Dr. Mirazhi is soft-spoken, with an inviting face; and he smiles often. He drew blood, but only on the first visit, just to make sure I wasn't diabetic, but otherwise he did not do things which most doctors do in a checkup. His delightful assistant Heather simply weighed me on a professional-grade Tanita scale, which measures weight, body fat and body water, and then calculates other factors like BMR and BMI; and she took my blood pressure, which turned out to be hypertensive. And then the doctor and I talked. 

The doctor spends a long time with each patient, listening intently, and then sharing pearls of wisdom. I wish I could remember all the things he has said (hopefully many of them will be in his book, forthcoming). More than anything, I remember this: He said not to avoid the pain I was feeling, but to go through it. It serves a purpose. I was reading an amazing book called The Gift of Pain at the time, so this really spoke to me. I appreciate his unconventional approach to medicine, as well as his counter-intuitive ways of viewing the challenges I'm facing. He said my future on my present course held two options: Dylan lives, but he and my other son are orphans and my wife a widow; or Dylan doesn't live and my other son loses both a brother and a father, and my wife is a widow. He tells you straight-on like that, something I admired, but which I imagine people aren't used to. "You're not diabetic, Eric," he said on my second visit. "You're just fat. Follow the diet and you won't be." He said my long litany of medical complaints I had rattled off to him would all be dealt with by this diet.

Dr. Mizrahi is not just a diet doctor, but an internist with a broad practice (see his website below for more detail). He has a lot of success with diabetics, many of whom have been on medications for decades, and who get off them after just a few weeks on his diet. Others see him for high blood pressure, like me. Many others see him as an internist, for heart disease, or simply to lose weight quickly and safely. He is also a spiritual man. Although he is Jewish, he practices at St. John's because he likes any faith-based approach to medicine. And although I am Christian, I don't care that he is not. He is a genius, and many paths lead up the mountain to God and Truth, not just the one I'm on. "I made a deal with God when I began my practice," the good doctor said. "I prayed, 'God, you take care of the big things and I'll take care of the little things.'" It amazed me to see a doctor with such humility, and it also impressed me to see a scientific, medical person admitting the limitations of medicine. We have met many doctors on the journey with our son and many of them do not.

The Diet

He handed me one sheet of paper, printed on both sides, with the details of the diet on one side and Ten Commandments to Eat By on the flip side. The Brentwood Diet is simple, straightforward, easy to understand and can be posted on your fridge or, better yet, memorized. It is a strict version of the "Paleolithic" or "Caveman" diet. There are no energy bars, no prefabricated meals and no counting of points, grams or calories; no measuring portions, no logging exercise, no gyms, no pills and no surgery. It is almost all lean meat: high in protein and extremely low in carbs and salt: no fruit, no alcohol, no dairy, no artificial sweeteners, and no spices are allowed. When I realized his diet involved eating meat, I informed him I was a vegetarian. "Eric, you're in warrior mode," he said. "You've been fighting for Dylan's life and now you're fighting for your own. Eat animals, just like warriors of old did, until we get you into shape. Show your boys what a dad who's a fighter looks like." Then he smiled, "Plus most vegetarians aren't really vegetable eaters. How often do you eat pizza and pasta?" Touché! The way I figure it, a doctor is prescribing the meat, so eating it is just me taking medicine until I don't need to any more. (I hope to return to true vegetarianism after I reach my goal weight, especially as I have found a new appreciation for the wide variety of tastes there are in the plant kingdom.) I started the diet the next day, after a "last supper" of pizza and beer! I was a little upset I didn't wait until after my birthday (Feb. 3) to begin the diet, but I made it through without eating any cake, a small victory over temptation that would be repeated many times.

Low-carb, high-protein diets are "ketogenic," which means it puts your body into ketosis: when your body switches from burning carbs to burning fat for energy. The first week or so of getting into ketosis are not easy: you have low-grade headaches, some dizziness, and grumpiness. But it's not the end of the world: it's just your brain rebelling at switching over to the new fuel source, and it desperately does not want to switch. After all, carb energy is all it has known for years. But best to bite the bullet and muddle through the "induction flu," as it's called, as quickly as possible. "People ask me why I don't start the diet gradually," Dr. Mizrahi told me, calling on his Army experience for a metaphor: "You don't go to boot camp and start exercises gradually. You dive in." But it is over soon and, after a week or so, you wake up to realize you have more energy, need less sleep, don't get hungry (protein is a potent appetite suppressant), and, most importantly, are shedding pounds like crazy!  You can use ketosis strips if you want to ensure you're in the fat-burning state, but you can even skip that and just trust you'll get there if you stick to the diet.

