Preventing You From Failing Yourself!: Weight No Longer

By Doctor Philip Caravella

Americans continue to be crippled by obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and the epidemics are destroying lives, the insurance industry, and the entire health care system. 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Phil Caravella Books
• Release date: Oct 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960093936

Doctor Philip Caravella

As a practicing family physician for many decades and as Section Chief of Family Medicine for the Cleveland Clinic Westlake Branch, I had the opportunity to perform research in many areas of health care including preventive medicine, fitness, nutrition, exercise, weight problems, type two diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and many other areas of medicine and health care. It was to my surprise and disappointment that the third most common cause of death in America today is related to negligence and poor health care delivered by our health care system as we know it. Being a retired physician with The US Army as well, has given me new insights on how to move forward to improve all aspects of health care to be deliver to Americans across our nation.

Book preview

PREVENTING YOU

FROM

FAILING YOURSELF!

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WEIGHT NO LONGER

Doctor Philip Caravella

Copyright © 2023 by Doctor Philip Caravella.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without a prior written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by the copyright law.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023917326

ISBN: 978-1-960093-92-9 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-960093-93-6 (eBook)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 How Can Weight Problems Be Solved?

Chapter 2 The Challenge Of Long -Term Health

Chapter 3 Let’s Get Started

Chapter 4 Weight Problems And The Challenges

Chapter 5 Beginning At The Beginning: To Understand

Chapter 6 Obesity: The Greatest Health Hazard Of Our Day

Chapter 7 Is Childhood Obesity The Beginning?

Chapter 8 Breast-Fed Versus Bottle-Fed Babies: Is One Method Better?

Chapter 9 Toddlers And Children: How Are They Doing?

Chapter 10 Are Our Schools Missing The Mark?

Chapter 11 The Disease Debacle!

Chapter 12 Why Do You Become Overweight? The Real Nitty Gritty!

Chapter 13 The Real Secret To Weight Control

Chapter 14 Separating Facts From Fiction

Chapter 15 Resistance Training

Chapter 16 Where’s The Fat?

Chapter 17 Exercise Frequency, Duration, And Intensity

Chapter 18 A Daily Exercise Format To Lose Weight

Chapter 19 Alternative Sports And Options Provide Many Opportunities

Chapter 20 Exercise Prescriptions That Will Work

Chapter 21 The American Diet Circus:

Chapter 22 Lose Weight: Burning More Calories Than You Ingest.

Chapter 23 Dietary Cultural Differences:

Chapter 24 Fad Diets

Chapter 25 Understanding: Fats, Carbohydrates, Protein, And Fiber.

Chapter 26 Carbohydrates: Good And Bad

Chapter 27 Protein

Chapter 28 Dietary Fiber: Fruits, Vegetables, And Nuts.

Chapter 29 Revamping The Food Guide Pyramid

Chapter 30 The Natural Diet: God’s Choice For Us

Chapter 31 Medications For Weight Loss: Pros And Cons

Chapter 32 Advanced Information Directives

Chapter 33 Exercise: With A Purpose

Chapter 34 Freedom From The Scourge Of Obesity

Chapter 35 Testimonials By My Patients

Chapter 36 You Are The Author Of Your Own Life

PREFACE

Total Deaths from fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as of April 2014

6,848

Total Deaths from fighting the Vietnam War

58,209

Total Deaths from Diabetes alone in a one year; 2013

73,831

Total number of obese adult American who die per year

due to obesity and being overweight

300,000

Total number of obese children from ages 6-through age 18

9,000,000 (million)

Total number of Americans in 2012 with pre-diabetes age 20 and over

86,000,000 (million)

Total number of obese American adults

160,000,000 (million)

Do you want to live? Causes of preventable deaths from being overweight or obese are in the tens-of-millions and on the rise. These serious health problems represent a horrible failure on the part of our health care system that should have determined decades ago the management and prevention of an endless list of medical problems associated with excess weight. After forty-four years of practicing family medicine I have learned more than a few things about preventing the problems of excess weight, type 2 diabetes, and related epidemics that are running wild within our society. Following the recommendations in this book will allow you to live a longer and a more beneficial life. You will be better equipped to improve your overall health, mobility, fitness, and longevity.

As time goes on, most of us will suffer an early death from neglect and bad personal practices. This fact is unfortunately accurate almost to a fault. Your premature demise is often preventable and generally of your own making. Most serious health care problems are not directly related to the failings of our parents or some other mysterious force of nature. Occasionally genetics play a substantial role in someone’s health however for the majority of us genetics is not as big of a determining factor as is a lack of personal involvement in ones own health. We cannot alter our genetics though we can influence our lives by intelligent health practices. Most genetically related health problems may be significantly ameliorated by healthy behaviors that go well beyond the realm of luck.

