Realistic Goals

The causes of frustration and failure in weight management are many. One important cause of failure is setting unrealistic goals. Fraudulent advertising suggests that you can lose large amounts of weight quickly with little or no effort. Even if you are realistic and doubt these claims, the idea of fast and easy weight loss tends to stick.

I discovered that most people believed that weight loss can be quick and easy.  Patients would come to my office in a panic saying: My daughter is getting married. I have to lose 40 pounds in a month!” The truth is that important, lasting weight loss happens slowly over months to years. To try to lose 40 pounds for the wedding, my patient would have to eat no food and do hard physical work every day for a month; she might lose 25 pounds. Of course, this is not a realistic weight loss plan. If you are within 50 pounds of your ideal weight, it should be possible to approach your ideal weight losing about 8 pounds per month. If you are seriously overweight (more than 100 pounds over your ideal weight) you may not achieve an “ideal” body weight. But you should lose some weight.

There is possible for an overweight person to remain overweight but convert to a healthy lifestyle and become healthy as a heavier-than-average person. The goal of achieving an “ideal” body is needs to replaced with a more realistic goal of lower body weight, better diet and daily exercise. Overweight people who adopt a healthy lifestyle and lose some weight reduce their risk of disease.

The goal, therefore, is never to lose a lot of weight quickly, but to lose some weight by changing eating habits that lead to excessive weight gain. To get started on your new path, you can estimate how much you think you are overweight and plan to reduce your extra fat stores by a percentage, 20% for example. Regardless of how much you weigh, you need to change your food intake forever and exercise everyday.

A realistic plan has to allow for slow weight loss and cannot be a crash diet that leads to rapid weight loss, followed by rapid weight gain. A realistic rate of permanent weight loss is negotiable. The range is 4 to 10 pounds per month. The rate of weight loss usually slows as you approach your goal. There are many measures of improved health and weight loss is only one measure.

Weight Management with the Alpha Nutrition Program

The first experience of the Alpha Nutrition Program is to retreat to a simple set of foods or to take a food holiday. Successful weight management is an expression of health.  Symptoms are an expression of dysfunction and must be resolved early in the stages of diet revision. Basic foods are cooked vegetables, rice, some fruit, poultry and fish. No one gets fat eating rice, vegetables and fruit. You can use a complete meal replacement formula, Alpha ENF, and/or basic foods to clear symptoms and cravings. If you are diabetic, you use Alpha DMX instead of Alpha ENF.

Most people with weight issues do not feel well and many are developing or already have related diseases such as arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes and atherosclerosis. We start with the assumption that the foods that disturb weight regulation are also creating illness at some level.  The illness may be low-grade and may be ignored for a number of years. Or, the illness may be obvious, but is not clearly connected with the food supply. Illness and weight gain go together just as renewed good health goes together with weight loss.

The program can be thought of as a series of transformations that progress from the simple to the more complex. The phase 1 food list is relatively simple and the program advances a positive image. There are foods that are desirable to eat and these are suggested along with meal plans and recipes. You can question the wisdom behind the food selection policy and complain that many of your favorite foods are missing, but that is just the point. The foods that have been omitted are not discussed very much in the program manual, but the effect is dramatic. The absent foods mean that many health problems that you have been having because of these foods are also absent. 

We believe that dairy and bakery products, for example, often trigger food cravings and compulsive eating. Think about the foods you crave and over-eat.  Do the ingredients include dairy products and wheat (flour)?  We believe that these staple foods often cause symptoms such as aching, fatigue, bloating, constipation and diarrhea. If you want to gain weight and feel miserable, the best bet would be to eat high-caloric foods that make you tired, dopey, irritable and trigger compulsive eating. We are convinced that delayed patterns food allergy (you cannot diagnose with skin tests) are important problems both in causing illness but also in causing the appetite control system to malfunction. With delayed pattern food allergy, you get cravings and compulsive eating, instead of normal appetite regulation.

Even people who are relatively well and deny symptoms will realize that they have food-related symptoms after they experience the clearing effect of Phase 1 and then react to foods as they "fall off the wagon".  You will be on a new path and can expect quite different results from the new diet you are creating. The trick is to make the food switch completely, voluntarily, and with gratitude. You can complain about missing foods, inconvenience, and losing pleasures but do not believe your complaints. These complaints and excuses you make for not changing are part of your problem. You do want a different result for the foods you eat and you do want the benefits of change to continue for the rest of your life.

Weight and disease management with the Alpha Nutrition Program. You can start by  studying our books or ordering a Rescue Starter Pack that includes two books, the Alpha Nutrition Program plus Eating and Weight Management,  plus one 500 Gram jar of Alpha ENF

Printed books are available from Alpha Online or Download eBooks at Persona Digital.  Click the add to cart button on the left for printed books. Click the download buttons on the right for eBook downloads. eBooks are available immediately at low cost - a good way to begin if you need more information

Eating and Weight Management

Alpha Nutrition Program

This Web Site was developed by  Alpha Education, a division of Environmed Research Inc. Sechelt, B.C., Canada. Online Since 1995. Experts in Self-Managed Care. Experts in Elemental Nutrient Formulas. Orders for printed books and nutrient formulas are placed at Alpha Online. Persona Digital  is a separate online site for the distribution of eBooks and other digital documents.  Alpha Nutrition ® is a registered trademark of Environmed Research Inc.