The world-famous – and this is not an exaggeration – dietitian, author of numerous best-sellers about beauty and health, TV star himself and consultant to Hollywood stars, Oz Garcia, since recently has got another title – that of a strategic partner of Vision International People Group. Here is the exclusive interview with the dietitian in which he shares his secrets of health and longevity. About national cuisine, male problems and female beauty - You are one of the leading world experts in the healthy diet and at the same time a man who travels a lot. Tell us, please, which country has most healthy national cuisine traditions? - There are several parts of the world where the culture and the society have put together ways of healthy eating that contribute to better protection of the human body, even to the longer lifespan. The main one, of course, is the Mediterranean. Many countries – from the Mediterranean Greece, Mediterranean Italy and to the Mediterranean French regions are famous for their national cuisine. The traditional Japanese diet, Okinawian dishes, also deserves a special mention. - Recently you appeared on the American CBS TV speaking about the ways to prevent the premature male organism ageing. It was a very useful talk, but unfortunately not everybody can watch CBS beyond the US. Could you please repeat your address in brief for our readers?

- Premature ageing is a problem in any society. The stress, too much work, the financial crisis, alcohol and tobacco, all that age our bodies. So, on CBS I spoke about what you can do to reduce the overall damage of stress. Anxiety can age your heart, you can die younger. Stress can lead to diabetes, it can wear your brain down.
Every day you can see people, mainly men, who are in their thirties that have worn their bodies down. That's because they are not taking care of themselves properly either through diet or exercise, fitness, stress management. So in a combination with the excessive stress their bodies become old before they are.

- Let us talk about women as well. Many people consider the Russian women among the most beautiful in the world. But as a professional, you are sure to see some faults in them as well…

- I have, in answering the question, to be frank with you: my girlfriend is Russian, she is from St. Petersburg and I consider her to be really quite beautiful. I am sure the Russian women in general are among the most beautiful in the world. But any woman can always work to improve her appearance even more.
But women also suffer terribly from stress, from everyday pressure, so many of the things that I will talk about today will be very important for women. If a woman wants to maintain her appearance, her beauty, she needs a special complete package that has to do with the lifestyle.

- They believe that in order to look well one should have healthy hair, healthy teeth and clean skin. What would you recommend for such beauty "triangle"?

- There are studies that came out a number of years ago that indicate that flossing – not just brushing your teeth but actually flossing – may extend your lifespan by three to four years. So, this simple example shows that how we care for ourselves makes a very big difference both in maintaining our health and in how we look.
The look of health is easy to lose through premature ageing, like too much stress, the damage of alcohol or eating an improper diet. For men these things may speed up their hair loss.
For beautiful hair and skin, in addition to dropping bad habits, you want to make sure that you get good sleep, since sleep is very important for the whole organism in terms of the quality of your skin and your hair. At night, when you are asleep your body reboots itself like a computer, it reboots hormones, all the different things that actually could affect how good you are going to look in the daytime. For maintaining the skin beauty and health you can use the cosmetics that Vision offers. We studied them, they really help. But you should remember that the look of health is the interplay of many factors.

On the balanced diet, the good and bad of vegetarianism

- Now the term "balanced diet" is very popular but only few people understand what it is all about. Could you please explain it?

- Well, the balanced nutrition means understanding a number of principles. The main principle is that food has functions, great functions really. Food can either work for you or it can work against you. It can give you agility, it can improve your mind, it can help your metabolism, it can reduce the risk of cancer. You look better, you regulate your weight better if you eat properly. But if you do not eat properly (in an unbalanced, unfunctional way) food makes you gain weight, it contributes to diabetes, to the cancer development, it reduces your longevity. There is a very strong link between what you eat and the health of your body.
The diet should include more plant food (fruit and vegetables), more good quality animal protein (seafood and fish), different kinds of fibers (beans, bran). So, balancing the diet is actually understanding that you need to increase the so-called 'functional" food and reduce the food that is going to do harm to your body.

- You said just now that eating vegetables is very beneficial. Is a vegetarian diet advantageous or is meat necessary as well?

