Eat to Live for Weight Loss

My husband has lost 14 lbs so far and he's gone down a waist size. I know that this doesn't sound like a huge amount for 7 weeks, but I'm very happy because he has always had difficulty losing weight--that's one thing we have in common! :-) We are also getting better at preparing food with less fat and our exercise is starting to increase. So I believe that with this mostly raw diet, less dietary fat and more exercise, his weight loss may even become more rapid in the weeks ahead. Still if he lost 2 lbs every week, that would still easily get him down to his goal weight by the end of the year.

I know it may sound counter-intuitive for a cancer patient to be trying to lose weight, but in fact his oncologist recommended it. Being obese or overweight is a detriment to your immune system and increases your risk for cancer.

My new favorite book is Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It is packed with great information and written as if a friend is giving you good advice. Dr. Fuhrman has come up with a useful formula: H= N/C or Health = Nutrition divided by Calories. In order to increase your health, you need to get the most nutrition with the least amount of calories. That means that the bulk of your food should be nutritionally dense and only a small proportion should be calorically dense. Fruits and vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables will give you a high amount of nutrition for a lower amount of calories.

Now, if you are trying to lose weight, you cannot gorge on avocados, olives and nuts--you have to eat those sparingly. John gets 1 oz of walnuts per day and a tablespoon or two of ground flax seed to make sure he gets his essential fatty acids. But he's cut out most other fat (well, we did splurge a little for Easter...I made some coconut "vice cream" that was way too rich!).

If you are looking to be healthy and/or lose weight, read Eat to Live. Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame endorses his book with these words, "A medical breakthrough. If you give this diet your complete commitment, there is no question in my mind that it will work for you." He also writes the forward for the book.