Doctor Elson Haas wrote a book called the False Fat Diet. I am writing here a very basic summary of what he has to say. If this fits your situation buy the book and gain more detailed information.

The premise of this diet is that you are not as overweight as you think. Much of your fat is bloating and swelling caused by inflammation as a result of eating foods that generate an allergy like reaction.

The premise is that you can shed 5-10 lbs. immediately, meaning about one week by giving up those foods. It seems we all have common metabolic problems that are related to food reactions and these can be solved within a few days, once we flush these foods from our bodies.

Once the reactive foods are flushed away, the false fat (inflammation) starts to subside, food cravings fade and some metabolic disorders will completely disappear (hormones naturally balance out etc.)

I personally found this book extremely helpful in sorting out a lot of things for myself and energy went right up as a result.

Eating Strategy

The idea here is to determine which foods are creating reaction. Once determined the cleansing out phase takes about one week. Colon cleansing can of course help to speed up the process.

Once eliminated and you have become balanced in your feelings and not having the bloating, swelling, gas and usual pain you may generally experience you then start to add in one food every few days. Then watch and see what you react to. You don’t add them daily or you won’t figure out what is irking you.

It should be mentioned that one of the ways you will know you are reactive to a food is that when you decide to eliminate it you will have withdrawal cravings, headaches and mood swings. All sure signs the diet is working.

Within 7-10 days you will lose bloat and swelling which translates to losing the excess water weight that goes with the bloat. In other words a part of your weight loss problem is water from inflammation.

After going through this phase you go into the Balance Program. A period during which you only eat balanced non-reactive foods. Once the false fat has disappeared you will lose further adipose tissue as your metabolism is no longer struggling.

After several months you may be able to eat some of your reactive foods again without swelling. However, in my personal experience reactive foods are always reactive and will always need to be taken in moderation from hereon in.

This really is not a diet it is a lifestyle. It’s about learning to balance your lifestyle and your diet. During this phase you will sop having migraines, heartburn, insomnia, skin rashes, irritable bowel, nasal congestion, sinusitis and recurring infections.

You don’t have to worry about calories because fresh, unprocessed foods such as vegy’s, fruit, grains, fish, fowl and legumes are naturally low in calories.

Good food is low in calories.

To summarize at this point. Each human being is unique. When you stop eating the foods that make you react, you will become healthy and your weight will normalize.

1/ you will rid your body of false fat.

2/you will experience permanent weight loss of adispose tissue by avoiding reactive foods.

3/ you will feel good

you will become pro-active in your life

5/ you are an individual.

Grab yourself a copy of this book at Amazon to get the full theory behind this. It is great to fully understand it and to read the testimonials as they will inspire you.

There are seven Principal Foods that the majority of people react to in some degree or other. These are as follows:

1/dairy

2/wheat

3/corn

4/sugar

5/soy

6/eggs

7/peanuts

Then there is #8

8/ Any food that you eat every single day.

Over time it is easy to become reactive to foods that we take in daily.

North Americans get 75% of their calories from just 10 foods.

Some of these are:

1/ Wheat: That means bread, pancakes, cookies, cakes etc.

Wheat is added to many commerically made products, such as salad dressing, soy sauce, additives in sausages or other processed meat products, even in MSG which is in many packaged or canned goods. Millions of people in North American are gluten intolerant. Gluten is a substance in wheat, rye and barley. About 15% of the population is gluten intolerant or has celiac ( link here) disease.

Dairy: Butter, milk, cream, cheese, all that yummy yogurt we are told to eat for the probiotics.

3/Sugar: Try to buy any commercially made product that does not have sugar in it. Cutting out or cutting down on sugar is about the hardest thing there is to do in our society.

I could go on but you get the idea now. Food reactions cause us to have incomplete digestion and the immune system causes an inflammatory attack on the digestive tract

When this happens we swell with water which is trying to surround the cells to protect them.

To improve your digestion, reduce bloating and swelling and lose a few pounds, try cutting out a few of the above suggested list for a week or two. Start with wheat and then dairy. See if your energy improves. It takes about one week to clear all the residue of a food group from your system.

Use a good colon cleanser, we have some listed on this site that will help you to reduce the bloating and inflammation in a hurry clearing out your system faster. Give it a few weeks and you will start to look and feel much better, your tummy will reduce and the pounds will drop off.