The False Fat Diet: The Revolutionary 21-Day Program for Losing the Weight You Think Is Fat

1IT'S NOT FAT I have excellent news. It's something you haven't heardbefore. It's very important.* You're not nearly as overweight as you may think. Much of your weightisn't even fat. It's false fat–the bloating and swelling caused byallergy-like food reactions–and you can shed it almost immediately.* This false fat is not your fault. You are not a glutton. You're notlazy. You just have a very common metabolic problem: food reactions.* You can solve this metabolic problem. The problem is not permanent,and it's not hard to correct. You can solve it over the next few days.It need never return.* When you do solve this problem, you'll regain your power over food. Asyour false fat fades, so will your food cravings and certain metabolicdisorders (such as hormone imbalances). Without these food cravings andmetabolic disorders, you'll begin to lose your true fat, steadily andsurely. Even if you now lack full control over your eating habits, youcan take charge again by correcting your food reactions. You can starttaking charge today.I urge you to carefully consider this great news. It will be your key tohaving complete power over what you eat, and over the biochemicalreactions that foods cause in your body. When you have this power, youwill have an entirely new way to solve your weight problem.You have nothing to gain but knowledge, and nothing to lose but thefalse fat that's hurting your appearance and the true fat that's hurtingyour health.When you conquer your food reactions, your appearance, your health, andyour zest for life will improve immeasurably. Things will get betterbecause you will make them get better. You will finally have that power.It's true: Knowledge is power.You really must use the power that this knowledge provides. You owe itto yourself. You're worth it.And here is why you probably will use this power: Using it will be morepleasant than not using it. For the first time in your life, you aregoing to enjoy being on a diet. In fact, like most of my patients, youwill almost forget that you are on a diet, because the False Fat Diet isquite different from every other diet you've ever been on. It is notbased on reducing the quantity of your food. It is based on improvingthe quality of your food.This diet is not even ultimately intended to make you thin–it isintended to make you healthy. As I often tell my patients, "If youstrive for thin, you'll never win. Strive for health and thin willfollow."Thus, in the conventional sense of the word, this is not even a diet. Itis an eating strategy. It's a scientifically designed method of givingyou power over food, so that you can make smart food choices.No one else can make these choices for you, because each of your foodchoices must be carefully individualized. Every person reactsdifferently to different foods. You are a unique being with your ownspecial biochemistry and your own one-of-a-kind environment andactivities. There is only one you, doing what you do, eating what youeat, and meeting the demands that you meet.Nonetheless, every other diet you've ever been on has been designed forother people by other people. They have been one-size-fits-all diets,and that approach simply doesn't work. This time, with The False FatDiet, you'll help design your own personalized diet, free of your ownreactive foods. This diet will be your diet. Yours alone. That's why itwill work.With the help of this book, you'll learn about the qualities andchemistries of various foods. More important, though, you'll learn aboutyour own unique body. You'll learn which foods are good for you andwhich aren't–and I promise some surprises.Right now, you may know which foods are healthy for most people. But ifyou're basing your own food choices on just this knowledge, you may bedoing yourself more harm than good–because you are not most people.You're you, and the only diet you'll ever fully succeed on will be yourown individualized diet, free of the particular foods that are healthyfor most people, but harmful for you.After years of trying unsuccessfully to lose weight, you may be feelingconfused, powerless, frustrated–and hungry. Don't despair! Many of mypatients felt like that before they tried this approach. But most ofthem have succeeded beyond their dreams.Now it's your turn.It has taken me approximately 20 years to develop and refine the FalseFat Diet. During this time, I have placed hundreds of overweightpatients on the diet and have consistently achieved good, and oftenremarkable, results.The False Fat Diet is based upon a simple, inarguable medical fact: Whenpeople regularly eat foods to which they are reactive, they invariablysuffer (1) tissue swelling, (2) abdominal bloating, and (3) metabolicdisturbances that cause weight gain.The tissue swelling and abdominal bloating create a false fat that looksexactly like fat, but is not "true fat," or adipose tissue. This falsefat often adds the appearance of an extra 10 to 25 pounds. The foodreactions that cause false fat are almost never corrected byconventional weight loss diets.In addition, metabolic disturbances caused by food reactions create notjust false fat, but also true fat. They create excess adipose tissue bydisrupting the metabolism, by disturbing hormonal balance, and bycreating