Subject: About Low Carb Dieting
Every day you walk down the street it is becoming more and more apparent that the average person is becoming larger and this trend has escalated over recent years. Why are they getting fatter? Here are some reasons ...
Less incidental activity
Automated and computerized lifestyle
Longer working hours and less leisure
Increased consumption of processed foods
Our food servings are larger than ever
Being overweight, or obese, has now moved from a social nuisance and domestic embarrassment to an official disease. The American Heart Association has announced obesity is a major risk for heart disease.
Obesity itself has become a major and dangerous epidemic. More than 70% of US adults are overweight and that figure is rapidly increasing.
What do most people do to rid their body of unwanted fat? They diet! Dieting is now a trillion dollar industry and just about every month a new diet is announced. If you do have weight problems how do you find a diet that is safe, effective and sustainable?
What you do is try to find a diet that includes a variety of foods that you can live with comfortably. You have to take a long-term view and include plenty of exercise. A good diet is one that supplies all of the essential vitamins and minerals, and is not high in fat or protein.
Research on people who have successfully lost a lot of weight and kept it off long term, shows that the vast majority succeeded by consuming a low fat diet high in fiber coupled with strength training and cardiovascular activity.
Be wary of diets that
Ban a specific food group
Promise a quick fix
Replace a balanced meal with a drink or a snack bar
Make recommendations based on single studies
Make recommendations to help sell a single product
Excess weight does not appear overnight and nor will it disappear overnight! In fact the faster you lose weight, the more likely you are to pile the pounds back on. Seek out a program that will help you maintain long term body fat losses by providing attainable solutions such as a program that promotes lifestyle changes, healthy eating and regular exercise.
Regular exercise is important (i.e. strength training) as it burns fat, boosts your metabolism and also increases your energy levels. Dietary changes can lead to initial weight loss, but this is only for the short term.
Exercise is essential for maintaining weight loss for the long term. Now let’s take a closer look at what food is made up of and then you will have a good idea of what to look for in your daily eating plan.
Firstly we need a wide range of nutrients to perform various functions for a healthy life. These nutrients include carbohydrates, proteins and fat and are all present in the food we eat on a daily basis.
The foods containing these nutrients are cereals, legumes, nuts, vegetables, fruits, milk products and flesh foods (fish, meat and poultry).
We need all these nutrients to live and thrive and since we receive them through the food we eat, our food must be well balanced and in the proper proportions. Food is a fuel; the body requires this fuel for energy which is measured in fats, carbohydrate and protein.
Each of these nutrients provides different amounts of energy and these are measured in calories.
Nutrient Calories per Gram
Carbohydrate 4
Protein 4
Fat 9
Let’s look at carbohydrates first, carbohydrates supply energy for our body, they provide fiber for the prevention of disease and taste and texture to food. They are found in cereals, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.
They come in two basic forms, simple and complex. Simple carbs are easily identified by their taste and are sweet. Complex carbs, such as potatoes are pleasant to the taste buds, but are not sweet.
They are then divided into two groups, high fiber and low fiber.
High-fiber foods are the healthiest choices for nutrition and the intake of these foods is associated with a lower incidence of cancer and diabetes. Carbohydrates supply the sort of calories easily burned during cardiovascular exercise. They are often wrongly feared and considered fattening, but the most important factor in weight control is balancing the energy (calories) consumed.
Please remember:
ENERGY IN is more than ENERGY OUT = Weight gain
ENERGY IN is equal to ENERGY OUT = Weight maintenance
ENERGY IN is less than ENERGY OUT = Weight loss
Different foods affect the ability to exercise at different levels. High levels of exercise (cardio and strength training) require carbohydrate as a fuel source; at lower levels it is fat. A lack of carbohydrate in the diet will lead to fatigue, the inability to exercise effectively, and excess fat consumption.
When our food is digested, carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars. These sugars are asorbed by the body and used by the muscles or stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver. As our glycogen storage capacity is limited, carbohydrate needs to be continually topped up by the foods we eat.
