They lied.
They lied big time.
I’ve written about this earlier – about the reporting only of data that supported a faulty hypothesis and the deliberate ignoring of contrary info.
Watch the vid – it explaines all:
You have every right to be angry…
See you next week.
Welcome Back!!
I hope that you all had a great Christmas day and that Santa brought you what you wanted!!
I hope that you spent good times with family and friends. That the food was good & plentiful, the company enjoyable and the weather good…
Well Christmas lunch has come & gone and dinner is over, done and dusted. And you’re feeling….well stuffed, over fed, pants too tight, got a good case of belly bloat going on and that furry tongue feeling that comes from either too much alcohol. too many sweet carbs or a mixture of both. (in my case Lynne – as she always does – cooked up a superb all day feast that began with Christmas Brunch and continued all day…)
Ahh.. post Christmas Dinner bloat...
You know you should have followed the last post and eaten your Protein first but the honeyed veges looked too good, the egg nog was too plentiful, the christmas cake too inviting and well you just let go and enjoyed yourself. You let go of all of that hard won disciplne, that laser like focus on only eating to stay healthy & lean… Another Christmas day come & gone and you feel a bit guilty, like you blew it and find part of your mind saying (again) never again..
Okay time to move past this, time to get back on track, time to recognise that this was a temporary diversion and most of all time to repair some of the damage done.
So how to do this?
Firstly realise that letting go of your diet control once & a while is okay, just make sure that you climb back on the wagon. It’s really not something to beat yourself up about unless ‘once & a while’ turns into every week or….
Here’s how to get back in harness– your metabolism has been given a hiding, and your digestive system has been stressed far beyond normal limits… You need to hit the ‘reset button’.
This little trick will do what’s needed:
Once Christmas day and the following one (Boxing Day here in Australia) are done then make a decision to stay away from all highly processed, high GI foods and focus on lean Protein, fresh fruit and fibrous vegetables. Add some healthy fats via nuts & avocado and you are well on the way to getting back on track.
This means waking up and having an omelette with some Spanish onion and mushrooms in it and avoiding cereal & milk. It means grabbing an apple or a peach and some almonds for a snack, having big salads with
Drink lots of this...
olive oil dressing and chicken or turkey breast, it means avoiding breads, crackers or that the left over Christmas pudding, Pavlova or pie.
It means drinking a lot of water. A lot of water.
Eating like this will reduce the bloat, ease the stress on your digestive system and beat back those sugary carb cravings.
This works by allowing a number of things to happen – fewer carbs means your body has a chance to normalise & stabilise blood sugar levels after the havoc of the days just gone.
Your pancreas gets a break and you insulin levels will drop also. Your body will release excess fluids (high sugary carbs creates water retention – and drinking extra water when eating lower carbs actually forces a situation where excess retained water is ‘let go’).
High sugary carbs also unleash the cravings monster and eating as described above will blunt these.
So December 27th or 28th get stuck into water and left over protein, veges and fruit. Pass on the potatoes, the bread and sweets, pie & cakes. Not only will you lose the bloat but you’ll feel better quicker and be back on track for a fit & lean 2011.
Oh yeah add some gentle exercise – go for a walk, toss a Frisbee, ride a bike do some tai chi or or some swimming. The key here is to eas back into exercise not jump back in like a demon! There are some
May your dreams come true in 2012
psychological considerations for this time of year to take into account as well. Our mind tells us we should be taking it easy, we should be on holidays so our bodies are going this way as well. Don’t stop exercising just ease back into instead…
My best wishes for a Safe & Happy New Year – may 2012 be the year all your dreams come true!!
Welcome back!!
Happy Festive Season to you & yours from me & mine!!
Just because its Christmas doesn't mean undoing all your hard wrok...
Look – we all know the sad truth of what is going to take place once the presents are opened, the hugs exchanged, and you and your family sit down for Christmas lunch – you’re all going to eat too much, way, way too much.
If you’re like me, you vow every ear not to overindulge, and every year you slip up. (in my case it is particularly hard – my much better half Lynne is a gourmet class cook who loves to put on a huge spread for the family for Christmas and damn it she knows ALL my favourites!!)
The calm before the (eating!) storm...
Once we sit down then the aromas of the Turkey, the roast Pork, the leg of Lamb, the baked Ham; the sight of the salads, the roast vegetables, the fresh prawns and sea food, then desserts – all combine to overwhelm even the best intentions and steeliest of wills.
So what are we supposed to do?
How can we avoid eating until we become Michelin Man-like and need to have a lie down?
How can we avoid the nasty latent sense of guilt that rears its ugly head over the next few days and makes us feel bad about our lack of control?
It’s simple – apart from the most fanatical amongst us we really can’t… BUT there is one simple thing we can do that will give us at least a modicum of control…
Eat your Protein foods first.
Gotcha!! Hah!! You thought I was going to say use smaller plates, or drink a glass of water first, or chew on a chunk of cheese – nope – a very important part of Christmas (or Hanukkah or Ramadan, or Chinese New Year – whatever your particular celebration is, no matter when it is, is to celebrate and to let go – even if it is just a bit!
Start off with the Ham or the Turkey, with the Pork or the Lamb or the Prawns – just eat your proteins first.
If you have been reading this blog for a little while you’ll know that Protein foods not only fill you up faster, but they assist in the secretion of the chemical messengers that let your brain know you are full. Eating protein gives your leptin a kick in the pants and tells your brain that you’ve had enough.
You can use this tip even with a smorgsabord!!
Protein first eating actually cuts down on the time it takes for your brain to register that your stomach is full and you’ve eaten enough. In general it takes about 20 minutes from the time your stomach is full until your brain gets this message, but Protein has the ability to send get that message from your stomach to your brain much faster than other nutrients. Protein promotes feelings of satiety (feeling full & satisfied at the same time) better than any other food.
Eating your Protein first will prevents over eating because it helps you realize you’re well-fed and not starving!! Even better, Protein will not elevate your blood sugar as dramatically as high GI ‘fast’ carbs. A rapid rise in blood sugar (almost an instant hyperglycaemia experienced at just about every Christmas Dinner) can actually make you feel more hungry by stimulating the hormone Ghrelin which is the ‘feed me more’ appetite stimulating hormone. Protein shuts down this hormone – a good thing!
Even worse a sugar ‘high’ actually switches off your ‘stop eating you’re full’ mechanisms so you get shaky and start shovelling food in – usually faster and faster, without even really tasting it.
Even he keeps in shape over the holidays...
Instead, protein keeps your blood sugars within a normal range so you don’t go through the rollercoaster highs and lows that make you feel even less satisfied.
So Protein first, then eat the high fibre vegetables (think broccoli, green beans, asparaghus etc). These too will add your sense of satiety so you feel full & satisfied.
Once you’ve done this (and enjoyed it!!) then it is open slather – go for the high carb, low fibre fare that remains. Thing is though you’ll likely find that your servings of those desserts and so forth will be smaller and you will need less to satisfy your taste for them.