intense food cravings. Millions of people have become obesebecause of these factors.When my patients go on the False Fat Diet, most of them lose the falsefat of bloating and swelling very quickly and then lose their extraadipose tissue gradually and steadily.Over the years, I have seen patients try to lose weight with a number ofother approaches, but no other weight control diet has been nearly aseffective as my False Fat Diet. Other diets fail to keep weight offpermanently because they ignore the terrible burden that food reactionsplace upon the body. When this burden is removed, most patients respondwonderfully well.Clinical, controlled studies support my belief in the power of thisdiet. One important study is detailed on page 15. They irrefutablydemonstrate that many people who have failed on other diets succeed withthis approach.Food reactions are not the only reason people gain weight. However, theyare an extremely important reason–one that has gone largely unreported,except in the medical literature. In actuality, an estimated 80% to 90%of all significantly overweight people suffer from these reactions andcan lose weight if the condition is corrected.Food reactions consist of food allergies and food sensitivities, whichare similar to allergies. Some doctors refer to all food reactions asallergies, but most physicians feel that the term reactions is moreaccurate, because it's more inclusive. Strictly speaking, classic foodallergies are relatively rare. Food sensitivities, however, areextremely common.The incidence of food allergies and sensitivities has recently begun toincrease dramatically for several reasons. The primary reason is that weeat too many staples, such as wheat, eggs, and milk, which exhaust ourbodies' abilities to digest them. Also, we eat too many packaged,processed foods, which are loaded with reactive fillers and chemicals,such as corn syrup, wheat gluten, and MSG. Obesity and digestiveproblems, both very common health problems nowadays, also contribute tofood reactions.The increasing incidence of food reactions is mirrored by a recent sharpincrease in obesity, which rose from 25% of the population in 1985 to33% today. If this rate continues, by the year 2030 most people inAmerica will be obese. Childhood obesity has doubled since 1980. Evennow, 60% of the population, while not obese, is overweight. Currently,obesity kills 300,000 Americans each year–more people than any otherfactor except smoking. Overconsumption also stresses digestive functionsand leads to inefficient breakdown of foods and malabsorption of largemolecules of food, which sets up food reactions.Therefore, I believe that the important effect that food reactions haveupon weight control and digestive health must be brought to theattention of the American public and the world. At this point in thehistory of public health, few things are more vital.Why This Diet Has Been SuccessfulThe False Fat Diet has been successful because it corrects a seriousbiological flaw that has been proven to trigger weight gain.Throughout the history of medical weight control, the most successfuldiets have been those that did not radically restrict calories, butinstead corrected the metabolic problems that most often cause weightgain. For example, the Sugar Busters diet helped people by showing themhow to correct the biological flaw of insulin instability. Othersuccessful approaches have included boosting the body's fat-burningthermogenesis and correcting deficiencies in the brain chemicals thatmake people feel satisfied after eating. Correcting biological flaws isa medically sound approach, because old-fashioned, caloric-restrictiondiets have been proven ineffective. They trigger the starvationresponse, which slows the metabolism and makes the body hoard its fat.However, even the most successful prior diets have overlooked acritically important factor: Most overweight people have individualizedfood allergies and sensitivities that subvert the one-size-fits-alldiets, in which all dieters eat the same foods. Therefore, some of themost popular diets have had high failure rates.By correcting the common biological flaw of food reactions, though, theFalse Fat Diet achieves unprecedented rates of adherence and success.How It Works: A Quick OverviewThe False Fat Diet begins when you determine your own reactive foods,using either a blood test or an elimination diet, in which you eliminatefoods, then reintroduce them gradually, to see which ones causeproblems. I'll soon tell you about each method.After you determine your reactive foods, you begin to avoid them duringthe first phase of the diet, the Cleansing Phase, which lasts about aweek. During this initial phase, you may even experience withdrawalsymptoms, such as food cravings, irritability, or headaches, as yourbody is cleansed of chemicals from reactive foods and as your metabolismbegins to normalize. These temporary symptoms are a sure sign that thediet is working.Then you quickly shift into the second phase of the diet, which is FalseFat Week. During this 7- to 10-day period, you will lose your bloatingand swelling and look 10 to 25 pounds thinner. Your energy, motivation,and well-being will begin to soar.Then you progress to the third phase of the diet, the Balance Program,which lasts as long as you want. In the Balance Program, you