What Are You Hungry For?

At this moment there’s a groundswell that is changing people’s lives. It can be sensed from the headlines. A former president, shocked by suffering an early heart attack, announces that he has become a vegan. That’s an amazing statement, and to back up his conversion, Bill Clinton tells everyone how good he feels—and looks. On another front, an extensive study in Spain finds that people who eat a Mediterranean diet high in fish, nuts, and olive oil can reduce the incidence of heart attacks by one-third. This is the biggest dietary finding in years. Everyone who was weaning themselves off red meat is medically vindicated.

The groundswell is moving on many other fronts. The toxins present in processed and manufactured food are less and less acceptable.
Organic
has become a mainstream word. More people than ever are becoming vegetarians, a lifestyle whose benefits have been known for a long time. (In one poll, half of British women described themselves as basically vegetarian.) In a sustainable world, there’s no room for the polluting effect of pesticides and herbicides. People are waking up to a new reality, and a completely new way of eating has quickly emerged.

I got swept up in the groundswell about five years ago. I was already a “good” eater. My diet didn’t include much red meat, and
I had long ago curbed obvious toxins like alcohol and tobacco. I enjoyed what I ate, and I ate what I enjoyed. But as I looked around at the medical literature, new findings were emerging every day. All kinds of links were being made between sugar and obesity, alcohol and disturbed sleep rhythms, simple carbohydrates and diabetes—and many of these findings affected being overweight.

Evidence was piling up that pointed in only one direction. I needed to find the ideal diet, because there was every good reason to. Only habit and neglect were keeping me from maximizing the connection between food, body, and mind.

Not to mention that I was carrying 20 extra pounds.

Despite my “good” eating, I had become a statistic, joining the two-thirds of Americans who are either overweight or obese. I became a statistic despite the fact that I had medical training, motivation, reasonably good habits, no major toxins, and access to any food I wanted. I also knew that going on a diet was futile—look at the numerous studies that prove, over and over, that the rebound effect makes you regain the weight you lost on your diet, and then 5 or 10 pounds more. The surplus pounds are your body’s way of saying, “You tried to deprive me. Don’t do it again.”

My solution was to adopt the ideal diet, and I did it more or less overnight. There was no reason not to, given all the medical evidence I knew.

I eliminated all processed foods.

I ate the purest foods, always natural, as much organic as possible.

Already a nondrinker, I also eliminated fermented foods like cheese.

I gave up refined white sugar.

I drastically cut back on salt.

I gave up red meat, mostly eating chicken and fish but moving in the direction of being a vegetarian.

I drank pure water.

I paid attention to getting proper sleep.

Because everything is connected, something like getting a good night’s sleep was part of my new way of eating. Lack of sleep throws off the balance between two hormones (leptin and ghrelin) responsible for making you feel hungry and full. People who don’t sleep well overeat easily when their body stops sending the right hormonal messages. Belly fat disturbs the same hormones. And what you end up with is a self-perpetuating cycle that is not only unhealthy but potentially dangerous.

I didn’t worry that I was becoming a purity fanatic. Nothing in my new eating was imposed. I wasn’t motivated by worry or fear. The simple fact is that “normal” eating, American style, has gone to unhealthy extremes. The average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar a year, a grotesque amount of empty calories that wreak havoc on insulin levels and blood sugar. As for our addiction to processed foods, which account for 70 percent of what Americans eat, take a look at your local supermarket. There are whole aisles devoted to cookies, crackers, other snack foods, soda pop, frozen pizza, and ice cream. Economics rule, and if those foods didn’t sell in abundance, they wouldn’t get all that shelf space.

What’s
not
extreme is to eat naturally, based on the best medical knowledge available. That’s what the groundswell has been all about. Attention must be paid, and for the longest time our society hasn’t been paying attention to the distorted way we eat.

I was pursuing “awareness eating.” All the steps I took made me feel very good. My body felt lighter, even before I dropped 19 pounds, which came off effortlessly. I stopped doing unconscious things like taking cell phone calls during a meal—why not fully enjoy what you’re eating? I didn’t deprive myself either. Every meal was satisfying because my eating was now in tune with my body, and this in
turn raised my mood level. Although I’ve always been an energetic person, I had energy and buoyancy as never before.

But the most gratifying thing was other people’s response. When I talked about awareness eating, they nodded. Most had already been going along the same path that I was on. The groundswell was real and growing. Standing back, I saw that a tipping point had been reached. Collective consciousness had gotten the message.

When I sat down to write this book, I had confidence that many more people want to walk this new path. They didn’t need to be coaxed into new beliefs, because healthy eating is already their goal. Yet certain things hold them back.

Bad habits and old conditioning.

Fear of change and family pressure not to change.

A stubborn belief that the next diet will work.

Discouragement about being overweight.

A history of not losing weight.

Hunger cravings, especially for salty, sweet, and fatty foods.

Time pressure, which makes it easy to reach for processed foods and snacks, and to make a quick stop at McDonald’s.

It’s a formidable list. These are huge obstacles in the lives of millions of people. In fact, it’s amazing that a new way of eating has managed to become so popular—just look at television advertising, which uses buzzwords like
natural
,
light
, and
nutritious
to sell almost nothing but processed food, while the advertising for fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and organic produce is next to nil.