NEW How Not To Diet Book Review – Michael Greger MD

The official release date of the How Not To Diet book by Dr. Greger is the 10th of December 2019.

Yet today, in mid of November, 1 month before the launch, you’ll get a comprehensive and exclusive review of the book by QG.

See I got my hands on the final draft of Dr. Greger’s How Not To Diet book. I’m not sure if this version will be launched, so there might be small differences as there are still some wordings such as TK in this book. Which means to come in the future.

I’m not sure how much I can show you, but what I can tell you thus far, is that this book is going to be a gamechanger.

And don’t worry, all of this is fully legal, as QualityGains is a Nutritionfacts.org benefactor.

I got the book yesterday morning and I thought: This is awesome. I dropped everything and aimed to read this book in a day. Well, it’s more comprehensive than I thought. The 581 pages do not include the reference and the footnotes. This book contains nearly 600 pages of pure value content.

This is the biggest and most comprehensive book on dieting that you’ve ever seen and that you will ever see in your life probably.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

24 hours later of constant reading, 12 pages of notes, and only 30 minutes of sleep, I must say that this book is a freaking masterpiece.

There’s so much attention to detail and nearly 5,000 references in this book, there are so many references that Dr. Greger needed to hire 5 fact checkers, that it almost goes beyond comprehension.

Today you’ll learn the most important insights about the How Not To Diet book before everyone else, and why you have reasons to be excited. I’ll also share all of my notes in the second part of this review.

Review Part I – There are 5 parts to this new Michael Greger book

1. The first part is where Michael Greger outlines the obesity problem. The causes, the consequences and the possible solutions.
2. The second part is where he explores all the ingredients for an effective weight loss journey.
3. The third part is where he lays out the optimal weight loss diet, which is the shortest section of the book.
4. The fourth part is where he gives you all the tweaks that could potentially increase your weight loss success, this part is literally 250 pages long.
5. And the fifth part, where he summarizes the fourth part in a very actionable 21 step checklist that you can add on top of your daily dozen.

I love how the book comes full circle. Dr. G first explains why overweight and obesity is truly a crucial issue, and why the question is not: Why are so many people overweight? But Why are not all people overweight in our society?

Because obesity can actually be seen as a natural reaction to an existence in an unnatural world. The problem is our biology and the system. Our system is set up to maximize profits, not maximize individual life quality.

After he defines the problem he starts with the solution. He presents 17 key ingredients for effective weight loss. These include: Anti-inflammatory, clean, high in fiber, low in fat, low in sugar and low in meat.

And then after those recipes get explained, he explains how to implement them in the most effective and sustainable way. From how to train to which kind of water should you drink to the optimum sleep routine and meal timing. No stone is left unturned.

This How Not To Diet book was written with the intention to have 0 compromises. Honestly, most of those 5 parts could’ve been books alone. This is so comprehensive.

Reading this book, feels like you enter the matrix at some stages. There are so many new and interesting information, that It’s literally a page turner. Especially the first two parts for me I just devoured without stopping.

For example did you know that treating obesity might be more efficient than curing cancer when it comes to extending the lifespan of future generations and that the food industry spends more money in marketing than any other industry? It specifically targets kids and teens.

Now what you might LOVE or hate about this book, is that very few paragraphs, are opinions of Dr.Greger. You do not find testimonials and you do not find random anecdotes in this book. This is 583 pages of pure science.

Yet I still love, how it feels quite personal. dr. Greger’s humor comes out in multiple sections of this book. For example he describes the loss of weight around the penis area as free willy. He uses headlines such as full of crap, crap stands for calorie rich and processed foods. Or liposuction sucks. Or just beet it.

The whole book is made with such attention to detail. That this can be a life’s worth in itself. I mean there are infographics on how many stomachfuls you can have in 2,000 caloric daily intakes. The water content of foods, the calorie content of food based on a consistent daily intake of weight.

Needless to say, this book is absolutely great and If you liked How Not To Die, you’ll love How Not To Diet. I can highly recommend it, it’s kept me awake for the last 24 hours, although Dr. Greger writes in the book that sleep deprivation is not a good thing.

