Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.
Preventive Medicine

Roughly 64% of American adults are judged to be at least some degree overweight, as revealed by a study published by Associated Press, May 3rd, 1991. This makes obesity perhaps the number one public health problem in the United States. From one standpoint, considering the ease with which weight control can be achieved in the vast majority of these overweight individuals, it would seem strange that we should have such a problem. On the other hand, considering the strangle hold certain indulges have on Americans, the difficulty of controlling the appetite is not at all strange. Therefore weight control continues to loom as a major problem.‍

Control of "Set Point"

‍The vast majority of Americans could control the weight as well as the cholesterol by following eight simple steps. These steps will lower the set point for weight control in the body.

A set point for any feature of human biochemistry, anatomy or physiology is that point which the body recognizes as being "normal." It has to do with such things as the water level of the blood, the hemoglobin level, cholesterol level, sodium level, potassium level, and all other blood chemistry levels. And the most familiar set point is the body temperature.

For many of us, most of these "set points" creep upward with age. Is this rise a necessary and inevitable factor of aging, or is it a problem of education at the cellular level, making the body misinterpret excessive levels as being normal? It seems so far as weight is concerned, it is in fact a form of learning taking place at the cellular level which recognizes a new steady state as being normal.

This means that if we, through lifestyle choices or bodily malfunction, have a sustained elevation or depression of an element, a nutrient, or other "set point," our body will concede to the usurper and will evermore seek to maintain this new "normal." So you can see how excess weight is so tenacious; your body has accepted it as normal and is now pledged to maintain it.

To lower the body's recognized set point for weight as well as for cholesterol; the following steps need to be followed:

• Eat nothing between meals.
• Eat nothing after 3 pm.
• Eat no free fats.
• Eat no form of animal products.
• Eat more raw food.
• Eat fewer varieties at each meal (3-4).
• Eat no concentrated (refined) foods.
• Exercise moderately after each meal.