Just Lose It with Berta Newsletter
Volume 1
Issue 36
09-9-2010

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Hello !

 

Finally!!  The end of summertime party days!  Why am I so happy to announce this obvious fact?  Well, if I could go back to the kind of summers we used to have when we were young and carefree, I would absolutely opt for those, but as grownups, we are far from carefree! This summer I witnessed such pain as my clients and my readers struggled with the humid weather and backyard barbecues and summer vacations-not to mention the dread of the last holiday weekend, our last hurrah of the summer as I like to call it.  Finally our more structured, scheduled life can begin again.  Additionally, we're pushing right into some cooler weather-unless you live on the east coast (the new west coast) where we might  continue to experience days in the 90s! Whatever the temperature, the structure of our lives can rejuvenate us, reawakening the thinner being within.  If you have been reading along, you will know that I consider this time of year the second most opportune time to lose weight!  Let's take advantage of the collective September energy to get back on board (or keep going for some of you summer stars!). I promise that you will find the going so much easier for the next couple of months.  So, yeah for all of us!  Labor day is over and has opened the door to a whole new beginning!
 
In the "Tea Time" this week, I speak out about the entire "diet" mentality.  Read on to learn why I do not believe in dieting, and why.  The "Did You Know?" takes you on an exploration and breakdown of the two diet plans to which I most object.  I am also assuaging my guilt over having directed you to cook up some probiotics a few weeks ago! This week I tell you how to create a very  easy and tasty meal!
 
Have a great week!


Berta

Tea Time with Berta:
                               Berta cup of tea photo

 
 
The Perpetual Diet
 
I don't know why I cringe every time a new "diet" comes to town and I have to listen to the excited chatter about the hot new "miracle meal."  Just now, while sitting at my kitchen table, I heard a discussion about whether or not the New Carb Diet really works?  My stomach churns and my skins crawls!  A few minutes ago, it was a whole question and answer session on diet foods and how to get through a week. This was on the evening news and the advice given made me want to scream STOP!  Why does this type of  programming evoke such an emotional response from me? Probably because I know something that you might not know. That's not completely accurate: I think deep down inside, you know it, too. What they're selling or suggesting  just doesn't work. It really doesn't! All of it is just a way to make you dream that there's an easy route to  something that in reality will only come to you by eating properly and bringing everything into balance over time.
 
Boorrrrinnnggg!  I hear you, and I am with you, but that doesn't make it any less true.  It's the reason people buy lottery tickets, isn't it?  Sure, every once in a while you win a couple of bucks, but wouldn't you love to have back every dollar you've ever spent on a lottery ticket? I could probably retire today!  And why do we fall for these types of easy fixes? Well, they're selling a dream, and they entice you to think that you might just be that one in a million who will win!  In truth, someone does win, and you have all probably read stories about how most of those lucky devils blow the dough in no time.  Not all of them, but most.  Why?  Is it possible that we have to earn the stuff of our dreams?  Can we truly be thin and healthy, wealthy and loved without putting any effort into it?  


Just as it has seduced into believing  that the winning the lottery will ensure our eternal happiness, the media has lured us into thinking that attaining our dream body-the body the media promotes-depends upon finding the "diet" that really works. That is why listening to the far-fetched claims surrounding the latest "diets" drives me crazy. The promises of overnight success, and all the other hooplah the publicists can whip up are designed to set up the readers for failure. Sure, if you eat very few calories, their nutty plans will work...for a moment.  But then, as always, life goes back to normal, and you fall back into your accustomed way of eating, cooking, and preparing  food.  You can keep believing "them" or you can take your life and future into your own hands and begin doing something about it.  The good news is that you can start right now if you really want to own your life. Can you admit that you know what I'm saying is true?
 
I have had a hard time this year writing about weight loss because I never wanted to join the ranks of the "weight loss" charlatans.  My method is not a gimmick, and my method does not work in a minute and last a moment. My method teaches you to find yourself behind all the layers of lies that you and I have told ourselves and those that others have provided for us.
 
