Going after weight
gain by going on a diet is like walking into a gunfight with a sharp stick. You
might make a little dent, but in the end, you'll do yourself more harm than
good.
Here's why: Typical diets restrict
calories, and that means lowering your metabolism—the calorie furnace in
your body that determines longterm weight loss. Going on a diet sends a signal
to your body that says "I'm starving here!" And your body responds by
slowing your metabolic rate in order to hold on to existing energy stores.
What's worse, if the food shortage
(meaning your crash diet) continues, you'll begin burning muscle tissue, which
just gives your enemy, visceral fat, a greater advantage. Your metabolism
drops even more, and fat goes on to claim even more territory.
Want proof that you can lose
substantial amounts of weight—and keep it off for good—without ever dieting?
Cutting-edge research that pulled together to write The Lean Belly
Prescription points the way to quick and easy weight loss. For
example:
1. Muscle up your metabolism
Quite simply, metabolism is the rate at which our
bodies burn the energy from food calories. During your skinny teens, your body
was a raging, hormonally fed inferno. But your burn rate falls by 2 percent
every 10 years from your twenties onward, and you know what happens to energy
that isn't used: It's stored as fat.
Muscle is several times more metabolically active
than fat. The more muscle you have, the hotter your fire burns. And if you
activate those muscles through physical activity, the potential fat burn
can last for up to 24 hours. Any light exercise that maintains muscle mass will
attack fat at the same time.
Related: The 5 Biggest Myths About Eating Fat
2. Help your loved ones lose weight
One of the more fascinating pieces of
obesity-related research I've read came out in the New England Journal
of Medicine in 2007. Researchers looked at data on 12,000 people—many
of them related to one another—who'd been tracked in the Framingham Heart
Study. Their conclusion: A person was at greater risk for being obese if others
in his or her social network were obese. The stats: If a friend became obese,
risk climbed by 57 percent; if a sibling became obese, risk went up by 40
percent; a spouse, plus 37 percent.
The same study concluded that the benefits of
weight loss may radiate through social networks as well. And think
about how cool it will be around the Thanksgiving table next year, when you all
look awesome! Pass the brussels sprouts!
3. Make the most of your morning
A study from the University of Massachusetts
Medical School determined that people who skip breakfast are 4 1/2 times more
likely to be obese than people who make time for it. An expert from the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center estimated that going without breakfast
can slow your metabolism by up to 10 percent.
Build breakfast out of protein and healthy fat.
Eggs. Greek yogurt. Peanut butter. Milk. The more protein you eat, the more
satisfied you'll be: A 2008 study published in the British Journal of
Nutrition noted that the protein can lead to feelings of fullness that
last all day long.
4. Sip your way slim
You're made out of water—over 60 percent, by most
reck- onings. So you need to drink plenty of it. But talk about Trojan horses:
In the past 30 years, we've more than doubled the number of calories we drink,
raising it to 450 on average today. Why? Because we stopped drinking water, and
started drinking sugar water!
If you take only one thing from this chapter, make
it this: If a drink has added sugar, it's liquid fat. Bottled blubber. Fizzy
flab. Drinkable derriere. Caboose in a can. Phase it out of your drinking diet,
and you'll make huge strides toward shedding unwelcome, unnecessary
weight.
5. Stop being harassed by clowns
A study from Yale University's Rudd Center for Food
Policy and Obesity found that 50 percent of kids said the food in a box with
Shrek's green mug on it tasted better than the very same food in a Shrekless
box. And what kinds of food most often have cartoon characters on them?
Right: sugar-laden ones. Adults fall prey to similar marketing techniques
on their foods' packaging as well. But guess what? An apple doesn't come with a
label.
Beware packaged foods that present you with
meaningless buzz-words like "natural," "fat free,"
"diet," and "a smart choice"—and ingredient lists longer
than Al Capone's rap sheet. When you buy whole foods as they grew in nature—a
salmon fillet, green beans, an orange—each has only one ingredient: the food
itself. All of your grocery store transactions should be so simple.
6. Shrink your pot, shrink your belly
I kid you not. Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a food
visionary who runs the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, has devoted
extraordinary attention to the effects that the containers that carry our food
and drink have on how much we consume. His rule of thumb: The larger the plate
or bowl or glass, the more you will eat or slurp or drink from it. The bad
news: We're on the wrong side of a century-long expansion in the sizes of our
dinner plates and the volumes of our drink- ing glasses. As go your portion
sizes, so goes your personal size.
Instead of 1 cup of chocolate ice cream, enjoy 1⁄2
cup of chocolate ice cream with 1⁄2 cup of sliced strawberries. The fruit
tastes great, adds tons of antioxidants, and saves you 115 calories.
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