Positive Health Online

Lean For Life

Perhaps once a century, a scientific discovery is made that has the potential to transform human life fundamentally. Less often a discovery is brought down to earth translated into the kind of information and practices you or I can use to change our lives for the better. This book is about such a discovery.

Pandora's Box

I am fully aware of what a huge statement this is. Yet it is true. The discovery is two-fold. First, there's the growing awareness that one of the most widespread epidemics ever to hit the Western world has moved into full swing, although few as yet even know of its existence. Known as insulin resistance syndrome or Syndrome X, this collection of troubles centres around your body's inability to handle the food you eat. It is almost certainly the reason why you, like literally millions of other people, have trouble losing weight and keeping it off no matter how hard you try. Syndrome X can be responsible for all sorts of other miseries, too – from chronic fatigue and anxiety to irritability, depression and a poor sense of personal worth. The second part of the discovery is that there's a way out. But first, let's take a closer look at Syndrome X.

Syndrome X affects the majority of us to one degree or another, even though we may not know it by name. We just imagine that the symptoms – aches and pains and the sense that something is 'just not right' in our body and life – are caused by something else entirely.

But what is it, precisely? Syndrome X is not one condition but a collection of them, all affecting our metabolism in one way or another. They include, among others, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and blood sugar disorders. Together they can make us vulnerable to overweight and obesity, and put us at increased risk of getting just about every age-related disorder you can name: eye problems, diabetes, heart disease, exhaustion, cancer and Alzheimer's, to mention only a few.

And as I've hinted, it's not caused by a virus or accident of nature. It's the result of the high-carbohydrate/low-fat, inadequate-protein way of eating which we have followed for a very long time, believing – as government directives still tell us we should – that such a diet constitutes nutrition for health.

Impeccable scientific research indicates that these directives are wrong. Eating this way screws up the human metabolism. It is contrary to what the human body, throughout the whole of evolution, has been programmed to thrive on – so contrary that it actually causes degeneration.

It happens like this. The hormone insulin helps the body turn the carbohydrates we eat into energy. But eating high-carbohydrate, low-fat food tends to flood cells with insulin. This leads to a cascade of problems. The cells lose sensitivity to insulin, which means even more of it is produced to redress the balance. Too much insulin causes the body to convert food into fat, yet prevents it from releasing the fat to use as fuel. It's not hard to see that the low-fat/high-carb diet can lead, directly or indirectly, to overweight, obesity, and the rest of Syndrome X's grim tally. So much for the bad news.

The good news is that all of these miseries can be reversed – not by popping a pill, but by shifting the way you eat and live. In fact, changing your way of eating and living is the only way to do this. Nothing else will work. No matter what your weight or age, or how long you have struggled with fat, you can transform your body into a radiantly healthy, fat-burning organism for life. Slowly and inexorably, the fat will melt away, you'll gain sleek, smooth, beautifully shaped muscles, and you'll reach levels of energy and vitality you may only have dreamed of until now.

The X Factor

How will this transformation happen? I've called it the X Factor Diet, because permanent weight loss doesn't happen until we deal with Syndrome X. Following any other kind of diet will mean the loss of lean body mass and an endless, tedious seesawing between losing weight and gaining it all back, with interest. In fact, making good use of the X Factor Diet puts an end to slimming diets forever – as well as the heartache, fatigue and sub-clinical nutritional deficiencies they cause.

The X Factor Diet redresses the balance by altering both the kind and ratio of the three fundamental nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates and fats. You'll eat only the best: slow-release, low-density carbohydrates, top-quality protein, vital plant nutrients, omega-3 fatty acids. Depending on your needs, you have two programmes to choose from – Ketogenics and Insulin Balance. Both are natural, scientifically validated programmes for a total and permanent physical metamorphosis.

Michelangelo once said that he never sculpted anything. All he did, he insisted, was take his chisel and remove extraneous marble to reveal the perfect form hidden within it. Ketogenics and Insulin Balance are your chisels, and a natural, healthy, lean body the perfect form which they can reveal. Both programmes work their health-giving wonders by altering the way you process food and creating more energy at the core of you – on a cellular level. Both are well supported by research which you'll find in the References section at the back of the book. These references and further reading are for you to study and to take further if you want to learn more, as well as for your doctor, who, with the inevitable busy practice, may as yet know little of these new discoveries.

Good For All

Insulin Balance is an excellent programme for anyone. In essence, it's a road to healthy living, and a superb way of controlling insulin and blood sugar levels and avoiding insulin resistance – all vital for avoiding conditions associated with Syndrome X, as we've seen. Insulin Balance is also an effective weight-loss tool and energy boost for a woman whose body fat is less than 35 per cent or a man who carries less than 22 per cent fat.

For women and men whose body fat percentage is higher, Ketogenics is the answer. This more dynamic fat-loss programme also counters the effects of Syndrome X, but works faster and goes deeper than Insulin Balance. It also requires more demanding changes in lifestyle.

People on Ketogenics usually switch to Insulin Balance once their body fat gets down to the appropriate level. Some people feel so well and are so delighted with the steady fat loss they experience with Ketogenics that they choose to remain on it until they have reached whatever body size and weight is appropriate for them. Both Insulin Balance and Ketogenics also make use of the right kind of physical activity – an essential ally in clearing fat from your body, as well as in protecting from and countering Syndrome X.