Finding Your Natural Weight...A Beginning: II

One of the people in our first weight loss group shared a link to an article that I really appreciated: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign?page=2

In response to a request for quick and easy (and appropriate) main dishes, we enjoyed kidney beans and brown rice 5 different ways.  My son, Jeremy, made a video presentation that we hope will be helpful as you learn to eat the Expressly Leslie way: http://www.youtube.com/expresslyleslie (select 7 Easy Vegetarian Recipes from Expressly Leslie)

Here's a brief summary of what we talked about while we enjoyed dinners together:

Once we looked beyond the mere cosmetic rationale for weight loss and removed some of the obstacles to a successful outcome, our group, which I am thinking of naming "Lifers," began to look at all the wonderful possibilities of what we can eat for optimum health. 

In Sessions 3 and 4, we considered not only what to eat but how to eat it.  We looked at several alternatives to calorie counting and why other ways of monitoring what we eat are likely to work better for us and be easier to maintain over a lifetime.

Our first stop was basic body chemistry and old-school diet wisdom.   Food contains 3 sources of energy:

• Carbohydrates, the quickest source of energy  - 4 calories per gram
• Proteins, needed for repairing damaged tissue and building new cells - 4 calories per gram
• Fats, the most efficient energy but the slowest to break down - 9 calories per gram

These simple facts suggest right away why the focus for weight loss and disease prevention has been so heavily on decreasing fat content in the diet and decreasing the fat content in foods that contain fats.  Fats are higher in calories and so should be highly restricted.  Or should they?

Old school nutrition recommends for a 2000 calorie "balanced" diet the following:

• Carbohydrates - 45-65% of calories, 900 - 1300 calories
• Proteins - 10-35% of calories, 200 - 700 calories
• Fats - 20-35% of calories, 400 - 700 calories 

It is not quite so simple, as it turns out.  Fat does not make one fat, nor is good fat the culprit in the battle against heart disease.  In fact, the right kind of fat helps burn fat faster by increasing the metabolic processes that burn fat.  What are the right kinds of fat? Butter, eggs, cocnut oil, nuts, and avocado are among them.  Surprised?  Seem like lot of foods that you thought you couldn't eat or that you needed to replace with more processed items like . . . mmm, margarine?  Isn't it nice to know that you can skip the foods marked "low fat," generally more processed, and go for the gold, full fat yogurt? Butter? Nut butters?  This isn't a free pass to eat all those high fat foods out there, but it does make us feel less deprived when we contemplate a lifetime plan for eating.

With old school nutrition, you might be able to enjoy 5 or 6 walnuts before you reached the outer limit of your fat content in a day.  I don't know about you, but that would leave me starving and obsessing about food all day long.  In addition to its other wonderful properties, fat provides a feeling of satisfaction. I try to make sure I get some fat content each time I eat, and 5 or 6 walnuts just won't take me far into my day. 

In addition, all calories are not created equal.  A 2000 calorie diet plan suggests that they are...yet we now know that foods work together in different ways.  How you put different kinds of foods together and when you eat them ... and what foods you exclude from your diet ... have at least as much impact as the number of calories.

So here's another way to look at how we eat:  blood glucose levels. 

• 120 is the weight gaining zone.  Insulin must be released at this point, which causes fat storage.
• 90 is the fat burning zone.
• 60 is the zone in which you will experience constant hunger, cravings and fatigue.

Our goal is to stay in the fat burning zone, 90.  One way to check that we are accomplishing this is with constant blood glucose level checks using a kit like those that diabetics use.  Since that requires an understanding of how food works in the body anyway, it's just as easy to simply eat correctly and feel confident that your blood sugar level will end up where it should be.  What does it mean, to  "eat correctly?"

• 50% (or as much as you would like) low starch, low glycemic carbs / high water content veggies like spinach
• 25% lean protein / fish, chicken, meat, eggs, beans
• 25% complex, slow burning carbs / whole grains, starchy veggies like sweet potato

I like this way of eating because it is visual.  Who wants to pull out a calculator to count calories every time you sit down to eat?  While a quick glance at the glycemic index is useful just to get a feeling for what kinds of foods fall into each category, this way of eating is basically maintained by looking at your plate almost like you would a work of art. 

I recommend three meals and at least two snacks in the course of a day so that you are never more than 3 hours from being able to eat.  If meals are on 8" or 9"plates and snacks on 5" plates, and each meal or snack is arranged on the plate with 50% low glycemic carbs (or as much at you would like), 25% protein and 25% complex carbs, you won't need to worry about counting calories. 

You also won't need to worry about how much fat you're getting in your diet.  If it is part of the portions on your plate or is used to season your meal along with acidity -- as well as to provide satisfaction -- it will naturally end up being a reasonable amount. You are not likely to put a full stick of butter on a plate already filled with good foods.  You are also not likely to pour an entire bottle of olive oil onto a full plate. 

In the course of our sessions together, I presented a number of tips and tricks based on my own experience and my reading.  I also learned a great deal from the group, whose questions stimulated me to research.  My research caused me to modify some of my thinking based on new information that has become available. 

My next group will begin soon and will once again be four sessions.  I will make some changes based on my experience with the first group.  Congratulations to those who completed the first Expressly Leslie Four Week Weight Loss Group...and I hope you will all on the road to becoming "Lifers."