What foods to put on your table so you don’t end up on mine

For the past century, we’ve been bombarded with diet ads and advice from gurus and governments. Yet heart disease remains the #1 killer worldwide, and 88% of adults are metabolically unhealthy. Up to 95% of dieters gain back all the weight they lost while following both dietary guidelines and popular fitness fads.

Here’s why they fail.

Most diet books teach you to set short-term weight loss goals. Whether low-carb or low-fat, the typical plan goes like restrict your food choices, exercise until exhaustion, and swallow stacks of supplements. These “solutions” do a better job of lightening your wallet than lightening you.

Meanwhile, the healthcare industry fails to prevent chronic disease. Rather than showing people how to remain healthy and prevent illness through proper nutrition, the system offers drugs and surgery to manage symptoms.

As a heart surgeon who used to be morbidly obese, Dr. Philip Ovadia has seen firsthand the failures of mainstream diets and medicine. He realized that what helped him lose over 100 pounds was the same solution that could have prevented most of the thousands of open heart surgeries he has performed—metabolic health.

What you eat determines how long and how well you live. Yet most doctors don’t learn that in medical school. And pharmaceutical companies and food manufacturers have a vested interest in the public not knowing how to live and eat metabolically healthy.

In Stay off My Operating Table, Dr. Ovadia shares the complete metabolic health system to prevent disease and optimize your health, a system that the diet and drug industries don’t want you to know about. Unlike quick-fix, “7-day,” radical diets, Dr. Ovadia’s approach is a sustainable, long-term solution that works. This book

How most leading causes of death are rooted in metabolic diseaseHow to measure and improve your metabolic health, from a doctor’s perspectiveHow to eliminate your need for most supplements with a nutritionally complete dietHow to eat metabolically healthy on any diet, from carnivore to veganHow light, everyday exercises benefit you more than brutal workoutsHow metabolic health holds the answer to most health, food, and fitness questionsWhether you’ve suffered from chronic diseases or want to prevent them decades from now, Stay off My Operating Table will help you take back control of your health from the institutions and experts that have failed you.

A doctor’s nutrition system to prevent and reverse disease

You believe fiber is a health food. Fiber Menace tells you otherwise. And here is Fiber has zero nutritional value. It contains no vitamins, minerals, or microelements, and it’s indigestible to boot. All of fiber’s make-believe health benefits are related to five of its prominent “water absorbency,” “bulk,” “roughage,” “fermentation,” and “laxative” effect. All five are behind fiber’s primary goal in human the prevention and treatment of constipation. In reality, here is what actually takes.

Water absorbency causes fiber to expand. While the whole point and purpose of chewing and digestion is to reduce food particles to the barest minimum and liquefy them for easy passage through the digestive tract, fiber does the complete opposite-it balloons four to five times its original size and weight, and congregates into large lumps. Can that be any good for you? Well, it’s just as good as swallowing food without chewing.

Bulk means that fiber makes stools large and heavy. How heavy? About four to five times as heavy, or as much as the amount of water it can absorb and retain. Can that be any good for you? It’s just about as good as swallowing apples whole. Large objects tend to get stuck inside passageways, be it an apple inside the mouth, or bulky stools inside the colon. That’s why so many children and adults suffer from chronic constipation.

Roughage means that fiber makes stools rough. Rough enough to cause diverticular and hemorrhoidal diseases, anal tears, and crimson blood streaks on passing stools. So rough, in fact, that many toddlers fed high-fiber diets refuse to move their bowels because of pain, and eventually have to be “manually disimpacted” (meaning the impacted stools must be removed by hand, under anesthesia, by a surgeon or specially-trained nurse).

Excessive fermentation causes pain and suffering. Gases and acid are the byproducts of fiber’s bacterial fermentation, which causes bloating, flatulence, and abdominal pain, and are the “driving forces” behind IBS, diverticular disease, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease. That’s why doctors prescribe antibiotics to wipe out bacteria. Unfortunately, once the bacteria are gone, constipation becomes even worse, and doctors recommend even more fiber.

