Stay off My Operating Table: A Heart Surgeon’s Metabolic Health Guide to Lose Weight, Prevent Disease, and Feel Your Best Every Day

by Philip Ovadia

When you load up on the proper nutrients at meals, you won’t need to snack as often, which means fewer calories. That in turn can help you shed weight and not face so many food temptations during the day.

To incorporate more movement, focus less on exercise but be more active whenever possible. Just get up and move around.

By incorporating constant movement, you build and maintain muscle as you age. It may be challenging to work out at the gym an hour every day in your sixties, but even a person in their nineties can incorporate constant movement. If you really want to build muscle, focus on metabolically healthy exercise. No, that’s not cardio. It’s lifting and resistance body-weight

exercises. And building and maintaining muscle as you age should be the primary focus, because it directly correlates to quality of life.

would you rather be too weak to push yourself up or so muscular that you can roll into the push-up position

You don’t need to be a bodybuilder to achieve good results over the course of your lifetime, you just need to maintain a reasonable amount of mass. That means keeping yourself from being overweight but also from being underweight or undermuscled.

Marathon runners actually live shorter lifespans than the average population based on available research.

Read up on that shocking fact, and you’ll realize that your time is likely better spent elsewhere.

Many food cravings actually don’t come from hunger but from some nutritional deficiency.

when you get a craving and eat a high-carb food. You’re hungry again in an hour, right? Because you haven’t provided your body with any real nutrition, you just dumped in a bunch of calories.

And keep an eye out for vague keywords like “seasonings” or “natural flavors.” Even seasonings have sugars and chemicals

occasionally combine heavy cream, vanilla extract, black coffee, cinnamon, and ice in a blender. It’s a great low-carb, metabolically healthy Frappuccino substitute.

It’s all about eating with intention and selecting for nutrition instead of ease or sugar addiction.

Pasta sauce, for example, just needs to be tomatoes, olive oil, and basil.

you can make your own pasta sauce with basil, olive oil, salt, and tomatoes with zucchini noodles.

The vegetable and produce area, meat counter, seafood area, and dairy and egg center will become your primary sources of ingredients.

just get the real food.

One last warning: beware foods that promise good health on the box. Like Keto desserts, the substitute can be worse than the original for bread. Gluten-free does not mean metabolically healthy.

Don’t just swap one poison for another.

Soda is not an essential food for us. Carbonated water or club soda for the fizzy sensation are better than any diet soda.

Soda, on the other hand, is literally pure sugar or sugar substitute without nutrition.

You’re drinking but not getting nutrition, so the body sends the signal to keep drinking.

Anything you consume that doesn’t have vitamins or minerals (even water) wil...

Get away from processed cereals and oatmeals. You don’t need a ton of carbs first thing in the morning. Eat eggs, bacon, and sausage that don’t have any added ingredients. Steak and eggs work great as a protein blast to start your day strong.

When do you even eat? If you’re not hungry, you don’t necessarily need to eat breakfast.

“The most important meal of the day” is a marketing sloga...

if you find that your body still wants to snack,

go for cheese, nuts, or blueberries. If I’m feeling a sweet tooth, I mix plain whole fat Greek yogurt with cinnamon and a little honey.

For nuts, get raw or dr...

Your dinner should be mostly protein so you won’t be hungry.

you can find ice cream and gelato made from simple ingredients, like cream, cane sugar, and vanilla.

ice cream with cream, vanilla, and sugar

For cakes and cookies,

That means making them at home.

Prepare your own food, make your own food, cook your own food. If

Carnivore dieters can blend eggs, stevia, vanilla, whole milk, and butter. Whip it up, put it in the oven, and it forms a cake-like dessert.

stick to real whole food. Follow that simple rule, and you’ll do great.

When you eat at a restaurant, make sure you eat the real whole food before you eat processed food and carbs.

Eat a little at home before you go to the party so you’re not starving.

Leave off or scrape off sauces.

If you’re out and can’t verify the dressing’s ingredients, go with olive oil and vinegar.

sauces and sides and casseroles are always going to be an issue because the cook can hide a ton of

ingredients inside them.

just eat a little ahead of time so you don’t arrive starving and make poor choices.

Now you know better, and you want to do better. So you’re turning to the one thing most of us understand: a restrictive diet. I can respect that. It’s where I started, too. Over time, you’ll likely learn to build your own custom diet that works just for you. I’ve built the Philip Ovadia diet that feeds my body exactly what it needs without filling it with things that might kill me. You’ll do the same.

You switch to eating purely animals and animal products. That obviously includes meat like beef, pork, poultry, sheep, fish, and game meats, and also foods from animals like butter, milk, cheese, eggs, and a wide range of dairy products from animals other than just the cows that most of us might think of.

Liver itself is a true superfood with more concentrations of vitamins

and minerals than any other food, even leafy greens and other vegetables, especially folate, iron, and choline, which are essential for your body. And all of those nutrients are already present in bioavailable form so your body digests and uses them easily.

The number one benefit of the carnivore diet is that your nutrients are instantly bioavailable. That means it’s the closest to the form your body can use right away, as opposed to undergoing enzymatic changes.

when you get your nutrients from animals, whatever animal you’re eating has already done that work for you.