There you have it – a simple plan for Christmas that will enable you eat well, feel full & satisfied, indulge without bloating and more importantly not upset the cook by eating like a monk!!
I hope that you & your families have a great Festive Season, no matter what your spiritual beliefs.
May your God go with you!
Enjoy!
Welcome Back
Here is another important post from Dr Briffa – enjoy!!
Claims regarding the impact of foods on cholesterol are simply irrelevant
I got a press release today from the consumer advocacy group Which? informing me that “Misleading health claims to be banned at last”.
Apparently, European Union Member States today voted to adopt a list of scientifically proven health claims that can be made about food and drink products. Claims for green tea and glucosamine (regarding benefits for blood pressure and joint health) are examples of a couple of things that did not make the cut. On the other hand, it seems the following claims will be allowed to be made:
Cholesterol levels are widely recognised as a marker for heart disease, and so the logic goes that reducing cholesterol levels will help prevent this condition. In this case, cholesterol is being used as what is known as a ‘surrogate marker’. The assumption is that a positive change in surrogate marker levels will translate into benefits for health.
However, is this actually true?
Taking dietary steps to reduce cholesterol has not been convincingly shown to reduce the risk of heart disease or overall risk of death. If this practice does not have benefits for health or extend life, why bother? Eating less saturated fat and swallowing stanols and sterols can reduce cholesterol all they like, but none of it has proven benefits for health.
It is perhaps worthy of note that a PR representative of the Unilever-made Flora Proactiv products commented here [1] that:
“We absolutely agree that simply lowering cholesterol without making wider positive changes to one’s diet and lifestyle will not make a significant positive health impact.”
I take this as admission of the general uselessness of cholesterol reduction in terms of its impact on health.
It can be hard for some to make sense that taking dietary steps to reduce cholesterol is not broadly beneficial to health. However, we should perhaps not be too surprised, when we consider that we have plenty of similar experiences regarding pharmaceutical drugs.
For example:
The situation with statin drugs is somewhat nuanced. In primary prevention (in essentially healthy individuals) statins do not reduce risk of death. In secondary prevention (those who have already had, say, a heart attack or stroke), they do, but the fact remains that even in high risk individuals, the great majority of people who take statins do not stand to benefit from them at all. There is reason to believe, by the way, that the little benefit statins have is not as a result of their cholesterol-reducing action, but due to other effects including anti-inflammatory blood-thinning actions.
In short, the fact that foods low in saturated fat and/or rich in sterols/stanols may contribute to lowered cholesterol levels is irrelevant. The idea that this translates into benefits for health is simply unproven. My advice? Don’t swallow it.
Article printed from Dr Briffa’s Blog – A Good Look at Good Health: http://www.drbriffa.com
URL to article: http://www.drbriffa.com/2011/12/06/claims-regarding-the-impact-of-foods-on-cholesterol-are-simply-irrelevant/
URLs in this post:
[1] here: http://www.drbriffa.com/2011/07/18/newspaper-takes-money-from-food-company-to-promote-cholesterol-reducing-food-via-journalist-who-doesnt-seem-to-exist/#comment-190332
Welcome back:
This week I am presenting 2 posts from the UK. Dr John Briffa (www.Drbriffa.com) is one of the few medicos on-line that are wroth following and I thought that these 2 posts of his are well worth passing on for you to read.
Enjoy.
Low-carbohydrate diets look good for the prevention and treatment of cancer
Posted on 29 November 2011
In general terms, I recommend a diet lower in carbohydrate than conventional guidelines say is healthy. At least part of my thinking is based on abundant evidence linking a relatively carbohydrate controlled diet with benefits in terms of body weight and disease markers for conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. However, I came across a recent paper which made me think more about the impact a low-carbohydrate might have on risk of another important condition – cancer [1].
You can read a summary of the paper here and download a provisional pdf of the full paper here.
The paper starts with reference to hunter-gatherer diets, and their relatively protein-rich, low-carb nature, and remarks that cancer has been found to be rare in societies eating such a diet. It then goes on to postulate several major mechanisms that may account for this association. These include:
1. Cancer cells feed preferentially on sugar (glucose)
Glucose (from sugary and starchy foods) provides the prime fuel for cancer cells, so a diet lower in carbohydrate may therefore reduce tumour development or progression.
2. Insulin and IGF-1 can stimulate tumour cell growth
High carbohydrate diets increase levels of insulin and what is known as insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) which stimulate tumour cell growth. A lower carbohydrate diet may reduce tumour proliferation as a result.
3. Ketones suppress cancer
Very low carbohydrate diets can lead to the production of ‘ketones’ (mainly produced from fat) that suppress tumours.
4. Low-carbohydrate and ‘ketogenic’ diets ‘starve’ cancer
Low-carbohydrate diets mimic caloric restriction and ketogenic diets mimic starvation – and caloric restriction/starvation is linked to reduce tumour development and progression.
5. Low carbohydrate diets can reduce inflammation
Inflammation is believed to be a risk factor in the development of cancer, and high-carb diets encourage inflammation. Low-carbohydrate diets have been found to be more effective than low-fat ones in terms of reducing markers of inflammation.
The paper also makes the case that such diets may help better meet the nutritional needs of those with cancer.
I’ve only plucked out some of the highlights of this paper, as you can read it in its entirety if you so wish. If you do, though, you may well find that the paper makes a pretty compelling case for the role of carbohydrate-restricted diets in the prevention and treatment of cancer.
References:
1. Klement RJ, et al. Is there a role for carbohydrate restriction in the treatment and prevention of cancer? Nutrition & Metabolism 2011, 8:75
Posted on 2 December 2011
Cholesterol in the bloodstream is transported in two main forms: ‘low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol’ (LDL-cholesterol) and ‘high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol’ (HDL-cholesterol). Conventional wisdom tells us that LDL-cholesterol is responsible for the fatty build-up on the inside of arteries known as ‘atherosclerotic plaque’, but that HDL-cholesterol clears this plaque. Because of this, HDL- and LDL-cholesterols are dubbed ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol respectively.
A paper was published recently which attempted to explore further the relationship between HDL-cholesterol and risk of cardiovascular disease. Low levels of HDL-cholesterol have been associated with enhanced risk. But just because two things are associated with each other, does not mean one is causing the other.
Low HDL-cholesterol levels often go hand-in-hand with other metabolic ‘abnormalities’ including raised triglyceride (a form of blood fat) levels, raised blood pressure, raised blood sugar levels and abdominal obesity. Could it be one or more of these associated factors or other factors entirely that account for the relationship between low HDL-cholesterol levels and heightened risk of cardiovascular disease.
To answer this question, Danish scientists isolated individuals with low HDL-cholesterol levels as a result of a genetic glitch [1]. In these individuals, HDL-cholesterol levels are low, but this is usually in isolation and not in combination with other metabolic abnormalities (such as raised triglycerides, blood pressure, blood sugar and abdominal obesity).
