|
Rice
Safflower oil. See pg 338 below.
Flaxseed oil (and, optionally, whole flaxseed). See pg 338 below.
English Walnuts (this is the most common variety of walnut—often just labeled
“walnuts”)
Popcorn
Bouillon cubes (any flavor)
Multivitamin/mineral supplement (see pg 341 below—generic “brands” are Ok.)
Potassium, calcium, phosphorus, & magnesium supplements (see pg 341 below—generic
“brands” are Ok.)
Table salt
Psyllium fiber supplements (optional)
Fish oil capsules (optional).
Protein Foods
Your best Multi-Diet tools for managing protein are: chicken & turkey breast, fish &
seafood, and very lean cuts of beef (all visible fat removed). Each of these will
provide concentrated high-quality protein with very few other Calories. In TABLE 14:
YOUR PROTEIN REQUIREMENT on page 194, you probably calculated that you need about 100
grams of protein per day when dieting. Below are the main low-Calorie, high-protein
foods. They fall into five categories: seafood, poultry, lean beef, dairy products,
and “other”. (See MORE ON… PROTEIN on page 183.)
Seafood: Almost all seafood is higher in protein and/or lower in Calories than other
protein foods. This makes it the best choice for protein when dieting.
Shrimp: 36 g protein & 168 Calories per 6 oz portion.
Suggestion: Frozen, pealed, cooked shrimp often comes in about 6 oz packages - easy
to rinse and add to vegetable dishes just before cooking is complete.
Lobster: 35 g protein & 166 Calories per 6 oz portion
Crab: 33 g protein & 164 Calories per 6 oz portion
Suggestion: Frozen and canned lobster & crab are very convenient and make a nice
high-protein addition to many soups, stews, and even salads.
Scallops: 28 g protein & 150 Calories per 6 oz portion
Suggestion: Scallops go well in fish salads; also try poaching 3-5 minutes in white
wine with bay leaf and parsley.
Fish: Most varieties of fish have about 40 grams of protein and about
200 Calories in a 6-ounce portion. (E.g. Had-dock has 41 g protein and 190
Calories per 6 oz.) Some good choices: Codfish, Flounder, Grouper, Haddock,
Orange Roughy, Pollock,
Whitefish, Sole, Snapper, Tuna.
Suggestion: Fillets and other thin slices of frozen fish thaw quickly (e.g. in a
marinade), and also bake or broil more quickly than most other protein foods.
Poultry is higher in both protein and Calories than sea-food. Breast meat has fewer
Calories than dark meat portions.
Suggestion: Slow cook chicken breasts in quantity, cut meat into chunks, freeze or
refrigerate, and add to other dishes as needed.
Suggestion: Always remove skin, which is very high in Calories.
Chicken breast meat: 50 g protein & 256 Calories per 6 oz portion.
Chicken dark meat: 44 g protein & 332 Calories per 6 oz portion.
Turkey breast meat: 50 g protein & 268 Calories per 6 oz portion.
Turkey dark meat: 48 g protein & 318 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef (lean): Beef is generally higher in Calories than fish or poultry. However, if
you buy lean cuts & remove all visible fat before cooking, it can still be a good
protein source for dieting. Examples (all fat removed; broiled, pot roasted, or
stewed only):
Beef Brisket: 54 g protein & 324 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef chuck: 56 g protein & 372 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef round: 50 g protein & 328 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef flank: 46 g protein & 352 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef rib eye: 48 g protein & 382 Calories per 6 oz portion
Beef sirloin: 52 g protein & 340 Calories per 6 oz portion
Suggestion: For the “less tender” cuts of meat, pot-roasting 4-5 lbs at a time in a
slow cooker is an excellent “tenderizing” method of cooking.
Beef liver: 42 g protein & 274 Calories per 6 oz portion
Ground Beef (extra lean): 43 g protein & 436 Calories per 6 oz portion
Suggestion: Fry ground beef “loose” (i.e. not formed into patties), and
well done; then immediately drain through a colander. This will remove as
much as possible of the excess fat.
Dairy Products (lowfat): Dairy products have significant amounts of protein, which
should be counted by Multi-Dieters. However, dairy foods are usually not eaten in
enough quantity to be a sole source of protein.
