Nowadays, we’re all on lockdown. Maybe this will last another 2 weeks if we’re lucky.
Howver, if you have possible COVID-19 symptoms, your stay at home has to be even more restricted.
What does this mean in practice?
Ideally, you should:
– sleep alone
– don’t share a bed, toothbrush, crockery, towels or food
– stay in one room – this should be one that others do not go as much as possible. If you need to use other rooms, then used them when others are not there.
– if possible, use a separate bathroom. If this is not possible, then the ill person should clean the bathroom after each use.
– if possible, have meals brought to your room rather than preparing it yourself in a shared space.
– all people in the household should be regularly washing their hands.
Returning to normal activity after COVID-19
– people with symptoms should self-isolate for 7 days. They can return to normal activities if they are well after this period.
– everyone else in the household should isolate for 14 days to stop virus spread.
– any member of the household who does NOT develop symptoms can return to normal activities again after 14 days isolation. This is 14 days from the first day of the ill person’s symptoms. You do not have to keep restarting the 14 day clock each time a person gets sick.
Remember that ill people are likely to cough for some weeks: they can return to normal even if they are still coughing.
For those people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or been admitted, they will be given specific advice on discharge.
Through talking to patients all day, I have realised that many just do not realise the possible ways that COVID-19 can present.
Their reactions to my advice are also highly variable from surprise to being advised to self-isolate to feeling insulted that they might actually have it!
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding by many people about what they should do.
Official guidance
The current official guidance is that you should suspect COVID-19 if you have:
– high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
– a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
Does that mean that if you don’t have these particular symptoms, then you shouldn’t worry? Essentially, the answer is no!
The reality
As COVID-19 spreads we are learning that it can also present in other ways:
– sore throat
– blocked or runny nose
– loss of sense of smell
– diarrhoea and vomiting
– shortness of breath
In other words, any sign of a respiratory infection affecting nose, throat and chest. When symptoms are severe, then diarrhoea and vomiting may also result.
Symptom severity varies
Between 40-70% of us are going to get COVID-19 infection.
Most of us are going to get mild to moderate symptoms. Small children and teenagers in particular seem to have a mild disease. Only a very small proportion of us are actually going to get symptoms severe enough to need hospital care. This is likely to be mostly the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
The bottom line
Of course, there are the usual viral and bacterial infections that are still going around. Someone’s symptoms could be due to any of these infections other than COVID-19.
But, someone currently with any symptoms of a respiratory infection should behave as if they do have COVID-19 in order to prevent possible spread. That’s because a test is not yet widely available to tell us the difference.
What does this mean in practice?
It means that people with respiratory symptoms should do the usual self-care during the first week of illness as they would do for any viral infection:
– take paracetamol for pain and fever
– drink plenty of fluids
– try honey for a sore throat and maybe some throat pastilles
– try honey and lemon in hot water for a cough (don’t bother with cough mixtures)
– rest
AND take precautions to prevent spread as if they have COVID-19:
– self-isolate for 7 days if they have symptoms
– the home occupants should self-isolate for 14 days if they don’t have symptoms because they can become symptomatic during this time
Most people will improve during the first week from self-limiting conditions including common viral infections. They will also get better from some bacterial infections such as tonsillitis without the use of antibiotics because our immune system is pretty efficient.
After the first 1 week of illness, if people are not improving then they should get in touch with their doctor. They should get in touch sooner is they worsen in any way.
If symptoms are similar to those of COVID-19 and are severe, people should contact 111 directly.
I spoke to a lady this morning who had classical symptoms of COVID-19 with fever, shivers, cough and was becoming more short of breath over the past 1 week. She was a non-smoker and had no history of asthma. She sounded very short of breath on the phone. I advised her to contact 111 without delay. She told me that she didn’t want to go into hospital because she was a single mother with 3 small children and there was no-one to look after them…….
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve washed my hands today. COVID-19 has got the World at their basins scrubbing away several times throughout the day. It’s the first thing that I taught my family when I learned about the seriousness of the pandemic.
But are you handwashing well enough for it to be effective?
Since there is no current protection against the COVID-19 virus, handwashing is one of the few ways of protecting ourselves.
Why is it important?
