Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.
Preventive Medicine

Instructions for reducing your set point for weight control and cholesterol:

• Totally and absolutely cut out all free fats: butter, margarine, mayonnaise, fried foods, cooking fats, salad oils, peanut butter, and all other nut or seed butters.
• The more raw foods taken, the better it will be for your weight. If you are severely overweight, try going a period of 30 days in which you eat nothing but raw foods. Breakfast could be fruits in any form (dried, canned without sugar, frozen, or fresh), with 2-4 tablespoons of nuts or seeds. Lunch could be vegetables of any kind or quantity you desire along with corn on the cob or whole kernel corn; limit varieties, however, to no more than four. Example: a large bed of shredded cabbage, finely grated rutabaga, juiced and remixed carrot to give the whole vegetable to the meal and not juice only, and 1/4 to 1/3 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut. This salad could be a whole meal, with corn on the cob if desired. Another suggestion is any four of the following: green peas, frozen or fresh, any frozen edible vegetables (small raw okra is especially good), freshly juiced carrots or beets with the pulp added back to the juice, and sunflower seeds, raw, added to it. This is a delightful salad. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on it and a sprinkle of dry or fresh mint leaves, or sweet basil, if you like.
• Nothing should be eaten after 3:00 in the afternoon. If you need to be sociable, pour yourself a cupful of delightful herbal tea of any kind you desire, and sip away while being sociable. Carry tea bags with you for emergency use. (If you like sweetened tea, use stevia which is available at health food stores.) Never eat a morsel, even a stalk of celery, between meals.
• Have no more than four separate, simple items at a meal. Example: breakfast could be a fruit salad of apples and oranges with a generous quantity of chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds sprinkled all over it (perhaps 2-4 tablespoons). You may have any kind of nuts in about that quantity with either meal, but always raw. You may have raw peanuts, corn on the cob taken raw, frozen corn, frozen beans, or peas may also be taken uncooked in salads for lunch. Example: lunch could be a large pile of lettuce or grated carrots onto which you pile frozen or fresh green peas. Then you might want to put whole kernel corn finely blended with lemon juice and onion or garlic over all of it in generous quantities as a sauce. You may eat whatever quantity you would like of everything except nuts and seeds which should be kept to 2-4 tablespoons, depending on the kind from the richest to the least as follows: cashews, pecans, macadamias, sesame seeds, walnuts, almonds, coconut, pistachios, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, and chestnuts.
• Do not linger at the table a long time, as that practice encourages nibbling.
• Do not use refined foods of any kinds - refined sugars, refined proteins, refined fats, or refined grains.
• You should become a total vegetarian. When the Lord made food, He made animal food to make small animals grow; therefore, milk, cheese, butterfat, cottage cheese, cream cheese, yogurt or buttermilk all make animals grow. When they are young they grow up, but when they are older they grow around, or get hypertension, overweight, diabetes, cancer, or heart disease. No animal products - meat, milk, eggs, or cheese - is essential for good nutrition.
• Immediately after meals take some exercise out-of-doors for about 25 minutes. It need not be violent, but should be brisk or vigorous. Walking, yard work, bicycling, etc. will all suffice. Be sure not to exercise to the point that you reduce your digestive function.