Dairy products are most valuable as the single most concentrated food source of both
phosphorus and calcium—two of the most important of the macrominerals. (See VITAMINS
AND MINERALS below.)
Cottage Cheese (2%): 32 g protein & 204 Calories per cup.
Suggestion: Cottage cheese can be the protein part of a very satisfying lunch; try it
with a sprinkle of paprika for color and flavor.
Nonfat Dry Milk: 24 g protein & 244 Calories per dry cup
Suggestion: Use a teaspoon of nonfat dry milk in coffee instead of creamers.
Skim Milk: 8 g protein & 83 Calories per 8 oz cup
Miscellaneous Protein Foods:
Egg substitutes (liquid): 12 g protein & 60 Calories per 2-egg portion (1/2 cup). In
recent years these products have become easily available and convenient.
Suggestion: Use to make breakfast omelets or scrambled eggs with standard ingredients
like mushrooms, onion, tomato, etc.
Lowfat lunchmeats: Lowfat brands have about 36 g protein and 180 Calories per 6 oz
portion.
Suggestion: With two slices of low Calorie bread (100 Calories) and lettuce, tomato,
etc., these can make a very substantial “piled high” sandwich for lunch (about 300
Calories total).
Carbohydrate Foods:
Mixed vegetables are your best tools for managing carbohydrate. They give you the
quantity you need without many additional Calories. All vegetable mixtures work well,
including those with high proportions of corn, peas, and lima beans. Other
carbohydrate foods (such as bread, potato, and rice) discussed below are Ok if eaten
in small quantities only. A sedentary person probably needs about 100-150 g (400-600
Calories) of carbohydrate per day. On an active or stressful day you might need more
than this (although probably not too much more.)
Vegetables: 75 g carbohydrate and 300 Calories per pound of “mixed” vegetables.
“Mixed vegetables” have substantial amounts of corn, peas, beans, and other such
ingredients.
Suggestion: Buy lots of one-pound packages of frozen mixed vegetables. These provide
the quantity you need and also make a good base for many dishes. (Frozen is simply
for convenience, fresh vegetables are equally good.)
Bread (low-cal only): 12 g carbohydrate & 50 Calories per 1 oz slice.
Suggestion: Sliced bread is basically a way to hold together the good
stuff you put in sandwiches. Use the lowest Calorie bread that will do the job on your preferred
kind of sandwich.
Beans (boiled): Most bean varieties have about 40 g carbohydrate & 220 Calories per
cup.
Suggestion: Cook in quantity overnight in a slow cooker, and freeze or refrigerate
cooked portions; makes a very good base for many side dishes.
Noodles: 40 g carbohydrate & 210 Calories per cup.
Rice (white, long grain): 30 g carbohydrate & 260 Calories per cup.
Popcorn: 7 g carbohydrate & 32 Calories per cup (popped).
Suggestion: Pop 3 tablespoons as a late-afternoon or late-evening munchie; use a
“spritz” of butter flavored cooking spray to make salt stick. 1 tablespoon of
unpopped kernels pops up into about 2 cups.
Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs):
Safflower oil and flaxseed oil are your best tools for man-aging the EFAs because
they have the fewest other Calories mixed in with the EFAs they provide. You need
about 2 grams of ALA and about 10 grams of LA each day. (See MORE ON… ESSENTIAL FATTY
ACIDS on page 201.) Safflower and flaxseed oils are the most concentrated sources of
each.
Suggestion: For a list of other oils that contain useful amounts of the EFAs, See
TABLE 20: EFA SOURCES on page 208.
Suggestion: Health food stores or other such specialty stores are
usually the best places to get properly processed oils. But even there be sure to read the labels and
pay attention to the expiration dates. Do not buy flaxseed oil if it hasn’t been
refrigerated at the store.
Suggestion: Try to have two or three fish meals per week. Fish provides EPA and DHA,
which are two fatty acids believed to be able to at least partly substitute for
dietary ALA.110, , For Multi-Dieters, this is very convenient. Fish is a
high-protein, low-Calorie food, so it’s great for Multi-Dieters on those grounds
alone. If we can also get other good things from it, so much the better.
