The 4 Habits of Healthy Eaters
Food does not make you gain weight, your anxiety does
Losing weight and getting rid of extra weight has become an obsession for millions of people, who are willing to follow, time and again, the latest diets. However, diets always end up failing, which is not beneficial for people who want to lose weight. "The truth is, you are overweight because you have put more energy into your body than you have spent. The first step to lose weight is to stop dieting," explains Luis Navarro author of The 4 Habits of Healthy Eaters.
As Einstein correctly pointed out: "madness is doing the same thing over and over again hoping to obtain different results". This can be applied to diets. They do not work. They have not worked. They will not work in the future. Although we put hope, will and desire, into dieting we end up feeling disappointment and frustration. Luis Navarro brings us a revolutionary book that reconnects us to the act of eating, a natural and necessary act that has become a moral dilemma for many people. Why is this? A diet mentality produces a change in the way we percievefood, leading to effort, sacrifice, and a constant struggle during mealtime. This brings up emotions that harm us, such as guilt, powerlessness, anxiety, fear or frustration. We have most likely lived in an environment of diet mentality, with concerns over what we eat and our physical appearance. As a result, we absorbed and made some of those voices, the result of social pressure, our own. "The paradox of losing weight is that if you continue to prioritize losing weight you will never achieve it. When you shift your focus to addressing the causes of being overweight: your habits and emotions you will lose weight in a healthy way through the connection with your stomach," the author explains.
Leaving diets behind and following methods that are based on one’s connection with their stomach and the signals our body gives us about hunger and fullness, leads to favorable results. "It consists in rebelling against economic and social interests that have manipulated us and taken a lot of our money with no results. And deciding that we are responsible for our eating and our bodies, "says Luis Navarro.
Throughout the book’s four sections, we will realize how wrong we have been when we eat. We can change our bad habits forever, while allowing ourselves to feel our emotions and not project them onto our food.
Synopsis
With this revolutionary method you will learn to manage your anxiety and your emotions and to apply, little by little, the 4 daily habits that will help you lose weight progressively and effortlessly. You will lose weight in a natural and healthy way. It is also an adventure in which you will discover the intelligence of your stomach, you will accept your body and you will free yourself from the diet mentality, which causes anxiety, guilt and being overweight.
The Body in Today's Society
In today's society, being thin is valued, and being overweight is rejected. Today’s current beauty standards are cultural. They are not natural, logical or even healthy. They are socially imposed. Thin people are afraid to get overweight. Those who are overweight suffer because they strive to lose weight and do not achieve it because our body is the result of our genetic inheritance and bodies are diverse in their size and shape. Not all bodies fit today’s arbitrary beauty standards.
There are studies that show that only 5 percent of the female population in the world has the body of a runway model. This means that 95 percent of the women on the planet have diverse, normal bodies. Today’s beauty standards do not respond to anything objective. They are arbitrary and have no scientific basis. "It is society’s cultural imposition that masquerades as something normal, leading to the rejection of one's own body and the emotional suffering of millions of women who, no matter how many diets and exercise, will never achieve a thin body imposed by beauty standards. These standards are neither "normal" nor "healthy"; they are only cultural and, as such, can be rejected or accepted, the author analyzes.
Exercise and Natural Weight
In contrast to the general belief that you should exercise to lose weight, Luis Navarro is clear: it does not work. As we can glean from the studies of Alexai Kravitz, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Health in the United States, energy expenditure is mainly carried out on three fronts: the first is the functioning of the body when it is at rest (base metabolic rate), the second is in the digestion of food and the third is in physical activity. We have virtually no control over our base metabolic rate, but it is our greatest energy expenditure. In general, it represents between 60 and 80 percent of the total energy expenditure. The digestion of food only accounts for about 10 percent of the energy expenditure. That leaves only between 10 and 30 percent of the total energy expenditure for physical activity, of which the exercise is only a subset.
