The Un-Diet Diet ... Healthier Boomers in 21 Days: A Health Reclamation Manual for Those Age 55 Plus

By Dr. Douglas Pooley

The UN-Diet Diet is a health reclamation strategy. It is designed to give the participant simple and effective tools to aid in improving overall health, effectively deal with weight management issues, and to serve as a guide for empowered aging. The program is aimed at those over the age of 55 with existing health compromise. It examines the true genesis of both health and disease through the lens of our evolutionary footprint, drilling down to the essence of what it means to be alive. It is here within the principles which create and maintain life, that we also find the keys to health and longevity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jul 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228867678

Dr. Douglas Pooley

Dr. Pooley has been in practice over 43 years, and during that time worked with over 20,000 individuals in close to 500,000 clinical encounters. He is married to his soulmate Patti Mugford-Pooley and lives in Lighthouse Cove in Canada. He has served his profession and community in various roles, and lectured nationally and internationally on professionalism as well as the importance of natural approaches to health and wellness. Doug is a former bodybuilding champion and continues to explore new frontiers in health and successful aging.He is currently in his early seventies going on seventeen.

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Dedication and Thanks

My respectful appreciation to Barry McGonigal for his honesty

Heartfelt thanks to Ryan Meloche and Jim Douglas for their work and encouragement, and Michael Mould for his precise attention to detail.

To my dear wife Patti: words could never express my love for you. The support you provided was the fuel that kept me going on the tough days.

Table of Contents

Preface: Who’s Doug Pooley

Getting Started or Maybe Just Sounding Off

Chapter 1: Let’s Get a Few Things Straight

Age and disease are not bedfellows.

You are approximately two years old.

Who is this program for?

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Health

What happened to being well?

Are we are looking in the wrong place for a solution?

Where are we on the health scale?

If you are younger than fifty-five, buzz off!

Death brings life.

The answer to the riddle often sits in plain sight!

Chapter 3: Case Study: Taking Control—Marjorie’s Story

What happens when you find out who you really are, and decide you have had enough?

Chapter 4: What the Hell is A Un-Diet Diet?

Words of wisdom from a big, big man

The mind is the master.

Chapter 5: Ageing Is an Attitude, not a Disease

When you look in the mirror, how old are you?

You are old; therefore, you must get sick: complete balderdash!

How do we age?

Aging…the consummate head game

Chapter 6: Case Study: The Gift of Bob

The most valuable of gifts is wisdom!

Chapter 7: Kick Your Past to the Curb

We all have a story.

Chapter 8: The Art of Thinking Young

We all must age but getting old is just a bad decision.

Cutting out the dead wood makes way for new growth.

The future lives inside of us

The purpose of purpose

Possibility reading

Computer literacy

Creativity is life.

Chapter 9: You Can Change or Stay the Same … Survival is Not Mandatory

Making a meaningful change means more than just underwear.

Chapter 10: Creation Designed You to Be Healthy

You were born to be well…what a concept!

Chapter 11: You Sit, You Die!

It’s hard to hit a moving target.

Impact of posture on health,

The true costs of a sedentary lifestyle

Chapter 12: Getting It Up Now Has a New Meaning

If you want to live, you have got to move.

No pain, no gain…sometimes!

Chapter 13: Health is Not Merely the Absence of Disease

I beat the disease so I must be healthy… well, maybe!

Healthy lifestyle, healthy life

How does this all fit into the program?

Chapter 14: Obesity: A Cause, a Symptom or Both?

Obesity is beyond dangerous.

Food processing: The facts!

Chapter 15: Sugar: The Not-So-Invisible Elephant in the Room

Sugar really can’t be that bad…right?

Chapter 16: Diets Don’t Work

Diet… I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick.

When we diet, we do so out of pain.

Chapter 17: Why Just Twenty-One Days?

Saying that I love change generates the same response as I love haemorrhoids.

Chapter 18: The Five Pillars of Health: Our Foundational Source of Life

The human body is much smarter than the human mind.

The check-up from the neck up

Chapter 19: Case Study William: Move It or Lose It!

Consistent movement over time equals a healthy life.

The 5-10-15 Walking Strategy

The purpose of movement to health

Movement and your mind– more move=more think

Chapter 20: Exercising for Weight Loss: Good Luck!

I’ll just do a few more sit-ups to lose my belly–Nope!

Chapter 21: Case Study Ezekiel: Breathing Is Not Just Air In, Air Out

A little man teaches a big lesson.

If breathing is natural, why do I have to work at it?

