Weight loss is a massive industry. We’re talking billions upon billions of dollars annually. Yet, here’s something to think about: we’re in an “obesity epidemic,” with more and more people sliding into disease and discontent because of their weight.
So we can conclude that to a large degree, the weight loss industry is a sham. It preys on people, people who are genuinely looking for answers and a cure, but instead find nothing but large medical bills and empty promises.
The industry is full of charlatans, and to a lesser degree, misguided health enthusiasts who really do think eating less than 500 calories a day or eating a steak and eggs only “diet” is going to magically cure a person’s obesity.
All manner of bizarre fitness routines, crazy diets, and obscure pills are peddled by these people, even well-meaning ones, but the result has been anything but successful.
It is true that health proponents everywhere are fighting an uphill battle against cheap unhealthy food and hazardous lifestyles that contribute to weight gain. In an era rife with emotionally vapid narcissists, there are also people out there trying to convince us that obesity is actually healthy.
This is the ultimate slap in the face of those of us trying to guide people to a more holistic, healthy lifestyle. Imagine something as unnatural as morbid obesity being coddled and sometimes even encouraged in some dark spheres of the Internet? That is where we’re at today.
But what is the answer? If this multi-billion dollar industry can’t cure the obesity epidemic, what can?
Simple: eating a natural diet.
Food is Medicine: What Most Doctors Won’t Tell You
We have been programmed to think health and healing can be found in pills or expensive surgeries. These modern inventions are not cures to anything, they are last resorts to symptoms and conditions.
A dying liver is not cured with a liver transplant.
You are simply taking a healthy liver and putting it into a sick body. Prozac doesn’t cure depression, it simply blocks the absorption of serotonin, which in turn dulls or numbs certain neurological faculties. The underlying problem is still residing in the body.
The same goes for obesity. Slim Fast and a tummy tuck don’t cure obesity. They are duct tape on a leaky pipe at best. Allopathic medicine has its perks, such as being able to resuscitate someone, replace a failing organ when a life is on the line, or set a bone.
These crude practices do save lives and help people. But they are not the answer for prolonged health.
What most doctors won’t tell you is, the best medicine ever conceived has never came in a pill. It grows from the Earth.
Food is the original “cure” – the organic fruits and vegetables of the Earth, having evolved alongside mammals like us for millions of years, are quite literally specifically designed to keep us alive. This benefits the animal species (us) and the plants, which use us as a means of both protection and propagation.
This symbiotic relationship between animals and plants is one of the oldest, most core components of our existence here on Earth. It stands to reason that if we are talking about problems of health, the answers will always come from the Plant Kingdom.
They are and always have been the “parents” to the entire Animal Kingdom, from an evolutionary standpoint. Animals eat to live, and since humans are frugivores, none of our “health” can come from another animal (man or otherwise). It must come from the plants themselves.
Wisdom of this sort is the true cure “they” don’t want you to know about. The medical industry, as well as the weight loss industry, would crash overnight if everyone realized that the key to personal health and wellness is found in the produce aisle.
Food is More Than Protein, Fat, Carbs, and Calories
The first key to understanding diet, and thereby understanding how to lose weight, is realizing that most heath professionals approach the topic of food all wrong.
They focus in on what they perceive as the “4 components of food” (5 if they count fiber), when in all actuality, the basic vitamin and mineral composition of a food is far more important than its protein to fat ratio, or how many calories or carbs it contains.
Even successful, well-meaning fitness gurus and health practitioners miss the mark on this.
While it’s not surprising, it is rather upsetting to see so many people led astray. The health industry is largely a case of the blind leading the blind. Even so-called “experts” in the field have what I would consider to be only a cursory understanding of basic nutrition and bodily requirements.
This is because the knowledge is simply not imparted to them by traditional channels. You have to dig deeper than mainstream health journals and the nonsense that comes out of health journals and studies.
Instead of relying on “doctors,” one must turn to the real experts in nutrition, those who study chemistry and biochemistry.