For all those people obsessed with their ideal weight, the following concepts must be clarified. Against one’s ideal weight is one’s natural weight, a scientific concept. Our natural weight is not something that depends on chance but is determined in large part by our genetic inheritance. There are many studies that show that genetic inheritance is of great importance in each person’s weight. The hypothalamus is responsible for regulating natural weight. This is not an exact figure, if we talk about 80 kilos, the range can be ± 1, ± 2, ± 3, ± 4, ± 5 ... up to ± 10. That is to say, natural weight is not a precise number of kilos, it is a range in which weight can be moved slightly up or down.
The Stomach’s Intelligence
Dieting is about trying to control what the body does automatically. Does it work? Yes, but only in the short run. In the long run diets do not work. This is experienced by millions of people who regain their weight after a diet.
The elements with the capacity to act on the hypothalamus to increase appetite and decrease energy expenditure come from the gastrointestinal system and the central nervous system. In the hypothalamus, neural and humoral afferent signals integrate to coordinate the intake, through sensations of hunger or satiety and the energy expenditure increases or decreases the basal metabolism and the thermogenic efficiency of the brown adipose tissue. This in response to conditions that modify the body's energy balance. It is a very sophisticated mechanism, in which several systems of the body intervene. In practice, this extraordinary and complex system manifests itself in the stomach with two sensations: hunger and satiety, which are internal signals.
Eating at certain times each day has disconnected us from the sensation of physical hunger. We can never feel the sensation of physical hunger if we always eat three times a day. "I feel like eating" or "I do not feel like eating" is the language of the stomach’s intelligence, it is not mental, it is bodily.
Emotions that Defeat Us
When we are adults, we often experience uncomfortable, stressful or anxiety ridden situations. Life presents problems, frustrations, disappointments and anger. The resource that we have most readily at hand and rooted since childhood is eating. It is recorded in our subconscious since childhood where we learned that when we eat, we felt good.
When we eat, the body secretes endorphins that make us feel good at first, but then we feel bad because we have eaten too much. The instant gratification of eating is transformed into discomfort and even guilt because we have eaten too much. Eating as a result of our emotions is one of the causes of being overweight.
The Navarro Method
Luis Navarro's method aims to progressively replace the negative habits we have when we eat with four new ones. It takes between 60 and 90 days to create new habits. The habits instilled by the Navarro method (MNA) are based on the stomach’s intelligence, linked to the indicators of appetite and satiety. Creating a habit is simple and only requires repetition. When we repeat a behavior, we end up creating a permanent connection between the neurons, called synapses, creating the neural circuit of this new habit. We also know that our brain’s ability to create habits persists throughout our life, it does not depend on age, nor the time we have spent repeating a negative behavior.
First habit: I Eat when I am Physically Hungry
To resolve any weight problem definitively, one must act on its causes. There are two causes of being overweight: negative habits and emotions.
To understand this first habit the author asks us to, "Please, put one hand on your stomach and ask yourself the following question with your eyes closed, with the intention of connecting with your stomach: ‘Am I really hungry?’ This question must be asked verbally with the intention of connecting with your stomach. The question automatically cuts the habit of eating. The question connects you to our stomach’s intelligence. The question makes you be present in the moment. [...] Many people feel nerves or anxiety in their stomach and confuse it with physical hunger. Gastric juices are not physical hunger either, contrary to what everyone thinks, they are only gastric juices. Hunger does not pass without eating, it goes on and intesifies until you eat because it is a survival mechanism."
From now on our key word when considering our meals is: choice. In our daily lives, we do not consciously choose to eat or not eat. We eat automatically because of schedules, habits, emotions or impulses. The way to break this automatisation is to always ask the question ‘Am I really hungry?’, before eating or drinking something other than water, with the intention of connecting with our stomach. In this way we will cut habits by listening to our stomach’s response. If the answer is ‘No’, then we can choose to either eat or not eat.
