becoming so protective that we're no longer encouraging genuine learning (and exercise) among children? Here's from an editorial in the Wall St Journal today...(paid link, so I've reproduced the relevant parts.)

"One in six children in America is obese, and many of them will face a lifetime of chronic illness. According to the Center for Disease Control, this problem would basically cure itself if children engaged in the informal outdoor activities that used to be normal. But how do we lure children off the sofa? One key attraction is risk.

Risk is fun, at least the moderate risks that were common in prior generations. An informal survey of children by the University of Toronto's Institute of Child Studies found that "merry-go-rounds . . . anecdotally the most hated piece of playground equipment in hospital emergency rooms -- topped the list of most desired bits of playground equipment." Those of us of a certain age can remember sprinting to get the contraption really moving. That was fun. And a lot of exercise."

But most playgrounds today have removed most of the fun stuff...and now their safety items cause problems.

"Just when we thought playgrounds were accident-proof -- no more merry-go-rounds, high slides, jungle gyms, seesaws or pretty much anything that's fun -- it turns out that safety itself can be dangerous. A recent heat wave in New York exposed a new playground risk: The ubiquitous rubber safety matting gets hot, not as hot as McDonald's coffee, but hot enough to scald tender feet.

"The outrage was immediate. "Playgrounds should be designed with canopies," one park- safety advocate declared. "How many burn cases will it take," Betsy Gotbaum, the city's public advocate asked, "before the city wakes up and acts?"

But is the goal of total protection from risk a good thing?

"Risk is important in child development. Allowing children to test their limits in unstructured play, according to the American Association of Pediatrics, "develop[s] their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength." Scrapes and bruises are how children learn their limits, and the need to take personal responsibility."

What's your take? Are we becoming so soft that nothing on our playgrounds is more fun for kids than sitting on the couch watching TV or playing video games? Munching on chips?

8 glasses of water per day?

Here's a metric more personalized to you.

Take your body weight. Divide by two. That is how many ounces of water your body needs per day.

Water: Must be filtered. Herbal Tea and lemon water ok. Coffee, sodas, and other either caffeine or sugar laden fare does not count. -Dr. Heidi

ER Goody Bag Part II

WARNING: There's a catch in the ER Fat Burn program.

Readers here have heard about Dr. Heidi's ER Fat Burn program. But how do you know that it's not just people taking your money and, at the end of the program, you're still overweight and miserable?

You're right to wonder. Especially if your dieting experience has been like that of these women...

"20,000 women lost 2 lbs after 8 years of dieting"

All the women reduced their daily calories by an
average of 360 calories per day. They lost only
2 lbs after 8 years of dieting!
– National Institutes of Health, 1991.Women’s Health Initiative,
a $700 million study.

Of course these gals thought that if they restricted their calories, they'd lose weight.

ER asks that you suspend your belief in restricting calories to lose weight - because it might be wrong. 50 years of clinical research shows that:

Calorie counting has turned out to be useless, and may even be dangerous.

ER asks you try a new belief - that it's what you eat that determines what you weigh and how you feel.

Dr. Heidi is wrapping up the July 4-week ER Fat Burn program, based on that belief. Here's the story:

10 folks came to lose weight. After 4 weeks:
Average weight loss: 7 lbs
High: 19 lbs
Low 3 lbs
No one is hungry. No one is cranky.

No one counted calories. No one felt deprived. No one ate rabbit food. The ER weight loss mantra:

It's not how much we eat, it's WHAT we eat.

Next ER Fat Burn starts September 6. If you've been calorie counting without success, want to test a new belief? MAXIMUM: 15 Actives.

They all believed the earth was flat once too, didn't they?

P.S. Tidbits. Carol, this month's star loser who lost 14 lbs in her first 14 days on ER Fat Burn, has now lost 19 lbs, and is dropping about 2 lbs per week now. Vanessa, an auditor, lost 10 lbs; Mary, an auditor, lost 11 lbs. Wanda, an Active, lost 9 lbs. And, one gal lost 0. She came to ER with a dead metabolism, looking for way to heal it so she could start losing. After 4 weeks in ER, she got rid of her gas and bloating, and her joint pain disappeared. She too, is a happy camper.

Mr. Banting Lost 50 lbs on low-carb. Is it dangerous?

Part III: Is a low carb regime dangerous? Picks up from the Mr. Banting post here.

Six years after he lost 50 lbs with his low carb regime, Mr. Banting published the fourth edition of his "Letter on corpulence." By then his name had become a verb - 'to bant' meant to diet - by following his published low carb regime. Mr. Banting had kept those 50 lbs off all those years and added that "My other bodily ailments have become mere matters of history."

