Product Description

Leading natural health expert Gary Null has devoted his life to helping people feel better about their bodies, and in this groundbreaking book he presents a surefire plan to help you lose weight—and keep it off. Based on Null’s research with over a thousand volunteers and more than thirty-five years as a health educator, Kiss Your Fat Goodbye explores the science behind weight gain and provides an easy-to-follow weight-loss regimen based on all-natural nutrition, exercise, and holistic therapies. Complete with a thirty-one-day eating plan packed with delicious, low-fat recipes that can be tailored to your individual needs, Kiss Your Fat Goodbye shows you how to jump-start your metabolism and develop healthier, lifelong eating habits. You will learn how to:

—Listen to your body and determine your unique dietary needs
—Use detoxification as the key to weight-loss success—safely and effectively
—Reduce with juice and blend a variety of slimming, health-enhancing beverages
—Use the 125 recipes in the eating plan to prepare appetizing, slenderizing dishes—from breakfast to dessert
—Choose vitamins and supplements that will boost your weight-loss efforts
—Develop a personalized exercise regimen—and stick with it
—Use stress management and self-actualization techniques to set personal goals, improve your body image, and stay positive and energized

Best of all, with Kiss Your Fat Goodbye the inches and pounds you lose are secondary to what you gain: a lifetime of confidence, happiness, good eating, and good health.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135004 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-28
• Released on: 2006-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 720 pages

About the Author
Gary Null, Ph.D., is the author of over fifty books, including the bestselling Gary Null’s Ultimate Anti-Aging Program, Power Aging, Get Healthy Now!, and The Complete Encyclopedia of Natural Healing. A highly sought-after lecturer and educator, and the manufacturer of his own line of vitamins and supplements, Null is the host of America’s longest-running nationally syndicated daily health program, “Natural Living with Gary Null.” He appears regularly on PBS and has been featured in numerous publications, including Time, Fitness, and Natural Health. He lives in New York City. You can visit Gary Null at his website: www.garynull.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
An Overview of Overweight

Twenty years ago I was doing a lecture, one of my first for the Huxley Foundation. Afterward a couple came over to me to tell me the problems they had had with their son, who had been institutionalized his entire adult life. They showed me a picture of him. He was obese, weighing almost 300 pounds. He had been labeled a manic-depressive, incapable of functioning in society. When he went through periods of mania, he was deemed a danger to himself and oth­ers. When depressed, he would lie in his bed for days on end. They told me he had been to see over twenty psychiatrists but to no avail. They were desperate and asked if I had any advice for them.

I asked what their son’s diet was like and was told that he ate institu­tional food plus almost $100 a week of what his parents gave him in confections, such as candies and potato chips. He was also a milk junkie, consuming large amounts of dairy products such as butter, cheese, and ice cream. I asked if their son had ever been through a detoxification pro­gram. They didn’t know what detoxification was, so I outlined what a full-body cleansing program entailed and gave them suggestions for what they could do if they chose to put their son on this type of health-rebuilding program. I told them that the only sure-fire way to help their son lose weight and feel better both emotionally and physically was to remove the toxins from his diet and direct him toward healthier eating habits. They would start with a complete detoxification program and gradually remold his dietary lifestyle.

So they tried it. First they stopped bringing him sweets and restricted him to no junk food within the hospital setting. Believe it or not, in just three weeks, enough of an improvement had occurred that he could be moved from the institution to a therapeutic house. He had also lost fif­teen pounds. While he was not able to go home at this point, he could now take charge of his own eating habits and create whatever diet pro­tocols he wished. I guided them in mapping out a diet that included fresh vegetable juices each day, plenty of salads, grains, and legumes, and nutrients for rebalancing brain chemicals. Within one month of his arrival at the therapeutic house, the son no longer manifested any manic-depressive tendencies and was able to go home. Within a year and a half he was down to 165 pounds and was functioning normally.

This is an extreme example of someone who was a victim not only of an excessive weight condition but of an emotionally stunting chemical imbalance due to a junk-food diet. This man’s poor dietary habits along with an allergic addiction to milk had seriously distorted both his brain chemistry and his behavior, not to mention his body shape. He had just never found a therapist who understood what was happening and made the connection between what was going on with his body and what was going on in his mind. Fortunately, with some nutritional guidance and a lot of determination on his part, this man was able to turn his life around.

I begin my book on weight control with this example not because I think that most people with weight problems have severe mental problems–that’s obviously not the case. But I do want to stress my point that dietary and other lifestyle habits are closely connected not just with your shape and what your scale says but with how you think, feel, and act. All of these factors are intertwined to an extent that our society doesn’t generally acknowledge. If you are overweight, you should un­derstand at the outset that changing your eating habits for the better could change all of these factors for the better. You also should know that if you are overweight, you are far from alone. There are millions of people out there just like you, who share your feelings of frustration as well as your desire for a slimmer body and more fulfilling life.

THE STATISTICS

While obesity has been present since prehistoric times, as evidenced by early drawings, never before has the problem reached such epidemic proportions. Overweight conditions and obesity are rapidly increasing throughout the world, afflicting adults and children alike. In the United States, tens of millions of Americans are classified as either overweight or obese, with 20 percent of men and 25 percent of women falling into the obese category. These percentages have increased dramatically since the 1960s, with most of the gain seen in the 1990s. Ironically, despite the advent of diet centers on practically every corner and a national ob­session with the rail-thin model look, the average American weighs eight pounds more than a decade ago.

All age groups are affected by this trend, and of particular concern is the frightening rise in childhood obesity. In a recent study of four- and five-year-old girls, for example, 10 percent were found to be overweight, which is almost double the amount found in 1971. Another investiga­tion, this one focused on New York City grade-school children, found a third of the subjects to be overly fat. Adolescent incidence of this prob­lem has gone up too; in fact, the number of overweight twelve- to seven-teen-year-olds has more than doubled in recent years. These figures are particularly disturbing, as overweight children and adolescents tend to become overweight adults who run an increased risk of medical debili­tation and premature death.

