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The Second Master Principle
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• Eat lean foods.
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Have you ever asked yourself why it is that high-calorie food tastes so good? This universal truth exceeds all cultural boundaries - sweets, candies, fatty cheese and juicy meats taste better to all human beings regardless of their race, culture or origin. Why is this so?
Why is that that steamed rice tastes pretty bland and a stick of celery is anything but exciting, while we love a well-buttered piece of toast, and it's even better with honey or peanut butter and jam?
The answer is simple - we are designed to gain weight and not to lose weight. Our body is perfectly designed to take in excess calories and store them as fat, and yet it is reluctant and mean when it comes to releasing these calories. In fact, when we attempt to lose weight the body activates the 'starvation reflex', which slows the metabolism and increases the appetite.
It seems that dieting is a most unnatural thing to do, while piling on fat is natural and aligned with our body's needs.
We have to remind ourselves, however, that as a species we are quite young. Homo sapiens sapiens is a bit of a mystery. Just 100,000 years ago the Neanderthal people still lived in caves in Europe - this wasn't all that long ago, and from an evolutionary perspective it was only yesterday. Up until about 7000 years ago we were mainly nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers: again, from an evolutionary perspective, this was just a couple of hours ago. Even when we started to cultivate fields and live in towns we were still at the mercy of the powerful and untamed forces of nature that we didn't know how to harness. And remember that poverty, disease and premature death were prevalent until the last century or so.
In short, for most of our existence on the planet we have been part of the animal kingdom, we originated from the apes and we have gradually and very slowly evolved. Our strongest code and purpose in life has always been that of survival. Survival above all is a code that is embedded in our genes - we abide to it mechanically and we are not aware of its presence. Humans tend to believe that they are superior beings created by God, above the natural life. We have taken on the right to dominate the animal and natural world, and in many instances this responsibility has been abused. We have forgotten where we came from, and we have never been sure of where we are going.
The pleasure we derive from rich foods is a primordial survival adaptation. As hunter-gatherers we were encouraged to take in as many calories as possible, whenever possible. Our physically active nomadic or semi-nomadic ancestors required and burnt many times the amount of calories that we use up today. Whenever an opportunity, such as finding a beehive, arose, nature encouraged our ancestors to take in as many calories as possible, and so store the maximum amount of energy in the body for later consumption. When a beast was hunted and killed, its energy-giving fatty tissues were the prizes for the hunters, the men who had expended the most effort in feeding the tribe. | |
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