A diet is a temporary thing. No "diet" will work unless you make it become your lifestyle. Don't think of it as a diet, just think of it as finally eating right. :-D
This is a whopper of a page and has a whole bunch of stuff in it, so it might be pretty overwhelming, but I think you'll find it all interesting!
Here's some information about why going *too* low in carbs and *too* high in protein is unhealthy (like Atkins suggests). This is from Barry Sears' book called THE ZONE- A Dietary Roadmap:
At first glance, these quick-loss programs look good. Almost everyone who tries them does lose weight at first. Unfortunately, those people are losing the wrong kind of weight, and for the wrong biological reasons.
The truth is that these high-protein, quick-loss diets induce an abnormal metabolic state known as KETOSIS. This occurs when you have insufficient carbohydrate stored in the liver to meet the requirements of the body and the brain. (Remember that even when "full" the liver stores only small amounts of carbohydrate.) Once that stored carbohydrate is used up, which takes less than 24 hours on a low-carb diet, the body turns to fat to supply energy. Great, you say - - isn't that what we want?
Unfortunately, with a high protein, low carb diet, that's often NOT what you get. The process of converting fat into energy gets short-circuited on a low carb, ketogenic diet. As a result, your cells manufacture abnormal biochemicals called ketone bodies.
The body has no use for these ketone bodies. It tries like mad to get rid of them through increased urination. That spells weight loss - at first - but the vast bulk of that weight loss is merely water. That high protein diet hasn't really touched mosed of your excess body fat.
These high protein, quick weight loss programs have you loosing the wrong kind of weight. And that's not even the worst of it. If you eat too much protein at a meal, your insulin levels will also start to increase because your body doesn't want a lot of excess amino acids floating around in the bloodstream. What will the increased insulin levels do? They now help convert the excess protein into fat.
It's also been discovered recently that the high protein, ketogenic diets may cause changes in the fat cells, making them ten times more active in sequestering fat than they were before you went on the diet. So when you go off the diet, you continue to accumulate fat at a frightening rate. (This is commonly known as the "yo-yo syndrome".)
Add insult to injury. The body isn't stupid. When it has to deal with a high-protein, low carb diet, it says, "Hey, I didn't fall off the turnip truck. The brain needs carbs to function, so I'll start ripping down muscle mass, and I'll turn much of the protein in that muscle mass into carbohydrate." You might say, "That's fine, I can live with losing some muscle until I lose my body fat." But remember: becacuase of those increased insulin levels, you're not losing fat at anywhere near the rate you expect, and you eventually reach a weight plateau.
Put all this together, and you'll see why more than 95 percent of the people who have ever lost weight using high protein, ketogenic diets have gained that weight back and more. Why? Is everyone who ever tried a quick weight loss program a weak-willed ninny? I don't think so. Its just that their high protein, low carb diets have caused permanent changes in their fat cells, changes that virtually guarantee increaded body fat accumulation in the future.
For example, let's take the popular drink supplement called BALANCE. It's a powder you can mix with water or milk. 1 scoop of the powder itself is 90 calories, 3g fat, 7g protein, and 10g of carbs.
So, we take 3g fat x 9 = 27
We take 7g protein x 4 = 28
We take 10g carbs x 4 = 40.
We now divide each of these numbers by the total calories (90):
27/90 = approx. 0.30 - - this means that 30% of calories come from Fat
28/90 = approx. 0.30 - - this means that 30% of calories come from Protein
40/90 = approx. 0.40 - - this means that 40% of calories come from Carbs
See? That's a 30/30/40 ratio! Inside my spreadsheets I have calculated ratios of MANY common foods and
MANY meals, so I know how close I am to getting to a certain ratio. I think you might find this spreadsheet very useful if you're interested in starting a ratio program of your own.
Eating this combination of fat and protein and carbs maximizes your body's ability to synthesize foods efficiently. Of course, you need to figure out what your caloric intake for the day is now and subtract a couple hundred calories from that to loose weight (if you haven't already done this). I mean, even eating 30/30/40 at your same caloric level will not cause you to loose weight. You must eat less calories or work out much harder. It's simple science. Eat less calories than before + burn more calories than before (by working out) = weight loss! Of course, it's important to eat the proper foods and eat at the right times to maximize the weight loss.
I challenge any of you to browse the book at your bookstore and you will agree that a balanced carb, protein, unsaturated fat plan truely is the easiest way to loose weight through healthy nutrition without starving yourself or having to eat nasty foods. Of course, as always, exercize is a requirement.
Don't forget that 30% fat does not mean that 30% of everything you eat should have fat in it... that is very important! It means that 30% of all calories eaten should be from fat. Which averages out to only 34-40 grams of fat (mostly UNsaturated fat) per day on a 1220 to 1320 calorie diet. Remember, "dietary fat" does not equal nor necessarily lead to "body fat". They're very different. Just as protein does not equal muscle. It's all much more complicated than that. And total caloric intake is more important than picking through the number of fat grams eaten. You actually have to eat fat to loose fat.
