the
nutritional revolution
AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY JOHN ERICKSON
While working
Costco wholesale, Smithtown, Long Island, I had become friends
with a regular customer, a deli-owner-turned-entrepreneur
who would eventually become recognized by Forbes magazine
as an up-and-coming rich person. This man invented the first-ever
40/30/30 diet meals-on-wheels delivery service –the
concept of preparing freshly made diet meals and delivering
them to his customer’s doorstep every morning in an
insulated cooler bag packed with ice.
“A 40/30/30 diet?” I was intrigued because I’ve
read every diet book on the market and I’ve never
heard of such a thing. He went on to say “a 40/30/30
diet is a way of eating that portions each meal based on
the precise ratio of 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and
30% fat. Whenever I saw my new 40/30/30 diet guru I would
take my lunch break and follow him around the store to I
could find out more about this 40/30/30 way of eating.
After only two weeks of following a 40/30/30 balanced diet,
I had lost so much weight I had to tie a shoelace around
my waist to hold my pants up. Best of all I realized that
my state of mind mirrored the quality of the previous meal.
I established a new relationship with food. For the first
time I was controlling my emotions instead of having them
control me. The cobwebs cleared from my brain and I was
now able to focus on one thing at a time. I became more
patient, slow drivers no longer bothered me and I felt a
deeper connection with the present moment. It felt like
I achieved enlightenment without having to meditate in a
cave for two weeks! Fat loss was no longer my reason for
dieting: it became a pleasant side effect. Overall, I lost
30 pounds and nothing can replace the way I feel moment
by moment.
For the first time in my life I was in complete control.
I no longer craved sweets and I developed the attention
span to start reading books. I wondered why everybody didn’t
eat this way, and most importantly, why did it take me 24
years to learn how to eat properly? I always thought healthy
eating should become standard with our upbringing, not dominated
by commercials cunningly designed to introduce toddlers
to the processed food companies of America.
My next big realization came when I scratched my legs and
noticed something drastically different. My leg muscles
were hard as a rock - and I was not even working out!! The
only thing I changed was my eating habits. So much for bad
genetics. This did not make sense -I had to find out more.
I quickly enrolled in a 40/30/30 training course that took
place in Canada and was taught radical American doctors
who openly stated a 40/30/30 balanced diet could absolutely
reverse many of the common ailments like type II diabetes,
heart disease and erectile dysfunction...just to name a
few. They carefully explained the US government would shut
you down if such claims were made on their soil. I particularly
remember the story of a medical doctor who said the Dieticians
who worked on his hospital floor gawked at him when he wrote
"no orange juice" on the prescription pad when
treating someone for type II diabetes. We are living in
tremendously unsettling times, never before has the dietary
advice of the American medical establishment been so divided.
I became further obsessed by the 40/30/30 philosophy knowing
it was part of an underground movement but I strongly desired
a real degree in nutrition. To provide substantial dietary
advice in America you must be a Registered Dietician (RD).
My next step was to enroll in a college program to pursue
a career as a dietician.
As a devotee of the 40/30/30 food philosophy I quickly discovered
I was considered an outcast. On the first day of class each
student stood up to say their name and introduce themselves.
I was proud to announce I was a 40/30/30 Nutritionist. During
a lecture a few days later, the professor locked eyes with
me and told the class a 40/30/30 diet was “just another
fad diet.” I felt as if someone was mocking my religious
beliefs. Preaching the 40/30/30 philosophy was not a game
I played for fun. Reversing disease and changing someones
life can have a significant impact in society if not repressed
by people with rigid belief systems.
My professor also went on to say all other “nutritionists”
are insubstantial unless they were a Registered Dietician.
Who's to say her karate is better than my karate? The war
was on! I became the teacher’s pest by challenging
the mainstream view. I frequently found myself arguing with
the teacher over nutritional theory well after the bell
had rang, while the rest of the class was itching to get
up to go home. I thought most dietetic students would love
to witness an debate between a 40/30/30 Nutritionist and
a food guide pyramid fundamentalist but they could care
less. I found it strange there was no true dedication between
the dietetic students or the professor. There were 18 year
old girls sitting next to me straight out of high school
eating Skittles, M&M’s and drinking Snapple iced
tea. To top things off, the college professor (with a Master’s
Degree in Nutrition) brought in fat-fee muffins for the
class to pick at like a bunch of pigeons. A group of people
gathering to study 40/30/30 nutritional concepts would never
partake in such freakish rituals.