can eat avaried, balanced assortment of nonreactive foods. During this phase, youwill probably lose significant amounts of adipose tissue as yourmetabolic function improves and your food cravings vanish.On the Balance Program, you begin to rebuild your metabolic health, andovercome your food reactions. After 2 to 3 months, you can sometimesbegin to eat even your most reactive foods, without incident. Therefore,the Balance Program becomes easier as time passes.During the Balance Program phase, you'll also learn to balance yourlifestyle, as well as your diet, by exercising and reducing stress.You'll discover that when you proactively follow a healthy, balancedlifestyle, your weight will naturally diminish and you'll begin to feelabundantly healthy.Because the long-term Balance Program is relatively easy and pleasant,adherence to the diet tends to be excellent. Another major reasondieters stick to the diet is because it often stops other commonproblems caused by food reactions, such as migraines, heartburn,insomnia, skin rashes, irritable bowel syndrome, nasal congestion,sinusitis, and recurrent infections. Becoming free from these commonproblems is extremely motivating.During the Balance Program, the maintenance phase, you are free to makeyour own food choices from a broad variety of nonreactive foods. In mymedical practice and in this book, I provide several sample menu plans,with recipes, that serve as guidelines for dieters. The sample menuplans consist primarily of fresh, whole, unprocessed foods, such asvegetables, fruits, grains, fish, fowl, and legumes. The diet does notfocus on caloric restriction, although most healthy, nonreactive foodsdo tend to be naturally low in calories. As a rule, it's much easier fordieters to stick to healthy foods on this diet than it is on otherdiets, because they are no longer driven by reactive food cravings.The principle behind this diet is simple: When people stop eating theirown particular reactive foods, their health almost always improves andtheir weight normalizes. This uncomplicated principle is powerful–andproven.Five InnovationsBecause this diet is a new, unique approach, it adds five importantinnovations to the battle against obesity. They are:1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.2. This diet creates permanent loss of adipose tissue throughavoidance of reactive foods.3. This diet actually feels good.4. This diet is notably proactive.5. This diet is individualized.Now I'll explain these innovations in a little more detail.Innovation 1. This diet permanently rids the body of false fat.False fat is the unattractive bloating and swelling that makes peoplelook and feel far more fat than they really are.No other diet ends the food allergies and sensitivities that cause falsefat. Often, people on other diets look overweight even after theirbody-fat ratio has significantly improved because their bodies stillbulge with reactive bloating and swelling.The human body is composed of approximately 60% to 70% water by weight,and the vast majority of overweight people carry at least 5 to 10 extrapounds of water weight at all times. This added poundage is almostalways the result of chronic swelling, or edema, in the tissues, causedby food reactions.Unlike the temporary loss of water weight that occurs on someconventional caloric restriction diets, the loss of water weight on theFalse Fat Diet does not occur because of the short-lived effect ofketosis, the urinary flushing of the fat by-products called ketones.Instead, it occurs because of ongoing avoidance of the reactive foodsthat directly cause systemic edema. A loss of at least 5 to 10 poundshappens almost immediately and can endure forever. If the person isnotably obese, the water weight loss is even greater. I have observedpermanent decreases in tissue swelling in almost all of my weight-losspatients, with an accompanying loss of weight.Although the false fat of edema is not adipose tissue, it is notablyuncomfortable and unattractive, as every woman who gains water weightprior to menstruation already knows. In fact, people with allergicreactive edema frequently look even fatter than people who have moretrue fat, because edematous puffiness generally collects in the placesthat are most noticeable–in the face, the abdomen, the buttocks, thethighs, and the ankles. In the face, it often creates a plump, puffyappearance and a sagging double chin. In the thighs, it contributesgreatly to the dimpling of cellulite; that's why temporary gimmicks,such as thigh wraps that squeeze water away, improve the appearance ofcellulite for a short time.Food allergies and sensitivities cause edema in much the same way thathay fever allergies cause the nasal tissues and eyes to become swollenand watery. When the digestive system is not able to break down foods,food molecules enter the system only partly digested. The immune systemthen targets these molecules as foreign invaders. It surrounds them withwater, as part of the inflammatory response, in an attempt to flush themaway. As more reactive foods are introduced, cells become congested withwater, resulting in tissue swelling. Fortunately, hay fever season endswhen pollen production stops. Food allergies and sensitivities, however,continue indefinitely; their season never ends–unless we end it.The only way to overcome