Everything in our body is a dance of chemistry and an effort to keep the balance of pH at a certain level. When you take this into account, in tandem with the complex nutritional makeup of the foods we eat, you begin to see a different picture than the one painted by most “weight loss experts.”
A person who is truly healthy, with an optimally functioning metabolism, doesn’t have to worry at all about their intake ratio of fat, protein, and carbs, and most certainly does not need to concern themselves with counting calories.
This is because first and foremost, a balanced natural diet contains fat, protein, and carbs in their desired ratio for optimal nutrition, but more importantly, that these so-called “pillars” of nutrition are anything of the sort.
Proper nutrition takes into account the following components of a specific food:
- Mineral contents and in what amounts.
- Vitamin contents and in what amounts.
- Whether or not the food is alkaline-inducing or acid-inducing.
- Antioxidant content.
- Phyto-nutrient (micro-nutrient) content.
- Digestibility (how living or dead a food is, and if we’re actually designed to eat it or not)
- Water content.
This is all health is. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
The second someone starts talking about “you need to cut your carbs,” or “that food has too much fat,” or “you have to limit your calories if you want to lose weight,” just tune them out and keep walking. They are speaking nonsense derived from an industry that’s designed to bilk money out of desperate and sick people. That’s the reality of it.
You want to be feeding your body optimal nutrition. That’s it. End of story.
Anything less is just trying to address symptoms rather than fix problems.
When it comes to weight loss, the only thing you should be concerned with is increasing your metabolism.
Not counting calories, not reducing your fat intake, it’s all about fresh nutrient-rich food that will build and power your body and not tear it down.
This means your diet should largely consist of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. That is the big weight loss secret right there, combined with physical activity. Everyone’s metabolism is different, but given enough time, real food heals.
This is one of the many reasons why so many people are switching to the vegan lifestyle.
It’s not enough to say that vegan diets can help you overcome obesity: veganism cures obesity. In fact, plant-based diets are beginning to be prescribed for obesity by aware doctors, such is the effectiveness of doing so. It’s not about how much fat you eat or how many calories you consume: it’s about what’s in your food, does it promote an alkaline environment, and does it fuel your body rather than clog it up.
Biology isn’t difficult. Nutrition isn’t difficult. Modern day medicine tries to make it difficult so they can profit off of your confusion.
Disease is a Manifestation of a Poor Diet
The vast majority of all illnesses and “chronic conditions” can be traced back to poor diet. The other two primary factors in health, genetics and circumstance, aren’t nearly as important as you’ve been led to believe.
To put it another way, there are some “conditions”, such as the flu or bronchitis, which are caused by outside agents.
If your immune system is running at full strength, you can better fight such threats, but some bacteria and viruses simply could not care less about our body’s defense systems and just have to run their course. Then there are simply circumstantial medical issues, such as broken limbs, accidents, birth defects, and the like. A proper diet plays no role in these situations.
However, for the large bulk of what we would call “diseases” and “conditions” (acne, osteoporosis, gall stones, dry mouth, IBS, diabetes, joint pain, anemia, brittle nails, cancer, and thousands of other issues), they arise due to your diet. And obesity is one such condition.
Your body is constructed out of what you eat.
I know this is somewhat of a “duh” thing to say, because it’s something you sort of learn as a little kid, but I think few adults stop to think of the implications.
Like all animals, the cells of the human body are constantly dying and reproducing. Every so many years, our entire body’s are basically “brand new” in the sense that they are physically constructed out of brand new cells. Well, what do you think those cells are made of? Magical dust?
No, of course not. Our cells are constructed out of the minerals we put into our mouths.
This also includes base protein chains, and water. Our cells use and are made of the trace elements of the Earth itself, and derive these components only from what we give it. If you supply your body with shoddy building materials, the “house” will be a dilapidated, unhealthy mess.
If you supply your body with optimal building pieces, the house your cells will build will be a mansion.
