WATER - Adequate water can actually reverse athrosclerosis (hardening of the arteries due to plaque build-up). It seems that water can actually flush the arteries of plaque.



It also expands blood vessels and makes arteries more elastic, which is essential for healthy hearts.

Most importantly, I believe, is that adequate hydration raises the metabolism and allows for stored fat to be burned more efficiently as well as slowing heart rate, reducing blood pressures and reducing fluid retention.

** Drink enough water to make your urine clear and colourless all day. Limit coffee, tea and pop to three cups a day.

BREAKFAST - Breakfast should include at least four grams of fibre, which in turn reduces cholesterol and fat in the blood. Every 10 gr. of cereal fibre reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes by 30 per cent!

It also reduces cancer and diabetes risk. Good sources of fibre are cereals, dried beans and lentiles.

He also suggests adding nuts and seeds to breakfast cereal and to have a whole piece of fruit as well. Whole wheat toast, a bagel or a bran muff is NOT a good source of fibre.

It's important that one eats breakfast within 30 minutes of waking.

It also reduces the risk of cancers by preventing absorption of carcinogens and reduces cholesterol by preventing its absorption.

He suggests that breakfast should be the heaviest, while lunch should be a little less, and supper even less than that.

He told me that the body adjusts and hunger won't be an issue at the end of the day.

So, in other words, our bodies become more efficient and burn, burn, burn those calories when we eat a good breakfast.

VEGETABLES: Choose at least two different vegetables at lunch AND at supper. Eat a minimum of one cup of vegetables at each meal then eat the rest of your meal. Rice, potato and corn are starches and are NOT counted as vegetables.

MEAT - Eat a maximum of four ounces of meat, pork, chicken or fish a day.

WALKING - Walk for 25 minutes every night after supper. The benefits of walking after supper compared to walking before supper are many. It can lower your blood sugar by 50 per cent, but best of all when one exercises as described above, your body is burning calories the whole time you sleep.

Most North American (95 per cent) eat little through the day relative to their large meals and evening snacks. This raises the blood sugar really high before sleeping. Higher bedtime sugars directly create extra weight and extra cholesterol and lower anti-oxidants which help prevent cancer.

Walking for 25 minutes after supper raises your metabolism, releases growth hormones which suppress appetite for late night snacks and act as a natural fat burner overnight.

He says one can change diet overnight, but allow an average of 3-5 weeks for these changes, as listed above, to impact your metabolism.

REGULAR WEIGH INS - He suggests that if one follows the above, they don't need to weigh in weekly. It has been found, that the stress of weigh-ins create a chemical in our brains which actually retains the fat and thus we reach those dreaded plateaus. He asked me how many stories I had heard about people who only had five or 10 lbs. to lose, but just couldn't do it. According to him, weigh-ins become so stressful that they create these fat-holding chemicals. Now THAT was an interesting thing for me to hear!

He suggests instead, that we take monthly body measurements as a true picture of how we are doing.

These suggestions are based on certain statistics - People with cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol/heart disease, bowel problems, and those who are overweight, generally have five things in common!

They are:

* Small or no breakfast with adequate fiber.

* Inadequate water consumption.

* Inadequate activity after supper.

* Inadequate daily fiber intake.

* Inadequate daily vegetable intake.