Free The 17 Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno

cutting-edge research, with both human and rat studies. (How many of these furry creatures have lost weight in order to save humanity from obesity during the past 50 years is a mystery to me.)
    Publishing much of their research in recent issues of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , these scientists have unearthed intriguing findings. Alternate-day fasting can:
• Trigger sustained weight loss (no frustrating plateaus). The weight that is lost is mostly fat.
     
• Activate the “skinny” gene, which tells cells to burn—rather than hold on to—fat.
     
• Reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, decreasing blood pressure and lowering heart rate.
     
• Alternating your food intake is a powerful concept in weight management. Here’s a look at what this will be doing for you:
     
• Stripping away body fat. Your carb intake is still relatively low on this Cycle. When you cut carbs, your muscles give up stored carbohydrates, called muscle glycogen, as energy. In general, when glycogen levels fall, the body increases its ability to burn body fat. Therefore, it makes sense to reduce your carbohydrate intake. When that happens, the body ramps up fat burning.
     
• Giving momentum to your metabolism. This potent diet strategy seems to keep the metabolism elevated. It keeps your body guessing, as opposed to letting it get accustomed to one particular way of eating day after day. Just as you need to change things up in workouts for continued progress to avoid plateaus, you mustn’t let your body get too comfortable with the foods you eat. It’s all about shocking the metabolism to elicit a positive response.
     
• Taming your appetite. On the Activate Cycle, you get to eat some starchy carbs. But not just any carbs. You’ll eat natural, slow-digesting carbs such as oatmeal, whole grains, brown rice, beans and legumes and sweet potatoes—a whole slew of carbs. Slow carbs take a longer time to reach the blood, which helps you feel full.
     
• Preventing carb sensitivity. Carbs are beneficial in that they help set up the body hormonally for muscle-toning if you exercise. They spark the release of insulin, which gets protein and carbs into muscles for growth and repair. The downside is that when you take in too many carbs, they can be readily converted to body fat and stored. On the Activate Cycle, you’re limited to no more than two servings of slow, natural carbs a day. This is the amount most people—especially women—are physiologically capable of tolerating in order to sustain fat metabolism.
     
    Another major difference between the two Cycles is that you get to enjoy a greater variety of lean proteins, including shellfish and beef.
MISTER M.D., CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME

Wouldn’t it just be easier to prescribe diet pills for weight loss?

Drug companies are always racing to develop new weight-loss drugs, but they haven’t had much luck. The Food and Drug Administration has approved only three drugs in the past 30 years for treating obesity, one of which—Redux—was yanked for safety reasons. I don’t know what they did with the leftover pills. Maybe they were recycled into something a dieter could use, like exercise bands.
The drugs that remain—Xenical and Meridia—have been moderately successful. But I’m not an advocate of popping pills for every little thing. Pills don’t fully address the problem. By prescribing drugs instead of lifestyle changes, doctors ignore the unhealthy habits that have contributed to obesity. One of these diet pills, the “fat blocker” Xenical, the brand name of a drug called orlistat, must be accompanied by a low-calorie diet to reduce your weight by about 5 percent for most. Diets are vital, pills or no pills.
There’s an “ick” factor with this particular drug. Fat isn’t absorbed, so it has to go somewhere. And orlistat takers find out in a hurry just where. (Keep an extra pair of panties with you, or