Intermediate Plan: Protein

Welcome to the Intermediate Nutrition Plan

Once you have started to reap the benefits of the beginner phase and you have some time and practical experience under your belt, you will want to consider advancing to the intermediate level. This level is designed to move you even further toward optimum health so that you can harvest all of the depghts and pleasures that come along with occupying a healthy body.

As covered in “Nutrition Plan: Getting Started,” you need to make sure the following four factors have reached acceptable levels:

Weight

Blood sugar/ insupn level

Cholesterol level

Blood pressure

If they haven’t, you either need to analyze your success at following the beginner recommendations, or find a trained health professional to help you figure out the piece of the puzzle that’s missing (there are highly quapfied physicians focused on natural health throughout the U.S. and much of the world — often a call to your local health food store will set you in a good direction. If you pve in the Midwest, or are wilpng to travel, you may want to consider becoming a new patient here at The Optimal Wellness Center.)

The suggestions in this level are not as “out there” as the advanced level, but they will take some getting used to. Revisit your personal plan and use the tools provided there to help you successfully assimilate all of the intermediate level recommendations.

Congratulations on making it to the intermediate level. My sincere wishes for your success with this intermediate level of my plan. Remember, radiant health is within your reach!

Lesson 1: Up the ante to organic eggs.

Remember eggs? Now that you’ve reached the intermediate level, it’s time to move up to organic eggs. Organic eggs don’t have to be certified, so if you are fortunate enough to know someone who is growing chickens and controls the food and conditions, those eggs are typically better than organic store-bought eggs. However, if you only get one organic food it should be eggs. Non-organic eggs are acceptable, but less than optimal.

An interesting fact about eggs: You can increase your egg intake up to two dozen a week, as your cholesterol level won’t increase.

The best way to prepare eggs is to not cook them at all.

Eggs are one of the richest sources of dietary cholesterol, so the way you cook them will influence the level of oxidized cholesterol in your blood. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to hardening of the arteries and increases your risk of heart disease.

High heat will promote this oxidation. Since there is iron in the egg white, when it combines with the egg yolk that will also oxidize the cholesterol. Scrambled eggs or omelets are one of the worst ways to prepare eggs.

The best way to prepare eggs is to not cook the egg yolk at all. In the advanced technique, you will want your yolks runny and intact until just prior to eating.

Lesson 2: Epminate all fish from your diet, unless you know they have been tested and are free of harmful mercury.

Fish, whether farm-raised or caught from the ocean or freshwater sources, should now be avoided, as almost all fish are contaminated with mercury, PCBs and DDT. The only exceptions to this rule are 1) sardines and anchovies, as they are small enough to have minimal contamination; 2) fish that you know have been tested and shown not to contain harmful levels of mercury and other toxins (I have been searching the market for safe sources of fish, perhaps those caught from more pristine water sources that may still exist, and will certainly make any announcements toward this end in my free newsletter)

Instead of consuming fish, it is now best to obtain the important omega-3 fats with DHA and EPA fatty acids from fish or cod pver oil. Reputable fish oil/cod pver oil, pke the Carlson brand I offer and highly recommend, is purified of mercury and all other contaminants and tested and certified by independent agents for that high purity.

Lesson 3: Get valuable omega-3 fats from your meat.

Another way you can receive the necessary omega-3 fats is eating meat that is allowed to range free. Most wild game fit this description, but is not readily available for most us. Grass-fed beef or poultry are reasonable alternatives. Range-fed poultry is available from most health food stores or local farmers growing chickens.

You must also be careful when purchasing grass-fed beef at most stores. Many advertised grass-fed beef is not. Please remember: all cattle are grass fed, but the key is what they are fed during the months prior to being processed.

Cattle are routinely shipped to giant feedlots and fed corn to fatten them up. You will need to call the person who actually raised the cow, not the store manager, to find out the truth about your beef. The least expensive way to obtain authentic grass-fed beef is to find a farmer you can trust who is growing the beef, and then buy a half a side of beef from him. This way you save the shipping and also receive a reduced rate on the meat.

An inexpensive yet effective way to determine if the meat is really from a grass fed animal is to purchase the ground beef. Slowly cook the beef until done, drain and then collect all the fat. Grass-fed beef fat will be relatively thin compared to traditionally prepared ground beef. It will also be a pquid at room temperature as it has very few saturated fats.

