Dr. Dean Ornish has spent the past 30 years studying the effect exercise, a low-fat diet and stress reduction can have on health. Ornish was the first to show that these lifestyle changes could actually reverse severe heart disease without drugs or surgery.

Now Dr. Ornish has studied the effects of these same techniques on cancer patients with impressive results.   Ornish's latest book, "The Spectrum," offers advice on how to personalize a health plan to fit your goals and preferences — without diets, deprivation or guilt.In this book he explains how changing the way we eat and live can actually change our bodies at a cellular level.  In case studies, this has been shown to stop the spread of cancer.  

To read the first chapter of this new book CLICK HERE.

 

Intuitive Eating is not sexy. It doesn’t help you lose weight overnight and with few exceptions, it isn’t something celebrities are publicly endorsing. Yet, for those who have adopted the mindset of eating what they want, without the guilt and potentially hazardous outcomes associated with many diets and emotional eating, Intuitive Eating is viewed as a miracle.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, between 2 to 5 percent of Americans experience binge-eating disorder during any six-month period. Women, however, are more likely than men to develop eating disorders as studies show only 5 to 15 percent of those with anorexia or bulimia are men, and only 35 percent of those with binge-eating disorder are men. For most women, emotional eating is psychologically based and those with it often times feel too shameful to disclose their affliction. While emotional eating cannot be cured with a gym membership or a slick, marketed diet program, it can be overcome through Intuitive Eating.

The concept behind Intuitive Eating is simple. Allow yourself to eat and enjoy the foods you want, since it has been proven that denying yourself "bad" foods leads to unhealthy cravings for them. As simple as it may sound, for those suffering through emotional eating, getting to the point of admitting a problem is extremely difficult. Adding to the problem is that Intuitive Eating rarely makes it to the headlines, where many who suffer from eating disorders will see them and be positively influenced. For example, it took years for American Idol star, Katherine McPhee, to come to grips with emotional eating. Admitting her problem turned out to be even tougher than going through the Intuitive Eating method that she publicly credited with losing 30 pounds and overcoming bulimia.

According to renowned dietician and co-author of the book, Un-Dieting, Diana Lipson-Burge, “80 percent of the dieting information out there is inaccurate. It’s no wonder diets not only don’t work, but studies prove that dieting can even cause obesity. Intuitive Eating releases one from shame and rebellion to a new found freedom to not only listen but to love your body and start nurturing it instead of depriving and abusing it to do un-natural eating."

For a long time, many people (me included) have believed that one reason for weight gain is a build up of toxins, which will also affect your immune system.

Dr. Eric Berg discovers the link between foods, hormones and weight loss. Weight gain is a symptom of ill health, not the cause of it.

Alexandria, VA  May 20, 2008 -- "People are literally killing themselves trying to lose weight," claims Dr. Eric Berg, of Alexandria VA. A chiropractor by education and nutritional researcher throughout his career, says that by eating certain foods that support fat burning hormones, weight loss will naturally occur.

If the body is starved of calories and good fats, or filled with artificial foods, and stressed through excessive exercise, the body will not become healthy and lose weight, or at least experience lasting weight loss, and can actually result in a decline in health.

"In fact," says Dr. Berg, "most of the people who "In fact," says Dr. Berg, "most of the people who come see me are sicker and heavier than they were when they started dieting. They can't sleep, feel tired all the time, retain fluid, have poor hair and skin, digestion troubles and push themselves to exercise into a condition of overstress. One of my clients told me she literally lifted 3 million pounds last year while working out -- and didn't lose a single pound."

It is food that influences hormones, and hormones that dictate your bodily functions. If you are eating foods that break down the hormonal functions of the body, illness and weight gain are the natural result. Conversely, eating foods that support the hormonal system, restores health and allows weight loss.

Dr. Berg's book, The 7 Principles of Fat Burning, states that a person's body shape clearly reveals their hormonal problem and subsequent diet solution which addresses the restoration of health, as the priority. He states that before some of his clients lose any weight, they are reporting increased energy, better sleep, clearer skin, and so on.

"You have to be healthy in order to lose weight," says Dr. Berg. He explains that excess weight is a symptom of ill health and that a body that is stressed, week and malnourished will not drop weight and improve function, especially while under intense physical workouts.

Dr. Berg says, "The majority of my clients are women. They have been told they are overweight because they are lazy. But let me tell you, most of these women are extremely dedicated and put a tremendous amount of time and effort into losing weight. They've been given a bum wrap. They've been told they can have chocolate cake every day and lose weight. These women are hopeful, but they're not stupid. They lose some weight, then stop the program, gain it back and then some, and now additional fatigue and just one more failure."

Dr. Berg has come up with many non-conventional ways of assisting his clients in their battle of the bulge. Although some critics say he is the one who has it backwards with his claims that you need to get healthy in order to lose weight, Dr. Berg holds firm to his theory. He reports having assisted thousands of people all over the country through his The 7 Principles of Fat Burning concepts, restoring fitness and health by educating people on the facts about food and the body. And educates the public at free weekly seminars in Alexandria, VA. He also trains doctors all over the country to do the same and has trained hundreds to date.

A lot of people will say that emotional eating is stress eating.  When we feel like we can't handle our emotions, we turn to food.  That is certainly one definition of emotional eating, but I think there is much more than that.

Almost everything we do in life is really to meet one need.....we want to feel better.  You may not agree with that at first glance, so please think about it for a minute.  Why do you want more money, a better job, to be in love, to seek happiness....these are all things that make you feel better.  In the case of money, you really don't need more pieces of paper with numbers and pictures on hem.  You want what you believe money will buy you.  So, why do you want that?  Because it will make you "feel" happy or secure or some other feeling.  Feelings are just another name for emotions.  We always want to feel better.

It is my belief that anyone who is overweight and does not have a problem with their metabolism is an emotional eater.  I mentioned this to one of my friends and she said, "I don't eat because I'm stressed or emotionally upset, I eat because I love this food".  So, what does that mean to "love food"? 

Isn't love an emotion?  Sure it is.  If you love food, it is really because you have created an association to that food.  Think of desserts.  They always come at the end of the meal as sort of a reward for finishing you meal.  Don't you remember that as a child?  You parents would say, "Finish your vegetables and you can have
 dessert".  In your mind, you associated dessert as a form of reward for your accomplishment.  When you think of desserts now, you think of the feelings that are associated to those wonderful childhood memories. 

So many of these associations were created when we were children and we store them in our subconscious minds.  You may not know consciously why is it so hard to resist these foods that are tempting you.  That is because you are trying to use the logical part of your mind, and the emotion will almost always be stronger.

Emotional eating is much more that a response to stress or stress eating.  It is a product of years of conditioning in a society that is focused on food for pleasure instead of nourishment.  The key to emotional eating is to change the associations to food, especially the ones you eat to excess.