- I think that diet should, first of all, suit a person. You have to find one that will work best for you. There are many different opinions on should you be a vegetarian or should you be a meat eater. I think that the balanced diet is the only way to approach: being extreme one way or the other can be very problematic.
Say, you are a vegetarian and strong in your body, but try to be a vegetarian in Moscow in the middle of winter! You will need to have much denser kind of energy resources, so under certain circumstances animal protein is very important. But you have to pick the quality animal protein and remember that too much red meat, too much pork, too much beef for instance can be very problematic, if you are a man; it can contribute to the problems with your heart, with the prostate cancer.
On the other hand, for many people being vegetarians can contribute to the extreme weight gain. It is true for many women.

On weight management and Kg-Off food supplements

- How necessary is it to constantly control your weight and isn't the obesity hazard exaggerated?

- The obesity problem is not exaggerated. When you look at the current America you see close to 70 per cent of the population overweight, with a very high percentage of that group obese, up to 20 per cent.
This is a problem that is showing up world-wide for the first time ever in the world history. There are more heavy people now on planet Earth than there are people actually going hungry. Because the trend has been set in the direction that is very bad for human health and for human beings overall.
In a country like Russia, where you can get relatively inexpensive food with a source of calories, people can put on weight very quickly. This puts a tremendous strain on the heart, it contributes to the adult diabetes, to different kinds of cancer. When you look at the statistical data, being obese is a contributing factor to two other problems: depression and lethargy. Really what you want to do is eat and regulate your weight the whole life, so that you maintain your health in the best way possible.

- Vision will soon introduce Kg-Off food supplements for weight control. Can they, in your opinion, actually help people trying to reduce their weight?

- They are very good supplements. In conjunction, along with diet, along with fitness programs they really allow to control your weight. There are many other products in the market, many that I think are not healthy at all. Fortunately, the Vision products are not in that range, they are really quite useful.

- There are two products in the Vision Kg-Off line. The first one suppresses hunger and the second one absorbs fat. Can you describe in more detail the mechanism of action for such preparations?

- Well, it is very simple, though it sounds complicated. The less complicated the product, the more elegant the result. So, the first one contains a fiber, typical for the traditional Cantonese cuisine. The fibers make you feel full quicker. So, for people who need to regulate their appetite it is a very, very useful product to have. If you want to put yourself on a good diet, I think the Kg-Off can be quite remarkable.
The second one begins to block and immobilize fat. The preparation is based on the substance called chitosan that has been around for a long time and has proven its effectiveness.
If you are on a diet already, try Kg-Off and feel the difference. You will be able to stave off the appetite much better and fight the fat. Of course you should never forget exercise. You need to fit all these elements – diet, fitness, food supplements - together, to bring them together in a lifestyle and you'll get a much better success in managing weight.

- One of the hardest questions in the reducing process is how to hang on to the results? Suppose someone has managed to lose weight but how to maintain it? Must one constantly limit his/her eating or are there any other recommendations to follow?

- Managing weight is a life-time project for everybody. As you get older the metabolism changes, as you move into your late thirties, into your forties, into your fifties, we don't burn calories as efficiently as we did when we were younger. So, the amount of food we eat matters, especially when you are older and more mature.
You need to be very strategic in the food. It's not like we go on a diet, off a diet, a stricter diet, a softer diet. Instead you have to know which food is going to help your metabolism best of all.
Some people really need to have boundaries when they sit down to eat. Studies that have been done in top universities of the United States show that many people don't have good boundaries. When you put a plate of food in front of a person they will eat most of what is there. So, some solution is needed here as well.
Once you lose weight you have to maintain the habits, continue to exercise, you have to make sure that you manage your health better. You don't tempt yourself too much! When you identify the food that you like, have it, but have it once in a while. For the most part every day there's going to be a kind of combat with the food that is working against you. Behave yourself with food, with what you eat and the amount that you eat!

- What is the role of food supplements in the healthy diet?