this phenomenon permanently is to avoidingesting the reactive foods or to overcome your reaction to them. TheFalse Fat Diet is the only diet that helps patients achieve both ofthese objectives.As cellular swelling and tissue swelling subside, generally during thefirst week of the False Fat Diet, so does abdominal bloating. Abdominalbloating, which can add two to three inches to the waistline, is partlycaused by the chronic retention of gas in the GI tract, particularly inthe small intestine, where reactive foods "stall." Partially digesteddairy products, for example, often ferment in the intestine for morethan a day and cause considerable bloating. In addition, gut tissuesthemselves often swell with fluid and distend the abdomen. Thisabdominal distension caused by gas and fluid can create a "pregnant" ora "beer belly" look. Because the intestines are more than 20 feet inlength, but are compressed into a small area, even moderate increases ingas and fluid retention greatly increase the gut's volume. When peopleon other diets fail to overcome this bloating, because they are stillconsuming reactive foods, they typically become discouraged.On the False Fat Diet, my patients have found that this bloating wasmostly resolved within three to five days. Many patients have quicklyachieved flat stomachs, often after years of unproductive sit-ups andskipped meals. Bloating never returns, if the patient adheres to thediet and then overcomes his or her food reactions. In almost all cases,this quick success is very motivating.As patients swiftly shed the false fat of edema and bloating, they oftenachieve the permanent appearance of a 15- to 25-pound weight loss. Thesefast, enduring results propel dieters into the Balance Program, which isthe most rewarding phase of all. In this phase, they cast off resistantpounds of true fat.Innovation 2. This diet creates permanent loss of adipose tissue throughavoidance of reactive foods.As false fat dissolves, so does true fat. The same reactive false fatfoods that cause swelling and bloating also trigger biological disastersthat usually result in weight gain. The two primary disasters are foodcravings and metabolic disorders.Food CravingsFood reactions are the single most common cause of the cravings thatdestroy diets. These cravings, which are far harder to resist than merehunger, are similar to the physical urges experienced by alcoholics orcigarette smokers.As long as a reactive food is in a person's system, it preventsdiscomfort, just as drinking alcohol prevents an alcoholic's discomfort.Food reactions can even cause the release of the body's own opiates,which is partly why you can become "addicted" to certain foods. Asreactive foods begin to leave the system, though, discomfort begins–justas anxiety and malaise occur when an alcoholic stops drinking. Thewithdrawal symptoms of food allergies and sensitivities are strongestfor about two days, until the reactive foods are cleared from the body.Conventional diets, unfortunately, usually allow people to eat reactivefoods almost every day, and this perpetuates the allergic addiction offood reactions, just as ingesting alcohol or drugs every day would whetthe self-destructive appetites of substance abusers.For many years, it was presumed that most overweight people lackedwillpower, but recent research on weight control indicates thatoverweight people have essentially the same level of emotional strengthas thin people. A great many overweight people aren't weak–they're justtrapped by the overpowering force of allergic addiction.Many overweight people develop reactive cravings for junk food andsweets, but others crave "healthy" foods. One patient of mine, forexample, gradually developed a reactive craving for orange juice andgrape juice, and ended up drinking about 1,000 calories' worth of thesejuices every day. She was convinced that juice was healthy for everyone.But she had never been informed that the tartaric acid in grapes and thecitric acid in oranges can cause reactions in some people.Metabolic DisordersFood allergies and sensitivities contribute strongly to severalcatastrophic disorders of metabolism:* They interfere with the hormonal balance of the endocrine system,including the thyroid and adrenal glands. This makes it harder for thebody to burn stored fat.* They disturb insulin levels, even in people who are able to maintainnormal function of the thyroid and adrenals. This signals the body toconvert food energy into fat, and also contributes to hypoglycemia.* They cause mood chemistry disruptions. Food reactions cause levels ofthe calming neurotransmitter serotonin to plummet, leading todepression, anxiety, and compulsive urges, all of which commonly triggerovereating. Serotonin instability also exacerbates many physicaldisorders, including migraines, premenstrual syndrome, fibromyalgia, andirritable bowel syndrome. These troublesome conditions often disrupthealthy eating patterns.