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FOREWORD
David Perlmutter, MD
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, American life expectancy started to decline in 2014for the first time in American history. This despite the fact that the United States has the highest spending per capita on healthcare in the world.
Whats cutting our lives short? Both here in America and in locales around the world where life expectancy is also dipping, the culprit isnt accidents or even infectious disease.
What is killing humans across the globe are chronic degenerative conditions like diabetes, cancer, coronary artery disease, and Alzheimers. Though this might at first seem like a list of different and unrelated diseases, they do all share a common denominator, a root cause: systemic inflammation.
And what contributes significantly to inflammation? Our Western diet.
A Western diet is generally one that is high in ultraprocessed foods, sugar, and refined carbohydrates, while low in dietary fiber and healthful fat.
As such, we are witnessing a worldwide spread of a dietary trend that augments inflammation. Add to this the fact that it has now been scientifically established that inflammation effectively reduces our access to the prefrontal cortex. This means more-impulsive thinking and poor decision-making. Indeed, correlation with higher markers of inflammation is seen not only in diabetes, hypertension, and renal failure but also in diseases of despair like depression, alcoholism, and obesity.
Our most valuable tool in combating chronic inflammation is making good choices about the foods we consume.
And clearly, there now exists robust science that is strongly supportive of a ketogenic diet for accomplishing this goal.
A diet that will promote ketosis is a diet that not only helps lower inflammation but, more specifically, also helps in the reduction of excess body fat, enhances energy production, and helps reestablish insulin sensitivity, thereby helping to reduce risk for type II diabetes.
Because of these and other benefits, public interest in going keto has grown exponentially.
But despite the seeming simplicity of ketogenic eatingcutting carbs and increasing dietary fatmany people have a hard time with commonly experienced side effects. Because of the mantra to cut out all carbs, many people get constipated. Due to mineral deficiencies of the classic ketogenic diet (most often potassium and magnesium), some people experience keto flu.
In the pages that follow, however, Dr. Anna Cabeca presents a highly researched and nuanced approach to a ketogenic diet that significantly increases the likelihood of getting into ketosis while decreasing the likelihood of these and other unwanted side effects. Her plan provides you the fiber youll need to stave off constipation, as well as mineral-rich vegetables that will surely add to both the efficacy and tolerability of her program.
Our goal with respect to nutrition is to consume the highest-quality nutrient-dense foods available while targeting inflammation.
Keto-Green 16 is a powerful program for accomplishing these goals and paving the way for lasting health, longevity, and disease resistance.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Keto-Green 16! The next sixteen days are going to be exciting, encouraging, and uplifting as you begin to drop poundsperhaps up to a pound a day!and lose inches around your waist, without cravings or hunger. At the same time, youll begin to feel mentally and physically energized like never before. And, I predict, you will feel a dramatic improvement in your digestive health, your sleep, and, even more excitingly, your mood.
All of these things happen when you go Keto-Greena scientifically validated, breakthrough way of eating that combines a fat-melting ketogenic diet (low in carbs, high in good fats, moderate in protein) with health-boosting alkaline-rich foods. Youll also incorporate intermittent fasting into your routine, going without food for roughly sixteen hours (mostly overnight). Its the healthiest way to fast, and its impact on fat-burning and metabolism is remarkable.
I understand that you might be a little skeptical about considering yet another diet. Youve probably removed unhealthy foods from your diet before. Youve exercised as much as you can. Youve yo-yo dieted, sometimes gaining back more than you originally lost. And then theres the dreaded, hard-to-lose belly fat. Through it all, youre still unable to shed as many pounds as you want, and you cant see the results of your efforts and hard work. And if you do see results, they seem to be only temporary.
Whats the problem? Whats going wrong with your body? Why is it so hard to lose weightespecially as you get older and, for many women, enter menopause?
I get it. Do I ever! At age thirty-eight, I weighed more than 240 pounds, with a lot of it abdominal fat. Then I lost one of my children, my toddler, Garrett, and wasnt in any mental or emotional shape to focus on losing weight. But after taking a healing journey around the world in the wake of that tragedy, I eventually got below 150 pounds, got pregnant again (after being declared infertile), and was able to stay at that healthy weight for ten years.
Then, when I was forty-eight, menopause hit, and I quickly gained twenty pounds, seemingly overnight. It was a time in my life of toxic romantic relationships (like the time I got engaged to the wrong guy), brain fog, near-bankruptcy, and more. The stress, combined with my changing hormones, made it seemingly impossible to get thin and feel well.
The more I talked to my patients and saw how their stories mirrored mine, I realized I wasnt aloneand neither are you! I was in a metabolic stall and mental fog brought on by hormones. I had to understand what was happening in this peri-menopausal time period to my body and my mind.
I was determined to figure out why its so hard to get lasting results and how to conquer this stubborn problemand do it quickly.
Brain, Body, and Belly
It turns out that the missing link in getting to and staying at a healthy weight is your brain. Your brain has significant power over your hormones, and these affect your weight, your metabolism, and your appetite. If there is a disconnect between your brain and your body, your hormones will not function optimallya condition I call neuroendocrine vulnerabilityand it will be challenging to lose weight and keep it off. But we can get to our happy weight, and we can do it effortlessly. So hang in there with me.