Some say obesity is the material of the psyche, others that it is woven into our DNA sequences; as for me, it is all in the globules of the fat cells.
    I do my daily limbic exercises on a second-floor porch with a large skylight in the ceiling. The wood frame of the skylight is deep, and the glass is set high on top of it. Distant treetops show up in the lower quarter of the skylight frame, otherwise the large glass yields a wide, uninterrupted view of the open sky.
    When I do my exercises, I sometimes see insects hovering around within the skylight case. They frequently hit the glass, fall several inches, and fly up again, only to hit the glass pane again. It is a mundane sight. The bugs do not seem to recognize the obvious: In order to fly up and out, they first need to fly down and in. Usually this is but a minor distraction. When I go limbic, the bugs are no longer a part of my awareness. Sometimes a bumblebee or a wasp does distract me, especially when I see them rushing into the glass time and again, tricked by the illusion of a clear passage provided by the glass. On such occasions, my thoughts sometimes drift to how often we human beings fly into our own skylight glass pane.
    How often does our biology spring up its own molecular skylight glass pane on us? Food allergy, in my clinical experience, is the number one cause of undue fatigue. How often do people who feel tired after eating realize that their food is the real culprit? Food addiction and food allergy are flip sides of the same immunologic coin. How often does a person realize that his craving for certain foods is a symptom of withdrawal? How often is a child in the throes of molecular roller coasters (caused by rapid hypoglycemic-hyperglycemic shifts) taught to see the link between his misery and his food? How often does a chemically sensitive woman develop a sudden headache or suffer sharp mood swings when she shops in a fabric store? How often does she recognize that high concentrations of formaldehyde in the shop air is the cause of her suffering? How often a successful business executive is awakened early in the morning with chest pain, rushed to the emergency department and given many tests only to be told that he has suffered from a "slight heart attack"? How often does he see that his heart is serving his body as a "spokesorgan"? It is rebelling against not just what might have happened to it the day before, but what has been done to it by tight arteries for years. And why does his heart choose to awaken him at that ungodly hour? Because it knows — even if he does not — that when he sleeps he is not dead.
    Then there are other skylight panes. There are skylights of our own making, skylights of our past experiences and skylights of our feared future suffering. How often do we hit our heads against these skylights? How often do we smash into these skylights when we want to fly? Over and over, we seek to fly up and out. But all we do is jam up against the skylight glass of our past — of past hurts, of past guilt, of past conflicts and of past failures. Some days such thoughts persist. When they do, I make a conscious attempt to sublimate my thinking into my limbic void. My exercise is more giving when it is limbic.
    One day I saw the usual chorus of my entomologic comrades. I also saw a butterfly with brilliant crimson-colored wings with yellow and green polka dots. It was too beautiful a visitor to simply ignore. I decided to extend her the courtesy of companionship. I watched her as I did my rebounding exercises. The butterfly fluttered its magnificently colored wings in a dazzling display of aerial acrobatics. It is okay to be cortical at times like that, I thought.
   The intensity of the butterfly colors and an escape from the usual gray of other insects absorbed me for how long I do not know. I came around to realize that the butterfly is in the same quandary as the other insects: She wants to fly out but cannot escape the trap of illusion created by the skylight glass. What was an engaging display for me was a struggle for life for my colorful visitor. She was exhausted and frightened now, and it showed in her strained patterns of flying. She wanted to fly up and out but to do that she first had to fly down and in. This she did not seem to know.
    While rebounding, I tried to gently guide the butterfly to fly low, clear the deep wood frame of the skylight, and then fly out. My persuasions appeared to frighten the poor thing even further. I wondered if I would see her dead body the way I sometimes see the dead bodies of other insects on the porch floor the next day. A sad thought. I went back to my limbic exercises.
    The butterfly comes back to me as I write about the anguish of obese people and the punishing illusion of thinness created by the weight-loss programs. I reflect upon the plight of obese people. Obese people are up against their own skylight glass. They are advised by the "nutrition experts" to diet to lose weight. With dieting, they try to fly through the skylight glass. Again and again they try, only to be hurt and deceived and disappointed. Obese people are just as perceptive and clear-headed as their thin friends. The problem is that this maladaptation of catabolism is every bit as deceptive as the skylight glass was for my butterfly.

