As Peter Tosh so eloquently sings in his song “Equal Rights” from his egalitarian album Equal Rights: “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Everybody wants to lose weight, but very few people understand where the solution to lasting weight loss truthfully lies. One pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, so to lose 1lb in a week you need a deficit of 500 calories a day. Is the secret to effectively slimming down really that simple? The people at Jenny Craig, South Beach, Nutrisystem, etc. all seem to think so. People have been guilt tripped to think that they have been lazy and overly greedy with calories. An alternative, logical conclusion might be that our current dietary advice doesn’t really work and might actually be one cause of our obesity epidemic, which it was supposed to cure. The effects of chronic societal stress on our bodies is one other potential door that needs to be cracked open much wider, so we can peer into and understand its important effects.

Over the years I have had a plethora of patients seeking my nutritional wisdom to hopefully facilitate some sort of weight loss. Let’s take a look at some hits and semi-misses of mine. A quick hit was a 44-year-old woman who wanted to lose 100 pounds. She claimed a history of major depression and self-abuse, and of course she had no health insurance. Any lab work wasn’t going to fit into her diagnostic picture. At the time, I was utilizing the blood type diet along with a questionnaire that very generally ascertains if you are a slow/fast/medium oxidizer. Basically, a fast oxidizer is someone whose metabolism is super quick and the opposite for a slow oxidizer. Fast oxidizers do better with higher amounts of fat and lower amounts of carbs and vice versa for slow oxidizers. She tested out Blood Type O and a fast oxidizer. Her present diet consisted almost exclusively of fast carbs: chips, cookies, donuts, bagels, etc. I explained to her that she was basically from Venus but eating a diet suitable for Martians. She liked that metaphor and attempted to make a complete diet reversal: now lots of meat, dairy, cheesecake, avocadoes, etc.