The Fat Resistance Diet

When I first met Lilly, she was thirty-five years old, a respected editor at a national news magazine--and more than fifty pounds overweight. On the medical history form that I give to all my new patients, she had summarized her primary health concern: "Can't lose weight."

"All my life it's been this way," she told me in one brief phrase with tears in her eyes. "Sometimes I can lose for a little while, taking off ten or even twenty pounds. But I have to starve myself to make that happen, and even then, it doesn't last."

Lilly's frustration was all the greater because she'd been following one diet or another ever since high school. In college, she'd supplemented her severely restrictive diet with a vigorous exercise routine. "But even when I dropped a few pounds, I always put them back again--and then some," she explained. "I don't know why I can't lose weight. Even when I'm good, I don't lose much. And if I slip for even a single day, I go up five pounds."

By the time Lilly came to see me, she weighed 214 pounds. Yet as I reviewed her diet and exercise plan, I could see that she was indeed making an effort. Every morning, she worked out for forty minutes--"even on Sundays and holidays," she insisted--and she'd gotten her daily intake down to 1,200 calories or less, mostly in the form of low-fat protein bars, chicken breasts, cottage cheese, and green salads. It was hard to see how she could exercise any more or eat any less. Yet the pounds clung stubbornly to her hips, thighs, and belly.

"Okay, doctor," she concluded with a sigh. "Tell me what else to cut out. At this point, I'll try anything."

"Frankly," I told her, "I don't want you to eat less. The problem isn't what you're eating--it's what you're not eating. So from this day forward, I want you to eat more."

Excerpted from The Fat Resistance Diet by Leo Galland, M.D. Copyright © 2005 by Leo Galland, M.D.. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.