This book has most of the answers to provide for you a great start to a fabulously healthy life and lifestyle for you and your family. It is never too late to do the right thing.

You will read a comprehensive presentation of how exercise and diet can work together to prevent and reduce serious health consequences related to the problems of obesity and type 2 diabetes. These conditions along with other serious and even deadlier diseases often co-exist within many of us. You will learn specific details about what causes obesity and specific methods required to attack the problem in ways not put forth in other publications.

This approach will allow you to move forward while achieving normal weight and a high level of fitness. The devil is in the details and this provocative text provides the correct answers that have escaped other authors and experts who have not been able to deliver on weight related solutions. Many serious conditions including several cancers, high blood pressure, GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease), arthritic conditions, respiratory problems, and other diseases related to obesity and poor physical conditioning are examined with a close eye on prevention.

A great deal of misinformation has been published about the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes in America. The content of this book will clearly identify the cause and solution to weight and obesity problems that have plagued us for generations. Resolution of these serious problems continues to escape our grasp though the answers are now at hand.

You will learn how important exercise is in improving and extending your life well into old age. Exercise will not work by itself without a clear understanding about how exercise works to alter your body’s physiology and then following a specific exercise prescription to achieve successful weight loss. You will understand how to make it happen and what will be needed to maintain weight loss while achieving a healthy and fit body that many of you have always hoped for.

As we age, we need to view aging as an opportunity to achieve goals and enjoy the life we deserve and have worked very hard for. By following the recommendations in this book you will always remain viable, mobile, and unlikely to ever be confined to an extended care facility that with aging so many fear.

You will live longer and wiser as you remain active and fit but not as an old person but rather as a younger person growing older. Be it good or bad, there is very little luck associated with your health. When your health fails it is often due to a lack of knowledge or a lack of initiative in the practice of preventive medicine. My job is to educate, to deliver, and to motivate. Your job is to put your best foot forward. Life is what you make of it. Death is often the result of negligence in one form or another and poor judgment associated with actions, inactions, people, or places that leave you in harms way.

Under the best of circumstances most of us would live into our nineties by following appropriate behaviors that will be detailed in this book. To go a step further, you will live better than you could have ever dreamed possible. Your body is a masterpiece that is often neglected like allowing a car to rust or fade away from a lack of proper maintenance. Healthy behaviors also involve wisely choosing your friends, business associates, educators, and of course your physicians. Preventive health is not as difficult as one may believe. Education is the key to success as it is in all walks of life. Read, learn, adjust, and move forward. Learn from the past. The future begins with every new breath, step, and spoken word. Change is inevitable but success is not. Move the needle forward as you leap into the future.

While following my recommendations you will save your health, your life, and a fortune in unnecessary medical bills. Our body was made to be free of most problems and self-maintenance has never been complicated though it’s certainly been elusive. You will gain a new perspective on how to live life in a better and safer way.

INTRODUCTION

The New Exercise Diet Paradigm: From Victim to Victorious

Do you want the truth? This is not another book of recipes for you to master or incomplete exercise programs that permeate so many diet books currently flooding most bookstores and libraries. Recipes are not the answer. Knowledge is the answer and from there you will be the judge on whether any recipe, diet, or exercise formula is appropriate to achieve the goals of losing weight, becoming fit, and most importantly achieving your best overall health. A solid understanding and resolution of the ubiquitous problems of being overweight or obese engulfing our society lie within these pages. The answers for solving these problems and extending your life will become intuitive. You will find the answer to these problems and their related diseases lying within specific exercise prescriptions and nutritional guidelines that will save the day as well as your life. You will not be told as we sometimes have told our children, This is the way it is because I say so or Because I’m the mother. That’s why. Hardcore facts and principles will become second nature, as are the answers required to acquire nearly perfect health, fitness, grace, form, and beauty.

Magazines, media, and many other sources of information are laden with confusing and usually incorrect concepts and theories. My research indicates the misinformation available to the public is more extreme in the areas of obesity, its causes, and related conditions and diseases than in almost any other area of health. There is very little accurate information available to patients or to interested professionals who hope to successfully manage weight problems among their patients or clients. Misinformation in my opinion plagues many books associated with weight problems and this travesty has provided more of a disservice than a help to those who have read many of them. For example, Frances Berg, author of Underage and Overweight: America’s Childhood Obesity Epidemic – What Every Family Needs to Know, in my opinion is one of these offenders. Berg claims: We need to shift to a new Paradigm. I call it ‘Health at Any Size’, and it means focusing on health, not weight, and helping all people be healthy at the size they are.