Acidosis: Man…even the word sounds bad

Chapter 22: The Importance of Optimum Fluid Intake

To pee or not to pee…is that the question?

Water is more important to health than you think.

A few words on diuretics

Chapter 23: Case Study Katrina: Detoxification Myths and Realities

I don’t need to detoxify; I have a liver.

Cranberries: God’s miracle fruit

Chapter 24: Developing a Food Management Program That Works

Dieting creates unnecessary pain, which makes it insane.

Chapter 25: Why Do We Eat?

Food is for just one purpose: The creation of energy.

The point of the matter

All life is just energy-driven purposeful movement.

Chapter 26: Mitochondria: Energy Factories and the Source of Health

The little engine that makes it all work!

Sirtuins: The new kid on the block who has been around forever!

OK, so what’s the point?

Chapter 27: Case Study Billie: How to Reduce Calories without Dieting

It’s all about sugar!

Dangerous foods that stifle energy production and stimulate inflammation.

Isolating food sources in your diet that can steal health.

Chapter 28: Just What Exactly Can I Eat?

Eating for energy is eating for life.

Let’s cut to the chase!

Tying it all together!

Chapter 29: OMG! I Can Hardly Wait to Diet! Said No One…Ever

Diets equal pain!

Chapter 30: Case Study Charles (Not Chuck or Charlie)

You’re full of it, Doug! I am way too old to change!

Success is an inside job!

Exit victim mode.

Eliminate the naysayers from your life.

Don’t trip over life’s junk.

Take the leap!

Chapter 31: The Program

Getting your head into the game: It’s all up to you.

Do you control your brain, or does it control you?

The power of positive affirmations: Yup! They really work.

Successful change is all about how much leverage you have over the old you.

Chapter 32: It’s Time to Go to Work!

Getting skin into the game

The Contract

Determining where you are now: A final reality check.

Equipment requirements

Chapter 33: Game Day Phase 1

Predictable results at end Phase 1

Chapter 34: Phase 2

A third of the way there!

Predictable results after Phase 2

Chapter 35: Phase 3

Heading for home!

Predictable results at end of Phase 3

Chapter 36: Congrats! You Have Reached the Finish Line

Let’s do the math!

Chapter 37: You Can’t Stop Now!

Meet your program for the next three months.

Your program for the next three months

With the Utmost Thanks!

Appendix A: Phase 1 Breathing Exercises

Appendix B: Phase 1 - Stretches

Appendix C: Phase 2 - Legs and Hip Strengthening Exercises

Appendix D: Phase 2 - Deep Breathing Exercise

Appendix E: Phases 2 and 3 - List of Fruit Snacks

Appendix F: Phase 3 - Upper Body Band Exercises

Bibliography

Disclaimer

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative subject matter and concepts on the topics addressed in the publication. It is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical, health or any other kind of personal professional services in the book. The reader should consult his or her medical, health or other appropriately licensed professional before adopting any of the suggestions in this book or drawing inferences from it.

The authors and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred because of this book.

All personal references in the book are fictitious to protect character and privacy.

Due to the physical nature of the Un-Diet Diet program and the age of the intended reader, the author suggests the reader contact his or her primary health care provider prior to starting the program.

Preface: Who’s Doug Pooley

Who’s Doug Pooley

Sometimes you succeed… and other times you learn.

Robert Kiyoski

I started off as a mistake, yup, I did. The birth of Doug was the product of an encounter that was never supposed to happen, and it seems that I managed to live up to the ‘mistake’ label for most of my early life.

In 1945, my father returned home from the war and settled in the tiny paper-making community of Kapuskasing in northern Ontario as its first post-war town clerk. Kap as it is referred to by locals, is a beautiful little community where snow is usually followed by more snow, and the easiest way to differentiate summer from the other seasons is that you see fewer people in snowshoes and more mosquitoes.

As the story goes, one night Pop got loaded, fell asleep in a snow bank, and froze his testicles (I never felt the need to know any details beyond that point). As a result, he was told that he would likely never be able to father children.

Well, guess what?

He met my mom and out of the blue, I came along— totally out of wedlock, which was an absolute no-no, in a staunch Catholic household in the 50’s. That in turn, precipitated the move of shame to Montreal, where I was born. In keeping with the mistake theme, I flirted with death twice during my early life, and seventy-plus years later; I still have the scars on my ankles from the intravenous drip that was needed to save my life.

