WEIGH DOWN: HOW TO EAT

Waiting for stomach hunger will be like waiting for the "E" (empty) on the automobile fuel gauge. Your normal blood sugar after a meal ranges from 80 to 120 milligrams per deciliter of blood. When your blood sugar level drops to eighty milligrams per hundred deciliters of blood, the hypothalamus (a part of the brain) senses this drop. The brain then sends a message by means of hormones and nerve impulses to the stomach to produce hydrochloric acid, which, in turn produces an empty, hollow, burning, hunger sensation. Your stomach was designed to make and handle this acid production. Acid production, digestion, and absorption of food are all controlled by your nerves (central nervous system) and hormones.

The difference between you and a car is that your body has stored fuel (your fat stores) so that you really do not run out of gas. It should not be scary to go to empty "E"; rather, you should welcome it, for this is how you will lose your excess weight. Your body, in its awareness of having an excess of stored fuel, will burn that stored fuel (stored as body fat) if you eat the amount that the body calls for. Eventually, you will return to your ideal body weight. If you reach this state of hunger and cannot get to food, within ten to twenty minutes the body will pull a meal from your hips or gut and send these fat stores into the bloodstream. The result—the hunger growl goes away and you have fuel to run on.

However, you are not to ignore the growl. That would be as wrong as ignoring the full signal to stop. Let go of control and obey the body making reasonable exceptions for special situations we will discuss later.

Do not refuel before you reach hunger. You will have more energy and time than you have ever had while waiting for hunger. When your blood sugar drops—this is normal—the stomach walls produce hydrochloric acid, which makes the stomach growl or feel empty. This is your signal to eat. It is healthy to empty out or not to eat until hungry.

We suggest that you drink only noncaloric drinks—such as water, diet sodas, and artificially sweetened tea—while you are learning how to sense the body's needs. If you drink sugared tea, milk, fruit juice, sports drinks, or regular soft drinks throughout the day, the glucose (sugar) from them will keep your blood sugar up, the result being somewhat like an I.V. bag in the hospital. If the blood sugar levels stay elevated, then the stomach will not growl or feel hungry.

You will sense a clearer stomach signal while drinking only noncaloric drinks. Continually popping mints or hard candy, chewing sugared gum, and taking cream in your coffee will have the same effect on blood sugar. All of these things will keep your blood sugar level up and possibly keep you from sensing hunger. However, feel free to eat or drink whatever you want within the context of hunger. If you are having a meal and want sugared tea with it, that is fine.

Drinking sugared and naturally sweetened drinks (juice) is the number one reason that children do not want to eat or do not want solid foods and sometimes become anemic. Limit sweet drinks and start using noncaloric drinks or water. Water is the stuff people take baths in—but in most U.S. locations, you can drink it straight from the tap; it does not require an extra filter on the faucet or have to be the bottled variety.

It is our experience that it would be better for you to stop drinking sugared drinks and transfer over to noncaloric drinks. It takes approximately three weeks to switch over your taste buds from regular pop to noncaloric soda. Going back to the old drink will taste weird after three or four weeks. It is easy after the third day if you do not go back and forth. You can train your taste buds to like anything! God programs us to naturally like what we get used to. Perhaps variety is good for the body, up to a point.

Another suggestion: do not feel that you must drink eight glasses of water per day. That is an old diet rule that can actually make you sick. Overconsumption of water causes Hypernatremia, a word that means "too much water in the bloodstream." Symptoms include dizziness and nausea. You might have seen hypernatremia in infants who were made to swim; they got sick from swallowing too much water. Remember, anything in excess is not good for you, including water. Use your thirst mechanism; it keeps you perfectly balanced. Try to stop guzzling from sixty-four-ounce thirst busters. Trust your breathing mechanism, sleep mechanism, thirst mechanism, and your hunger mechanism. God has made them to work perfectly.

*9\237\2*