The Viva Mayr Diet: 14 days to a flatter stomach and a younger you. Dr Stossier Harald

mouthful

      Take a small piece of your breakfast spelt (or other) bread and put it in your mouth. Really savour it. Remember that it needs to be totally disintegrated before you swallow it. Try to think about what it is you are eating, and the nutrients you are putting into your body. During breakfast you can take a little bit of herbal or green tea by the spoonful, but no water (the reasons for this will be explained a little later).

      Eat some herbal spread with your bread, adding it to your mouth when you have chewed the bread, to mix it with the saliva you have produced. Swallow when your food is liquid.

      Next start on the scrambled eggs. If you wish, you can toast your spelt bread and serve the eggs on top. Focus on achieving a real taste sensation, which only comes after extensive chewing. Keep moving the toast (or bread) and eggs around your mouth to avoid swallowing before you’ve reached at least 30 chews. Eventually you will taste a total mix of all of the elements, but it’s important to really taste the bread and the eggs. It is an intoxicating feeling and will motivate you to keep going. Later on in the book, when you move on to eating muesli for breakfast, you should aim to experience a similar sensation – savouring and really tasting the sweetness of the berries, the crunchiness of the grains and nuts, and the rich taste of whatever milk you choose.

      Aim for 40 chews

      Dr Stossier says he chews every mouthful between 30 and 40 times, at every meal. So it could be helpful to count at the beginning of your chewing training, to get you into the rhythm of it. At first you will only manage around 15, but this soon improves. Dr Stossier insists that chewing is one of the most crucial things you can do, because if you don’t get the hang of this, nothing else will work. As he puts it, ‘Forgetting to chew in your mouth and expecting your stomach to chew your food instead is not an option.’