A method
that begins with warmth.

There are many people who can eat anything, as much as they want, and still don’t gain weight

That had been on Michael’s mind for years. He wanted to find out what goes on differently in these people’s bodies and put the same causes to work in his own body to trigger the same effect.

All he needed for that was something that would greatly raise his basal metabolic rate. This refers to the energy the body burns all on its own, even at rest. If this basal metabolic rate rises high enough, you can:

• lose weight without exercise,
• lose weight without hunger,
• lose weight easily
• and lose weight quickly.

Michael then called that his optimal diet, his optimal meal plan. For him, that also included losing weight in a healthy way and then maintaining the new weight without the yo-yo effect.

What raised his basal metabolic rate so much was, above all, ground black pepper. The pepper drives the burning of carbohydrates and fats in the body. The effect is the same as in the people who can eat anything, as much as they want. There’s more on this on the Burning Fat page.

It wasn’t just about losing weight, but also about taking the strain off the body

That’s why Michael focused on the processes in the body that, in his view, have the biggest influence on well-being and fat burning:

• Reduce over-acidification and the water retention in the cells
• Boost the metabolism in the cells so they burn more
• Avoid inflammatory changes and other negative symptoms that put a strain on the body

On top of that, there are three practical building blocks: his meal plan, the foods allowed in it, and dietary supplements used in a targeted way to cover gaps in what the body needs.

Michael wasn’t just looking for a quick solution, but also for a system that can be built into everyday life, without pressure and without forcing anything, but with a real change you can feel.

These goals and building blocks became the core of Michael’s concept, an adapted form of low-carb eating. He didn’t give up all carbohydrates but only left out very specific ones, and that’s how he found a way that worked for him.

Why this story is here

Many of Michael’s patients who saw him before and after his weight loss wanted to know exactly what he had done. It was the same for me, because I was one of them.

That’s why, with Michael’s permission, I’m writing down his experiences here, openly and honestly, the way he experienced them.

With the plan I’m presenting here, Michael lost 25 kilos in two and a half months, without pressure and without counting calories, but with structure and clarity. And above all, there was no yo-yo effect afterward.

What the diet meant in concrete terms

Not giving up all carbohydrates, but selectively leaving some out

Important to know: This is not a classic low-carb diet where all carbohydrates are cut from the menu across the board. That was never Michael’s approach, and it still isn’t today.

Michael made a conscious decision to leave out only very specific carbohydrates, above all those obtained from grains. These include all products made from wheat, rye, barley, rice, and so on.

His goal was to avoid acids and gluten. Gluten refers to the sticky proteins in grain. They’re found mainly in flour products, and in Michael’s experience, it’s exactly these that put the brakes on the metabolism.

What flour products and gluten trigger in the body

In his concept, Michael left out flour products as much as possible and therefore ate mostly gluten-free. The reason: In his view, it’s precisely these products that hinder important processes in the body, especially fat burning and deacidification.

Foods made from flour usually contain a lot of gluten. And gluten “gums up” the body and slows down many metabolic processes, not in the sense of an intolerance, but more insidiously. In Michael’s experience, the slower metabolism leads to the following:

• In the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, more acids are produced when fats and carbohydrates are burned.
• At the same time, the mitochondria get less energy out of them for the body.
• Body and mind become sluggish, energy keeps dwindling, and listlessness increases.
• The body deacidifies and detoxifies more slowly.
• It stores more acids and harmful substances in the fat cells.
• And it uses up more minerals to counteract inflammatory changes.

So for Michael, it was clear: As long as these processes are out of balance, there’s no point in just counting calories or relying on exercise. That’s why leaving out these foods as much as possible was a really important building block for him.

What this means in everyday life

You can certainly eat carbohydrates, even sugar once in a while, but within limits, meaning in amounts the body can still process well.

