‘The reason people don’t believe that diseases are caused by problems in our gut is that they live perfectly happily for, say, 20 years doing the same thing. And then suddenly they are taken ill with, say, diabetes. They assume this is something new but it’s not; it’s a slow process that has been building up for years and years, and which culminates in the disease, even though they seemed healthy before. If you look at a tree, for example, its health and strength does not come from its leaves; these are only a reflection of its health and strength. This comes from its roots, and you can’t see if the roots are sick. Our intestines are our roots; they are not visible, but crucial to our health and strength. If they are weakened, so is the rest of the organism.’
Rather like a house that has a fault in its foundations, we go on for years thinking we’re fine until one day we collapse. The point is you are not either healthy or unwell. The road from health to disease is long and full of small imbalances that do not yet constitute real illness. We don’t often think about the impact of our behaviour on our health, or how we either undermine or support our natural desire to be healthy. Staying healthy requires a certain mind-set and a certain attitude, as well as a certain lifestyle. In practice this means having your own health in mind as a priority when you make all those small, everyday decisions.
Dr Stossier’s theory is that we can avoid almost every disease and live a healthy, slim and happy life if we just learn to eat properly.
‘We don’t really think about eating,’ he says. ‘We just throw some food in and carry on with our busy lives. We have to re-learn this most basic human action.’
It is true that until I met Dr Stossier, I just ate. It didn’t really matter to me what I ate, although I did avoid deep-fried Mars bars and other things that were guaranteed to make me fat. In fact, that was my one criterion for food – that it didn’t make me fat. Apart from that, I didn’t really care what I ate or when. And yet, I considered myself quite a healthy person. I exercised regularly, I didn’t get drunk too often, I ate well (or so I thought) and I never drank caffeine. Surely that was enough to secure me a slot as a good person who looks after herself well? Apparently not.
There is something much more crucial than all of that put together, something that I had been neglecting: how I eat.
The right way to eat
To stay alive, we need to eat. Humans take in food, process it and then get rid of the end product. However sophisticated we are, the fact remains that the human species is part of a natural order. The types of food we eat and how we eat needs to reflect this. In other words, our eating habits need to reflect our biological roots and needs, and not just whatever happens to be convenient as we rush from home to work to the pub or the gym. There is a right way to eat and a wrong way, and, according to Dr Stossier, the vast majority of us are eating the wrong way.
Just what is the ‘right way’ to eat? There are endless books, arguments and theses on this subject. But the one thing we all agree on is that nutrition has a huge impact on our health and well-being. Most would agree that eating well plays a major part, if not the major part, in disease prevention. We were all told to eat our greens as children, and we all know why. Doctors are forever telling us to cut down on cholesterol and saturated fats. But Dr Stossier argues that it’s not quite that simple. As well as eating those greens and avoiding saturated fats, you need to be aware of how and at what time of day to eat them, in order to help them to support your body to stay slim and healthy in the most effective way.
Nutrition influences our bodies in a number of ways. To live, we need a certain amount of energy, which we get from our food. We generally measure the type and quantity of food in the number of calories. But most people know from bitter experience that counting calories alone does not lead either to good health or even optimum weight. Whether we are calorie-counting or not, the vast majority of us manage to nourish ourselves more or less successfully throughout our lives. Most of us think that the majority of eating choices we make are good for us. Obviously we know when we’re being ‘naughty’, but we let it pass and promise to be better tomorrow.
If we don’t manage to be better tomorrow, we end up fat, and then go on a diet. I have read almost 100 diet books – not only in an effort to lose weight, but also to try and sort out digestive problems like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), from which I am convinced I have suffered since childhood. I haven’t found a single one that gave me a solution that was sustainable, logical and do-able.
What is missing from all the diet books I have read is logic, clearly defined guidelines and tangible results. In addition, I have yet to come across one diet book that is based on real medical and scientific knowledge. Most of them drone on about what to avoid, but they don’t actually tell you how to optimise your health and lose weight at the same time. They just tell you about all the things you can’t eat, which makes for pretty dull reading.
We all know that if we cut out dairy, sugar and wheat from our diets we lose weight. But is this actually good for our health, and how sustainable is it? How many times can you go out for lunch with your friends and eat nothing but a lettuce leaf before they stop asking you to join them? How many times have you struggled to lose weight by denying yourself just about everything you want to eat, only to put on every painfully lost pound within a few weeks? The Viva Mayr Diet is not about cutting things out of your diet and starving yourself. The Viva Mayr Diet is about changing the way you view food and eating, changing bad habits for good ones, thus ensuring weight loss and good health as well. Better still, it is also about ensuring that those pounds don’t just pile back on again. It is a life-long way of eating, and if you follow the Viva Mayr philosophy, you will never be overweight again; it is simply physically impossible.
The Viva Mayr philosophy embraces good nutrition, and good nutrition is the best form of preventive healthcare there is. Luckily, we alone are responsible for our nutritional choices – put simply, we are responsible for what we put into our mouths. Good health is an ongoing daily aim and every day is the right day to start.
Taking responsibility
Health is created by our own actions and efforts, and we are solely responsible for it. Of course, accidents happen for which we cannot be blamed, but on an everyday level, you choose how well you’re going to feel or how healthy you’re going to be. You know, for example, that drinking 14 Tequila Slammers is not going to make you feel good. But it’s your choice. Sometimes you just need those 14 Tequila Slammers (OK, maybe just a couple …).
The Greek philosopher Hippocrates noted that ‘health arises when we actively seek it’, and this premise is an important feature of the Viva Mayr philosophy, which defines the search for health as a positive thing. Health is quality of life in all its dimensions, which may vary from one individual to the next. We need to look at health as a natural and positive force that we each carry within us, and understand that it is within our own power to nurture. Quality of life as a parameter is attracting growing interest among scientists. There are even ‘how to be happy’ classes at Harvard University.
The word ‘diet’ comes from the ancient Greek term diaita. But, interestingly, this word didn’t mean to the Greeks what it does today; rather, it meant ‘way of life’ or ‘lifestyle’. In antiquity, living a health-conscious life was the obvious thing to do. This meant a disciplined approach to eating, including regular periods of fasting. Physical exercise and spirituality were also considered an important part of a healthy life. Diaita was far more than just a way to help people shed a few pounds, which is what the term ‘diet’ tends to mean now. This is also in keeping with the Viva Mayr approach to dieting. It is not a quick-fix to help you shed pounds (although it will do that), but an approach to adopt for life, to ensure that you not only stay thin, but also – more importantly – healthy.
Dr Mayr, the Austrian physician and Viva Mayr namesake, said: ‘Nutrition is the result of the food we eat and our digestive system.’ In other words, what matters is what we make of the food we eat.
When we eat a certain food – fish, meat, vegetable or potato – its nutrients