We need to think differently about the approach to losing weight.
Forget old-fashioned diets. There are very good reasons why they
do not work well. Your body was not designed recently. The human
body took shape millions of years ago, long before diets were
invented. At the time, the lack of food meant only one thing,
starvation; and if the body could not cope with the lack of food,
the results was life-threatening. So we have built-in mechanisms
to preserve ourselves in the face of low food intake. These
defenses are automatically put to work. When you go on a low-
calorie diet, you know that you are doing so to lose weight. But
your body does not know that. As far as your body is concerned you
are starving, and it will trigger a number of biological mechanisms
to try and stop you.
To see how to avoid this problem, let's first look at how your body
burns calories. The speed at which your body burns calories is
call (the metabolic rate.) Some people have a "fast metabolism" and
burn lots of calories in a short time. They are likely to stay
slim. Other people have a slower metabolic rate and have a harder
time staying slim.
Another part of the "negative calorie effect" of carbohydrates is
that they are the part of the diet that tells the body when it has
had enough food. Your body does not just pay attention to how much
you have eaten. It actually has a way to monitor how much
carbohydrate is coming in. When it has had enough, it reduces the
feeling of hunger. Carbohydrates are the cue the body needs. So,
if there is a lot of carbohydrates on your plate, you will tend to
eat to feel satisfied and to turn down the drive to fill your
plate. The natural sugar in fruits, called fructose, also has an
appetite-reducing effect.
What this means is that if you have included generous amounts of
rice, potatoes, beans, fruits, and other carbohydrate-rich foods on
your meals, the calories in pork chops, salad oil, and other
fattening foods are less likely to find their way onto your fork.
How do you get these "negative calorie effects?" You will not get
them from steak or fried chicken, because there is virtually no
complex carbohydrate in fish, chicken, beef, milk, eggs, or any
other animal product. Complex carbohydrates are found only in
plants. Grains, vegetables, and beans are loaded with them. That
is why vegetarian foods are such powerful foods for permanent
weight control.
If you like, you can forget technical terms like carbohydrate. As
long as your diet is made from grains, beans, vegetables, and
fruits rather than animal products, it will be naturally rich in
carbohydrate.
20 Foods You Can Eat in Virtually Unlimited Portions
Listed below are 20 foods that you should feel free to eat in very
generous portions. Unless you are really stuffing yourself, you
can eat as much of these as you want. In fact, there are many more
than 20, as you have learned. One caveat: Enjoy these with no
butter, margarine or oily toppings - fats are fattening!
Many people still believe that the number of calories in any given
food ells you just how fattening that food is likely to be. For
example, a cup of rice has about 220 calories. Three slices of
bologna also have 220 calories. So some people assume that these
two foods have exactly the same effect on the waistline.
They don't. The very same number of calories coming from bologna
and from rice have very different effects. The bologna tends to be
fattening, as a general rule, while the rice does not.
Rice does provide calories to run the body's functions. And
theoretically it is possible for unused calories from rice to be
stored as fat. But it turns out that rice is much less fattening
than the same number of calories from bologna, other meats, or
other fatty foods. Rice - like other carbohydrate-rich foods- has
a way of naturally reducing the calories that are available for fat
storage.
You might think of this as a "negative calorie effect." One of the
most exciting concepts in the science of weight control in many
years is the fact that certain foods can actually assist in the
loss of fat.
By now, it will come as no surprise to you that carbohydrate-rich
foods are power foods for weight control. But let's see what the
'negative calorie effect" really means. Then, we'll look at 20
foods that encourage this effect and which you can eat freely. In
reality there are far more than 20 and by the time you are done
with this book, I hope you will have gone far beyond the old-
fashioned notion of counting calories and limiting portion size.
The key is not how much you eat, but, instead, the types of foods
you eat.
When you think of carbohydrate, think, for example, of rice. A
rice grain is a seed, designed by nature to start a new rice plant.
The starchy white interior of a rice grain consists mainly of
complex carbohydrates that nourish the seed as it sprouts and
grows. The same is true of beans, potatoes, apples, and many
other plants. The starchy carbohydrate interior provides
nourishment for the tiny growing plant.
For millions of years, humans and other primates have plucked
fruits from tees and roots from the ground and have taken advantage
of carbohydrate's capacity to nourish us. What is remarkable is
that these foods provide energy with relatively little tendency to
cause overweight. In many Asian countries, for example, where rice
is still the center of the diet and huge amounts of rice are
consumed, people tend to remain slim.
While carbohydrates provide calories for the body, they also have
ways of counteracting the storage of some of these calories as fat,
and also encourage the burning of stored calories.
First, as we saw earlier, a substantial number of the calories in
carbohydrates are used up as carbohydrates are turned to fat. Let
me give you some numbers: For every 100 calories of carbohydrate
that your body tries to store as fat, 23 are lost in the process of
breaking down carbohydrate molecules and building fat molecules
from them. That means that, of the 220 calories in a cup of rice,
about 50 calories are used up just in the chemical processing.
Leaving grains whole, like rice, cereals, or corn, rather than
grinding them into flour to make bread or pasta, also causes them
to release fewer calories.