What we call disease is simply the various “symptoms” that arise when the human body is forced to construct itself out of sub-par materials. If all your body has to work with are acidic animal proteins, dead minerals inside of breakfast cereals and bleached bread, with barely any micro-nutrients and important metals like zinc, iron, and copper, you’ll find that the results end in weakness, defects, and illness.
This basic truth about our health should be well known, but it isn’t. Not for the majority of Americans who struggle every day with various chronic illnesses and conditions. Their doctors tell them “take this pill,” but rarely will they say “eat more berries.”
This is because you can’t sell a fruit like you can a patented medicine.
Obesity is like any other chronic illness. The cure is a healthy metabolism, and the key to achieving one is a diet that consists primarily of water-dense fruits and vitamin-rich vegetables. A Whole Food Plant-Based diet is a 100% cure to obesity.
Everyone is different, so the time it takes to achieve it varies, but eating healthy will always ultimately result in health. Not the contrived health that you gain by following a silly 90-day diet or taking a pill.
It’s more about lifestyle than diet. If you think you can lose a ton of weight and then go right back to the same lifestyle habits that caused the obesity in the first place, you don’t understand how the body works.
Though a powerful, vibrant metabolism can stave off obesity for some time, it’s also true that once your metabolism has been slowed, it is hard work getting it back to an optimal place.
This can only be achieved through a balanced vegan diet and regular exercise (real exercise, the kind that tears muscle, not 15 minutes on a treadmill).
Sounds like small steps, but real health and real cures are simple.
As soon as you start talking about crazy diet plans and unnatural treatments and operations, you pretty much can be sure that it has little to do with real health and everything to do about making money or promoting some kind of philosophy or trend.
One of the biggest recent trends, the keto diet, is the perfect example of “pseudo-health” and fake weight loss movements.
Just like the Atkins diet before it, keto relies on feeding the body an unnatural combination of foods that artificially induce weight loss without addressing the real issues and truly promoting health. Even vegan keto is not as effective as real veganism, simply because it places too much emphasis on protein and not enough on carbs, the fuel we were designed to take advantage of.
Don’t make the mistake of relying on diet trends. Health starts with a natural diet, disease starts with a poor diet. Understand the connection and you’ll never be led astray by health charlatans again.
The founder of Digital Sages, Matt has an extensive background in self-mastery and has authored several books on the subject. His goal is to demystify important esoteric subjects and help people transform their lives through self-awareness and personal empowerment.
Moderation means that we behave in a way not expose our bodies to extreme challenges, especially not for a long time. For example, we should try to avoid many harmful substances that we consume in our everyday lives, such as (coffee, alcohol, tobacco, preservatives, flavor enhancers). Undoubtedly, it is useful to drink a glass of wine after a good meal, or eat a piece of chocolate when you are depressed, but no more than that. People who skip breakfast have more problems with body weight, because it disturbs natural rhythm of their metabolism. When we are hungry we are tempted to eat something. If we persevere, we will return home even hungrier and eat uncontrollably all that comes to our hand. So it’s good to always have some fresh fruits and vegetables at home. The quality of food and beverages that we intake dictates the quality of our health. For example, fibers pure the body from harmful substances; certain foods stimulate metabolism; carbohydrates are the first source of energy for muscles, and proteins as their main structural material are the most valuable source of energy. As we age our body loses calcium, bones become weak, and it is very important to take enough calcium while we are still young. Disturbance of fluid balance is one of the key reasons for the occurrence of some diseases. Daily, our body may lose about 10 glasses of fluid even when we do nothing. We have to catch up with this loss and the best way to do this is to consume fresh water. The only time our body is being renewed is when we are asleep. We need to have enough hours of sleep in order to benefit from it. Sleep fine and live long. Regular exercise reduces the risk of a severe disease. Studies say that four hours of exercise per week reduces the incidence of breast cancer by 66.6. Walking is good for the heart and lungs and it also improves brain function by boosting its oxygen supply.