Read The South Beach Diet Supercharged: Faster Weight Loss and Better Health for Life Online
Authors: Arthur Agatston,Joseph Signorile
Tags: #Cooking, #Health & Fitness, #Medical, #Nutrition, #Health, #Diet, #Fitness, #Diets, #Weight Control, #Recipes, #Weight Loss, #Health & Healing, #Diets - Weight Loss, #Diets - General, #Reducing diets, #Diet Therapy, #Reducing exercises, #Exercise
The South Beach Diet Supercharged: Faster Weight Loss and Better Health for Life (9 page)
Clearly, what helped man survive in the past is killing us today. Luckily, we now understand why, as a nation, we have gotten so fat and hyperinflamed. And luckily, we now know what to do about it.
Don’t worry—I’m not suggesting that we all starve ourselves or try to imitate those times of food scarcity or famine. But in some ways, we all do need to eat more like our ancestors. This means consuming more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean protein. These are the basic tenets of the South Beach Diet, and following them will reverse our accumulation of belly fat and its detrimental health consequences.
The other thing we must do is move more, the way our ancestors did. This means regularly doing aerobic (cardio) conditioning and functional core exercises. In fact, studies show that exercise is one of the most effective ways to get rid of visceral fat. In a 2005 study conducted at Duke University, 175 overweight men and women with mild to moderately bad blood fats (cholesterol and triglycerides) were randomly assigned to participate for 8 months in one of three exercise groups. The participants were instructed not to change their eating habits. One group exercised at a moderate intensity (40 to 55 percent of aerobic capacity) for approximately 3 hours per week. A second group exercised at a high intensity (65 to 80 percent of aerobic capacity) for 2 hours a week. The third group exercised at the same high intensity but for 3 hours per week. Both the 2-hour high-intensity group and the 3-hour moderate-intensity group showed no further accumulation of visceral fat. But the best news was that the high-intensity group that worked for 3 hours per week actually showed a significant decrease in visceral fat. And the bad news for couch potatoes: A control group that didn’t exercise showed a significant increase in visceral fat, which means that if you do nothing to stop it, visceral fat just keeps on growing.
Another study, published in 2006 in the
International Journal of Obesity
, found that a combination of diet and exercise—not diet alone—reduced the size of abdominal fat cells. This is an extremely important finding because swollen fat cells are the ones that become insulin resistant. Shrinking abdominal fat cells can help restore a normal insulin response, which will help prevent prediabetes.
What about Pears?
But what if you’re a pear—a person who carries fat mainly in the hips and thighs? Will you respond as well as an apple to a proper diet and exercise? The answer, unfortunately, is no. It will, in fact, be harder for you to lose weight than it is for your apple friends because, like most pears, you have a slower metabolism due to your genetic makeup, not your diet. That makes metabolism-revving exercise even more important for you.
But there’s good news, too. As a pear, you are much healthier than your apple friends who may weigh the same as you. It turns out that overweight pears don’t have the thrifty genes that lead to fat storage in the belly.
A Word about Metabolic Rate
While most of the epidemic of obesity has been due to activation of the fat-storage survival mechanisms discussed above, this is not the cause of all obesity or overweight. Even before we began this unintentional experiment of eating the wrong foods and avoiding exercise, there was still a percentage of Americans who were overweight. Many claimed that they didn’t overeat, and it turns out that many of them were telling the truth. In contrast were the food-guzzling types who never gained a pound. The fact is, we all have different metabolic rates, and these rates do affect whether we gain weight readily or not. This point was made quite clearly in a famous Canadian study of twins.
In the study, 12 sets of identical twins were overfed by 1,000 calories a day, 6 days a week, for 100 days. The amount of exercise was carefully monitored and exactly the same for all. In other words, all the participants had the same energy intake via food and the same energy output via exercise. By the end of the study, each set of twins had gained virtually the same amount of weight, but between different pairs, the weight gain varied from about 9 to 28 pounds. This study proved that a major contribution to weight gain is metabolic rate, which is largely genetically determined. It’s an important fact for dieters to understand, because your metabolic rate will affect how you respond not only to diet but also to exercise. But don’t be discouraged if your metabolism is slow. It doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel and stop trying to lose weight. You’ll just have to be a little more conscientious about maintaining our diet principles and work a little harder at your exercise routine.
