Can FRUIT make you FAT?

To some, this question may not even have come up. But some people who have purchased Gourmet Nutrition have noticed that so many of the "Anytime" meals in the book are pretty low in carbohydrates. 

Why?

Doesn't the USDA food guide pyramid suggest that we have 8-12 servings of grains per day? We'll get to that little "back-door deal" in a bit. 

But first the reasons for the low carbohydrates in Gourmet Nutrition. Here's the meat of the reasoning. 

Muscle gain/loss and fat gain/loss are regulated by hormones. They are not regulated by exercise or diet. Exercise and diet are simply the way we manipulate the hormones. 

The greatest energy storing/fat gaining hormone is insulin. Now I'm not trying to demonize insulin, it is needed. Just ask a diabetic. But insulin transports energy into our cells to be used. But what happens when don't use it? That energy is stored as fat.

Insulin is released in the greatest volumes when sugar is eaten. The more simple the sugar, the stronger and faster the insulin response from the pancreas. So insulin is released when you eat pancakes, donuts, whole wheat bread, apples and oranges. Any sugar will activate an insulin release. 

Now one of the main things I've told people in the past is that they need to have whole grains instead of refined grains. I have slowly began to step away from that to an EVEN MORE conservative position by saying we should minimize or even ELIMINATE GRAINS from our diets. Instead the sugars we eat need to come from fruits and vegetables. Grains are a great source of carbohydrates if we need a lot of them. However, unless you are have a job that relies on a lot of heavy manual labor, you won't need that many.

But now I'll ask some of you to take it a step further: vegetables should out number fruits 2-to-1. You'll still be getting 2-3 pieces of fruit daily, But some fruits have a high sugar content. A high sugar content, no matter the source will have a strong insulin release and as a result, begin to store the energy in the form of fat if not used almost quickly.

What are some of these fruits? Any fruit that has above 10g of sugar per serving should be only eaten once or twice per day. Examples of these are apples (12 g of sugar), banana (20 g), cherries (13 g), dates (73 g), grapes (15 g), mango (15), persimmon (19 g), and pomegranate (17g).

Instead try to eat fruits and vegetables that are very low in sugars: strawberries (5 g), peaches (8 g), passion fruit (6 g), grapefruit (7 g), cranberry (4 g), carrots (2 g), avocado (7 g), watermelon (8 g) and cantaloupe (6 g). There are many, many others.

However, just about every vegetable you can think of (aside from potatoes and yams) will have a very low sugar content. Remember, we want to control insulin. And the way we do this is by minimizing sugar and increasing exercise along with protein and consumption of unsaturated fats. If you look at the Gourmet Nutrition nutrient breakdown for each meal, you'll see that the "anytime meals" have fewer than 20 g of total carbohydrates per small serving.


So give that no-grain diet a try and load your diet with meats, dairy, fish, nuts, beans, vegetables and fruits. You'll be glad you did!

Tomorrow I'll tell you why the USDA "recommends" why we should have such a high whole grain intake. It has do with money.

How to make a cow FAT...

Isn't it interesting that the supposed tastiest cut of beef, filet mignon, is one of the fattiest cuts of beef. But have you ever wondered how they get that much fat on the cows to get that cut to taste SOOOO good?

Here it is...



Are you ready????



Because it might tell you a little something about yourself....



Feed it lots of corn and grains, and don't let it move.


Now how many of us, eat lots of grains like bagels, pasta, cakes, sugary cereals, pastries, danishes, tortilla's and the like, and then don't really move?

Probably lots of us because Americans love their bread!!

A recent research article addressed this issue. An article by Dr's Volek, Quann and Forsythe from the University of Connecticut compared a low fat (fat less than 25% of total nutrient intake) diet vs. a low carb (carbs less than 15% of total nutrient intake) diet in middle aged overweight men over a period of 12 weeks.

The low fat group lost almost 8 pounds of fat and 3 lbs of muscle for a total of 11 lbs. The low carb group lost 14 lbs of fat and 7 lbs of muscle for a total of 21 lbs. But the most amazing thing was a low carb + a 3 x's/week resistance training program lost 17 lbs of fat and GAINED 2.2 lbs of muscle!!!

So what is the take away?? If you really want to lose fat, keep the carbohydrates low and start RESISTANCE TRAINING, ladies. Keeping carbohydrates to around 15-25% of total daily caloric intake is optimal for fat loss.

Now, don't take this to say that a no-carb diet is best. Your body does need carbohydrates, but not nearly as many as it may be getting. Also, your body type will have something to do with it. But we will cover that in the next week of the Hi-5 FitCamp!

How I eat to keep my belly full but my waist trim.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about different ways to change my eating habits. I've been eating the same way for about 5 years now and it comes as no surprise that as a result not much has changed in the way I look. Nobody likes squishyness on them, right?

However, one thing my wife and I started was to cut back on eating grains after lunch. Why?

Grains provide plenty of carbohydrates for energy. High quality grains are like a high quality racing gasoline. The stuff can really improve your bodies performance!!

But as the day wears on and we get closer and closer to sleep we don't need as much fuel. As the evening draws closer we don't need as many grains to provide energy. After all, I am usually asleep by 9-9:30.

So to eat a huge pasta dish for dinner when I will be going to bed 3 hours afterwards doesn't make much sense. Rather at that point in the day our bodies need protein, minerals and vitamins to aid in our recovery during sleep.

If I were to eat that huge bowl of pasta, I would have lots of fuel and no use for it. So what would my body do with it? Most likely store it. And when things get stored, they are stored as fat. Sure at night I still use calories, but i've got enough fuel in the form of fat that I don't need to "carb up" for a long nights sleep. When we eat grains at night, this is essentially what we are doing.

So try it for a few weeks and see if you notice a difference. Remember, I DID NOT SAY NO CARBS. ONLY NO GRAINS. YOU STILL NEED LOTS AND LOTS OF VEGGIES AND FRUIT TO GET VITAMINS AND MINERALS.

Then in the morning feel free to have a grain filled breakfast to give you fuel to get through the day. Let me know how it goes!!