Product Description

The latest evolution in health and fitness, the unique, proven "Schwarzbein Principle" will revolutionalize the way millions of people look at eating, losing weight, and maintaining optimal health.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #749264 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-01
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 380 pages

Amazon.com Review
From her work with insulin-resistant patients with Type II diabetes, Dr. Schwarzbein concludes that low-fat diets cause heart attacks, eating fat makes you lose body fat, and it's important to eat high-cholesterol foods every day. Picture cardiologists and dieticians tearing their hair out and overweight people cheering as they dive into Eggs Benedict with sausage.

According to Schwarzbein, the high-carbohydrate, low-fat, moderate-protein diet that most dieticians and disease-prevention organizations recommend is the culprit that turns people into diabetics, makes them age faster and get degenerative diseases, and keeps them fat and unhealthy. She supports her theory with case studies of people who were sick and miserable on high-carbo, low-fat diets and who sprang to life when they "balanced" their diets with more fat and protein. Schwarzbein recommends avoiding "man-made carbohydrates"--processed carbs--in favor of those you could "pick, gather or milk." She instructs patients to eat "as much good fat as their body needs": eggs, avocados, flaxseed oil, butter, mayonnaise, and olive oil. Sorry, but fried foods and hydrogenated fats are "bad fats," or "damaged fats," as Schwarzbein calls them. You can eat as many eggs a day as you want on this plan, plus meat (even sausage--as long as it's nitrate-free--and pâté), saturated fat, cream, and nonstarchy vegetables. The book includes a four-week meal plan and about 15 recipes.

About the Author
Dr. Diana Schwarzbein has achieved the reputation as the cutting-edge expert on hormone replacement therapy and reversing type II diabetes through her groundbreaking nutritional and lifestyle program. Her practice specializes in endocrinology, metabolism, diabetes, osteoporosis, menopause and thyroid. She lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband where she conducts workshops and private sessions.

Nancy Deville is a fiction and nonfiction writer whose first novel Precious Cargo is being adapted into a screenplay.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Researching the Schwarzbein Principle

In medical training, I was taught that a low-fat diet high in complex carbohydrates prevented weight gain and disease. I believed what my professors said. Early on, I advocated low-fat diets. But this soon changed. I now teach my patients to balance their meals. Let me tell you how this all came about.

In July 1990, I had just finished nine years of medical training at the University of Southern California. My training was in endocrinology and metabolism, and I was ready to go out and help the world.

I accepted a position at a prestigious medical clinic in Santa Barbara, California. The clinic was famous for having been the premier diabetes center in the United States during the 1920s.

I was excited about starting my new position, but I was not thrilled that all my new patients would be Type II diabetics. My area of expertise was "esoteric" endocrine diseasesùhypothyroidism, adrenal and pituitary problemsùconditions where the patient's symptoms could be reversed.

Type II diabetics did not get better. I had seen too many diabetics have legs amputated, too many who required kidney dialysis or who had scars down the middle of their chests from coronary bypass grafting. Working with diabetics meant that I would have to watch people inevitably get sicker and die. But having accepted the challenge, I committed myself to giving patients my best care.

Because the patients were all new to me, I spent a full hour with each one, obtaining a detailed history. I will never forget the anxiety I felt when they would begin by saying, "I hope you won't tell me the same thing all the other doctors have said. It just doesn't work for me." They complained of higher blood-sugar levels and high blood pressure, despite medication, and of chronic fatigue, weight gain and abnormal cholesterol profiles.

I heard many stories of patients going for yearly physical exams and being diagnosed with diabetes incidentally. Chemistry panels had come back with a red flag of high blood sugarùdiabetes. These newly diagnosed diabetics were put on the American Diabetes Association (ADA) dietùa low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat, low-protein program. The diet stressed fruit, milk, bread and very little fat. It was very complicated. They had to measure everything they ateùproteins and fats, as well as carbohydrates. These patients had stuck to this diet, only to see their conditions worsen.

