Friday, August 21, 2009

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GO BACK TO LOGGING

The balanced protein and carb diet is extremely predictable. When you hit your target numbers, you will lose approximately 2 to 3 pounds per week of fat, not muscle. Unfortunately, people are not as predictable.

Every dieter faces the time when food is put in front of them that is not balanced in protein and carbs, and certainly not within the target numbers for them. Rather than be social outcasts, most people give in and have that treat.

Ah, yes, and then they don't lose weight for that week. It only takes one splurge to send your insulin levels skyrocketing, and thus, creating more hunger. It is much more tempting after that to just keep splurging. After all, the insulin spike from your first splurge now has you feeling like you want to kill someone and take their food. What else can you do?

Well, believe it or not, the best thing to do is to start logging your food again RIGHT AWAY after your treat. As in THE NEXT MEAL, hit your target numbers. That means going back to your log sheets and balancing protein and carbs ever so carefully, so protein is always equal to carbs. If you do this, your splurge hunger will not hit nearly so bad, and you will be back on track again within just a few hours.

If ya wanna play, ya have to pay..... but pay and get out of there!

Friday, August 7, 2009

WHY YOU CAN GET ALONG ON FEWER CALORIES WITHOUT HUNGER

Most people think that if you eat something, it should kill hunger. Anything will do. What they do not realize is that different types of food composition have different effects on the body. The net effect of the Standard American Diet (SAD) is to make you tired and hungry.

Carbs, which we have known all along, make you take up water and get puffy. They will kill hunger for awhile, but ultimately, if you have a healthy pancreas, it will kick in insulin to take the sugar out of the blood that came from the carbs. After eating carbs by themselves, you get to the stage, a couple of hours later, where you could kill someone and take their food.

The unfortunate part of this process is that over a lifetime of too many carbs, the pancreas begins to OVERREACT to carbs, making you hungry after you eat them. Years of overeating carbs produces Type 2 diabetes, in which the cells are resistant to glucose, and ultimately can exhaust the pancreas.

Protein is a wonderful muscle builder and hunger killer. When you combine protein exactly with carbs, you are doing a couple of things: slowing down the insulin response to the carbs, and also reducing the number of effective calories you are taking in. If you make your diet with a higher percentage of protein, not only do you kill hunger, but, since it takes 40% of the calories in protein to digest the protein, you are reducing the net calories in your diet.

Carbs and protein together was recommended by the American Diabetic Association for some 50 years. Yes, it is a hassle to make them exactly equal each time you eat. But I would rather do that than shoot so much insulin, which only increases insulin resistance.

So, with a heart-healthy low fat diet (30 gm for most people) and balancing protein and carbs, taking 1 gm carbs and 1 gm protein for each pound of muscle mass, you are giving your body what it needs, and super-nourishing yourself on far fewer calories.

Most people I have worked with cannot believe how full they feel on the 1000 or so calories they are eating on this balanced protein and carb diet. That is because the protein is killing their hunger and slowing down the insulin response to the carbs they eat. (see my post DIET TO NORMALIZE BLOOD SUGAR, and find your sex and height. Eat the recommended targets of fat, protein, and carbs daily to lose weight and normalize blood sugar.)

So, yes, you can get along on far fewer calories, and not be hungry. Food composition is everything.