If you stray from it more often, meaning you eat more calories or reach for flour products more frequently, that’s not automatically a problem. It just means you lose weight more slowly. As long as you stick to the other cornerstones, meaning you deliberately take the strain off your body, support your metabolism, and eat a nutrient-rich diet, you can still lose weight, and in a way that feels doable and practical for everyday life. But if you go totally overboard, you won’t lose weight but can even gain weight despite the method.

Michael’s meal plan is about reaching your personal goal weight quickly. To do that, you only have to avoid flour products and other foods high in gluten as much as possible during the diet. After that, you can eat normally again, and from then on you only eat two to three meals a week according to this plan, so that there’s no yo-yo effect.

What happens on a classic low-carb diet and where the challenges lie

If you eat significantly fewer carbohydrates, the body initially loses mainly one thing: water. The reason is simple: The body stores carbohydrates as glycogen, a kind of storage sugar, and for every gram of glycogen, it stores three to four grams of water along with it.

When the body gets fewer carbohydrates, it taps into these stores, and the water is released again and excreted. That’s why many people lose weight very quickly at the start of a low-carb phase. But at first, that’s just water.

And that’s exactly where one of the challenges lies: In this phase, many people feel drained, weak, or even irritable. That’s no surprise, because carbohydrates are the brain’s main food. When they’re missing, the brain performs less well, especially when the glycogen stores are slowly running empty too.

Over time, once the glycogen stores are empty, the body also starts breaking down fat. In the process, so-called ketones are released, which the body uses for energy. That sounds good at first. But it’s exactly at this stage that burdensome symptoms can appear.

Why some diets can put extra strain on the body

When you lose weight quickly, the body is heavily burdened with harmful substances and acids. That’s because it likes to store these substances in the fat cells. When the fat cells are emptied, the acids and harmful substances that were stored there are released again too. Depending on how much of it is released, this can be a mild to heavy strain on the body.

What Michael observed in himself and has also seen in some of his patients

Accompanying symptoms in this phase can include, for example:

• Tiredness and feeling run-down
• Irritability or mood swings
• Headaches, nerve pain, or other pain
• Digestive problems and metabolic disturbances
• Inflammation
• or simply the feeling of somehow not running smoothly

How Michael dealt with it

To help his body cope better with the change, Michael not only put his meal plan together carefully but also supplemented it in a targeted way: with high-quality nutrients and dietary supplements that supported his body exactly where it needed it. By doing this, he wanted to avoid burdensome symptoms like cravings, lack of energy, or aggression as much as possible.

For Michael, the dietary supplements weren’t a substitute for a healthy diet, but a sensible addition to it.

→ More on this on these pages:

• Over-acidification and water retention
• The role of digestion: gluten and starch

Losing weight without cravings: what happens in the body

Many people fail not for lack of willpower but because of cravings. They’re one of the reasons so many people quit their diet or can’t stick with it. This sudden urge for something sweet, for carbohydrates, or for something fatty feels like an addiction. The desire for chocolate, sugar, and candy can then be overwhelming.

That’s exactly how it used to be for Michael too. It took him a long time to understand that what’s behind this craving isn’t simply a lack of discipline, but often a very clear physical connection.

The mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, burn carbohydrates and fats. If they lack certain fat-soluble vitamins in the process, a real demand arises in the body. That turns into a noticeable need that can go as far as a kind of addiction: for carbohydrates and anything that delivers quick energy, and above all for fat.

Why the body craves fat and what that has to do with digestion

Fat-soluble vitamins, meaning A, D, E, and K, are transported via dissolved fats, so-called micellized fatty acids. That’s why the body tries to take in as much fat as possible through food. It wants to break it down to make up for the lack of fat-soluble vitamins in the mitochondria, even if that doesn’t happen consciously at all.

But this processing in the gut, micellization, tends to be sluggish and slow. And how well it works depends on how healthy and efficient digestion is.

What Michael did about it

So Michael took the fat-soluble vitamins together with micellized omega-3, meaning omega-3 fatty acids in a water-soluble form. That way, the body can transport the vitamins it needs to the mitochondria. And then it no longer craves fat combined with carbohydrates.

