Living Low Carb (36 page)
Authors: Jonny Bowden
In phase one, you avoid:
• hot spices (because of possible water retention)
• oils and fats (other than daily flaxseed oil and GLA supplementation)
• all grains
• all starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, peas, carrots, beans, etc.)
• all dairy
• alcohol and coffee (you are allowed one cup of organic coffee in the morning)
Other than that, the diet is flexible. No counting carb grams, figuring out protein minimums, or counting calories. You eat:
• up to 8 ounces a day of almost any kind of protein
•
in addition
, up to two eggs a day
• one serving of whey protein powder (not in the book, but later added to the phase one food list on the Web site)
• unlimited amounts of almost any vegetable but the starchy ones (which get put back in during the next phase)
• up to two portions of fruit per day
You can sweeten with stevia (xylitol wasn’t widely available when Fat Flush first came out, but I’m willing to bet xylitol would be acceptable). Each day, you have a fiber supplement, a GLA supplement, flaxseed oil, and the cran-water mixture.
Phase two is for ongoing weight loss and ups the calories to between 1,200 and 1,500. You stay on phase two until you’re at or near your goal weight. The main difference between phase one and phase two is that during phase two, you slowly add back some carbohydrates from the “friendly carb” list—one serving per day for the first week and two servings per day for the second week and beyond. The cran-water drink gets replaced with pure water, and most everything else stays the same.
Phase three is 1,500 (or more) calories per day and is designed for ongoing maintenance. There are more liberal choices in the oil and fruit categories, and you can now add dairy products as well as choose from a bigger list of “friendly carbs,” working up to four servings a day. Most everything else remains the same—there are some minor changes in supplementation that are discussed.
The book also has sections on exercise (greatly expanded in the
Fat Flush Fitness Plan
), journaling, stress reduction, recipes, resources, and great FAQ.
The Fat Flush Plan as a Lifestyle: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
This is such an all-around sensible plan that it’s hard to see how anyone wouldn’t benefit from it. Within certain parameters (like the carb restriction and the prohibition on sugar), it’s very flexible, and it’s one of the few lowercarb plans where you can eat fruit right from the beginning. Gittleman seems to have a particular gift for writing for women, who appear to constitute the majority of her audience. Men do well on this plan, too, but need to make some adjustments. According to Gittleman, they should do phase one as is, but can usually jump to phase three so they can take in more carbohydrates right away. They also generally should increase the portion sizes of their protein and can double up on the whey protein powder.
People who need a lot of structure might find this plan too freewheeling for their tastes, and the maintenance plan allows more carbs than some people might feel comfortable with. In addition, if you suspect that you have a carbohydrate addiction, the amount of carbs allowed on the maintenance phase could conceivably trigger binges.
JONNY’S LOW DOWN
This is one of the half-dozen best low-carb approaches to health around. I have minor quibbles, with the emphasis on “minor”: there is a lot of talk about cellulite and how the plan can reduce it, which I think is highly speculative, as is the section on food combining. I’d like to have seen alpha-lipoic acid mentioned as an important supplement for liver health. In my opinion, there is disproportionate emphasis on flaxseed oil and not enough on fish oil, which provides equally important omega-3’s that are harder for the body to make on its own. But with that said, the basic template—limited starch, some fruit, unlimited vegetables, lean protein, and high-quality fats—is a great program and would benefit anyone. The phenomenal success and public acceptance of this program is well deserved
.
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
An absolutely first-rate program with an original point of view and novel information that is not found in other diet books. Written by one of the great icons in integrative medicine
.
The Fat Resistance Diet
is a rarity in diet books: it actually offers an original and unique perspective on the whole issue of weight gain and health.
This is all the more worthy of mention because the author—Leo Galland, MD—is literally one of the giants in the field of integrative medicine. Most of what Galland has written has been for other professionals—he’s been one of the main educators in holistic medicine, and has written extensively about such issues as digestive health, leaky gut, inflammation, and immunity. Once every so often, he writes for the general public. When he does, pay attention.
Galland believes that being unable to lose weight is a sign that some basic metabolic mechanisms are not working properly, generally due to choices we make. “The whole premise of the Fat Resistance Diet is that we have inborn, natural regulatory systems that support a healthy weight, but our food choices and our lifestyle interfere with their functioning,” he told me when I interviewed him recently.
One of these inborn regulatory systems that seems to go awry in obesity is a hormone called
leptin
. Leptin is a hormone that was first discovered in 1994 by researchers at Rockefeller University who were studying obese mice. It’s a protein hormone that lets your brain and body know how much fat you are storing. When leptin levels goes up, your appetite goes down. Leptin also speeds up your metabolism. So, for proper weight management, we want the leptin circuits working well. “The problem is that overweight people have developed resistance to leptin,” Dr. Galland explained. “Their leptin levels are high but it’s not depressing their appetite and it’s not stimulating their metabolism.”