Socioeconomic factors seem to play a role, with women in less ad­vantaged groups exhibiting obesity twice as often as women in higher socioeconomic brackets do. Black American women have a particularly high rate, at 40 percent. These differentials are probably due to a greater emphasis on being slim in more affluent groups as well as to differences in education, the availability of wholesome foods, and even housing. If you want to create wholesome meals you need good access to decent cooking and refrigeration facilities. If these facilities are less than ade­quate, people are more likely to rely on fast food and processed or junk items.

The most widely accepted standard for judging weight problems and obesity is the body mass index (BMI), a system that we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 6. Any adult with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is classified as overweight, and measures beyond that signify obesity. The BMI is used to compare levels of obesity worldwide. Researchers have found that excessive weight is a global problem that is on the rise, par­ticularly in urban populations.

Financially, the costs related to obesity are phenomenal. For the year 1990, the overall U.S. expenditure for obesity-related illness and lost productivity from missed work days was conservatively estimated at $68.8 billion. Moreover, the weight-loss industry, which includes every­thing from diet programs to surgical intervention and medications, costs the dieting population millions more. Were these methods suc­cessful, they might save money in the long run as obesity-related health disorders declined. The unfortunate reality is that after following these programs, most dieters regain their lost weight plus some extra, which then poses an even greater hazard to their health.

To what can we attribute this epidemic? While genetic and biological factors may explain why some individuals succumb to obesity, the over­riding factor is the present-day environment where high-calorie, high-fat foods predominate, along with exertion-saving technological advances and the concomitant greater levels of inactivity. This raises questions about the standard approach to obesity today, which emphasizes med­ical intervention. If obesity and its related disorders are diseases of diet and lifestyle rather than infection, wouldn’t it be more logical to take a holistic approach in their treatment? The modern hospital may be a technological marvel, but it is more suited to the treatment of acute con­ditions and trauma than to the correction of obesity, high cholesterol, or even heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.

Unless drastic changes are made in our society that influence the overall behavior of communities, the problem of obesity is expected to escalate further, a fact that should be a cause for alarm. Let’s take a more in-depth look at why we should be concerned.
LOST VITALITY

The costs of obesity go way beyond the financial, extending into many areas of health, and beginning with the way we feel and function every day. There’s no getting around the fact that, on average, the more over­weight you are, the less energy you’re going to have to accomplish daily tasks and even enjoy daily pleasures. There’s simply more of you to carry around.

Also, despite the quantity of food you consume, you may be mal­nourished. It may seem paradoxical, but being overweight and under­nourished often go hand in hand. That’s because the calorie-packed processed foods that overweight people tend to eat do not contain the full spectrum of nutrients. Also, sometimes a weight problem can be compounded by a system that does not properly absorb the nutrients that are in food. As the body becomes run down due to nutritional defi­ciencies, the first thing we might notice is that we are just not in top form. This condition is what Dr. Paul Bergner, author of The Healing Power of Minerals, calls “the blahs,” which, he says, “are probably the American plague. People feel tired and sick, a first manifestation of min­eral deficiency.” Some of the results include depression, anxiety, irri­tability, immune problems, and fatigue. Dr. Jeffrey Bland, a research scientist at the Linus Pauling Institute in Washington state and the au­thor of The 20 Day Rejuvenation Diet Program, has a name for this seg­ment of the population–”the walking wounded.” He asserts, “These people are not sick enough to be sick but not well e...

Customer Reviews

Well worth the time and effort!
After listening to Gary Null on PBS, I bought the book to make needed changes in my lifestyle. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I felt a lot of it was plain common sense we already know and I wanted more on the actual program he recommends. What I found invaluable were his specific directions as to menus, foods needed, when and why. After going through his recipes & eating plan, I made a shopping list and got what I needed at several of the whole food type stores near me. I did have to go to several stores to find the different grains though. If you are a meat and potatoes type of person, this book isn't for you but if you are a light meat eater or tend to be more vegetarian then you will feel 'at home'. The recipes are up to date and interesting so you aren't eating flavorless patties of something. Learning to cook more with grains I'd never used before was a learning experience for me and I was concerned about carbohydrates since I'm a Type II diabetic. My blood sugar readings did not go up as I feared perhaps because I found myself satisfied with smaller portions. Since I share my home with a companion rabbit I normally have a good supply of vegetables on hand & that did make it easier for me to make soups, casseroles, etc. I've been on his eating plan for almost 4 weeks now & feel 100% better & have more energy than before. I'm gradually losing weight as I continue yet do not feel 'hungry' ever. If you are willing to be flexible with changes in your eating habits and enjoy freshly made foods, this book is truly worth the time and effort. It takes time to go over the recipes and decide the ones you want and organize your shopping but having the protein powder supplements really helps. I absolutely love the chocolate flavored protein powder mixed with vanilla soy drink and enjoy it as a 'milkshake' whenever I want a treat. Above all, I found that what he suggests to eat, when to eat it and why made complete sense. Its a common sense book if you are serious about health and weight loss...not a fad diet.

Simple, Excellent advice!
Dr. Nulls information is very accurate. As a nurse I see how the health of americans is going down the tube. The problem is with all the best advice we still have got to make an effort to change! Much like smoking, we know it's bad for us but so addicting or habit forming! Great Job ! Dr. Null! Sign me trying to take Doctors advice!

outstanding
really helps you re-evaluate what is "good" food. it is not a diet, it is a life style. i have already lost weight and i don't feel deprived.