That's why hearing about another diet book or program-new or old-makes me angry.  I know that "they" are lying about what is true and what isn't, and "they" are taking advantage of the consumers' vulnerability and exploiting them for monetary gain.  If you are not prepared to follow the absurd plan these "experts" suggest for the rest of your days, then not a single "diet" will work and you can be certain that you will gain back every ounce you lose and probably more, to boot. To make matters worse, some of these diets are positively dangerous to your long-term health.  I'm not talking about the obviously silly diets and diet pills that we might have all done in our younger years. Remember the grapefruit diet, the eggs and hot dog diet, and the quick-fix diet pills that had us running on speed?  I am talking about the plans that appear to be based on solid scientific research because a doctor of some sort put his name on it with the goal of making a buck. You see, whatever title someone wants to put in front of her name, it doesn't mean her diet is safe or healthy.  It also doesn't make the plan work for the long haul: no, they work for a moment and then they don't.  
 
I believe we can all learn, or relearn, how to eat properly for the rest of our lives. We can learn that there is one way to eat-for everybody and every body type and every health issue! There is really only one way to eat, and whether you disagree or not, I stand by my postition.
For instance, if a cow is to remain healthy, it must have grass and water.  Anything else will make it sick, and if you do nothing more than listen to the news, you know that it has.  A lion drinks water and eats meat: raw and generally fresh. That's it; anything else would make it sick.  What would happen if fish ate something other than fish and seaweed?  Well, they would probably get sick and die.  This is really quite simple. Look at the other animals around us: they eat what they eat to stay healthy. Some have a tiny variety in their diets, but that is  generally the exception. 


So why are humans different?  We're not! There is only one way for us to eat, and if we eat differently, we will get sick, and we do.  If we saw a lion in the wild that weighed twice what the other lions weighed, wouldn't we wonder what had gone wrong?  Certainly the animal would look sick and would not be able to protect itself and would eventually die.  If we were to put the lion on a "diet," we would tell him to go back to eating what he is supposed to eat, right? He would have to get some exercise and start eating meat again, not hot fudge sundaes, and certainly not low fat, omega rich, dark chocolate with artificial sweeteners. No! he would go back to water and meat and exercise!
 
Why do we persist in thinking we are the exception to this logical means of sustaining life?  And why do we look to the foods that got us into trouble in the first place to get us out?  Why do we still want to eat foods that our bodies reject?  Why do we continue to eat foods that are killing us? We are supposed to be the most intelligent beings on this earth, right?  But still we believe that eating processed, prepackaged, high sodium, reduced fat foods will make us healthy.  Is it any wonder that we are so sick?  And what sense does it make when we become sick and scared and fat and panicked that we turn to "diets" to bring us back to health? Absolutely none! That's the only answer I can come up with. 
 
We have to start righting the wrongs we have done to our body.  We do that by eating smaller portions of healthier foods that are high in fiber, high in good fats and low in bad fats. We do it by drinking water, lowering or eliminating sodium, eating more fruit and veggies, choosing more fish and less meat. We do it by eating foods that the body doesn't reject. Do you realize that breaking out in hives, secreting mucous, suffering from inflamed joints, inflamed intestines, inflamed lungs, inflamed skin, and clogged arteries are symptoms that the body is rejecting something you are putting into it?  Forget about losing weight. Why not make it your goal to just start eating the foods your body needs? Why not do it now before you get too far down the wrong path to consider changing course?  It's hard, but not unbearably hard; it's a long road, but not terribly long; it's a bumpy journey, but not impossibly bumpy. Once you really start eating well, once you get on board, well...you have already reached your goal. The rest is just a matter of time, and really not that much time.  How about it?

 



Did you know... 

that some of the diets out there are either dangerous, or based on unfounded scientific claims?  I would like to break down a two of these in an effort to shed some light on the veracity of their claims. I chose the two that have recently been getting attention. To be honest, I am astonished that these books are still on the shelves.  Please let me be clear, I am not against "diet books" per se, it is just that some of them are truly hurting people, and that infuriates me.  There are plenty of "diet"  books out there that support healthy eating, but then again they are "diet" books.  And a diet is something someone does for a short period of time to achieve a goal. Afterward, almost all of the diets leave you hanging and wondering, "What do I do now?"  I believe in making healthy changes that will support a healthy life. My plan allows the body to reclaim the energy of youth, supporting it's nutritional needs so that you experience a sense of actually growing younger, feeling your physical, mental, and emotional load lightening every day.  I believe there is only one way to lose weight and to keep it off, and that's by making changes in your lifestyle, not changing things for a few weeks around the holidays. 
 