The “You Can Never Be Too Thin” Syndrome
I can’t tell you how often the discussion of metabolic rate comes up in my cardiology practice. Let me share a typical patient story. A 52-year-old woman I’ll call Karen comes to see me with a family history of diabetes and heart disease and the additional complaint of postmenopasual weight gain. Her blood chemistries show evidence of prediabetes, and she experiences frequent cravings. I put her on the South Beach Diet and recommend regular exercise.
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THE SOUTH BEACH DIETAlan J., age 52: Finding His Own Fountain of Youth
In May 2006, my cardiologist told me the results of my latest blood work, and they weren’t good. My lack of exercise and love of beer, fried foods, and lots of ice cream had finally caught up with me—and I had a beer belly to show for it. I weighed 250 pounds, and my blood sugar was 140—that was much too high. I’m 6-foot-3, so I always thought I could eat whatever I wanted and get away with it. Even a trip to the emergency room for chest pains 3 years earlier wasn’t enough to make me take care of my health. I thought that all I had to do was take drugs for my blood pressure and cholesterol, and I would be fine. I was wrong.
My cardiologist told me that I was a “sugar cookie away” from entering the prediabetes stage. I immediately thought back to when I was in the ER. I had seen a man whose leg was so black that I thought he was a burn victim. The nurse told me that he would be losing his leg the next morning, thanks to diabetes! When my doctor told me I was a candidate for prediabetes, I was finally scared enough to take action.
My doctor had been trying to get me to read
The South Beach Diet
for more than a year, but I resisted because I thought it was just for women. But that day, I followed my doctor’s advice and finally got a copy. The book made a lot of sense, explaining why some foods do what they do to your body. The testimonials gave me hope that the diet would work for me. So, like any other red-blooded American male, I immediately decided to start the diet—in a week! That gave me 6 more days to go on a farewell binge, in which I’d eat all my favorite foods. In that week I managed to pile on another 5 pounds, and my waist grew another inch or so to a size 42!I was really afraid of Phase 1 and saying good-bye to all my comfort foods
and
beer. What really helped was keeping the book close at hand to refer to when I needed it, along with the support of my wife in making all those Phase 1 recipes work for me. My quiche cups, vegetable juice, turkey wraps, cheese sticks, and all the others became my new best friends. In no time at all, I was learning all kinds of new things, like the fact that chicken doesn’t always come in a bucket and that fish is not a square brown block served on a white bun with tartar sauce and fries.Now that I no longer came home from work and downed a few brews to unwind, I had a lot more time on my hands. I decided to go to the gym after work. Bad knee and all, I figured out that a simple walk on the treadmill would be a good way to kill 30 minutes. I was surprised to find out that walking felt so good, I wanted to do it every night.
After just a few weeks, I’d lost 25 pounds! By October, when I had my follow-up at the cardiologist’s office, it was obvious that the diet was working. My blood sugar was down to 89, which is very good, and my weight was 213, which was a big improvement. In December 2006, I hit my personal goal of 195 pounds with a size-36 waist. Even though I treat myself to a couple of indulgences every month, I am maintaining my weight. You know why? Because I realized very early on that I didn’t go on a diet. All I did was change the way I live my life. And it works.
Last week, I had an annual stress test, and after pushing that treadmill to six levels to complete the test, my doctor looked at me in amazement and said, “You have added 10 years to your life.” So, after 18 months and nearly 1,000 miles on the gym treadmill, I want to say thank you, South Beach Diet, for being my personal fountain of youth.
Karen loses 15 pounds over the next 6 months. Her cravings have disappeared, and she feels great. When I see her at her next visit, I remark that she looks wonderful, and I proudly tell her that her blood chemistries have completely normalized.