For Michael, this didn’t happen overnight. At first, his cravings were already noticeably reduced, and then, as the weeks went by, they were gone completely. The inner pull had stopped because the need had been met. For Michael, that was a real breakthrough.

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It was very similar for me, too. You can picture it like a dimmer, not a light switch. Pretty early on in the method, my cravings were already noticeably reduced, but they still came back relatively quickly. From week to week, they then stayed away longer and got weaker and weaker at the same time. After about three weeks, I could just stick with the method without getting cravings in between anymore. The nagging urge to keep going to the fridge was completely gone, at least as long as I took the nutrients regularly.

Why excess acid slows down fat burning

Michael’s concept wasn’t just about losing weight, but also about taking the strain off the body. A crucial point here was over-acidification: His meal plan is meant to avoid acids or to fight over-acidification that’s already there.

When the body burns more fat and carbohydrates, more lactic acid is also produced in the cells. If there aren’t enough minerals available that the body can absorb well, this acid isn’t carried out of the cell quickly enough.

If too many acids build up in a cell, its water content rises. The cell swells up and fills with water. This can promote cellulite and water retention, known as edema, and give the skin an overall puffy look.

Michael experienced all of this himself and learned from it: For the cells to be able to burn fat and carbohydrates well over the long term, they also always have to be well supplied and well cleared of waste. Supply and waste disposal go together — that’s the only way healthy weight loss works.

Losing weight fast: why a sluggish gut can slow down deacidification

Michael points to studies which found that, more than 20 years ago, digestion was already no longer working normally in over 90 percent of people over 30. These figures probably haven’t improved since then. This doesn’t mean serious bowel diseases, but things like a bloated belly, a feeling of fullness, or occasional stomachaches.

When digestion works more slowly and less thoroughly, the gut can’t break down and absorb the food mush quickly enough. So the food isn’t fully utilized, and we don’t take in what we actually need. As Michael puts it: “We’re starving in front of full plates.”

Typical signs of this are:

• A bloated belly, gas in the gut, and flatulence
• Fermentation processes in the gut
• Tiredness or feeling run-down about 15 to 30 minutes after eating

If the food mush isn’t broken down with enough digestive enzymes, the gut bacteria can “help themselves” for longer. And the longer they do that, the greater the strain from their breakdown products can become. These include gases, acids, and toxins.

A simple example makes this clear: If you leave a pot of cooked pasta at 37 degrees Celsius, which is body temperature, for three days, bacteria go to work on the starch within just a few hours, and the pasta turns sour. The same thing happens with all flour products, with potatoes, and with rice. Put simply, exactly that can also happen in the gut when food sits there too long.

In this way, the bacteria’s activity releases substances in the body that put a strain on it. This can lead directly or indirectly to inflammatory changes and to over-acidification of the body. That’s why well-functioning digestion is so crucial when it comes to losing weight: The gut has a say in whether the body gets relief or stays under strain.

Losing weight fast: what can happen when stored burdens are released

When you lose weight faster, the body draws on its fat reserves. In principle, that’s a desired effect. But in the fat cells, the body also stores substances that it can’t do anything with at the moment, above all acids and harmful substances that weren’t excreted right away.

When the fat cells are emptied, exactly these substances are released again. Depending on how much of it was stored in the body, this can be a mild to heavy strain, not just on the metabolism, but also on general well-being.

What Michael observed in the process

Possible reactions in this phase include, for example:

• Feeling run-down
• Tiredness
• Irritability
• Pain
• Digestive problems and metabolic disturbances
• Nerve pain
• Inflammation
• and other symptoms that can be different for everyone

That’s why it was especially important to Michael to cushion these accompanying symptoms as well as possible and to support his body in a targeted way, with his concept of diet, pepper, curry, and sufficient nutrients.

→ More on this: Avoiding negative symptoms when losing weight