Slim Down Now

In the previous posts, we have discussed how diets that include a lot of carbs can put your body into a mode where it is hungry most of the time and unwilling to burn fat for energy, the classic way to gain weight.

At this point there are many major programs for low and lower carb diet programs. These tend to be life long changes in eating styles. The Atkins diet is the classic, while the South Beach diet is a relative new comer.

These programs primarily differ in the amount of carbs that they recommend.

Both diets have 3 phases:

1. An initial phase where carbohydrates are drastically reduced, as close to zero as possible
2. A slightly relaxed phase where more foods are introduced.
3. A life long eating program.

In the Atkins, the life long program has you eating somewhere around 60 grams of carbohyrdates a day (2 teaspoons of sugar), while the southbeach primarily chooses very low glycemic index (digestion speed) carbohyrdates.

The bottom line is that if you want to loose body fat, fast, you need to cut your body’s carbohyrdate intake, while not over eating on fats or protein.

It is actually critical to not overeat on protein as your body can convert protein into sugar if there is surplus.

The ideal diet seems to be 60-100 grams of protein (360-400 calories), fiber to bulk up the food volumn and to slow digestion, penty of fresh vegetables and a good blend of healthy fats, fish oil, olive oil, coconut oil and butter, to fill out your caloric intake.

The age old question arises… do I eat less or exercise more to slim down?  Well, often it isn’t just how much you eat – it is what you eat.   But how can you do more than being a rabbit (that is eating lots of lettuce and celery)!

One of the easiest ways to take control of ones diet is to write a diet journal.  This forces you to notice what and when you are eating and if you are hungry at the time.  Once you know your habits, you can change them.

The first step would be to do your best to only eat when you are hungry.   If you really have to eat when you are not hungry, that is when you have salads and celery.   Because if you aren’t hungry and you want to lose weight,  you need to eat something light if you are eating for comfort or socializing.

The second step would be to decide whether you are going to limit calories or carbohydrates or even just sugars.   Even if you decide that the way you are going to lose weight is by exercising more, changing your habits at least a little will help you also get healthier at the same time.   So think about what tact you are going to take — or what you are willing to do if you need to do something on the “diet” end of things.  I’ve lost weight from cutting out refined sugar.  I’ve also lost weight from simply cutting calories.  The easiest weight I lost was by simply eating alot less carbohydrates.    I did lose weight from cutting out fats — but I ended up having other health issues from that.   As bodies differ, consulting a doctor if you are making drastic changes at once is recommended.

Exercise.  There, I’ve said it!  Just walking around the block every day helps.  Yes, it is that easy.   You can increase that block to a couple of blocks over time.  It often gets more enjoyable as time goes on.  I know when I started this, I felt much healthier and happier.  Yep.  It affected my moods too!  So try a bit to see how it helps.

Just changing a little can make huge differences over time… and not just the waistline ..  your health improves too!

Continuing our basic theme, on the basics. Your body is programed to save away the fat away for later, if it has sugar to use now. One of the more interesting things is that the more sugar and starch you eat, the hungrier you get, and the more sugar and starch you eat.

Lets digress and look at what happens when you eat food containing simple carbohydrates and sugars.

As your chew, an substance in your saliva amylase starts to break the simple carbohydrates into sugars. This has a side effect of making the food taste sweeter. When the food makes it into the small intestine (the part of your digestive system after the stomach), the pancreas provides more amylase and other starch digesting enzymes, breaking all of the digestible starches and sugars into glucose, fructose, galactose and other monosaccharides. These pass through the intestinal wall into the blood stream and are directly transported to the liver. The liver converts some into glycogen, some into triglycerides and the rest passes on into the body. Something signals the pancreas to release insulin, in response to the sugar in the blood. This insulin rapidly stops the burning of fat, and forces triglycerides into your fat cells. If a lot of sugar comes in quickly, the pancreas may produce a lot of insulin and reduce the sugar levels in the blood to much, resulting in hunger. This can become very quickly cyclic, eat some carbs, have a blood sugar spike, store most of it away as fat, and get very hungry again and eat more.

The more carbs you eat, especially simple carbs and sugars, the more likely you are to crave them, and to gain fat.

First, the basics, body fat (other wise known as fat cells) are primarily filled with triglycerides. Triglycerides are either made from sugars, in the liver, or eat as fat in your food.

Insulin, the hormone that your body produces to bring your blood sugar down (especially after eating), also drives the uptake of triglycerides, into the fat cells.
In addition to that, fat soluble toxins – can be stored in the fat cells.

In the fat basics article, it was noted body fat is basically triglycerides, and that insulin causes the uptake of triglycerides by the fat cells.
Insulin also causes the body to stop burning fat and to switch to burning sugar (glucose).

A very simple recipe to gain fat fast, is to eat fat and carbohydrates (starches and sugars). The classic food for this would be donuts, pastries or sweet chocolate.
buttered white bread or potatoes and gravy are other good gainers.

These foods, sweet fats, provide your body with a good dose of fat and a good dose of sugars, causing your body to drive the fats into the fat tissue and to convert the sugars into triglycerides, and drive them into the fat tissue too.

A basic way to get your body to burn fat is to greatly reduce the amount of carbohydrates (starches and sugars) you eat. Any high carbohydrate diet is going to impair your ability to burn fat.

This article is going to describe the basics of what body fat is, and how it gets created.

First, the basics, body fat is made up of fat cells (adipose tissue) that are primarily filled with triglycerides. Triglycerides are either made from sugars, in the liver, or made from the fat you eat by the intestines and by the liver.

Insulin, the hormone that your body produces to bring your blood sugar down (especially after eating), also drives the uptake of triglycerides, into the fat cells.

Finally, fat soluble toxins – can be stored in the fat cells.