It turns out that in these individuals with genetically determined low HDL-cholesterol levels, risk of heart attack is no higher than in the general population. The logical conclusion here is that low HDL-cholesterol does not cause heart attacks (which means that higher levels do not protect against it either). In other words, this evidence strongly suggests the link between HDL-cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease risk is only an association and not causal.
But if this is the case, could the same not be true for LDL-cholesterol too?
Many doctors and scientists will not hear of such a thing, of course, and will quote studies which show cholesterol-reduction with statin drugs reduces risk of cardiovascular disease as evidence of the fact LDL-cholesterol causes heart disease. However, as is well-recognised now, statins have many actions in the body which might reduce cardiovascular disease risk in a way which has nothing to do with cholesterol (including anti-inflammatory and blood-thinning properties).
Also, we have evidence that statins substantially reduce the risk of stroke, even though cholesterol is a weak or non-existent risk factor for stroke. And we have evidence that statins reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in individuals with normal or even low levels of cholesterol. These lines of evidence suggest that statins actually work through mechanisms that are distinct from their cholesterol-reducing properties.
I know that some will tell us that cholesterol is to be found in atherosclerotic plaque and that ‘proves’ that cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease. Actually, though, it does nothing of the sort. If I graze my knee and form a scab there, chemical analysis of the scab will reveal something called fibrin (a clotting agent). Has fibrin caused my scab? Of course not.
References:
1. Haase CL, et al. LCAT, HDL Cholesterol and Ischemic Cardiovascular Disease: A Mendelian Randomization Study of HDL Cholesterol in 54,500 Individuals. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism November 16, 2011
See you next week when I’ll be looking at 4 fat loss proptocols to follow when you want to drop fat fast!!
Be well.
Welcome back!!
This week we’re going to look at what you need to do to be fit with a flat belly at the different stages of your life. Because of the drop in metabolic rate, our ability to recover, our abuility to produce hormones and just plain strength we need to adopt a slightly different approach to bot eating and exercise depending upon our age.
Here are some general rules…
At this age you can get away with more and, for the most part, your youth will soak it all up.
Flat Belly? Avoid grain based foods
I can remember being able to eat 5 big meals a day and still retaining a flt stomach. But by my late 20’s this was not the case – my abs starterd disappearing..
The lesson here is that being a 20-something doesn’t give you immunity against stomach fat. In fact
the habits that you adopt and create in your 20’s will either make your fitness & leannesss easier or hareder for the upcoming decades.
The biggest things to avoid eating are refined sugars (alcohol, sweets, biscuits, etc) and starchy, grain based carbohydrates (white bread, pasta, rice, etc)..
The way to exercise is to lift strong, run fast and do both often.And if you stay flexible, your abs will remain strong and your stomach flat, so try adding some semi-regular (at least) yoga or pilates. Learn and practise good posture and keep your overall body fat down.
You need to eat meals that are high in vegetables, lean animal protein and some fruit. If you’re a male avoid vegetable derived proteins – the phytoestrogens in these will begin to lower youtesterone levels even more than natural age progression.
There are only a few you consider using regularly...
If you didn’t take them in your 20s, definitely start taking fish oil supplements, Vitamin D3, a good multi and some E & C. These will go a long way towards to helping you stay lean and healthy.
For exercise keep a good mix happening : Cardio (such as sprinting, rowing, running, swimming, or even the occasional aerobics class), weight training (kettle bells, body weight, weights) and flexibility (such as yoga or pilates). Look at adding some relaxing exercises like Tai Chi or Chi Kung – these are really important in combatting stress levels and as we know increased stress means increased levels of cortisol which means more belly fat!!
Okay – now we begin to hit the downward spiral unless we either: 1) take strong corrective action NOW or 2) continue with good habits developed in our 20’s or 30’s. if you don’t do either then you will begin to lose vitality, fitness and really begin to add fat.
Your lean muscle mass starts to decrease around age 40. Avoiding grain based starchy carbohydrates (especially those with a high glycemic load) and refined sugar will help to keep your insulin levels down and, in turn, will slow down the amount of lean muscle mass you lose. You will also need up your amount of
Being smart in your 40's means looking this good in your 50's & beyond!!
protein, as it provides the building blocks of lean muscle mass – and these need all the help they can get.
In order to preserve your muscles masss (& you can still add more if needs be!!) lift heavy at least twice a week (complex exercises in the 4-6 rep range – thing deadlifts & squats!), start doing lots & lots of chin ups to preserve, strength and your posture; cut spriniting back to a weekly exercise and get some swimming or cycling (even if its 2 or 3 spin classes) in. Exercise in your 40’s is essential if you are to remainlean & vital into your 70’s & beyond!!
Increasing your fish-oil consumption will lower inflammation and in turn help keep your stomach as flat as possible post-40. Your abs and (especially for the ladies who ‘ve had kids) pelvic-floor muscles need to be focused on now more than ever, so pilates, yoga and lots of planks & core work is essential.
More of the same – move more, lift as heavy as able, do squats & chin ups & push ups, swim or bike, run and stretch, tai Chi or yoga – stay active and challengingly so. Most exercise should be resistance-based, using weights and pulleys, as this increases lean muscle mass, as well as releasing serotonin (the feel-good hormone). It will also leave you with a strong core which will protect your hips, back and knees from injury, as well as keeping your stomach flat.
Turning 50 means that you become more aware than ever of how your body takes longer to recover and how
Tosca Reno - at age 50+
you begin to become at least half a step slower…However it does not mean that you have to relegate yourself to dimming vitality, lowered sexuality and the scrap heap. Even without good habits formed in your 20’s, 30’s and / or 40’s you can still slow down the slide . A lot. But you have to get itno it and realise that once you get lean & fit again it will be even harder to do so if you let yourself slide again…
Your meals should be frequest with protein and lots of veges and fruits as often as possible.Eat as many colours of fruit & vegetables as you can daily – the phytonutrients & co-factors are needed like never before. Dark green leafy vegetables are important for their calcium content and you need to be eating lots of calcium-rich foods to reduce your increased risk of osteoporosis.
So the lessons don’t change – avoid sugars & trans fats, cut back or eliminate grains, avoid starchy carbs, lift heavy weigths, move more and do it regularly throughout life.
One more piece of inspiration – this is a 69 year tested & avowed natural (ie no steroids) Doctor who left it until his 50’s to get into shape. Great genetics for sure – but I’d like to look as close to looking that good as my genetics allow at that age.
See you next week. Be well.
Welcome back…
Regular readers know that I am a proponent of reconditioning your metabolism through a strategic mix of challenging, high intensity (but brief duration!) exercise, tactical food intake to manipulate hormones and to harness the thermic effect of eating.
I also believe that over 80% of our body’s composition is down to diet, and if your diet is wrong then you’ll stay fat.
Diet did this
There are two real culprits in the obesity crisis. One is the fast-acting carbs and sugars in breads, cereals, pastas, desserts, cakes, rolls, crackers and fast foods that we all tend to eat. The other is that we tend to eat overlarge portions of just about everything.