As I grew, what I lacked in height, I made up for in girth. By the age of ten, I was a blistering five feet, 165 lb. My mother, God bless her, said I was big boned (a kind lie from a wonderful woman), but the reality was that I was big…and I mean big, and thus suffered the barbs of being young and overweight. As puberty rolled in, I started to lose some of the girth, only to have it replaced by the teenage curse of acne. At fifteen, I was pimply, less chubby and five feet, eight inches tall. The height part never changed.

I managed to get into trouble on a regular basis during my early life, having been brought home by the police on two separate occasions before the age of thirteen. If the rest of the world was going right, it was pretty much assured that Doug would be going left.

Academically, my mistakes came early and often, forcing my exile to a Catholic boarding school with just one goal…to generate some meaningful direction for the family reprobate. There, I was voted ‘Least Likely to Succeed’ by my senior class. In spite of that, I managed to squeak into university, and it was here that I discovered my purpose in the great satisfaction found through serving other people, and I loved it. I became a participant rather than an outlier, and this is also when life for Doug started to go right.

The early pain of graduating cum laude from the School of Hard Knocks gave me some hard-won perspectives. I grew up suffering the barbs of being an overweight short guy, suffering with low self-esteem, and there were times I hated myself. However, looking back, I can now see those things for what they really were, life lessons in compassion, understanding, patience and drive!

My greatest happiness has always been found in bringing joy to those around me. When I started my career in health care, I knew that the universe had me right where it wanted me to be, and I have treasured every minute since. I was no longer the mistake; I became a solution, and I am so blessed to have been given my role in life.

This little book is a token of my thanks for all the trust, encouragement and love that have followed me throughout my life. The Un-Diet Diet, is the product of over forty-four years of experience working with about twenty thousand patients in over five hundred thousand clinical encounters. I hope that at the very least it provides you with an enhanced understanding of genesis of health, and worthwhile tools to help you age with independence and vitality.

Getting Started or Maybe Just Sounding Off

You don’t have to be good to start ... you just have to start to be good!"

Joe Sabah

Great Mother of God! I am not a fatalist by nature, but reflecting on the direction of our current world evolution quite frankly scares the hell out of me. Over the last decade or so, my interactions with patients and general observations of the existing order, reveal a growing sense of angst and despondency permeating our society. In many ways, I believe this is tied to the insidious and steady erosion of personal control over our lives, and more specific to this writing, our dwindling sense of wellbeing. Looking directly at health management, take a second and ask yourself the following question. Do you see the current care delivery options, popular weight loss programs, or platforms for creative aging, as presenting long-term solutions, or at best, cursory strategies for crisis management? Especially when it comes to dealing with the needs of an aging population, there does not seem to be a lot of meat here worth leaving to your kids!

If you could remove yourself and scan the world around you from a purely observer status, it would not be hard to see that in many ways, we are standing at the gateway to oblivion. The doomsday clock sits closer to global catastrophe that ever in history. The voracious depletion of resources is far outpacing the planet’s ability to replenish them. Mankind continues to get older, sicker, and more emotionally challenged that ever and the downward trend in all the above areas just keeps growing.

The costs associated with healthcare keep spiralling out of control with the consumption of related services hitting greater heights each successive year. Politicians and other talking heads continue to congratulate each other on what a wonderful job they are doing, meanwhile the average guy is looking around wondering where the mother ship went. Inherently we know that this trajectory simply cannot be maintained, but we still drive down the same road inching ever closer to the brink of system collapse. We desperately need to find a better approach than those presented in the current models of health delivery, but no one seems to be willing or able to confront the elephant in the room. Survival will require change. That is without reproach, but this begs the questions of what and how?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but from purely a health perspective I hope to clearly demonstrate through this offering, that for our species to hedge bets on surviving the twenty-first century, three things need to happen. We must:

1.Reconnect with our inherent health potential (that internal capability we humans possess to effectively identify and combat disease, heal from injury, as well as to functionally remain operational). To do this requires creative planning, with the first step being a drawing down from the wisdom of our ancestors to again understand and trust that the human body innately knows how to be well.

2.Identify the blueprint for the where, why, and how of energy production, which is ultimately the life-force that powers the human machine. From that, develop a tactical plan for best stimulating its efficient and abundant creation. (As I will demonstrate, it is here that you find the real genesis of health, repair, and longevity).

3.Formulate safe long-term strategies that are crafted to consistently maximize health potential. Programs structured to foster super-vitality and through that generate a platform that naturally allows us to better fight disease while extending a healthy life.

We must rediscover how to trust in our body’s inborn capacity to heal and understand that health, not disease, is the natural and intended state of order in life.

