Steven is the husband of one of my long term patients. His wife Linda came to see me for help with weight loss and she was able to lose 35 pounds. She had been asking Steven to come and see me for several months before he finally agreed.

Steven is a busy man. He works very long hours and travels one and a half hours each way to and from work each day. That is on good days when there isn’t as much traffic and no accidents.

Steven’s stress levels are permanently high. He has a great deal of responsibilities at work and intense deadlines he must meet. Consequently healthy eating is the last thing on his mind. He tends to grab whatever is fastest and easiest. However, he also has a sweet tooth and tends to reward himself with sweets and fast food at the end of his work day.

Steven buys breakfast at a cafe right near his office. It’s never a healthy breakfast; his favourite is a ham croissant. Steven’s wife does pack a healthy lunch for him, and she is a great cook, so that’s one healthy meal he thoroughly enjoys each day. Unfortunately Steven likes to snack on chocolate cookies in the afternoons while answering emails. That was a firmly ingrained habit he found impossible to break.

Steven and Linda have six children, so Linda stays at home each day and prepares a healthy dinner for the whole family. She lost the 35 pounds by following the eating principles in my book "I Can't Lose Weight!...And I Don't Know Why. She still uses recipes from this book regularly. The recipes are simple, and suit the entire family. This makes dinner preparation easy for Linda, and she knows that her children will get a nutritious and tasty meal.

Steven doesn’t get home until around 8pm. Linda always leaves a warm meal waiting for him and he eats it, but he has already had one dinner while driving home. Steven leaves the office around 6:30pm and by that time he was absolutely ravenous, so he stops on his way home to get a hamburger, and also goes to the supermarket to buy cookies and chocolate. Steven eats the dinner his wife prepared when he gets home, and then he stays up late in the evening eating sweets in front of the television.

Steven knew he had a lot of bad habits. His diet was bad and he ate too much, but he felt powerless to change. The problem was he felt so exhausted each day, and he had so much work to get through, that he felt like he needed all that sugar and junk food to give him the energy to get through each day.

Steven also used food as a reward. He worked remarkably hard and was very good at his job, so he felt like he deserved to eat whatever he wanted, and as much as he wanted. The reality was quite different of course; the food was not rewarding him, it was putting his health in great danger.

I measured Steven’s blood pressure and was shocked to discover how elevated it was: 150/92. Steven is only 41 years old and I was worried he wouldn’t have a very long life. He refused to take medication to lower his blood pressure; he wanted to have the chance to lower it naturally. I agreed to give him a month to try and get his blood pressure down. I gave Steven a magnesium powder and asked him to take one teaspoon twice daily. Magnesium relaxes the nerves and muscles in the body and is excellent for people with high blood pressure.

Steven needed help taming his wild sugar cravings. I asked him to take one Glicemic Balance capsule with each meal. This would help to stabilize his blood sugar level and lower his blood insulin level. As well as reducing sugar cravings, this would help to make him less hungry in general. Steven was able to find a cafe one street away from his office that made delicious omelettes. He started buying one for breakfast each morning instead of a croissant and found he was much less hungry throughout the day when he started the day with an omelette.

I have only seen Steven once for a consultation but his wife Linda gives me regular updates. He was able to lower his blood pressure to around 130/82, which I am happy with and his own local doctor is pleased with as well. Steven has dramatically reduced his intake of sugar and carbohydrate rich foods. He just doesn’t feel like he needs them as much, because he has more energy and he feels full and satisfied after meals most of the time. He still has a very stressful lifestyle and his work days are very long, but he is looking for a new job closer to home.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.