With this in mind here are six simple but effect rules to introduce into your eating habits that will enable you to drop 30 lbs or 15 kilos over about 12 weeks.
Give them a try and let me know what you think.
THE ACTION PLAN
To the remaining horror of many an ill-informed Dietician if you want to lose body fat you have to immediately go on a “controlled-carbohydrate diet “.
Now unlike what the Newspapers will tell you (or those pesky Dieticians) this doesn’t mean cutting out carbs altogether, but it does mean eating strategically and with a degree of awareness so that you restrict the carb types that significantly raise your blood sugar and thus your insulin levels. For example, the carbs found in soft drinks, sweets, baked goods like cakes & cookies, bread & pasta.
Cut down or out completely for the first few weeks
I even recommend that you cut out multigrain breads and cereals for the first few weeks. Why? Well multi-grain foods still raise insulin levels. Avoid as many grains as possible – including rice & pastas, no matter what their colour. Because milk has a significant number of carbohydrates, it is off-limits for at least the first 6 weeks – so are other dairy products except cheeses.
The upshot is that this plan limits your carbs to those found in vegetables and fruit.
Now on this plan you should also:
1) Eat only when you’re hungry
2) Eat only to the point of feeling full.
3) Eat as much protein as you like
4) Eat as many non-starchy vegetables as you like.
5) Eat no more than 80 – 150 grams of cheese daily and no other dairy for at least 6 weeks.
6) Restrict your fruit to no more than 3 daily servings of low glycemic fruits like berries, melon, apples, plums, citrus like oranges, apricots, kiwifruit or peaches or nectarines
7) Drink at least 2 litres (2 quarts) of water every day
Follow these guidelines and you’ll also lose 15 kilos in three months.
Here are the Six Simple rules:
1. Cut out quickly digested carbs.
Fast carbs to avoid - sugar to sugar!!
Use the Glycemic Index as a rough guide, use the Glycemic Load of a food as an even better one. Foods that have a high glycaemic index (GI) tend to raise blood sugars quickly – it’s not the whole story but it is a good rule of thumb to follow. (more on this in Rule #2)
You’re an adult – eliminate junk food from your diet at least until you have lost the desired amount of body fat.
No soft drinks / soda pop, no sugary sweets, desserts or baked goods, no bread or biscuits etc. If it is a processed carb avoid it!
Eating these foods signals your body to release a flood of insulin – eliminate them and your insulin levels stay where you want them to be: low. This in turn improves both your health & fat loss. Need proof?
A University of Connecticut research study analysed why low-carb dieters were so successful and they calculated that at least 70 per cent of the fat loss stemmed from low-insulin levels.
2. Eat more vegetables.
Yep – your Mum was right – eat more vegetables, cliché or not there is no denying that for overall health and fat loss this works.
You need to aim for 4 or more servings of non-starchy vegetables every day. Why non-starchy?
There’s a lot of confusion about certain starchy vegetables that have a “high glycemic index”, vegetables that people following lower-carb eating plans have been told to avoid.
The glycemic load is a far more meaningful measure of the effect of foods on your blood sugar and insulin levels.
Take home message is that you can eat virtually any vegie of your choice other than potatoes (white, sweet or fried), and corn.
Cheeses - especially hard cheeses is okay!!
3. Have protein at every meal.
By having protein at every meal you not only promote your body’s TEF (Thermic effect of food), support muscle preservation (vital to fat loss) but you also help trip the satiety signals. Eating protein at every meal helps you feel fuller quicker and for longer.
This is particularly true for breakfast when you body is essentially coming off an 8 hour+ fast.
The best sources are beef, chicken, fish, whey protein powder and eggs.
4. Don’t be afraid of natural fat.
Fat does not get stored as fat – all foods are broken down into their components and largely turned into blood sugar(a simplistic view) and it is an excess of blood sugars that get stored as fat.
The natural (ie non-transfats, non-manipulated by man) fats like those found in unprocessed meats, avocadoes, olives or olive-oil-based dressings do not raise your insulin levels, and have little to do with making you fat.
It is when high amounts of carbs are coupled with high levels of fat(regardless of source) that insulin release is stimulated causing your body to store fat instead of burning it.
God what about cholesterol and the health of my heart??
The Journal of Nutrition reviewed 13 studies of low carb diets and found that this type of diet – even with 50% of calories typically coming from fats – were more effective at reducing heart-disease risk than traditional
NOT the protein that you want to be eating...
low-fat diets.
5. Forget about processed foods.
This includes luncheon meats, cereals, snacks, baked goods etc etc.
If you follow only one rule, make it this: if it comes in a box or a bag, skip it. I guarantee you’ll have success.
6. Make Calorie Density work for you.
Calorie dense food...
In addition to adding protein to every meal another way to eat well and to feel full is to utilise calorie density. Caloric density is the amount of calories present in a given amount or volume of food.
This means that a food that contains a large amount of calories in a small volume of food has a high caloric density. Sometimes very high. At the other end of the scale are thiose foods which are large in volume but low in calories – these foods are considered to have low calorie density.
NB The carbs with the highest caloric density tend to be those that are nutrient sparse and low calorie density carbs are nutrient dense. Fruits and vegetables have very low caloric densities, especially green and leafy vegetables. So do lean proteins.
Foods with low caloric density therefore allow you to eat more volume of food for fewer calories. You can eat more and ingest fewer calories.
Think of it this way – what is easier to eat – 1000 calories of cheesecake or 1000 calories of spinach?
So part of fat loss is to be able to eat well, eat healthily and in a way that leaves you feeling full and less likely to develop cravings. So it is important that you combine lots of fruits, veggies, beans, and lean proteins for meals that leave you full with a lower calorie price to be paid.
Nothing Tastes as Good as Being Lean Feels...
Here are the Six Simple rules:
1. Cut out quickly digested carbs.
2. Eat more vegetables.
3. Have protein at every meal.
4. Don’t be afraid of natural fat.
5. Forget about processed foods.
6. Make Calorie Density work for you.
Eating by following these 6 rules will enable you to shave hundreds of calories off your daily total while being completely content with the amount of food you’re eating. Not to mention how much healthier overall you’ll feel.
See you next week – Be well.
Welcome back!!
This week I want to take a bit of a different look at low carb eating & lifestyle.
As always seems to be the case, information taken solid research seems to lead to extreme pendulum swings in terms of belief & perception.
High protein, low carb is the perfect example of this. Too many folk don’t bother to learn about this and adopt one of 2 opposed stances – all carbs are ‘bad’ or eating high protein is ‘bad.’ Of course neither is correct nor entirely wrong.
Protein & low processed carbs - Ideal!!
Eating low carb means eating low glycemic index. Low glycemic load, low-or- no processed carbs, it doesn’t mean avoiding carbs. It also means pretty much avoiding starchy carbs, but as we will see even these have their uses.
Let’s make no mistake- there is such a thing as ‘bad’ carbs and they are the highly processed calorie dense nutrient sparse crap that fills our western diet. Eating highly processed, high GI and high GL foods are detrimental to your health – the evidence has been in for over a decade on this!!