Second habit: I enjoy eating
"When you eat, eat," Luis Navarro tells us, paraphrasing his grandmother. And she was right! No mobile phones, computers, radio, television, books, newspapers or magazines. Being present when we eat is essential to feel the feeling of fullness.
To develop our intention to enjoy eating, we must chew without hurry, tasting what we have in our mouths. The rhythm will be different depending on the type of food we are eating: salad, fish, meat, vegetables or fruit. The author also recommends leaving the fork on the table between bites. Neither should we look for the feeling of fullness, we will not find it, no matter how much we want to find it, it is not an act of will. It is like thirst. When we are dehydrated, we feel it, but we do not look for it; thirst meets us, arises when more liquid is needed in our body.
Third Habit: I Eat What I Want
It is a falsehood to affirm that there are foods that, in themselves, make us gain weight. Without realizing it, we have given certain foods the power to make us gain weight. With this, we have created a fantasy, a collective illusion, that something external, certain products, have the intrinsic power to make us gain weight. Giving that power to food only makes us victims of something inevitable if we do not control it. It is a perpetual condemnation before a powerful enemy that can make us gain weight as soon as we lose control of what we eat. This happens because any prohibition, control or deprivation of what a human being eats leads to excess and binge eating. This is the experience of millions of people who eat in a constant cycle of deprivation and binge eating because they have been convinced, and have assumed, that there are foods that make them gain weight.
Luis Navarro’s vision is very clear, "there is no food that makes you gain weight, it is a fantasy, an illusion, a falsehood, there are no foods that make you gain weight. Everything makes you gain weight if you eat too much of it. Nothing makes you gain weight if your body burns it. What has made you gain weight is the whole aggregate of what you have eaten."
Fourth Habit: I Stop Eating When I Feel Full
One of the ways to feel satiety is when we notice, after a few bites, that what we are eating has no flavor, it is a paste in our mouths. This happens because the pleasure center of the brain associated with food has detected that you do not need more energy and, therefore, the sensation of taste has disappeared.
The goal of eating is to feed us. That is the priority. But it seems that our priority for many years has been to eat everything that was on our plates. The author asks us to reflect on our eating habits, "Who do you respect more, a little bit of food or yourself? I hope yourself because when you eat what you need and you stop when you have had enough, you are respecting yourself. "
Emotions
The author dedicates an entire chapter to discussing emotions and how many times they have led us to take refuge in food without us being aware of it. Why is it? First of all, we must be very clear about what emotions are: a constant and unstoppable dance of energy that arises in our body. We do not decide on our emotions, we do not create them, they simply arise.
Pain, sadness, loneliness, anger, joy, hope, frustration, love, helplessness, empathy and generosity are part of human beings’ common emotional essence. As children we learned to judge and repress our emotions. Now, as adults, when we notice that energy in our body, we take our emotions to our head, where we classify them as good or bad, positive or negative, acceptable or unacceptable. "Do you have discomfort or tension in your neck, shoulders, back, stomach or chest? Well, it's probably the energy of unresolved emotions. Remember that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. And there is probably emotional energy in your body that has not yet been transformed. Moral and religious values as well as cultural preferences have nothing to do with what emotions are. Emotions are something that happens in our body, the energy of life that flows," explains Navarro.
But in reality, what we do with our emotions, in today's society where logic and rationality are valued, is to try to control and manage them. As Luis Navarro reminds us "you have no chance of success if you intend to control your emotions. It is impossible. If you have tried to control them, you will have noticed that they become more frequent, more intense and last longer. Take anxiety, a very common emotion. You usually feel it in your stomach or chest, initially it may seem uncomfortable, annoying, unpleasant or intense. But anxiety is only energy and information. When you try to control it, it is like swimming against the current. You have to put a lot of energy into it and even then, you will not succeed." Nor will it help to escape from them through constant activity or distraction. Trying to suppress them makes them more present because of the rebound effect. We will not find comfort by analyzing them since that does not transform them. Expressing emotions is not feeling them, it is just sharing them. Trying to relax when we have an emotion is to run away from it. Avoiding feeling or denying emotions is a way of rejecting oneself. Not having learned to feel our emotions and deal with our difficulties properly, is what has led us to take refuge in food and has brought about weight gain. In addition, all the energy of our years of unfelt and unprocessed emotions is stored in our bodies at the cellular level.
