Lifestyle Choices

They do exist, particularly among women who have been on the weight seesaw for many years through crash dieting. Sensitivities to specific foods such as milk and milk products or grains (the two most common culprits) can make reducing almost an impossibility, for in the allergy- prone woman, the foods to which she is sensitive are invariably those that she craves and also those that, when she eats them, increase her appetite and lure her into giving up her weight loss program. For instance, I knew one woman who was allergic to wheat (although she wasn’t aware of it at the time). She would go on a reducing diet and stick to it conscientiously until the third day, when the diet called for a piece of toast. She would eat her piece of toast and then find she could not stop there. One piece of toast would turn into two or three and four and by now she would feel so depressed and angry with herself that she would give up her diet again in despair. Once she discovered she was sensitive to wheat (a discovery she made by going on the Robsafte-Kur for three days and then eating a piece of bread, to which she reacted by feeling depressed and increasingly ravenous), she designed a diet for herself that was altogether free of wheat and other grains but which included yogurt and the stress supplements of B vitamins plus zinc (all of which are particularly useful in the case of food allergies as well), which she found easy to follow. The excess weight came off steadily bit by bit.

If you are overweight, have cravings for particular foods, or find it difficult to control your appetite, it may not all be your fault. You could be suffering from a food sensitivity, be allergic to a particular protein, or have a body that seems unable to deal effectively with certain metabolic wastes that themselves set off allergic-type reactions. The overweight overeater who chides herself and feels ashamed of her lack of willpower may well be doing herself an injustice. Overweight is not simply a lack of willpower, as some women’s magazines and advertisements would have us believe. Neither is compulsive eating necessarily entirely psychological in origin. Clinical ecologists (who look at how factors in the environment can trigger off symptoms by inducing sensitive or allergic reactions that involve the central nervous system), allergists, and psychiatrists, examining the physical causes behind much illness, have recently found that many psychological moods, and even appetite itself, can be sparked off by chemical states in the body. Alter these chemical states through vitamins, minerals, diet, or by removing an offending substance from the environment and you alter the response of a person, eliminating his symptoms. In recent years such thinking has been successfully applied to the treatment of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia and physical ailments such as migraine, high blood pressure, and intermittent abdominal pain. For many who have unsuccessfully fought the reducing battle, it can also be applied to overweight. You may be able to get rid of an insatiable appetite and shed resistant excess pounds by changing what you eat and drink or altering the combination in which you take your foods.

To understand how, let’s take a look at what is known about food allergies. The question of how and why certain foods set off sensitivity reactions in some people as yet remains a mystery. Very little is known for sure except that a food allergy is much less likely to occur when foods eaten are completely digested. Fatty acids, simple sugars, amino acids, and glycerin, the products of normal digestion, won’t usually cause any problems. But for complete digestion to take place, a large number of specific chemical products and enzymes need to be present in the body in sufficient quantity. When, for any number of reasons, the supply of these is deficient, digestion of foods remains incomplete. This is often the case with proteins. Proteins incompletely broken down instead of becoming simple amino acids—their proper end products—are split into intermediate or large molecules that leak through the lining of the intestines and

enter directly into the bloodstream. These incompletely digested particles are toxic to the cells. For instance, the amino acid histidine can be changed into a toxic substance called histamine, which is responsible for allergies such as hay fever.

Other incompletely broken down food products can also irritate cells. Such leakage occurs in most people to one degree or another but in some it is very prevalent. It causes no problems if one’s body is easily able to eliminate these toxic products. But when, for any number of reasons, they are too prevalent or can’t be eliminated quickly, a person is likely to show signs of food sensitivity. This kind of sensitivity is curious in that a certain food can not only cause specific reactions such as headache, depression, and increased appetite; when eaten it can also spark off a craving for more of the same food. But if you continue to eat the offending food your symptoms get better rather than worse, for the sensitivity is masked behind the craving. Later, if for any reason you stop eating the food, within a few hours to three or four days you can experience temporary but unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. These can be headache, emotional upset, increased appetite, or any number of other things.

To locate possible food allergies, clinical ecologists usually fast a woman for five days (to take her through the withdrawal stage) and then test specific foods one by one for reactions by placing a couple of drops of the food in aqueous solution (dissolved in plain water) under the tongue. If there is a sensitivity the woman will, within a couple of minutes, show an emotional or physical reaction to it. Then by eliminating the offending food or foods from her diet, she is able to remain free of whatever symptoms made the doctor suspect a food allergy in the first place.

Such an approach has proved successful in the treatment of any number of illnesses from migraine to gastric ulcers, high blood pressure, depression, and severe anxiety neurosis. These same principles can also be applied to overweight and to a tendency to compulsive eating.

Have you ever gotten up from a meal only to find instead of feeling satisfied you wanted to eat more? Or had a craving for a certain food and when you started to eat it found great difficulty in not stuffing yourself? Or found after eating something you feel high, tired, depressed, worried, or very hungry indeed? Or have you been unable to follow a reducing diet for more than a few days without suddenly going on a binge and stuffing yourself, then felt guilty and ashamed because you apparently had no willpower If any two of these things are true of you, you might be one of the many who is prone to food sensitivities. Then,either by changing the foods you eat together at each meal (food combining) or by testing for and then eliminating a few foods that are troubling you from your daily fare, you may find that it will make all the difference in helping you get slim and stay that way.

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