We don’t know exactly how COVID-19 is spread, but we are beginning to learn some important facts. Although, direct touch is unlikely to be the main way of spreading the virus, it remains an important risk.
One study showed that we each touch our face23 times per hour! Almost half of the time it is to our mucus membranes like our eyes, nose and mouth. From these areas we can catch the infection that’s on our hands. So if you have been touching an infected surface at the supermarket or on the train…….
The virus is present in droplets in the air so it can spread by someone coughing or sneezing nearby.
Copper: up to 4 hours
Cardboard: up to 24 hours
Beware your Amazon delivery!
Plastic and stainless steel: up to 2-3 days
The supermarket trolley!
Faecal matter
There is some evidence that the virus is shed in faecal matter so a person not washing their hands after visiting the toilet can spread it onto surfaces.
Soap and water or sanitising gel?
Soap and water is best but if you don’t have any handy, then use a hand sanitiser that contains at least 60% alcohol.
How long do you wash for?
20 seconds.
That’s the time to sing Happy Birthday twice! I can just picture you at the basin singing as you wash!
Watch this video and see if you have a black-belt in handwashing.
The escalating problem of COVID-19 cases and deaths has focused our attention on how we can protect ourselves by improving our immunity.
Of course, we should practice social-distancing and hand-washing as preventative measures. We should also self-isolate: the current guidance is for 7 days if you suspect you have the virus and 14 days for household members who are not ill.
What is your immune system?
I am regularly asked how you can change your lifestyle to boost your immune system. Mostly, the questions are about different foods and supplements.
The key to understanding this lies in the word ‘system’. The immune system is not just a single thing that you can increase or decrease. It is made up of a complicated interaction between different cells and processes in your body. A better way of thinking of it might be to think of how you can improve your overall health. The healthier you are, the better you will be at defending yourself against infection and recovering from it.
Eat more plant-based foods
We have known for a long time that eating a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes (beans and pulses), nuts and seeds is great for our health. For example, it’s the basis for the Mediterranean diet and the 5 ‘Blue Zones’ in the World where people have the longest lives.
Plant-based foods are packed full of vitamins, minerals and fibre. These help to reduce inflammation in the body and improve our gut health. Since 80% of our immune system is in our gut, this can only be a good thing. We can improve gut health further by eating fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso and kefir.
It’s a good idea to limit the amount of meats that we eat and instead try oily fish such as salmon, trout, mackerel, herring, and sardines. In the UK, we have a tradition of ‘meat and two veg’. Most patients I see rarely have a day where they don’t eat meat, chicken or fish. Why not try a meatless-Monday, one vegetarian day per week. You can then try to increase the number of vegetarian days each week. You’ll find that getting your 5 or 7-a-day is not so difficult after all.
Walking through the supermarkets these days and looking at the empty shelves make me wonder what people are trying to achieve. I can understand them buying staples such as rice, pasta, milk and eggs. More puzzling is the buying of highly processed foods such as pizza. Perhaps it’s the stress of the current crisis which is making people crave comfort food. Whatever the reason, processed foods and sugar are more likely to worsen health and ability to fight infection.
Exercise regularly
We all know that exercise is good for us but most of us still don’t get enough of it. Exercise is known to boost our ability to fight infection including viral infections such as the common cold. Using our muscles during exercise has an anti-inflammatory effect. It also helps get our infection-fighting cells called ‘neutrophils’ to the infection site faster and function better. Exercise improves the function of another group of immune cells called ‘macrophage’ which patrol the body guarding against infection. Our thymus gland produces yet another type of cell called a T-cell. The thymus gland starts to shrink from the age of 20 and so does our supply of T-cells. However, exercising can increase your number of your T-cells to the same level as that of younger people.
Exercise also helps us to recover better once we have an infection. Now, I don’t mean that we should exercise whilst we are ill as we are going to need our rest. I mean that we are more likely to make a better recovery if we have been previously exercising regularly.
There is a ‘Goldilocks’ level of exercise though, so you should exercise in moderation. A good guide is the recommended half-an-hour of brisk walking done 5 times per week. Too much exercise can be bad for us and weaken our ability to fight infection. However, I would hazard a guess that most of us probably don’t fall into that athletic category!