Exercise is not required on the Brentwood Diet, although of course it helps burn a few more calories, live longer, strengthen your heart and raise your fitness level. As you get lighter, it just feels good to move around, as the doctor said. But the pounds come off without it, and it's interesting to see how, contrary to most people's conceptions, working out for hours in the gym doesn't do as much as simply cutting back on bad foods. It's the old 80/20 rule. Now, that said, I do like to go for power walks and listen to music, but that's my choice, not a prescription. I weigh myself everyday on a less expensive Tanita scale that measures fat percentage and body water, and weigh in with the doctor every Friday. I have not experienced the bad breath and body odor that supposedly accompanies a ketogenic diet. I believe this only happens to those on Atkins-type diets, and likely because of the large amounts of animal fat they consume (garbage-in, garbage-out, I always say).

Now for the finer details of the Brentwood Diet: I have attached the diet below under Attachments. One document (Brentwood Diet Phase One) tells you precisely what you can and cannot eat, and the other gives the Ten Commandments to Eat By. I have to stress this diet must be medically supervised, so either look Dr. Mizrahi up if you're in Los Angeles, or have your doctor contact him (info@brentwoodfamilyhealthcenter.com or 310-471-7714), and see your doctor every week. It will also help to have a professional who has a fat percentage scale which can accurately measure someone of larger girth.

The Food

The Brentwood Diet is strict. There's not a lot of flavor. You eat to live; you don't live to eat. However, since you're not hungry when you're in ketosis, it's alright. It's more of a mental game than a physical hunger issue. And there are a few things you can do to improve the flavor of your meats and veggies, once you're allowed to have spices after week two. It was tough giving up some of the foods (and drinks!) I have grown accustomed to, including so-called diet drinks, but don't feel sorry for me: I have enjoyed food enough for now, and need to enjoy my new body, my family, and my social community. A life fully lived is sweeter than sugar. Plus, there is something wrong in a country where a huge fraction are overfed and another huge fraction goes hungry to the point of starvation. I aim to take only what I need each day -- and that does not apply to food alone.

I have found, through trial and error, that I can trust these products: Crown Prince No-Salt-Added Tongol Tuna*, Wild Planet Skipjack Tuna (cans are BPC-free), Dave's Protein Plus Tuna (although it is albacore and not tongol), Zacky Farms Turkey Breast Cutlets and Ground Turkey Breast, Rosie Organic Chicken Breast Tenders & Cutlets, and Foster Farms Ground Chicken Breast & No-Salt-Added Thin-Sliced Chicken Breast, Westbrae Natural No-Salt-Added Stone Ground Mustard, along with cage-free chicken's eggs, fresh lean fish and organic lemons and veggies at the Brentwood farmer's market on Sunday or the nearby grocery stores (Whole Foods and Vicente Foods). Otherwise, read food labels closely. The body only needs 30 to 40 grams of protein per day; that is just one can of tuna, although if you have more than that it's alright, because the brain knows what to do with the extra protein calories. It's the carbs and fat that are the culprits in our typical Western diet (though you do get some of the Omega-3 "good fat" with the egg yolks), along with the nasty chemicals in processed foods and factory farming practices.

* Tongol is a smaller fish and has less mercury. You can look up the mercury content of seafoods here:

I currently just boil a half dozen eggs and just eat one for breakfast as soon after waking as possible. For lunch, the tuna is ready to eat with some lemon juice and mustard. I keep lemons, the no-salt mustard, and cans of tuna at work. While cooking your own bird is the best way to avoid fat and salt, few of us have the time. Instead, I usually throw two packages of the chicken and turkey on our George Foreman family-sized grill, so I have dinner meat on-hand for the next couple of days. Bison if you can find it is lean, the New York cut is leanest, and if you can get grass-fed, that is the best. Slow-cooked, you have a great alternative to fatty steak. I have also heard that emu and venison are acceptable lean meats.

