Starve…Starve…Eat…Eat
What is it about dieting that causes a yo-yo effect? And what is it that I can
do, I can tell you to prevent that whatever diet it is you are doing?
What causes yo-yo? Well, some of you probably have some idea about
what causes it. Here's my take on it. Starvation in all its forms causes
yo-yo. And there are obvious forms of starvation like, you know, when you
go all day without eating and you are really, really hungry and you know it
and you don’t eat you know you are starving. Or people who intentionally
reduce the calories in their diets and are hungry all the time. And like I think
it was Julia Roberts that said I’ve been hungry for 30 years.
You know, a lot of celebrities go hungry because they think that’s the only
way that can keep slim and trim and beautiful. Well I can tell you that if you
go hungry for more than 2 hours. And that is real hunger. If you go
hungry for more than 2 hours your body turns on the switch to its fat
storing mechanism.
And when that switch is on it becomes very easy to store fat on all
the places we don’t want to store it. And it becomes very hard to
burn fat. And why is that? Because your body doesn’t want to waste one
molecule of energy on burning fat when it thinks a famine is going to come.
See, you go hungry for more than 2 hours repeatedly and what happens is
your body believes there is a famine going on. So it is going to protect you.
Your body always wants to protect you. That’s what it does. So you
continue not feeding it what it wants then you starve, starvation leads to
exhaustion. That’s why so many people on weight loss programs also
report fatigue. Fatigue, they report depression and they report binging and
sometimes it turns into an eating disorder which is a very serious condition.
So that’s the consequence of hunger.
I’m talking about stomach hunger. You know stomach is good. It’s a sign
that your metabolism is working, it’s alive and it’s ready to burn fat.
Stomach hunger is not heart hunger. Heart hunger is when you're lonely
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or sad or depressed and you're looking to food for comfort. Food is
very, very comforting. It’s a little pleasure and you’re looking to food for
comfort.
Stomach hunger is not mental hunger either. It’s not mind hunger. What is
mind hunger? It’s when you are bored or when you are looking for
some pleasure or it’s a habit. You know you are used to eating at 7 in the
morning because that’s breakfast time. You're used to eating at 12 o’clock,
at noon, or you are used to eating at 7 o’clock at night and when that time
rolls around whether you are hungry or not you eat. That is mind hunger.
When you are bored, when you think it’s time to eat or when you want some
pleasure.
Noticing the kind of hunger that you're feeling when you reach for some
food is really one of the skills I try to develop early on in the people in my
program because that’s one of the detective skills that you might learn.
Distinguishing between stomach hunger, heart hunger and mind hunger.
Okay so let’s talk about stomach hunger. When you feel it rejoice. You know
a lot of people rejoice when they don’t feel hunger and they proudly say “I
don’t get hungry until 2 o’clock in the afternoon,” or “I’m not hungry at all at
work. And I can go all day and then I come home and I eat.” That is when
your body starts storing fat in places that you don’t want. When you have
real stomach hunger rejoice because that means your metabolism is
alive and well.
An aspect of starvation that few people know about is inner starvation. It’s
the quiet starvation, the silent starvation that your body is suffering even
without your knowing it. You know, for example, you wake up in the
morning. You make a big pot of coffee and you drink the coffee. Or you
make a big cup of black tea or even green tea and sometimes even white
tea. And you take that first thing in the morning. That wakes up your
adrenals, it starts making adrenalin and the adrenalin starts going and all of
a sudden you feel good and alert. It is a good feeling. But is it nutrition? No.
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Your body is running on adrenalin. And it wants nutrition but it's
running because it thinks there is something going on that it needs to equip
you with the flight or fight syndrome where it’s sending the blood to your
brains, to your eyes, to your muscles so you can go fight the tiger. But is
there a tiger there? No. You’ve drunk the coffee or the tea stimulates you
without any food and that is the beginning of inner starvation.
