The bestselling book, Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis, provides logical explanations for why we should stop consuming wheat. The science behind this advice is mostly good, although a little uneven.

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Wheat Belly Book

Rodale Press has created a full-fledged marketing program for this book, with backing by the requisite blog: Wheat Belly Blog. It has hit the target market so well that is has become a New York Times Bestseller, which just means that the marketing program is working very well.

I was initially thrilled to see this book come out, since I feel that way about most new diet books. My thrill was helped along in part because the theme of the book slammed dietary carbohydrates, which is a good thing. Going low in carbs is the best of the fat burning diets.

I will have to admit, though, that the book undermines something that I take pride in. It is that, as a professional botanist, I have always proudly called my students’ attention to the only two botanists who have ever won a Nobel Prize. One of them is Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in developing modern dwarf wheat. This high-yield wheat is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that there has never been any human toxicity or tolerance testing of modern wheat. Now, it turns out, the growing problems of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, gluten intolerance, celiac disease, and maybe even depression and other mental disorders are rooted in the consumption of dwarf wheat.

The bottom line is that, for the purposes of better health, the recommendation by Dr. Davis and a growing cadre of other medical professionals is to eliminate dwarf wheat from the human diet. Since at least 99 percent of the wheat-based and wheat-adulterated products on the market are made from dwarf wheat, this means to just stop eating wheat altogether.

All in all, this is outstanding advice.

Tens of thousands of people have already undertaken this dietary change, including me. This doesn’t even include those who have been diagnosed with celiac disease and have had to eliminate dietary gluten completely.

The Test of Science

Most diet books have been published without any scientific backing whatsoever. My first test in evaluating the potential quality of a diet book is to look in the back to see whether there are any references to scientific research. And if they are there, are they high quality. Dr. Davis does, indeed, provide them. This may seem like a nerdy requirement, and you may never look at the list yourself, but it is important to see what the scientific foundation might be for a new diet.

I will be commenting on various aspects of wheat vs. human health in future posts, as explained by Dr. Davis. However, the key point above all is the relationship between modern wheat and obesity. Specifically, is there a cause and effect relationship? This is the most difficult type of challenge for science, and studies of historical correlations or testimonials, no matter how compelling they seem, do not justify any claims about cause and effect. It is it likely that wheat causes the accumulation of visceral fat? Yes, it is likely. We just do not know for sure.

Regarding that point, at the moment we have no experimental studies to rely on except for those involving celiac patients. Let’s hope the critical studies are in the pipeline by now.

This just means that the evidence that we can evaluate is testimonial, or case study, evidence. This is what Dr. Davis provides in abundance, including commentary on his own personal case. It is not experimental science. It is observational science, which is a good start.

Indeed, I can add case histories of many of my friends who suffered long-term overweight, poor digestion, and general health problems that would not go away until they embarked on a wheat-free diet. Some even did experiments on themselves — always seeing weight gain, gas and bloating, and indigestion when returning to wheat, and always seeing these symptoms reverse when they went wheat-free. (They really didn’t mean to do such experiments. They just succumbed to the allure of wheat, repeatedly.)

Do I think that the Wheat Belly diet is worthwhile? Absolutely. I have even come to enjoy planning, preparing, and eating meals without wheat products. I have no need for wheat, and neither do you.

Stay tuned to this topic. There is a lot more to know, and I look forward to digging into it all and talking about it here. I hope you enjoy learning about the ‘quit wheat’ movement as much as I do.

Wheat Belly updates,

Dr. D

Fat burning foods – what are they really? Actually, the whole notion is silly. Foods do not burn fat. Metabolic redirection makes more sense.

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Fat Burning Foods – No Such Thing

The common phrase that I hear is that your body is like a furnace. If that is the case, then how do you get a furnace to selectively burn just one of the fuels that are stored in it? It would be like storing oil, wood, and coal in a furnace, then adding some kind of magical ‘food’ that makes it burn just one of them. Silly, isn’t it?

It might make more sense if the ‘furnace’ had a liver, some muscles and bones, a pancreas, digestive and circulatory systems, a few hundred hormones, a brain, etc., etc. Oh, and maybe a few trillion tiny compartments (cells). And whatever else that could be built and controlled by about 30,000 genes.