Suggestion: If you are very heavy, or have done low-fat dieting many times, there is
a very good chance that you have become very deficient in usable EFAs. To make up for
this, try doubling the amounts of safflower and flax-seed oils you take for the first
week or two that you are on the Multi-Diet. After that you can probably drop back to
the standard RDI amounts.
Suggestion: Vitamin E is required to prevent these essential fatty acids (LA and
ALA) from “going rancid inside your body” (i.e. forming toxic peroxides). The trace
element selenium also assists in this. Your multi-vitamin/mineral tablet should have
the right amounts of each.
Safflower oil has 10 g of LA & 120 Calories per tablespoon portion.
Suggestion: Mix 1 tablespoon of safflower oil and one tea-spoon of flaxseed oil and
use on a green salad or in an-other dish.
Suggestion: Add safflower oil to hot dishes just before serving (prolonged cooking
deteriorates EFAs).
Suggestion: Refrigerate oils after opening & keep sealed tightly (EFAs will slowly
deteriorate when exposed to air at room temperatures).
Suggestion: Do not buy safflower oil labeled “high-oleic”. The safflower variety used
for this oil unfortunately does not contain much LA. This is a more serious problem
when the label does not tell you which variety of safflower has been used to make the
oil. Most manufacturers will tell you if you call or e-mail and ask them.
Flaxseed oil: Has 2 grams of ALA and 40 Calories per tea-spoon portion.
Suggestion: Mix one tablespoon of safflower oil with one teaspoon of flaxseed oil and
use daily on a green salad or in another dish.
Suggestion: Add flaxseed oil to warm dishes just before serving (prolonged cooking
deteriorates EFAs).
Suggestion: Fresh flaxseed oil has a mild but definite flavor (reminiscent of
new-mown hay). It will be good in some dishes but not others. Experiment to see where
you like it.
Suggestion: Make sure flaxseed oil has been refrigerated at the store when you buy
it. Otherwise it’s probably gone rancid. Refrigerate it at home also.
Suggestion: Discard old flaxseed oil when it begins to develop strong or “off”
flavors. This is a sign that the ALA has begun to deteriorate and become
nutritionally use-less.
Flaxseed (whole) has 2 grams ALA and 60 Calories per tablespoon portion.
Suggestion: As an alternative to flaxseed oil, grind whole flaxseed to a powder in an
ordinary inexpensive electric coffee grinder (takes about 15 seconds). Immediately
add the powder to a dish or meal. This powder has a mild, pleasant, “nutty” flavor
which goes well with some dishes but probably not all. Experiment to see how you
prefer it. Whole flaxseed can be stored unrefrigerated without going rancid. But it
is poorly digested unless ground.
Fish oil capsules typically contain about 180 mg of EPA and 120 mg of DHA in each
capsule (check the label) and the recommended dosage is usually 2 capsules per day
(i.e. 600 mg total). EPA and DHA are believed to be able to substitute for the ALA in
flaxseed.
Suggestion: Fish oil capsules can be useful for Multi-Dieters. About 600 mg of both
EPA & DHA together rep-resent current scientific estimates of the minimum amounts
needed by humans. If you eat fish regularly, you will get much more than this.
Vitamins and Minerals
When dieting, vitamin and mineral supplements are the best way to ensure
sufficiency of these food factors be-cause they provide known amounts of
each factor but no Calories whatever. There are 13 known vitamins and 15
known minerals required by the human body. Running low on any one of them
tends to trigger hunger, which naturally makes dieting very difficult. (See
MORE ON… VITAMINS & MINERALS on page 229.)
Multivitamin/mineral tablets: Take one multivitamin/mineral tablet daily. When you
buy your multi, be sure it has 100% of the RDI of each of the 13 vitamins and 8
“trace” minerals (we supplement the 7 macrominerals separately).
Vitamins: A, thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin, pantothenic acid, folate,
pyridoxine (B6), biotin, cobalamine (B12), ascorbic acid (C), vitamin D, d-alpha
tocopheryl acetate (E), vitamin K.
Trace minerals: chromium, copper, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium,
zinc.