This is because the beurocratic nutritionist idiots that
run the publics understanding of nutrition in the United
States did not even believe in the glycemic index when I
attended college -they denounced it. Now that the glycemic
index is a reality and now that I've overthrown the food
guide pyramid for incompetance... "who's the fad now?"
The college program I was enrolled in was part of the US
government appointed group responsible for operating the
food service departments found inside public schools, nursing
homes and hospitals. A dietetic degree from a state-accredited
college is required to hold a managerial position in any
one of these food service facilities, a situation that creates
a government-lock on the system the same way the government
controls daily mail delivery.
Top students of the graduating class are pressured to obtain
jobs supervising high school cafeterias because they pay
well, come with good health care benefits and include a
401K retirement plan. I thought it was strange to enter
college to become a dietician and then urged to become a
fast food restaurant manager. The only difference was this
fast food restaurant has no logo and is located inside every
public school, nursing home and hospital across America.
College
students majoring in dietetics visited public schools to
observe the children eating in the cafeteria, a scene I
found inconceivably bizarre, yet considered perfectly normal
by the American dietetic establishment. This was an unpleasant
reminder of how I was fed in high school. I had a flashback
of myself on the lunch line ordering the same thing every
day: a “Chicken patty sandwich with fries,”
a combination of food that contains over 11 grams of partially
hydrogenated (trans) fats, a gooey man-made substance that
stays in your body for more than 51 days after you have
them. Serving trans fats in school is as appropriate as
serving vodka in church. The carbohydrate portion of my
school lunch consisted of one item from the vegetable group
(the French fries), a fruit (the grape flavored drink) and
an item from the grain group (the sandwich roll).
I had no idea these foods were causing my blood sugar levels
to plummet prior to starting my next period class. Low blood
sugar causes poor mental concentration, a short attention
span and will cause a child not to retain anything from
the lessons taught in the classroom. Kids might as well
stay home if they are not fed correctly. This is not a proactive
way to treat the children who represent the spirit of America’s
future.
As the top
student of the graduating class I was able to obtain a job
supervising the dietary department at Central Suffolk Hospital,
Long Island N.Y. To further my disgust with the system I
was instructed to serve macaroni and cheese out of a can,
schedule lunch breaks, make sure everyone was wearing a
hair net and to count the cash drawer at the end of the
night. There was no way for me to influence the quality
of the food being served because the whole operation was
based on an outdated system of procedures and budgets. Amid
great inner conflict, I had to continue my employment at
the hospital because I still had another year before I completed
my training as a dietician. During this time I was thrown
into a tight situation. Students were required to practice
their counseling skills by meeting with actual hospital
patients. They gave me a Holy white jacket along with a
menu plan that truly violated my core beliefs as a 40/30/30
Nutritionist.
I was expected to take my very own physical body into a
hospital room and tell a fellow human being to eat high
glycemic fruit juices, crackers, jelly and trans fats (in
the form of "fortified margarine" -all at one
sitting). In other words I was supposed to tell someone
with diabetes and heart disease to eat the same foods that
caused their diabetes and heart disease in the first place!
This is the exact menu -I was supposed to tell someone to
eat this way!
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I felt like
I had come from another planet. Calling margarine (trans
fats) “fortified” is like sprinkling vitamins
onto a pile of trash and calling it “fortified garbage.”
To top things off there is no excuse for serving food items
like crackers, jelly and fruit drinks. I took the professor
aside and asked if I could teach the patients a different
way to eat: a way that would “control” their
blood sugar. I was told I must advocate “whatever
is on the paper.”
While on
the Dean’s list for my academic performance and only
a semester away from a degree I decided to withdraw from
college and I resigned from my position at the hospital.
I preferred to take the risky course rather than stay within
the traditional framework and pay lip service to an orthodox
in which I didn’t believe. To me becoming a dietician
certified by the U.S. government would be the same as joining
the weakest karate school on the block.
I went searching
for my original 40/30/30 diet guru I had met in the supermarket
that introduced me to 40/30/30 nutrition. I found him outside
his food facility located in Smithtown, Long Island. His
40/30/30 food delivery company had grown exponentially.
He went from owning one deli to renting three adjacent stores
in a strip mall because he was now feeding over 200 people
40/30/30 diet meals each day. I was immediately hired as
his 40/30/30 nutritionist and I was put in charge of the
kitchen operations.
At this time
there were a few 40/30/30 diet companies on the market who
manufactured 40/30/30 Nutrition bars, for example the Zone
Diet Company, Balance Bar® and PR® Bar. We started
serving Zone Diet bars as an everyday snack. Eventually
we merged with the zone diet company and we became known
as the “Zone Diet Fresh Food Delivery Service.”