Don’t let self-isolation stop you. You can still go for a walk or run, or exercise at home using the countless home exercise programs on YouTube and other internet sites. Personally, I like ‘Beachbody On Demand’ as they cater for virtually every type of exercise. You might also take some inspiration from a Frenchman who ran a marathon on his balcony during the lockdown!
Get some decent sleep
We live in a sleep-deprived society which is causing our health to suffer in numerous ways. These range from tiredness and poor concentration and memory, to low mood and anxiety.
Sleeping is healing. We now know that sleeping less than 6 hours per day reduces our immunity. Experiments haven’t been done in humans, but rats who were stopped from sleeping all died from sepsis (overwhelming infection). We should all be trying to get a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep at night. There’s some great information of how to improve your sleep from the Sleep Foundation.
Since Boris Johnson introduced the pub and bar ban, the booze shelves in supermarkets are now also empty! Alcohol is one of the most potent disruptors of REM sleep. It can result in the same duration of sleep but it will be more disturbed and less restful. Excessive alcohol intake can also reduce the ability of our bone marrow to produce immune cells. If you want to improve your sleep and boost your immune system, then drink less, and less often!
Caffeine is also a strong disruptor of sleep. It’s in coffee, tea (including green tea), soft drinks, and dark chocolate. Your cuppa or two in the morning may not a big problem, but caffeine has a long half-life of around 6 hours. So any caffeine after 2pm is likely to reduce the quality of your sleep. Beware decaf as it contains around 15-30% of the usual caffeine amount. Try camomile tea instead in the evenings which will help to you to relax and improve your sleep.
Actively reduce your stress
Stress plays havoc with our immune system. It increases our levels of the hormone cortisol in the body and increases inflammation. This makes it more likely for us to get sick and hamper our recovery when we do.
Most of us don’t do anything actively to reduce our stress levels. Watching the TV and reading a book may be relaxing but these activities are not enough to heal our body and mind. Regular exercise and good sleep will help. Studies have shown that mindfulness and meditation reduce our chances of getting sick and reduce the duration of illness. There are numerous apps that can help you get into this including Headspace and Calm. And how about mindful movement exercises such as yoga and tai chi. There are free-to-use YouTube sites such as ‘Yoga with Adriene’.
As with all lifestyle hacks, mindfulness, meditation, yoga and tai chi are only going to be useful for our health if we practise them on a regular basis. So make a plan which includes set days and times when you are going to practise them. Start small, just a few minutes a day is enough to begin with and then increase the time.
Get enough vitamin D
Supplements are another topic that comes up often when we talk about improving health. They are a big money-spinner and you’ll find numerous supplements in the shops that will make fantastic claims. Although it’s nice to think that simply taking a pill or potion will do us wonders, it’s unlikely that they will do us any good, and may actually do us harm. That’s because taking a concentrated ingredient which has been extracted out of a food will promote certain biochemical pathways in the body in an unbalanced way. That doesn’t happen in nature when we eat a whole food.
To date, no single supplement has been found to have a benefit on improving our immunity. That includes the most common one used, vitamin C. However, there is some evidence for the benefits of vitamin D supplements in protecting against respiratory infections.
It’s now March and we’ve just come out of a dark UK Winter so our vitamin D levels will have dropped. We all know that we can make vitamin D from sun exposure, but for dark-skinned individuals such as myself, it’s advisable to take supplements as we absorb less sunlight. I would recommend a minimum of 2000 units per day. Vitamin D can also be found in certain foods such the eggs, mushrooms and oily fish, and is added to cereals and milk.
Lay off the salt
Our body is really good at maintaining normal salt levels in our bodies. But it has to work harder if we eat too much salt. It does this by producing hormones called ‘glucocorticoids’ (steroids). The problem is that these hormones also weaken our immune system.
So, certainly have salt in your food but it might better to avoid extra at the table. Also, processed and junk food are well known to contain high levels of salt and are best avoided.
Maintain a healthy weight
You probably already know that being elderly and having a chronic disease are risk factors for developing severe complications of COVID-19 infection.
Obesity (BMI > 30) is a risk factor for various illnesses including type 2 diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure. Unfortunately, it is also a significant risk factor for developing infections.
