please palates, fulfill physiological needs, and permit detoxification.
Using my creative energies (which were always at their fullest in the
kitchen), and pulling from my extensive background in gourmet cooking
'Remember, a most important aspect of detoxification is healthy weight loss!
INTRODUCTION • HI and the culinary arts, I began to develop a HIGH-ENERGY approach to
nutritious home cooking that would satisfy desires for variety and flavor
and keep me on a detoxification program, feeling better and stronger with
each passing day. Subsequently, in addition to my exposure to and stud
ies of French and Italian haute cuisine and American and ethnic cuisine,
I studied food artistry, Chinese food preparation, and the cuisines of In
dia and the Middle East. During that time I also received a masters de
gree in nutritional science from the American College of Health Science.
Harvey had been involved in Natural Hygiene for six years before
meeting me, and he was much more comfortable on a regimen of fruits
and vegetables than I was. He had already been through the transition
period when one gives up many of the foods that are not beneficial and
learns to substitute new foods that are. He had already conquered most of
the cravings that I was just beginning to deal with. Harvey taught me
many of the meals that he had enjoyed at the beginning of his transition,
but we both realized that for the "detoxification and permanent slenderiz
ing of America" a very wide variety of meals would have to be developed
so that the experience could be enjoyable rather than clinical. Our meals
became a real challenge for me to see what I could come up with that
would be delicious and satisfying, that the kids would love, and that
would be good for all of us. It required me to be newly creative with
vegetables! Frequently mealtime became a bustling family endeavor.
That time was a great deal of fun, and we have wanted our program to
maintain that joyous spirit so that one's becoming "fit for life" can be the
wonderful beginning of the best part of ones life. These endeavors are the
basis of the program that we are presenting to you. These are menus that
allow eating to be a celebration for your taste buds and a boon for your
body!
They are designed to help you adopt a new eating life-style so that you
will never again have to deal with the problem of excess weight. They are
designed to put you in harmony with your natural body cycles. New
menu ideas will be presented allowing you to effortlessly adhere to the
principles and begin the all-important detoxification of your body. Once
initiated, this detoxification will be ongoing and automatic as long as you
adhere to the principles to the best of your ability. Weight loss will also
be automatic as your body, given the energy to do so, joyously restores
itself to its most comfortable weight. If you enjoy these recipes and find
them satisfying, you may be interested in referring to my first recipe
book, The Common Sense Guide to a New Way of Eating,* which offers
many different ideas for the transition period.
4Marilyn Diamond. The Common Sense Guide to a New Way of Eating. Santa Monica, California:
Golden Glow Publishers, 1979.
112'FIT FOR LIFE Consider the next four weeks a transition period in your life. If you
follow the menus outlined, you will automatically be eating fruit cor
rectly, consuming an adequate amount of high-water-content food, and
combining your foods properly. In our practice and in the Four-week
Detoxification Workshops5 we have held, we have found that the sim
plest way to adopt a new eating life-style is to follow a step-by-step four-
week sample of what that life-style would be. Keep in mind that this is
precisely what your program is—A SAMPLE. It is not the only regimen
that works. That is not what FIT FOR LIFE is all about. What we are
giving you here is an example of how to use the principles correctly on a
daily basis. Our goal is to demonstrate to you the free and creative use of
these principles, not to imprison you in a regimen that you use as you
have used diets in the past... until you got so bored that you had to
revert to your old eating habits. That is why you will notice that there are
no hard and fast rules in the menu section. Portions are loosely defined.
We encourage you to eat to be satisfied and to substitute your favorite
ingredients or even a favorite menu item from another day for the exam
ples given. Once you have completed the program, you will know how to
eat according to the principles, and you will feel confident about your
new eating life-style. If you don't, then repeat it until you do. For some it
takes longer than others to learn a new skill. That is what this is—the
skill of joyful eating to achieve and maintain your natural body weight.
You now have all the background information that you need. It is time
to put the program into practice and experience firsthand...
'In those four-week workshops, many people easily lost between fifteen and twenty-five pounds!
INTRODUCTION • 113 CHAPTER
Breakfast
Y -I-our morning meals from now on
will be a breeze. They will hardly ever vary, UNTIL NOON EVERY DAY
YOU MAY HAVE AS MUCH FRESH FRUIT JUICE AND FRESH FRUIT AS
YOU DESIRE. This will insure that during the length of the elimination
cycle your body will be able to work fully on elimination, not digestion!
Feel free to eat as much fruit as you need to feel satisfied, and, of course,
make sure you eat it on an empty stomach. Try to start each day with a
fresh fruit juice, if it is available: orange, apple, tangerine, melon,
pineapple. Remember that it is most beneficial to make your juice your
self. Make it a top priority to own a juicer—at the very least, a simple
citrus juicer.
When desired, have pieces of juicy fruit throughout the morning. Over
a three- to four-hour period we recommend that you have several pieces of
fruit. One serving of fruit is the amount that leaves you feeling comfort
able. It may be one orange, or it may be a bowl of four quartered
oranges. It may be an apple, or it may be two peaches sliced and sprin
kled with a tablespoon of currants. It may be half a cantaloupe or a threc-
inch-thick slice of watermelon. It may be a banana or two bananas. Fruit
consumption is an art to be developed by each individual. What matters
• 114 • is that you eat enough to feel satisfied. It does not matter if that requires
one piece or a large platter full. In Harvey's words, "Some like to have
fruit in the morning, some like to have juice, others prefer warm water
with lemon juice. The most important thing I can tell you is that we are
not intending to give you some ironclad laws not to be violated or di
gressed from in any way. Rather, these are principles to be conveniently
fitted into your personal life-style."
Learn to listen to the wants and needs of your body, DON'T OVEREAT
AND DON'T UNDEREAT! DO BE SATISFIED! Neither stuff yourself to com
pensate for the emptiness you may feel from missing your customary
heavier breakfast nor skip the fruit because you don't feel like having it.
YOU NEED THE FRUIT! It supplies the water content and fuel that are so
necessary for detoxification.
As the morning progresses, if you feel hungry and are beginning to
crave heavier foods, have a couple of bananas. They stay in your stomach
a little longer than juicy fruits and give you a fuller feeling. It is fine to
have more than one. Be sure that they are ripe, not green. The green
indicates that the starch has not yet turned to sugar. Brown spots on the
skin of the banana indicate that the starch has been converted to sugar.
Dates and dried fruit should not be eaten at all during the period when
you are concentrating on weight loss. Although they are wonderful natu
ral energy foods, they are so full of concentrated sugar that they will
inhibit weight loss. Since it is easy to overeat them, it is best to avoid
them completely until you have lost at least some of the weight you wish
to lose. Ultimately, when you are nearing your ideal weight, you will
find them to be a perfect solution to a craving for unwholesome processed
sweets. Initially, however, they can be counterproductive, especially if
you lack self-control.
An important rule to review is that you may eat fruit of a juicy nature
until twenty minutes to one half hour before you eat lunch. Allow about
forty-five minutes for banana to pass out of your stomach. Melons have
the highest water content of any fruit. It is recommended that they be
eaten before other fruit, because they pass through the stomach more
quickly.
If you like to sit down to a meal in the morning, try a fruit salad. If you
have children, try, little by little, to start off their day with fresh juice and
a fruit salad too. Even though they may be addicted to overly large, ill-
combined breakfasts, if they make the transition to fruit in the


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