The Zone
Diet company grew exponentially. I witness credit card machines
charging hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single day.
My boss had become a multi-millionaire, he was featured
in Forbes Magazine and his Zone Diet Delivery service became
the highest grossing restaurant in N.Y. Over a 3 year period
operations were set up in New York City, New Jersey and
Connecticut, Los Angeles and Chicago. My boss was after
Oprah because getting her on the Zone Diet would mean worldwide
recognition, but be didn’t make it that far.
At this time
in history the federal government was busting the fly-by-night
"pump and dump" brokerage firms that made Long
Island famous in the year 2000, leading to the movie “Boiler
Room” starring Ben Affleck. The next move for the
mafia was to get involved with the Zone Diet. It turned
out our top Zone Diet Salesman was an associate of the largest
NY mafia family that was planted to secretly steal customer
lists and trade secrets.
One day this
man was gone and there was another Zone Diet Company called
“Zone Chefs”. It turned out the word "zone
diet" by itself is too generic and can not be trademarked...this
created the perfect breeding grounds for cynical interests,
manipulative people and massive public relations operations.
The NY mafia
had ruthless business tactics. Within two months they stole
half of the original Zone Diet customers because they had
good connections, literally -to the New York Yankees and
famous people like Danny Devito, Kevin Kosner, Liza Minelli,
etc. The public no longer had a clue as to who the real
Zone Diet was. They were all eating fake Zone Diet food
cooked by the NY mafia! The NY mafia are not nutritionists
-they were feeding everyone food that was not completely
balanced and also contained contained partially hydrogenated
fat, a major 40/30/30 diet no-no!
This was a comedic, yet tragic ending for a diet that could
prevent and reverse the major disorders that plague America
like type II diabetes, erectile dysfunction and heart disease.
Today there are over a dozen different "zone"
diet companies and therefore the word no longer requires
capitalization for the same reason you do not capitalize
the word "karate" -there are many different forms
of karate. In time the true value of the 40/30/30 concepts
became watered down, adulterated and ultimately lost.
Within 2 years the original zone diet company went out of
business because of the tenacity of the NY mafia. On the
last day the zone diet was in business there was a mafia
man running around punching people. He tried to do the same
to me but I won, ran to the file cabinet and got away with
all the recipes in hand to keep the message alive.
I was at a major turning point in
my life. My dad had just passed away from Multiple Sclerosis
a month prior to the Zone Diet going out of business and
I was still compelled to spread the 40/30/30 nutritional
philosophy because it can have such a positive impact on
people’s lives. Turning around heart disease, type
II diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, hair
loss, and a host of other ailments can have a significant
impact on people’s quality of life, if not suppressed
by the government institutions, or the mafia. The 40/30/30
dietary concept can also cure America’s health care
crisis and put the money back into everyone’s pocket.
My
experience with the diet industry yielded as much benefit
one can get from a prestigious college degree mainly because
my schooling was so diverse, similar to a martial artist
who obtains a Black Belt in a few different styles of fighting.
As a dietician-in-training and a hospital employee I was
fully trained in the Food Guide Pyramid (60% carbohydrates),
I’m an expert in 40/30/30 nutrition (40% carbohydrates)
and I was also appointed to develop the kitchen operations
for the Atkins Diet Delivery Service (which has virtually
no carbohydrates!).
I took my knowledge to local gyms and started my own 40/30/30
consulting service. Spending time inside fitness centers
I would overhear personal trainers giving advice to gym
members. The trainers explained “since a pound of
fat has 3,500 calories, you have to burn 3,500 calories
a week (700 calories per day x 5 days a week) to lose 1
pound of fat.” This simple equation neglects many
basic nutritional concepts because you can not deny which
hormones are crossing through your veins. Muscles can burn
carbohydrates or fat, and what they burn is a consequence
of the chemical (hormonal) state of your body. I can stand
next to someone running on a treadmill who just drank Gatorade
and I will burn more fat standing still. This is because
my blood sugar levels are stablized from my dietary balance
protein, carbohydrate and fat. Hormonal eating states that
nothing can be generalized unless you know what a person
just ate. I pulled one personal trainer aside one day and
told him “I didn’t quite understand this whole
‘calories in vs. calories out’ concept”.
After a pause, he told me “why can’t you just
go with it?” I thought perhaps this was the exact
problem in America: People just go with everything in life
without questioning the mainstream way of thinking.