Or you have a big project, you wake up, say you have your office at home,
you have your computer at home, you go to your computer even in your
pajamas and you start working and you don’t look up until it’s noon time or
2 o’clock in the afternoon. That is inner starvation because what happens is
when you are intent on a project your body also is starting to run on
adrenalin because you're focused, you are intent, your adrenals produce
adrenalin and that keeps you going. And that’s why when you are on a
project at work you can keep on going till 2 in the afternoon or even 5 in the
afternoon. You get home and you collapse and all of a sudden you can eat
the table because it’s the first time you’ve relaxed during the day. And so
what you are doing is either on coffee or diet sodas, you can do this on
sugar. Your body starts producing adrenalin or you can do this being a
workaholic where you’re running on adrenalin and you're not feeding your
body because it’s not hungry. And why isn’t it hungry? because it’s being
fueled by adrenalin which is not nutrition. And what happens there when
your body does not have any fuel, any nutrition, what it does is it steals
from your tissue, it steals from your organs. It steals from your blood, your
bones, your muscles. It steals the nutrients it needs because that’s where
you store the nutrients that you eat through your food. And when you
don’t feed it, then it steals those nutrients and that is the beginning
of collapse, that’s the beginning of degeneration. If you are young you
won’t notice it for a few years. If you have a strong constitution you might
not notice it for many years. But that is the beginning of the collapse of
the body. Now we are seeing that people younger and younger are starting
to show degenerative conditions. And why is that? Because they start as
weaker babies. And so once the body starts stealing all nutrients from its
tissues then it starts collapsing and pretty soon you’ll notice. What happens
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is you start getting tired. You get home and you can’t do anything after 6
in the afternoon and you collapse in front of the TV and your spouse is
wondering am I ever going to be able to rouse you, you know, and let's do
something and it's all you can do to sit on the couch and watch TV. Then
what happens is you start slumping in the afternoon and you really can’t get
out of the 4 o’clock slump, you know, unless you drink another coffee. And
then what happens is even with another coffee you can’t rouse yourself. And
pretty soon your fatigue gets earlier and earlier and it ends up you can’t
even get out of bed. That’s what happens to people when they say I have no
energy. They apply for disability because they don’t have enough energy,
not that they want to, it’s not that they are lazy, they really don’t have any
energy to get up and go to work. And why is that? Because their body has
no more nutrition. They have used it up and that is inner starvation. And
often we don’t know it. And often we celebrate inner starvation
because we think “Oh, that’s great, I don’t have to eat so much, you
know, I can reduce the number of calories. I can arrive at my count and I’m
not even hungry.” But your not feeling stomach hunger, in fact you are not
feeling anything at all. You're not feeling stomach hunger because your
metabolism is getting weaker and weaker and it may even be dead.
So what I tell my students is rejoice when you feel stomach hunger
because that means your metabolism is alive and it can burn fat. Otherwise,
if it is dead, then we have to work on reviving it before it can burn fat and
that is when it takes longer to lose weight because first we have to revive
your metabolism so that it can function.
Bottom line is avoid starvation at all costs, whether it is conscious
starvation or unconscious starvation, whether it is outer starvation or inner
starvation. And Outer starvation is when you go hungry for more than 2
hours. Inner starvation is when you don’t even know that your body is
starving. but you are running on adrenalin, you are running on coffee, you
are running on work projects, or you are running on diet sodas, you are
running on sugar maybe. It’s running on stuff that is not nutrition. So, how
do you avoid that? This is what I tell my students. Number one, and 99% of
my students are doing this. so maybe you can too. When you first wake up
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in the morning before you do anything. Well you can brush your teeth. But
Before anything crosses your lips drink two cups, one or two cups,
two cups is better of warm water first thing in the morning. Second
thing to do is postpone your coffee. I’m not saying don’t drink coffee. Just
postpone it until after your warm water and after you put something
nutritious in your stomach so you have some fuel to go on. Have your coffee
like you know, after your breakfast or after this nutritious thing that you put
in your stomach.
I talked about some appetite suppressants. You can use those as your first
thing in the morning if you have no time to put anything in your stomach
before you must have your cup of coffee. But ideally why don’t you postpone
your coffee until later in the morning. You have a coffee break at work. Have
it there and that is after you’ve had your breakfast.
Third is eat something nutritious before you start a big day of work.
You know you have a big project. You know it will take you all day nonstop.
Make sure you have a nutritious breakfast. Make sure you have a nutritious
lunch. You can bring a goody bag, which is the fourth thing to do the fourth
strategy. Have a goody bag so that you have around you all the time,
food accessible to you all the time and fast food. If there is no time then
have a piece of raw cheese, you know, have a can of sardines, have a can of
tuna there. If you can’t break for lunch have nutritious fast food available to
you at all times and that is one of the things we really work hard on doing in
this program is give each other a lot of tips on what nutritious fast food is
and it does take some time, a little time to have it available. But once you
have it it’s really nutritious and is as fast as going to McDonald’s, maybe
even faster than going to McDonald’s because you can grab something
without going anywhere and fill your body. Give it the fuel that it needs.
The fifth thing you can do is eat a smaller dinner so that you’re
hungry at the beginning of the day. You know, If you eat a huge dinner
what that starts is a vicious circle. Of you eat a huge dinner, your body is
overwhelmed it can hardly digest that dinner because your digestive fire at
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night is much lower than your digestive fire after 10 o’clock in the morning.
From 10 to 2 your digestive fire is high. That is when you want to eat a lot,
eat the most that you can. But, starting at 6 o’clock your digestive fire is
really at a minimum. And That’s why they say don’t eat at night. Now, If
you are hungry at night eat a small thing as long as it is a small snack you
are not going to overwhelm your digestive system. So eat a small supper at
night, especially if you are eating late. And Then you will wake up and you
will feel real hungry in the morning and you will be able to eat and enjoy
your breakfast. So watch for that. Eat a small dinner at night, wake up in the
morning and wait for your hunger and rejoice when it comes because that
means your metabolism is alive.
I hope you try this and if you do let me know. OK. Let me know if it works
for you.
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