The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (19 page)

At the same time, we aren’t eating enough fruits, beans, seeds and nuts, and vegetables, which leaves us lacking in the most essential health-promoting compounds. To make matters worse, white potatoes and ketchup make up almost half of the 10 percent of the unrefined plant foods that American eat, so clearly Americans eat an insignificant amount of natural plant foods. My clinical experience and research findings demonstrate that low-nutrient eating drives overeating behavior and food cravings. A properly nourished body, however, will be satisfied with the right number of calories, will be resistant to putting on visceral (internal) body fat, and will naturally gravitate toward its ideal weight.

It’s not enough to eat foods rich in phytochemicals, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. We also have to avoid foods that are toxic or drive up dangerous hormones such as insulin and IGF-1 to dangerously high levels.

Glucose, Insulin, and Good and Bad Carbs

Human cells need energy to function. And the body’s primary source of energy is
glucose
, a simple sugar that comes from the body digesting foods that contain carbohydrates—basically any food that contains sugar and/or starches. Insulin, a hormone produced by beta cells in your pancreas, allows glucose to move from your bloodstream directly into your body’s cells, which provides them with energy.

Under normal conditions, glucose rises gradually in the bloodstream as we eat, and the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas monitor that rise. These cells then secrete the appropriate amount of insulin to drive the glucose into the body’s tissues, lowering the level in the bloodstream to an appropriate range. High levels of glucose cause your pancreas to produce high levels of insulin to flush glucose out of your bloodstream and into your body’s cells, where it can safely be converted into energy or, if not needed for energy, stored as fat. Diabetes is essentially the presence of high levels of glucose in your bloodstream.

A high amount of insulin, however, is also harmful because excess insulin supports and drives fat storage (
lipogenesis
), while simultaneously suppressing fat removal (
lipolysis
). Increased levels of insulin also promote angiogenesis, that is, the growth of new blood vessels that feed fat cells and ultimately enable a larger body mass. Stored body fat acts like a barrier to insulin function, so the pancreas responds by producing more and more insulin.

Foods with high levels of glucose, then, force your pancreas to overproduce insulin, which can lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and specific types of cancer. You can measure these glucose levels through glycemic index (GI), which evaluates the blood glucose response per gram of carbohydrate in particular foods. It works on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being the best. GI measures how high blood sugar levels typically rise after you eat a particular food. Glycemic load (GL) supplies a similar ranking but is thought to be more meaningful because it takes into account the blood sugar response to a common portion size of each food rather than a fixed number of grams.

Carbohydrates, the source of glucose, can be categorized as unrefined or refined—good or bad carbs, respectively. Refined, or processed, carbohydrates have been stripped of their fiber and nutrients, both of which slow down the absorption of sugar. Their absence, in turn, results in high GI and GL values, much higher than values in unrefined carbohydrates.

Foods with a high GL include sugar, white bread, and sweetened breakfast cereals; low-GL foods include beans, intact whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables (see Table 10). White potatoes, although they are a whole plant food, are also high in GI and GL, and this is the reason why potato consumption of even one serving a day is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
²

Foods with high GI and GL values produce spikes in blood glucose levels, which lead to heightened secretion of insulin by the pancreas. Large quantities of high-GL foods increase the risk of diabetes
and several cancers, especially colorectal cancer.
³
For example, the high GL of white potato is responsible for its link to a higher incidence of colorectal cancer.
⁴
This is further supported by the fact that the diabetes- and colon cancer–promoting potential in white potato is noted predominantly in people who are overweight and therefore have a heightened insulin response to GL. In addition, researchers were careful to separate the effects of both unhealthy toppings used on potatoes and their method of preparation. They showed that as the insulin resistance of the subjects increased, the negative effects of white potato became more pronounced. This means that high-glycemic, insulin-promoting foods are more cancer-causing in overweight people compared with thin, active individuals without insulin resistance.

Consuming foods with a high GL increases heart disease risk as well. One study followed subjects in Italy for eight years. Subjects were divided into four groups according to their intake of high-GI and high-GL foods, and the incidence of coronary heart disease was recorded. In women, the groups with the greatest intake of high-GI foods had a 68 percent greater risk of heart disease than those with the lowest intake. Analyzing by GL revealed an even more pronounced effect: Women with the highest intake of high-GL foods were more than twice as likely to develop heart disease compared with women with the lowest intake.
⁵
A similar study performed in men found an increased risk of heart attack in men who ate the greatest quantities of high-GI and high-GL foods.
⁶

Refined carbohydrates aren’t the only macronutrients that raise insulin levels. High-protein foods like meat do, too. Certain foods cause an insulin response over and above what would be reflected by their GL. This effect is reflected in a food’s insulin index. When you mix animal products and oils with sugar or white flour, your body’s insulin response spikes even more dramatically.
⁷
A plate of fried chicken and biscuits, for example, would be more hormonally dangerous than biscuits alone.