To maintain a healthy weight, you first need to achieve a healthy weight! Fortunately, following a healthy whole-foods diet, sleeping well, keeping active and reducing stress are all ways we can do this.
Stop smoking
Stopping smoking may seem obvious but it’s surprising that many people continue to do so. Smokers are more likely to suffer from infections of every sort and from respiratory infections in particular. COVID-19 is a respiratory infection and smokers have a higher risk of developing a severe illness and become hospitalised if they do so.
Stay well
The current COVID-19 crisis will be with us for some time to come, perhaps up to a year or more. It’s natural that we turn our attention to our health at times like these. It also gives us a good opportunity for us to change to healthier habits that will improve our general health for the future.
It’s the fifth day of doing mostly telephone consultations. Thankfully, almost all patients are completely okay with it. It’s amazing what an experienced GP can do over the phone especially with the convenience of being able to issue electronic prescriptions directly to the pharmacy. However, some patients always need to be seen and we are still seeing a few patients daily.
Those with infection-type symptoms are told to self-isolate for 7 days and those living with them for 14 days if they are not symptomatic. If severe symptoms, then they should contact 111.
Being a GP has sometimes felt like a thankless task over the past few years with increasing workload and even more scrutiny and pressure. It’s not difficult to feel that your work gets taken for granted. Refreshingly, this week I have found patients to be amazingly understanding and thankful for continuing to have access to medical services. People are much more resilient than we think they are; perhaps even more than they themselves think they are. It’s at times like these that brings out the best in people. I have never lived through a war but I wonder if this is how people behaved; supporting each other in adverse circumstances. It has brought people together, perhaps because we are all in the same boat; united against a common enemy.
This is a stark contrast to the scenes in supermarkets nowadays where it seems as if it’s every man for himself! And what’s this fascination for toilet roll?! It has given rise to a whole genre of social media jokes and another meaning to toilet humour!
But joking aside, I spoke today to an elderly lady who has been unable to find any paracetamol to treat her osteoarthritis knee pain. She wondered if I could please prescribe some until the situation dies down and she can buy them herself again. A sign of any civilised society is that we look after our vulnerable people. They need our serious attention right now.
I spoke to another gentleman suffering from palpitations. He would not be able to attend the surgery so he had bought himself a blood pressure machine. I advised him to check his blood pressure and pulse daily for the next one week and let us know the readings. We would then be able to adjust his medication in line with his readings. Just last week, this would have needed a clinic visit to add to our already hard-pressed appointments. Now, on his own initiative under the current circumstances, he will become a partner with us in taking care of his own health.
I think that this pandemic will change people’s behaviour in how they seek healthcare for a generation. I believe that we will become more knowledgeable and self-reliant, and that technology will help. I am sure that this necessity will be the mother of a number of inventions over the coming year. People will take more responsibility for their health and this can only be a good thing.
Here are some stark graphs to begin with. The first one published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2003 is from the Framingham Heart Study between 1948 and 1990. It showed the results of 3457 participants whose ages were between 30 and 49 at the start of the study. The graph shows that people who had the longest lifespans were normal weight, non-smokers. As weight increased in each category, life expectancy decreased.
Being overweight shortens your life
Mortality increases both by being underweight and overweight
Here is another very revealing graph published in The Lancet 1990. It shows the death from all causes in 900,000 participants from Western Europe and North America recruited around 1979 and followed up for an average of 13 years. Death was lowest in those with a BMI (Body Mass Index) between 20 and 25 in both sexes and at all ages. Please note that this is in a mainly caucasian population and is unlikely to hold true for Asians who tend to have metabolic problems such as diabetes at lower BMIs.
Whitlock et al 2009. Lancet 373(9669):1083-96
The sweet spot seems to be a BMI around 23.
BMI Calculator
BMI CALCULATOR
The ideal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9 for most people.
Lose weight and keep it off
After stopping smoking and lowering your alcohol intake, normalising your weight is the best thing that you can do to improve your health. It will also help to prevent disease and increase lifespan.
But as we all know that is easier said than done. There are numerous diets around which will all help you to lose weight. Some of them help you lose weight faster than others. People usually start with the idea that they will go on a diet and then start eating healthily and having a healthy lifestyle when they have achieved their target weight. Of course, what actually happens is that they usually put back on most if not all the weight they have lost afterwards. In fact, they will probably end up at a higher weight than before the diet.