Face it, much of our existing Western healthcare system is predicated upon fear, which has shifted people’s focus away from maintaining and enhancing health to an unnatural obsession with disease. As part of that process, the healing sciences appear to have lost much of their intended rudimental focus of helping patients to help themselves. Our current paradigm does little to promote individual accountability or self-management; rather it now often creates an ever-increasing number of unhealthy dependencies at prodigious costs. This can never provide an enduring roadmap for health—it is just not logical! With the ever-rising number of seniors consuming health care resources, for the system to survive financially, we desperately need to relearn what it means to be well. This requires a deeper understanding of the true origins of health and the most reasonable probabilities for its efficient maintenance.

For those readers suffering serious health compromise, the Un-Diet Diet program I am going to walk you through may just change your life. This offering started off as a series of observations accumulated during more than four decades in practice as I witnessed what made people sick and, more importantly, what appeared to keep them well. I have seen each of the elements of this program positively impact people’s lives. As patients shared some of the miraculous improvements that occurred in their health (often because they made seemingly simple lifestyle alterations), it dawned on me that wellness was not a commodity that could ever be purchased. Rather, it always was, and will continue to be, essentially an inside job. By far, most of us at birth were provided a complete set of the necessary tools required to maintain a state of health, the capacity to repair/rebuild vitality, and through that, live long and satisfying lives.

With a little deeper digging, I started to appreciate that the phenomenon of ‘being in a state of health’, was not a quantifiable entity that is gained or lost, but rather the natural and intended expression of life itself. In my journey to piece together this puzzle, the straightforward sanity behind what became this book started to express itself. The individual components of the Un-Diet Diet are health enhancing strategies, that when merged, provide the recipe for healthy living and longevity. As we explore together, you will discover the key inherent processes that define life, determine health, and influence our ability to fight disease. The end game here, being a template to help you fashion your own healthy, long, and active life.

What I am offering you is a hypothesis derived from years of clinical experience, where all the component parts are well-proven in their abilities to influence quality of life. I believe their combined strengths create a super health enhancing strategy that can jumpstart the rebuilding of compromised vitality, generate energy, stimulate weight loss where needed and serve as a superb healthy-ageing tool. At its core is a drive for empowerment. This book offers you potential to become actively engaged in your life again rather than being confined to the sidelines as a spectator. Can I promise you anything? Nope! I can though assure you, that in working through the book you will meet some fascinating people, learn a lot of interesting facts on health/disease, and perhaps even a few surprising things about yourself.

You may not know this, but when you were born, you brought with you 26 trillion friends. What I am talking about, are the cells that make up every part of your body. By the time you reach adulthood, that number grew to approximately 30 trillion, with each one charged with a specific purpose, and all created to work in unison to maximize with efficiency your experience on this planet. They tether your spirit to the earth and are your most precious of assets. Yet, few of us ever acknowledge the magnificence of that gift or the inherent potential for health and vitality contained within those innate processes working every minute of every day to keep you alive. You will witness as the book unfolds, it is here that the keys to wellness, repair, and efficient aging occur, and to the surprise of many, you have much more control over its operation than you may have ever thought.

This work is dedicated to every person who was told they couldn’t do something, wouldn’t amount to anything or—the worst—that they were too old or sick to help themselves. People who spout such things are dangerous short-sighted pessimists. Rather, I say to you that it’s time to look up again, and let a new game begin! As the famous American humorist Will Rogers once said, Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.

Chapter I

Let’s Get a Few Things Straight

Older people shouldn’t eat- health food-; they need all the preservatives they can get.

Robert Orben

You didn’t pick up this book to look at the pretty pictures or to entertain yourself before bed. My guess is you are reading this because you are in trouble and need help, or, at best, not satisfied with some aspect of your health. The motivations are as varied as the readers and may include weight management concerns, resident disease or disability, mobility issues or simply the fear of getting sick. Perhaps you’re just plain tired of feeling like rubbish. Whatever your reason, you are reading this because you want to solve a problem, or you have someone close to you in need of assistance.

This challenge you face likely isn’t new, and the other attempts at rectifying it likely failed to pan out. One thing is for sure, you’re getting older. You may be overweight, probably taking one or more medications, and are a bit scared about what possible demons the future may hold for your health. Sit back for a second and let me ask you these two questions:

1.Can you remember the last time you really felt good?

2.Does life seem to get just a little tougher as each year passes?

Although you are probably not a cry baby (these people rarely actually do something to help themselves), chances are, that you are frustrated and looking for answers. As mentioned, you may have been told you are too old to change, too old to feel good, too old to have fun. Even more pathetic: too old to be healthy. In today’s world, it is as if aging itself has become viewed as a disease. I know you certainly do not want to live this way, and I am here to tell you that with a bit of a mind shift and a little work, you might not have to.