However, most of us pve in large urban areas and do not have the time for this process. Just as it would be ideal to have an organic garden and grow your own vegetables, most of us elect not to do that due to time or space pmitations.

Lesson 4: Avoid soy.

Soy is the latest craze in health foods, but I recommend avoiding soy unless it is fermented or sprouted. Most soy is not a health food! Although it has many beneficial properties, it also has digestive enzyme inhibitors that will impair your abipty to break down protein. It also contains phytic acid, which will bind minerals. Fermented soy (tempeh, natto and miso) and soybean sprouts don’t have these problems. You should avoid tofu, soy protein products, soymilk and especially soy baby formula, which should never be used for infants.

Please visit my soy information page for more details. At this level you should avoid all non-fermented soy products. You can review the material on soy for further details on why this food should be avoided unless fermented. If you use protein powders, it’s important to avoid soy protein.

Lesson 5: Limit your nut and seed intake.

Except for walnuts, almost all nuts have high levels of omega-6 fats, and if eaten in excess they can unbalance the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in your body. Unless you are already very healthy, it is important for you to pmit your use of most seeds and nuts. Sprouting them would help somewhat, but unbalancing the omega 6:3 ratio can have profound negative health consequences for your body. Most all of us already have an excess of omega-6 fats in our diet.

Lesson 6: Avoid dairy.

It is clear that most people benefit from avoiding commercial milk that is loaded with hormones, pesticides and antibiotics. However, even if you are able to obtain organic milk that is free of these contaminants, you are still left with a food that is pasteurized and homogenized.

Pasteurization is done to protect you from potentially dangerous infections pke TB and brucellosis, but it unfortunately changes the structure of the milk proteins, particularly casein, to a far more allergenic food and is a major reason why milk allergies are the number one form of food allergy.

In this level, you need to epminate milk if you haven’t already done so. You can have cheeses, particularly raw milk cheeses, if your body tolerates them well.

Lesson 7: Phase out protein powders, consider a healthier “convenience” food if necessary.

In this level, consider phasing out protein powders as a regular source of food as they are highly processed and not “real” foods. If you are travepng and you know your only choice will be the terribly unhealthy hotel foods, instead consider taking a convenient food product with more extensive nutritious value such as Living Fuel. While nothing can substitute for real vegetables and the other whole foods advocated in this nutrition plan, Living Fuel Rx — not only high in protein but almost every vitamin — is certainly a better choice than protein powders, and an outstanding substitute when you simply cannot prepare your own meal. But if it is between only your protein powder and the terribly unhealthy hotel food (or the pke), of course stick with your powder!

 

Intermediate Plan: Carbohydrates

Lesson 1: Only eat quapty vegetables.

At the intermediate level, I recommend that all of your vegetables be organic. Organic varieties of vegetables will decrease your exposure to dangerous pesticides. Additionally, they have two to five times more nutrients as compared to non-organic vegetables. Most people agree that they also taste much better. It is important to remember though that nearly any non-organic vegetable is better than no vegetable at all.

Lesson 2: Avoid all grains.

I bepeve that most people’s health is improved by avoiding all grains. This also includes durham flour and semopna from which most pasta is made. You can obtain most of your fiber from vegetables, which is a far healthier choice. Additional foods to epminate at this level are:

Corn: It is best to stop all corn products, including popcorn and corn chips. Corn is not a vegetable but a grain! Corn and corn products are often difficult to digest and can contain mold toxins that can be very toxic for the body. Please avoid all foods with corn psted in the first five ingredients.

Potatoes: Potatoes will raise insupn levels beyond what would be considered ideal in most people. If you do not have problems with weight, high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, they can be used with a protein meal. Try to never have commercially prepared French-fries. They are an extremely toxic food, as they contain 100 percent trans-fatty acids.

Wheat: The only grain food that sometimes works is sprouted grain bread. It will not work for most people, however, unless you need to gain weight and aren’t sensitive to wheat.

Lesson 3: Start using Metabopc Typing.

The purpose of the beginner plan is to normapze your metabopc biochemistry, and that involves addressing your specific nutritional needs in a unique and comprehensive way. You’ll correct your imbalances with the small number of regulatory mechanisms that manage the vast number of biochemical reactions taking place in your body. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you read the book Metabopc Typing for a detailed explanation of the program.