But that is just the beginning. In addition, because carbohydrate
increases the body's metabolism, more calories are burned off as
the metabolism increases. The metabolism-boosting effect causes
more of the calories in all the foods you eat to be burned. When
that happens, they cannot be turned into fat.
It is similar to the effect of turning up a car's idle. More gas
is used up; there is less in the tank, less to spill on the ground,
and less to use in the future, because it has been burned.
Animal products contain no fiber at all. To the extent that animal
products are added to the diet, the fiber content is reduced.
Americans now consume only 10-20 grams of fiber per day, on
average, which is about half of what we should have. The reason,
of course, is the penchant for animal products and refined plant
foods, which unfortunately displace the fiber-rich foods. But do
not feel that you must calculate your fiber intake. When you
center your diet on high-carbohydrate foods, such as whole grains,
beans, and vegetables, the fiber content of your diet will increase
naturally. As you will see in Part II, the result will be meals
that are satisfying and filling. When we discuss the value of
carbohydrate-rich foods and fiber, you can simplify this by
thinking in terms of foods from plants versus animal products. A
plant-based diet is rich in carbohydrate and fiber. Animal
products are devoid of them. The result is that plant-based diets
promote slimness, while Animal products promote overweight.
Avoiding Binges
There is another problem with skimpy eating. Not only does the
body lower its metabolic flame to conserve energy; it also gets
ready to take maximal advantage of any food source it finds. When
food becomes available, there is a tremendous tendency to binge, in
what is known as the "restrained-eater" phenomenon. You know the
pattern. You have been dieting for several days, and suddenly
someone brings home a cartoon of ice cream. A little bit won't
hurt, you decide, and before you know it you are scraping the
bottom of the carton and digging around the cracks for every last
bit. You then scold yourself for your "lack of will power" The
truth is that the problem was not will power at all, but, rather,
the innate biological programming of the human body. The diet
turned on the "anti-starvation" plan that is built into every human
being. Your body assumed that any food in front of you might be
the only calorie source you might have for a while, so it demanded
a binge.
It is not a question of weak will or gluttony. The human body has
as built-in tendency to binge after periods of starvation.
For a similar reason, it is best not to skip meals. Skipping
breakfast and lunch leads to overeating later in the day. So, eat
regular meals and avoid very-low-calorie diets.
Bulimia - binge-eating often followed by purging - almost always
begins with a diet. And as the binging begins, shame and secrecy
often follow. If this has happened to you, remember that binging
is not a moral failing. It is a natural biological consequence of
dieting.
Dieting is now a nearly universal pastime in America, and bulimia
is a ever-growing epidemic. Unfortunately, children are raised on
a menu that is almost certain to make many of them gain weight.
The cultural trend in Western countries in the past several decades
has emphasized meat, dairy products and fried; chicken, french
fries and other high-fat foods. Combing with an increasingly
sedentary lifestyle, the predictable results is that many people
will become overweight. They mistakening believe that the problem
is the quantity of food they are eating rather than the type of
food. Rather than abandon the offending foods, they simply eat
less. A restrictive diet begins. The natural result is lowered
metabolic rates, cravings and binging. Many binges would probably
never occur if dieting were replaced with better food choices which
would promote a slow, steady drop in weight, rather than an overly
rapid weight loss.
Skipped meals and skimpy portions are not effective as a permanent
weight control and are not a part of this program.
Your metabolism is like the rate at which an automobile uses up
gas. An idling car uses up some fuel. When the car is moving it
uses more, and when it accelerates up a hill it will use a lot more
gas.
Our bodies work the same way. We burn some calories even when we
are relaxing or asleep because it takes energy to maintain our
normal body temperature and to keep our lungs, heart, brain and
other organs, working. When we engage in activities, the more
strenuous they are, the more calories we burn.
Dieting Slows Your Metabolism
The point to remember is that your metabolic rate can be changed.
In a period of starvation or dieting, the body slows down the
metabolism. The body does not understand the concept of dieting.
Remember, as far as your body is concerned, a diet is starvation,
and it does not know how long the starvation period will last. So
it clings to its fat like a motorist who is running out of gas
preserves fuel. Remember the last time you were driving along the
highway and suddenly noticed that the gas gauge was below empty?
You tried to remember how far below "E" your gauge will go. You
went easy on the accelerator, driving very smoothly, and turned off
the engine at stop lights to conserve gas until you got to a
station.
Your body does the same sort of thing when food is in short supply.
It turns down the metabolic flame to save as much of the fat on
your body as possible until the starvation period is over, because
fat is the body's fuel reserve. This is very frustrating to
dieters. They often find that, even though they are eating very
little, their bodies do not easily shed the pounds. Even worse,
the slowed metabolism can continue beyond the dieting period,
sometimes for weeks, according to studies at the University of
Pennsylvania and elsewhere. For the reason, fat is easily and
rapidly accumulated again after the dieting period. This causes
the familiar yo-yo phenomenon, in which dieters lose some weight,
then rebound to a higher weight than they started with.
Here is the first step to keeping your metabolic rate up. Make
sure that your diet contains at least 10 calories per pound of your
ideal body weight. This means that if you are aiming for a weight
of 150 pounds, your daily menu should contain at least 1500
calories. Weight loss will be gradual, but you will not slow your
metabolism and so, you will be able to retain your progress.
