What if there was a pill that allowed you to lose 10, 20, or 50 pounds without limiting calories, counting points, or exercising? What if that same pill freed you from gastrointestinal fireworks of acid reflux, heartburn, and diarrhea, and also improved mood, increased energy, deepened sleep, and reduced or eliminated joint pain? And what if this same powerful pill not only made you feel better than you have in years, but also had the potential to achieve a physical makeover that made you look 10, even 20, years younger without Botox or filler injections, the envy of old classmates at your 20-, 30-, or 40-year high school reunion?

What if that same little pill, taken every day, reversed inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis? What if this single pill could also replace dozens of prescription drugs--cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, and acid reflux drugs while reducing cholesterol values, blood sugars, and inflammation, packing all the benefits of many prescription medications into one pill but with none of the cost or side-effects?

Does such a miraculous pill exist? No, it does not. There is no such magic pill or collection of pills among the thousands of prescription drugs. But the results do exist, not with a pill, but with a collection of simple lifestyle changes—not as compact as a single tablet or capsule, but a collection of health strategies that can achieve all the benefits mentioned above. Too good to be true? Not at all.

In the Infinite Health program, among our goals is to reverse body-wide inflammation that can transform health. This can show itself as weight loss, change in facial appearance, or reduction or relief from pain. It can show as reduced fatigue and skin rashes. It can show as a shrinking waist or freedom from plantar fasciitis. It commonly leads to relief from leg edema (swelling) and intestinal irregularity.

No doubt, the strategies used in Infinite Health are unconventional, even directly contrary to conventional advice. But, if conventional advice worked, advice like "cut your fat and cholesterol," or "move more and eat less," or "eat more healthy whole grains," or "everything in moderation," and yielded healthy, slender people who rarely resort to help from the healthcare system, then conventional health advice is the answer. Of course, that is NOT what Americans look like. Instead, we are in the midst of the worst epidemics of overweight, obesity, and type 2 diabetes ever in history. Joint deterioration, autoimmune diseases, hypertension and other diseases are also all on the rise, as are healthcare costs. Adhere to conventional advice, and several disease diagnoses, a dozen or two prescription medications, and a life of canes, walkers, and diapers are part of your future.

Infinite Health therefore takes an unconventional path to health and adamantly rejects conventional "answers." And, because we begin with some drastic changes in diet, gets up close and personal. But IT WORKS. The strategies used in this program have been followed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, often with life-changing results: weight loss to ideal weight is common, reversal of literally hundreds of common chronic health conditions, reduced need or elimination of many prescription drugs, and looking and feeling better than you have in years. But don't be surprised if the Infinite Health strategies look and sound a lot different than the advice you have received from other sources, even your doctor.

The Infinite Health program is not just enormously effective--it is also quite simple. It will require you to think about food, health, weight and other factors in new and different ways. But it will also open up doors to health that you previously may have thought were not open to you.

By far the most powerful factor in this lifestyle that gets the entire process started is to eliminate all foods made of wheat and grains—yes, the foods you were told to eat more of, told should dominate all meals from breakfast and lunch, to dinner and snacks. The foods that you were told to consume many times per day, every day, the widest part of the food pyramid, the largest slice of the food plate, the darling of all conventional dietary advice and agribusiness, are the “foods” that most weigh you down and ravage your health, worse than the false “friend” who booby-traps your every move. Following advice to reduce fat, eat more “healthy whole grains,” everything in moderation—it’s all among the worst advice ever conceived that does not make you thinner, does not reverse health conditions, but only causes them or makes them worse. Removing them from your life yields such unexpected health and weight benefits that it seems impossible—until you witness it day after day and experience it yourself.

To make the transition to grain-free living a digestible process for you, even if your life is hectic and crammed with other responsibilities, I’ve broken it down into three bite-sized pieces.

The three steps to getting started on this lifestyle are:

1. Eliminate all grains

2. Eat real, single-ingredient foods

3. Manage carbohydrates

It’s that simple. Yes, there are additional steps to take to regain body-wide health that we’ll discuss later in the program. But the effort to convert your diet from that of helpless, inflamed, weight-accumulating, disease-causing, grain-filled diet to that of health-empowering, performance-enhancing, slender, feel-great-again, grain-free diet is just that easy.

Managing carbohydrates to improve control over metabolism and health means 100% avoidance of the many awful products marketed to an unsuspecting public thinking they are eating healthy by avoiding “gluten.” Nothing raises blood sugar higher than the gluten-free junk carbohydrates in, say, gluten-free multigrain bread or gluten-free pasta—higher than even table sugar. Blood sugar that results from eating two slices of whole grain gluten-free bread made with potato flour, rice flour, and millet can easily top 180 mg/dl (in non-diabetics) over the first hour after consumption, regardless of the mayonnaise, meat, cheese or other foods in the sandwich. There are indeed some food producers who have developed gluten-free and grain-free products without junk carb ingredients that do not raise blood sugar and are therefore safe, but they remain in the minority.

