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Note from Jim LaValle
Dieting Again?
It's that time again-the new
year, which could also be called "Dieting Time" or "Weight Loss" time. Did you start a diet at the beginning
of the month?
If you are like most people,
you go on very low calorie or very low carb diet to lose weight. These diets
are so drastic most people can't stick with them for even a month or two. Over
time the resolve wanes, and once we drift back to normal eating, we gain the
weight. This constant up and down
is what we at LMI have called the "diet rollercoaster," a ride that most people
would give anything to get off of.
But how?
First of all, for most people
dieting alone is not an answer for permanent weight management. In fact, I see
many people who control their caloric intake and exercise, and still they can't lose weight. What is going on?
I have been teaching for
years that when diet and exercise don't work, that's a sign of a disrupted
metabolism, which can occur from several things:
· Insulin resistance.
· Thyroid hormone imbalance.
· Food allergies or
sensitivities.
· Sex hormone imbalance.
· The effects of stress,
which produces too much cortisol.
· Poor sleep.
· Environmental chemicals.
These are just some of things that can make it very difficult
to lose weight. But if you know
how to address them, you can start unlocking the keys to weight loss. This is our specialty at LMI.
If you are doing all the
right things and long-term weight loss still eludes you, it is extremely
important to see a good practitioner who can help you identify underlying
metabolic saboteurs. When properly addressed, this can get your weight under
control once and for all.
But in the end, if you don't
eat right, all that metabolic work can be quickly undone. The diet that I have
seen work the best and most consistently is the diet we recommend at LMI, a
lower-carb diet that also takes into account food allergies or sensitivities as
well environmental chemicals. My
wife Laura will tell you about it in our main article this month. I think you will find it be quite an
eye opener.
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Metabolic Code Assessment
Whether
your are looking for natural therapeutic solutions for joint pain,
fatigue, weight gain, poor sleep patterns, food cravings, headaches, or
other health issues or looking to maintain peak health the LMI Metabolic Code Assessment
can help you to achieve your health goals. To have a real impact on
your body chemistry and change your biomarkers for aging and illness we
perform a comprehensive individualized evaluation and construct a step
by step plan of action focused on your needs. Diet, lifestyle,
exercise, selection of natural products and evaluation of your current
drug therapy are all included.
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Diets Du Jour!
Pick a diet - any diet! That has been the message in
medical headlines lately, the result of some recent studies that did not show
what is called "statistical significance" between the amounts of weight lost on
different diets. Frankly, it has me a little perplexed.
From my perspective all diets
fall into three basic categories: Low Calorie, Low Carb and Other (Specialty or
Gimmick) Diets. In the last couple of years, some researchers have compared
these different types of diets head to head. One of them was a clear leader, but this diet has not yet
been embraced by the medical community. Why? Read on.
Low Calorie Diets
The vast majority of diets
fall into this category.
Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, Best Life Diet, E Diets, Eat
This Not That and many more diets are designed simply to limit the amount of
calories you take in.
Most of the time these diets
are also low in fat, because that is an easy way to trim calories. Weight Watchers simply takes the
reduced calories and converts them to a points system. If the diet uses any mechanism to cut
down on quantity, but does not address what you eat, it is a low calorie diet.
Most people are attracted to
low calorie diets because, in theory, you can eat any food you want; you just
have to control the amount. If you want to eat ice cream you can; it just has
to be worked into your total calories or points for the day. The calorie and fat controlled diet is
still the diet recommended most in conventional medicine.
One drawback is that most
people have to go pretty low on the calories to lose weight, which means the
quantity of food is much less than you were used to. Allowing sugary foods also stimulates appetite and increases
cravings for more sugar(2, 3).
And that means you are hungry. In fact, being hungry all the time is
the number one reason we hear from our patients why they could not stick to a
calorie controlled diet long term.
Low Carb Diets
Atkins, The Zone, and South
Beach are the most famous of the low carb diet plans, but many others have come
along after these. If you start out by reducing or cutting out high carb foods,
such as sweets and desserts, breads, pasta, rice and potatoes, it is a low carb
diet. These diets operate on the
premise that the body cannot burn fat when insulin is elevated. If you want to
keep the body in fat-burning mode, you limit high-carb foods.
Because low carb diets
address one of the most common underlying causes of weight gain - insulin
resistance - we agree that for most people lowering the amount of carbs you
take in will do wonders for your weight and your waistline. While most
health professionals criticize low carb diets for a variety of reasons, the
studies on low carb diets do indeed show them to be the most effective for
weight loss when compared head to head with other diets, but there are other
benefits too. More on that in a minute.
Other Diets
The rest of the diets
typically fall into one of three categories. Some are vegetarian, like Dr. Dean
Ornish's diet and lifestyle books and the Skinny Bitch books. Others emphasize
one area of metabolic function, such as the thyroid. And some have a totally
different gimmick or premise, such as the blood-type diets.
Some vegetarian diets allow
for eating some added fats like olive oil, but others like the Dr. Ornish
version, which is also meant to address heart disease, are extremely low in
fat. Vegetarian diets are much
lower in protein, which makes them less satiating. The drawback of a vegetarian diet, whether it's lower in
fat and protein or just protein, is that you get hungry again very quickly,
driving the need to eat several times a day.
