MYTH #3: EATING FAT MAKES YOU FAT
We
have been brainwashed to believe that if we eat fat, we will get fat.
There’s one problem—science does not support this myth. In the last 40
years, our national fat consumption has decreased from 43 percent to 34
percent of our total calories. Eating less fat than ever, we are
growing fatter. The reason? Low-fat diets are often rich in starchy or
sugary carbohydrates, which raise insulin levels and promote weight
gain.
MYTH #4:
EATING NO-CARB OR LOW-CARB WILL MAKE YOU THIN. Carbohydrates are
actually the single most important food in your diet for long-term
health.
As
with calories and fats, there are different types of carbs that
interact with your genes, leading to remarkably different effects.
Human beings have not evolved to metabolize the highly processed and
refined carbohydrates we eat that contribute to the major diseases:
diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and cancer. Happily, vegetables,
fruits, whole grains, and beans are also carbs, good carbs.
MYTH #5: SKIPPING MEALS HELPS YOU LOSE WEIGHT
One of the reasons that Americans are getting to be as big as Sumo wrestlers is
because we actually eat like them. The Sumo diet causes ordinary people to gain extraordinary
amounts of weight. They skip breakfast, train for five hours (working
up an appetite), eat a huge meal, nap for several hours, eat dinner,
and go to sleep. Does skipping breakfast and eating a large meal just
before sleep sound familiar? It should. It’s the American Way!
MYTH #6: THE FRENCH PARADOX MEETS THE AMERICAN PARADOX
The French have a reputation as a culture that knows about food, what to do with it, and how to eat healthy.
The French eat more fat, drink more wine, and yet suffer less heart
disease and are less obese than Americans, right? That’s only part of
the story. The truth is that the French eat real (fresh, full of nutrients, and minimally processed) food, they eat less food, they eat food more slowly than Americans do, and they walk more than we do.
Myth #7: FOOD POLITICS: GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY ARE THE GUARDIANS OF OUR HEALTH
An
obese America is big business for the food and pharmaceutical
industries. The food industry spends more than $33 billion annually on
marketing; 70 percent of those dollars go to pushing fast food,
convenience foods, candy, snacks, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, and
dessert. Only 2.2 percent is spent on advertising for fruits,
vegetables, grains, or beans. The main classes of drugs available for
treating high cholesterol are among the biggest selling in history. Our
government can’t find money to fund public health campaigns to promote
the scientific principles of good nutrition, but it can increase
agricultural subsidies from $18 billion in 1996 to $28 billion in 2000,
to supply a glut of soybeans and corn that is transformed in the
laboratory into toxic food additives, super sugars, and super fats
known as high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil.
THE SEVEN KEYS TO THE NEW SCIENCE OF LONG TERM WEIGHT LOSS
Now, there are seven keys to weight loss success,
and all of them work together to open the door to vitality, health, and
successful long term weight loss. They are the keys to reversing
disease, being set free of chronic symptoms, and creating optimal
health.
KEY #1: CONTROL YOUR APPETITE.
The first key is to understand how your brain,
gut, and fat cells communicate with each other through hormones and
brain messenger chemicals to tell you whether or not you need food and
compel you to eat. When they are working properly, they are an elegant
machine pinpointing when you need energy and asking you to consume
calories to obtain that energy. When they go haywire—and there are many ways
for them to go haywire in our current eating climate—they cause you to
eat when you don’t need to, contributing to weight gain and almost
every other health problem we face.
KEY#2: SUBDUE STRESS.
The
second key is to understand how stress makes you fat and how to
overcome its effects. Under any physical or psychological stress, the
body is designed to protect itself. It stores calories and conserves
weight (you might need that energy reserve to run from a predator). It
pumps hormones into your system that increase blood fats, sugar, and
insulin to prepare you for fight or flight. Without eating more or
exercising less, stress alone will cause weight gain.
KEY #3: COOL THE FIRE OF INFLAMMATION.
The
third key is controlling inflammation, a hidden force behind weight
gain and disease. Being overweight promotes inflammation, and
inflammation promotes obesity in a terrible, vicious cycle. More than
half of Americans are inflamed, and most of them don’t know it.
KEY #4: PREVENT RUST OR OXIDATIVE STRESS.
The fourth key is preventing cellular “rust” that interferes with metabolism,
contributes to weight gain and aging, and causes inflammation. Free radicals are
oxygen
molecules that run around your body stealing electrons from other
molecules. The molecule that loses an electron is damaged, or oxidized.
Oxidized tissues and cells don’t function normally. The process results
in damaged DNA, damaged cell membranes, stiff arteries that look like
rusted pipes, and wrinkles.
KEY #5: TURN CALORIES INTO ENERGY.
The
fifth key is learning how to turbocharge your metabolic engine to more
efficiently turn calories into energy. Your ability to burn calories is
dependent on the health, number, and efficiency of your mitochondria,
the little powerhouses that produce energy in every cell. You can
reverse the damage that’s been done to your mitochondria and increase
your metabolism if you know how.
KEY #6: FORTIFY YOUR THYROID.
The sixth key is making sure your thyroid, the master metabolism hormone, is working
optimally. Twenty percent of all women and about 10 percent of men have
a sluggish thyroid, slowing their metabolism; half of them are
undiagnosed. Many of those who are diagnosed are not treated optimally,
making matters worse.
KEY #7: LOVE YOUR LIVER.
The
seventh key is detoxifying your liver so it will properly metabolize
sugars and fats. Toxins from within our bodies and toxins from our
environment both contribute to obesity. Getting rid of toxins and
boosting your natural detoxification system is an essential component
of long term weight loss and help increase your metabolism.
Additional tips
In
addition, have you ever seen an apple with a label, or a fish with an
ingredient list? Whole foods generally don’t come in packages, boxes,
and/or cans with labels. Recently, health food companies are producing
more packaged foods with labels and ingredients that are an improvement
from the past. But even many of these foods lack the vitality of fresh,
whole food. Also, two of the most dangerous chemicals found in our diet
are found on foods with labels. These foods cause or contribute to
every known chronic disease – and obesity. They are high-fructose corn
syrup and hydrogenated or trans fats. Next time you are in a grocery
store, see how difficult it is to buy something that doesn’t contain one or both of these ingredients.
Other
diets may address one specific underlying cause of obesity: the
relationship between insulin and sugar in Atkins and South Beach, meal
composition in the Zone, or meal timing in the 3-Hour Diet. None
address all of the known and the latest advances in understanding weight loss and metabolism.
Ultrametabolism is
the first science-based approach that considers all the causes of
weight gain and impaired metabolism. By responding to each cause, the
yo-yo problems of weight on/weight off stop and people live longer,
healthier lives.