Likewise eating high protein will not cause heart disease or any of the other highly touted but never proven side effects – but like any fuel source too much can cause imbalances in your body systems and in every case too many calories eaten above those needed for your activity level and you’ll put on fat. No matter what the source of those calories. (But as we discussed in earlier posts the source & type of calorie does matter – processed foods with HFCS and transfats elicit different & damaging responses from our metabolisms compared to salad & steak!)
Many ‘fans’ of low carb diets will only eat the bare minimum of carbs that they feel is necessary to maintain health – this is extreme and wrong. Carbs do not have to be shunned – just chosen wisely, and eaten in line with body needs. This means that it is alright to go high carb if you earned it!! The immediate post work out period is one such time as is first thing in the morning or after a long period of intense mental effort.
The best, the healthiest and most ‘acceptable’ forms of carbs are vegetables & fruits. So although most carbs aren’t the “bad guys” they’re not viewed in the same light as “heroes” like protein and healthy fats and there’s good reason for the food discrimination.
Perfect carb sources
Of course most of us are now aware of the processed carb / insulin /fat storage connection (see last week’s post on Obesegenics) and this is one of the biggest reasons to keep processed carb consumption low. If you can keep insulin sensitivity high and insulin levels low you will not only be maintaining a healthy and optimally functioning body, you’ll also be able to drop body fat if you need to.
We also know that our bodies love to become efficient at everything they do so they can reduce the amount of energy used (our bodies are still focussed on energy conservation) – this is why you should alter your workouts at least every 6 weeks – to keep ‘inefficiency’ and therefore metabolism high…
Likewise your body seems to adapt and get used to any particular diet. Research supports the view that most of us eat fewer than 20 different meals on a regular basis. Again our body becomes efficient at handling these foods and the results we may be trying to use diet to achieve can become blunted.
This is as true for low carb diets as for any other eating pattern. This means that if you’ve been on a low carb diet for a prolonged period of time, an occasional ‘spike’ in your carb intake can actually be beneficial for your health.
There are a number of terms for this, the most common being ‘carb refeeding’. Really it is a way to give your metabolism a bit of stimulation that is not activity dependent, and if you’ve hit a fat loss plateau it can help restart it.
It works like this – you add starchy carbs (strategically chosen – see below) to your diet in amounts that actually increase your insulin production. Notice I said strategically chosen – junk is junk and processed
Junk is still junk - refeeding or not!
carbs are processed carbs no matter when you consume them. The only real exception to this is if you are using a short term carb ‘surging’ protocol to replenish glycogen stores after some serious depletion. This is using the famous ‘cheat day’ once a week.
So bad carbs (processed and / or high glycemic index & glycemic load) remain not good for you and too many calories are still too many – even on programmed cheat days. The goal is to stimulate your insulin, not release so much that it begins to create an environment of insulin resistance in your body!
There are healthier ways to increase your carb intake that’ll help re-stimulate your insulin and make sure that this hormone is working efficiently.
In normal practise I recommend that we keep our carb intake to around 100 – 150g a day. This level is easy to maintain and means that you are able to consume enough nutrient dense vegetables and fruits to sustain a very healthy diet.
Eating this way though means that starchy carbs are likely to be a part of your diet very often (a good thing except in this case). Starchy carbs are what we use to re-stimulate your insulin.
Let me be clear – by starchy carbs I don’t mean breads, muffins or any baked goods; nor do I mean pasta or rice. Why? It is becoming increasingly supported that grain based foods are actually detrimental to our health largely because they contain plant proteins called ‘lectins’ and a host of enzyme inhibitors. (look up Marks Daily Apple for a Paleo style run down on this – my own research mans that I only any grain based foods on a Sunday – and that is usually for the family brunch…)
Definately NOT the type of starches I'm talking about...
No the starches I recommend and am talking about here are grain free foods that don’t contain these harmful, if natural, compounds. I recommend: potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, plantains, squash, beets and taro. This is by no means a complete listing – but the foods on it are easily found in most areas.
Here are some rules to cover off your carb re-feeding:
Carb refeeding is not suitable for everyone. If you have insulin resistance, metabolic disorder, diabetes or any auto-immune disease it’s not recommended.
Carb refeeding is for you if you’ve been eating low carb for over 2 months and you’re beginning to feel a bit ‘flat’, and you fat loss has slowed or even stopped.
Carb refeeding doesn’t mean adding if foods you don’t normally eat (Yams, sweet potato etc should be a part of your regular diet!) but it does mean increasing the percentage of them for a short, insulin ‘invigorating’ period of time.
Carb refeeding is meant for short time use, not daily / weekly regular add-in to your diet. It is best done like a cheat day – once a week and usually never more than 3 or 4 weeks in a row.
If you do the weekly version then you can increase your carbs up to 500 g for that day if you’re eating vegetable starches (never grain) – but try to make it a day where you have a challenging weight lifting session.
Carb refeeds work better on days when you move some iron...
Remember the idea is to ‘tickle’ your insulin, not to undo the good work of your previous weeks of diet. This means that if you’re doing a carb refeed once a week; make sure that the very next day you get right back to your low carb diet. Don’t lose control and let your carb intake remain high. You can even lower your carb intake further than normal – by about 50% – the next day to get you back to your normal routine.
Likewise you should decrease your fat intake for the day when you’re carb refeeding. A good range is around 200 – 500 calories.
Carb refeeding is really designed for folk who have been eating low carb for at least 10 weeks, 12 – 16 is even better. The reason is that if you use carb refeeding before your body has the chance to adapt to burning fat as its main fuel source (which is a part of the reasoning behind low carb diets – metabolically switch your body’s fuel preference) it will hinder your fat loss progress.
If you’ve been leading a low carb lifestyle for some time now (at least 10 weeks) and you’re feeling great – don’t change! It is working for you and you should stick with it.
Conversely if you’re feeling like things have stagnated and you need to shake things up a little, incorporating a carb refeed may be just what your body and mind needs.
See you next week.
Welcome back!!
There has and continues to be a lot of debate about the best ways to lose weight. Regular readers know that I think that is a poor term – what we want is to drop fat!!
Eating fat in your diet is not associated with cancer
Regardless – if you talk to a Dietician or Nutritionist – they say it is all in the food & calories or else in eliminating particular foods or eating special ones. Doctors tend to say eat less and exercise more. Personal Trainers will emphasise exercise.
One thing that they will all tell you is to eat less dietary fat, that fat in your diet is the enemy and you should eliminate it.
They’re wrong.
More & more research is coming to light that shows that dietary fat is in fact beneficial to your metabolism, your nutrient partitioning and your health. The real message that we should be getting is that most fats are good.
The Chairman of of the Department of Nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr Walter Willett, said back in 2000 that ” the relationship of fat intake to health is one of the areas that we have examined in detail over the last 20 years in our 2 cohort studies: The Nurses Health Study & the Health Professionals Follow Up Study. We found virtually no relationship between the percentage of calories from fat and any important health outcome.” (Bold & Italics mine)
So what you say – that was 11 years ago… but wait a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition saw researchers reporting on the results of a recent study looked at the relationship of dietary fat and cancer risk using data taken from 4 separate studies in Great Britain.