My point is that we are WAY more complicated than the simplistic comparison with a furnace. The way we metabolize foods is biological, not fire-ological. (Okay, I made up that word … you can use it if you wish.)

The Key: Metabolic Redirection

This is also a phrase that I made up, although it underlies everything that happens to our bodies every day. Metabolic redirection depends on what, when, and how much we eat, on dozens of lifestyle factors, and on age. Regarding weight loss, or more accurately, fat loss, the goal is to redirect metabolism to break down stored fat, to store less fat, and to build lean body mass (muscle).

Foods can help you do that. Indeed, your ‘eating style’ (i.e., what, when, how much) may be responsible for as much as 80 percent of anything that you do for managing your metabolism. In fact, what you eat and when you eat are vastly more important than how much you eat (see How Many Calories Should I Eat Is Misguided).

The extent to which foods can help you redirect your metabolism depends on a long list of factors, the main one of which is…

Hormone Balance

This is an extensive topic, which I address in more detail in my Belly Fat Book (no charge). This includes more than 150 steroid hormones, the two most famous being estrogen and testosterone, as well as a whole slew of neurohormones and protein hormones (e.g., insulin, leptin, growth hormone).

If all you did was to pay attention to how to maintain hormone balance – specifically, to correct hormone imbalance – by eating right, then you would be on the right track. I’m going to assume that you have or will be reading about that in my book.

For now I’m just going to give you one pointer about achieving hormone balance. It is this:

Men and women: You are more than likely estrogen dominant.

Two ways to address this issue are: 1) reduce excess stored fat, since fat cells are little estrogen factories; and, 2) reduce the xenoestrogens that you are exposed to every day.

Xenoestrogens are foreign substances that act as estrogens in your body. They are not steroids. They can be as simple as bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, or plasticizing agents that leak into plastic containers (water bottles, foods and beverages in cans that are lined with plastic [almost all are!]), and many other common sources. Here is a short list of other sources:

• Petrochemically-derived pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides
• Car exhaust
• Solvents and adhesives such as those found in nail polish and polish remover, paint and paint remover, and glues
• Emulsifiers and waxes in soaps and cosmetics
• Chemicals used for dry cleaning
• Fabric softeners, air fresheners, and petrochemically-based perfumes
• Noxious odors coming from glues, fiberboard, new carpeting, and new paint
• Nearly all plastics
• Industrial waste such as PCBs and dioxins (VERY dangerous toxins!)
• Meat from livestock fed estrogenic drugs to fatten them up
• Synthetic estrogens and progestins that have been flushed down the toilet and have reached our drinking water and food chain (these are even being found in wild-caught fish!)

It may seem like a tall order to avoid all of these sources. Just do whatever you can.

Regarding the misguided concept of fat burning foods, the idea is really to make your foods work better for the metabolic redirection that you seek. Reducing your xenoestrogen exposure will go a long ways toward managing your estrogen dominance and redirecting your metabolism. Eating right will have a much more beneficial impact on your body fat composition when you do so.

Clarifying fat burning foods,

Dr. D

The best fat burning diet has to do three things. It must provide sufficient calories to satisfy your basal metabolic rate. It must offer slow-release calories that restrict spikes in blood sugar levels. And it must be timed to enhance hormones that drive metabolic balance between fat burning and fat storage. Here is what to look for.

The best fat burning diet plan must include three components. (1) WHAT you eat is equally important to (2) WHEN you eat and (3) HOW MUCH you eat. Each of these is a separate topic, so for now this article will focus the first of these, the foods themselves.

Fat burning diet foods provide calories with nutrients. That is almost all there is to it. In addition, the best foods also do not cause too much inflammation. Paying attention to nutrient content and inflammatory potential is the simplest and most effective approach to choosing what to eat for burning fat. Let me give you an obvious example. Oranges contain a lot of sugar AND a lot of nutrient value. Fruity Pebbles contain a lot of sugar and very little nutrient value. This is a no-brainer. By the way, both contain the same exact kind of sugars, either sucrose or fructose or a mixture of the two. This is not really important. You already know that Fruity Pebbles are awful for fat burning diets.

