The Optimal Diet Tips

Unlike stereotypical “dieters,” my patients don’t “yo-yo” up and down the scale, nor do they flit from my diet to the next fad diet. Most have stayed with me for years, and the reason they stay is that my diet works. The Rosedale Diet is dramatically different from standard weight loss diets, which I believe is the key to its success.
The average American has such poor eating habits that making any change is likely going to be an improvement, but that’s not saying much F
ollow any of the popular weight-loss diets, and you’ll probably lose some weight, but you won’t be restoring leptin sensitivity as effectively, so you’ll still be battling hunger. Moreover, simply losing weight does not necessarily mean that you are losing weight in a healthy way, or that you’ll be able to keep it off. Eating for optimal health as well as to lose weight is a greater challenge, and doing it for the long-term is a greater challenge yet. Yet that is exactly what the Rosedale Diet does.
Virtually all of the popular diets today are basically variations on the same two themes: (1) the high carbohydrate–low fat diet (heavy in grains, starches, salads, and fruit) or (2) the high protein–low carbohydrate diet (heavy in meat, fish, poultry, dairy, and eggs). Neither type is as effective as mine, and no popular diet other than the Rosedale Diet has been shown to control leptin.
As its name implies, the high carbohydrate–low fat diet severely restricts fat intake. You can’t eat much protein because it is often high in fat, and you are forced to eat mostly starches (like pasta), grains, and salads. As I will explain later, many carbohydrates—even the ones you think are healthy—can cause those spikes in leptin that will make you leptin-resistant.
The all-the-protein-you-can-eat-diet fixates on eating protein and ignores fat. Your plate is piled high with meat of any kind, and as much as you like, but you are severely restricted in your carbohydrate intake. The dirty secret of high protein diets is that if you eat more protein than your body requires, the excess can turn toxic and can threaten your health. There is even growing evidence that a high protein diet significantly increases your risk of heart disease, another fact you won’t hear from proponents of these diets.
In contrast to the standard other weight-loss diets, the Rosedale Diet focuses on fat—burning fat and eating fat. In fact, it allows you to eat up to half or more of your daily calories in the form of fat, as long as it’s the right kind of fat. Since fat is what gives food much of its flavor and texture, eating a high fat diet is hardly a hardship. You also eat protein on my diet, but in the right amount, because excessive protein consumption can be dangerous. You can also eat a fair amount of carbohydrate, but only the healthy ones that won’t cause the precipitous spikes in leptin that are so damaging to health.

GETTING TO THE HEART OF OBESITY

The Rosedale Diet works because it corrects the underlying metabolic aberration at the root cause of both obesity and premature aging: hormonal dysfunction. Hormones are chemical messengers that direct all body activities, including how much you eat, and ultimately, whether you are fat or fit. Your hormones can work for you or against you. The wrong diet creates hormonal imbalances that trigger hunger and food cravings, the main problems that prevent people from losing weight and keeping it off. The right diet—the Rosedale Diet—almost magically controls hunger and eliminates food cravings. That is why it works so well.
Hunger is a powerful force. As I tell my patients, following a diet while trying to fight hunger is like trying to hold on to the edge of a cliff and hoping that gravity will go away. Eventually, you’re going to let go. If you’re hungry, eventually you’re going to eat and chances are, you’ll overeat to make up for lost time.
How does my diet curb hunger? The Rosedale Diet is specially designed to control the key hormone that regulates both appetite and weight loss. That hormone is leptin. Leptin is produced by your fat cells. It tells your brain when to eat, how much to eat and most important, when to stop eating. Leptin is also critical for many of the body’s most important functions, including the regulation of blood circulation, the prevention of blood clots, making new bone, regulation of body temperature, and reproduction. In fact, if a woman produces too little leptin, sh
e will stop menstruating, and therefore will be unable to conceive. Very recently, leptin amazed the scientific community when it was found to be able to rewire critical and central portions of the brain to better do its bidding. The more scientists research leptin, the more they learn about how vital it is to life.
As hormones go, leptin is the new kid on the block. In fact, it’s so new, most of your doctors may not have heard of it, or are unsure what it does. Yet, I consider leptin to be so important for the health and wellbeing of my patients that I always measure their leptin levels, and if I have any say in the matter, doing so will become standard medical practice within a few years. Measuring leptin is easy—it’s a simple blood test—but it tells me volumes about my patients’ potential for gaining weight and the ease with which they will be able to shed excess pounds. Blood leptin levels indicate how well leptin is functioning in your body. High fasting levels of leptin (from blood taken after waking and before eating breakfast) mean that leptin is not functioning well, and therefore, unless leptin is brought down to a healthy level, losing weight and keeping it off will be an insurmountable challenge. Low fasting leptin levels mean that leptin is able to do its job and that your body won’t sabotage your weight-loss efforts by making you constantly hungry.
More important, leptin levels are a bellwether as to how well a person is aging. If their leptin levels are high, it bodes ominously for their health, and that bodes poorly for longevity. In fact, remember those calorie-deprived laboratory animals that were much healthier and lived well beyond their normal life span that I described earlier? They had very low leptin levels compared to their well-fed peers. Fortunately, it is easy to lower your leptin levels without starvation by following the Rosedale Diet, as I’ll describe later.