The laxative effect is particular to soluble fiber, also known as “mucilage.” It’s based on the fact that once inside the intestines, soluble fiber blocks water absorption (along with essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals, of course), and this causes diarrhea. Of course, consuming foods that have laxative effects can’t be good for either irritable bowel syndrome or colitis, because diarrhea is one of its main outcomes.

If you still doubt that dietary fiber is a menace, just note the following description of the side effects associated with fiber laxatives, which are, of course, 100% pure, unadulterated “Bloating, gas, and a feeling of fullness may occur. If these effects continue or become bothersome, inform your doctor. Notify your doctor if you stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, rectal bleeding, unrelieved constipation.

“The more fiber you consume either with food or laxatives, the more severe its impact, and the older you are, the more obvious and menacing these side effects. It’s even worse for toddlers whose digestive organs are much more vulnerable than adults’ because of their tiny size. That’s why this book is called Fiber Menace.

At the end of the day, the damage from fiber adds up to unfortunate medical indigestion, heartburn (GERD), gastritis, ulcers, hernias, gallstones, constipation, hemorrhoids, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticular disease, precancerous polyps, chronic diarrhea, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease. Ironically, fiber is recommended to treat and prevent all of these disorders with a predictable they get worse, and some transform into deadly cancers.

It’s best to read Fiber Menace while you digestive organs are still intact. By the time you’ll hear from medical establishment that fiber is a menace, it may be too late to prevent and reverse the damage. It’s never too late, though, to stop the on-going carnage.

A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” ( Financial Times ) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber.

With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air ‘s most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing” ( The Sunday Times ) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.

Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Written with the precision of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Sherwin Nuland, it is “recommended for night-table reading in the most pragmatic sense

We, as humans, have been the apex predators of the world for millions of years. But, in the last couple of thousand, we have started to decline rapidly—physically, mentally, and emotionally. With the introduction of new ideas and philosophies about lifestyle, health, and diet, we’ve introduced new (supposedly) self-evident truths designed to aid in such a decline. However, all this has done is introduce a slew of new toxins, myths, and contraindications into our lives. Disease rates continue to increase exponentially, most notably obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autism, and autoimmune disorders. This is why, in this book, we will be taking a closer look at these mainstream health axioms that have perpetuated illness, disorder, and death for over a century, exposing them, and revising them, so that you have the knowledge to avoid these, and live a happier, healthier, more indicated life as a human being.

“Trust me; I’m a doctor” no longer has the credibility it once did.

Nutritional therapy is often overlooked in medical school, and the information provided to physicians is often outdated. Advice to avoid healthy fats and stay out of the sun has been proven to be detrimental to longevity and wreak havoc on your system, and yet many doctors still regularly espouse this “wisdom.” What kind of advice is your doctor giving you? Is it possible you’re being misled?

Dr. Ken Berry is here to dispel the myths and misinformation that have been perpetuated by the medical and food industries for decades. This updated and expanded edition of Dr. Berry’s bestseller Lies My Doctor Told Me exposes the truth behind all kinds of “lies” told by well-meaning but misinformed medical practitioners.

In this book, Dr. Berry will enlighten you about nutrition and life choices, their role in your health, and how to begin an educated conversation with your doctor about finding the right path for you. This book is a survival kit on your journey through the confusing, and often misleading, world of conventional medicine and includes such topics as

• How doctors are taught to think about nutrition and other preventative health measures—and how they should be thinking
• How the Food Pyramid and MyPlate came into existence and why they should change
• The facts about fat intake and heart health
• The truth about the effects of whole wheat on the human body
• The role of dairy in your diet
• The truth about salt—friend or foe?
• The dangers and benefits of hormone therapy
• New information about inflammation and how it should be viewed by doctors

Come out of the darkness and let Ken Berry be your guide to optimal health and harmony!

Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man first discovered fire. But, as Michael Pollan explains in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’ s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.

Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans’ history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society.