Читать книгу The Viva Mayr Diet: 14 days to a flatter stomach and a younger you - Dr Stossier Harald - Страница 8

To stay alive, we need to eat. Humans take in food, process it and then get rid of the end product. However sophisticated we are, the fact remains that the human species is part of a natural order. The types of food we eat and how we eat needs to reflect this. In other words, our eating habits need to reflect our biological roots and needs, and not just whatever happens to be convenient as we rush from home to work to the pub or the gym. There is a right way to eat and a wrong way, and, according to Dr Stossier, the vast majority of us are eating the wrong way.

Just what is the ‘right way’ to eat? There are endless books, arguments and theses on this subject. But the one thing we all agree on is that nutrition has a huge impact on our health and well-being. Most would agree that eating well plays a major part, if not the major part, in disease prevention. We were all told to eat our greens as children, and we all know why. Doctors are forever telling us to cut down on cholesterol and saturated fats. But Dr Stossier argues that it’s not quite that simple. As well as eating those greens and avoiding saturated fats, you need to be aware of how and at what time of day to eat them, in order to help them to support your body to stay slim and healthy in the most effective way.

Nutrition influences our bodies in a number of ways. To live, we need a certain amount of energy, which we get from our food. We generally measure the type and quantity of food in the number of calories. But most people know from bitter experience that counting calories alone does not lead either to good health or even optimum weight. Whether we are calorie-counting or not, the vast majority of us manage to nourish ourselves more or less successfully throughout our lives. Most of us think that the majority of eating choices we make are good for us. Obviously we know when we’re being ‘naughty’, but we let it pass and promise to be better tomorrow.

If we don’t manage to be better tomorrow, we end up fat, and then go on a diet. I have read almost 100 diet books – not only in an effort to lose weight, but also to try and sort out digestive problems like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), from which I am convinced I have suffered since childhood. I haven’t found a single one that gave me a solution that was sustainable, logical and do-able.

What is missing from all the diet books I have read is logic, clearly defined guidelines and tangible results. In addition, I have yet to come across one diet book that is based on real medical and scientific knowledge. Most of them drone on about what to avoid, but they don’t actually tell you how to optimise your health and lose weight at the same time. They just tell you about all the things you can’t eat, which makes for pretty dull reading.

We all know that if we cut out dairy, sugar and wheat from our diets we lose weight. But is this actually good for our health, and how sustainable is it? How many times can you go out for lunch with your friends and eat nothing but a lettuce leaf before they stop asking you to join them? How many times have you struggled to lose weight by denying yourself just about everything you want to eat, only to put on every painfully lost pound within a few weeks? The Viva Mayr Diet is not about cutting things out of your diet and starving yourself. The Viva Mayr Diet is about changing the way you view food and eating, changing bad habits for good ones, thus ensuring weight loss and good health as well. Better still, it is also about ensuring that those pounds don’t just pile back on again. It is a life-long way of eating, and if you follow the Viva Mayr philosophy, you will never be overweight again; it is simply physically impossible.

The Viva Mayr philosophy embraces good nutrition, and good nutrition is the best form of preventive healthcare there is. Luckily, we alone are responsible for our nutritional choices – put simply, we are responsible for what we put into our mouths. Good health is an ongoing daily aim and every day is the right day to start.