9 WEIGHT LOSS

Critical truth #1:   calorie reduction diets are a bad idea.

Certainly, you need to eat an appropriate number of calories for your size. But if you drop way below that in an effort to shed pounds, you’ll actually wreak havoc on your body. Here’s why.

1.    When you reduce calories and you lose weight, you are usually losing muscle, not fat.  This is bad.  Very bad.  Muscle burns 70 times as many calories as fat.  So when you lose muscle, you are losing the ability to burn fat.  Muscles burn fat when you are sitting around doing nothing.  Muscles burn fat when you are sleeping.  You do not want to lose muscle.  So now you know:  restricting calories causes you to lose muscle, and this is something you do not want to do!

2.    Even worse:  If you do restrict calories, and you do lose weight, when you gain it back, the weight will come back as fat – not the muscle you lost.  How unfair!  But it’s true.  That means that every time you lose weight by restricting calories and gain it back (yo-yoing), you are changing your body composition from muscle to fat – which as you know means you can’t burn as many calories.  So you are destroying your metabolism (your ability to burn fat).  Again: don’t restrict your calories and burn away your muscle!

3.    In addition, when you restrict calories, your body thinks it’s starving, so your metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories) slows down.

Now… this does not mean you should overeat!  If you overeat, you will gain weight!  So hear me clearly:  I am not saying that you should eat as much food as you can. I am saying that if you go on a diet and “restrict your calories” too much, it will definitely backfire.

 

Critical truth #2:   Eat Real Food
Jillian Michaels says “Don’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of the ground or have a mother”. Michael Pollan discourages “edible foodlike substances”. Two health experts with radically different training and backgrounds agree on this one simple fact: eat real food.

• Base your diet around what our ancestors ate for thousands of years: fresh veggies and fruits, whole grains, and delicious proteins such as meat, fish, poultry, dairy, and game. Focus on quality: organic, local choices are highest in nutrients and lowest in nasty things like pesticides and herbicides. Who wants to eat chemicals along with their salad? Not us.

• Remember that everyone’s body is different. There’s no one size fits all diet model. Some people respond better to a protein-heavy diet and some people do really well with grains. Pay attention to your body and see how it changes, and how you feel, based on what you’re offering it.

• Don’t forget your water! You can’t get more real than the good old H2O. Soda, caffeine and alcohol are true nutrition bandits.

·       If these suggestions sound really boring to you, remember that you don’t have to sacrifice taste. This isn’t about eating carrots and celery for the rest of your life. Look online and ask your friends for hints on how to spice up the taste of veggies. Also, when you keep quality in mind, you’ll realize that you can still enjoy pizza or a burger. Just choose whole grains instead of refined, cheeses and meats from good sources, and try to throw in some peppers, mushrooms, and other crunchy plants.

 

 

 

Critical Truth #3:   Cut Out Evil food

 

In truth #1, we told you that “calorie restriction diets” are a bad idea.  So that leaves you asking yourself, “How am I supposed to lose weight?”.  The first thing you need to do is to cut out evil food.  The following is a list of evil foods:

• Trans Fats and Hydrogenated Fats.  These are man-made fats used in crackers, cookies, chips, and other “processed” items.  It’s the reason that some packaged foods can sit on your shelf and still stay fresh.  These fats are toxic.  They cause weight gain, cancer and heart disease.  You can’t eat them.  Sorry.  We like Ritz crackers and Twinkies too, but they are off limits!

• Sugar.  Sorry, but sugar is evil.  The average American eats about 180 pounds of sugar a year.  When you eat sugar, you get a sudden rise in blood sugar levels, which triggers a spike in your insulin level.  This makes you hungry and makes you crave more sugar – a vicious cycle that you must avoid!  Sugar creates weight gain, and countless diseases such as cancer, diabetes, rapid aging, and many, many more.

Avoiding sugar means avoiding sugar in all of its forms:  corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, glucose, maltose, dextrose, lactose, fructose, white grape juice, fruit concentrate, natural cane sugar, and dehydrated cane juice.

This is terrible news.  I love a good Coca-cola Classic on ice as much as the next person.  Cookies and milk – there’s nothing better.  But you can’t eat them.  You should consume no sugar.  Cut sugar in all its forms, from your diet, and you will be transformed – mentally and physically.

Summary:  truth # 3 is bad news for most of America.  So much of the food we love contain trans fats and sugar.  I know that cutting out these foods must seem RADICAL, but I’m here to tell you the truth, and there’s no way I can avoid saying this:  cut out all sugars, and foods with trans fats and hydrongenated fats.  If you do this, weight will fall off – I promise!

There is good news:  There are lots of great tasting, fattening foods you can eat!  You don’t ever have to walk around hungry.  You never have to skip a meal.
 

 

Critical truth #4:    Eat Carbs.

Here’s some good news:  you can eat carbs.  In fact, you absolutely need carbs to function and to maintain health.  Here are the rules for carbs:

• Always eat carbs with a meal – never alone.  When you eat carbs alone, they digest too quickly, and raise your blood sugar in the same way that sugar does.  This triggers and insulin spike, and makes you crave move food and sugar.  Spikes in blood sugar cause weight gain, aging and disease – you already know this.

• Meals containing carbs should always contain some protein and some fat.  Both of these help “slow” the digestion of the carb.

• Next – and you’re not going to like this – reduce or eliminate carbs that come from flour.  When whole grain is ground up into flour, it will digest too quickly, and cause blood sugar to rise – you know the rest of the story.  That means most breads are made from flour.  That mean even “whole wheat bread” is no good.  The benefits of the “whole wheat” are gone once it is ground into flour.