BUT THE BODY HAS AN UNLIMITED STORAGE CAPACITY FOR FAT!
The average person is extremely vulnerable to fad diets and extreme dieting behaviors. The low carbohydrate diet is one of the latest eating plans to hit the streets. This current diet craze is very popular but there are safer and more effective methods based on scientific research, to reduce body fat levels.
LOW CARBOHYDRATE DIETING IS SIMPLY WRONG.
Why is this? Just as a car runs better on a certain fuel, so does the human body. Unfortunately the latest low-carbohydrate fad diets are not the fuel mix the human body was designed to run on.
Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fats contain 9 calories per gram. For weight loss, the priority is to decrease total calorie intake. Reducing the amount of fat in the diet will make the biggest difference in reducing total daily calorie intake and hence weight loss.
CARBOHYDRATE INTAKE IS NOT FATTENING.
EXCESS CALORIE INTAKE IS FATTENING
If you aren't having enough carbohydrates in your diet you will experience:
Fatigue due to low blood sugar levels inadequate intake of vitamins and minerals
Low fiber intake, which may affect bowel movements
'Bad’ breath due to the breakdown products of fats (called ketones)
The bottom line for carbohydrates and weight loss is to:
Try to balance carbohydrate intake with activity levels
Maintain energy levels by eating carbohydrate rich foods on a regular basis
Carbohydrate rich foods are normally low in fat and nutrient-rich
What is the Glycemic Index?
Some carbohydrate foods will maintain your energy levels for hours, while some may cause your blood glucose to rise and fall. Different types of carbohydrate can also affect feelings of fullness in the stomach and this can influence hunger and your ability to control your body weight.
The glycemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrate foods according to their impact on blood sugar (glucose) levels:
Foods with a high GI are absorbed quickly into the blood stream and cause a rapid rise in blood glucose levels.
While foods with a low GI are broken down more slowly over time and keep blood glucose levels more stable (Remember that low is slow!).
Why is the GI important?
When our blood glucose levels are stable we have plenty of readily available fuel for the brain and muscles. If our blood glucose levels drop too low (hypoglycemia) we feel tired, dizzy and generally unwell.
If our blood glucose levels rise too quickly this is usually followed by a rapid drop. Include low glycemic index foods in meals and snacks to slow the release of glucose into the bloodstream. You will find a table for your convenience in the manual under nutrition.
A low glycemic index snack a few hours before exercise will help maintain your energy levels for more effective training. After high intensity exercise (strength training) a high glycemic index snack should be consumed within 30 minutes. This will help to replace energy and start the recovery process.
Low GI foods are ideal for losing weight due to the slow absorption from the gut. Low GI foods also help to keep blood sugar levels more stable and this has an effect on reducing sweet cravings.
PROTEIN
Protein is a nutrient found widely in animal and plant foods, and is made up of amino acids, the building blocks for the body e.g. muscles, hair, and skin. Protein has two roles – it can be used for growth and repair or can be burned for energy, like carbohydrate and fat.
Protein supplements do not have any advantages over food sources of protein. They can be used for a quick meal or snack for people on the run, but should not be relied upon as a major source of protein in the diet.
Protein builds muscle and repairs muscle damage caused by high intensity exercise. Protein can also be used as a fuel, but to ensure protein is available for muscle building and repair, it is vitally important to eat enough carbohydrate so that the excessive protein is not used up.
The following foods are protein-rich and contain 10 grams of protein for every:
40 grams of lean beef
40 grams of chicken fillet
1 medium slice of ham
50 grams of cooked fish
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 cup baked beans
30 grams of cheese
FATS
Fat is a nutrient that is a contributor to the increasing problem of obesity in the world today and as a result I have often found clients who are obsessive about their fat intake.
There are three types of fats in the diet.