Catabolic Maladaptation
    I coined the term catabolic maladaptation to refer to an abnormal state of metabolism that causes obesity. In this state, the fat cells are bloated with toxic fats. Fat-processing enzymes in fat cells malfunction, fat-burning enzymes in muscle cells are poisoned and muscle fibers are emaciated from disuse. The metabolic efficiency of all tissues is impaired. The individual is tired. The internal ecology of the bowel is disturbed. Food and mold allergy frequently exists. Catabolic maladaptation is caused by toxins in food, injured molecules and cells, sluggish enzymes, swollen fat cells, lame muscles, altered bowel ecology, and tired tissues. Obese people generally understand that their catabolism (breakdown) of fat is impaired. What they usually do not recognize is that the catabolism of other nutrients such as amino acids, sugars, vitamins and minerals is also defective in obesity.
    The catabolic principle evolved slowly for me. For over fifteen years now, I have focused my research and clinical interests on issues of nutrition, environment and immunity. I have cared for a large number of patients with diverse chronic immune and degenerative disorders for whom our Star Wars medicine had failed, utterly and totally. In caring for these people, I limited myself to molecular protocols of nutritional medicine, environmental medicine, medicine of self-regulation and medicine of fitness. Most of my patients lost weight as they obtained symptom relief and gained higher levels of energy, even though weight loss was not our intended goal. As I observed these people suffer for long periods of time and eventually succeed, the true nature of these problems of molecular toxicity of foods, enzymatic poisoning caused by pollutants, disuse atrophy of mitochondria, catabolic insufficiency and obesity (the catabolic maladaptation) gradually took shape in my mind.
    With dieting, overweight people, like my butterfly, attempt to fly through the unyielding glass of catabolic maladaptation. Like my butterfly, they get hurt each time they fly into the glass. And like my butterfly, they try again, over and over, again and again. They starve. They scream in anguish. They scheme of clever ways of fooling their toxic fat cells. They lose weight initially by losing water and muscle. They become flabby. Their fat-burning muscle fibers thin out. Their fat-burning enzymes become even more sluggish. Their cells become more fat-toxic. They begin to gain weight even as they eat less and less. The scarred veteran warriors of this dieting war bear testimony to their attempts to fly through their skylight glasses. Obese people need to fly up and out of their catabolic glass frame by flying around their glass. How can they understand the illusion if their "nutrition experts" do not?
    Obese people, first and foremost, need to understand the catabolic illusion. They need professionals who can guide them away from dieting and away from herculean exercise programs. The catabolic illusion has several facets, and all are deceptive.

The catabolic illusion masks the molecular mimicry of catabolic maladaptation.

    Nineteenth-century English naturalist Henry Walter Bates studied butterflies in the Amazon river basin during the mid-1800s. He observed how birds found certain species of butterflies to be "tasty" while they avoided other species that were "toxic" and made the birds sick. He further observed how some tasty butterflies protected themselves from birds by mimicking the appearance of toxic butterflies. This hypothesis of one species exploiting the defense system of another species is called Batesian mimicry. Molecules mimic each other, and so do cells and tissues. Molecules mimic each other for diverse reasons. Sometimes it is beneficial for the organism, at other times it is injurious. Molecular and cellular mimicry is recognized by naturalists and biologists in nature, and by astute clinicians in the clinical practice of medicine.
    What my butterfly taught me, in a way, is very similar to what Bates butterflies taught him. Mimicry is ubiquitous in biology. Bates butterflies found a way to use mimicry for preservation. My butterfly fell victim to the mimicry of her nerve cells which mistook the skylight glass for a clear passage to the open air. Obese people need to learn, understand and observe how molecular and cellular mimicry can both help and hurt. Dieting for thinness is a cruel form of molecular mimicry. It hurts the person in many ways.