But Trans fats will increase your cancer risk...
They looked at the data from 657 breast cancer cases in pre and post menopausal women and compared this data to 1911 control subjects. Essentially they crossed tracked the results with the incidence of breat cancer, with a specific interest in this and the intake of saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturtated fats.
They were unable to find any link.
Yep none. In fact what they did find was that those with a higher dietary fat intake actually enjoyed a slight protective effect. In fact the highest fat intake when compared to the lowest has a 10% reduction in the liklihood of breast cancer.
Now before you go off and start eating deep fried foods etc there are a couple of things for you to put into perspective:
Let’s be very clear – your risk of various cancers (not to mention other chronic health ailments) rises in line with your body fat – this is an identified and recognised medical fact.
Carrying extra body fat, especially a lot of extra body fat is a definite risk factor for many cancer types. Fat cells pump out hormones and inflammatory substances which can increase the risk of cancer (&diabetes & heart disease &…)
The fat on your plate, the marbling in your steak – are not the same as the fat on your belly or on your hips.
You don’t get fat from eating fat. Fat does not magically go from your plate through your digestive system & end up on your waist. You get fat from eating more calories than your body needs for your level of activity.
The percentage of fat in the excess food in your diet does not matter at all when it comes to putting on fat.
It's the Trans fats that'll do you in...
Likewise if you are lean & active – if you are eating calories in line with what your body needs for fuel & to stay lean, then the percentage of those calories that come from fat doesn’t matter either.
The fact is that dietary fat intake has little to no effect on insulin and doesn’t stimulate the fat storing hormones in the same way that an identical number of extra calories from sugar, or cereals or bread or pastries will.
There is one fat, and one fat only to be vigilant about: Trans fats. These, along with high fructose corn syrup are man made disasters and responsible for more health issues than any thing else we have in our diets.
If the fat on your plate has been excessively heated, or does not come from a whole food source, then don’t eat it.
So do something about the fat on your belly & hips – but don’t lose too much sleep about the fat on your plate or in your diet (so long as it is not transfats!!) We know that in order to lose fat you have to increase your metabolism through regular challenging exercise, use foods in a strategic way to support a faster metabolism and to manipulate your hormones (Leptin, Ghrelin etc) and generally avoid nutrient sparse but energy dense processed foods.
In a nut shell – you can’t out train a poor diet. But you can lose fat quicker and become healthier by combining these three things:
We can't all look like this, but dietary fat in line with our calorie needs won't be the reason if we don't...
In reality, the key to losing body fat is to adopt a strategic, holistic approach that emphasises an intelligent diet, good challenging exercise and lots of rest.
The rules are simple – eat as much nutrient dense, unprocessed, as-close-to-whole-foods as possible, line up your calorie intake with your energy needs, exercise often & in a challenging fashion, move more, sit less and get a full night’s sleep.
Not only will you be healthier anbd happier but you’ll stop worrying about bogeymen like dietary fat.
See you next week.
Welcome back –
There have been millions of words written and many millions more I’m sure to come all on the subject of how to lose weight and build muscle. Now regular readers know that I hate the term ’lose weight’ it is inaccurate & wrong – your goal is to lose body fat. It is entirely possible to lose kilos of fat but have the scales drop by less than that amount because you’ve added some muscle.
So losing weight is out, losing fat is in.
The questions usually revolve around two polar opposites – either how do you eat to add muscle without adding fat, or how to diet to lose fat whilst still adding muscle.
Do use intermittent fasting? Atkins? Palm Beach? Drink Shakes 3 x a day? Run miles every day? Work out twice a day? Eat low carb? Eat high carb? Add the latest magic food?
You know there are plenty of available strategies to consider and they all try to address one or both of the needs mentioned above but results are mixed. What works for some fails for others. The unpalatable truth is that there is no magic one-size fits every metabolism solution available. The cookie cutter approach needs to stay in the kitchen with the pastry.
For Fat Loss there isn't a cookie cutter approach...
There is a common thread in all of the effective strategies though – they utilise your metabolism to work with you for the desired results and they all – the ALL – harness the power of insulin.
Insulin has been given a bad rap in the popular press – it does not cause obesity, it is not the ‘fat hormone’. It is true because it is a ‘carrier’ hormone insulin has the ability to induce fat storage if the environment allows for this.
However id allowed to work as it is supposed insulin is in fact the single most anabolic hormone present in your body (remember anabolic means build, catabolic is to tear down)
Insulin ensures that your cells are ‘fed’, that amino acids are taken up and protein synthesis is completed.
Energy cannot be destroyed, just transformed.
If I remember my High School science correctly we were taught that energy can be changed from one form to another (ie transformed) but it can’t be created or destroyed.
To lose body fat you need to use up more energy than you take in. To lose a pound you need to either take in an amount equal to; or use up a total of 3500 calories. To gain weight (I deliberately did not say fat in this case – to build serious muscle you have to eat a lot of nutrient dense foods. Google Chris Hemsworth’s diet for his muscle gain for Thor) you have to ingest more calories than you need to remain in energy homeostasis if you are going to support lean tissue gains.
Serious training needs serious eating to support serious growth...
Of course if you eat more than you need and you are not exercising to create lean body mass then you’ll get fat. The Bottom line is that if you eat too much, without the mitigating effects of high intensity exercise, you’ll get fat, no matter where the calories are coming from.
In the real world, the world without chemical interdiction of the body’s processes, there is simply no mystical combination of nutrients – macro, micro or otherwise – of meal timing of super supplements etc et that can change this fact. It simply is – eat more than your body needs on a consistent basis and you’ll get fatter.
BUT – we know that a calorie is NOT just a calorie and all calories are NOT created equal. Different macro- & micronutrients produce different long-term effects hormonally and metabolically.
This brings us to nutrient partitioning.
Nutrient Partitioning: Macronutrients Matter
Nutrient partitioning is another of those scientific sounding terms that a lot of folk use to make their theories for weight loss (not fat ahem…) sound more solid. Dr Scott Connelly the man who with Bill Phillips ‘created’ MetRX, was the first to use the term I supplement marketing. Now a lot of folk do.
This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, or that it’s not rooted in solid science it is. Nutrient partitioning is regulated by a co-ordinated, multi-part symphony that consists of liver & gut action, brain & Central Nervous System (CNS), of muscle & fat tissues, of hormones & ion channels and more besides. Even now we are still not entirely sure of all of the components and exactly how nutrient partitioning works…But work it does.
The supplement that introduced the term 'Nutrient partitioning' into marketing speak...
More importantly we can make it work for us.
What is done with the food we eat by our bodies is a function of nutrient partitioning.
The calories we ingest are either burned for fuel, used for repair & growth or stored as energy for future use (yep – glycogen first then fat once the glycogen stores are full).