Jana, my wife, cooks us recipes from the blog Suriviving the Brentwood Diet (link below), and she also came up with a simple recipe to replicate mashed potatoes: first, roast a head of cauliflower and a couple cloves of garlic, sprayed with Pam and sprinkled with turmeric and cumin, at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Then, put the cauliflower and garlic in a high speed blender or food processor with a little hot water until it's a creamy texture and serve. So you could have a nice dinner with the bison, faux mashed potatoes and a salad of spinach and romaine with some lemon juice and just a touch of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

Making Progress

Although a key differential of the diet is not to measure things, I am an inveterate data guy. So I put my progress each week into a spreadsheet, also attached below (Brentwood Diet.xls), which shows my progress in numbers with a chart and my blood pressure, which is now normal. I used to look at it from time to time to remind myself how well I'm doing, and to keep me motivated to keep up the good work.  

On the spreadsheet you will see the weeks where I allowed salt to creep in, which made my body water and blood pressure go up (it is key to read food labels, and to talk to those preparing your food if you are out to eat or at your work cafeteria). And you'll see how long it took to get rid of it since the kidneys retain 95% of the body's salt every day. You'll also see when stressful events slowed my loss (and when I cheated with Easter candy, naughty boy). But it's no good to beat yourself up if you succumb to temptation: It's OK to slip up, it's not OK to give up. I'm trying to undo decades of habits, so I have to allow myself time to change, beyond simply losing the weight. The truth is that simple obedience to the diet brings results. And success fuels further obedience. 

You eat when your body tells you, and to know you've had enough when your body tells you. It's that simple.  You learn a lot about why you eat: because of emotions, stress, boredom, habit, but rarely because our stomachs are actually empty. "That empty feeling means you're alive," the doctor reminds me. "Enjoy it." And drink plenty of water, all the time! And have hand moisturizer on hand since you'll be visiting the restroom a lot and, I would hope, washing your hands a lot. I am learning mindful eating: to chew my food thoroughly, to take my time when eating, to think more about those I'm eating with than about the food itself, to be grateful to have food in a world like this, to be grateful to the farmers and truckers and grocers who supplied the food, and to be grateful to the animals that gave their lives so that I could continue with mine. Eating out is a hazard: cooks always add salt, even when you are adamant with the waiter. I think they're afraid the food will be sent back for being "tasteless."

Mental Discipline

As I lost weight, Dr. Mizrahi warned me: "Some people will tell you it's dangerous to lose so much weight: Ignore them," he smiled. "Where were they when you were gaining all this weight? That was much more dangerous." He went on: "a lot of people will tell you how great you look: Ignore them. You will be tempted to rest on your laurels and eat outside the diet. Don't. Stay on course and stick to the plan. Work hard." Of course, it has helped to go public with the diet as I have done with this page, which should make it easier to stick to it. I have a stake in this, one that those who fly under the radar do not share. He was correct in that I got a LOT of compliments and some concern that I was suffering from manorexia, but I ignored both kinds of comments and forged ahead.

He has also warned me when I neared my goal that my brain may try to sabotage me, because it thinks I'm a fat person and wants me to stay that way. I immediately started dreaming about eating pints of ice cream after he said this! It will take additional determination to overcome this mental pattern which has plagued me all my life, really. Many of us formerly and currently overweight people start to believe the fat jokes, cruel put-downs and conception that such people are lazy, second-class citizens. And after years of believing in such a way, it will take a long time to undo that damage to the psyche and rewire the brain's neurons to fire in a new way. Like St. Paul said, be transformed by the renewing of your mind -- literally! "Three years," he says. That's how long it will take to get rid of those voices in my head. "Get beyond fat and thin," he says as he stands up to give me another huge hug in parting, "and tell your mind you're a healthy person, a man who is showing his kids a great role model. Ask yourself, 'Where's this going to go?' when you eat food. Pay attention to what you're doing, Eric." 

The intense stress in my life has also been something I've been dealing with, using proven stress management techniques (see link below). Since stress is one of the main things that makes the body think it needs to hold on to its fat, reducing it as much as I can has been imperative. My main focus is moving from fear of dying, which motivated the change in the first place, to the love of living, which will motivate me to keep up healthy eating and activity for the rest of my life. I have had some issues when I would smell off-limits food either at work or at home, but I remembered 70% of tasting food is in the smell, so I just leave the remaining 30% on the table, and breathe in the delicious aroma deeply.