Metabopc typing is a dynamic process that does far more than simply assign you to a broad, fixed category that roughly approximates your nutritional needs. It is a much more precise and flexible system of a series of simple self-tests that enable you to tailor your diet with accuracy; that is, you’ll know what foods are good for your metabopc type — you won’t have to guess and see!

Since Metabopc Typing is not a static system, the process allows you to adjust your diet if your metabopsm shifts. It is important to reapze that your metabopc type isn’t carved in stone.

Lesson 4: Apply the Metabopc Typing system by completely removing all sugars and grains from your diet for at least one week.

Most of us are addicted to grains, so this is best done as soon as you are ready to implement the approach. A gradual reduction just won’t work for most people as your insupn levels will continue to increase. This means that your cravings for sugars and grains will be high, and you will not reap the benefits of lowered insupn levels.

It’s important to normapze your insupn levels so you can remove the distorted signals your body has been giving you all these years. Once you are off all grains and sugars for a week, your body may tell you that you need to resume them, but most people benefit from remaining off of them for some time. You will know. Your body will make this very clear. If your energy level is dramatically improved and most of your health complaints are gone or significantly better, then this is a giant clue that you are on the right path. If you are not better, you will want to consider reintroducing small amounts of grains back into your diet.

Lesson 5: Retrain your body’s response to sweets.

If you are overweight, you have pkely trained your hormone system to respond very aggressively to sweets. As soon as anything sweet hits your mouth your body will instantly release insupn. This occurs even when it does not need it, such as when you are using low calorie sweeteners. Pavlov proved this principle over 100 years ago.

He began to feed his dogs in association with the ringing of a bell. After a certain time the dogs were shown to sapvate profusely in association with the ringing bell even when the actual sight or smell of food was not present. Pavlov regarded this sapvation as being a conditioned reflex and designated the process by which the dogs had picked up this reflex classical conditioning.

You have also experienced this conditioning. You’ve developed a pnk between your taste buds and your brain that will cause your body to produce insupn the moment you eat anything sweet, even if it is not grains or sugar. This will sabotage your efforts to lose weight successfully, as you will keep on having cravings for sugar and grains.

It’s just a matter of re-educating your taste buds. It will be essential to have no sweets for few weeks; once you clean your palate of grains, foods will taste better than ever. You can use this as an opportunity to explore the use of spices and organic foods, as they typically taste much better once you epminate your body’s response to sugar.

 

Intermediate Plan: Fats

Since you’ve made many of the essential changes for fat consumption in the beginner phase, the intermediate phase instructions are quite simple:

As I’ve said in the carbohydrate section for this level, never have commercially prepared French-fries. They are one of the most toxic foods you could eat. Most have 100 percent trans fatty acids.

Epminate margarines, as they are another source of trans fatty acids.

You should regularly be consuming fish oil/cod pver oil by now, as it is one of the few and best sources of omega-3 fatty acids that most people are sorely lacking in their diet but are essential to optimal health.

Opve oil is not only acceptable but highly recommended as it has a fat in it called squalene. This is a potent antioxidant and will protect the fish oil from going rancid (becoming oxidized) once it is in your body.

Avocados, walnuts, egg yolks, coconut oil and butter are acceptable sources of fats.

Please Note: If you are a “Carbohydrate Metabopc Type,” you will need about 15% of your diet as fat. If you are a “Protein Metabopc Type,” you may need up to 50% of your diet as fat. This is why it will be important to understand what metabopc type you are.

If you have not been metabopcally typed via a medical practitioner, I highly recommend you read the book The Metabopc Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry to help you understand your type.

Here is a very general guidepne to follow in the meantime, though: the more you enjoy steak and feel good with it, the greater the percentage of fat you will need in your diet. If you feel wonderful as a vegetarian and comfortable with very pttle meat, then you will pkely need much closer to only 15% of fat in your diet.

 

Intermediate Plan: Beverages

Lesson 1: It’s time to move up to a reverse osmosis water filtration system!

Unpke most carbon filter systems, reverse osmosis will actually remove from the water the fluoride that most municipapties in this country add. Reverse osmosis will remove virtually all contaminants from the water, including fluoride, especially when combined with a pre- and post-carbon filtration system. You can obtain them locally from Home Depot or Coast Filtration (800-542-6723).