I’m expecting a response of pleasure based on the fact that Karen has achieved my goals—and what I thought were her goals. I’m also anticipating some gratitude for her wonderful blood chemistries. Instead, she says, “That’s nice, Dr. Agatston, but I am still too fat. I need to lose at least another 5 pounds and another half inch here—and here [she points to her hips and thighs].” Karen’s response is, unfortunately, the rule, not the exception. Too many women tell me the same thing. And it’s due to the fact that our culture has set an unrealistic and disturbing ideal of what women should aspire to look like—what I like to call the “You Can Never Be Too Thin” syndrome. I have deleted the “too rich” part of this famous line (thank goodness my patients don’t come to me with financial issues).
Because I have heard responses like Karen’s so often, my answer is well prepared. I tell her again that she looks fine to me (and to my staff), but that if she wants to lose more weight or another half inch, she can. However, she should not do it by trying to further limit her calorie intake. Once patients have resolved their cravings and normalized their blood chemistries, further caloric restriction can lead to yo-yo dieting (see
Chapter 4
) and regaining more weight than they carried before.
Karen’s genetically determined metabolism has dictated where her weight has stabilized. So how can she lose more weight and sustain it as part of a lifestyle? She must increase her metabolic rate. This means an exercise program that helps build and maintain muscle and bone mass while it burns calories. Adopting our fitness program is an ideal way to accomplish this.
The Bottom Line on Belly Fat
So, let me try to put the health implications of belly fat into perspective. I firmly believe that the recent epidemic of obesity in this country is primarily due to the types of foods we are eating and to our sedentary lifestyle. Our disproportionate increase in belly fat is due to the survival mechanism of insulin resistance. This has particularly dire implications for our health as a nation because belly fat is simply more dangerous than fat found directly under the skin.
Luckily, if you follow the South Beach Diet principles, your belly fat simply melts away. Moreover, by following a regular exercise program, you speed that weight loss and help maintain it as well. This is true even for those of you who are overweight due predominantly to a slow metabolism rather than insulin resistance. It’s also true for those of you who look fine but just want to lose a few extra pounds.
It has been very satisfying for me to see how far we’ve come in just 5 years in understanding what has caused us to become fatter and sicker. But even more gratifying is seeing how far we’ve come in learning how to prevent these problems by helping people become thinner and healthier for life.
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THE SOUTH BEACH DIETLinda S., age 56: My Husband’s Health Is Vastly Improved
My husband, Bill, and I began the South Beach Diet in January 2007 after his doctor told him that he was on the brink of developing type 2 diabetes. My husband is 5-foot-10 and weighed 289 pounds, which made him very uncomfortable. His blood sugar was too high, and he had lots of belly fat, which we knew wasn’t good. But it wasn’t just the fear of diabetes that worried us. My husband has multiple medical conditions that were being aggravated by his weight—specifically, degenerative bone disease in his back and fibromyalgia, which causes severe muscle pain. He was taking a lot of medication to manage the pain. Both of us knew he had to do something different to improve his health.
At the time, I was about 25 pounds overweight at 174 and a real couch potato. I was pretty disgusted with myself, so I decided to go on the South Beach Diet with Bill. When we started learning about the diet, we realized that we were doing everything wrong. We ate a lot of prepared, processed foods. In fact, white, starchy foods were my favorites! And we didn’t eat enough vegetables and whole grains. I’m not much of a cook, and frankly, I never liked cooking, but I began to experiment with some South Beach Diet recipes. We started eating more lean protein and vegetables…lots of vegetables…and we were really surprised at how good healthy food actually tastes.
Then we took the next step. We joined a local gym and started working out 3 days a week—a really big change for us. With all his medical problems, Bill had to be very careful, but he did what he could. The weight started to come off both of us. I’ve lost 26 pounds and Bill has lost 56 pounds and is feeling much better. In fact, he feels so much better that he’s been able to cut his pain medication in half.
And his blood sugar is now normal!
There’s no question that my husband’s health has vastly improved.The funny thing about the South Beach Diet is that we found that healthy eating is more enjoyable than the way we used to eat. We don’t feel deprived (at least most of the time!), and we know that we’ll never go back to the way we used to be.