Keri Glassman - The O2 Diet: The Cutting Edge Antioxidant-Based Program That Will Make You Healthy, Thin, and Beautiful

To the Roo and the Bean,
the O2 of my life

Trans fats. White sugar. Aspartame. Sodium. Isn't it strange that we spend so much time talking about the many ways bad foods hurt us? We know how red meat raises our cholesterol and the ways pastries make us fat. But few peopleeven my most savvy clientscan explain how healthy foods truly help us.

Sure, you've read a lot about how eating well leads to greater healtheverybody knows you are what you eat, right? But to you, isn't that some vague, abstract idea? In your mind, aren't you just saying, Blueberries help my blah-blah? Don't you think if you actually knew what those blueberries did for you, you'd be more motivated to order them for dessert? Once I get my clients eating delicious foods packed with nutrients, they still seem shocked at how these foods have the power to change them right now. Stunned, they'll say, I have lost 12 pounds, but I can't believe how great my energy is, and everyone is commenting on my gorgeous skin!

It's as if any benefit to eating wellbeyond weight loss, that isis a total mystery. But it shouldn't be that way. Of course, one of the right-here, right-now payoffs for eating great foods is shedding excess pounds, and these days, many people are right to be focused on that. But the other perks of eating good-for-you foodsglowing skin, more energy, a sharper mental focusare just as predictable, just as immediate, and every bit as important. You deserve them in your life, too!

That's why I came up with the O2 Diet. It's a satisfying 32-day plan that will help people get over that disconnect. If you can feel good and focus on enjoying healthy foods instead of focusing on the scale, your energy will be off the charts. Your skin will look great. You'll sleep soundly. Then you will want to continue to eat well, which means you'll continue to lose weight, keep it off for good, and enjoy your life along the way. I want to teach you that yes, you really are what you eat, and I'll show you how learning to love the right foodsnot just avoiding the wrong onescan reshape your health from the inside out. As you learn to use these foods to their full advantage, you'll be amazed at how powerful you will feel. With so much nutrition at your fingertips, you'll wonder why it took you so long to fall head over heels in love with healthy eating.

Eating nutrient-rich foods will perform minor miracles inside your body, from reducing the plaque in your arteries to preventing your brain from slowing downyou'll always remember to shave both legs! (Oops, am I giving too much away about my own multitasking overload?)

And there will be big exterior changes, too. Yes, you'll lose weight, and your love handles will disappear. But your skin will get softer and glow. The tiny lines in your face will be less noticeable. Your hair will shine, and your nails will be stronger than ever. Your partner will love the way your libido has perked up. You'll sleep better, relax more, and stress less.

In short, you'll be able to wake up every morning and love how you feel and like how you look. And the best part? It is simple! If you focus on the fact that you need to eat more of the right foods, you will be healthier. You will feel better. And you will look great.

The O2 Diet includes a groundbreaking 32-day plan. Each day, you'll consume foods so jam-packed with nutrition that you'll get about 30,000 points of what experts call ORAC value. ORAC stands for oxygen radical absorbance capacity (yes, it's a mouthful!). It's a scale that measures how well the components of a food mop up the free radicals in the bloodstream. Eating about 30,000 ORAC points will boost the antioxidant power of your blood at least 10 to 25 percent.50,000 ORAC points daily, then you'll take in 30,000 units daily for the remainder of the planalmost all of them from some of the healthiest fruits and vegetables available.

With the O2 Diet, you won't have to count calories, grams of fat, or fiberI'll just ask you to keep track of ORAC points of certain healthy foods. Why? Because while researchers are still learning precisely how these foods work, they do know that foods high on the ORAC scale can help you lose weight, improve memory and cognition, prevent cancer, reverse heart disease, lower stress, and protect joints. They minimize your skin's lines and intensify its glow. What's more, just by learning to navigate among these very healthy foodsand feeling empowered by doing soyou'll end up at your healthy body weight. You'll be your smartest, most energetic, healthiest, and most beautiful youinside and out!

Before you can dive into the O2 Diet, eating the healthiest, most scrumptious foods on the planet, you need to understand exactly what these foods do. That way, you'll appreciate their power and grasp why it's to your best advantage to put as many of these healthy, natural compounds into your body as possible, every single day.

As much as I want to race right into the good stuffexplaining how much you can do for your health with yummy things like cherries, avocado, and even chocolatewe have to start with a quick chemistry lesson. (If we can get a little cerebral right now, the concepts will stickand I promise the lesson will be over soon!)

The cells in our bodies are made up of molecules, and molecules are made up of atoms. When we're young, right through our teenage years, all those little bits and pieces renew themselves at a fast clip, and cell renewal is brisk. We're at our athletic peak. Our skin is plump and smooth. Even if we stay up all night or push ourselves in a hard workout, we shake off the aftereffects and bounce right back the next day. Remember when you could pull off an all-nighter, then spend the day at the beach, then still go dancing that night?

But as we begin to ageand I mean as early as our twentiescells start breaking down faster. When a cell dies, it releases a lonely little oxygen molecule known as a free radical. These tiny homeless bits of oxygen are what cause so many health problems: They have been linked to premature aging (hello, crow's-feet!), heart disease, cancer, a host of other illnesses, poor immune function, and even Alzheimer's disease.

How can oxygen be bad? you're probably wondering. Isn't oxygen good for us? Don't we need it to stay alive? After all, it's in the air we breathe and in the water we drink. You're rightoxygen is absolutely essential. Oxygen equals life. But it has to be that beautifully balanced O2 molecule. It's so important I'm naming this book after it!

How do single oxygen molecules (aka free radicals) cause so much mischief? Think of a free radical as a pinball careening around inside your body, constantly smashing into other cells, or think of it as somebody who keeps bombarding you with e-mail jokes you've seen 20 times. The free radical disrupts normal cell functioningthe cells can't do their jobs properly because this little guy keeps storming the gates. The fatty acids in our cell membranes are especially vulnerable to these assaults, as are the core components of DNA. We can see evidence of oxidative damage all around us: It's what causes metal to rust and what turns a newly sliced apple brown in a matter of hours.

What do brown apples and rusty nails have to do with crow's-feet? It's all the same oxidative process. A certain number of free radicals is absolutely normal. Even the healthiest peopleliving in the purest communities, eating a perfect organic diet, and meditating all their stress awayhave free radicals piling up in their bodies. The reality is that aging is 100 percent natural and 100 percent inevitable.