I
N
T
HEIR
O
WN
W
ORDS

Catherine discovered that weight loss isn’t the only benefit to incorporating superior nutrition into her life. She also found that food is “healing medicine” that provides “life-giving energy” for her body
.

BEFORE:
166 pounds

AFTER:
128 pounds

Last summer I knew I had to do something about my weight. My fiftieth birthday was looming, and I couldn’t bear the thought of reaching this milestone with an extra 30 to 40 pounds on my body. I also wanted to feel better. More often than not, my mediocre eating habits had left me feeling chaotic, lethargic, and overwhelmed, in addition to having a “meno-pot” belly and fat rolls on my back and hips! I have struggled with anxiety and attention deficit issues all of my life, and my standard American diet provided me with little ammunition for effective coping and flourishing.

I had been looking for a guide to healthy eating that wasn’t complicated, and I struck gold when I discovered Dr. Fuhrman’s website, which enabled me to carefully track my nutritarian journey.

I was uncertain at first as I roamed grocery store aisles buying kale, collard greens, and leeks; sunflower seeds, walnuts and cashews, currants, Medjool dates and pomegranates, and mushrooms of all kinds. Yet within a matter of days, I was more alert and energetic—the brain “fog” or “malaise” that had hovered over my life for so long seemed to have lifted.

When I first committed to healthy eating at the end of August, I weighed 166 pounds. My original plan had been to follow Dr. Fuhrman’s nutritarian diet until my fiftieth birthday in late November. But I soon realized that I was on a life-changing and lifelong journey in which food was about healing and wholeness. I’m struck by how little I knew about nutrition. I knew about the benefits of exercise, but I didn’t know much about how food could be such healing medicine and life-giving energy for my body. I love that I’m eating to protect my body against cancer and dementia and helping ensure that I can live a healthy, full life into old age.

Notes: Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K, Brand-Miller JC. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008
. Diabetes Care.
2008;31(12):2281–2283. Foster-Powell K, Holt SH, Brand-Miller JC. International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2002
. Am J Clin Nutr
. 2002;76(1):5–56
.

Except for white potatoes, natural whole plant foods do
not
have a very high GL. For the most part, natural foods do not create a heightened glucose and insulin response, though I do advise the overweight or diabetic to avoid white potatoes. And if you’re significantly overweight or diabetic, I also recommend limiting brown rice, millet, and even sweet potatoes, as high-GL foods are generally considered 20 and above. It’s interesting that today’s fast-growing, large “Irish” russet and Idaho potatoes aren’t at all like the many varieties of small, multicolored wild potatoes
that originated in the Andes Mountains. These contained more than ten times the phytonutrients and were much higher in fiber and resistant starch than the russets and Idahos. Which means they had a lower GL than modern-day, overly bred potatoes.

It’s not the quantity of carbohydrates that’s necessarily bad. It’s the
quality
of the carbohydrate that can make it so bad for you. Low-quality carbohydrates, which are generally refined and highly glycemic, are calorically dense and lack sufficient protective antioxidants. Such processed foods are addictive and promote fat storage over and above their caloric load because of their hormone-promoting effects. A diet heavy in low-quality carbohydrates is largely responsible for our overweight and metabolically challenged population.

High-quality carbohydrates, on the other hand, are nutritionally valuable and contain predominantly slowly digestible and resistant starches that limit their GL. Foods such as green peas and red beans, though packed with carbohydrates, are slowly digested and do not spike glucose in the bloodstream. These high-quality carbohydrates are not only health-promoting, but they also promote a favorable body weight and slim waist. The combination of their slower glucose absorption with the fibers and nutrients they contain prevents the body from storing fat, whereas white bread, soda, and French fries, with the same caloric load, are quickly digested and highly obesogenic, or obesity-causing. Other favorable high-carbohydrate foods include cauliflower, chickpeas, English peas, split peas, various squashes, turnips, and rutabagas. Of course, raw vegetables, including raw carrots and raw shredded beets, are nutrient-rich, low-glycemic, healthful food choices as well.