I recently held an interview with Isabel De Los Rios, the creator of Diet Solution Program which is one of the best nutrition books I’ve ever read. I think you can learn a lot from this interview. So here goes…
John: Hi Isabel, thank you for taking the time to doing this interview for the Fit Firm Body blog. What don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Isabel: Hi John. Thanks for having me.
I am a NJ based Holistic Nutritionist and Exercise Specialist. I have a private practice in NJ and when I’m not seeing clients in my office I am writing books, newsletters, articles or speaking on the principles of healthy nutrition for weight loss and disease prevention. Basically, doing my best to communicate what true health is to the world.
I battled my own weight since I was a teenager and through my own mistakes and struggles, I found the only way to really lose weight and keep it off was through a natural foods approach. And by no means does that mean a tasteless, bland food approach. I mean the stuff good ol’ Mother Nature provided us with in their delicious forms.
John: I think it’s great you’re taking the time to help people succeed where you yourself have done so well. One of the things which has many of people who like me write about diet and fitness issues is how it seems that the more diets are out on the market, the more people are overweight, why do you think this happens?
Isabel: I hate to say this but most food and pharmaceutical companies are really only concerned with one thing: money. So if they were to actually teach people the real truth behind how to lose weight and take control of their health, most of the food products, supplements and medications on the market today would be completely unnecessary. Let’s be honest. No one is going to get rich selling apples, you know?
I think many of these companies are also feeding off people’s emotions. The more addicted they get people to their products and diet foods, the more money they will continue to make. But if you were to get someone to their ideal weight with natural foods like veggies, fruits and natural meats, there would be no food addictions to diet foods and chemicals, just good healthy eating.
John: I’ve read your book, the Diet Solution Program, and I have to say I couldn’t put it down. I have a few questions about it: You say the first step which people need to take is to determine their metabolic type. What is that exactly and how does it affect the weight loss process?
Isabel: Metabolic typing is actually a very old science-based way to determine which foods respond best to your body. The best way to describe this method is: the foods that an Eskimo would eat are clearly different than the foods a native Hawaiian would eat. Why? Because their natural ancestors and their environment dictate how their bodies will process and digest food. So an Eskimo will need a meal plan higher in healthy fats to keep warm and a Hawaiian will need a meal plan higher in veggies and fruits to stay cool. Now, it is often not this simple. Each and every person’s metabolism responds very differently to all food and can vary greatly from person to person. For example, I feel my best and stay at my ideal weight when I eat higher fat proteins along with lots of vegetables where as many of my clients do better with higher amounts of natural carbohydrates and lower fat proteins. My book provides a detailed, easy to answer test to determine your own personal metabolic type and then tells you exactly which foods are the best fit for you.
John: Wow, that’s incredible. I also read that you’re a great believer in meal planning. How does meal planning help to improve your health and help achieve optimal nutrition?
Isabel: Meal planning is extremely important especially when you first change your current eating habits. If you find out that you feel best on a meal plan that contains protein in each meal, you must plan accordingly. This often intimidates people and makes them feel like “it is too much work”. But the whole thing really does become second nature. You finally know what you need each day to feel good and lose weight and you just naturally gravitate towards those foods. To make it a much simpler process in the beginning stages, I provide several days worth of detailed meal plans in my book, The Diet Solution Problem, so my readers and my clients know exactly where to begin, without having to do the exact meal planning themselves.
John: One of the biggest markets in the health industry today are fat burning pills. What do you think about taking such pills?
Isabel: I think people really don’t realize the severe damage they are causing their bodies with fat burning pills. Whenever you attempt to artificially spark your metabolism with harmful pills, you are essentially creating a “lazy” metabolism. When you go off these pills, your metabolism is too lazy to do anything. Almost every person I know who has taken fat burning pills complains of gaining even more weight when they attempt to get off of them. Of course this happens. There metabolism is now “on vacation” and not sure if it will ever come back as strong as it was before.
The best way to spark your metabolism is to eat good amounts of healthy protein, fat and carbohydrates all day long. This is what your metabolism was designed to do: metabolize healthy food into energy and muscle for the body to utilize.
John: Thanks for clearing that up. But pills aren’t the only dangerous thing in our nutrition. What are some of the dangerous chemicals which common food contains and what are the alternatives to conventional food?
Isabel: The amount of toxic chemicals that are now added to our foods is actually quite frightening. The same pesticides that are designed to kill bugs are all over conventional produce and these pesticides go into our bloodstream when we eat these sprayed fruits and vegetables. The 2 worst forms of chemicals are hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup. Hydrogenated oil is a toxic change in oil to make it more shelf stable, hence keeping foods like packaged cookies, cakes and most processed foods in the stores longer to make maximum profit by these companies. My program teaches people exactly which chemicals they must stay away from if they want to finally lose their excess weight (and often times, these chemicals are exactly what’s keeping them from achieving their desired goals).
John: Let’s go into dieting. One of the biggest danger of diets is the feared “starvation mode”. Why does this happen and how can we avoid it?
Isabel: Back in the caveman days, there were periods of feast and famine. Our bodies have a natural ability to make sure we do not die of starvation. This mechanism in our bodies holds on to every bit of fat and every calorie possible to keep us from dying. This is obviously no longer a risk in most countries, but this mechanism is still present in our bodies. So when people starve themselves all day, the body sees this as a potential risk, and holds on to every calorie and fat gram it possibly can. This is why people become extremely frustrated when they “don’t eat all day” and still don’t lose weight.
I know it seems counterproductive, but the only way to truly lose weight and keep it off is to start eating. But not processed unnatural foods. Your body will respond best to natural, wholesome foods and LOTS of them.
John: I know that dieting is a huge market. Over the past few years, food companies began to market zero-sugar foods. Are these foods actually better for your health and weight?
Isabel: Zero sugar foods are actually much worse than sugar containing foods. Artificial sweeteners (like aspartame, sucrolose, and saccharin) are poison to our bodies. Whenever the body reads an ingested food as a potential danger, your liver comes to the rescue to help ward off any danger these foreign substances may cause. People who eat and drink “diet” foods and “diet drinks all day, are overwhelming and taxing their livers. Your liver is crucial in the weight loss/fat burning process. So if your liver is taxed and not working at optimum, it becomes near impossible to lose any weight.
This is why I give my readers many alternatives to sugar free foods and sugar containing foods. There are natural alternatives that are ideal replacements for any of these diet foods, without the potential harm to the liver.
John: What about the fatty foods? Many people believe that they just need to cut out fatty foods out of their diet and they’ll lose weight. I read in your book that you take a different approach. Care to elaborate a little on the good fat – bad fat issue?
Isabel: The no-fat craze clearly made most Americans (and many other countries) gain more weight than ever before. Why? Because the right kind of fat is essential to the body and without it, your body can not metabolize the fat you don’t want. So unless you feed your body the fats that it needs, it literally holds on to all the fat you don’t need (and don’t want!). Eating a low fat or no fat meal plan is a huge mistake. Not only will you not lose weight but you may suffer from many conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and heart disease.
This is usually one of the most eye-opening chapters for most of my readers. They can’t believe they need to eat fat to lose fat and are amazed when they see the results first hand. Now, of course, eating unhealthy fats (like the ones found in French fries and burgers) is not the right approach. You must focus on the healthy fats (again, as Mother Nature intended).
John: Okay, Isabel, thanks for being with me today. I’ve learned a lot. I hope my readers will take note of what you were kind enough to share with us.
Click here to read more about DietSolutionProgram.com