When 45-year-old Charles came to see me about a month ago he was evidently a busy man from his impatience during the consultation. He wanted results. However, he was unwilling to take any nutritional supplements, convinced that a better diet was all that he needed.
Charles didn’t really have any vices: he didn’t smoke or drink or have a sweet tooth. He did, however, like his nyama choma and was someone who rarely took time over his meals.
The first dietary change was simply to change the proportions of his plate: he would eat one-quarter starch (e.g. rice, chapatti, sweet potato, arrowroot, ugali), one-quarter protein (e.g. red or white meat, lentils, beans, peas, eggs) and half vegetables (cooked, raw, soups, stir-fries). This he felt he could stick to, even when he was travelling or had a business lunch.
The next thing was to drink more water. Charles suffered from high blood pressure and ulcers, two conditions that have been proven to improve simply by drinking more water. Water also helps to flush out toxins and carry nutrients to cells. When he came to see me, he drank two glasses of water every day. He also had four cups of tea every day.
Tea and coffee are both diuretics, which means that they increase water loss from the body (ever notice how tea makes you go to the bathroom?). So with the two glasses of water and four cups of tea, I felt that Charles’ body was running at a deficit of negative two.
For optimum health, he would need the eight glasses that you so often read about (I asked Charles to drink 10 since he was a big man). That meant cutting out the tea, while strategically drinking water throughout the day. I suggested that he drinks a glass (or at least half a glass) every hour so that his kidneys could hold onto the fluid more easily.
And then Charles disappeared. He didn’t make his follow-up appointment two weeks later and I wondered whether he’d made any headway. I almost didn’t recognise the man who walked into the clinic yesterday.
His eyes were bright, he looked well-rested and he was smiling. He told me that his migraines were a thing of the past and that he’d lost weight (87kg down from 90kg). He found that the additional water meant that he wasn’t eating when he wasn’t hungry and bowel movements were also much better.
So make this simple change today. Not only is it cheap and effective, but you‘re also going to save on doctor’s bills later down the line.
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