If you thought you were just going to do this Infinite Health thing to lose a few pounds, you are now beginning to appreciate that there are many more dimensions to wheat and grain consumption than just weight. We’re talking about having to endure processes that you thought didn’t apply to you, opiate addictions that even involve children, allowing a form of coercive behavior manipulation that was—and still is—widely exploited by food manufacturers (partially explaining, for instance, why wheat and grains are present in virtually every processed food). But understand this basic principle, and you are on track to be freed of these effects and achieve a level of freedom of appetite, impulse control, health and weight that you have likely never before experienced. You will be liberated.

The reason we add supplements is not to compensate for deficiencies of the nutrition program; these nutritional supplements compensate for deficiencies of modern life. For instance, we were meant to obtain vitamin D by living in a tropical or sub-tropical climate while running naked or near-naked in the sun (i.e., exposing a lot of skin surface) and consuming the organs of animals, such as liver, that contains vitamin D, much as wild humans did for the first 99% of our time on this planet before northern migrations to colder climates, working indoors, and developing an aversion to consumption of animal organs. Also, as we age, we gradually lose the ability to activate vitamin D in the skin with sun exposure, especially after age 40. For all these reasons, we supplement vitamin D to compensate for modern lifestyles. Likewise, the other nutritional supplement strategies compensate for modern lifestyle practices, not deficiencies resulting from the Infinite Health nutrition program.

Correcting vitamin D deficiency is second only to wheat and grain elimination as a powerful tool for achieving health. Even after more than 10 years of having my patients supplement vitamin D to achieve healthy blood levels, I still marvel at the wonderful effects that develop. Combine restoration of vitamin D with the Infinite Health dietary approach of eliminating all wheat, grains, and minimizing sugars, and powerful inflammation-reversing and other benefits unfold.

Primitive cultures did not obtain the two primary omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), from fish oil capsules, a modern convenience. Nor did they come from plants, nuts, or seeds, as these foods contain no EPA and DHA, the two essential omega-3 fatty acids. There are only two concentrated sources of EPA and DHA available to us: seafood and the brains of animals—yes, the brains of animals. After all, DHA in particular is the most plentiful fatty acid in the human brain, just as it is in the brains of birds, gazelle, wild boar, and other creatures humans have consumed. Humans can obtain omega-3 fatty acids from consuming fish and shellfish, but not all human populations were coastal or had the ability to catch fish. But we did kill land animals, did not cringe at the thought of consuming liver or heart, and we certainly did not throw away the brain.

If it is tough persuading modern people to add back a little liver sausage, it will be impossible to convince you that a healthy slice of calf or pig brain is worth including with dinner now and then (not to mention that some peculiar modern farming practices have led to a new collection of diseases that prohibit consumption of livestock brains, such as mad cow disease). Like vitamin D, we therefore recreate a primitive, but essential, experience using strategies more palatable to modern tastes.

The thyroid gland sits quietly on your neck just beneath the surface of the skin in the shape of a bowtie. Despite its diminutive size, the thyroid gland is a critical control center over the metabolic rate of the entire body, influencing just about every body process. Too fast, and you can collapse from abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure. Too slow (much more common), and weight gain, fatigue, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, depression, and a multitude of other health problems crop up.

Provide your thyroid gland with necessary nutrients, such as iodine, and it does its job without complaints. Fail to provide essential nutrients, beat and batter it with chemicals from air, water, and food in ways you may not even be aware of, and it succumbs to damaging effects and will eventually fail and increase your risk for numerous health conditions.

Magnesium is at the top of the list of minerals that have been depleted. Even beyond the effects of magnesium-binding phytates, there are other factors that lead to magnesium depletion in modern people. These factors include:

• Water filtration--Whether your water is filtered by your community or in your own home, water filtration is exceptionally effective at removing nearly 100% of magnesium.
• Popular acid-blocking drugs (PPIs) like Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium and others block magnesium absorption.
• Diabetics and pre-diabetics lose abnormal quantities of magnesium in their urine.
• Modern vegetables, ordinarily a moderate source of magnesium, have approximately 50% less magnesium content due to modern farming methods.
• Over-reliance on processed foods that are very magnesium-poor.

The section of Infinite Health Program on managing bowel flora is the most challenging. But it is important that you do not skimp or skip this section, as it is a crucial part of your journey back to ideal health, a contributor to weight loss, bowel health, reduced blood sugar and blood pressure, even emotional health. Getting his part right will also maximize your chances of being as free as possible of prescription drugs.

Because there are several components in this section, you may want to tackle this in pieces. Also, know that Infinite Health staff are here to help you, in case you find this overwhelming or too difficult. Actually, once you understand the why's and how's, you will see that it is quite easy and you can seamlessly add these strategies to your day. And you will be rewarded by achieving even greater heights of overall health.

You have made it to the end of the Infinite Health program--but this is only the start of your health journey, a long-term effort to maintain magnificent health over the coming decades, stay away from hospitals and prescription drugs, smile when the doctor says something you know is silly like "You need to take a statin drug to prevent heart attack!," but then pursue your superior version of Infinite Health. You may even chuckle to yourself when the doctor, overweight and fatigued, wonders how it is that you, slender and looking 10 or 20 years younger than your chronological age, manage to look so good?