Suggestion: Keep your multivitamin next to your toothbrush and take it
when you first get up in the morning. Wash it down with a large glass of water to “get a jump” on
your water requirements for the day. Take a portion of your macromineral supplements
at the same time.
Suggestion: When supplementing macrominerals, it is important to drink at least 8
glasses of water per day so that your kidneys can balance the amounts properly. (See
MORE ON… WATER on page 265.)
Potassium: You need about 3500 mg of potassium per day - up to 50% more is probably
Ok for most people, but more than that can be dangerous over the long term. (See
POTASSIUM on page 243.)
If you have any medical condition that makes you sensitive to potassium, please do
not supplement it without making your doctor aware of what you are doing.
Potassium tablets: In the U.S., supplement tablets are limited to 99 mg potassium
each.
Suggestion: If you are not tracking the amounts of potassium you get from food, take
500 mg of potassium tablets in the morning when you get up. Take another 500 mg
sometime during the day. (These are the same amounts as in the average banana.)
Suggestion: Another easy way to take potassium is to take one or two tablets (99-mg
each) whenever you drink a glass of water—which should be about 6–7 times per day.
Potassium “Salt”: Potassium supplements are also widely available in supermarkets in
granulated “salt” form. One common brand is Morton “Lite” Salt®. It is 50% potassium
chloride and 50% sodium chloride (table salt).
Suggestion: One half teaspoon of this lite salt provides about 700 mg potassium and
600 mg sodium. This is a convenient and appropriate amount to add to many dishes.
Tomato sauce: 900-mg potassium and 73 Calories per cup.
Tomato juice: 550 mg potassium and 41 Calories per cup.
Suggestion: Keep both canned tomato juice and canned tomato sauce as staple items in
your kitchen. They can be used in a large number of dishes and are especially useful
as concentrated low-Calorie sources of potassium.
Suggestion: Canned/bottled vegetable juices (such as V8) are have almost as much
potassium as tomato juice—about 450 mg/cup. Buy the low sodium kind. You can al-ways
add the salt yourself and this gives you much better control over sodium as well as
potassium.
Coffee has 125-mg of potassium and 4 Calories per 8 oz cup.102 Coffee is often
incorrectly assumed to be nothing but “flavored water with caffeine”. But it also has
more potassium per cup than the average supplement tablet (in the U.S.).
Suggestion: Coffee is a significant supplemental source of potassium for
people who drink a lot of it. Be sure to include it when adding up the approximate amounts of
potassium you’ve had in a day.
Powdered Milk: 75 mg potassium and 15 Calories per tablespoon.
Suggestion: Put 1 tablespoon of powdered milk (dry) in a cup of coffee instead of
creamer.
Skim Milk: 400 mg potassium & 85 Calories per 8 oz cup.
Sodium: You need about 2400 mg of sodium per day. Whenever you add salt to a food,
you are essentially fortifying the food with sodium (and chloride). (See SODIUM on
page 247.)
If you have any medical condition that makes you sensitive to sodium, please do not
supplement it without making your doctor aware of what you are doing.
Table salt has 1200 mg of sodium, 1800 mg chloride, & zero Calories per ˝ teaspoon.
Suggestion: From time to time dissolve ˝ teaspoon of table salt in 16 oz of water.
Drink a small amount. If the mixture tastes mildly pleasant and “salty”, you may need
more sodium. However, if the mixture tastes mildly “harsh”, “metallic”, or bitter,
you probably don’t.
Bouillon cubes: Most provide about 1000 mg of sodium each with several different
flavors.
Suggestion: If you think you need more salt, dissolve a bouillon cube in a cup of hot
water—this is a more pleas-ant, low Calorie way to supplement sodium than most other
alternatives.
Phosphorus: You need about 1200 mg of phosphorus per day. (See PHOSPHORUS on page
240.)
Suggestion: High-protein foods like seafood, poultry, and beef are also high in
phosphorus, but some are much higher than others. To manage total amounts properly
see TABLE 23: MACROMINERALS IN PROTEIN FOOD on page 257.
Powdered Milk: 670 mg phosphorus & 250 Calories per cup (dry).
Suggestion: See the Multi-Diet “Milkshake” recipe.
Suggestion: Put 1 tablespoon of powdered milk (dry) in a cup of coffee instead of
creamer.