Still, in 1865 and today, 143 years later, some people ask, "Is low carb dangerous?"

Remember Banting's regime: Mostly meat, fish and fowl and a bit of fruit and veggies see here; and No sugars, no starches, bread, milk, sweets and potatoes

Few experts disagree with what he stopped eating. It's what he DID eat - the meat - that has caused mild panic in some corners in the past 15 years.

Reason: Meat has "saturated fats" which are thought by some to be associated with heart trouble - you know, clogging of the arteries and such. And since the low-carb regimes recommend eating meats, bacon and similar fare, it was put on the high risk list by these concerned folks.

I am no health expert. I'm just a person extremely interested in health, want to play tennis when I'm 95. And I love to eat good foods. Here's my take:

Let's agree that meat has saturated fat in it. And let's agree also that meat has had saturated fats in it since the beginning of time.

I have three questions for someone who asks: Is a low-carb regime safe - since it's high in saturated fat?

1. Why has saturated fat become a problem now, when our ancestors since the stone age, 2.5 million years ago, survived by eating animals? There was no heart disease reported in the stone age. And we're here, aren't we?

2. Is it possible that the recent association of saturated fat and heart disease might have been off the mark? It wouldn't be the first time we've been wrong about the cause of a problem. The latest and meticulously researched 601-page tome, Good Calories, Bad Calories (journalist Gary Taubes, 2007) has 10 conclusions. Here are the first two:

• Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.
• The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and the hormonal regulation of homeostasis - the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. (p. 454)
  

3. If it's not the fat, could it be the meat? There were no industrial feedlots in the stone age. No one was force-feeding the animals corn and soy, instead of their natural food source, grass. No one gave them growth hormones and shot them full of antibiotics (because they're mostly sick in the feedlots now, reports Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma), since they cannot digest the corn and soy).

Might part of the resistance to a low carb approach to weight loss be a result of NOT making the bad meat- good meat distinction?

These questions, and my personal wonderful experience being on a real food low carb regime make me say that for me, low-carb is a wonderful, healthful approach to living. The caveat: all food must be real. No highly processed foods, no toxins, no artificial ingredients or any other poisons or chemicals.

P.S. I learned all this (and have become extremely interested in eating and health) because of my old friend, Dr. Heidi. I filmed her university nutrition course in CA this spring.

I am now marketing her ER Fat Burning program because I am betting that it will change your idea of eating- now and for years to come.

Dr. Heidi's Goody Bag part I

Dr. Heidi went off for a weekend retreat last week. At 6AM Friday AM, the camera caught her packing her ER Goody bag. (9:11)



Here's Part II (4 mins)

How Mr. Banting Lost 35 lbs in 8 months even though he drank a lot of alcohol. Part II

"He cut back on calories, which failed to induce weight loss but did leave him exhausted and beset by boils. He tried walking, riding horseback, and manual labor. His weight increased. He consulted the best doctors... He tried purgatives and diuretics. His weight increased..." (from Part I)

Part II.

"Luckily for Banting, he consulted a surgeon who had recently been to Paris. The doctor had just heard the great physiologist Claude Bernard lecture on diabetes.

The liver, reported Bernard, secretes glucose, the substance of both sugar and starch. It was this glucose that accumulates excessively in the bloodstream of diabetics. It struck him that "a diet of only meat and dairy would check the secretion of sugar in the urine of a diabetic."

Banting's surgeon immediately formulated a dietary regimen for Banting. Namely, "complete abstinence from sugars and starches."

After all, wrote the doctor, we know that to fatten up animals, "a saccharine (sugar) and farinaceous (flour) diet is used." He thought "excessive obesity might be allied to diabetes as to its cause...and if a purely animal diet were useful in the latter disease, a combination of animal food with a vegetable diet that contained neither sugar nor starch might...arrest the undue formation of fat."

So here's the regime Banting followed for the next year:

"He ate three meals a day of meat fish, or game, usually five or six ounces at a meal, with one or two stale toast or cooked fruit on the side. He had his evening tea with a few more ounces of fruit or stale toast. He scrupulously avoided any other food that might contain either sugar or starch, in particular bread, milk, beer, sweets and potatoes."

"Despite a considerable allowance of alcohol in Banting's regimen - four or five glasses of wine each day, a cordial every morning, and an evening tumbler of gin, whisky or brandy - Banting dropped thirty-five pounds by the following May (eight months later) and fifty pounds by early the next year.

"I have not felt better in health than now for the last twenty-six years,' he wrote. 'My other bodily ailments have become mere matters of history.'"
- Taubes, 2007

That was 1864. Banting's 16 page (free) Letter on corpulence, Addressed to the Public, launched the world's first popular diet craze. Within a year, Banting "had entered the English language as a verb meaning 'to diet.'"