Diabetes was considered genetic. The fact that these patients had gotten worse was considered part of the progressive genetic nature of the disease. It was thought that once a person developed diabetes, it could not be reversed. Part of the "standard of care" was to keep diabetics' blood sugar under control to enable them to live relatively normal lives.

Physicians manipulated insulin doses to bring patients' blood sugars down. But my patients complained, "When my other doctors gave me insulin, I gained weight." That made sense because insulin is a fat-storing hormone. The patients' weight gain along with high insulin levels had caused increased blood pressure. Many had been prescribed drugs to lower blood pressure, which in some cases made their blood sugars worse. It was a vicious cycle. They injected insulin, but their blood-sugar levels did not improve. They gained weight and required more insulin. And their cholesterol levels were getting worse. Here were patients who had been accidentally diagnosed with diabetes when they felt relatively well, and now, after following the "standard of diabetes care," they felt terrible. After listening to their stories I thought, My God, we are making diabetics worse!

I remember the sinking feeling as I told them, "I understand why you're upset about what has happened to you. But I would have asked you to follow the exact same regimen the other doctors have been prescribing. At this moment, I don't know what else to tell you, but I'm going to help you get better any way I can." I decided for the time being to get a baseline. "You're going to monitor your blood sugar seven times a day at home with a blood-sugar monitoring device," I instructed. "Before you eat, an hour after you eat and at bedtime. Write everything down. Everything you're feeling, everything you eat, activities, blood-sugar levels and any other observations. I'll see you again in a week." When they returned after monitoring their habits, my patients all told me, "It's the food I'm eating!"

It was clear. These patients were monitoring their blood sugar. When they did a "finger blood-sugar stick" in the morning, their blood sugar was normal. Then they ate a perfect ADA breakfastùa bowl of shredded wheat with non-fat milk, a banana and a glass of orange juiceùand watched their blood sugar rise one hundred to two hundred points. (A normal blood-sugar response to any meal is no more than ten to twenty points.)

Something they were eating was causing the problem. It could not be the protein. Protein will eventually turn into sugar, but not that quickly. It could not be the fatùthey were eating hardly any fatùand fats do not turn into sugar that quickly either. Carbohydrates are the only nutrient group that can be converted into sugar so fast. All carbohydrates are recognized as sugar by the body, whether they are in the form of grains, starches, dairy, fruits or sweets. I suddenly recognized that by recommending a high-carbohydrate diet, we were giving sugar to diabetics.

In order to understand why sugar is so destructive to diabetics you need to appreciate the central role of insulin in human physiology. Insulin is the hormone responsible for tightly regulating the amount of sugar going to the brain after you eat. Insulin accomplishes this in two ways: First, the presence of insulin alerts the liver to incoming high amounts of sugar so that the liver does not let this high sugar pass through to the brain. Second, insulin stows away sugar into cells, thereby decreasing blood-sugar levels. Also, when sugar is stowed, insulin levels normalize. This system keeps blood sugars and insulin levels balanced.

But Type II diabetics are "insulin resistant," which means that the cells will not allow insulin to unload sugar from the bloodstream. Because the cells do not respond to insulin, the pancreas reacts by secreting even more insulin in an attempt to open up the closed cells. This results in Type II diabetics having both high insulin levels and high blood-sugar levels. If you then ask diabetics to eat more carbohydrates (as in the ADA diet), it further increases both their blood-sugar levels and insulin levels.

Requiring diabetics with high blood-sugar levels to follow a high-sugar diet did not make sense. But how could I challenge the ADA? I reasoned that the ADA diet must have been thoroughly researchedù they could not be recommending diets that were making people sicker! But all of my Type II diabetic patients returned with the same observations: The ADA diet was causing their blood sugars to rise to dangerous levels.