I have 0 freaking regrets.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

Review Part II – All Notes of The New Michael Greger Book

Part 1/5 of the book – The Problem

• Obesity increased in the US (and most high-income countries) in the late 1970s. Lack of physical activity is not the cause of weight gain: In fact, if anything, the level of physical activity over the last few de cades has gone up slightly in both Europe and North America, rather than declined.
• Genes may load the gun, but diet pulls the trigger.
• We have an inborn drive to maximize calories (opportunity costs). Animals don’t tend to get too fat eating the food they were destined to eat.
• Becoming overweight is a natural response to living in an unnatural environment.
• Whole foods have very low profit margins and sometimes are even sold at a loss. They’re also not capable of being branded (people might buy competitors products), they go bad fast and it costs money to grow.
• Food giants cannot necessarily do the right thing if they wanted; they need to satisfy their investors.
• Companies learn how to best influence their children to manipulate their parents.
• Quote 1967 – from an ad executive for Kellogg’s and Oscar Mayer: “When you sell a kid on your product, if he can’t get it, he will throw himself in the floor, stamp his feet and cry.”
• Supermarkets are optimized for profits: Closed- circuit cameras and GPS- like devices on shopping carts are used to strategize how best to guide shoppers toward the most profitable products.
• Food industry spends about $20 billion or so on advertising each year.
• Nearly one in two hundred knee replacement patients dies within ninety days of surgery.
• Obese people have a smaller brain volume and might think less clearly (due to inflammation and oxidative stress).
• Obesity will reduce our life expectancy by 2 to 5 years. To put that into perspective, a miracle cure for all forms of cancer would only add three and a half years to the average American life span.
• Best BMI: between 20-22
• Overweight and obese discrimination happens on a daily basis (women: 3 times a day, men: 1 time a day), even nurses and doctors seem to dislike obese patients.
• Obesity appears to be the only handicap where nearly every one wants to switch disabilities no matter what the cost. Former obese-persons would rather lose a limb than be obese again.
• Yo- Yo dieting is better than no diets at all.
• Bodybuilders die at the age of 48 on average.
• Waist- to- height ratio may offer the best of both worlds, and the cutoff value is the simplest to remember: Keep your waist less than half your height.
• Many are surprised to learn that new surgical procedures don’t require premarket testing or approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and therefore might even be unsafer than older practices.
• Nearly one in fifty bariatric (stomach change to facilitate weight loss) surgery patients ends up being hospitalized for self- harm or attempted suicide.
• Taking weight- loss meds is so uncomfortable that 98 percent of people stopped taking them within the first year.
• One of the ways supplement makers can skirt the law is by labeling them “not intended for human consumption,” for example, labeling the fatal fatburner DNP as an industrial or research chemical. That’s how designer street drugs can be sold openly at gas stations and convenience stores as “bath salts”.
• The meat industry works with doubt. It’s like that infamous tobacco industry memo that read: “Doubt is our product since it’s the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the mind of the general public.”
• The food industry spends more money on advertising than any other industry, with more than $10 billion in ads targeting American children and teens every year.
• The idea is just to try to make the default options a little healthier. It’s easier to add salt to food on your plate than it is to remove it.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

Part 2/5 – Ingredients for the Ideal Weight Loss Diet

• 1 in 3 Americans are actively looking to lose weight any given moment.
• One of the most impor tant medical discoveries in recent years was the realization that inflammation appears to play a role in many of our chronic diseases, including at least eight of our top ten leading causes of death. Localized inflammation is good (wound healing), chronic/ meta-inflammation is bad.
• We used to think fatty tissue was just a passive depot for the storage of excess fat, but we now know it actively secretes inflammatory chemicals.
• Inflammation in our brains could lead to obesity.
• Hypothalamus is the master regulator of our metabolism.
• Obese individuals produce more than enough leptins yet the hypothalamus is not reacting to that hormone
• By choosing to eat more anti- inflammatory foods and fewer proinflammatory foods, we may be able to both prevent and treat the damage to the appetite- regulating apparatus in our brains that can lead to— and sustain— obesity.
• The most anti-inflammatory foods are: Turmeric, ginger, garlic, green/ black tea, chamomile tea (flavones). The most anti-inflammatory food components are: Fiber and flavones.
• An analysis of chicken feathers found that the poultry industry appears to feed the birds every thing from arsenic to Prozac. (Poultry producers say feeding caffeine “keeps the chickens awake so that they eat more and grow faster.”)
• Today 20 different obesogenic chemicals have been found (chemicals that promote obesity). Most well studied of those chemicals are called ‘organotins’.
• There’s an increase in obesity around animals in the canaries, cross-species. Twenty thousand animals all were fatter than before. We’re all getting fatter..
• BPA (plastic) exposure tends to correlate with increased weight.
• To avoid BPA: Avoid canned and processed foods (90% of BPA sources is in our diet)
• Highest level of BPA are in green beans and canned tuna.
• BPA and phthalate (another obesogenic chemical) are detectable in 95% of the US population.
• Our fat stores— like those of farm animals— harbor toxic pollutants.
• Organic fruits and vegetables may minimize the exposure to those chemicals. Agricultural workers spraying lots of atrazine had about 50 percent greater odds of being overweight and obese.
• Telling people to eat fiber rich foods is one of the best advices for weight loss. Fiber might be that one substance that is the most important in caloric intake.
• Fiber doesn’t get digested by our body. It stays in our colon to bulk up our stool.
• But, fiber gets digested by bacteria. And we’re more bacteria than human. Our gut flora, which weigh more than one of our kidneys and are more metabolically active than our livers have been called our “forgotten organ.”
• Bacteria turn fiber into short chain fatty acids, which then gets absorbed into our bloodstream.
• Fiber rich foods per definition require more chewing.
• Fiber reduces caloric intake by the four Ds:

1. Dilution of calories by expanding the volume of food
2. Distention of the stomach through fluid absorption
3. Delay in stomach emptying of the gelled mass
4. Dumping of calories by blocking the absorption of other macronutrients.

• Ileal brake: When ou body detects undigested food at the end of the small intestine (that part is called ileum) it curbs down our appetite and slows down food intake.
• Our intestines are muscular tubes, so they get a workout in when we eat fiber, which might burn more calories.
• Ecological studies are snapshots, while cohort studies follow people over time.
• More than 97 percent of Americans get enough protein, but more than 97 percent of Americans don’t get enough fiber. The real problem is not protein deficiency, but fiber deficiency.
• There is zero fiber in meat, dairy, or eggs and typically little or no fiber in junk food. Fiber superstars: whole grains and legumes, canned beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils
• People tend to eat a fairly consistent weight of food on a day- to- day basis, and serving weight is largely determined by water content.
• Lowest water content (0-9%): Nuts, seeds and processed food
• Highest water content (80-100%): green leafy vegetables.
• Tap water can make you feel more full, but it isn’t as effective in decreasing caloric intake as water in food.
• Our brains are just not designed to cope with omnipresent access to drugs, video games, pornography, and snack foods.
• Similarly to coca leaves and cocaine, the sugar cane stem has been chewed for its pleasant taste for ages, but it only presents a disproportionate reward signal once highly refined into added sugars.
• Average americans eat out 3 times a week. On those days they eat an extra 200 calories.
• The average life span of a taste bud cell may only be about 250 hours. We can change our tastebuds every 10 days.
• People that lose the most amount of weight: Most reported being physically active and weighing themselves at least a few times a week.
• Percentage of fat in the average American diet: 34%.
• So while we may not be able to use our prehistoric diets to argue for the ideal, we can use them to define normalcy for our species.
• But on a low- enough- fat diet, even when most people can eat as much as they want, they lose weight.
• It’s harder to turn dietary carbs into fat than dietary fat.
• Normally, our bodies burn fat around the clock at, interestingly, about the rate at which a candle burns.
• Not all calories from fat are created equal. Mono-unsaturated fats from nuts are better than saturated fats (butter + cheese) because they increase our energy expenditure.
• Remarkably, the cost of packaging may outweigh the cost of ingredients in a cereal box by more than ten to one.
• Artificial sweeteners do not work (they raise insulin and increase our appetite more than regular sweeteners). Therefore they may have instead directly contributed to enhancing the exact epidemic that they themselves were intended to fight.
• Calories might be calories in a tightly controlled laboratory setting, but calories from soda for example can increase subsequent caloric intake.
• There’s no dietary requirement for added sugar.
• To gain weight: Eat more frequently or increase the caloric density of foods (to avoid the effects of stomach expansion).
• Great apes: Our DNA differs with them by only a few percent.
• Americans appear to average about three pounds of food a day.
• Since we tend to consistently eat both a certain weight and volume of food, eating foods higher in both water and air (and therefore lower in calorie density) may facilitate weight loss.
• Nuts reduce all-cause mortality of an individual in the next 10 years by 50%. Eat nuts sparingly though, as they’re still a high-caloric density food. Nuts are so potent that the health benefits are had with a handful (20-30 nuts) a day.
• Quorn: Plant-based meat made from the mushroom kingdom.