The key is to lose weight and keep it off permanently. I help people to do this every week in my clinic. It does not involve calorie-counting contrary to the standard medical advice which, by the way, does not work but you already know that. Over 30 years of practising medicine, I have never seen calorie-counting work for may patients and it has never worked for me. The only way to stay a normal weight is to eat what human beings should be eating.
Diet vs Exercise
People normally mention diet and exercise in one breath when talking about weight loss. Unfortunately, so do the government guidelines and most clinicians. Diet and exercise are not the same when it comes to losing weight.
There is also a perception that exercise is the key to weight loss and it is not difficult to see why. Advertising, the gym industry, Jane Fonda, and all the other celebrities out there who are making money from their exercise DVDs have been giving out that message for decades. Every year, people start by taking out their gym membership full of good intentions. For most people, these do not last very long and their exercise habit wanes, whilst the monthly gym subscription continues. Most gyms will not give you the exact statistics but one gym owner told me that only 7% of their subscribers actually attend regularly. Now that is a great business to be in!
Exercise is important in keeping fit and improving heart health, but its contribution to weight loss is tiny compared to what you put in your mouth. How much of a contribution do diet vs exercise make to weight loss? The answer is around 6 vs 1. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, then you will need to eat differently, forever. It is easy when you know how and is all about finding delicious recipes that you enjoy eating. That may take some experimentation and some people will need to make bigger changes than others. Overall, it would be better to hold that gym membership and put that cash into good quality food.
How to lose weight FAST
Many people lose weight just fine doing it slow and steady by reducing the amount they eat and exercising. Weight Watchers and Slimming World are also great for this type of weight loss. However, both organisations have a poor record in helping people lose weight and keeping it off. It may be because they rely on calorie counting which does not work long-term. I will explain that later.
The 2 fastest ways that I know to lose weight fast are bariatric surgery and very-low calorie diets. These are extreme treatments and only sometimes recommended.
Bariatric Surgery
Bariatric surgery is essentially weight reduction surgery. The 2 most common procedures are gastric sleeve and gastric bypass surgery. Both of these result in a small stomach size so that the person just cannot eat much before they feel full. They also result in beneficial hormonal changes.
Gastric Sleeve vs Gastric Bypass Surgery
I was lucky enough to work in a specialist hospital where they did this type of weight reduction surgery. I followed up many patients and saw amazing and quick weight reduction. This was accompanied by normalisation of their blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol. One by one, I found that I had to reduce and stop their medication until they had stopped all or most of them. This was the first time in my life that I had seen this happening consistently.
That does not mean that I recommend bariatric surgery for weight loss because there is always a risk with surgery. But for some people, it may be the only answer.
The reason I mention it is because it demonstrates a principle. Losing weight lowers blood pressure, can reverse diabetes, lower cholesterol and the risk of certain cancers.
Very-low calorie diets
In 2011, Professor Roy Taylor and his team at the University of Newcastle showed that diabetic patients on a very-low calorie diet day were able to reverse their diabetes.
Since then there have been a number of diets that have been launched to enable people to benefit from this method.
Most of these diets have premixed sachets and shakes that you can buy. They are safe to use if you follow the instructions carefully. Of course, they are in no way normal and cannot be continued indefinitely. But they do result in rapid weight loss which can be more appealing to people than the slow-and-steady diets. Very-low caloried diets include the Cambridge Weight Plan, Lighterlife, Slimfast and Exante. Recently the NHS has also started very-low calorie diets in some parts of the UK to help people reverse their diabetes.
The Greatest Loser
My wife and I once watched a series of The Greatest Loser on TV. I must admit that it was quite entertaining. It is a reality TV show about a group of people who compete to lose weight with the winner being the one who loses the most percentage weight by the end of the show.
The most interesting thing was that the contestants had to undergo a series of challenges all of which involved some type of exercise. They were also doing about 4 hours of exercise daily co-ordinated by a personal trainer. There was virtually no mention of healthy eating. It gave the impression that the people who sweated the most were the most successful in losing weight.
