THE DIET: Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover
THE CLAIM: "You can free yourself forever from diets and disease-causing toxins, boost your energy, lower and maintain your weight and change your outlook."
WHAT YOU EAT: You choose foods according to their degree of yin or yang, the cosmic energies that rule the world. After selecting yin/yang balanced foods, you combine them in the proper order to help your stomach and intestinal enzymes fully digest them. Otherwise, "food that is left undigested just rots in our stomachs." So according to Henner, the reason we get fat is because we've turned into walking food mausoleums. One hitch: Food can't rot in our stomachs; everything is either absorbed, stored as fat, or eliminated as waste.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY: "No research has shown that eating one food in combination with another has a different effect on how the body absorbs nutrients," says Judy Dodd, M.S., R.D., a member of Tufts University's advisory board and a past president of the American Dietetic Association. As for food combining's effect on weight loss, Evelyn Tribole, M.S., a registered dietitian in Beverly Hills and former nutrition expert for Good Morning America, notes, "There's no magical combination that causes you to suddenly burn more calories or lose weight. Wouldn't that be nice?"
What is factual is often entwined with false or inaccurate information in Henner's book. For example, Henner complains that pregnant and nursing women are often told to drink more milk: "You don't have to drink milk to make milk!" But women are advised to increase milk intake for the vitamin D and extra calcium, to help build healthy bones in the baby and mother, in addition to maintaining healthy nerve transmission, blood clotting and a normal heartbeat — not to make more milk.
SO WHAT'S THE TRICK? By telling followers to chew and watch the foods they select, Henner helps them become aware of what they're eating. That alone can be enough to aid in weight loss because they're controlling portion size and calorie intake.
UNDERNEATH IT ALL: Strip away the cosmological misinformation and Henner's program is basically this: Few processed foods (which cuts overall calories), whole fruits and vegetables, carbohydrates and protein from low-fat, low-calorie sources. Pretty much what the food pyramid has recommended all along.
This article was obtained from: http://www.phys.com/b_nutrition/02solutions/diet_debunker/marilu.html