Skim Milk: 250 mg phosphorus & 85 Calories per 8 oz cup.
Suggestion: Fortify a cup of skim milk with ˝ cup powdered milk to “enrichen” it.
Bran breakfast cereals: About 200-300 mg phosphorus & 60-80 Calories per ˝ cup
portion.102
Suggestion: The better-tasting brands of 100% bran cereals make good “munchies”
(i.e. they can be eaten dry and crunchy).
Phosphorus supplement tablets: These are available through health food stores.
Suggestion: Take phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium supplements in the morning with
your multivitamin tab-let.
Calcium: You need about 1200 mg of calcium per day. (See CALCIUM on page 235.)
Powdered Milk: 850 mg calcium & 250 Calories per cup (dry).
Suggestion: See the Multi-Diet “Milkshake” recipe.
Suggestion: Put 1 tablespoon of powdered milk (dry) in a cup of coffee instead of
creamer.
Skim Milk: 300 mg calcium & 85 Calories per 8 oz cup.
Suggestion: Fortify a cup of skim milk with ˝ cup pow-dered milk to “enrichen” it.
Magnesium: You need about 400 mg of magnesium per day. (See MAGNESIUM on page 238.)
Magnesium supplement tablets:
Suggestion: Take about a 200 mg magnesium supplement in the morning with your
multivitamin tablet.
Fiber
High fiber cereals and vegetables are your best food sources of fiber. You need about
20-30 grams of fiber daily. (See MORE ON… FIBER on page 261.) The food nutrition
label on most packages gives the number of grams of fiber in foods.
Suggestion: Fiber doesn’t work well when you are dehydrated, so if you drink coffee,
tea, etc. (which dehydrate you and also suppress thirst) then you will need to
re-member to drink more water.
Frozen mixed vegetables: (a Multi-Diet staple) has about 19 grams of fiber and 250
Calories per pound.102 All by it-self, this is almost enough fiber for the whole
day—for some people, it probably is enough.
Bran breakfast cereals: Most have about 10 grams of fiber and 80 Calories per ˝ cup,
depending on the brand. They are also very high in the macromineral phosphorus (about
400 mg per ˝ cup).102
Oats, peas, beans, & barley, etc.: Beans and legumes of all sorts are high in fiber
(typically about 10–15 grams of fiber and 225 Calories per cup (cooked)).102 They
are also low-glycemic-index foods and provide some protein as well.
Suggestion: Cook overnight (or during the day) in a slow-cooker. Add flavorings like
low Calorie bacon bits, spices, salt, etc.
Popcorn (air-popped, no added fat): 6 grams of fiber and about 150 Calories per five
cups.102 A good “munchie” type food for Multi-Dieters.
Suggestion: Makes a great late-afternoon or late evening snack. Use a “spritz” of
cooking spray to make salt stick.
Psyllium fiber supplements: Metamucil® and similar brands of fiber
supplement have about 3 grams of fiber per teaspoon “dose”. They have
become much more palatable in
recent years.
Suggestion: Mix a teaspoon of these psyllium powders in about every second glass of
water you drink during the day. (This would be about 4 doses of psyllium total.)
Water
You need to drink about 80 oz of water per day to lose weight. Tap water is usually
Ok. Bottled water may taste better. (See MORE ON… WATER on page 265.) Soft drinks can
substitute for some, but not all, of the water.
Suggestion: During the day at work, keep a large glass of water on your desk (or
wherever you work). When you do this, you will be amazed at how much water you drink
and how much food it tends to replace.
Suggestion: Decide that every even (or odd) numbered hour during the day that you
will drink a 10-oz (or more) glass of water. Start when you get up in the morning and
stop two hours before going to bed (for obvious reasons.  ) This is easy to remember
and will add up to about 8 glasses of water per day, which is about the right total
amount of water (unless you are physically very active.)
Suggestion: You may use low-cal colas and other soft drinks to replace some of the
water (up to about ˝ of the day’s total—but not all of it). This also provides the
sweet flavor, which is very important for successful dieting. (See SWEET below.)
