Visualization for Weight Loss -The Gabriel Method

Part III: Physical Stresses that Activate the FAT Programs

An enzyme is a specific type of protein that helps speed up chemical reactions; they are the workhorses of all life on Earth. Where there is life, there are enzymes doing some sort of work. And there are thousands of different kinds of enzymes in our bodies performing specific functions, such as facilitating physical movement or circulation, or fighting off toxins. The role of diges- tive enzymes is to break down foods into their basic nutritional components, thus allowing us to assimilate those nutrients. When we are deficient in digestive enzymes, we can’t effectively extract the nutrients from the foods we eat. Consequently, it requires larger quantities of food to nourish our bodies because we are getting less real nutrition from our food. There’s a strong link between a lack of digestive enzymes and obesity, 1 and here are several reasons why we might be deficient: • Processing: We have destroyed the enzymes in our food or made them unavailable. Live, biologically active foods contain digestive enzymes; it’s these enzymes that cause a fruit or vegetable to ripen. When we eat foods that contain live, active enzymes, our bodies use these enzymes in con- junction with the body’s enzymes to ensure the most com- plete digestion possible. However, heating and processing foods destroys the digestive enzymes in the foods them- selves, forcing our bodies to produce more of their own— if our bodies are able. • Modern farming methods: Pesticides, herbicides, chemi- cal fertilizers, and irradiation lower the amount of biologi- cally active digestive enzymes in food. Nearly all the food we eat today is either completely devoid of, or severely lacking in, live digestive enzymes. As a result, the body is forced to rely solely on its own ability to produce the enzymes necessary for digestion. This places undue stress on our pancreas, which produces digestive enzymes, and to add insult to injury, other systems of our body compete for these enzymes. The immune system, for example, uses enzymes to digest foreign bodies that it encounters in our

102