There was a scientific study done at the University of London (published landmark study) where they put patients on a diet low in calories (1000 calories) but high in fat. IN fact, 90% of their calories were from fat! And guess what?! They LOST significant amounts of weight! Now, when these same patients were put on a 1000 calorie diet where 90% of the calories came from Carbs, there was virtually no weight loss. (no weight gain either, but no weight loss). Now, they're not saying go out and eat 90% fat, but they're just showing that dietary fat is not necessarily evil.
Basically, if you don't eat enough fat, that means you're eating *too* many carbs or you're eating *too* much protein. It all needs to be in some kind of balance.
You might think a diet like 10-80-80 (10% fat) might be best, but too much protein and carbohydrate is *just as bad for you as too much dietary fat* - cuz all excess turns to body fat anyway. There's no way most bodies (I'm not saying ALL... but most) could utilize that much protein or carbohydrate.... so where does the extra go? It's converted to body fat. Keep that in mind.
It took me a while to understand that dietary fat doesn't necessarily make you fat. I admit it was a hard concept to grasp. I was thinking anytime I ate something high in unsaturated fat that it was going right to my thighs as cellulose, but that's not true. Unsaturated fat in moderation (and even *some* saturated fat) - - 30% of your caloric intake- - is actually HEALTHY! I highly recommend anyone that is having trouble understanding this concept, read THE ZONE, because that is the book that finally made me understand and believe in this idea.
I looked through my old diets that I *thought* were healthy and discovered I was only eating less than 10 grams of fat per day! No WONDER I was always dying for chocolate and was so miserable! And to make up for my low fat intake, I was eating WAAAY too many carbs, which just turned to dietary fat anyway when I couldn't use them all. Ironic, eh?
Now, I also want you to know I did lose body fat that way (but reached a plateau), but it was painful, I felt like I was starving myself of sweets. This new way is causing me to lose body fat again and it's not painful! I'm allowed to have peanuts! I'm allowed to have a mini-snickers bar! I'm allowed to have lean ground beef, and cereals and breads, etc! It's SO WONDERFUL! And my body is thanking me! :-D
You really should be eating 5 to 7 meals a day every 2 or 3 hours. You should never feel hungry. The idea is that your body intakes food, digests it, utilizes it, then you eat again. If your body takes in too many calories at one time, it has a much harder time utilizing all those calories. So it just makes sense that smaller meals more times a day is conducive to more weight loss than larger meals 3 times a day.
HIGH: Grain-based foods (puffed rice, corn flakes, puffed wheat, instant rice, instant potato, french bread, grapenuts, rolled oats, oat bran, shredded wheat, white bread), Simple Sugars (maltose and glucose), Snacks (tofu icecream, puffed-rice cakes, low fat icecream, corn chips, rye crisps), Vegetables (carrots, parsnips, corn), Fruits (banana, raisins, apricots, papaya, mango).
LOW: Grain-based foods (barley, oatmeal (slow-cooking), whole-grain rye bread), Fruits (cherries, plums, grapefruit, apple, apple juice, applesauce, pears, grapes, peaches), Simple Sugars (fructose), Vegetables (soy beans*, kidney beans, lentils, black-eyed peas, chick-peas, kidney beans (dried), lima beans, tomato soup, peas), Snacks (Peanuts*), Dairy Products (high fat icecream*, Skim milk, whole milk, yogurt).
*High fat content (as well as high fiber content) will retard the rate of absorption of carbohydrate into the body. This is why it's important to balance each meal with the correct amount of each nutrient. If eaten in the right proportions, they help balance each other out.
Ironically, Rice Cakes are the highest of all foods on the glycemic index and cause fat very easily if eaten in excess (ironic cuz they're considered diet food). Here's why this is ironic...
High glycemic foods enter the blood stream rapidly, and high levels of insulin are secreted. When high levels of insulin are secreted, it tells the body to store fat and keep it stored. See, once glycogen levels are filled in both the liver and the muscles, excess carbs have just one fate: to be converted into fat and stored in the fatty tissue. When excess carbs are eaten, it will generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin lowers the levels of blood glucose, BUT the problem is that insulin is essentially a storage hrmone, eveloved to put aside excess carbs in the form of fat in case of future famile. So the insulin that's stimulated by excess carbs aggressively promotes the accumulation of body fat. In other words, whien we eat too many carbs (or foods too high on the glycemic index) we're essentially sending a hromonal message, via insulin, to the body. The message: "Store fat".
It gets worse... Not only do increased insulin levels tell the body to store carbs as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy. So the excess carbs in your diet not only make you fat, they make sure you *stay* fat.
Now, remember, this doesn't mean you can't eat anything with a HIGH glycemic index, you should just eat them in moderation and with some protein and unsaturated fat, that's all.
Hope this helps!