• TMAO, short for trimethylamine oxide, originates from the bad bacteria in our gut that feeds on choline and carnitine. It’s a very promising indicator of heart disease
• Whether you’re born in the tropics or in a cold environment determines how many active sweat glands you have in your skin.
• Intact whole grains (oat groats) are better than mere whole grains (quick dry oats).
• Salt increases the rate of obesity. It makes us drink more (which is bad, as most people’s beverage of choice is soda) and eat more.
• We can lower ghrelin (antagonist to leptin) by lowering our sodium intake. Decreasing sodium might therefore help with weight loss.
• Highest sodium intake in our diet is chicken. As salt water is injected in the chicken meat to get that optimal texture.
• Meat protein causes almost exactly as much insulin release as pure sugar.
• Isolated soy protein causes an insulin surge similar to meat, dairy, and eggs.
• Give some vegans BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids), and you can make them as insulin resistant as omnivores.
• We have one hundred times more bacterial genes inside us than human genes. Most of those bacteria live in our gut.
• The human colon has been considered the most biodense ecosystem in the world, meaning there’s more life concentrated in our colons than anywhere else on Earth.
• 75% of our stool is pure bacteria. Trillions and trillions of them are bacteria.
• Most of the microbes in our gut come from our mother’s vaginal flora when giving birth.
• FIAF, which stands for fasting- induced adipose factor. One of the hormones that make the switch from storing adipose tissue to burning it. Gets promoted by the short chain fatty acids bacteria in our gut. Other bacteria decreases it’s release.
• More than two thousand species of bacteria have been characterized in the human gut. However all humans tend to cluster toward one so called enterotype. These bacteria species are called Bacteroides (animal fat, cholesterol and animal protein) or Prevotella (fiber feeders).
• Our bacteria can switch within 24 hours. This is an evolutionary advantage.
• The fiber intake of traditional diets can lead to 120g a day. This lead to one of the most diverse bacteria ecosystems ever recorded.
• MAC, or microbiota- accessible carbohydrates – prebiotics. Meaning: Fiber and resistant starch.
• As plants can NOT move they had to invent and produce substances to defend themselves. Such as aspirin: When plants get infected, they produce aspirin, which can come in handy when we get infected ourselves. Plants heal wounds and defend themselves with the help of antioxidants.
• We take in micronutrients by the thousandth of grams every day. But even those that eat pitiful amount of plants, take in at least 1g of polyphenols. Polyphenols, the rather unstudied plant components, therefore seem to be quite important.
• The recommended minimum number of daily servings of fruits and vegetables a day is seven to thirteen, Americans don’t even get 5.
• Hispanic paradox: Hispanics tend to live longer than anyone else. Although they have lower socioeconomic status, education level, health literacy, insurance coverage, and disproportionate employment in high- risk occupations. A reason for that might be an higher intake of beans and lower intake of beef.
• An M.D. is not a positive sign when it comes to nutrition: Graduating from medical school basically advertises to the world that you’ve received likely little or no formal training in nutrition.
• Lectin- packed foods like legumes are the “cornerstones” of the diets of all the healthiest, longest- lived populations on the planet: Blue zones of the planet. Lectins seem to be good for us.
• The most satiating food researchers found was the boiled potato.
• Diets don’t work by definition, as it’s a short term fix for a long-term problem.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

