With two Ivy League degrees, I shouldn’t be admitting my stupidity in public. But 99 percent of my inability to lose weight was my fault. I just assumed I knew what to do and how to eat. However, after I learned the complexities of the body’s biochemistry, I discovered I was actually doing everything incorrectly, gastronomically speaking.

There’s only one scientific weight loss formula. Here it is once again: You cannot lose weight if your biochemistry is out of balance. Generally, by the time we become adults, we have too much of some basic nutrients yet way too little of others. Until your body returns to biochemical equilibrium, it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to shed those unwanted pounds. Your physiology won’t allow it.

More specifically, you cannot lose weight if six critical body nutrients are out of balance. Calcium, chromium, copper, iron, magnesium and potassium must be in their ideal ranges BEFORE you can burn any significant amount of fat. Even if just ONE of these elements is out of sync, there’s no way your body can utilize your unwanted fat efficiently.

Each of these nutrients depresses the metabolic rate so you cannot burn any serious amount of excess fat. Can you freeze water at 80 degrees?

Calcium was the villain in my body. And I’m ashamed to say, my calcium problem was all my fault. I literally poisoned myself with the stuff.

As I approached 40, I began to worry about my calcium intake. You can’t pick up a woman’s magazine or a daily newspaper without reading about the pressing need for increasing calcium in the diet of women who have reached this exalted age.

I couldn’t imagine myself a little old lady from Pasadena, trying to recover from a broken hip bent over a walker. The magazines said fossils like me needed calcium, right? I never questioned their veracity. So I drank milk by the quart. I never began a day without yogurt and I stuffed myself with sardines at every opportunity.

However, I did not realize my body’s biochemistry was severely out of whack, a by-product of four decades of fine dining, including a couple of years as food editor and restaurant critic for the now deceased Dallas Times Herald, Big D’s afternoon newspaper. (Yes, Virginia, there were such things.) This imbalance meant my body could not handle the massive influx of calcium it was suddenly receiving. My distorted endocrinology caused a metabolic disturbance which would not allow my body to utilize calcium properly. To be exact, too much copper caused me to deposit the calcium only in my soft tissues, where it didn’t belong. This route short circuited my bones, teeth and jaw, which still needed the nutrient desperately.

The result: I was still osteoporotic (meaning I did not have enough calcium in my bones) but was making gall stones suitable for inscription in the Guiness Book of World Records.

Six months after I added calcium rich foods to my diet, I made a routine trip to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. My annual X-rays showed an alarming loss of bone in my jaw. In fact, my four back molars were about to fall out. There wouldn’t have been enough money under the pillow to pay for the $5,000 operation I needed to have my own teeth grafted back onto my jaw. In fact, I had lost so much bone, I had to buy bone from a bone bank to put my teeth back where they belonged.

The surgery was more painful than child birth. To ease the pain, I was given six cc’s of morphine intravenously along with a letter explaining why I couldn’t pass a drug test for a year.

I had a tissue mineral analysis (a test which measures all the body’s biochemical nutrients) right after the surgery. Graphically, the TMA pinpointed my calcium toxicity. I learned that when a nutrient is out of balance — when you have either too much OR too little — the same result occurs. I was losing bone because I had too much calcium, the same result as if I had too little.

In addition to clearly defining my problem, the tissue mineral analysis included an eating plan which removed all calcium from my diet. I sadly had to say goodbye to lovely foods like salmon. Sugar had to go too, because sugar causes a chemical reaction that keeps calcium in the tissues. I could savor only one piece of luscious chocolate cake a week. (Boo.) That was the cheat day I was allowed once a week.

The TMA also included foods that would force my system to precipitate and shed the excess calcium. There is justice in the world. My TMA said I needed to eat more lobster, oysters and mussels. Yum.

Having too much calcium also caused another problem for me. It was keeping me fat! Calcium, you see, depresses metabolism. That meant no matter how hard I worked out or how correctly I ate, I could not burn enough fat to lose weight. It was biochemically impossible because my metabolism was too low. I had to solve my calcium imbalance before I could lose one ounce.

My advice to you: Skip unhappy chapters like this in your life. You will — if you keep reading.

Go to Chapter 3.

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How To Use The TMA To Achieve Everlasting Health!

How To Get And Maintain Your Ideal Body Weight!.

How To Stop Or Slow Down Hair Loss!

How To Eliminate PMS.

How To Prevent Osteoporosis... Naturally.

How To Control Your Emotions With Nutrition.