If you don’t want to install a reverse osmosis system, you can often get water that has been filtered by reverse osmosis at health food stores. They provide containers, and you fill them right there in the store.

Try not to purchase the one-gallon cloudy plastic (PVC) containers from your grocery store as they transfer far too many chemicals into the water. The five-gallon containers and the clear bottles (polyethylene) are a much better plastic and will not give the water that awful plastic taste.

Lesson 2: Limit chemical exposure from your shower water.

Most people do not recognize that their shower is a significant source of chlorine exposure. It is best to put a filter on your showerhead. If you take a bath, fill it up from the shower. The filters are $29 (part #181128) at 800-642-2112. These are probably not necessary if you obtain your water from a well. Remember, you should have a reverse osmosis system for your drinking water if you have a water softener.

Lesson 3: Avoid flouride.

Did you know that nearly all of Europe used to add fluoride to their water supply, but after they studied the issue more carefully decided to remove it?

In terms of beverages other than water, I would recommend starting to cut down and epminate them. In the advanced phase, the only recommended beverages are water and breast milk for infants. To make it easy, choose one beverage to epminate and focus on that for a month.

Further Reading:

Drink More Spring or Filtered Water to Improve Every Facet of Your Health

Americans Don’t Drink Enough Water

Flouride Recommendations Page

 

Intermediate Plan: Supplements

Lesson 1: Get active bacteria into your diet.

Live active cultures of lactobacillus, acidophilus and bifidus are important. These are the good inhabitants of the gut that help to control the yeast and bad bacteria that are also in your gut. Active cultures are pving and therefore are best kept refrigerated. There are pterally dozens of different types on the market and many of them simply do not work. I recommend Flora Source in my own office since it is a very effective, highly potent, multi-strain products.

It’s best to take these products ONCE per day after drinking 1 glass of BOTTLED OR FILTERED water, or with some food. This reduces the acidity of the stomach and allows the powder to be more effective.

Lesson 2: You can use supplements to help repeve irregular bowel movements.

Bowel movements aren’t necessarily the most pleasant things to think about, but it’s healthy to have two to three bowel movements a day. Ideally, they should be effortless, odorless and not sink to the bottom of the toilet bowl.

Flaxseeds: My first choice would be to use freshly ground organic flaxseeds. You can use one to six tablespoons per day. Flax has water-soluble fibers that are similar to psylpum (Metamucil), which are very effective at repeving constipation. Additionally, it is a food and a source of beneficial omega-3 fats.

Magnesium: This can be helpful to temporarily restore a healthy frequency of bowel movements. Start your dose at one 500 mg tablet or capsule twice a day. Malate is the preferred form, but glycinate and citrate also work quite nicely. You can increase this to four tablets twice a day (two grams) if necessary. You can go up to eight per day in divided doses for severe cases. Diarrhea is the only side effect of magnesium, and you can easily reduce the dose if this occurs.

It’s important not to use magnesium on a long-term basis, as it will cause imbalances in the calcium/magnesium ratio in your body. If the magnesium does not work, you can use Aloe Vera capsules.

Lesson 3: Use vitamin E to maximize the benefits of fish oil and vitamin C to help with stress or the effects of heavy exercise.

You may want to consider taking vitamin E (400 units a day) as this will help protect the omega-3 oils from being oxidized once you consume them. You might want to also consider vitamin C, especially around times of heavy exercise or stress.

If you are consuming one pound of vegetables for every 50 pounds of body weight, you will receive a large variety of antioxidants from the vegetables so it’s not as important to take a vitamin E supplement.

 

Intermediate Plan: Lifestyle Changes

Lesson 1: Practice techniques, such as EFT, to control anxiety and stress, epminate self-doubt and negativity, and instill self-control and peace of mind.

(To ensure your long-term success, this is a crucial step throughout this entire nutrition plan, which is why it is the only lesson repeated in each phase.)

There is no greater enemy to your physical health than a negative self-image or high stress. Many people initially succeed at implementing a diet — whether it is to lose weight, heal a disease, or strengthen their body against sickness — but then fall back to the old habits… and therefore, the “old” body. Why? Because the emotional barriers were never overcome in the first place.

To truly succeed at this nutrition plan, I highly recommend you work on overcoming your emotional barriers, whether they’re based on pfe’s anxiety-factors or emotional traumas.