* They cause energy and immune dysfunction. Food allergies andsensitivities markedly decrease energy, contribute toinsomnia, and dysregulate immunity (because food reactions are usuallymalfunctions of the immune response). All three of these problemsinterfere greatly with the ability to exercise. They also contributemarkedly to the previously mentioned metabolic disorders.In addition, food allergies and sensitivities indirectly contribute tothe occurrence of candida yeast colonization in mucosal membranes, whichcauses symptoms similar to those of chronic fatigue syndrome and causesbloating. Unfortunately, yeast colonization then exacerbates foodreactions.The biological disasters that accompany chronic food reactivity occur ina self-perpetuating cycle, as you can see in the diagram on page 14.Innovation 3. This diet actually feels good.When I put patients on the False Fat Diet, I am helping cure them of aserious medical disorder–the medical condition of food reactions. Likepatients who suffer other medical conditions, these patients, when curedof their allergies and sensitivities, feel better. They have notablymore energy. They have better cognitive function. They have fewer achesand pains, in both joints and muscles. Their moods improve appreciably,and they experience significantly less depression, anxiety, andcompulsivity. They experience fewer minor illnesses. They breathe morefreely. They have far fewer PMS symptoms. They have much less heartburnand gastroesophageal reflux. They have fewer migraine and tensionheadaches. They are far less likely to suffer from irritable bowelsyndrome, eczema, hives, recurrent urinary tract infections, orrecurrent vaginitis. They have less insomnia. And, of course, they havefewer cravings for foods.I have seen this occur in hundreds of allergy and overweight patients.The table on page 15 presents the results of a study of improvements inthe quality of life of patients on an allergy-free weight-loss diet. Allof the patients in this study identified their food reactions by usingthe ALCAT cell-reaction testing system, which I'll describe later.No other diet offers these improvements in quality of life.Of course, many diets justifiably claim that when patients overcomeobesity, they become less susceptible to heart disease, diabetes, andsome forms of cancer. However, with most other diets, you've got tosuffer to get there. With the False Fat Diet, getting there is half thefun.The False Fat Diet feels good simply because people who engage in it aregenerally cured of a medical disorder and become healthier. With theFalse Fat Diet, patients don't become healthy by becoming thin, theybecome thin by becoming healthy.Obviously, these quality-of-life side benefits are a tremendousmotivating factor for patients. By far the biggest reason that peoplefail to achieve long-term success on most diets is because the diets areunpleasant. My patients, though, tend to have superior long-termadherence rates because they feel good on this diet.Furthermore, they don't feel good when they go off the diet and eattheir reactive foods, because their uncomfortable symptoms return. Thisnegative reinforcement also makes adherence easier. It's similar to howeasy it can be to avoid red wine after you've learned that it gives youmigraines. You may miss the wine somewhat, but your main associationwith it is pain, not pleasure.Innovation 4. This diet is notably proactive.On most diets, it's not what you do that counts, it's what you don't do:You don't eat much. Often, the very best thing the dieter can do is topassively do nothing.On the False Fat Diet, which focuses more on regaining health, fitness,and body shape than losing scale weight, patients participate in theirown recovery from food reactions and obesity. They actively rebuildtheir health by following a systematic program of rejuvenation.The simplistic notion that weight control depends almost solely upon howmuch you eat and how many calories you burn through exercise isoutdated. Even the most deadly diseases, such as cancer andcardiovascular disease, are caused by multiple factors and respond bestto multidimensional healing approaches–and weight control is nodifferent. Weight control is not as simple as "You are what you eat."Your weight is also influenced by what you breathe, what you do, whatyou drink, and even what you think. For example, toxins that congest theliver deter the liver from emulsifying fat. Therefore, the toxicadditives in a synthetic nonfat food might cause a greater weight gainthan ingestion of a similar full-fat, natural food. Toxin-induced weightgain is common because so many artificial flavors are added to foods,along with preservatives and fillers. (In fact, the average person eatsabout 5 pounds of these additives each year.)By the same token, chronic exposure to stress impairs adrenal andthyroid activity, which can result in weight gain–even withoutovereating.Therefore, my weight control patients engage in comprehensive,individualized health-building programs. They practice variousdetoxification measures, such as short cleansing fasts, intestinalcleansing, saunas, dry skin brushing, and use of detoxifying herbs andnutrients. They take individualized dietary supplements to nurture theirorgans and glands of digestion and immunity, to increase energy, and tostimulate and support metabolism. They do aerobic and weight-trainingexercise, not just to burn calories, but also to eliminate toxins andimprove metabolism. They practice various forms of stress management.They also work on curing individual metabolic problems, such ascandidiasis.All of these efforts help their bodies overcome allergies andsensitivities and regain health. In addition, these activities