Below is an excerpt from Part One of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

The Sensory Factor

The Sensory Factor is basically about the "psychology" of The Beast. This issue tends to be less well known than the physical nutrition factors only because the connection between psychology and health has been investigated seriously for less time and the discoveries that have been made are not as well publicized.

You can think of this factor as relating to different sensations involving food that the mind must get in order to feel healthy. It is as if there are psychological nutrients---sensations---that perform the same function for the mind as vitamins, minerals, water, etc. perform for the body.

[Note: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste - but a waist is a terrible thing to mind." (Old dieter's joke).]

Of course, I am aware that this kind of thing will sound a little "airy-fairy" to some people, and such skepticism would be justified---except that there is such a large amount of impeccable mainstream research demonstrating the connection. You will find a discussion of this research with specific references that you can look up for yourself in MORE ON... SENSATION on page 261 in Part Two.

The research shows that there appear to be three sensations that are particularly important to The Beast and without which it will tend to wake up and make trouble. These are the sensations of Quantity, Variety, and Sweet.

The Quantity Sensation

In some ways, the Quantity Sensation is the most important of these "psychological" nutrients. "Quantity" for Multi-Dieters means the sensation of having a "full" stomach. Research shows this sensation is controlled by a combination of the volume and weight of food in the stomach.

The sensation of having a full stomach shuts off hunger and eating almost immediately. This point is so obvious that most people just say "So what?" and immediately forget about it. But that's foolish. Any factor that controls hunger so strongly should be very interesting to dieters looking for "an edge" that will help them lose weight.

Quantity Issues

Humans evolved in a situation that required a lot of running around expending energy trying to find food (and to avoid becoming food:)). This means we had to eat a lot---and the food we usually ate often had a pretty low "nutrient density". It was mostly fruits, roots, and shoots---and perhaps some berries and bugs (for protein).:)

In my humble opinion, this evolutionary situation means our Beasts learned to expect to have to eat large quantities of food in order to get enough of all the nutrients, including energy, that we needed. Unfortunately, our Beasts haven't yet had time to modify this inborn expectation since our rational, conscious minds invented "the modern world".

To put it another way, we (the rational part of the mind) have learned how to modify our "culinary environment" enormously since humanity's "hunter-gatherer" days. Nowadays, jumping into the car to go to the supermarket to get chocolate cheesecake hardly qualifies as "running around" or "expending energy" or finding "low-nutrient-density" food.:)

Therefore, we now have a considerable mismatch of current reality with The Beast's built-in expectations. The problems created by this mismatch require a higher-level mind to resolve (at least higher-level than The Beast has). That's where you come in.

Essentially The Beast wants you to eat a high enough quantity (volume plus weight) of food to make it feel that it's gotten all the other nutrients you need. If you don't do this, it will tend to feel deprived and make trouble. Therefore, your task is to learn to give it this quantity without the calories that are now so easily available. To do it, you must not be confused about quantity and calories. If you eat what seems like a "huge" amount of food but which also has very few calories, then you have done exactly the right thing. Many diet techniques (and people in general) are very confused about this issue. A couple of diet shakes and a "sensible" dinner is certainly correct---rationally. But The Beast is not rational. By its standards, this is very "unsensible"---and it has the power to make you pay for being unsensible.:)

To put it less charitably, The Beast is a pig. If it periodically gets stuffed, it assumes it's getting all the nutrients you need---and that's all it really wants. Fortunately, since it's not very smart, you can easily fool it with quantity while still depriving it of calories.

Here's an example of how.16 A container of 2% cottage cheese is a whole pound (1/2 kg) of food. If you eat all of it, The Beast feels that whole pound of dense stuff in your stomach and thinks you've eaten a lot, so it goes to sleep happy.

[Note: This is an example, not a recommendation. There are hundreds of other ways to manage the Quantity Sensation and many of them are probably better than this. Please try to think up a few of your own. (And if you come up with an especially good one, let me know.)]

But what really happened? (a) You only had about 350 calories! (b) You also had very significant amounts of your RDI of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and sodium. But The Beast thinks it's had a "huge meal" and most of the time it'll be happy with only one huge meal a day. This means you can use your other meals to satisfy the other vital factors.

Here's another example. A one-pound package of frozen mixed vegetables ("oriental style") heated with a 15-ounce can of tomato sauce and spices (two pounds of food) also makes The Beast think it's had a huge meal. But again, what does this amount of food really represent? (a) You had only about 250 calories! (b) You also had 100% of the fiber, potassium, and sodium you need as well as about one-third of the phosphorus you need. Yet again, The Beast feels stuffed with food and goes happily to sleep (assuming no insufficiencies of the other factors are disturbing it.)

Now, I know what you're thinking right now (because I'm psycho... uh, I mean psychic:)). You just read the above examples and thought "Bo-o-oring!" Well, Ok, fair enough. But keep reading, we talk about boredom soon. It's only a temporary thing. You'll only be bored until you've gotten the Eight Vital Factors under control. After they're under control, you will find that The Beast is quite satisfied with your meals, and when The Beast is satisfied, your food interests will become dramatically different. In fact, most of the time you'll hardly care about food at all. (Won't that be a refreshing change!:))

The central point about managing the Quantity Sensation is this: you should eat a large quantity of food on The Multi-Diet---if you make sure it has very few Calories. (Or in other words, eat a lot, but stay off the Liar's Diet.)

As a practical matter, you will probably have to educate your family, friends, and co-workers about Multi-Diet quantity issues so they won't tease you about "all that food you're eating on a diet". Be patient with them. They don't know any better. They're just ignorant. They haven't read my book.:) (Since you're going to have to educate them anyway, my publisher and I would be immensely grateful if you'd encourage them to buy The Multi-Diet as their text for your course. Naturally you'll be doing them a favor---every one of them could probably stand to lose at least a few pounds.:))

There is another benefit to actively managing quantity issues. Satisfying the need for quantity (without getting a lot of calories) effectively means eating low-glycemic-index carbohydrate in the form of vegetables (see MORE ON... CARBOHYDRATE on page 205 in Part Two). This helps ensure the complete metabolic breakdown of fat---which avoids the "heroic" but unpleasant sensations of ketosis (see MORE ON... ENERGY METABOLISM & STORAGE on page 163 in Part Two). Getting enough food quantity is a very important prerequisite to being able to restrict calories successfully.

You will find a more complete discussion of the scientific research and references on quantity in THE QUANTITY SENSATION on page 264 in Part Two.

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The Sign of The Beast

If you find that vegetables are boring or hard to eat, this is a virtual guarantee that The Beast is awake and wants one of the other vital factors. You just have to figure out which one. Your prime suspect should be Essential Oil or salt (sodium). Try adding a tablespoon of essential oil and/or making your vegetables taste a bit salty and see if The Beast doesn't change its mind about them.

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