Suggestion: Thirst is an unreliable sensation for indicating when you need to drink
water, but you can train it to some degree. For example, many people notice that they
don’t really feel thirsty until they actually start drinking a glass of water. Then
they find they’ve drunk the whole glass—without even taking a breath! Whenever this
hap-pens to you, you can assume you were thirsty! You just weren’t noticing it. But
if you are aware that this can happen, you will find you begin to notice it much
sooner.
Suggestion: Go easy on things with caffeine or alcohol (or other diuretic substances)
because even though these things may contain water, they also make your kidneys
eliminate water and dehydrate you. They also suppress thirst so you don’t notice
you’re dehydrated.
Suggestion: When seasons change from summer to winter, you will be
spending much more time indoors in heated, dry air (as opposed to
air-conditioned, moist air). You may need 20–30 more ounces of water per
day be-cause of this. You may not notice this changed requirement for several weeks—unless you are expecting it.
Suggestion: Drink water cold when possible. Cold water and other liquids
are absorbed more rapidly than warm ones.70.
Sensation
Correctly managing the sensations of quantity, variety, and sweet is very important
for controlling hunger and creating a successful weight loss program. (See MORE ON…
SENSATION on page 271.)
QUANTITY
There is no specific “amount” or “quantity” of food required to prevent hunger. It
is the sensation of feeling “full” from time to time that is important. Experience
shows that to succeed, you need to manage meals so that you will “feel full” about
once a day—while still controlling Calories of course. (See THE QUANTITY SENSATION on
page 274.)
Suggestion: The one-pound package of frozen vegetables (200–300 Calories
per lb) is the dieter’s single most convenient tool for satisfying the quantity sensation with
very few calories. It also provides “built-in” variety. Be sure to read labels and
get brands without added oil, sugar, or other high-Calorie “goodies”—they are not all
the same.
Suggestion: The standard (15-oz) size can of tomato sauce (about 150 Calories) can
add considerable “quantity” to many dishes.
Suggestion: Although you may initially think of vegetables as boring, you will find
that after you have the nutritional factors under control, The Beast will be just as
happy with vegetables as with any other meal. And when The Beast is happy, you will
be much less fussy about what you like or don’t like.
Suggestion: The reason for using frozen vegetables is simply convenience. Frozen
veggies are quick and easy to prepare and the package label tells you exactly how
many Calories you’re getting, thus helping you stay off the Liar’s Diet. (However, if
you prefer to measure, clean, chop, and cook fresh vegetables, you have my worshipful
admiration.)
VARIETY
There is no specific “amount” of variety that you need in order to prevent hunger.
More variety is better than less, but experience shows that the threshold for
“enough” variety is not high—if you are managing all the other nutritional factors
properly. (See THE VARIETY SENSATION on page 277.)
Suggestion: Try not to eat the same meal more than once every two or three days.
Suggestion: “One-dish” meals tend to be more satisfying with less total food.
“Many-dish” meals tend to stimulate you to eat more even after you’re no longer
hungry. (See the discussion of SENSORY-SPECIFIC SATIETY on page 279.)
Suggestion: The same “one-dish meal” eaten too often will become monotonous and
unappealing and wake The Beast. This is a mechanism whose purpose is to stimulate you
to eat some other food when you need to. Try not eat the same “one-dish meal” more
than once every two days (and longer is probably better).
Suggestion: Among protein foods, beef is very different from poultry,
which is very different from fish, and so forth. Alternate among protein
foods as much as is convenient. (Obviously, you should remove as much fat as possible before eating.)
Suggestion: Vegetables are all different from each other and frozen mixed vegetables
usually provide sufficient variety even in just one meal—especially if you add
different herbs and flavorings.
Suggestion: Tomato is actually a fruit, so tomato sauce creates more-than-normal
amounts of “differentness” in vegetable and meat dishes.
Suggestion: Cottage cheese is different in taste, texture, and density from just
about everything else. Use the low-fat kind.
Suggestion: Herbs & spices & all the artificial flavors that can now be found in the
“spices” section of the supermarket can create an endless variety of flavors—you
should experiment freely to find out what you like.
SWEET
It is nearly impossible—and fortunately unnecessary—to diet for long periods while
denying yourself the sweet flavor. There is no specific “amount” of sweet needed—it
is entirely an individual choice. The only requirement is that you get very few
Calories from whatever sweet foods you eat. (See THE SWEET SENSATION on page 283.)