This type of twisted thinking may be accommodating, but will not solve the serious health problems linked to childhood obesity much else over weight adult conditions such as type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, uterine cancer, high blood pressure, degenerative arthritis, and other obesity related diseases facing Americans and especially our children. Obese individuals cannot and will not be healthy without reducing their weight regardless of whatever else is attempted to sugar coat their problem.

Physicians generally lack the time or knowledge to successfully help with weight loss and will often say to you, Follow a better diet and try exercising. Have you heard that before? This insufficient advice will not carry the day. Weight problems continue to escalate from involving 35% of adults in 1985 to now harming an astounding 65% to 69% (depending on sources) of the population. Childhood obesity is even exploding at a greater rate. This book succeeds where other books have failed in preparing you for successful weight loss and improved fitness.

The information presented in this book has been based on my own research at the Cleveland Clinic, the practice of medicine for over forty years, and from the analysis of several professional resources available primarily to physicians such as UpToDate, and other respected medical journals in the fields of family medicine, preventive medicine, internal medicine, and general surgery.

UpToDate has been concerned about the inaccuracy of information available to the general public that appears on the Internet about health related problems. As a test case, they decided to evaluate the data about inflammatory bowel disease including Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis. Their experts determined that information on the web about these conditions from fifty different Internet websites, lacked accuracy and quality. UpToDate concluded, Few websites provided high quality information.

This brings us to the topic of obesity and its related diseases. How good is the available information about these complicated conditions? How good is the current research about obesity?

Almost all current books about weight problems are flawed and will lead to failure by those who follows their suggestions. As proof of this, the statistics over the past thirty years about the percentage of overweight individuals in America has grown worse rather than better.

This book is based on solid facts that can be understood by anyone intent on solving their weight and health-related problems.

Everything written in this book is based on research, solid evidence, and it will stand on its own. It is not based on conjecture or misplaced thinking that sounds good but is false, misleading, or ineffective. By applying the principles read here you will be successful in obtaining normal weight while becoming fit in the process. Your risk of developing most weight-related health problems and diseases will be reduced while extending your life expectancy and allowing you an opportunity to enjoy life to the fullest.

The time has come:

Thomas Edison said, The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of diseases. The future is now. What will you do to make a difference? How will you perform?

The problem isn’t the problem. Your reaction is the problem.

Anonymous.

How will you react to the challenge?

Chapter 1

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HOW CAN WEIGHT PROBLEMS BE SOLVED?

You must look into a mirror if you want to know where your problems lie. You must look into your heart when you wish to solve them.

Long Term survival demands change! Real change is not easy because we are creatures of habit, influenced by our friends, surroundings, and upbringing. We become used to a certain lifestyle whatever it may be. Over time we have come to believe that what we our doing is right because it has somehow become justified in our minds. Long-term survival requires us to follow the natural order of being but survival is not instinctual when it comes to diet or exercise. We are easily misled by a softer, less physically demanding way of life. Following a life of leisure often leads to misery and eventual self-extinction as many unfortunate beings before us and often because of us have already found out. It is time to evolve.

Due to a lack of knowledge one can lose sight of doing the right thing by forfeiting opportunities, following bad habits, being too lazy, or worshipping unrelenting excuses. Faith in yourself and in self-preservation is a must if you wish to be successful in the battle against weight problems. All battles can be won, once you know how to do so. You have to understand the facts. When finished with this book, you will have the facts straight. You will be an expert in the area of weight loss and weight control. To defeat this tenacious foe you must know what to do and more importantly, you have to do it. You have to know where you are and where you are going.

You will learn how to proceed and how to follow a prescription that will launch you on a life-changing mission of health and long life. It becomes easier once you get started. Remember the old Chinese proverb that goes: A trip of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Even before finishing this book you will begin the first steps towards victory as early as today. Winning becomes easier as you learn how to win. The most important duty you have in life is to show up so that at the end of the day you will be able to make a difference for yourself and that of your family.

I have already mentioned that there is a legion of misinformed authors writing books and articles on weight problems and dieting. Some viewed as experts see our overweight problems incompletely leading to incorrect assumptions followed by questionable if not downright bad advice. I have already commented on what author Frances Berg has said. Following are other examples of what I believe represents poor thinking on the topic of weight related problems.