One unassailable truth is certain: If you buy into the above negative beliefs about getting older, the likelihood of finding satisfaction in life going forward is slim.

However, if you are genuinely committed to a feeling better, the ideas I am about to present in the Un-Diet Diet, may open your mind to a different approach for reclaiming and maintaining health…one that just may potentially help save your life. Proceeding through the book, you are going to be shown a strategy for repair, health maintenance, and creative ageing that is in perfect step with our evolutionary footprint. It is here through man’s continuous adaptation over time that we uncover the roots of health and longevity potential.

The pandemic in 2020 has changed the world forever. It was particularly vicious for those over fifty-five, killing many and leaving even more seriously health compromised. The need for new direction when it comes to the fostering a healthy lifestyle has never been more imperative. I believe that for us to continue to successfully thrive we must reconnect with our inherent health potentials which have continuously adapted and evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.

Age and disease are not bedfellows.

Western society has been conditioned to believe there is an undeniable correlation between age and getting sick. How often have you had a healthcare practitioner say that you are suffering from this or that because you are getting old? These statements is simply not the truth—so do yourself a favour and stop letting people sell you that snakeoil.

Science is just starting to understand the resident wisdom contained within the human body with all its complex mechanisms for preserving health. Let me give you an example.

Through an internal strategy for repairing and replacing cells, called senescence, directed by tiny signalling proteins called sirtuins (we will discuss this in depth a little further into the book), we are naturally and automatically capable of monitoring and regulating many metabolic functions related to ageing and repair—including genome stability, inflammatory response, apoptosis (normal cell death), DNA repair and mitochondrial functions. I am sure that some of you may be saying, So what? Big words and complex processes, but what’s the point? What I am driving at is simple. The body is creation’s most magnificent health factory. We were all born with these and many other spectacular health enhancing processes, and they happen without thought or conscious direction every minute of every day you are alive. Really, it just does not get any more amazing!

As for blaming illness on age, although some critical biological functions may not perform quite as effectively at eighty-five as they did at thirty-five, as we go forward into the book, you will witness how these processes most certainly can be stimulated to work more efficiently at any point in our lives. Often, with the natural by-products of doing so, being the creation of better health and a potentially longer life. We all came into this world with core processes which serve to protect us from disease, stimulate vitality, and positively influence the length and quality of our lives. These miraculous functions occur naturally from the moment of inception and continue through to the second we die without us ever knowing that they are happening. Sure, they may take a bit longer to work the deeper we go into life, but our marvellous bodies are constantly repairing, replacing, and rebuilding themselves.

You are approximately two years old.

Did you know that almost every one of your cells has a predetermined turnover rate? There is compelling evidence to show that most of your body right down to the DNA is replaced about every twenty-four to thirty-six months. For example, our gums take two weeks to turn over. Stomach cells are replaced every two to nine days, and the cells in our throats change every two months. The lining in our lungs takes just eight days to rebuild, the pancreas regenerates every twenty to fifty days, and the trachea is pretty much restored every one to two months. Even your bones are replaced at a rate of 10 percent per year.

Life is a constant state of rebuilding and repair, with the process occurring seamlessly each day, independent of will or age. This raises a logical question: If this natural repair process works so well, why do we age, and more importantly die?

When it comes to death, it is not the accumulation of years that ultimately kills us. Rather, it is the progressive layering of stress and deterioration associated with lifestyle choices and individual health-depleting circumstances that ultimately results in our demise. For most, it is the culmination of collective insult over time that eventually overwhelms the body’s inherent capacity for repair. This in turn results in a critical systemic compromise, with disease being the eventual outcome. It is a given that we are all going to die, but on the other side of the coin, I don’t believe for a moment that living sick was ever part of the intended plan.

Imagine for a second the possibility that there might be a way to identify and activate those key functions which naturally invoke vitality and by doing so, return the body to the path of wellbeing. I believe this is not only possible, but rather, that it is the only way to successfully make a positive and lasting change to overall health.

Are you a little sceptical? That’s ok. I assure you, that as you dive deeper into the book, I’m going to share with you the reasoned strategy for making it happen.

Chronological age has little to do with the recuperative process. Good health, not illness and suffering, was always designed to be the normal expression of life during this human experience at any stage of our existence.

Taking this a step forward, envision what it would be like if you could actively participate in the repair process. Could you then potentially redirect the body towards a state of