I decided to see what would happen to my patients' blood-sugar levels if I put them on a "zero"-carbohydrate diet. I asked them to eliminate all obvious carbohydrate foods, such as potatoes, rice, legumes, cereals, breads, fruit, low-fat yogurt, milk and, of course, refined sugar.

Since foods are often a combination of fats, proteins and carbohydrates, if a food caused a rise in their blood sugars we classified it in the carbohydrate category. For example, most people think that milk is all protein, when in fact the amount of carbohydrates in four ounces of milk drives a diabetic's blood sugar up approximately one hundred points. With this method, the main ingredient of a food and whether it raised blood-sugar Levels dictated whether it should be considered a protein, a fat a non-starchy vegetable or a carbohydrate.

Because I did not want my patients to go hungry, I added some protein and fats back to their diet. At the time, I still thought that a low-fat diet was healthier so I asked them to use Low-fat dairy products and to eat egg substitutes, mostly fish and chicken and small amounts of red meat.

I also educated my patients about insulin levels. Eliminating obvious carbohydrates for one week would rapidly lower their insulin levels and they would have to reduce their diabetes medicines accordingly to avoid low blood-sugar reactions.

One week later the first group of patients returned for an evaluation. I looked at the blood sugar numbers they had recorded. Their progress was astounding. I said, "This is unbelievable!" Some confessed, "Dr. Schwarzbein, I've been cheating. I love red meat and when you said I could have some, I ate it every night for a week.

The "cheaters" were eating real mayonnaise, real cheese, real eggs and steak every day-foods that had been forbidden for so long they could not resist them. Their blood-sugar numbers had fallen dramatically. In fact the biggest improvements were seen in the patients who "cheated" the most.

By cutting carbohydrates from their diets and adding proteins and fats, most patients (after an initial body-water loss) started losing one to two pounds of body fat per week. They ate fats and lost body fat. Ah came back to me and said, "I don't understand. I got fatter when I didn't eat fat. Now I'm eating fat and I'm losing weight.

Prior to this, these patients had high blood sugars abnormal cholesterol panels, high blood pressure, weight gain, fatigue and constant hunger. As they followed the new dietary program their blood sugars normalized, so they were able to get off insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents (which treat high blood sugar). Their cholesterol levels improved, so I stopped their cholesterol-lowering medication. Their blood pressures came down, so I stopped their blood pressure medication. I was able to eliminate most of their drugs. They lost body fat and gained muscle mass. Their energy improved. They were not going hungry anymore. They felt great.

My diabe...

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Customer Reviews

The Schwarzbein Principle worked for me
I purchased the book early last summer, and read it in a few days. It made lots of sense. I had been eating low-fat/high carb for about five years before, and my weight and body fat slowly crept up. I felt exhausted and hungry all the time. After eight weeks on the healing plan, I lost 12 pounds, and definitely firmed up. I then switched to the maintenance plan, and allowed myself about twice the carbs of the healing plan. I still kept losing, about half a pound a week, and felt great. The heartburn that I have been plagued with for years disappeared, and my cholesterol levels remained okay.

Unfortunately, my family and work life got very busy around the end of September, and there wasn't enough time to make proper meals. I went off the plan, started eating fast food, convenience foods and other bad things. Sure enough, the weight came right back. Things should calm down after the start of the new year, and then I'm going back on the plan, forever hopefully.

Some tips to make the diet easier:

1) Working a full time job and eating eggs every morning did not work for me. I tried that for a couple weeks and ended up spending over an hour each morning messing with breakfast. I found a good alternative in making shakes from protein powders. I add flaxseed and safflower oils, cocoa powder and fruit to provide the proper amount of protein, carbs, fat and fiber. I make a blender full of this drink in the morning, adding ice to make a cold shake.

2) Balance Bars (available at health food stores) make a good quick snack on the maintenance plan.

3) The extract of the herb Stevia (also available at health food stores) is a great natural sweetener, an alternative to aspartame. I use it to sweeten my protein shake, decaf coffee and tea.