I would like to start with Dr. Atkins.  More so than any other plan, I have recently begun hearing many people speak about trying the Atkins Diet. That people would want to use his method in 2010 always shocks me.
 
Right from the start Dr. Atkins advises us to eat a cheeseburger when hungry.  He also suggests that "[eating] rich foods...can be the [path] to weight loss."  He promises we will see "amazing results in 14 days." His book has sold over six million copies. Now this number would seem to suggest that everyone and her grandmother is on this plan, and that makes me feel as if I am missing out on something. However, I tend to be wary when a diet plan promises that I can eat whatever I want and that losing weight will be very easy for the first time in my life. I get suspicious when I hear that my weight will basically drop off without much effort. And, unfortunately, my doubts are not unfounded, because, alas, not much of what he claims is actually true.
 
As you might know, Dr. Atkins' diet is based on the process of ketosis.  He actually says that "[ketosis] is an indicator used at the Atkins Center as a marker for whether a person is staying on the diet....The Atkins diet is a lifelong nutritional philosophy...The important thing is that you are in ketosis." So, by restricting your caloric intake, you enter the state of ketosis. Yeah! Well, um, ketosis occurs when there is an problem with metabolizing fat. The same thing occurs in diabetes and starvation. You see, in ketosis, the body begins to metabolize muscle tissue instead of fat. Atkins actually touts the weight loss advantages of this!
 
Some say that if it brings about weight loss, then what's the problem?  The problem lies in what he doesn't bother to tell you: the consequences of long-term ketosis are muscle breakdown, nausea, dehydration, headaches, irritability, bad breath, kidney problems, and increased risk of heart disease.  He also doesn't bother to tell you that a potential consequence of extended ketosis for diabetics is death, and for pregnant women, fetal abnormality or death.
 
The American Institute for Cancer Research cautioned consumers considering trying the Atkins plan.
 
The Atkins diet can lead to the kind of rapid weight fluctuations that adversely affect the heart. Moreover, the breakdown of fatty acids that occurs during ketosis may also increase the risk of heart disease. One of the basic tents of Atkins' diet is that sugar causes cancer.  Such misleading pronouncements are essentially scare tactics, meant to direct the dieter towards foods on the Atkins plan.  Finally, nothing about this plan encourages the dieter to learn some very basic weight management strategies like portion control and serving sizes, let alone develop the skills necessary for a lifetime of balanced nutrition.
 
This is a diet that consists largely of pork rinds and sausage, not to mention bacon, pork, steak, seafood, eggs, butter, cream, and artificial sweeteners.  I hope I'm not turning you guys on mentioning all of these foods, because even though the Atkins diet will help you lose weight, for a moment, it is absolutely the best diet you could imagine for promoting long-term obesity, heart disease, and some forms of cancer.  This type of diet will ruin your health, and I honestly cannot believe that his books are still on the shelves.  Furthermore, I am astonished that so many people still find their way back to this way of eating. !
 
Let's move on to the next diet book that gets a lot of attention. In Eat Right for Your Type, Peter J. D'Adamo suggests that there are four different ideal diets: one for each blood type. If you follow the diet that is "right for your blood type," you can lose weight, cure ear infections, fight off cancer, heal yourself from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and much, much, more.  He says that by "eating right for your type," you will be eating like your prehistoric ancestors. 
 
Now this sounds good, and it's a very interesting read...but Dr. Stephen Bailey, a nutritional anthropologist at the Tufts University Health and Nutrition Center, says that D'Adamo has his blood typing all wrong.
 
It's a fallacy even to speak of 'original' type O's or 'original' type A's because blood types did not originate with humans.  They came on the biologic scene long before humans did.  Furthermore, there is no anthropologic evidence whatsoever that all prehistoric people with a particular blood type ate the same diet.
 
Simply put, D'Adamo says that if you are of blood type A, then you should follow a mostly vegetarian diet and to eat plenty of snails. If you are of type O then you should eat a mostly red meat diet.  Type Bs, should eat plenty of dairy products, in addition to plenty of rabbit, lamb, and mutton.  And the ABs, should avoid corn, peppers, olives, sunflowers seeds, sesame seeds, and lima beans, but should eat jam, jellies, rabbit and turkey.
 