Diets Compared Head to
Head - Which One Wins for Weight Loss?
A couple of studies have
helped answer that question.
One study compared the Atkins Diet, the Zone diet, the Ornish diet and a
calorie control diet out of Yale called LEARN(1). In one year, the average weight loss on
the Atkins diet was 10.3 lbs, on the Zone it was 3.5 lb, on Ornish it was 5.7
lb and on the Learn diet 4.8
lb. And those results are typical-
the lowest carb diets always lead to greater weight loss, typically anywhere
from 40 to 50% more(4).
But here is another BIG
difference between the diets, and with our rates of diabetes and heart disease
you would think these would be shouted from the mountaintops. In all the
studies I cite the low carb diet groups have the greatest improvements in
blood sugar levels, hemoglobin A1c levels, and cholesterol levels. Sometimes LDL levels go up just slightly, but it's
the non-atherogenic type of LDL(5), which is not a problem.
Another study looked at the
effects of a diet with 20% of the calories from carbohydrates compared to a low
calorie 60% carb diet. The weight
loss at six months was 6 times greater on the lower carb diet - 25 lb
compared to 4 lb, and again the
changes in triglycerides, HDL, and hemoglobin A1c were very favorable in the
low carb group. When followed long term (over 2 years), about 40% of the
people who stuck with the diet regained about 5 lb, the rest either maintained
their weight loss or lost a little more(6,
7).
These subjects were all clinically obese people who had
tried to lose weight over and over again before entering this study, and the
number one reason they said they could not stick to those diets was HUNGER.
Why isn't this news being
spread like wild fire by medical professionals and organizations? Be aware that the studies looking at
low carb diets did not all use the same level of carbohydrates, they range
anywhere from almost no carbs (like under 25 grams per day) to up to 40% of the
calories from carbs. I believe there is confusion that all low carb diets are
almost no carb, which means that they don't include enough healthy low carb
vegetables like lettuce greens and cauliflower. One study of a very low carb diet while still effective for
weight and lipids had a very high dropout rate, so satisfaction with the diet
was low. Another reason is because
as compliance wanes, weight is regained, but that is true of any diet, as the A
to Z study showed.
So the Winner Is...
We find that a diet that is
anywhere from 20 to 30% lower in carbs is very effective for weight loss in
most people. At this level, you
can eat all you want of healthy proteins and fats as well as non-starchy
vegetables. This takes hunger
away and greatly improves satisfaction and compliance. Fruits
and starchy foods like breads, pasta, potatoes, and rice, can even still be
eaten though in limited amounts.
Sweets should be more strictly limited.
That leads us to the most
common drawback of a lower carb diet - carbohydrate cravings. The most common reason for carb
cravings is that people have high levels of chronic stress, which causes
changes in their cortisol, serotonin, and other neurotransmitter levels. When these issues are addressed, the
cravings subside and people are eventually able to adhere to the lower
carbohydrate levels.
As many of you know, our own
Metabolic Code Diet falls into the "low carb" category, but there are other
components that we have identified, which can affect your success on a lower
carb diet - food allergies and
environmental chemicals. Rest
assured we'll be discussing these in future issues!
References
1. Gardner C, et al. JAMA Mar 2007: 969-77.
2. Kampov-Polevoy
AB, et al. Eat Behav 2006 Aug;7(3):181-7.
3. University
of Washington (2007, July 12). Cane Sugar, Corn Sweeteners Have Similar Effects
On Appetite, Study Shows. ScienceDaily
4. Nordmann AJ, et al. Arch Int Med Feb 13, 2006:285-93
5. Krauss RM, et al. AJCN 2006:83:1025-31.
6. Nielsen J, et al. Ups J Med Sci 2005; 110(2):179-83
7. Nielsen J and Joensson E. Nutr and Metab 2006, 3:22.
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Greetings!
Welcome. We hope you find our new newsletter a valuable source of information that will help you in your journey to improved health and well-being. For further information we invite you to visit the LaValle Metabolic Institute.
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The LaValle Metabolic Institute is an interdisciplinary healthcare facility utilizing expertise from an experienced staff of medical doctors, registered nurses, registered dieticians, and a clinical pharmacist that uncover metabolic disruptions and reccommend proven therapies which improve our patients' health and well-being.
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Nutrition for your "Healthstyle"®
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EASY CARROT BAKE WITH FLAX SEEDS
3 cups of organic carrots- grated
1/2 cup ground flax seeds or flax meal
3 Tbsp organic butter
1 organic egg-beaten
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Preheat oven to 325 F. Combine all the above ingredients
in a casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes
If you desire the carrot bake to be more sweet- add ½ to
1 tsp of Stevia when it is finished cooking.
Serves 6
Excellent source of vitamin A
Nutrition:
113 calories, 2.5 g protein, 8 g carbohydrates, 9 g fat,
3.5 g saturated fat, 1.5 g monounsaturated fat, .3 g polyunsaturated fat, 15 mg
cholesterol, 103 mg sodium, 4 g fiber, 3 g sugar
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