More on Helping Joe Lose Weight: The Plan

As I wrote yesterday, I am working with a new client (“Joe”) to revamp his diet. The goal is make him healthier; weight loss will be just one benefit.

Our plan is simple and doesn’t have the wow factor of the endless regimens marketed by the food, diet and drug industries.

We will increase Joe’s intake of nutrients.

To accomplish this, Joe will eat a varied diet of nutrient-dense foods. By increasing Joe’s nutrient intake, we will give Joe’s body the fuel it needs to perform better. Also, whenever possible, we will avoid foods that contain hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, synthetic additives, refined sugars, etc.

A “nutrient-dense food” doesn’t have to be a magic berry found on only two cliffs in a mountain range in Asia. Joe, like many of us trying to eat well, is eating mostly the correct foods, but the wrong, industrialized versions. This leaves his body wanting.

For example, to fully satiate Joe, we’ll replace his nutrient-poor egg white omelet with a nutrient-rich fried egg. (Gasp! Say it ain't so, Pfizer!)

Let me explain. Instead of eggs from chickens administered antibiotics and fed genetically modified corn and soy, Joe will now eat eggs from pastured chickens, which eat their natural diet of grass, insects, etc. By eating the yolks of these eggs, Joe will—counter to what has been indoctrinated by the drug companies—be doing his body a great service. (Click here for the nutritional profile of a pastured egg compared to a factory egg.)

Joe will start to eat picnic-type lunches that he can easily construct at work. His lunch the other day (instead of sushi consisting of nutrient-poor bleached white rice and farmed fish) was awash in nutrients: sardines, half an avocado, some organic hummus, a chunk of cheese (from raw milk from grass-fed cows), half a red pepper (hydroponically grown without sprays), slices of whole grain bread (from a bakery, not a plastic bag) and some organic string beans.

We are also moving Joe away from eating animal protein at every meal. Either lunch or dinner each day will be vegetarian (dairy and eggs are OK).

Joe’s initial response has been positive. He feels good and he loves the deep flavors of the various foods, an experience our modern food supply often denies us. He is fuller longer after meals, so he isn’t snacking as often. (We are working on ending his habitual snacking, a remnant of the days when his body was rarely satisfied nutritionally.)

I'll describe more about our plan (and update Joe's progress) next week, but here's an e-mail Joe sent me earlier this week:

“What a delicious and nutritious lunch. Did I eat too much? I’m certainly full. Full of nutrients, that is, but full too.”