Two Rule Diet

By Dr. Hans Watson, DO and Heather Justesen

Have you tried every diet out there and failed? Are you ready for one that:
Is easy to track
Allows you to eat a large variety in foods
Permits you to eat "guilty pleasure" foods
Allows you to eat something whenever you are hungry 
Is financially sustainable over years
Allows you to live a normal life

Dr Watson's Two Rule Diet is a groundbreaking book that will empower you to achieve diet success by keeping two simple rules. In it, Dr. Watson clearly explains the science, psychology, nutrition, and medicine behind healthy dieting.  It also exposes traditional diet myths that make many diets unsustainable, unrealistic, and unhealthy for the average person. 

If you are ready for a change and want a diet where you can eat normal foods, avoid being hungry, and sustain the weight loss for the rest of your life, this book is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jelly Bean Press
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781630340995

Book preview

1: SUGAR IS ESSENTIAL TO LIFE, BUT IT CAN BE DANGEROUS

Before I went to medical school, I was in the Army to finance my education. During this time, I was deployed to Afghanistan where a sergeant and I were assigned to be advisors to the Afghan Infantry Company. This meant that we lived in a remote part of Afghanistan where we would advise the local Afghan troops while fighting alongside them. Our assigned areas were so remote and dangerous that the personnel responsible for resupply were not willing to deliver supplies very often. So, the military made alternate plans to ensure we had sufficient rations.

We were advised that food-borne illness was a very high concern and that we should avoid eating food prepared by the Afghan cooks. Instead, our rations would consist of MREs and water three meals a day, until further arrangements became available. We were sent out into the fight and ate the MREs as instructed. As some might predict, they soon decreed this temporary meal situation was adequate and MRE’s with water were our only option.

At first, the MREs tasted fine, and we were satisfied with the food. This included the pre-packaged proteins, fats, breads, fruits, and vegetables. During this time our energy was high, our strength maintained, and we were mentally sharp. However, after a few months of eating the same MREs, they lost their appeal.

First, the MREs began to taste the same. Next, it became difficult to eat an MRE for breakfast. Finally, we reached the point that we lost our appetites and struggled to eat a full MRE.

During the time where we struggled to maintain an appetite, we only ate the most appealing foods. For me this primarily involved the foods that were high in sugar with flavors very different from the main courses. As a result, my health changed dramatically.

For an hour or two after eating, I felt energetic, sharp, and strong. However, by the third hour I felt tired, slow to think, and weak. I found that eating more of the sugary foods helped for a while. Soon I was eating sugary foods throughout the day. After a few months of this, I started feeling mostly tired, slow, weak and mentally dull. I also struggled with sickness, sniffles, and cough.

Years later, I went to medical school and finally understood how my diet had negatively impacted my physiology to make me feel this way. This dietary and physiological understanding are the foundation my patients use to accomplish their diet and health goals.

Because I teach my patients basic human physiology and the why behind my two rules, it is easier for them to maintain this healthy diet. I plan on teaching you the same thing where you’ll learn how the body processes foods. Understanding this will empower you to maintain your diet with Dr. Watson’s Two Rules no matter what situation you’re in.

Let’s start with learning how diet affects the brain and what it needs to function properly.

The brain is the highest nutrient-consuming organ in the body. It dictates when we feel hungry, full, energetic, or tired. Even though the brain is only about 2% of the body’s weight, it consumes around 20% of your body’s total energy. It requires so much energy because it is always converting nutrients into electrical power. And glucose is the brain’s sole energy source and overall the largest source of energy for our entire body.

Because glucose is the sole energy source for our brain, we require two things: 1) a relatively constant supply of glucose throughout the day and 2) to avoid repeated large spikes or drops in glucose levels. When we provide a constant glucose supply, our brain stays alert and awake. If our blood glucose goes too high or too low, problems develop.

If your blood sugar is low, it can’t supply your brain with all the energy it needs for normal operations. Your brain responds to this lack of glucose by making you feel hungry. If you don’t supply your brain with more glucose when you feel hungry, it goes into a power-saver mode until it receives more fuel. The brain’s power-saver mode reduces the amount of electricity it produces and decreases overall function and energy. This is when you get headaches/migraines, feel tired, sleepy, weak, or unable to focus. Additionally, this reduces your ability to fight off infections, and much more. Thus, consistently low blood sugar puts you at risk for serious health complications in the long term and will impact your overall quality of life in the short term.

It’s important to mention that most people in the developed world don’t get chronic low blood sugar from undereating. Instead, in the developed world, we cause low blood sugar with our diet choices. In fact, high blood sugar is the most common cause of low blood sugar. (This will make more sense after you read the next section on high blood sugar.)

When blood sugar is too high, it’s very toxic to the body. Because the most frightening problems from toxic blood sugar levels often show up months or even years later, we often ignore it until serious damage has occurred. When enough damage is done, terrible life-threatening diseases occur like diabetes, heart attack, stroke, blindness, hand/foot amputation, impotence, cancer, kidney failure, and more. I’ll give a few examples of why and how toxic high blood sugar causes problems.

FIRST: TOXIC BLOOD SUGAR CONFUSES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM.

The immune system has special cells that are experts in identifying harmful cell types like bacteria, viruses, or newly forming cancer cells. These identifier immune cells attach special glucose molecules to the harmful cells or pathogens. These glucose molecules signal to the immune system’s brute enforcer cells that the harmful cell is dangerous and needs to be destroyed. The brute enforcers (big, strong, and dumb) then wreck the identified object.

In a body that maintains normal blood glucose levels, the only cells that routinely have glucose attached are the ones identified as harmful or damaged. This process is very effective at leaving healthy tissues alone while accurately identifying and eliminating bad cells before they can cause long-term damage. However, when you have repeated high blood glucose it makes a mess of this system.

Repeated high blood glucose can make it so there is so much sugar that it inadvertently spills, and sticks, onto cells that are healthy. Think of having table sugar overflowing in multiple bowls and carrying those bowls around the house as you do your daily work. It won’t take long before sugar is getting everywhere and things become sticky. Then, the big, strong, and dumb enforcer cells (which includes T-cells and macrophages) come along, see the spilled sugar, and destroy everything that accidentally had sugar spilled onto it. This creates problems for the sensitive areas of our bodies with lots of small blood vessels (brain, heart, kidneys, eyes, hands, feet, etc.)

Our organs’ small blood vessels are the most susceptible areas because they have the least amount of room for the blood stream to pass through. If we have repeated high blood sugar, it’s like carrying the overflowing sugar bowls down a hallway that is only big enough for a small child to pass through. Eventually, sugar will be spilled everywhere and the immune system’s enforcers will think the small blood vessels are marked for destruction. They will then destroy any part that has spilled sugar on it.

While our body can fix the damage with a patch, eventually there become too many patches and the entire hallway (blood vessel) falls apart. When a blood vessel becomes ruined, it is unable to deliver enough blood and nutrients to the tissues and the tissues slowly die. Examples of this include: strokes, heart attacks, blindness, fingers and toes being amputated, kidney failure, and much more. This is why chronic high blood sugar is devastating to long-term health and wellness. You can check out any textbook that addresses diabetes for more information on this.

SECOND: TOXIC BLOOD SUGAR RUINS THE PANCREAS.

The pancreas is an organ that sits right next to your stomach. It releases chemicals that help to digest, absorb, and use nutrients from food that’s eaten. The most important chemical produced by the pancreas is a hormone called