First, the catabolic illusion leads the obese person to diet, eat less, and down-regulate his fat-burning enzymes when in reality he really needs to eat more and up-regulate these enzymes.

    Food fuels the furnace of metabolism; exercise stokes its fire. This simple fact of human biology is widely misunderstood. The merchants of our rich dieting industry know the money is in packed frozen foods. It is not in teaching people simple facts of biology. Our TV, our magazines, our newspapers, all carry the same message: Diet and be slim. Who has the courage to go up against all this?
    While the men of money in the dieting industry see their profits clearly, the professional dieting experts on their payroll have their own skylights. So do the dieting experts in our hospitals and public institutions. They scheme of clever diets. I sometimes wonder if there are any health professionals who profit more from their own incompetence than the medical "experts" in the weight-control business. Veteran dieters know this all too well. They pay for their weight loss over and over again.
    There is an appalling paucity of knowledge of human biology and metabolism among our weight-control experts. Perhaps the worst offenders are those who work in our hospitals. In the chapter Life Span Food Choices, I give detailed lists of food choices and include my reasons for dividing foods into life span and aging-oxidant categories.

Second, the catabolic illusion pulls the obese person toward sugar-burning exercise whereas his bloated fat cells really need fat-burning exercise.

    The essential nature of obesity is down-regulation of fat-burning enzymes. The real issue is how to up-regulate these enzymes and not merely burn calories.
    The notion of burning calories to lose unwanted pounds of fat is pervasive in the United States. Hardly a week goes by that I do not hear someone outline his ambitious plans for exercise to burn out his excessive weight. With rare exceptions, all he gets is sore muscles, pulled tendons and bruised spirits.
    Exercise that causes sweating and heavy breathing and gives us tired muscles is sugar-burning exercise. I call such exercise "cortical exercise." Cortical exercise is of very limited value for up-regulation of fat-burning enzymes. Up-regulation of fat-burning enzymes requires slow, sustained exercise. I call such exercise "limbic exercise." For reversing catabolic maladaptation, an overweight person needs to know the critical difference between these two types of exercise. I discuss this subject at length in the companion volume The Ghoraa and Limbic Exercise.
    The health professional advising the obese person so often fails to see the critical difference between sugar-burning cortical and fat-burning limbic exercises. It is only when the catabolic illusion is dissipated with knowledge and insight that the obese person has any real chance of correcting his catabolic maladaptation for good.

Third, the catabolic illusion blinds us to the problems caused by food and mold allergy.

    Food and mold allergy feed the molecular roller coasters triggered by dieting and ill-advised herculean exercises for burning off fat. Hives caused by allergy are seen by all. The internal "hives" of the bowel, the liver, the heart and other organs are not obvious to the innocent victim of the merchants of our dieting industry.

Fourth, the catabolic illusion feeds molecular roller coasters.

    Sudden rises in blood sugar evoke sudden insulin responses. Bursts of insulin drive the blood sugar down to hypoglycemic levels and trigger the release of adrenaline and related chemicals. This causes apprehension, light-headedness, mood swings, heart palpitations, and other signals that call out the body's need for more quick energy. The person reaches for more sugary snacks and repeats the whole cycle of the molecular roller coaster.

Fifth, the catabolic illusion misplaces the blame of sugar, salt and fat craving on "the problems of the mind."

    Salt causes, perpetuates and intensifies salt craving. Sugar feeds the sugar craving. Fats foster fat craving. All three feed upon each other. Craving is not a problem of the mind. Craving is a form of catabolic molecular mimicry.

    Sixth, the catabolic illusion keeps the obese person in the dark about the fundamentals of metabolism.

    Food increases basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the essential metabolic indicator of the body's ability to generate and expend energy. Thin people have higher BMRs; they burn calories at a much faster rate than their obese friends. How can we increase the BMR? By eating more. How is the BMR lowered? By dieting.

Seventh, the catabolic illusion confounds us about the issues of the bowel ecology.