The Emotions Technique
Luis Navarro gives us guidelines to feel our emotions. When we have an emotion, we usually experience a sensation in the body, "Do yo feel nothing? It is impossible, because you are a human being. Start paying attention to the sensations of your body. Get out of your head, close your eyes, observe your body and you will notice the sensations of your emotions. If at first, they are very dim, that is fine, start with whatever you have" he urges.
When there is a conflict, an upset, an argument, a disappointment, that is, any situation in which we feel an emotion, we must stop and go somewhere, where no one can interrupt us, silence our phone, sit down and close our eyes. It is important to close your eyes to disconnect and pay attention to your physical sensations. Generally, we will notice one or more zones where there is more energy intensity. The next step is to accept the emotion, accept what we feel. Accepting requires courage. It is an act of bravery. We observe the physical sensations in our bodies, but we do nothing, we just accept them. They are neither good nor bad, neither positive nor negative. Whether we like them or not, they are neutral. Next, we allow ourselves to feel the physical sensations. Letting the sensations flow means accepting them, observing them, not intervening and allowing them to resolve themselves. Our organism self-regulates emotions, it is part of our DNA.
With this method, explained by Luis Navarro, an emotion lasts an average of two minutes when we practice.
One Day Using the Method
The Navarro method is so easy that, following it, a day would begin like this: After showering, I look in the mirror and repeat: "I accept my body and I choose to respect myself." At breakfast I ask myself: "Am I really hungry?" I may choose not to eat. At lunch I ask myself, "Am I really hungry?" I choose whether I eat or do not eat. At dinner I ask myself, "Am I really hungry?" I choose whether I eat. Emotions: I feel them during the day when they appear. It is worth a try, right?
Genre: HEALTH & FITNESS / Diets
The book was launched on February 12, 2019 and it´s on its second edition
Porqué leer este libro.
Este no es un libro al uso que te hablará sobre dietas y nutrición. Es el resultado de 15 años de trabajo con cientos de personas que han conseguido adelgazar de una forma saludable y para siempre.
En el libro, te explicaré el Método Navarro para Adelgazar®, como tal, tiene una metodología, unos pasos a seguir que hemos contrastado con cientos de personas y que funciona si haces tú parte. No esperes una dieta, no lo es, y además no funcionan. Es un método para que adelgaces de una forma saludable hasta alcanzar tu peso natural. En este proceso de adelgazar conectarás con el indicador del apetito y de la saciedad del estómago y cambiarás los hábitos de la mentalidad de dieta que te han hecho engordar, por nuevos hábitos conectados con tu estómago, donde están la sensación de hambre y la de saciedad.
Es un método especial porque trabaja sobre las causas del sobrepeso, que son dos, los hábitos que hacen que comas en exceso y las emociones, como la ansiedad, que te hacen comer compulsivamente. Crearás progresivamente cuatro nuevos hábitos y aprenderás a sentir tus emociones. De esta forma comerás menos, progresivamente, sin esfuerzo y sin pasar hambre. Es decir, adelgazarás de una forma natural y saludable.
Puedes seguir el libro y con las pautas que te doy, empezar a adelgazar a tu propio ritmo. Notarás cambios como estos siguiendo mi Método: desaparecerá la ansiedad por la comida, dejarás de pensar todo el día en comer, la comida dejará de controlarte, ya no picotearas, no tendrás
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Italian
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Manuela Cuccu
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Portuguese
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Randhal Wendel Fernando de Souza Santos
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