Why Do Many Weight Loss Programs Fail?

Complete Home Health Care for the Familyby Ania Kastashchuk B.Sc., B.Edu N.C.

www.HealthRetreat.ca

Limits of Liability / Disclaimer of Warranty

The authors and publisher of this book and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing this program. The authors and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness or completeness of the contents of this article. They disclaim any warranties (expressed or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The authors and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. As always, the advice of a competent health or other professional should be sought. The authors and publisher do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or applicability of any sites listed in the book. All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy or other implied or explicit purpose.

This article contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties of Canada. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited.

About the AuthorThe most important word in Ania’s vocabulary is balance. She always strives to combine material and spiritual parts of her life, as well as being a wife and a mother with personal development and serving others. Ania believes that in every person there is so much good and in the same time so much bad that it would be unwise to try to determine which one is predominant. She is compassionate and accepting, and she enjoys seeing others grow. Ania adores her two little boys Petia and Misha, and dreams about making life of the children of the planet better.

Ania has Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Children Psychology and graduated with Cumma Sum Laude from Belarus State University of Education. She also received a diploma in Natural Health and Nutrition from Fit For Life Sciences Institute and College of Natural Health.

Ania has been a Program Director of Fresh Start Health Retreat Centers. since 2005 and has helped hundreds of people in natural health restoration coaching them through the 5-10 or 14 day sessions at the retreat.

For speaking engagements, please contact Fresh Start Health Retreat Centers. at 888-658-3324 or 250-923-6399.

About Fresh Start Health RetreatFresh Start is a health restoration retreat focusing on advanced whole body detoxifi-cation, weight loss, health education and rejuvenation.

Participants improve their well-being through five, ten and 14-day residential programs. In addition to assessments by a naturopathic physician, Fresh Start offers a wide array of services to support program participants.These include, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, reiki and other spa services.

Fresh Start uses only the highest quality products available including organic or all natural ingredients.

Why Do Many Weight Loss Programs Fa i l?

It would be too unfair to say that certain programs do not work for everyone, and others are ideal for every person. There are many people who were able to solve their weight problems by different methods and stay slim for many years after that. Probably, there is no sole program that would ideally fit everyone, and there are people who do not succeed with any program because they do not follow through it and are not ready to make changes in their lifestyle. However in my experience I met people that took a very realistic approach and followed very reputable health programs, and in the same time they made several typical mistakes that kept them from reaching their ideal weight. When those mistakes were corrected, they were able to go to the next level of health and weight management. I would like to share with you my observation.

#1 Many weight loss programs are overemphasizing the exercise aspect and underestimate importance of nutrition.

#2 Many programs do not use detoxification as a powerful tool of re-seting of body metabolism, and a lot of people undermine and totally do not understand its purpose and importance.

A friend of mine had a very important family event in her life coming up and decided to lose a huge amount of weight in a short period of time. She asked me whether I was willing to help. She was exercising on a regular basis and almost did not eat grains, bread and buns (which I usually suspect as the main culprit); she had her salad daily and even avoided eating too many bananas. After asking many questions I started wondering: What is wrong? She had some unhealthy things here and there, but I could not find a reason why her body would hold on to those pounds so firmly. Finally I found several clues.

#1 She took exercise as a magical pill. Sometimes we think that the more of good is the better. However, everything should be done moderately. Over exercis-ing for unconditioned and overweight body is not so healthy, if fact it creates a lot of stress for it. I would compare this situation with the state of mental stress or depression, when your body starts producing “gallons” of adrenaline to help you to cope with it, which, if prolonged, is exhausting for your adrenal glands. Most people know such body’s state as “fight-and-flight” state: your breathing speeds up, the same are your pulse, blood pressure and metabolism. There is other side of this condition also. Not vitally important organs slow down or stop working. Those include digestion and immune system. So exercising too much can actually lower your immunity. My friend that wanted to get rid of weight mentioned that she was sick with flue for the whole past month, which never happened to her before.

I know, it sounds strange. You might say: people used to do different physical activities most of their time, and their immune system did not weaken. This is a reasonable objection. However, the food and activities we do now are very far from natural: ancient people ate fresh minimally processed food from their own gardens, ran, walked, swam; and we eat junk and are working with - just think about it - dumb bells. Their activities were regular and spread throughout the day. They did not exercise, they lived actively. We do work outs and most of the rest of the time sit-ons. It is like with sunburns: we get them not from too much sunshine, but because we sit in the buildings most of our time and do not condition ourselves to sun. Finally when we decided to come out –ouch, it happened too fast. Exactly the same happens to our bodies when we try to condition them too fast and too intense without proper nourishment. I also noticed that too vigorous activities reduced my milk supply when I was breastfeeding.

