Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! Read Online Free PDF Page A

alcoholism, cheating, or a fat ass, we’re quick to pass the buck to our go-to scapegoat. As Dr. Dean Ornish suggested so eloquently in the foreword to this book, our genes are not our destiny. In fact, the relatively new science of epigenetics proves that our daily choices (diet, lifestyle, and environmental stressors) can actually change the way our genes express themselves—without changing our DNA. These non-genetic factors can literally switch disease, obesity, and other health issues on and off.
    For example, only 5 to 10 percent of all cancers are caused by inherited genetic mutations, according to researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. They, along with other top tacos, believe that between 70 and 80 percent of cancers are linked to diet and other behavioral factors like tobacco and alcohol—and not genetics. According to a 2009 study by the American Institute for Cancer Research, excess body fat alone causes more than 100,000 cancers every year. But here’s the good news: If we can screw it up, then there’s a good chance we can fix it, too. Nature meets nurture and beyond. Olé!
    But not everyone agrees. After I gave a recent speech at a hospital in Georgia, a woman in the audience raised her hand to tell me I was wrong. In her mind, lifestyle choices didn’t matter; if our name was in “God’s book,” we got sick. It’s the book that matters, not the pepperoni pizza. I can’t think of a more disempowered way to look at life. If that were the case, why bother trying to do anything other than pick lint out of your belly button? Didn’t God give us free will? Isn’t that the beauty and the bitch of being human?
    TIP
     
When you go veg the right way, you’ll get all the nutrition you need from a varied plant-based diet loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, oxygen, and enzymes. Don’t believe me? Check out what the American Dietetic Association has to say: “Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. Vegetarians also appear to have lower cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and Type 2 diabetes than non-vegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates.” The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has some thoughts, too: “Vegetarian diets can meet all the recommendations for nutrients (including protein and calcium).”
     
    Each of us has a genetic predisposition for something. Sometimes life flows by with no rough edges. George Burns lived to a hundred and certainly had a ball with his cigars, steaks, and highballs. He also had an incredible attitude (“Happiness is: A good martini, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman … or a bad woman, depending on howmuch happiness you can stand.”) that might have made up for the meat and martinis. The George Burnses of the world are very rare, however. Genes load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. Think of it like seeds and soil. Without fertilizer, the seed can’t always take root. You are the seed and your diet and lifestyle are the fertilizer.
    This very important fact can freak a lot of folks out. Educating ourselves and taking charge of our health doesn’t mean we’re taking the blame. There’s no need to point fingers or feel guilty. I’ll never know what made me “sick.” But it helps for me to ponder how I may have participated so that I can stop participating in my illness.
    Next time you fill out your medical history, pause for a minute. Think about what runs in your family and also what’s served on your family dinner table. A teacher of mine once gave me a helpful wisdom nugget. “Heart disease and diabetes don’t run in my family,” he said. “Sausages and doughnuts do!” It takes guts to look at the messy pain and truth in order to reevaluate the game you’re