Q: I know you said what started you on the road to fitness was food combining. But, it seems you recommend , like Tom Venuto, a protein and carb at each meal, except at night where you slash the carbs.
Do you still food combine?
I am a petite 5 foot one 120 pounds, which I have finally come down to but have maintained that weight for two years. I want to get down to 115, yeah just a stupid 5 pounds, but the scale does not like to budge, so I am wondering if the food combining thing would be good?
Lauren,
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A: Thanks for the question Lauren. To fully understand my answer to this question, I feel that I must describe the events that led me from food combining all the way to Tom Venuto and his Burn The Fat program. In other words, from vegetarian to meat eater.
When I first began my weight loss journey back in 1990, I learned about Food Combining. I was about 450 at this point and what food combining did for me was to reset my digestion. Digestion of foods is the most energy consuming thing the body does. By using food combining, I was able to release an enormous amount of energy. This energy went into the cleansing process of my body and I was able to improve my sleep, feel more energized and improve the quality of my skin (after the initial cleansing process).
What I found to be most interesting was the principal of proper fruit consumption.
Harvey Diamond mentions in his book Fit For Life that fruit is a completely separate entity, and within the fruit category, fruits digest at different rates.
What was proposed to me was that fruit is pre-digested and should not be eaten with a meal, or after a meal, but rather it must be eaten by itself on an empty stomach. What I learned was that fruit slides right through the stomach in 20 minutes or less with the exception of Banana’s which take about 45 minutes.
If you eat them on an empty stomach as Harvey suggests, you get full value of all the nutrition in that fruit.
If you eat fruit after a meal, it sits on top of the meal and ferments causing all sorts of issues with your health and in one case caused a non-drinking priest to have enough alcohol in his system to cause liver disease. His doctor told him that he’d have to stop drinking to which he told the doctor that he never touched alcohol. I believe Harvey talked about this in the interview I did with him. (click here for the Harvey Diamond Interview).
It’s the fermentation process of fruit that can cause alcohol in the blood, liver disease and bloating.
I went through years and years of food combining and eventually turned vegetarian which I was for 12 years including 2 years of being Vegan.
Transitioning From Vegetarian To Meat Eater
Then I had this calling to come back to animal protein. I considered it for about 2 years before making the transition from “vegetarian to meat eater” as it were, and it was the day I spoke with Dannion Brinkley about it that I ate my first chicken in 12 years. Dannion Brinkley has passed away 3 times, 2 of which were from lightning strikes and another from a brain aneurism. I was sponsoring the “news for the soul” radio program of which Dannion was a co-host. I was invited to attend a seminar in Vancouver where Dannion was going to be speaking and where the audience had a chance to ask him questions. Dannion is able to speak to people who have passed over. I never really believed any of that sort of thing without EXTREME proof that would be unmistakable by myself. Kind of like going to a psychic and just saying “tell me about myself” without giving any details.
Dannion had spoke about energy and communications and about death and dying. He told us about how when he died, he instantly experienced every emotion that he ever was involved in while alive. He says that when he hugs people, he give them a hug as if his very life depended upon it because when he dies, he gets all those hugs back and loves it.
So, after the lecture, he started taking questions. People were asking him to speak with loved ones who had passed away and such. I had this question about making the transition from vegetarian back to meat eater. The question I wanted to ask was “how do animals feel about being raised as food?”
I had no attachment to the question. I said to myself “if I get to ask the question, that would be great, but if I am not able to ask him the question, that’s fine too”. There’s a lot of power in letting go of attachment and it’s one of the major concepts that I used to teach at Peak Potentials camps and courses.
There were about 75 people at this event, so I was not expecting to be able to ask my question. Dannion took about 6 questions, then he walked up the isle, stopped at my row, looked over at me and said “you have a question you’d like to ask me”.
If I didn’t truly believe the power of manifestation and non-attachment, this would have stunned me and I would have stuttered my question, but it did not. I had expected it, so I asked my question. What he told me gave me an insight to him and his soul and I realized that I was completely naked in front of him. He told me things that only I knew about and in an instant, everything he had said in the lecture about energy, love, healing, giving etc all came crashing in on me as being the absolute truth.
That evening I had my first chicken in 12 years and I felt great about it. Oh ya, there was a girl involved too. Funny that, making changes to my life for a woman.
In the next few days, I had so much energy coursing through my body. My level of alertness increased, my energy increased, and I felt so grounded. I continued with the chicken and added in salmon.
I have long said that no one specific diet or nutritional program is a correct fit for every person. I am asked this question many times because my website former fat guy presents weight loss programs that contradict one another. I also believe that someone who is overweight or extremely obese has a few phases of new nutrition to go through from the cleansing and regeneration process with calorie restriction right through the addition of weight training and the addition of extra calories including lean protein.
What works for one person does not necessarily work for another. Parts of one program may work, while others don’t, so we should begin to experiment and test and then keep what works and discard what doesn’t. Some weight loss programs may appeal to one person because of how it’s performed. Some people are visual and logical and require or are better able to understand the program if they input their numbers and diet info which then churns out a chart or a meal plan for the user. Some people choose diets based on their ethnic backgrounds or religious / spiritual beliefs. Some want programs designed by doctors while others, myself included, want “natural health programs”. I have not used any medications since adopting a natural lifestyle with the exception of a pain killer after some serious dental work.