I do not say that people should not exercise. What I mean is: in order to be able exercise a lot with enjoyment and without strain, you need firstly to provide your body with healthy food and ideally to live an active life most of the time, not once and a while. Living natural ac-tive life creates a constant gradual conditioning and will never cause side effects. Vigorous over-exercising in “artificial” conditions can be harmful. When we live lazy lives spending most our time in-doors eating junk and at the computer and then start vigorously exercising, our heart and lungs are not quite ready for it. The muscles need more oxygen, sugar and protein, and our body simply does not have them and did not develop mechanisms of their proper storage and fast delivery. Our blood vessels are not strong, numerous and wide enough to transport them. After intense and short work-out, we sit down, relax and binge ourselves on a diet-coke and muffins, thinking that we deserve our “points”. We need to live in real, not virtual world: to enjoy smelling flowers and streaming rivers. If we want us and our children to live, not how to survive, we have to change our lifestyle and the world.

Another thing most of us do not realize is that our body is extremely smart. When we speed up our metabolism by exercising, this fast metabolism will demand more energy. So you will eat more than normally. It is really difficult to fool your body by restricting food and in the same time exercising intensely. It will start holding on to resources it has and will be using them more slowly, plus it will create extra storage for food and will be filling it up in the time of feast to make sure you won’t starve next time you don’t have enough food. Your body will slow down metabolism, when it decides you have too little resources left and thus will prevent you from steady weight loss. I noticed that trying to trick your body with allowing it to eat at one time bad things and to restrict those things at other does not work for many people. Counting points might be like a good game; however like in every game you win one time, and lose at another. If further lowers your self-confidence, puts too much focus on food (you have to think what you can or cannot eat at each meal), which takes out of life some enjoyment, plus yo-yo syndrome of binging and gaining and starving and losing follows you for many years.

Exercise is extremely important for general health, and especially for our mental health. Exercise is the best anti-depressant. How-ever, in my experience, it did not play the key role in weight loss. You can exercise 24/7 and still be fat. Plus it is extremely difficult to make yourself exercise, when you are not too energetic, mobile and healthy, like it is often in overweight people.

#2 My friend did not understand in depth the role of nutrition and its influence on weight. A lot of people think that calories and weight have direct correlation. They make sure they avoid eating ba-nanas, avocadoes, nuts and oils being afraid those will contribute to their weight gain. The truth is that these foods are not only not contrib-uting to making a person fat, but they actually have an opposite effect. Avocadoes and coconuts help your body split unhealthy fat and elimi-nate it out of the body. Cold pressed flax seed oil, unroasted nuts and seeds are very rich in essential fatty acids (Omega 3, 6 and 9). Hemp seeds contain several times more Omega 3 than fish. Essential fatty ac-ids improve fat and carbohydrate metabolism by increasing flexibility of cells and their permeability to insulin, by decreasing total cholesterol level, by decreasing “bad” insulin and increasing “good” one.

The most powerful tool I saw effective for EVERY person I was working with was increasing percentage of raw food in the diet. Raw food is simply diet consisting of fresh uncooked fruit, vegetables, sprouted grains, unroasted seeds and nuts and green leafy vegetables. You have to see and experience the process and results in order to believe. It is amazing what happens when people switch to a high (80-100%) raw food diet.

Norman Walker said, “...without exception, every person I have ever known during the last forty years who has gone on this program (the raw food diet) has not only been able to overcome weight problems but has been able to prevent worse calamities, even when surgery was recommended.”

You might say: “It is a total nonsense. We cook food to make it more digestible. And it is totally illogical to loose weight just by stopping eating cooked: as if a cooked carrot had more calories than the raw one.”

One of the reasons why raw food helps get rid of weight is this. In fresh produce carbohydrates are attached to fiber. When we cook food, the starches separate from fiber. Fiber is easily eliminated from the body, because it is indigestible for humans; starches become more available and are easily used and stored by the body. When we consume cooked food we do digest starches or complex carbohydrates bet-ter. This is exactly what is needed for weight gain. On the other hand, if you want the opposite effect, eating raw food will help, because great percentage of starches in it are bound with fiber and will be eliminated with wastes. In fact, when pigs are fed cooked potatoes, they gain weight. When they tried to feed them raw potatoes, pigs got very skinny, even though ate the same amount with the same quantity of calories.

Raw food means freedom from calculating calories, portioning food and point game. Even if you overeat sometimes (try not to, if you can), you will not gain weight. However, I noticed some people on raw will become slimmer than others. Some people might find it difficult to get rid of a few last unwanted pounds. I could not figure out why some people struggle with that. I met just a few of those, and they were not obese, just slightly overweight. Most people, however, will lose VERY MUCH weight. And it usually does not take too long.