Naturally we’d want as much of the food we eat to be used as fuel for repair and lean tissue growth with as little as possible being stored as fat. Whether we are a week end athlete, a couch potato or a real athlete we all agree on one thing we want to eat our food with the absolute minimum stored as bodyfat.
So whilst you can’t destroy the energy we gain from food the macronutrients we ingest do matter and have an effect on nutrient partitioning. The question is how do we maximise the glycogen stores in our muscles & liver and minimise our fat stores whilst conditioning our metabolism to either maintain or gain lean muscular tissue?
Part of the answers lies in the fact that nutrient partitioning becomes less efficient, less effective the more insulin resistant that you become. In diabetics and the obsese nutrient partitioning is so out of shape that it becomes dysfunctional.
Insulin is enormously important in the actions of nutrient partitioning – the more insulin sensitive you are the better it works, the more that nutrients are partitioned & used by your body towards our muscle building, low fat storing goals. The more insulin resistant – the more fat you store as Nutrient partitioning twists out of true.
Insulin: Sensitive = Good, Resistant = Bad
You keep a knockin' but you can't come in - Insulin Resistance
We eat food and the carbs are broken down to glucose and absorbed by our blood stream. This gives our bodies an immediate and easy to access source of fuel. If the fuel is required it is burnt (via ATP synthesis) if not needed it is stored – both of these actions are controlled by Insulin.
Under insulin’s direction glucose is either stored as glycogen in the liver and muscle tissues, or it is converted to triglycerides and stored as body fat. That’s it, only 2 possibly outcomes.
Despite what we have read, and the fact that we want to max out glycogen storage and restrict fat storage – Insulin doesn’t care. Its action is constant – it gets out fat cells to be always taking up glucose. Once in the fat cell the glucose is transformed to fatty acids or glycerol both of which are needed to make up triglycerides. Which then get stored as fat.
So what?! you say – well this means that our bodies are ALWAYS storing fat after each & every meal. It sounds scarier than it is really is though…
The amount of fat stored under normal circumstances is under 15% because the lion’s share of the glucose (85 – 95%) is taken up & used by the muscles and as a part of body repair actions.
The key here is ‘under normal circumstances’…
Eat too many nutrient sparse, processed carbs and the whole glucose as our nutrient partitioning friend scenario alters radically. Too much available glucose means that the glycogen stores quickly fill up (their storage is limited) and the excess glucose is turned to fatty acids and then stored as triglycerides – you add fat. Speed is an issue here as well glycogen stores rapidly fill as they are the primary source of energy for our muscles and major organs like the liver. These stores can empty at a slower rate than they fill (although it is still quite quickly) even if we are out under sudden wide ranging stress, hit a hard exercise session etc. This emptying requires that more glucose be taken up to place what is used. Thing is if there is an excess of glucose in the blood stream and the just filled glycogen stores are not given a chance to empty then we
They don't come much more processed than this...
store it as fat.
Too much glucose in our blood stream is, ironically, poisonous – this is why insulin’s main purpose is to clear it from the blood through glycogen and / or fat storage. Our bodies are designed to constantly clear glucose from our blood streams. It does this by using insulin to interact with a specific receptor on fat cells that signals the fat cell to uptake the surplus glucose. This signal is sent once the glycogen stores are full.
Thing is – Insulin is just the messenger, the uptake of the glucose is controlled by a receptor. If your body has become insulin resistant the receptor ignores the insulin. But the glucose remains toxic so more insulin is released in quantities that force the receptors to allow the glucose & other nutrients to get into the cells.
Gain so what?! You say – well thing is a non-virtuous circle of feedback is created – the more insulin used to ‘pry’ open the cell receptors the more resistant to the actions of insulin they become so the more insulin is released…Even worse the insulin resistance in muscle & other tissues also rises meaning that the insulin sensitivity has decreased.
Normally this happens in these tissues when the glycogen stores are full, but with increased resistance mimicking the ‘full’ signal glycogen stores may not fully fill up falsely creating an excess of glucose in the blood stream which causes the dreaded insulin spike to get it cleared. Not only does insulin resistance cause you to get fat but it also robs your lean tissues and organs of a full complement of energy.
Consistently increased insulin levels also cause the metabolism to become “stuck” in its carbohydrate-burning mode. It does this by inhibiting the fat burning genes and by activating the carb metabolism ones. So your body develops a preference for carbs as all fuel and fat as little or none.
So we need to restore or at least improve our insulin sensitivity.
How to go about Improving Insulin Sensitivity
Good Carbs
Realise as a start that carbs are not bad, they’re not the enemy. Excess carbs, especially from highly processed nutrient sparse sources are.
Firstly watch what types of carbs you are eating. Again – you know the drill eat carbs from sources as unprocessed and as nutrient dense as possible. Next look at when you are eating you carbs. Aim to have about 30% of your daily intake at breakfast with a godly amount of lean protein.
Spread the other 70% over the day – again being aware of the source of them. If you are working out ensure that you have a decent ‘hit’ of carbs with protein in the hour after working out.
Look everyone’s metabolism and its needs are different – these are only rules of thumb – you have to see what works best for you. Main thing is to eat fibrous, unprocessed carbs mainly from fruit & vegetables and sparingly from grains. Eating this way will bolster your chances of nutrient partitioning working more for and less against you.
Remember that most folk have about 100 grams of glycogen in their liver and another 400-odd in their muscles. If you were to totally deplete these stores any amount of carbs over 500 grams not burned immediately for energy would be destined for fat storage.
So again try to limit your carb intake to avoid taking in an excessively high amount. Also again – check your sources of carbs – lean towards the fibrous, the unprocessed as much as possible.
What we really need is a way to improve our nutrient partition by increasing our insulin sensitivity, or by decreasing our insulin resistance.
I have written before about the effect of whole body inflammation on metabolism, fat storage and heart disease. It should come as no surprise that by reducing any inflammation in the body we also improve our insulin sensitivity.
Look for oils that have a low Omega 6 and a high Omega 3 porofile
Leaving aside the cogent arguments of the Paleo folk regarding the inflammatory effects of grains, we know that a major cause of inflammation is the imbalance between Omega 3 & 6’s. Turns out that this imbalance is also a supporting factor for insulin resistance. High Omega 6’s means a higher than desirable level of inflammation regulators, whilst a high level of Omega 3 means higher levels of the anti-inflammatory ones. (we do need both but it is the ration that effects out sensitivity.)
A common denominator in obesity & diabetes (especially type II), is chronic inflammation of the cell membranes. This means that poor insulin sensitivity means you’ll gain fat, and that your ability to effectively partition nutrients will suffer.
Increasing your Omega 3 ratio is the easiest way to limit if not decrease inflammation and also improve your insulin sensitivity. Fish or Krill oil supplements, eating fatty deep sea fish and even supplementing with alpha-linolenic acid, an omega 3 fatty acid will all help.
