Depending on how many decades you’ve been alive—and how many of those decades you’ve spent trying to control your weight, you’ve probably seen many diet fads come and go. The 1990s had the low-fat revolution, the cabbage soup diet, and the lemonade cleanse, to name just a few. The 2000s had the high-protein, low-carb obsession. You may even remember the high-protein, low-carb thing going around in the 1970s as well.
One of the basic principles that well-meaning health practitioners have promoted for years is that weight loss always comes down to calories in versus calories out—that whether you eat a balanced, health-promoting diet of vegetables, fruit, whole grains and lean protein or a bunch of processed junk, as long as the calories are right, you’ll lose weight. The truth I’ve discovered contradicts that long-held belief. Not only should you eat a healthy, whole-foods diet because it boosts your energy and reduces your risk of disease, you should also do so because a calorie is not, in fact, just a calorie.
The reason that all calories are not equal comes down to the simple (and sometimes complex) differences in the way calories from different sources react inside your body. The way you process the calories in avocado, beets or celery is far, far different from the way you process the calories in high-fructose corn syrup and margarine.
What you may be surprised to discover is that the missing piece to your dieting and weight-loss puzzle comes down to inflammation. As recently as the late 1990s, nutrition scientists began to discover ties between the markers for inflammation and weight-related conditions like metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Later studies began to reveal the causal relationship between persistent inflammation and being overweight or obese, in addition to added risk for all of the diseases that go along with obesity.
Of course, some inflammation is part of a normal, healthy immune response to invaders. When you come into contact with a virus, bacteria, toxin or allergen, your body launches its immune defense mechanisms. One of these mechanisms is inflammation. As a part of the normal immune system response, the purpose of inflammation is to heal injured or infected tissues. This is known as acute, or short-term, inflammation. However, the natural inflammatory process becomes harmful when the immune system doesn’t appropriately shut off these tissue-rescuing mechanisms. What results is a chronic state of inflammation. Chronic, or long-term, inflammation can manifest as a variety of diseases, including cancer.
There is no single, perfect healing diet that suits everyone. You’re an individual on the inside as well as on the outside. You are unique in the way you metabolize foods and in your specific nutritional needs.
All around the world, people have come to accept pain as a normal consequence of aging, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Pain is often a sign of tissue inflammation, which can be remedied — either through prevention, intervention or a combination of the two. Many of the “normal” symptoms of aging may be tied to reversible immune responses and tissue damage. But you don’t have to live with inflammation and pain indefinitely. And you don’t have to struggle with calorie counting and failed weight-loss attempts for one more day. Moving away from the “Die-it” and embracing the “Live-it” leads to happiness, balance, and longevity.
Welcome to juicy vitality.
The above is an excerpt from Slimming Meals That Heal, written by Julie Daniluk, published by Hay House (May 1, 2014) and available at bookstores or online at www.HayHouse.com