Many people have lost weight on his diet; again, all diets actually do work for short-term weight loss.  However, the reason people lose weight isn't actually because of the specific diet, but because they are all low in calories, sometimes as low as 1,000 calories in a given day. 
 
Let me finish by quoting the Department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
 
Eating Right For Your Type is not only one of the most preposterous books on the market, but also one of the most frightening.  It contains just enough scientific sounding nonsense, carefully woven into a complex theory, to actually seem convincing to the uninitiated...D'Adamo has pieced together the outrageous hypothesis that blood type determines which foods an individual should or should not eat...This outrageous theory is nothing short of sheer nonsense.  Were there any truth in it, it's reasonable to hypothesize that the human race would have died out centuries ago.
 
I couldn't have said it better myself!
 
Some of the information in this weeks Did You Know? came from The Food Revolution, by John Robbins. 




 

 

My favorite things to eat!
 

  Watercress Vichyssoise 
serves 6 to 8, can be served  hot or cold
 
Today's e-zine was really theme based, so I thought I would add a few thoughts to help you see how my plan differs from the others.  I hope that you will begin to purchase foods of a better quality. I want you to opt for foods that are naturally lower in bad fats and higher in good fats. Then choose foods that are high in fiber and loaded with healthier choice proteins. Don't do this because you are on a "diet"; do it because these foods taste great, and they are going to help your body and mind come into a place of balance and peace. Before you know it, you will see that simple day-to-day choices of healthier foods and smaller portions will bring you to that place you had only imagined. Never again will you need to hope and pray that the latest "diet" will deliver on its false claims. When all is said and done, good food and moderate portions will get you where you want to be and bring you into the state of  balance that will enable you to maintain your healthy body and weight forever. 
 
Enjoy.
 
What you will need:
 
1 cup  coarsely chopped onionWatercress Vichyssoise
4  leeks, thoroughly washed
� cup   olive oil
1 clove   garlic, crushed
4 cups   potatoes, peeled and sliced
� tsp. sea salt
4 cups   water
1 bunch   watercress, chopped coarsely
1 � cups  (organic low fat) milk
A few snipped scallions or chives
 
 
What to do: 
 
Coarsely chop onions to measure 1 cup.  Slice washed leeks lengthwise, thinly. Pour the olive oil into a pot. Add garlic, onions and leeks. Saut� over low heat until very tender. 
Add potatoes, peeled and sliced, salt and 2 � cups of water.  Cover and simmer until potatoes are almost done.
Remove thickest stems from a bunch watercress, chop coarsely, reserving a few sprigs.  Set aside. 
Add milk and 1 � cups of water to soup and bring to a boil.  Add watercress and cook one minute longer.  Puree in food processor or blender.
Serve hot or cold, garnished with reserved cress sprigs and snipped scallions or chives. 
 


Bon Appetite!!

                                                          


 
Where to go and what to do to GET STARTED!

If you can say Yes! I am ready to get started!  this is the link to the blog page that will explain how to go about doing it. You don't have to read it all in one sitting! Please take your time, absorb my words, and when you fully understand where I intend to take you, read on.  The journey we will take together might be a long one, but it promises to be unforgettable. The first step is committing to yourself. From there, you will begin the work of finally identifying why you are where you are, and how you got there. The moment you can honestly own your personal truth, you will have reached your goal. The rest is simply a matter of time.  Enjoy the ride!  
 Berta by mantle  
Berta is a respected weight loss counselor who has educated and empowered hundreds of women JUST LIKE YOU to lose the excess weight that prevents them from living their dream and becoming the woman they were meant to be.

 

Her gift, and the reason her program is SO SUCCESSFUL, is her ability to break down every detail of your weight loss journey so you can be prepared for the challenges and understand the emotional components behind them. 

 

This on-line program has been designed to bring you the same experience of her methods and common sense explanations that Berta uses in her successful private practice, at a fraction

of the cost.  If you liked today's issue, you'll love her blog and the main site as it is being built, which you can find at JustLoseIt.com.


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