Using olive, coconut or macadamia oils for cooking & dressings and cutting down as much as possible on ‘vegetable oils’ (seed oils really) like canola, safflower, peanut and blended oils will help also. All of these oils have a much higher level of Omega 6 than omega 3.
Now here is some concerning news – whereas fat tissue was once thought to be passive and largely inert, we now know that fat stores also have a function to control our whole body insulin sensitivity. Inflammatory responses in our body that cause insulin resistance & diabetes are in fact linked to our fat stores. The more of these you have the more likely it is that you will have insulin resistance and be at high risk of diabetes.
Fat it appears acts more as endocrine (hormone producing) organ, releasing hormone types called “adipokines.” It is these adipokines that control whole-body insulin sensitivity and inflammation. The famous hormone Leptin is an adipokine that is a strong nutrient partitioning agent that increases fat burning, decreases fat storage and improves insulin sensitivity.
Other adipokines work in the opposite direction. The way to influence which ones are produced is to up our Omega 3’s so the ‘good’ adipokines are released and the ‘bad’ ones are not..
This'll kill you - destress!!
Our insulin sensitivity falls off a cliff if we are under chronic, not acute stress. In these days of traffic jams, deadlines, taxes, poor economies etc etc it is hard to avoid experiencing at least some form of chronic stress.
Unchecked. Constant stress is a killer. It affects a plethora of body systems and erodes your health in numerous ways.
Learn to get enough sleep, exercise hard & regularly, enjoy regular sex, relax, do some meditating, choose who you spend time with and work at not worrying about the things outside of your control.
You’ll live longer, be happier and have much better insulin sensitivity…
See you next week – don’t forget to Tweet or face Book us!!
Kahn BB. Lilly lecture 1995. Glucose transport: pivotal step in insulin action. Diabetes 1996;45:1644-54.
Kahn SE, Hull RL, Utzschneider KM. Mechanisms linking obesity to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Nature 2006;444:840-6.
SchutzY. Concept of fat balance in human obesity revisited with particular reference to de novo lipogenesis. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2004;28 Suppl 4:S3-S11.
Schwarz JM, Linfoot P, Dare D, Aghajanian K. Hepatic de novo lipogenesis in normoinsulinemic and hyperinsulinemic subjects consuming high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low-fat, high-carbohydrate isoenergetic diets. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2003;77:43-50.
Parks EJ. Dietary carbohydrate’s effects on lipogenesis and the relationship of lipogenesis to blood insulin and glucose concentrations. Br J Nutr 2002;87 Suppl 2:S247-S253.
KoltermanOG, Greenfield M, Reaven GM, Saekow M, Olefsky JM. Effect of a high carbohydrate diet on insulin binding to adipocytes and on insulin action in vivo in man. Diabetes 1979;28:731-6.
Roberts R, Bickerton AS, Fielding BA, Blaak EE, Wagenmakers AJ, Chong MF, et al. Reduced oxidation of dietary fat after a short term high-carbohydrate diet. Am J Clin Nutr 2008;87:824-31.
SemenkovichCF. Insulin resistance and atherosclerosis.J Clin Invest 2006;116:1813-22.
Calder PC. n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, inflammation, and inflammatory diseases. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;83:1505S-19S.
SerhanCN, Hong S, Gronert K, Colgan SP, Devchand PR, Mirick G, et al. Resolvins: a family of bioactive products of omega-3 fatty acid transformation circuits initiated by aspirin treatment that counter proinflammation signals. J Exp Med 2002;196:1025-37.
Schwab JM, Chiang N, Arita M, Serhan CN. Resolvin E1 and protectin D1 activate inflammation-resolution programmes. Nature 2007;447:869-74.
SimopoulosAP. Importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids: evolutionary aspects. World Rev Nutr Diet 2003;92:1-22.
BurdgeGC. Metabolism of alpha-linolenic acid in humans. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids 2006;75:161-8.
DeFilippisAP, Sperling LS. Understanding omega-3’s. Am Heart J 2006;151:564-70.
WellenKE, Hotamisligil GS.Inflammation, stress, and diabetes. J Clin Invest 2005;115:1111-9.
ShoelsonSE, Lee J, Goldfine AB. Inflammation and insulin resistance. J Clin Invest 2006;116:1793-801.
Rosen ED, Spiegelman BM. Adipocytes as regulators of energy balance and glucose homeostasis. Nature 2006;444:847-53.
GnudiL, Tozzo E, Shepherd PR, Bliss JL, Kahn BB. High level overexpression of glucose transporter-4 driven by an adipose-specific promoter is maintained in transgenic mice on a high fat diet, but does not prevent impaired glucose tolerance. Endocrinology 1995;136:995-1002.
Abel ED, Peroni O, Kim JK, Kim YB, Boss O, Hadro E, et al. Adipose-selective targeting of the GLUT4 gene impairs insulin action in muscle and liver. Nature 2001;409:729-33.
TrayhurnP. Endocrine and signalling role of adipose tissue: new perspectives on fat. Acta Physiol Scand 2005;184:285-93.
Havel PJ. Update on adipocyte hormones: regulation of energy balance and carbohydrate/lipid metabolism. Diabetes 2004;53 Suppl 1:S143-S151.
Wall R, Ross RP, Fitzgerald GF, Stanton C. Fatty acids from fish: the anti-inflammatory potential of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Nutr Rev 2010;68:280-9.
Murata M, Kaji H, Takahashi Y, Iida K, Mizuno I, Okimura Y, et al. Stimulation by eicosapentaenoic acids of leptin mRNA expression and its secretion in mouse 3T3-L1 adipocytes in vitro. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2000;270:343-8.
Perez-Matute P, Marti A, Martinez JA, Fernandez-Otero MP, Stanhope KL, Havel PJ, et al. Eicosapentaenoic fatty acid increases leptin secretion from primary cultured rat adipocytes: role of glucose metabolism. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 2005;288:R1682-R1688.
ItohM, Suganami T, Satoh N, Tanimoto-Koyama K, Yuan X, Tanaka M, et al. Increased adiponectin secretion by highly purified eicosapentaenoic acid in rodent models of obesity and human obese subjects. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2007;27:1918-25.
Oh DY, Talukdar S, Bae EJ, Imamura T, Morinaga H, Fan W, et al. GPR120 is an omega-3 fatty acid receptor mediating potent anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitizing effects. Cell 2010;142:687-98.
KreierF, Fliers E, Voshol PJ, Van Eden CG, Havekes LM, Kalsbeek A, et al. Selective parasympathetic innervation of subcutaneous and intra-abdominal fat–functional implications. J Clin Invest 2002;110:1243-50.
RobidouxJ, Martin TL, Collins S. Beta-adrenergic receptors and regulation of energy expenditure: a family affair. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 2004;44:297-323.
Schwartz MW, Woods SC, Porte D, Jr., Seeley RJ, Baskin DG. Central nervous system control of food intake. Nature 2000;404:661-71.
Drawn in part from an excellent article on www.t-nation.com by Bill Willis PhDc and John Meadows, CSCS, CISSN – 9/14/2011