Dr. Peter M. Miller - The New Hilton Head Metabolism Diet: Revised for the 1990s and Beyond

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright 1996 by Dr. Peter M. Miller

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Rachel McClain

Book design by H. Roberts

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

A Time Warner Company

First eBook Edition: June, 1996

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-446-55123-6

The original Hilton Head Metabolism Diet showed you how to increase your body's fat-burning ability and let you eat lots of delicious good food. Created by a leading weight-control expert, it made weight loss easy and safe with no fad foods, unhealthy food restrictions, or unappetizing meals. But now, new scientific discoveries make THE NEW HILTON HEAD METABOLISM DIET even betterreducing body fat and improving your overall health. Here's what's new:

The exclusive Stair Stepping planbased on state-of-the-art research, Stair Stepping allows you to lose in stages to achieve gradual, permanent weight loss and a metabolism that won't slow down.

The 10% solutionthe way to use weight loss to dramatically improve your overall health and energy level

Easy-to-learn exercisesgreat toning and lean muscle building exercises so you can look trimwithout being skinny

Fast 14-day weight loss meal planYes! You do eat five times a day, never feel hungry, and watch fat melt away!

Genetic researchfind out if you are at risk to suffer obesity as a chronic diseaseand what you can do about it, right now!

plus new motivation techniques, exciting recipes, weight-training exercise plans, and more!

For Miller

With love from Pop-Pete

I am greatly indebted to my staff at the Hilton Head Health Institute for their continuing contributions to the content of the New Hilton Head Metabolism Diet. I would especially like to acknowledge the assistance of my wife, Gay, as well as Robert Wright, Fran Gerthoffer, Erich Striegel, and Dr. Roger Sargent in the preparation of this book.

I am particularly grateful to the thousands of men and women who have participated in our programs at the Hilton Head Health Institute and who continue to share their success stories with us.

IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT

I f you've tried every new diet developed over the past few years, only to gain your weight back again, you are definitely not alone. Perhaps, more recently, you joined the antidieting movement and found your weight problem getting worse with each passing day. Or you may have adopted a healthier lifestyle by lowering the amount of fat you eat, only to find that you still have trouble losing weight and keeping it off.

If any of these problems describe your battle of the bulge, you are more typical than you realize. You likely feel frustrated and depressed about your weight and simply don't know where to turn.

Your failures are not your fault. You've just been going about it the wrong way. I want you now to forget everything you've ever learned about dieting. I'm going to give you a system of weight control that gives you a fighting chance. One that has helped over a million men and women throughout the world. That's how many people purchased my previous book, The Hilton Head Metabolism Diet.

This version, The New Hilton Head Metabolism Diet, is an improved diet based on the most recent research available. This is not simply another diet but a totally new frame of reference. It is based on the premise that your weight problem is not due simply to a lack of willpower. Overweight is a complex biological, metabolic, and nutritional disease that requires a specially designed, comprehensive treatment plan. That's right. You must begin to think of your weight problem as a chronic disease. All the latest research points to this conclusion, and it is important for you to remember it.

Your problem is not just a matter of eating too much but of not burning enough calories. While exercise is an important part of the solution, you actually burn 70 percent of all your calories each day through metabolism and only 30 percent through physical activity. That's why having a sluggish metabolism makes weight control so difficult. Unless you attack your basic problem of metabolic suppression no diet will ever help you.

HOW THE NEW HILTON HEAD METABOLISM DIET WAS CREATED

Twenty years ago I founded what has become one of the top health resorts in the world. Unlike a spa, my Hilton Head Health Institute is noted for its professional, scientifically based treatment programs and has served as the proving grounds for the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet.

Even before I started the institute, I had become frustrated by the failure of many of my patients to lose weight. Some would stick strictly to a diet but still prove unable to lose much weight. Others would lose but regain the lost weight within two or three months. It amazed me how people on exactly the same diet and exercise program could differ so much in the results they achieved.

To find a new approach I began listening more closely to my patients' complaints:

My friend Sally eats anything she wants and never gains an ounce. I can gain six pounds in a holiday weekend.

But, Doctor, even when I do lose weight, it's a constant struggle to keep from gaining it back. Slim people don't seem to have the same problem.

I just can't lose weight as easily as other people. Maybe it's my thyroid.

Like many of my colleagues, I assured these people that their problem was not glandular. They simply ate too much. I might even have suspected a complaining patient of trying to use metabolism as an excuse for cheating on the diet.

Fortunately, I began to pay more attention to these complaints. I took them more seriously and began to investigate the differences in individuals' ability to control their weight. I started by examining the records of my patients over the previous years, comparing their eating, exercise, and weight patterns with those of slim people. Next I compiled the results of every major research study comparing weight regulation, eating, exercise, and metabolism in overweight and nonoverweight individuals.

As a result of these investigations, I departed radically from traditional ideas about dieting. I'm now very pleased that I did, because my program has helped so many people over the years.

The evidence in favor of the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet is impressive. The research studies have been there all along. In fact, over the past ten years since the diet was originally developed, more and more experts have come to agree that metabolism is the major key to unlocking the weight control puzzle. I'm pleased to see the evidence mounting to support my ideas, which several years ago were considered controversial.

Study after study verifies the fact that you are overweight because of your failure to burn calories efficiently through metabolism. In most cases, your metabolism is not abnormal, just sluggish. The New Hilton Head Metabolism Diet is designed not merely to help you lose weight but to enable you to change your body chemistry so that weight control becomes easier. In a moment I will explain why you don't burn as many calories as a slim person does and what you can do about it.

YOU WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG

So stop feeling guilty and frustrated. Your difficulty in regulating your weight is not due to laziness or gluttony. You were right all along: You do gain weight more easily than slim people. You've been telling people this for years, but they haven't been listening to you. Well, I believe you, and I have evidence to prove the experts wrong and you right. Your burden of carrying all that extra weight and taking the blame is over.