181.2 Carbs and Fat - Yikes!

My brother in law Phil sent me this article from Men's Health magazine. (http://www.menshealth.com/travel-center/diet-strategies-travel-and-weight-loss?cm_mmc=Twitter-_-MensHealth-_-Content-BestLife-_-TravelingMansEatingPlan.) I am reprinting a portion of it, because it really makes sense about the carbs in our diets and how they work against us as we try to control our weight.


"Rules of the Road

Any man who travels regularly needs a flexible, no-thought eating strategy. So we asked Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D., a nutrition researcher at the University of Connecticut, to create an effective diet that allows for indulgence without the need for calorie counting. His solution: a low-carb diet with benefits.

A quick explanation: Every time you eat high-carb foods—bread, pasta, rice, any product made with sugar or flour—the level of insulin in your blood rises. Insulin is a powerful hormone that signals your body to stop burning and start storing fat. How powerful? Volek and his colleagues asked 20 men to follow a strict low-carb diet for 6 weeks. But instead of telling them to downsize their portions, the scientists encouraged the study participants to eat all they wanted. When the results were tallied, the men had still dropped an average of 7 pounds of fat and had significantly lowered their risk of heart disease. "We calculated that 70 percent of the variability in fat loss was explained by the reduction in insulin levels," says Volek. "That's a powerful effect."

Now think about that in reverse. If you're constantly downing carbs, as most Americans do, you'll be in fat-storing mode all day long. And you don't need a study to tell you what that's done to our collective waistline.

So Volek counseled Baier to adopt low-carb eating as his default diet and to make high-carb meals an exception. Try it yourself and you'll limit your number of daily insulin spikes, keeping your body in fat-burning mode most of the time. After all, when it comes to your gut, "most of the time" is what matters."

This explanation of carbs in relation to storing fat will really make me think twice before eating carbs. I'm still hung up on wanting to eat a lot of fruit, but I guess I will have to become very aware of how many carbs a given serving of fruit has and plan well.

172.8 Just Say No!

I can't believe that I haven't used the title above before now! It would have perfect for many of my posts. Notice the bump in my weight? Yesterday I was possessed by an old, very unhelpful response to others and food.

It all started when I went to the grocery store. There's a Starbucks in the store and I decided that I really needed a caffe latte made with non-fat milk. That wasn't the problem. The woman behind the counter was very persuasive about how a little mini vanilla scone would be perfect with it. I knew that these were relatively low in calories and after more urging and seeing this adorable little pastry I decided that I really must have one. And I did and, of course, it was delicious and just what I needed as the Starbuck's lady had so perceptively informed me.

And, then last night, Jeff made dinner for us and when I was called to the table, two slices of French bread toast with real butter were on my plate. Had I still been in my weight loss mode I am quite certain I would have been able to abstain from eating either of the pieces. But maintenance is trickier because the lines aren't so sharply drawn and it looked so good. I ate both slices.

In both cases it was as if I had turned all my power to know what I wanted and what was good for me over to others. I'm in no way placing any blame on them. It's always up to me to just say no (thank you).

And, I proved once again to myself that white flour and butter are weight magnets for me.