    The ancients, it seems, intuitively knew the central role of the bowel in preserving health. I have had an opportunity to examine several thousand bowel biopsies. I have also cared for a very large number of patients with indolent chronic bowel disorders. This experience has led me to conclude that preservation of normal gut ecology is essential for promoting good health and optimal weight. I discuss this subject at length in my monograph The Altered States of Bowel Ecology and Health Preservation.
    In altered states of bowel ecology, the bowel is starved of energy (the bowel arteries are in spasm), uneven in its rhythm (cramps, diarrhea, constipation), depleted of its digestive acid and enzymes, unable to keep undigested foods out (the so-called Leaky Bowel Syndrome), overgrown with yeast and infested with parasites. Obese people often have an altered bowel ecology. They cannot solve the problem of the catabolic maladaptation without first restoring their bowel ecology to normal.

Eighth, the catabolic illusion belittles the importance of limbic listening.

    Western culture, in many ways, is a culture of confession. We seem to believe that to talk about hurt is to understand it, to find a name for a person's anguish is to define it, to intellectualize about suffering is to dissipate it, to think about disease is to heal it. My clinical work has led me to serious reservations about such simplistic notions. Again, the veteran dieters will bear testimony to the limited value of such intellectual gymnastics. In the chapter On Limbic Eating, I discuss the essential need to learn to listen limbiclly to our biology, to the demands of our tissues and to the real hunger signals.
    An obese person needs to see all the illusions of the catabolic maladaptation, clearly, completely and unequivocally. He needs to see all the faces of this monster. This requires learning, eating life span foods, doing limbic exercise, observing the effects of these steps, and repeating this cycle over and over again until the catabolic maladaptation is permanently reversed.
    An obese person needs to gain muscle mass and increase the amount of fat-burning tissue. That usually means a slight initial weight gain (or at least absence of weight loss). This happens because muscle tissue is heavier than fat tissue. Only then can he hope to increase his rate of burning (and losing) fat. This is the beginning of the process of the reversal of catabolic maladaptation. This is the beginning of a permanent change.

An obese person needs to learn how to fly down and in before he can fly up and out.

Obesity is a physical and a pathological state.

    The obese state is a physical state. This is self-evident. We all recognize this. Obesity is not a normal state. This is also self-evident. What is rarely realized, however, is that the essential nature of obesity is a profound disturbance of energy enzymes. Obesity is a pathological state, and it can be explained and understood as molecular defects. The structural and functional changes observed in the cells, tissues and organs of overweight people are consequences of molecular deviations.

Obesity is not a problem of the mind.

    Ask an obese person if he has any problem thinking clearly. Next, ask him if he is confused about matters of health, energy, fatigue, or the hunger pangs that come with dieting. Then ask him if he overeats when he is angry. Next ask a thin person if he overeats when he gets angry, hostile or depressed. The probable answers will be that both obese and thin people sometimes overeat when they are angry. At other times they do not. Obese people do not have a monopoly over problems of the mind. Nor are thin people immune to eating disorders. Indeed, depressed people almost always lose weight as the depression deepens. Anti-depressants cause weight gain. There has never been a scientific study showing that obese people suffered from more anger, hostility or stress than thin people before they became fat. Obesity, once established, of course, brings forth its own heavy load of fatigue, anguish and stress.

Obesity is caused by injured molecules and injured cells.

    Obesity is a matter of injured molecules and cells. It is a matter of toxic and oxidized fats, denatured and cross-linked proteins, disfigured and mutated sugar molecules, depleted enzymes, absent micronutrients, synthetic toxicants and poisonous heavy metals. It is a matter of trans fatty acids in margarines that our body cannot utilize, and of cyclic fatty compounds, produced during food processing and deep-frying, that are toxic to our molecules.
    Injured molecules and cells need more, not less, food for healing. Dieting starves the sick molecules that yearn for nutrition and health. Dieting further injures the already damaged molecules, cells and tissues. This book is about losing weight and gaining more energy by eating more life span foods (foods that sustain our life span) and eliminating aging-oxidant foods (foods that cause premature aging).

Obesity is but one symptom of the most pervasive disorder of our time, the "dis-ease Syndrome."