If someone is "gouty obese, and nervous, we strongly recommend him to 'bant'" suggested the Pall Mall Gazette in June, 1865. - Taubes, 2007

Guess how the medical community of the day reacted? Some, writes Taubes,

"did what members of established societies often do when confronted with a radical new concept: they attacked both the message and the messenger. The Lancet, (like today's Newsweek), first whined that Banting's diet was old news. Second...that his diet could be dangerous."

150 years later, some in the medical community raise the same question:

Is a low carb approach safe?

Today we have many modern versions of Banting's low carb diet, most notably Atkins and South Beach. And just this year, Dr. Heidi's ER Fat Burn Program, the very latest in a low carb-based regime, has seen great success among the participants. (One gal dropped 18 pounds in her first four weeks and got her sex drive back(!))

For some people, however, the question remains:

Is a low carb regime dangerous?

That's next.

Warm Eggs for Dr. Heidi's ER Fat Burn Travel bag

Here it is...90 seconds.



Next ER Fat Burn starts Sept 6. See here

How Mr. Banting Lost 35 lbs in 8 months even though he drank a lot of alcohol.

A story in three parts.

"Mr Banting was a fat man. At age sixty-five, the five-foot five Banting weighted in at over two hundred pounds.

'I could not stoop to tie my shoe...nor attend to the little offices humanity requires without considerable pain and difficulty, which only the corpulent can understand,' he wrote.

"Banting was recently retired...had no family history of obesity, nor did he consider himself either lazy, inactive, or given to excessive indulgence at the table.

"Nonetheless, corpulence had crept up on him in his thirties, as with many of us today, despite his best efforts. He took up daily rowing and gained muscular vigor, a prodigious appetite, and yet more weight.

"He cut back on calories, which failed to induce weight loss but did leave him exhausted and beset by boils. He tried walking, riding horseback, and manual labor. His weight increased. He consulted the best doctors... He tried purgatives and diuretics. His weight increased..."

To be continued. Tomorrow.

5 Weight Loss Surprises From New Research

Most everyone I know is on a diet of some kind most of the time. Everyone is trying.

But most folks are frustrated with their meager results. One recent study predicts that everyone will be overweight in 40 years, despite all the dieting and suffering.

What are we doing wrong?

Here are five stunners from recent reviews of the weight research literature. Including reanalysis of existing government studies:

• Calorie restriction doesn't work. Unless you're happy with losing 5 pounds after six months of semi-starvation. In a $700 million gov't study, 20,000 women lost only 2 pounds after 8 years of reducing their daily calories by 360 each day. Two pounds after 8 years (!!) (See report.)
  
  
• Artificial sweeteners actually make you fatter. Any diet foods, shakes, bars, low-carb this 'n that, which are filled with artificial sweeteners or artificial fats, flavors or colorings, make you blimp out. See why here.
  
  
• Even nutritious carbs like whole grains, legumes, fruit and veggies - may interfere with your weight loss.
  
  
• Certain fats can be a major part of your weight loss food plan. These special fats rev up your metabolism.
  
  
• Rabbit food is NOT required to lose weight.
  
  
• Exercise is NOT required to lose weight. One of the gals in Dr. Heidi's July Extreme Regime ER-I fat burning program lost 14 pounds in 14 days and didn't exercise anymore than normal. Which is almost never.

These five findings are among the principles guiding the success of Dr. Heidi's ER-I program. Everyone has lost weight and no one is ever hungry. What more can one ask?

Dr. Heidi's next ER-I program starts September 6. Info here.

I made a 90-second music video (my first, go easy) on the program here. (QuickTime - turn on your audio!)

Weird Eating Is Here.

You like?

ER Fat Burning Toddy mix: How to make it.

Here's how to make the dry ER Fat Burning Toddy Mix which Dr. Heidi used in the previous video, "How to make the ER Fat Burning Toddy.

The Girl Effect: a Cow and Raw Milk

The girl effect is stunning. And if investing in her means she buys a cow that becomes a herd that feeds the village with beautiful nutritious raw milk, I will stand in line to offer assistance.

A wonderful two minute marketing story. Think? (I'd have ended it without the last two lines, though.) Thanks, boys.

Video: How to make the ER Fat Burning Toddy

Here it is...with Dr. Heidi doing the demo...about 7 minutes.



NEXT: How to make the ER Toddy Dry Mix.

It's filmed, just needs editing.

Surprise coming: What's in Dr. Heidi's goody bag when she goes on a retreat for a weekend? Find out. That's next. Filmed at 6AM. Sigh.