The Diet That Isn't
Schwarzbein goes against all the current thinking on dieting. Exercise and balanced diet are good words that all doctors will tell you. From there Schwarzbein goes in a completely different direction. Count carbohydrates, not calories. Eat as much good fat and protein as your body needs. Eat 'real' food, not the processed and chemical-filled food that lines the grocery shelves. Stay away from the low-fat foods that make you feel hungry and contribute to hormonal imbalance.

After being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, my doctor gave me a 1500-calorie diet. That wasn't enough food to live on. I was lucky enough to have someone recommend the Schwarzbein book. In the past eight months I have lost over 50lbs, eating food I enjoy and feeling good about it. My doctor said to keep up what ever I am doing. He was happy when I said I was eating the number of carbohydrates listed in the 1500-calorie diet. I am sleeping the entire night. My blood pressure is at 125/72, down from 149/100. I had to buy new cloths, down from size 48 pants to size 44. Hopefully I will have to buy a smaller size in the next 6 months.

Steak, bratwurst, bacon, butter, eggs, mayonnaise, and whole milk are all part of my normal diet, along with generous portions of salads. I can eat as much of these as my body wants. I make sure that I eat potatoes, bread, and whole grain cereal, but in limited portions. My blood glucose readings are in the normal range, and they agree with Schwarzbein's findings in her patient studies.

The main emphasis of the book is not on losing weight. It is about becoming healthy, enjoying eating, and enjoying a long life. It isn't necessary to immediately make all the changes listed in the book. The goal is to gradually make the changes and enjoy life.

Free to Live and Enjoy Life
I have been following Diana Schwarzbein's guidelines for about 4 months now. I have all the praise for the book that other reviewers have expressed here. For those whose progress has been slow, I thought I'd share this observation.

Looking back, I can say that after the initial significant loss of inches, I can best describe my progress as 2 steps forward - 1 step back. There are times when I simply can't help myself but switch to a carb-heavy diet, including sweets and potato chips. This phase usually lasts for two or three days. At those times I gain some weight/inches back, and it can be pretty tough psychologically. The good news is that although at these times I think I've completely shot the results and gained everything back, it is usually a pleasant surprise to find out that the smaller size clothes still fit, albeit a bit tighter.

I've noticed that these "binges" happen after the next stage in inch-loss has been reached. It is as if the body is fighting back to hold on to those next fat deposits that are being attacked - and who can blame it! As D.S. explains, our bodies are programmed to gain - and hold on to - fat to provide for times of stress and famine. The beauty of the plan, however, is that once you are used to eating a protein-rich diet, it becomes easy to go back on track. The "binges" are nothing like what usually accompanies low-fat/high-carb diets. You'll find it has suddenly become difficult to eat a whole candy-bar anymore, and there'll be no more of that ice-cream consumption by the gallon. In fact, you'll find the ice-cream so sweet, you won't be able to go past the first several spoonfuls. (Trust me, I tried!) And after two-three days, you'll feel like going back to the plan because you will simply be feeling like a wreck.

So be patient. After the next try, your body will give up a few more ounces of fat. But you have to convince it that there is nothing to fear - that there will always be a steady supply of balanced nutrious food, and those fat deposits are not needed. "Two steps forward, one step back" may seem like a slow progress, but it's progress nonetheless, and that's more than can be said about other diets.

Eating this way will also free you from the gym obsession. You'll notice that once you've built a certain amount of muscle with weight-lifting exercises, your metabolism will be working without your having to stair-master yourself to exhaustion every morning. I do weight-lifting with some regularity (although haven't for the last month and a half) and get the rest of my exercise from walking to and from work. Even extended business trips, with no excercise and abunadnce of hotel mini-bar temptations, do not throw me off anymore.

But the best part is that this way of eating and living has helped me take my mind off food and weight loss and free it for other pursuits. It's the best result I could ever hope for.