So why doesn’t leptin work so well in overweight people?
According to Galland, one reason is inflammation. “Inflammation disables the leptin signal,” he told me. “It also contributes to insulin resistance, a central feature of obesity and diabetes.”
Everyone has had a personal experience with inflammation. If you stub your toe—if you get a sore throat, if you have a mild asthma attack or stuffed-up sinuses, if you’ve been stung by a bee or bitten by an ant at a picnic—you’ve seen firsthand what mild inflammation can look and feel like. And it’s not always bad—in fact, it’s part of the body’s healing process. Fluid flows to the area, white blood cells surround the injury in an attempt to isolate and remove any foreign pathogens. It’s all your body’s response to an injury or insult and as such, some inflammatory processes can be important parts of the immune response. Your body makes inflammatory biochemicals and anti-inflammatory biochemicals, and they need to be in balance in order for you to be healthy.
But here is the problem: when your body’s inflammation factories are on overdrive, it’s not a good thing. We are constantly exposed to toxins, irritants, medicines, and foods that cause or aggravate mild inflammation. And this is an inflammation that flies under our pain radar but is nonetheless causing damage, especially to our vascular system. This is why
Time
magazine did a cover story on inflammation some years ago, in which they called inflammation “The Silent Killer.” Inflammation is now recognized to be a component of every degenerative disease, from Alzheimer’s to cancer to obesity to diabetes to heart disease.
Galland’s program is all about controlling inflammation. In the Fat Resistance Diet, you do it with the natural anti-inflammatories that are found in herbs, spices, and a multitude of fresh whole foods like vegetables. According to Galland, if you control inflammation, you’re on the way to controlling fat. “Inflammation is the critical link between obesity and chronic illness,” Dr. Galland told me. In the presence of inflammation, the “fat control mechanisms” simply don’t work.
Another aspect of the inflammation equation has to do with what’s called
nutrient density
. You can help control inflammation with nutrients (for example, omega-3 fats, which are among the most anti-inflammatory compounds on the planet). “What matters most about the calories in any food are the nutrients that accompany them,” says Galland. “The most critical nutrients are those needed to stop the slow-moving avalanche of obesity/inflammation.”
Calories are important, but not nearly as important as what else is in the food that contains those calories. “A weight-reduction program that only looks at calories completely misses the boat,” he says. “A ‘calorie-controlled’ diet consisting of 12 packs a day of 100-calorie Oreo cookies might have the ‘right’ number of calories, but you’d be completely screwed up by the lack of fiber, the lack of protein, and the resulting blood-sugar roller-coaster.”
Some of the best anti-inflammatory spices and herbs include cloves, ginger, parsley, turmeric, cinnamon, and basil, all spices I spoke about at length in my book
The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth
. In fact, many of the foods and spices that made the list of the most healthful foods on earth were included precisely
because
they were so rich in natural anti-inflammatories (not to mention vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and omegas). “We need to re-educate our palate to learn to appreciate the wonders of these foods,” Dr. Galland told me.
The Fat Resistance Diet is a lifestyle based around great food, rather than the calorie restriction that is usually accompanied by the use of artificial sweeteners, sugar substitutes, and fake fats. The book contains incredibly valuable information about the role of these chemicals in inflammation and the inflammation–obesity connection. You can get a good idea of what’s in store for you by reading the basic 12 principles of the Fat Resistance Diet in the box that follows.
The Fat Resistance Diet as a Lifestyle: Who it Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
I think the principles of this program would actually benefit everyone. People looking for an extremely structured program might not find it to their liking, but if you like understanding the principles behind why you’re eating what you’re eating, this is a great book for you. Weight loss in this book does not seem to be the main goal—rather, it’s a natural by-product of the kind of healthful eating Galland recommends.
*
T
HE
12 P
RINCIPLES OF THE
F
AT
R
ESISTANCE
D
IET
*
• Choose foods that are loaded with nutrients.
• Avoid trans-fats.
• Consume foods with plenty of omega-3 content.
• Eat fish 3 times a week or more.
• Eat at least 25 grams of fiber per day.
• Eat at least 9 servings of vegetables and fruits daily.
• Average one serving a day of alliums (onions, scallions, garlic) and crucifers (broccoli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower).
• Get no more than 10% of total calories from saturated fat.
• Use only unbroken egg yolks.
• Don’t follow a “low-fat” diet.
• Eat two healthful snacks a day.
• Use fruits for sweets.
*
Used with permission.
JONNY’S LOW DOWN