Most dieters are concerned with losing weight, but more can be had from
a diet. It is possible to get quite healthy, help preclude illness and
slow aging. So why not go all the way, while losing that unwanted fat?

A holistic approach is to aim for raising the body pH level (“cancer
cannot survive in an alkaline environment”,) lowering salt intake (the
less salt the more healthy the blood pressure,) and balancing the body
needs.

It is not useful to start on a ‘one size fits all diet’ – one must take
in factors like age, weight, amount of convenient exercise, what tastes
good and how much time we are willing to dedicate. Diet failure can
result from exercise that is too punishing or lousy tasting food – we
just rebel and binge.

People usually get interested in dieting when age and bulging belly
lines catch up to them. Or maybe when they get the big scare of a stroke
or diagnosis of diabetes. If this is you and you have to diet, schedule
the time for it and do it the right way.

The following is advice on how to go about a serious diet. Take it,
modify it or leave it – up to you:

Start a computer spread sheet to list the food you eat. Enter Diet targets:
Food name, Calories per day, Weight, Blood pressure, Protein,
Carbohydrates, Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, pH, Fiber, Glysemic Load,
Potassium, Omega fatty acid – 3 and Omega fatty acid – 6;
If you are pre-diabetic, you will need a column for blood glucose readings.

You will need a blood pressure meter from a pharmacy and if you are
concerned about blood sugar, a diabetic’s testing kit. Ph test strips
would be good too.

For example, if you are a male over 50 of medium build, I would suggest
a daily calorie target of 1200. At first you will go over it, but as you
learn good eating habits by experience you will probably be well under
target after a few days. Eat what you want, but chart every morsel. Real
soon you will be avoiding certain foods (such as commercial diet foods,)
like Count Dracula avoids the sun. You can get most of the data you need
to rate the food at http://www.nutritiondata.com/. For pH data, use
http://www.eidusa.com/Theory_pH_FOOD.htm.

There needs to be three more columns in the spreadsheet, for ratios.
The daily total line should end with ratio data for sodium/calories,
sodium/potassium and the Omega fatty acids 3 and 6 ratio. The ideal
targets for sodium/calories is 1 mg sodium per calorie, for
sodium/potassium is 2.5 to 4 mg of sodium to 1 mg of potassium and for
the fatty acids it should be 1 g Omega - 3 to 4 g Omega - 6. But sorry,
that fatty acid ratio can’t easily be obtained with diet alone – you
have to supplement the Omega 3 with fish oil. That is, unless you only
eat fish and olives, which maybe they do in Greek fishing villages.

While we are on target amounts, I’ll give you the daily targets for the
example 1200 calorie diet mentioned above. You can modify them with
research for your body type, sex, age and exercise (which I’ll get to
below.)

Calories: Under 1200    Blood Pressure About: 120/80 (ask your M.D.)
Protein:  Over 25 g        Carbs: Under 180 g
Fat:    Under 42 g        Cholesterol; Under 150 mg
Sodium: Under 1200mg        pH: Daily average over 7
Fiber:    Over 14.5 g        Glysemic Load: Daily average under 10
Potassium: About 400 mg        Glucose level: about 100 mm/hg(ask M.D.)

If you have the time, it is possible to chart your vitamin and mineral
intake, so you can supplement what your food lacks. That takes a lot
more columns in the old spreadsheet and a lot more of your time.
Instead, check out the ‘1 a day’ compounds to see if they meet your
needs. The best way is to chart them, but we don’t want to make charting
into a non-enjoyable chore or we risk rebellion. Actually, when you are
in the routine of entering your food and filling out the contents, it
only takes a few minutes a day. For the most part you will be cutting
and pasting previous entries, so it goes quickly after a few days.

It is a goal to make the food intake enjoyable, so you can’t be eating
“diet” foods, most of which aren’t palatable. Fresh fruit and
vegetables, chicken cooked sensibly and fish from areas not polluted
with heavy metals. Wash everything to get rid of pesticides. Use
AlsoSalt instead of salt for cooking – it is potassium.

With regard to exercise: If you do some yardwork or pump iron, you will
see a direct result in weight loss. But to most of us exercise is a
chore and we would rather see our weight go down slower with diet alone.
What they say about ‘diet and exercise’ being the way to go is quite
right. What you do depends on your energy level – exercise is best, but
if you can’t, at least walk the dog (burn 5 calories a minute) or
running in place will burn 11.5 calories a minute. If you exercise, you
will always have to, to keep the weight off. If you just diet, the
weight comes off slowly but at least you don’t face a lifetime ahead of
exercise and the weight tends to stay off while you eat sensibly.

Naturally, I do not suggest you stay on the example diet above (or a
similar one) permanently. When you reach your target weight you can go
onto a 2000 calorie maintenance program and you won’t have to keep track
of it any more. By then you will be educated to the foods that you
should or should not eat and the supplements you need. You will easily
maintain the 2000 cal eating regimen – it won’t be any problem at all –
you won’t even need to think about it. Your grocery cart and hand will
be guided by firm knowledge and your bod will stay healthy.

Here are some gems of wisdom:

It takes 50 to 80 glasses of pure water to counteract the damage done by
one can of pop; (Or so I read somewhere – I don’t know if its true.)

Nevia (or Stevia) is the ONLY sweetener that won’t hurt you and it has a
high pH level too; (does have the same after taste as the others though.)

¼ lb Buffalo meat burger has only 190 cals, 60 mg sodium, 50 mg
cholesterol, 0 carbs and 11 g of fat – a whole lot better than hamburger;

Try not to cook vegetables at over 115 degrees – it preserves the good
stuff;

Bread has a lot of calories and salt – try open faced (1 slice) sandwiches;

Mushrooms are low in everything and really spice up a meal or omelet;

Scrambled egg whites (no yoke) are low in everything and make a fine
omelet; (Add onions or scallions too or omelets can be bland.)

A teaspoon of baking soda in water or whatever you drink raises your pH
beautifully. Alka Seltzer does too;

A can of Guava nectar (6 oz) tastes great and is low in everything
except it does have 143 calories. It is fine when you are trying to get
your calories up to target without increasing salt; (Yep, you will be
faced with that to keep your cal/sodium ratio in balance.)

A squirt of lemon juice in whatever raises your pH; (Even though it is
an acid.)

Leave your drinking water in a glass jar out in the sun for a few hours.
The sun purifies it and it tastes better;

Quaker Oats has zero salt (use AlsoSalt) but most other cereals are
loaded with it;

T.V dinners – even diet ones - have too much salt;

CONCLUSION:

The above suggestions are aimed at a no hunger diet that won’t encourage
rebellion, but I believe a weekly diet holiday a good idea. Take the
family out for dinner and you won’t have to burden them with your food fads.

There are some few foods that are contra-indicated for some medications.
For instance if you are taking blood thinners, the vitamin K in green
leafy vegetables reduces their effectiveness. If you are on meds, its
probably a good idea to fax or e-mail a couple of weeks of your diet to
your doctor, so he can give you any warnings appropriate. It is also a
bad idea to ever take diuretics while on a diet – they flush out what
you are carefully putting in.

There is much emotion attached to diets and an opinion available from
every dieter. Never buy a diet or take one on faith, figure one out for
yourself so you learn what your bod needs. Do it this way and the
learning stays with you. Live for the day when you can type ‘End of
Diet’ on your spreadsheet and go on to undocumented maintenance eating.

I’m not going to lambaste you about smoking or booze. Notta my job – and
you already know about it. Good luck to you.