    The dis-ease syndrome is characterized by an accelerated oxidative molecular injury. In this state, oxidative molecules of stress, toxic foods and environmental toxicants feed the furnace of molecular oxidation and cause a molecular burnout. I discuss the global issues of this syndrome in The Cortical Monkey and Healing. In the present volume, I will describe in detail the aspects of autoregulation that are essential for success in achieving and maintaining life span weight. Autoregulation is not mind-over-body healing. It is about perceiving the energy in our tissues, enhancing that energy, and finally directing it to specific tissues for specific results. In the companion volume, The Ghoraa and Limbic Exercise, I discuss strategies for a body-over-mind approach to slow and sustained exercise for attaining and maintaining the life span weight.

Obesity is virtually nonexistent in tribal cultures.

    We often hear about the role of genetics in obesity. We are told to see how often the children of obese people are also obese. That is true. Overweight parents often have overweight children. But the issue of hereditary factors in obesity is not such a simple matter. The children of obese parents are usually exposed to the same risk factors that cause catabolic maladaptation and obesity in their parents. It is interesting to consider the incidence of obesity in tribal cultures. There is virtually no obesity among tribal cultures. Yet when these people move from tribal living to "advanced" living, obesity appears within a few decades. Eskimos in Alaska and American Indians are two unmistakable examples of this phenomenon. Obesity in both groups was almost nonexistent when they lived in their traditional ways. However, obesity and alcoholism are dominant health problems in both ethnic groups now.

Psychosomatic and somatopsychic models of disease are artifacts of our thinking.
   Our diseases are burdens on our biology. These burdens are imposed upon our genetic makeup by our external and internal environments. The intensity of suffering caused by these burdens is profoundly influenced by a third element — the choices we make in our response to these burdens.
    The catabolic maladaptation, the root cause of obesity, is also a consequence of environmental burdens on our genetic makeup. The genetic factors involved here, as we shall see later, are of much lesser significance than the external elements. These elements include toxic foods, molecular roller coasters caused by aging-oxidant foods, nutritional deficiencies, dysfunction of lipases (enzymes that regulate fat utilization), poisoned mitochondrial oxidative enzymes (that burn fat to generate energy), confused and bloated fat cells and tired muscle cells suffering from disuse atrophy. One of my overweight patients put it most succinctly:

 "Dr. Ali, I am very fat now. I used to be very slim. I really do know my problem. My problem is simple: My metabolism has shut."
   True insights in our biology, it seems to me, usually come through suffering. This person is so right. Shut metabolism! That is exactly what the catabolic maladaptation does.
    A physician's most treasured teachers are his patients, and not any laboratory mice or medical students (whose services are usually "volunteered" by their professors when they use them as their experimental animals for their research projects).

Obesity cannot be reversed with dieting.
   Dieting does not work. Ask any veteran dieter. In the rare event when people do seem to be succeeding with weight loss and show improvement in their molecular health and level of energy, they do so for reasons which have nothing to do with dieting. There is an abundance of pundits of dieting who peddle their potions as they plunder the pockets of their unsuspecting victims. This book seeks to explode the myth of dieting and the mystique of dieting pundits.
    I intend to give the reader a well-structured, easy-to-follow program for attaining life span weight, keeping the muscles firm and vigorous, spurring fat-burning enzymes into brisk activity, and shedding unnecessary pounds of fat. Still, I recommend the reader find a professional who is knowledgeable in the subjects of nutrition, metabolism and the impact of environment on human biology. The clinical application of the catabolic principle should be easy to master for any professional with some experience. As for autoregulation, I recommend the books mentioned previously, and when possible, workshops on meditation and self-regulation given by professionals who are knowledgeable and experienced in those areas.

Obesity reversal for many people is a burden to be relieved only by a miracle.
    This miracle, however, can be attained. But it is not a miracle that involves a secret potion or an ancient concoction or an exotic plant root from a distant land or even a triumph of modern synthetic chemistry. It is a miracle of learning, of knowledge, of catabolic insights, and of hope and life.