- There are great advantages to using supplements. They can help to improve your condition. We knew that folic acid can help your heart, can help protect your brain against depression. We knew that using a good quality calcium can compensate for not having adequate calcium in your diet. This is important for protecting against the loss of bone that contributes to osteoporosis. So, supplementation can have a very basic role.
But now we know that it is a good science that you can use supplements to improve the mind, to improve the immune system, how you look, your appearance. At the same time the science of supplements continues to evolve.

- How do you forecast the development of the bioactive food supplement production industry?

- The field of biologically active food supplements continues to expand. But it is not so much that there are more products. The main thing is that new products are more precise, better evolved, today you can use supplements categorically: for life extension, brain performance, immune performance, cardiovascular help, improved digestion, on and on and on. Those categories were never approachable even a decade ago, so the food supplement industry has an enormous potential.

On marathon running, pepperoni pizza and the Million Dollar Baby

- Do you use any food supplements yourself and on what basis do you choose them?

- Oh, the answer is, of course! I believe in the products themselves and have been using them for 30 years. I use probiotics. These are the bacteria that can be found in cultured food, for instance, yoghurt and certain cheeses.
I am a long-distance runner, I've been running for over 35 years, the terrain and the marathon. I like to get out every day and I like to run 4 to 6 miles. So, I also use supplements that allow me to run better, to protect my joints, to make sure I have the power required at my age to perform very well. Supplements are very important in how I take care of myself.

- The question you are surely being asked more that any other. How do you yourself manage to look so well? What is your secret and how much time do you spend in a gym?

- In order to stay well or in order to look well you need to begin from inside out. It's more a question of the formula I live on, the way I structure my habits.
I am very conscientious about food. I know how food works and I know how it works for me. That is critical for anybody. Whatever you do food is central and everything kind of spokes out from there.
Exercise is very important, I work out every day. There are few days in my week when I do not do some kind of exercise, either rowing or I go jogging or I go running. I need to hit the gym two or three time in a week. I get massage on a regular basis.
Detoxification is very important. Make sure that you use products that detox you of all the chemicals and pollutants in the environment. It's a big problem in the modern world. You are exposed to many chemicals from the wrappers on food alone! When you walk in the street you breathe pollution from vehicles or when being around people who smoke cigarettes, the tobacco is very bad for you. You should fight those hazards.
So, how you look begins first with how you care about yourself, with what and how you eat, being fit, how you regulate stress, making sure that you get adequate sleep. Also doing something about understanding other things: in order to look and feel well you need to have a wholesome life, be happy, do the work that is challenging for you, that is creative for you. Many studies that have been done recently show that if you want to live a very good long life, you have to have a family, friends, in other words, you need to be in a certain social structure that can actually support you.
So, many things come together! Looking better is the end result of how you go about taking care of yourself almost every day. Pharmaceuticals, obviously, you can also use good products to take care of your skin or your hair but it begins first with your personal habits and what your life is all about itself.

- Are there any products which are strictly off-limits for you personally? Do some nights occur when you, say, crave for a pepperoni pizza and what do you say to yourself on such nights?

- It's an interesting question. The food that I do enjoy may not necessarily be healthy. I am Cuban, I was raised in Cuba, so when with my relatives in Miami I am going to enjoy different platters of a great Cuban meal. But if I am home, if I am working and taking care of myself, I don't really sit down and wonder whether I will have a pizza or not. There are things I'd rather do, I'd rather feel good, I'd rather that my digestive system function well, I'd rather that my mind be sharp. So, I choose food that tastes great and that is terrific in the management of my health. There are many, many foods that can entertain you and that don't have to be garbage, don't have to be processed food. I wouldn't touch McDonald's because you come to a point when you understand that there is a certain intelligence that you have to apply if you want to be strong, if you want to be productive, if you want to be a happier human being, if you want to weather stress better.

- Your methods are proven all over the world, you have a lot of famous clients. Whose achievements are you especially proud of from among the celebrities you are a consultant to?

- The one that comes to my mind is the two-times Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank. We trained her for a movie that also won an Oscar called Million Dollar Baby. We worked with her very carefully for many months to train her to gain 15 to 20 pounds of muscle bulk. We got her very, very strong and the rest is history. Hilary is a very beautiful woman and has a remarkable career as an actress. She probably is the celebrity that I am most proud of.