helpshift people's focus away from scale weight to health and vitality. Whenmy patients embrace the concept of becoming as healthy as possible,their food reactions invariably diminish, and their weight decreasesalmost automatically.Furthermore, when my patients stay busy by proactively participating ina multifaceted program, it often ends their emotional obsession withfood. This obsession is relatively common among dieters, especially whenthey have fought allergic addictions during years of restrictive diets.Innovation 5. This diet is individualized.Conventional weight-loss diets recommend the same dietary program foralmost every person. Most diets do not even endorse the most rudimentaryelements of individualization, such as adjusting portion sizes inrelation to a person's weight and level of activity. For example, anobese 250-pound male construction worker would be advised to eat thesame menu plan as a 130-pound female office worker.The only recent diet that attempted to individualize its program was onethat based four diets on the four main blood types. My own clinicalobservation of this diet was that it did work well initially for somedieters–mostly those who significantly altered their food choices. Infact, other diets also work well initially, when people radically changethe types of foods they eat. I believe that the reason this happens isbecause engaging in full-scale dietary change generally forces people toabandon the frequently eaten foods to which they've become reactive. Ifsomeone has been eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for years,they may lose weight when they switch to a higher-protein diet, since itwill exclude many of their reactive foods. Therefore, rigid, extremistdiets often work well in the early stages.However, in the long term, people tend to develop new reactions to thefoods they eat too frequently. This undoubtedly contributes to theeventual failure of many of the rigid diets.On the False Fat Diet, though, patients comfortably participate foryears at a time in the Balance Program, in which they eat their ownvaried, balanced regimen of wholesome, nonreactive foods. This preventsnew food allergies and sensitivities and provides the wide array ofnutrients the body needs to heal.Each patient's program is somewhat different because each patient isdifferent. On this diet you will not only learn your own reactive foods,but will also determine your own metabolic type. Your metabolic typelargely governs the general kind of diet that you will thrive upon. Forexample, some dieters do best on an essentially vegetarian diet, whileothers do better on a diet that contains a moderate amount of meat andother animal protein. People with naturally efficient digestivemetabolisms tend to do better on slowly oxidized foods, such as meat,while people with sluggish metabolisms generally fare better on quicklyoxidized foods, such as fruits and vegetables. You will determine yourown metabolic type by responding to the questionnaire in Chapter 9 onpage 244 – 245.You will probably discover that the False Fat Diet will be a pleasantreturn to the more balanced eating patterns you enjoyed before you beganto engage in extremist, one-size-fits-all diets. Many of my patientshave found that they can eat tempting foods that have long been deniedto them, as long as they stay away from their reactive foods.To recognize your reactive foods, however, you need the help of either aconsulting physician or this book, because many reactive foods arehidden. For example, if your reactive food is corn, you need to becomeaware of all the foods in which corn products appear, including cornsyrup, which is placed in hundreds of processed foods.When patients first consult with me, they often presume that they haveto give up all their favorite foods and suffer to be thin. But that'sjust not true. When my patients begin the False Fat Diet and starteating normal portions of a wide variety of foods, including foods thatthey had denied themselves for years, it can feel like a homecoming.Then when they quickly lose the swelling and bloating of false fat andbegin to drop pound after pound of true fat, they sometimes areincredulous about the long melodrama of yo-yo dieting they had endured.They sometimes ask themselves, "Is this really all there is to it? Whydidn't someone mention this sooner?"The Development of the Diet:A Short HistoryThe False Fat Diet was painstakingly developed through my large clinicalpractice over more than two decades. Most of the people who have been onthe False Fat Diet have been my own patients or patients of myassociates at the Preventive Medical Center of Marin, north of SanFrancisco. The first person to go on the diet, however, was not one ofthese patients–it was me.In 1975, when I was just beginning my medical practice, I attended alecture on the potential health benefits of short juice fasts. I decidedto go on a lemonade fast myself for a few days, to see if it wouldproduce any discernible improvements. I enjoyed it. It made me feel moreenergetic and clearheaded. Hoping to prolong my improved sense ofvitality, I began to add foods back to my diet gradually, sticking tojust healthy, whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Then,during the first ten days of my new diet, a remarkable thing happened. Ilost almost 15 pounds.