Only a healthy body can achieve normal weight. Theories of how much each person should weigh (calculated according to gender, height, ethnicity, etc.) ignore each individual’s unique constitutional requirements. Healthy body weight varies according to individual body types. A healthy Vata type will always be thin, and a healthy Kapha type will always be corpulent and muscular.

The bones of Vatas are light and thinly built, whereas Kaphas have very heavy, dense and compact bones. Both body types have very different, if not completely contradictory, requirements regarding, food, exercise and lifestyles. Pitta types, whose bodies generate more heat, have entirely dissimilar energy requirements to the other body types.

Weight loss for the right reasons i.e. to improve your health, is easy. Trying to shed weight without removing the accumulated toxins first goes against the body’s principles of survival and is therefore difficult to achieve.

The body merely protects itself against acid death by keeping the toxins in a neutralized state inside fat cells and bodily fluids. That is why when you embark on a weight-reduction plan that aims to only help you get rid of excess weight, it often does not work. Only some people actually achieve their goal, and many soon put on the weight they had so painfully shed. With weight being the only criterion, it is somewhat like putting yourself into a mould that was not tailored for you.

It is therefore important to know your body type and then discover your own unique optimal weight. Once you cleanse your body of toxins and accumulated weight and live by the natural principles of healthfulness, weight loss is a natural consequence.

Your health will improve automatically once you remove the toxic waste products and keep the eliminative organs and systems open and clean. The focus needs to be on moving toward good health, rather than on fighting ill health.

Once you have learned the lessons of creating health, you can easily turn your body into a finely tuned instrument that helps you fulfill your desires and lead a life filled with happiness, vitality, abundance and wisdom.

Cleansing Your Body

The human body needs to be cleared of toxins before it can restore itself to its natural weight. Cleansing it also ensures that weight loss takes place smoothly and without leading to adverse effects. The most powerful and thorough of all the cleansing procedures is the Liver and Gallbladder Flush (described in detail in my book The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush). Its most important effect is to restore Agni, the digestive fire (the combined digestive power of all gastrointestinal secretions).

When Agni is stronger, food is digested more efficiently, your body produces less waste and consequently, less waste is deposited in the intestines. However, this can take place only if you also clean out your colon through colonic irrigation or similar colon cleansing methods. 

A kidney cleanse ensures that toxins released by the body do not get stuck in the kidneys. The main principle here is that weight loss will take place naturally and without harm if the eliminative organs are first cleared of any accumulated waste deposits. All this will effectively restore the body’s health and natural weight.

One liver cleanse, however, will not be sufficient to restore Agni on a permanent basis. You need as many such cleanses as it takes to remove all the accumulated gallstones. After each cleanse, there will be an increase in energy, your abdomen will feel tighter, and you will lose several pounds.

Yet within less than a week, some of the old sluggishness may return and previous food cravings may re-emerge. This shows that gallstones from the rear parts of the liver have traveled forward to exiting bile ducts and clogged up these major bile ducts again, thereby reducing Agni once more. A series of flushes is therefore recommended.

By the time your liver is completely clean, your body weight should be ideal and your energy boundless, provided your diet and lifestyle are healthy and balanced too.  

When you analyze the results of all the prominent slimming techniques and dietary plans, you come across one consistent finding. Most people who go on a diet give up before completing it. Of those who continue, only a few lose weight and most of those individuals put the weight back on again.  Cleansing the body of accumulated toxins, on the other hand, provides a sound basis for safe and permanent weight loss.

Weight Regulation is Natural 

Weight loss occurs spontaneously when the body’s natural weight regulation mechanisms are restored. Excessive weight is a symptom of disturbed digestion and metabolism. In addition, it is a sign of chronic toxicity in the body.

Trying to remove the symptom (excessive weight) can be very harmful and disappointing if the accumulated toxins are not removed first. Most weight-reduction programs do not address this vital issue.

The body has a natural resistance to losing excessive weight quickly because sudden weight loss could release a flood of trapped toxins into the bloodstream and even have fatal side-effects such as the collapse of liver functions, kidney failure, and heart attack.

The body never behaves in an irrational way. Weight regulation has to begin by removing the root causes behind the metabolic problems responsible for weight gain.

Boston researchers discovered that people whose pancreas secretes high concentrations of insulin have more difficulty losing weight than those who produce smaller amounts of insulin. This, however, has very little to do with genes, as some doctors may tell you.

The reason 200 million Americans are overweight or cannot shed excess weight is not because of genetic flaws. It is well known that overweight people secrete more insulin. However, over-secretion of insulin is an effect of weight gain, and not its cause. 

The reason 200 million Americans are overweight is because they have become insulin resistant. When the insulin receptors of the cells block out insulin, blood sugar begins to rise. To deal with the increase in blood sugar, the pancreas makes more insulin to help remove it from the blood.

 One way to deal with this dangerous situation is to have the body convert the excessive amounts of sugar into fat. The more fat a person has accumulated, the less likely he or she is to exercise because this requires effort.

Also, exercising rigorously, as most weight-loss plans recommend, addresses the problem of excess lipid formation; they do not address insulin-resistance or the reason why the body has become insulin resistant.

Insulin also inhibits the body’s fat-burning hormone -  ‘hormone-sensitive lipase’. This hormone is responsible for releasing fat into your bloodstream to be used as fuel. Once this hormone is deactivated, the body can no longer burn fat for energy.

Instead, it must use amino acids and complex sugars stored in the muscles as fuel. This in turn will make you weak and excessively hungry and cause cravings. This creates an endless cycle of increased insulin secretion and fat generation.

To escape this vicious cycle, one must keep the body’s insulin secretions low. Low levels of insulin allow your body to produce large amounts of hormone-sensitive lipase, thus burning fat as required. This naturally regulates your weight.

Processed, refined and otherwise manufactured foods all increase insulin levels, and thereby diminish the body’s energy reserves.

It is all very simple, really, and does not require any major effort. Discovering and removing the root cause of weight gain is the only way to truly address this problem. 

The term ‘weight loss’ invariably triggers a stress reaction in the body because it is generally associated with rigorous dieting and exercising, neither of which is very palatable. Feeling anxious to lose weight is a recipe for disaster and leads to failure and disappointment.

Besides, despite the many ‘guarantees’ that these programs offer, you somehow know that these rigid plans have none to offer, really. By the time you reach a point where you are ready to try almost anything, your journey would have led you to discover many people who have tried and stumbled as well as those for whom it hasn’t worked.

Alas, there are few if any dieticians and nutritionists pushing weight-reduction programs who actually approach the problem in a holistic way.

Moreover, advocating quick-fix remedies and band-aid treatment and then leaving you in the deep end is convenient. If they didn’t produce results ‘quickly’ and dramatically, it wouldn’t be very profitable for these weight-loss experts, would it?

We live in a quick-fix world where we want, and even demand, tangible, visible and instant gains in everything we do. Somewhere along our journey to becoming urbanized and ‘developed’, we also seem to have lost touch with an intimate part of ourselves—the positive life force that is at the center of our very being.

[This is an excerpt from my book 'FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT', available on http://www.ener-chi.com/book.htm]