Weight Loss: Cutting fat from your diet

Probably my favorite topic, because the combination of healthy nutrition and a life of exercise will give you the best chance for a long healthy life without disease.

I encourage weight loss for all individuals with more than 30% body fat, I am more adamant if an individual has high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, low back pain, osteoarthritis or hyperlipidemia.

Your weight is determined and maintained through genetic and behavioral factors. People eat for many reasons including habits, social attitudes, stress and survival (the latter being rare in industrialized nations). It is important to replace these learned habits with healthier eating/snacking styles and using other forms of stress reduction.

Maintaining a healthy weight is a life long process which requires short and long term goals as well as daily planning. Once these are developed those habits become second nature. It is very important to maintain a low fat and low simple carbohydrate diet combined with some form of aerobic exercise. I encourage a diet (what you eat) composed of complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables and whole grains) combined with low fat dairy and low fat meats such as chicken, turkey and fish. It is IMPERATIVE that you reduce the consumption of simple carbohydrates (sugars and many processed foods) as your body metabolizes them poorly and usually stores them as fat.


Examples of simple carbohydrates and fats to avoid are usually those things you snack on or add to healthy foods such as: butter, margarine, peanut butter, nuts, chips, crackers, popcorn, pretzels, licorice, fruit and juice drinks (excluding home made juice if no sugar is added), jams, jellies, creams, cheese, sour cream, dips, mayonaisse, salad dressing (fat and nonfat), miracle whip, etc.

FAT FREE does not equal HEALTHY.

There are easy and creative ways to eat healthily. Use salsa or cottage cheese on your potatoes instead of cheese, sour cream and butter. Use balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar or SMALL amounts of low fat salad dressing on your salads. When you go to a restaurant order the dressing on the side and the entree without the creams or butter. You will develop a taste for low fat just as you developed a taste for high fat. You will develop a taste for low sugar just as you developed a taste for high sugar.

Measurements: I do not encourage my patients to count calories. I do encourage them to have a general idea of their calorie count and composition of those calories. I encourage less than 30% (preferably less than 20%) of your total coloric intake come from fat, and most of these being unsaturated fats. The rest can be complex carbohydrates and protein.

• One gram of fat = 9 calories



• One gram of carbohydrates or protein = 4 calories

There are 3500 calories in a pound and most adults should ingest between 1200 and 1800 calories/day. Many food labels are misleading. 2% milk is approximately 36% fat, 1% milk ~ 18% fat. 97% fat free does not mean 3% fat. This is the percent of fat by weight not calories. Two percent milk is 2% fat by weight but 36% fat by calories. Most cheeses including white cheese contain 65-85% fat.

It is simple to calculate fat calories:

For example, a 8 oz /serving of 2% milk ~100 cals/serving. On the Nutrition Lable it states that there are ~4grams fat/serving, to calculate the number of calories from fat, multiply the number of fat grams by 9 (one gram of fat = 9 calories), 4 grams fat X 9 calories/gram = 36 calories fat, thus 36% of the 100 calories come directly from fat.

Tips of Cutting fat from your diet:

• Avoid snacking except on fruits and vegetables.



• Avoid adding sugar or fat items to your prepared meals.



• Avoid eating after 7 pm, your metabolism has shut down for the day (the furnace is off and the food will be stored as fat).



• Eat low fat.



• Eat low simple carbohydrates and avoid juice drinks (juice drinks
  = sugar water ~15cal/oz) eg. gatorade, soda, tropicana, orange juice, apple
  juice, etc.



• Drink A LOT of water (you burn calories heating water to body temp).



• Eat Fibers (your body burns calories metabolizing complex carbs).



• Exercise (this turns your metabolism on) I encourage at least 20-40
  minutes 4-5/wk maintaining your heart rate >100bpm.





• Take your exercise on vacation with you. Missing exercise during vacations usually results in a 2 week loss of exercise, followed by 2 weeks of guilt, 2 weeks of pain restarting. Just in time to go on vacation again, thus starting the cycle over.



• Overeating is an addictive behavior similar to smoking (develop SKILLS to combat the addiction).



• Keep a bowl of fruit on your desk - grapes, cherries, bananas, peaches oranges, apples, cantaloupe chopped up in tupperware.



• These satiate your appetite, fill you up and have few calories.



• Fiber drinks - use them to act as a snack.





• They are filling and have minimal calories.



• Behavior modification - change your habits in regards to eating and exercise.



• Picture or project yourself into a more natural, healthy lifestyle eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low fat meats and using exercise for energy and stress reduction.



• Avoid fast food.



• Always remember.... Fat free does not equal Health-ee. Ask yourself
  what nutritional value will the snack or fast food provide?



• Be creative with meal preparation. Don't add sugars or fats.



• Restrict alcohol consumption.



• Alcohol is a simple carbohydrate which your body stores as fat.
  Alcohol is also a metabolic, physical and mental depressant.



• Eat to live rather than living to eat.

I utilize behavior modification (a lifestyle change for life, not a new year's resolution) to help my patients accomplish healthier living. This can be combined with chromium, fiber drinks, herbal metabolism stimulators or prescription medicines such as phentermine, fenfluramine, or dexfenfluramine. Please discuss these issues with your health care provider.