Saturated fats are found mainly in animal products. Research has indicated that saturated fats in the diet can increase LDL cholesterol levels in the blood, which is the unwanted cholesterol and should be avoided. The following foods contain this type of fat:
Meat
Dairy
Eggs
Cakes, biscuits and pastries
Monounsaturated fats - Monounsaturated fats help to decrease the cholesterol and LDL levels in the blood. The following foods contain this type of fat:
Olive Oil
Canola Oil
Peanut Oil
Polyunsaturated fats - Polyunsaturated fats in small quantities can help to decrease total cholesterol. Examples of Polyunsaturated Fats would be vegetable oil and palm oil.
Latest research shows that fat in food is the major culprit that leads to fat being on the body. As pointed out before, fats are high in calories. I recommended that people eat less than 20% of total their total calories from fat. We know that eating too much fat leads to health problems and weight-gain, but we do need some healthy fats in our diet.
Fats are a source of soluble vitamins A, D and E
Fats provide hormone production and skin health and protection of vital organs and insulation
Too much fat in the diet however, can increase the risk of a number of lifestyle diseases that are common in the western world
So Please…
Limit the saturated fats in your diet - which includes butter, cream, full-fat dairy products, fatty meats, cakes, pastries and fried foods
Choose lean meats where possible and trim visible fat and skin before cooking
Select low fat dairy products where possible
Be aware of the hidden fats in processed foods and foods high in salt
Choose liquid fats over solid fats e.g. olive and canola oil over butter
Include amounts of unsaturated or ‘good fats’ in your diet. Sources include fish, olive and canola oil, nuts and avocado
Also try to include the good omega-3 fats daily – fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines are good sources and try to eat three fish meals a week if you can
Thanks to diet and weight control data recorded by the National Weight Control Registry, we now know more about the diet and weight-control behavior of 3,000 American adults who have lost an average of 60 pounds and have kept it off for an average of six years. What is the secret of their successful weight loss?
They eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet
They monitor themselves by weighing in each week
They are very physically active (an hour or more, per day)
They eat a low fat breakfast
Six years after their weight loss, most of the registry's successful weight losers still report eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet, with about 20 percent of their calories coming from fat.
A real weight loss program includes all the food groups, strength training, low level aerobics, a slight decrease in your daily calorie levels and a program that can be followed for life.
Above all try to achieve a balanced diet, eating a balanced variety of foods will help you to feel great every day, ensure better long-term health and improve weight control.
Not long ago, one of the members of my health club poked her head in my office for some advice and assistance. Linda was a 46 year old mother of two, and she had been a member for over a year. She had been working out sporadically, with (not surprisingly) sporadic results. On that particular day, she seemed to have enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye that I hadn’t seen before.
“I want to enter a before and after fitness contest called the “12 week body transformation challenge.” I could win money and prizes and even get my picture in a magazine."
“I want to lose THIS”, she continued, as she grabbed the body fat on her stomach. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
Linda was not “obese” by any means, she just had the typical “moderate roll” of abdominal body fat and a little bit of thigh/hip fat that many forty-something females struggle with.
“I think it’s a great idea” I reassured her. “Competitions are great for motivation. When you have a deadline and you dangle a “carrot” like that prize money in front of you, it can keep you focused and more motivated than ever.”
Linda was eager and rarin’ to go. “Will you help me? I have this enrollment kit and I need my body fat measured.”
“No problem,” I said as I pulled out my Skyndex fat caliper, which is used to measure body fat percentage with a “pinch an inch” test.
When I finished, I read the results to her from the caliper display: “Twenty-seven percent. Room for improvement, but not bad; it’s about average for your age group.”
She wasn’t overjoyed at being ‘average’. “Yeah, but it's not good either. Look at THIS,” she complained as again she grabbed a handful of stomach fat. “I want to get my body fat down to 19%, I heard that was a good body fat level.”
I agreed that 19% was a great goal, but it would take a lot of work because average fat loss is usually about a half a percent a week, or six percent in twelve weeks. Her goal, to lose eight percent in twelve weeks was ambitious.