Suggestion: Soft drinks sweetened with aspartame or other low Calorie sweeteners are
easy and convenient and are therefore probably the single best means of providing the
sweet flavor while dieting.
Suggestion: Lemonade (with artificial sweetener) pro-vides a very different kind of
“sweetness” from soft drinks. (It is sometimes much more satisfying than soft
drinks.)
Suggestion: Buy packets of low-cal sweetener at the super-market and use them instead
of sugar whenever possible.
Suggestion: Your personal taste for sweet is likely to be different from everyone
else’s and your personal perception of this is the only relevant perception. If you
want something super-sweet, make it so. If you don’t care that much, then less is the
right amount for you.
Suggestion: At the beginning of the Multi-Diet, you may tend to want more of the
sweet sensation than you will later.
Suggestion: Every once in a while (for reasons unknown) the Beast seems to want real
sugar. At such times try giving it a handful of jellybeans (which have no fat). This
of-ten settles it down again quickly. (Don’t give it anything with fat—that would
just get stored immediately.)
Exercise
On a diet, the real value of exercise is as an indicator of how well you are handling
the nutritional factors. (See MORE ON… EXERCISE on page 287.) This is why you should
exercise regularly (at least every other day). When you are handling the nutritional
factors properly, exercise feels good and you look forward to it. When you are not,
it is a chore and you try to avoid it. So if, one day, you notice that you don’t want
to do it, you should focus on whether you’ve really been satisfying the other seven
nutritional factors or not.
Suggestion: Start the exercise part of the Multi-Diet after you have successfully
adapted the other Vital Factors to your particular life and situation. (Maybe as much
as a couple of weeks.)
Suggestion: While you are getting the other Vital Factors down to a
routine, “test” yourself periodically by jogging slowly (in place, or
around the room, or outside) for 20 minutes while watching TV or listening
to music, etc. Pay attention to how you feel. For example, if you’re badly
out of breath at the end of the time, you’re probably not ready for
exercise yet. So back off for three or four days and then experiment again.
If 20 minutes is really not that much effort, keep doing it. (Note: You may
have to “push” yourself for a few minutes—it often takes that long for exercise to start feeling good even when you are ready.)
Suggestion: After you have been managing the other seven Vital Factors
properly for a while and begin to feel like you have more energy, you will
probably find that there is some particular activity that you automatically
begin to do that you don’t do normally (for me it’s automatically taking
the stairs two at a time without even thinking about it). If you then
notice that you’ve stopped doing this activity, it is probably an
early-warning sign that you are starting to lose control of one of the
other Vital Factors. When this happens, you need to refocus and get that factor back
under control before The Beast wakes up and does it for you (in its clumsy, fattening
way ).
Suggestion: Aerobics-type exercise (jogging, etc.) burns Calories
directly. But preserving your muscle mass burns even more Calories. Add
some strength-type (resistance) exercises to your routine as soon as you
can. When jogging is no big
deal anymore, substitute (or add) a very few knee bends and so forth to the routine.
Build this up to a reasonable number as it becomes comfortable to do so.
Suggestion: Strength exercises are most effective if done slo-o-owly.
Suggestion: Exercise can teach you a certain type of perception. You learn this by
paying attention to how you feel while exercising. If it’s becoming more pleasant,
that’s progress. If it starts becoming unpleasant, there’s a reason, and you need to
figure out what that reason is. Per-haps you are losing control (unconsciously) of
one of the other Vital Factors.
Suggestion: Do not simply force yourself to go through some arbitrary, unpleasant, or
boring exercise routine. That may work for a while, but you will learn nothing from
it, and sooner or later, you won’t even do it anymore. Instead, pay attention to
whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant; and to when and why it’s pleasant or
unpleasant. This eventually lets you learn how to keep it pleasant, and that in turn
lets you keep doing it so you can gain the real benefits of exercise for weight-loss.
As always, if you know, think, or even suspect that you may have any sort of physical
problem, you should get a doctor to advise you before doing any exercise program. I
want you lose that fat, not your health.
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