There is a lot of information out there about “the best weight loss program”, or the “latest weight loss program” and read through TONS of material. Then they do nothing. They don’t get started. The simplest thing I can tell someone is to take action and not let another day go by without doing something. Stop thinking about going for a walk, and just go do it. My motto and commitment to myself was “think it, do it”. If the idea popped into my head, I’d take action on it.
During my weight loss journey, I tried a number of natural health and natural weight loss principles from various sources and began to apply them. My natural weight loss website has now become a resource for all the methods I’ve tried and used and those that I know about that I recommend.
After adding animal protein back into my diet, I got tremendous results. Body fat began to drop off me again as I was still carrying a little bit after being a vegetarian for so many years. I stumbled upon Tom Ventuo’s Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle program and as I usually do, I tried it.
Tom is an amazing man. His writing style oozes professionalism and honesty. I wrote in my review of his program that I learned one simple step that took my physique to the next level and went on to get into single digit body fat over the course of 6 weeks. I documented it all on my burn the fat review page.
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle goes completely against food combing. It’s quite the opposite in fact. Chicken and rice and veggies could be one meal for example. This defies all logic that food combining presents. So why did I do it, and why do I still do it?
It’s working for me, that’s why, and it continues to work for so many. It’s founded in logic and the proof is in the pudding.
Food combining works as well, but approaches health from a different angle.
Do I still recommend food combining? Sure. It works too and may very well help people overcome very serious illness.
The interview that I did with Harvey Diamond that lasted for one and a half hours covered a great many of the questions that people ask about the benefits and how it works.
You question asks if food combining would help drop your last 5 pounds and my answer is to try it. You may very well lose the 5 pounds or more, but it might be from a variety of sources, namely the cleansing of your colon of years of waste, or it may be from the increase in energy which melts the 5 pounds. It’s up to you or the reader to try it. Try something anyway. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle might also be your choice of programs to try because it also works.
If you’ve been on a program for awhile and want to take it to the next level, burn the fat, feed the muscle might be the place that YOU learn that ONE next trick that takes you to the next level as it did me.
The simplest thing to try when you hit a plateau, as you did Lauren, is to simply add more calories to your diet in the form of lean protein. Try adding 2 ounces of lean protein to each of your 5 meals per day. This should increase your thermogenics (heat) and you’ll burn not only the extra ounces of protein calories, but also MORE from the thermogenic effect.
Adding calories may not be something that you’ve ever considered because it’s the opposite of what we’ve learned for so many years, but I’ll tell you that a lot of my readers get results from increasing their calories. It’s due to the fact that as we become more active from cardio and weight training, our body needs more fuel to build muscle and repair and if it’s not getting it, it slows down the metabolism.
A client of mine wanted to drop 15 pounds before heading on a holiday and was stuck. I told her to increase her protein calories and she dropped 6 pounds in two weeks. And she’s a personal trainer!
Try it. Food combining might be the thing that works and may very well change your health picture and how you feel about yourself. Burn the Fat, may also be the thing to take your weight loss to the next level, so try it as well.
Rob
Creator of Fat Loss Fundamentals
[Update:] The Question I Asked and What Dannion Said To Me – I asked Dannion “How Do Animals Feel About Being Consumed as a Food Source?”
As I recall, he never directly answered the question but provided insight into eating meat. He said that there are so many ways that humans raise animals that are not ethical, meaning factory farms, and that raising an animal in this way is a terrible crime against another being. He said to stay away from factory farmed food sources and instead to source out only the ethical farmers who raise animals in a joyous atmosphere. Animals that are raised in a way that allows them to enjoy their lifespan, outside, in the sun, eating bugs and grass and experiencing the ebb and flow of natural rhythms of the day… namely natural lighting, are much healthier, less stressed and live a good life.
We MUST also be grateful and express our gratitude to the animal that lived and died so that we may nourish our bodies. By eating factory farmed animals, we build our bodies from their misery and that is such an awful thing to know. Their stress becomes our stress.
The other thing he said was about enjoying the food we consume, and to not be guilty about it. If you’re going to “have those little cheeses, then eat the cheeses.” Enjoy it, be grateful and source the most ethically raised food.
It was that line that hit home with me. “eat the little cheeses.”
At the time, I had been vegan for 2 years and vegetarian for about 10. I did not consume dairy.
However, I had just arrived in another city after a 4 hour flight for a weekend date with a woman. When I walked into her appartment, the first thing she said to me was “OMG, you have to try this cheese, it’s the best thing in the world.” I actually thought “it’s ok Rob, eat the little cheese, try it. It’s not going to be that bad a thing to do.”
A few hours later, Dannion said to me “eat the little cheeses.”
There’s no way he could have known what that meant to me.
Making the transition from vegetarian to meat eater was a 2 year process. I thought about it, considered it, and like the rest of what I do, did a self experiment to see what impact it would have on me.
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