She smiled and insisted, “I’m a hard worker. I can do it”
Indeed she was and indeed she did. She was a machine! Not only did she never miss a day in the gym, she trained HARD. Whenever I left my office and took a stroll through the gym, she was up there pumping away with everything she had. She told me her diet was the strictest it had ever been in her life and she didn't cheat at all. I believed her. And it started to show, quickly.
Each week she popped into my office to have her body fat measured again, and each week it went down, down, down. Consistently she lost three quarters of a percent per week – well above the average rate of fat loss – and on two separate occasions, I recall her losing a full one percent body fat in just seven days.
Someone conservative might have said she was overtraining, but when we weighed her and calculated her lean body mass, we saw that she hadn’t lost ANY muscle – only fat. Her results were simply exceptional!
She was ecstatic, and needless to say, her success bred more success and she kept after it like a hungry tiger for the full twelve weeks.
On week twelve, day seven, she showed up in my office for her final weigh-in and body fat measurement. She was wearing a pair of formerly tight blue jeans and they were FALLING OFF HER! “Look, look, look,” she repeated giddily as she tugged at her waistband, which was now several inches too large.
As I took her body fat, I have to say, I was impressed. She hadn’t just lost a little fat, she was “RIPPED!”
During week twelve she dropped from 18% to 17% body fat, for a grand total of 10% body fat lost. She surpassed her goal of 19% by two percent. I was now even more impressed, because I had only seen a handful of people lose that much body fat in three months.
You should have seen her! She started hopping up and down for joy like she was on a pogo stick! She was beaming… grinning from ear to ear! She practically knocked me over as she jumped up and gave me a hug – “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Don’t thank me,” I said, “You did it, I just measured your body fat.”
She thanked me again anyway and then said she had to go have her “after” pictures taken.
Then something very, very strange happened. She stopped coming to the gym. Her "disappearance" was so abrupt, I was worried and I called her. She never picked up, so I just left messages. No return phone call.
It was about four months later when I finally saw Linda again. The giddy smile was gone, replaced with a sullen face, a droopy posture and a big sigh when I said hello and asked where she’d been.
“I stopped working out after the contest... and I didn’t even win.”
“You looked like a winner to me, no matter what place you came in” I insisted, “but why did you stop, you were doing so well!”
“I don’t know, I blew my diet and then just completely lost my motivation. Now look at me, my weight is right back where I started and I don’t even want to know my body fat.”
“Well, I'm glad to see you back in here again. Write down some new goals for yourself and remember to think long term too. Fitness isn’t a just 12 week program you know, it’s a lifestyle - you have to do it every day - like... forever.”
She nodded her head and finished her workout, still with that defeated look on her face. Unfortunately, she never again come anywhere near the condition she achieved for that competition, and for the rest of the time she was a member at our club, she slipped right back into the sporadic on and off workout pattern.
Linda was not an isolated case. I’ve seen the same thing happen with countless men and women of all ages and fitness levels from beginners to competitive bodybuilders. In fact, it happens to millions of people who “go on” diets, lose a lot of weight, then quickly “go off” the diet and gain the weight right back.
What causes people to burn so brightly with enthusiasm and motivation and then burn out just as quickly? Why do so many people succeed brilliantly in the short term but fail 95 out of 100 times in the long term? Why do so many people reach their fitness goals but struggle to maintain them?
The answer is simple: Health and fitness is for life, not for "12 weeks."
You can avoid the on and off, yo-yo cycle of fitness ups and downs. You can get in great shape and stay in great shape. You can even get in shape and keep getting in better and better shape year after year, but it's going to take a very different philosophy than most people subscribe to. The seven tips below will guide you.
These guidelines are quite contrary to the quick fix philosophies prevailing in the weight loss and fitness world today. Applying them will take patience, discipline and dedication. Just remember, the only thing worse than getting no results is getting great results and losing them.
