I think I know why this works?

I just finished reading The Pleasure Trap by Drs. Lisle and Goldhamer and they mentioned that when you look at wild animals in nature you never, ever see a fat or obese animal even when there is tons of food available for them to eat. In fact the only fat and obese animals you find are humans who eat a Western Diet and the animals that they feed. Even humans who live in isolated parts of the world and eat their natural diet don't get fat or obese. So why is that? Well animals have many feedback mechanisms to tell them when to eat and when to stop - sensors on how much the stomach is stretched and others to sense what is being absorbed as the food is digesting. And it's an excellent mechanism that works well looking at wild animals. And it works for some people who are thin and eat the Western diet - but not for many of us. So why doesn't it work for us? Well it works when we eat natural whole foods, the kind you find growing in nature - but it doesn't work when we eat refined foods because our body hasn't evolved to understand the amount of calories coming in from refined foods which are much higher in calorie, fat and sugar than anything mother nature grows. Even our meats are much higher fat content than what our ancestors would have eaten. And of course the addition of hormones into animals complicates things too. This change in our diets to refined foods started after World War 1 and really ramped up in the 60's so many of the foods that we eat today are very new for our diet.

The reason why I don't have to weigh my food, or keep tabs on calories is because I'm eating the kind of food that my body can recognize - my body is working properly to tell me when to eat and when to stop - I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm not and I'm losing weight steadily without out any stalls - I never go longer than 5 days without losing weight. And my weight loss has been steady. They explain in the book that when you try to lose weight with refined foods your body thinks it's starving because it isn't registering properly that you are eating sufficient calories and so it tries to make you want to eat the foods that it thinks you're missing. It's a real battle to lose weight that way.

I don't know how much of this is true, but it seems to be working for me so I'm going to keep doing it.

Skylar

Dear Skylar:

If you've read any of my recent posts, I have been getting good information on how to change my eating from the guidance of my Higher Power, and He has directed me to start eating a vegetarian diet, as outlined by Dr. McDougall on his website, as well as following the measuring plans of a Diabetic diet as given me by my husband's doctor.

I tried to eat vegetarian before, but did it all wrong.  I shopped for most of my foods at a health food store, and spent way too much money, money that I couldn't afford to spend.  So I dropped it, and have struggled some more with little weight loss since.  I looked at Dr. McDougall's new website, and I've decided that next week, I will go back to the vegetarian way of eating, and drop the animal meats, the eggs, and the cow's milk from my diet, as well as refined sugars and flours and other refined and overprocessed foods.  I've read The China Study, and I just can't get it out of my mind.  My brother recommended it to me originally, since he got prostate cancer a few years back, and wanted to eat to prevent cancer from coming back.  He's been very concerned that I stopped eating vegetarian, and was relieved yesterday (on his birthday) when I told him I was going back to it, in a more economical version of it this time.

I agree with your view of eating.

Denise Phares/highpow

Hi Denise - wow, I didn't know that you had read The China Study and just like me, you can't get it out of your mind - yes I think it was meant to be that you end up at Dr. McDougall's website. Everything is pointing you in that direction. I hope that following his suggestions that it works for you as well as it is for DH and I. I tried first following Dr. Furhman's diet which is similar but he wants you to eat a lot more salads and I found that to be more expensive than McDougall's.

I also hope that you find you don't have to worry about mindless eating and feelings of cravings - that aspect has surprised me but now I realize that is was all because of the refined food.

Skylar

I have not eaten any meat for 11 days now!  trying to up the amount of raw food that I eat, and am feeling pretty good! have been staying away from the overprocessed refined food for a while and I believe this is the next step for me in my journey!

Hi Michelle, I'm glad you're staying away from the refined food and that you're feeling good. It's funny how all of us started out doing something and kept making changes in our journey towards a successful lifestyle change.

skylar