A study conducted 6 years after the series showed that most contestants had regained their weight. Not only that, but their basal metabolic rate had slowed down since the series making it even more difficult to maintain a low body weight. Unfortunately, they really were the biggest losers! This is also one of the reasons you should never do a low calorie diet.
Thank you to Professor Taylor for demonstrating the principle, but massive calorie restriction is not possible to be maintained long-term. Do not bother trying it as it might set you up for future weight gain.
Lose weight by lifestyle change
The methods above are useful for losing weight fast but staying at a healthy weight is all about changing your habits. It stands to reason that you cannot be a different weight if your lifestyle stays the same.
Change is difficult especially if you have had the same habits for years. Doing something dramatically different usually does not work for most people. It is better to think about weight loss as a journey during which you start to eat more healthily, little by little. That is the only way that weight loss can become permanent and the only way I have ever seen people lose weight successfully long-term, except for bariatric surgery.
Here are a few eating habits that you can incorporate into your life that will help you lose weight and maintain your weight loss. It’s all about what you usually do, not the odd party, celebration or night out.
Eat only between 7am-7pm or 8am-8pm. Do not eat anything after your evening meal. Your body cannot process it and it will be stored and make you put on weight. Did you ever wonder why night-shift workers are mostly overweight? Your metabolism is not geared for eating at night. Nothing will change that.
Don’t drink your calories. Stick to water – about 6-8 glasses per day. No soft drinks or juice. You can drink tea and coffee but only before 2pm.
Do not drink milk. It is designed to make baby cows weigh a ton very quickly. It will make you gain lots of weight also. Try a plant-based milk instead such as soya, almond, oat or rice milk.
Reduce sugar and junk food; e.g. sweets, chocolate, biscuits, cake, crisps etc. No surprise there!
Avoid refined carbohydrates – the white stuff; e.g. white rice, potatoes, white bread, white pasta. Eat wholemeal bread and brown, wholegrain rice and pasta. Try sweet potato instead of potatoes. The quantity should be no more than a quarter of your plate or what can fit in the palm of your hand.
Have one or more vegetarian days during the week when you only eat vegetables and fruit; no meat, chicken or fish.
Of course, weight is not just about food. Exercise, sleep and stress management are important in maintaining a healthy weight.
Weight loss injections
Over the past year new injections have come onto the market that help you lose an average of 15% of your body weight over a period of 16 months. The first of these weight loss injections is called semaglutide or brands Ozempic and Wygovy. These have revolutionised weight loss and I personally do not believe that weight loss surgery is needed any more. These weight loss injections are a game changer. Click here to read more.
Why lose weight
Health Benefits
reduce risk of diabetes
lower blood pressure
reduce risk of heart disease
reduce risk of cancer
improve mobility
reduce back and joint pain including osteoarthritis
reduce risk of stroke
reduce risk/improve sleep apnoea
They say that prevention is better than cure but, in my experience, people rarely try and lose weight in order to prevent disease. Even though this is one of the best reasons to do it, most people want to lose weight because of lifestyle factors.
Lifestyle Benefits
improved body image
greater confidence
better sleep
more active social life
improved sex life
reduced stress
improved energy
improved mood
What to do when your metabolism makes it difficult
Those people with a BMI more than 30 can have hormones which make losing weight difficult. These hormones such as letptin are not being received by your brain to tell you that your are full. It means that you are always feeling hungry and seeking high calorie food. You are also likely to have insulin resistance which makes losing weight even more difficult.
Once you are on a healthy diet and getting the nutrition you need, your hormones will normalise over a period of time. Some people may be helped with medication such as liraglutide and semaglutide that delay gastric emptying and make you fill full for longer. Another medication, metformin can also be helpful. This is a well-established medicine for diabetes that has been shown to also be effective in overweight people. These medicines augment weight loss by working on the hormones that make losing weight so difficult. They also make it easier to stick to healthy eating until such time that your hormones adapt.
Summary
Normalising your weight really is one of the best things you can do to improve your health. It is going to depend mostly on changing your diet to a healthy way of eating. There is absolutely no way around that fact. The good news is that it is easy when you know how. There is no need to count calories or weigh food if you eat natural, minimally processed foods. Eating according to how your body functions is the key to success, weight loss and great health.