Raw food is not just veggies with guacamole and salads, as many think. You can enjoy guiltless raw pizzas, lasagnas, sushi, burgers and such mouthwatering desserts. Can you imagine a meal consisting of dessert alone? Can you picture YOURSELF EATING it? Are you afraid it would be too bad? With raw food you can have dessert you can do that without being afraid of putting on a single pound.

#3 My friend had 2 staples in her diet: shell fish and black tea. You will ask: what is wrong with those? Aren’t they low in calories? They may be, but they also are most toxic foods you can imagine.

Remember, shell fish is a bottom feeder and its purpose is to clean oceans and seas. This is the reason why it is so rich in many micro elements, like iron. It is not only one of the richest sources of many nutrients; it is also one of the richest sources of mercury. Mercury is extremely toxic and causes sight loss, mental retardation and bone loss.

What about tea? Tea is high in theobromin, theophylline and caffeine, as well as polyphenols (tannins and bioflavonoids). The first three are addictive and strong stimulants, which mean they create a pick-me-up, which is always followed by put-me-down and wishing a new pick-me-up. Some side effects of these substances are: behavior abnormalities, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, mood swings, sleeplessness, tremors, restlessness, anxiety, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. One small chocolate bar with semi-sweet chocolate, containing all 3 stimulants (with predominance of theophylline) can kill a small dog.

The greater part of tea consists of polyphenols, which are tannins and bio-flavonoids. They constitute in average about 30% of the fresh tea leaf. They contribute to high anti-oxidant properties of tea and other foods (for example, berries).

Tannins are low toxic substances found in most plants. Even though they got a bad name, they are very important plant constituents and even thought to impart many health benefits, like punicalagins in pomegranates and grape tannins. One of their primary purposes is to keep herbivores (plant eating animals) from consuming solely a particular type of plants. Tannins are not bad in themselves, because they impart to the sturdiness of the plant cell walls, flower fragrances and protect plants from viruses and insects.

You, most probably, noticed that horses after chewing for a bit on one type of grass switch to another. Eating too much of the same type of tannins can cause high toxic amounts of particular tannins in the body. Tannins are responsible for astringent and bitter taste of tea and other food, like unripe persimmons and grape juice. Some studies showed the connection between esophageal or nasal cancer in humans and regular consumption of certain herbs with high tannin levels.

Tea also contains high amounts of close relatives of tannin – bio-flavonoids, which are powerfool antioxidants that help fight free radicals. However, in too big amounts bio-flavonoids might not only be useless, but harmful. The studies on tannins and bioflavonoids are not sufficient and inconsistent. I do not know whether high tannin foods are good or not. My bottom line about them is this: too much of everything, even good is not necessarily good and necessary. Just because there are a lot of polyphenols in tea, it does not mean that your body needs them on regular basis and can use all of them.

If you consume tea, you know how addictive it is, especially black. If you stop drinking tea, coffee, as well as eating chocolate for a while, you might start getting headaches from one cup (or a piece, in case of chocolate). I used to be a chocoholic, especially when I had PMS (pack my suit cases – my husband’s interpretation). After eliminating all concentrated caffeine, theobromine and theophylline foods from my diet, I noticed that a cup of tea or a piece of chocolate (even organic) started causing headaches and sleeplessness. This might be just my experience. You can experiment and do research yourself, and after that to decide whether to indulge or not.

When your body is clean, it is able to regulate weight itself. When it is toxic, no matter how much or little bad stuff you eat, it manifests. “I hardly ate anything, and I gained so much,” this is what a person with distorted or dysfunctional metabolism will say. As you get rid of wastes, your body is able to restore its weight regulating mechanisms. Even if you eat unhealthy things after that once and a while, you will not be gaining weight as easily as before (unless you intoxicate your body too badly again).

Additional benefit of detoxifying or whole body cleansing is that your taste buds “clear up”. Suddenly natural food starts taste good, and you stop experiencing enjoyment when eating junk food. It just does not taste the same. Healthy body perfectly knows what it needs and signals with healthy cravings. One day, lets say, you want some cabbage and another just cannot help yourself chewing on spinach. Sounds too strange to believe? It is not magic. A healthy body does that.

Have you been searching for the next step in your life that will catapult you

to new levels of health and motivate you to stay on track? The Health

Retreat is for those who are serious about changing their life around, to

acquire new healthy habits and to help their body start reversal of disease.

We Specialize In:

•5-10-14dayHealthRestorationRetreats

•AdvancedWholeBodyDetoxification

•HealthyWeightandInchLoss

•DigestiveHealth

•CommonSenseHealthEducation

•EmotionalHealth

•And…wearerightinyourbackyard!

Sign up for a Free Health Consultation on our website:www.HealthRetreat.ca

1-888-658-3324 / 250-923-6399