In her book Dr. Pamela Peeke, author of Fight Fat After 40, believes that once women obtain middle age their waistline will disappear, they will have a harder time losing weight and It’s normal. N-O-R-M-A-L. Now get over it…. Girlfriend, there is no one who’s going to avoid this—not a single person." I strongly disagree with this assertion and I will prove how wrong it is.

Dr. Lorilee Schoenbeck, co-author of Menopause: Bridging the Gap Between Natural and Conventional Medicine, believes that menopausal women will lose their hourglass figure. It will save them a lot of grief if they will just accept that.

Again I disagree and you will see how a woman can keep or regain her hourglass figure once she learns what is required to do so by becoming dedicated to a life style that will make this happy outcome possible.

Patricia Pearson in the June 9, 2004, edition of USA Today is concerned about the media’s attention to ordinary American women submitting to a months-long regimen of dieting, fitness, and plastic surgery to be not strong and fit but pretty. I agree that plastic surgery need not be part of the equation. Pretty is not the target; good health is. However it is apparent to even the most casual observer that as someone achieves normal weight they at the same time become not only healthier but of course more attractive.

Correct eating and maintaining fitness must not be a months-long regimen but a life- long endeavor. The solution to achieving or maintaining normal weight and good health begins as early as breastfeeding and ends at the conclusion of our lives.

Beginning with birth, correct eating and frequent exercise will maintain normal weight, reduce eating disorders, and prevent obesity. Many of you are coming a bit late to the table, but achieving a normal weight is within your reach after you begin to believe in yourself. Extremely overweight individuals will have to deal with their problem quite differently from those having a less severe problem. Guidelines and solutions will be provided for different degrees of excessive weight. The extreme or morbidly obese individual may be unable to exercise and will require bariatric surgery to initially assist them in lowering their weight enough to begin a daily exercise regimen. Those of you in this situation will realize that surgery being a more extreme measure will still allow you to achieve success over the long haul and prepare you for an exercise program that will reinvigorate you, give you a new lease on life, and allow you to lose additional weight while maintaining progress. Never lose hope. There is always a way to move forward.

All of you will discover in this book that maintaining an exercise program accompanied by a natural diet will comprise the main ingredients for success. The devil is in the details and thus you will read what it takes to achieve the finest female form by following exercise prescriptions and correct eating practices available for your use. The same precepts in this book also apply to men. You folks do not get off the hook. If you begin to put into practice what you have learned, I guarantee that most of you will achieve the ideal body weight you desire without the use of diet drugs, flimsy diets, or similar unworkable measures that ultimately will result in failure and will not improve your health.

At last, most of you must become fitness achievers to maintain your newfound weight loss and improved health status. You will find that fitness often separates the healthy from the unhealthy. By exercising daily you and others will age gracefully and thus it would be unlikely for any of you as you advance in age to require nursing home placement unless some tragic or unusual accident befalls you.

Dieting has always been the first refuge of the overweight individual believing that their calorie intake is always the culprit. In fact that is almost never the case. Let’s begin to look at why dieting is not the panacea that most believe that it is and why changing eating dynamics without more substantial changes in behavior are destined to failure. Dieting by itself does not follow the correct path to long-term survival and good health because our bodies require much more attention than simply cutting back on intake. Here are a few common misconceptions.

DIETING’S BIGGEST TABOOS AND MISTAKES

Beginning a diet by fasting: This practice is flat-out wrong and will not work. It indicates a lack of basic knowledge about the problem. Initially more water is lost than fat during the first week of dieting or fasting so that little is gained by this technique.

Skipping meals: Healthy eating demands three or more meals a day with appropriate snacks between meals. Skipping meals merely results in eating more food at other meals or eating when you should not such as when watching television. Those of you who eat several times per day will actually eat fewer total calories in a day’s time. For the first three million years on Earth we were hunters and gatherers and ate as we found food in nature did not wait for mealtime. There was no set mealtime. That phenomenon has only taken place in the relatively recent past.

Fad diets: These come and go like the wind. The grapefruit diet is an example of a fad diet that has proven to be ineffective, unhealthy, or not sustainable. Every diet that has come down the pike from the Southbeach diet to the Mayo diet has failed or most of us would be normal weight rather than dealing with weight problems as they continue to escalate year in and year out. Those who only diet will never be able to maintain successful weight loss.

Yo-Yo dieting: This practice implies brief attempts at dieting for one to two weeks before falling off the wagon. It implies a lack of commitment. It cannot and will not work.

Impatience: The average dieter wants impressive results too quickly and easily becomes discouraged. It took you a long time to get to where you are. It will take less time to get to where you want to be if you follow correct exercise and eating behaviors.

Diet medications: These fail