Love yourself and your vegetables to lose weight, according to Hungry for Change. James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch direct this bold sequel to Food Matters.
Hungry for Change is now streaming and you can watch the first 20 minutes for free at their website.
Secrets of radiant health
“If we had a rampant epidemic of self-love then our health care costs would go down dramatically,” says Dr. Christiane Northrup, New York Times bestselling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom.
Forget diets. Forget the protein – fat – carbohydrate balancing act. Love and plant nutrition send your body the right signals for safe, effective weight loss.
The nutritionists-turned-filmmakers interview medical doctors, nutritionists and authors who have reversed cancer, obesity and more. Exciting insights about genuine nourishment are shared.
Why diets don’t work
One-third of all women and one-fourth of all men in the U.S. are on a diet. Yet 68% of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, says the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Some 95% of dieters not only regain weight, but add additional pounds, according to a UCLA study. Why?
The body is trying to protect you from what it perceives as “famine,” according to author and weight loss authority Jon Gabriel. Gabriel dieted constantly yet kept gaining weight. He once weighed over 400 pounds.
Finally he began to eat nutrient-rich vegetables and whole foods. He stopped depriving himself. He lost 220 pounds over two and a half years. “The whole dieting paradigm is flawed,” Gabriel notes. “We’re violating our body’s basic survival laws over and over again.” He created the Gabriel Method, a diet-free weight loss system.
“Keep the focus always on adding,” Gabriel advises. “The best strategy we’ve got is, add in the good stuff,” says nutritionist and raw foods expert David Wolfe. “Inevitably, you’re going to feel so much better eating the good stuff that the choice for the bad stuff is no longer valid.”
Make peace with your body
“If you’re not getting the specific nutrients your body needs in a way that they can digest and assimilate, then you’re starving on a nutritional basis,” Gabriel explains.
Most people are “chronically starved of nutrients, so they keep eating and eating and eating, but the foods that they keep eating don’t have enough of these nutrients,” says Daniel Vitalis, wild foods and natural medicine expert.
Eating natural foods is vital, says Gabriel. “As long as you’re taking in more toxins than you’re eliminating, your body’s not going to let you burn fat, because burning the fat will just put more toxins into your body.”
“The body only wants to heal,” says Jason Vale, author of 7 lbs in 7 Days Super Juice Diet. “Only the body can detoxify itself provided there’s no toxicity coming in,” he emphasizes.
Food additives engineered for addiction
Processed foods have been engineered with chemicals that give you a temporary boost but leave you craving more, experts say. “If you addict a customer, you have a customer for life,” says Gabriel.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) and free glutamates are used to enhance flavor in 80% of all processed foods. They only make us want to eat more, Gabriel notes. “MSG excites the brain, and due to that excitation your body activates the fat programs and gets fatter. Everybody knows this! Scientists know this, everybody knows this and nobody is saying anything.”
Sugar lurks in many processed foods, from crackers to sushi. “Sugar is a drug just like alcohol,” says Northrup. Addicts soon need more sugar to achieve the same high.
Mike Adams, health journalist and editor of NaturalNews.com, cautions that “eating high fructose corn syrup, in my view, is a lot like snorting cocaine. It is the highly refined, isolated, chemically manipulated inversion of something that’s found in corn.”
Think before you eat, drink
Too many calories, not enough nutrients and not enough exercise pose a triple threat, says Adams. These factors “create an obesity epidemic, they create a low energy epidemic, they create a fog in cognition,” says Wolfe.
Diet colas are especially dangerous, warns Northrup. The combination of caffeine and aspartame create excitotoxins that kill brain cells after a buzz of excitement. Research studies also suggest that artificial sweeteners contribute to weight gain, says the Yale Journal of Biology.
Beware of “fat free” foods
Vale cautions, “Fat free normally means it’s loaded with sugar.” “It is not fat that makes you fat,” Northrup insists. “It’s sugar that makes you fat” because the body converts sugar into fat.
Harmful chemicals found in our foods are lipophilic, or fat loving. They are stored away in fat cells to protect us.
Exercise without cleansing and detoxifying is dangerous, warns Dr. Alejandro Junger, New York Times bestselling author of Clean. It leaves behind fat-soluble toxins which will harm the body.
Foods that detoxify the body
Vitalis suggests a diet rich in green vegetables. “You don’t have to do very much. Just eat gentle foods, be out in nature, and the body will cleanse itself.” Gelatinous foods like chia seeds, aloe vera and seaweeds will bind and absorb toxins as they move through the digestive system. They help cleanse the liver as they remove fat-soluble toxins.
Adams notes that parsley is excellent for cleansing the blood. Cilantro binds with heavy metals in the body and removes them.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, New York Times bestselling author and osteopathic physician, drinks a quart of vegetable juice a day, the equivalent of 6 to 8 servings of vegetables. “Most people are not getting enough,” he notes. Good vegetables help us obtain “the full range of phytonutrients and antioxidants and everything that you need to stay healthy.”
Dramatic results
Evita Ramparte, a health journalist diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2000, began drinking raw vegetable juices. Four months later she was cancer free. Joe Cross, director of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, says that when he adopted juicing and a plant-based diet, he began to turn his life around within two weeks.
Kris Carr, director of Crazy Sexy Cancer, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2003 at age 31. Today she is a “cancer thriver” and best-selling author espousing a raw foods diet.
“Step one was just going back and understanding, ‘How do I take care of myself?’” she says. “That comes back to what you eat, what you drink and what you think.”
Loving self and others essential
Frank Ferrante, the star of May I Be Frank?, says that “love for myself and love for other people” was the most crucial factor in his weight loss.
Mindful eating, with reverence for self and nature, is key. Adams asks, “Where does my food come from? What went into the food? What is my intention for the food?” (5 out of 5 stars)
If you like Hungry for Change, you might enjoy: Food Matters; Forks Over Knives; May I Be Frank.
Hungry for Change / 2012 / NR / 1 hour, 29 min
Cast Overview: Christiane Northrup, Jon Gabriel, David Wolfe, Daniel Vitalis, Jason Vale, Mike Adams, Alejandro Junger, Joseph Mercola, Evita Ramparte, Joe Cross, Kris Carr, Frank Ferrante,
Directors: James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch
Genres: Documentary, Health, Nutrition