Prevention: Why did you decide to write this book?Dr. Travis Stork: So many diets out there are about losing weight really, really quickly. But then the entire time you’re losing weight, you’re miserable. I wanted to write a book that helps people lose weight, improving their health all the while. More importantly, one where once they lose the weight, they could keep it off. Let’s face it, as a doctor, what I care about when you lose weight is what it does to your health. If there were one concept I could highlight from this book, it’s this: Let food be thy medicine. Food actually does help you lose weight if you eat it the right way, and it improves your health. PVN: Have you ever struggled with your own weight or health?TS: I did a project on The Doctors four years ago. The producers asked me to spend one week stopping all the healthy habits that I’ve had all my life. They took away my bike, and they made me eat fast food for every meal for a week. After 6 days, I gained 8 pounds and my blood pressure had gone into the hypertensive range because I was so affected by the sodium I was eating. I actually threw my back out and I literally became melancholy. What I learned in that experience was how addictive food can be and how quickly it can make you feel miserable. PVN: Wow, burgers for every meal sounds like a dream. Was it hard to get off of that?TS: Oh no. I was supposed to do it for a full week, but after six days I had to quit. I felt so miserable! I was literally dreading it—as good as the food would taste, I knew what was happening inside my body and my mind. The only thing I cared about was my next meal. I just knew how much better life is when you eat the kind of diet I profile in the book. There’s not a meal I eat that I don’t enjoy. PVN: What’s the least healthy food you allow yourself to eat? TS: I don’t believe in such a thing as complete deprivation. If you never have a treat, that’s no good. My treat is brownies. But I don’t keep brownie mix in the house because if I did, I would eat them all day long. I allow myself a treat every now and then, but on the average night, I’ll do what I talk about in the book. Instead of being addicted to sugar, I’ve taught myself how to savor it. In the book I talk about recreating your favorite dishes, and to me, a dark chocolate parfait actually tastes better now than a massive bowl of some unhealthy dessert that’s full of hydrogenated oils and trans fats. PVN: Among your doctor colleagues, how mainstream is the notion that food has everything to do with health?TS: Not as mainstream as it should be. A lot of times, I’ve seen healthcare providers in the hospital go in to see a patient, and they’re carrying a can of soda. Nutrition is not taught at the level it should be in medical school. Certainly for us doctors who trained a while ago, it wasn’t part of the curriculum at all. But it’s changing because the evidence is irrefutable that food, in many ways, is a lot more efficacious than even pharmaceutical drugs. But it’s still a notion that we’re trying to get some healthcare providers to buy into. PVN: If you could tell a person to change one thing about her diet, what would that be? TS: I would tell them to never eat a meal without protein in it. Protein is so important to help people feel satisfied after a meal. It actually requires calories just to break down the protein into its structural components and amino acids, and it slows the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream so you don’t get those massive wild swings in blood sugar. When I say add protein, I’m also saying replace the pure sugar. The reason we’ve become collectively so big as a country is that we eat such high-carbohydrate sugary meals that we get these unstable rises in insulin, and that tells our bodies to store fat. It’s amazing how using the components of food, and using good fats with protein, just balances out that effect and also helps you feel full longer. PVN: You know my next question…what’s your favorite healthy snack?TS: Unequivocally it’s become nuts. I just gave a talk recently and said, look, if I told you that there’s a pill you could take 3 times a week that would potentially lower your risk of having a heart attack by 55%, could lower your risk of dying over the course of four years by 39%, that could lower your BMI, and you’d have a skinnier waist…People are shocked that that’s what nuts do. Nuts are high in good fats, protein, and fiber, and people who regularly consume them are, in general, healthier than people who don’t. And it’s probably the most satisfying, portable “fast food” out there. PVN: You’re book is really inspiring, and after you read it you want to change everything about your diet. But that’s overwhelming. What’s the best place to start?TS: There’s a reason the book starts with what I call the STAT plan. “Stat” is a term we use in emergency medicine when you need to start treatment right here, right now. What I tell people to do is to turn to page one and start reading. Start with your next meal, because your health begins to improve after that first “doctor-approved” meal. As your palate begins to recognize some of the new foods I’m asking people to eat in the book, you actually undergo a change. In some ways, changing how you eat is the best decision you can ever make in your life. Without having good health as the foundation for your life, it’s really tough to be happy. And unfortunately for most people, the reason they don’t have good health is because of what they’re knowingly, willingly eating. It’s actually simpler than people think once they make the commitment. Most people are either equipped with the wrong knowledge and they become frustrated—people on and off different diets. They don’t really understand how food works to help them lose weight and keep it off. But once you have the knowledge and you commit, I can’t say it emphatically enough as a doctor: It absolutely can add years to your life, and better years. People cannot even begin to imagine how much better they’ll feel. It really opens up a new way of life. I see a lot of people who wish they had made changes sooner in their lives. It’s never too late, but the earlier someone makes the decision, it absolutely can have a dramatic effect on how well and how long they live. More from Prevention: Dr. Stork’s Lifesaving Lessons From The ER
