In THE SPECTRUM, Dr. Ornish shows us how to
personalize a way of eating and a way of living based on
your own health goals, needs, and preferences. Here’s how
it works:
Since THE SPECTRUM is about freedom
of choice, there is no diet to get on and no diet to get
off. Nothing is forbidden. No guilt, no shame, no
pressure. THE SPECTRUM is based on love– joy of
living, not fear of dying. Feeling better, not denying
yourself pleasure.
First, determine your health and
wellness goals. Do you want to lose weight? Do you have
high cholesterol? Is diabetes a problem in your family?
Based on your individual needs and goals,
THE SPECTRUM has examples of six
individually-tailored lifestyle programs ideally suited for
you: lowering cholesterol, losing weight, lowering
blood pressure, preventing/reversing diabetes,
preventing/reversing certain types of prostate and breast
cancer, preventing/reversing heart disease.
Each
personalized plan in THE SPECTRUM has 3 components:
Nutrition, Stress Management,
and Exercise.
The Nutrition
Spectrum The Nutrition Spectrum consists of five
groups. Group 1 is the healthiest end of the spectrum and
Group 5 is the least healthful end. To determine your
current place on the Nutrition Spectrum, find the group that
contains the foods you tend to eat most of the time. Then,
according to your needs, preferences, and goals, decide how
far and how quickly you want to move in a more healthful
direction. For example, if you typically eat predominantly
foods in Group 4 and you want to lower your cholesterol 50
points, begin by incorporating more foods from Groups 2 and
3. If that’s sufficient to achieve your goal, great; if
not, you can move more towards the healthier end of
THE SPECTRUM by consuming more foods from Groups
1 and 2.
In general, the closer you move towards
Group 1, the more benefits you’re likely to gain and the
more quickly you’ll experience them. If you’re healthy, you
many not need or want to make very many changes at all–the
“ounce of prevention.” On the other hand, if you are trying
to reverse heart disease or diabetes, you’ll probably need
to make bigger changes–the “pound of cure.”
The
recipes by Art Smith for THE SPECTRUM are designed so
that each base recipe is in Group 1. Depending on your
health and wellness goals, each recipe offers healthy
variations. For example, the Vegetable Chili recipe is a
delicious version of a classic recipe that begins in Group 1
with predominantly plant-based whole foods that are very low
in fat, sugar, salt, and calories. Variations listed at the
end of the recipe include adding a cup of pitted higher-fat
black olives (which moves this recipe to a Group 2 dish)
and/or adding one pound of turkey breast sausage to the
recipe (which moves this recipe to a Group 4 dish).
The Stress Management
Spectrum Stress can have a negative impact on
just about every part of your body. It can suppress your
immune function, cause a heart attack or stroke, increase
your risk of cancer, delay wound healing, promote
inflammation, cause you to gain weight, impair your memory,
cause depression, exacerbate diabetes, and worsen sexual
function. Just for starters. Stress also makes you
age faster even at a genetic and cellular level.
(over) Some people thrive on stress, and
it doesn’t cause them to get sick. Studies have found that
they can turn it on when needed, but they can also turn it
off.
They have appropriately elevated levels of
stress hormones at work during the day, but their stress
hormones drop sharply at night. In other words, they can
turn it off. In contrast, people who feel chronically
stressed and anxious have stress hormones that remain
elevated, and this predisposes them to a wide variety of
illnesses.
Stress-management techniques can help
you turn it off. They are not about withdrawing from the
world; rather, they enable you to embrace it more fully and
effectively. When you're feeling less stressed, you
can think more clearly and creatively, making it easier to
find constructive solutions. When you’re less
stressed, you’re more empowered.
THE SPECTRUM
provides you with the fundamental tools for stress
management. These include:
• Breathing• Enhancement
of social support • Yoga & Meditation• Reduction of
stimulants (both physical and mental) • Exercise•
Practicing forgiveness, altruism, compassion,
service
A DVD of inspiring, beautiful, and peaceful
guided meditations by Anne Ornish is included with every
copy of THE SPECTRUM. Anne is Vice President of the
non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute where she
directs all activities related to stress management training
and psychosocial support. She has advanced training in yoga
and meditation and was featured on the cover of the August
2006 issue of Yoga Journal magazine.
This
DVD has guided meditations of different lengths depending on
where you are on the Stress Management Spectrum. Even
one minute a day has value; those who would benefit from
doing more are given the tools and resources enabling them
to do so.
The Exercise
Spectrum You already know that exercise is good
for you and that regular, moderate exercise is one of the
best things you can do for your health and well-being. What
you may not know is that new research is showing that
exercise beneficially affects your genes, helps reverse the
aging process at a cellular level, gives you more energy,
makes you smarter, and may even help you grow so many new
brain cells (a process called neurogenesis) that your brain
actually gets bigger. Really.
Here again is another
demonstration of the theme of THE SPECTRUM: your
genes are not your fate. The choices you make each day in
your diet and lifestyle have a direct influence on how your
genetic predisposition is expressed–for better and for
worse. You’re only as old as your genes, but how your genes
are expressed may be modified by exercise, diet and
lifestyle choices much more than had previously been
believed–and more quickly.
To gain all the health
benefits of regular exercise, you don’t have to join a gym,
hire a personal trainer, or organize your life around 10K’s.
For example, in the Women’s Health Study, a major ongoing
research project involving tens of thousands of women, those
who walked briskly for just 60 to 90 minutes a week–just 15
minutes a day–cut their risk of death from heart attack and
stroke in half.
Do what you enjoy, make it fun, and
do it regularly. That’s it. THE SPECTRUM shows you how.
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