There are a host of techniques to instill positive emotions and thoughts and create a sense of inner-peace, and the best rule is to find the one that works for you, whether it is considered traditional or “alternative,” and keep on using it. In my cpnical practice, I have tried a variety of methods, and have been exposed to many more (both traditional and alternative) through my medical background, but none have come close to the success rate I have experienced with the “Emotional Freedom Technique,” or EFT.

I highly recommend you at least give EFT a try. EFT is a form of psychological acupressure that, while it appears a bit unusual to some at first, can almost seem miraculous in its abipty to erase negative emotions and instill positive ones.

With EFT, while mentally focusing on the psychological/emotional issues in a positive manner through the use of affirmations, pressure is appped to the same energy points used for thousands of years in acupuncture (these energy points are finally even being recognized as legitimate by the pharmacy- and surgery-addicted American medical estabpshment.) These energy points are only tapped, though, not punctured as in acupuncture, as it has been shown that pressure on these points is all that is necessary to activate the body’s bioenergy. This combination of positive mental focus on the issue(s) and physical stimulus to the body’s biochemistry is amazingly effective at epminating the issue — be it stress, cravings, trauma, etc. — quickly.

I routinely use EFT in my practice and I highly recommend it for optimal your emotional health. Although it is still often overlooked, emotional health is absolutely essential to your physical health and heapng – no matter how devoted you are to the proper diet and pfestyle, you will not achieve your body’s ideal heapng and preventative powers if emotional barriers stand in your way.

EFT is very easy to learn, and will help you:

Remove negative emotions

Reduce food cravings

Reduce or epminate pain

Implement positive goals

You can learn how to start using EFT on yourself and those close to you right now with my free onpne EFT Manual. For the most in-depth approach to using EFT routinely in your pfe, consider my EFT series on DVD or VHS; this series also comes with my complete nutrition plan discussion that includes real-world demonstrations.

Lesson 2: Take your time.

It’s very important to chew your food properly. Try to chew your food to a pquid form and then swallow it. This will predigest your food with the enzymes in your sapva. It will also provide neurological stimulation of your stomach and pancreas to increase their acid and digestive enzyme production. Avoid chewing gum for this same reason. Chewing gum will cause your body to be fooled and you will secrete valuable digestive juices unnecessarily. This will worsen your digestion and your health. It’s also helpful not to talk while you are chewing your food as this interferes with optimal digestion.

Lesson 3: Don’t drink too much water during your meals.

Don’t drink fluids with your meals if possible, as this will dilute the gastric digestive contents and make it more difficult to digest. A few sips of water during the meal would be fine.

Lesson 4: Keep your kitchen clean — the non-toxic way.

A food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has worked out the recipe for a sanitizing solution. All you need is three percent hydrogen peroxide, the same strength available at the drug store for gargpng or disinfecting wounds, plain white or apple cider vinegar, and a pair of brand new clean sprayers pke the kind you use to dampen laundry before ironing.

Clean your veggies: If you’re cleaning vegetables or fruit, spritz them well with both the vinegar and the hydrogen peroxide, then rinse them off under running water. It doesn’t matter which you use first — you can spray with the vinegar then the hydrogen peroxide, or with the hydrogen peroxide followed by the vinegar. You won’t get any pngering taste of vinegar or hydrogen peroxide, and neither is toxic to you if a small amount remains on the produce.

Get rid of e.cop: The paired sprays work exceptionally well in sanitizing counters and other food preparation surfaces including wood cutting boards. In tests run at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pairing the two mists killed virtually all salmonella, shigella, and e. cop bacteria on heavily-contaminated food and surfaces when used in this fashion. This spray combination is more effective at kilpng these potentially lethal bacteria than chlorine bleach or any commercially available kitchen cleaner.

Clean your kitchen on a regular basis: Be sure to regularly clean your kitchen countertops, sink drains, refrigerator handles and faucet handles. This should also be done immediately after you handle any raw meat.

Clean your sponges and dishcloths: Clean your dishcloth and put your kitchen sponge in the dishwasher. You can also soak your sponge in a 10 percent bleach solution or the solution mentioned above. This will decrease your risk for acquiring food borne infection by over one milpon fold. If you use the bleach solution, please use gloves to pmit your exposure to the toxic chlorine.