• Also – and you won’t like this either – reduce or eliminate “white” carbs:  white rice, large white potatoes.

• In case you’re now wondering what carbs you can actually have, here is a list of the carbs that I eat:

-                    Brown rice, quinoa, oatmeal (for breakfast)

-                    Ezekiel sprouted grain cereal

-                    Ezekiel sprouted grain bread

-                    Whole grain dense German bread

-                    Sweet potatoes

 

Critical truth #5:    Eat FAT.

• You may have heard the terms “good fats” and “bad fats”. People generally think of “good fats” as plant-based fats, from things like avocadoes, nuts, and olive oil. They certainly are good for you, in addition to being delicious. However, we disagree with the idea that saturated fats – which have come to be associated with animal fats – are “bad”. Your body needs both unsaturated and saturated fats. People have been eating both for thousands of years.  They are critical to cellular health, and therefore, the health of your entire body. Plus, eating some fat with your meal keeps you full for hours and hours so you won’t start craving junk food or other unhealthy snacks.

• In choosing your fat, remember critical truth #2. Quality is everything. There is nothing wrong with a hamburger per se. A delicious burger made from pasture-raised, organic meat can be just the ticket. A hamburger a from corn and soy fed, feedlot raised, antibiotic and hormone injected, sickly cow? Well, that’s bad fat. That’s pretty much bad everything.

• Truly, the only bad fat is the evil TRANS FAT (aka hydrogenated fat) that we discussed in critical truth #3. This fat is chemically altered and has been linked to all kinds of disease.

Critical truth #6:    When you eat Matters!

• Many of us skip breakfast. We say we just don’t have time to prepare it, or we’re not hungry. Perhaps we think that foregoing this meal will help us lose weight. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stephanie Small, our “food therapist”, has seen many overweight clients who are skipping breakfast (and sometimes lunch). They’re not overeating: they’re not eating ENOUGH.

When you fast, your blood sugar drops. Your body considers this an emergency. It floods your system with cortisol which causes it to spike, which in turn raises your blood sugar. And you know that’s a great way to gain weight. Not only that, but when the thyroid becomes aware of this constant roller coaster ride, it thinks you’re in a famine, so it puts the brakes on your metabolism. Over time this will cause you to pack on the pounds. Bottom line: skipping meals may work in the short term, but will backfire in the long term.

• If you’re a meal skipper, you’re likely also a devotee of the “Sumo wrestler diet”: eating a large amount late at night. This is truly Sumo wrestlers’ choice method of weight gain. If you want to lose weight, stop eating three hours before you go to bed. If you’re way too hungry to implement this step, you need to be eating a bigger breakfast!

• Those of us on the typical office day schedule probably break our fast around 730 am, have lunch between 12 and 1, and dinner around 7. These are sizeable gaps between meals, and it’s normal to get hungry. In fact, by the time you eat again, you might be absolutely ravenous. In order to prevent overeating, try having a small snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon. It should contain some fat, for satiety, and some protein, in order to stabilize your blood sugar. Remember, pure carbs will spike it.

Critical truth #7:  Exercise

• Our ancestors were constantly moving. They were walking, running, chopping wood, hauling water, carrying babies, and hunting saber toothed tigers. Our bodies are made to move. Sadly, in 2010, we spend our days in front of the computer, the dvd, and the television. Sitting. Slowly dying inside. Get out and move! You don’t have to go crazy in the gym, but at least find a form of motion that suits you. Gardening, dancing, walking a furry creature, and chasing your children are all examples of exercise that are easily integrated into your schedule. It’s crucial to identify something you enjoy, or you won’t stick to it. No offense. That’s just how we are.

·      If weight loss is your goal, you might want to consider interval training, which burns 9 times as much fat as regular training. It can be integrated into ANY form of cardiovascular exercise you choose. Vary your more moderate pace  with short bursts of peak intensity.

 

Critical truth #8:  Sleep and Stress

 

· The impact of lifestyle on weight gain is very often overlooked. In critical truth #6 we discussed the role of cortisol in blood sugar regulation. Well, cortisol is the fight-or-flight hormone. Guess what gets released when you’re stressed. Yup. And guess what soars along with it? Blood sugar. The constant soaring and crashing causes weight gain over time. We’ve seen it first-hand. Deep breathing, meditation, exercise, crying, and screaming are all examples of effective stress release and / or reduction. Find out what you need, and use it to help relax.

· Countless studies have demonstrated the link between sleep and weight. When you sleep, your body regulates the hunger hormone and the hormone that makes you feel full. When you haven’t slept enough, you make more of the hunger hormone and less of the satiety hormone. That means you’re more likely to be reaching for that sugar-laden Starbucks or candy bar to get you through the day. Your body also jumps in to help, firing off that good old cortisol….causing…say it with us…a blood sugar spike! It’s a big ol’ mess. 8 hrs of sleep is the industry standard for optimum health, but you may need more or less. As always, pay attention to your body and what it needs.

Critical Truth #9: It’s Work.

There is no magic pill. There is no shortcut. You will fall off the wagon, but if you want to succeed you must get back on.

Hard work is necessary to achieving any goal. When success comes overnight, it’s usually overwhelming. This is why lottery winners often squander their money within a few years, and why contestants on “The Biggest Loser” can’t seem to keep the weight off. It’s too much all at once. Get accustomed to a steady, gradual pace, to achieving moderate victories that over time add up to a powerful whole. In doing so you will accustom yourself to a lifestyle that will support your weight loss for the rest of your life.