Part 3/5 – The Optimal Weight Loss Diet

• Obesity rates among vegans might be as low as 2%.
• Those eating plant-based had up to an 11% increased metabolic rate, a later study suggested a 22% increased metabolic rate (the later participants had a higher fiber intake).
• ‘Harder’, more plant-based diets might even be more effective, as the participants make more changes
• For the first 90 percent of our hominoid existence, our bodies evolved on mostly plants. Miocene era was when grand apes evolved (20 million years ago), paleolithic era was 2 million years ago.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

Part 4/5 – Weight-Loss Boosters

• One of the best workout programs use extreme accountability: If members fail to attend meetings or meet their weight loss goals, they are kicked out immediately and can never return. Think: Program of Caldwell Esselstyn
• Frequent weighing with a scale is good, at least on a weekly basis, better daily or twice a day.
• Big Pharma has great interest in the obesity market.
• Cigarette smoking is actually one of the most reliable ways to lose weight (reduces hunger and builds up AMPK – activated protein kinase: flips the switch of storing fat to burning fat), but is arguably one of the worst things that you can do for your health.
• Barberries can activate AMPK, but is unsafe for pregnant women.
• Add two teaspoon of vinegar to meals (chocolate vinegar, strawberry vinegar). Has been used for weight loss in ancient times. Do not drink it straight as it can lead to intractable hiccups and oesophagus burns.
• 1 in 5 of the plants we eat produces cyanide. Major food crops: 1 in 2 are cyanogenic (cyanide producing).
• Add one spoon of flaxseeds a day.
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin a day on both lunch and dinner improves weight loss (add to hummus + baked beans).
• Same thing seems to be the case by adding ¼ teaspoon of black cumin.
• Skipping breakfast doesn’t work. Most randomized controlled trials have seen no weight loss effects.
• The circadian rhythm matters a lot. We’re just beginning to figure out the optimal timing for different medications. The science related to that is called chronobiology.
• People that eat more of their calories in the morning (700kcal/500kcal/200kcal) lose more weight. The reason might be higher diet induced thermogenesis in the morning and increased insulin sensitivity. In the morning our muscles might be especially susceptible to insulin, pulling out the glucose from the breakfast and storing it as glycogen (and then using it later on). At night our muscles are less insulin receptive and our blood sugar actually rises twice as high in the same meals!
• Our bodies just aren’t expecting us to eat when it’s dark outside.
• Our body both has a central clock which gets regulated by sunlight and a peripheral clock which seems to get regulated by dietary food intake. Meal timing is important as it helps us synch those clocks.
• Social jet lag: Not going to sleep at the same time each and every day (because of social activities on the weekend). One hour off-set doubles the rate of obesity. Sleep regularity is important.
• Get sunlight exposure in the morning for 45 minutes (8 AM – 11 AM).
• Pistachios are not just the most melatonin- rich nut, they are off the charts as the most melatonin- rich food ever recorded. Try eating them 2-3 hours before bed-time.
• Sleep advice: Sleep during the night and be active during the day. Sleep enough (seven to eight hours a night). Early to bed, early to rise. Avoid bright light exposure at night. Sleep in total darkness when possible. Eat dinner at least two and a half hours before going to bed. Avoid eating at night.
• Chewing gum is not an efficient weight loss strategy.
• So choose foods that take longer to eat, and eat them in a way that prolongs the time they stay in your mouth.
• Exercise alone is not an effective weight loss strategy, we have way more control on the diet side. A moderately obese person doing moderate intensity physical activity, like biking or very brisk walking, would burn off approximately 350 calories an hour. Most drinks, snacks, and other processed junk are consumed at a rate of about 70 calories a minute.
• There’s not a very efficient correlation between exercise and weight loss, as our bodies usually adjust their appetites accordingly (not necessarily on a day basis, but on a weekly basis). For example, swimming can significantly heighten hunger within hours.
• Cold shower increase thermogenesis and the activation of brown fat, but can increase our appetites.
• We need to exercise for an hour a day to see improvements in weight loss. Note that these times are for moderate- intensity activity, such as walking. For vigorous activity like running or rapid cycling, exercise duration can be cut by more than half (1 hour every other day). Exercise is extremely beneficial still, as it gets rid of our dangerous, visceral fat.
• Sitting more than three hours a day may be responsible for more than four hundred thousand deaths every year worldwide.
• Standing burns 3x as many calories as sitting per minute.
• Exercise on an empty stomach is actually significantly more beneficial than exercising on a full stomach. 6 hours of fasting seem to be sufficient.
• Kidney stones aren’t necessarily correlated with higher oxalate intake. More with a genetic predisposition. People who eat more fruits and vegetables tend to get fewer kidney stones. For those that take vitamin C supplements: Choose high oxalate greens: Spinach, beet greens and swiss chard.
• Green tea is better than green tea extract, as the supplement industry is very poorly regulated. Both of these substances have the same beneficial effects on weight loss though.
• Habits consists of 1 cues and 2 action. It takes 66 days to form a habit.
• The best ways to break a bad habit is choosing a new action to replace the action. “When X arrives I do Y/Z.”
• Male adults should drink about 3liters of water a day.
• Ketogenic diets have been ‘invented’ for seizure treatment in 1921. Yet just because they’re good for the treatment of seizure, doesn’t mean that they should be followed by regular folks.
• Purge your surroundings to help your weight loss. Eliminate all unhealthy foods to have no cues for your habit actions.

You can order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa

Part 5/5 – Dr. Greger’s Twenty One Tweaks

Here are 11 tweaks of the 21, so I don’t spoiler too much. Enjoy:

On every Meal:

1. Preload with water
2. Preload with negative calorie foods
3. Incorporate vinegar (2 tsp with each meal)
4. Enjoy undistracted meals
5. Follow the twenty-minute rule

Every Day:

Take your daily doses:

1. Black cumin (1/4 tsp)
2. Garlic powder (1/4 tsp)
3. Ground ginger (1 tsp)
4. Nutritional yeast (2 tsp)
5. Cumin (1/2 tsp 2x a day)
6. Green tea (3 cups)

To find out the other 10 tweaks, order the book ‘How Not To Diet’ by Michael Greger MD here: https://amzn.to/2CN2fRa