Now that I have reached my goal, I can incorporate other vegetables and fruits into my regimen, in a very limited way, as long as I balance the caloric intake with exercise. I am slowly switching to a true vegetarian diet now that I am out of ketosis, and ensure I eat the right combination of proteins using recipe books that cater to this need. A couple of products that fit the new regimen are Muscle Milk Ready To Drink, and Lite Firm Tofu, to replace the eggs in the morning and the tuna at lunch, respectively. I will also replace meals on occasion with a high-quality protein powder, like Vega's Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer which has zero sodium, all the essential amino acids, and is also high in fiber. I only have veggies and fruit at night, and that still before 7 p.m. I am having some trouble with temptation, but generally sticking to my plan. I am also happy to take communion again! 

Dr. Mizrahi asked me to think about what I want to do with my new body. Do I want to run a triathlon or take up tennis or karate? Start playing golf, sailing or just do general fitness work? One answer: I am planning to run the L.A. Marathon in March in my son's honor, and to raise funds for kids' cancer. Click this link to read more and to donate toward the cause:

Nearly 150 years ago, a man named William Banting wrote a brief pamphlet about his low-carb diet, also prescribed to him by a doctor to heal other maladies besides being overweight, and it became a sensation (please see the PDF below called "WilliamBanting_LetterOnCorpulence1864"). This page is my own little letter on my own corpulence and I can only hope, as Banting did, that it will help a few other people who suffer from obesity. More recently, a paper was published in the '80s about "Paleolithic Nutrition" (also read it, below, under Attachments) that viewed diet through an evolutionary perspective, which sparked interest in the medical community. This was followed by a landmark book that was only translated into English last year (Food and Western Disease, link below), and which provides reams of evidence showing how this diet not only helps you lose weight, but also avoid most major Western diseases of civilization. But it wasn't until Atkins wrote his infamous book at the turn of the millennium that low-carb diets came back in vogue. The Brentwood Diet is more like Banting's than Atkins' -- people would do better to follow the example of Jack LaLanne as an exemplary guru, who nearly lived a century with common-sense advice about diet and fitness. I do not pretend to understand the mechanisms behind the raging debate over diet, but I do find that the evidence presented by the book and my own experience is too compelling to ignore. And, as the doctor says, with reference to millions of years of human evolutionary development: "I've got history on my side."

I suppose I should note before I conclude: I get no financial gain from referring people to Dr. Mizrahi, and I am not a doctor or dietician, so you take on this diet at your own risk, and I assume no liability. I am also not a lawyer, so this verbiage may not be exactly what it's supposed to be, but you get the point. As I said above: get the help of a qualified physician (not a dietician) to lose weight quickly and safely. Although some of you have asked me to, I am not publishing a blog about my diet, but only this one page, intended to be like the diet itself: a simple distillation of the change in your life you need to make to reach your goal, and my personal experience of it.

And finally, kind reader, thank you for reading this lengthy article. And to my fellow warriors in the battle of the bulge, here's to life. L'Chaim!


Online Resources

• Dr. Eric Mizrahi and the Brentwood Family Health Center:
  http://www.brentwoodfamilyhealthcenter.com/html/home.php


• Doctor Mizrahi has a couple of brief blogs on the Brentwood Diet which outline his approach, including his response to this page (2nd link):
  http://brentwoodfamilyhealthcenter.blogspot.com/
  http://brentwoodfamilyhealthcenter.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-couldnt-have-said-it-better.html


• And there is a helpful blog by a Brentwood Diet "survivor" here, including recipes:
  http://survivingthebrentwooddiet.blogspot.com/


• Here is the article as it appeared in The Brentwood News:
  http://www.westsidetoday.com/n6105/


• More info on Paleolithic diets and Ketosis, including the book Food and Western Disease:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis
  http://books.google.com/books/about/Food_and_Western_Disease.html?id=Qd5PUlEPNMAC


• Stress management techniques:
  http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/u/Managing_your_stress.htm

Questions? Comments!

If this page has not answered all your questions about the Brentwood Diet, or if you would like to share your own experiences on the diet with me, or have anything else to say, please feel free to contact me here.