1) Don’t “go on” diets. When you “go on” a diet, the underlying assumption is that at some point you have to “go off” it. This isn’t just semantics, it’s the primary reason most diets fail. By definition, a “diet” is a temporary and often drastic change in your eating behaviors and/or a severe restriction of calories or food, which is ultimately, not maintainable. If you reach your goal, the diet is officially “over” and then you "go off" (returning to the way you used to eat). Health and fitness is not temporary; it’s not a “diet.” It’s something you do every day of your life. Unless you approach nutrtion from a lifestyle perspective, you’re doomed from the start.
2) Eat the same foods all year round. Permanent fat loss is best achieved by eating mostly the same types of foods all year round. Naturally, you should include a wide variety of healthy foods so you get the full spectrum of nutrients you need, but there should be consistency, month in, month out. When you want to lose body fat, there’s no dramatic change necessary - you don’t need to eat totally different foods - it’s a simple matter of eating less of those same healthy foods and exercising more.
3) Have a plan for easing into maintenance. Let’s face it – sometimes a nutrition program needs to be more strict than usual. For example, peaking for a bodybuilding or fitness contest requires an extremely strict regimen that’s different than the rest of the year. As a rule, the stricter your nutrition program, the more you must plan ahead and the more time you must allow for a slow, disciplined transition into maintenance. Failure to plan for a gradual transition will almost always result in bingeing and a very rapid, hard fall "off the wagon."
4) Focus on changing daily behaviors and habits one or two at a time. Rather than making huge, multiple changes all at once, focus on changing one or two habits/behaviors at a time. Most psychologists agree that it takes about 21 days of consistent effort to replace an old bad habit with a new positive one. As you master each habit, and it becomes as ingrained into your daily life as brushing your teeth, then you simply move on to the next one. That would be at least 17 new habits per year. Can you imagine the impact that would have on your health and your life? This approach requires a lot of patience, but the results are a lot more permanent than if you try to change everything in one fell swoop. This is also the least intimidating way for a beginner to start making some health-improving changes to their lifestyle.
5) Make goal setting a lifelong habit. Goal setting is not a one-time event, it’s a process that never ends. For example, if you have a 12 week goal to lose 6% bodyfat, what are you going to do after you achieve it? Lose even more fat? Gain muscle? Maintain? What's next? On week 13, day 1, if you have no direction and nothing to keep you going, you’ll have nothing to keep you from slipping back into old patterns. Every time you achieve a goal, you must set another one. Having daily and weekly short term goals means that you are literally setting goals continuously and never stopping.
6) Allow a reasonable time frame to reach your goal. It's important to set deadlines for your fitness and weight loss goals. It's also important to set ambitious goals, but you must allow a reasonable time frame for achieving them. Time pressure is often the motivating force that helps people get in the best shape of their lives. But when the deadline is unrealistic for a particular goal (like 30 pounds in 30 days), then crash dieting or other extreme measures are often taken to get there before the bell. The more rapidly you lose weight, the more likely you are to lose muscle and the faster the weight will come right back on afterwards. Start sooner. Don't wait until mid-May to think about looking good for summer.
7) Extend your time perspective. Successful people in every field always share one common character trait: Long term time perspective. Some of the most successful Japanese technology and manufacturing companies have 100 year and even 250-year business plans. If you want to be successful in maintaining high levels of fitness, you must set long term goals: One year, Ten years, Even fifty years! You also must consider what the long term consequences might be as a result of using any "radical" diet, training method or ergogenic aid. The people who had it but lost it are usually the ones who failed to think long term or acknowledge future consequences. It's easy for a 21 year old to live only for today, and it may even seem ridiculous to set 25 year goals, but consider this: I've never met a 40 or 60 year old who didn't care about his or her health and appearance, but I have met 40 or 60 year olds who regretted not caring 25 years ago.
Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) is a fat loss program which acknowledges the simple truth that going "on diets," entering "Fitness challenges" or competing in "Transformation contests" without having long term goals and a lifestyle attitude, is a recipe for failure. Don’t let yourself be part of the latest fitness dropout statistics: visit the Burn The Fat website for more details on how to change your lifestyle... and keep the change! http://www.burnthefat.com/