Processed sugar and other nutrient-free carbohydrates also cause inflammation. Excess sugar drives up your insulin level. Insulin is a caustic protein that causes damage when you have too much in your bloodstream. Excess insulin from a high sugar intake is just one of the inflammatory responses you will have by eating the wrong kind of food for fat burning diets.

Foods for a Fat Burning Diet – Nutrient Density

High nutrient density includes mostly fresh foods. Dieticians, nutritionists, and naturopaths mostly agree that the highest nutrient density comes from several categories of foods, which include vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, poultry, herbs and spices, nuts and seeds, and eggs.

Note that, in spite of what the USDA food pyramid advises (see image above), this list does NOT include processed flour products (breads, pastas, so-called whole grain products) or dairy (I’ll go into THAT one some other time). The food pyramid is the result of a political process, not a health process.

Here is what should be the foundation of your food pyramid:

• VEGETABLES: Arugula, Bell peppers, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Leeks, Onions, Romaine lettuce, Scallions, Shiitake mushrooms, Spinach, Tomatoes, Sweet potatoes (NOT yams!)
• FRUIT: Apples, Blueberries, Cherries, Grapefruit, Oranges, Pomegranates
• FISH: Flounder, Salmon (esp. wild caught), Sole, Tilapia
• MEAT AND POULTRY: Beef, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, Turkey, Wild game
• HERBS AND SPICES: Basil, Black pepper, Cardamom, Chives, Cilantro, Cinnamon, Cloves, Garlic, Ginger, Parsley, Turmeric
• NUTS AND SEEDS: (raw, unsalted) Almonds, Flaxseeds, Sesame seeds, Walnuts
• OTHER: Eggs (esp. the whites)

Do you suppose that you could survive on any of the fat burning diets if they were based only on foods taken from this list? Of course! This is a list of incredibly delicious foods, and the variety of taste treats is endless when you use different combinations of herbs and spices.

A Nice Surprise About Frozen Foods

Fruits and vegetables are often picked when they are unripe, then stored in a cold box. They are fumigated with ethylene gas just before they are put out for sale. This gas makes them look like they are ripe. Looks are deceiving, since they have little of the nutrient value that comes from ripening naturally. You know this is the case when you bite into a really beautiful orange or tomato that has almost no flavor. Flavor, like nutritional value, goes hand in hand with natural ripening.

What about frozen foods? Fruits and veggies are left on the tree, bush, or vine longer if they are to be picked for freezing. They have to be ripe at that time because they are going to be frozen right away. By ripening naturally, they have a higher nutrient density than their fresh counterparts. Nevertheless, be sure to get only unadulterated frozen foods for the best benefits to your health and fat reduction program. Food manufacturers consistently offer high-sugar and high-salt frozen foods, which should be a crime. Don’t buy them!

Foods That Are Not So Good

Think about potatoes and rice. These foods are excluded from the list above because they carry a big load of starch and little else. “If it is white, don’t bite,” is generally good advice regarding these foods. It also includes anything made with enriched flour of any kind. If the flour is enriched, then it was first stripped of its nutritional value. No amount of “enrichment” can make up for the stripped-out nutrition.

Juices are also missing from the above list. Commercial juices are almost all a bunch of sugar-laden crap. If you can get whole, completely unprocessed, fresh or frozen juices without adulteration by apple or grape juice, go for it. Just be sure to count the calorie density in your daily intake, because a glass of juice can be a big load of calories.

Really Bad Foods

You must consume all three food groups – carbohydrate, protein, and fat – to be trim and healthy. Fats, however, have acquired an evil reputation, which is idiotic and oversimplified. The key is to eat the right kinds of fats and avoid the wrong kinds.

The biggest culprits among bad fats are the saturated fats from animal products and the trans fats from chemical processing. Saturated fats most often come from meat and dairy and from processed and fried foods. Just be sensible about eating meat by eating less meat that is fatty. Marbled steak, as good as it tastes, is too fatty. Chicken and turkey skin are too fatty. Most pork is too fatty, although not all. By the way, the added hormones and antibiotics in commercial meats also make fat stick fat to you like super-glue. The best fat burning diets are free of hormones and antibiotics.

Trans Fats: Evil Non-Food

Trans fats have become the whipping boy of the health food industry, for good reason. You probably know by now that trans fats are made by a synthetic chemical transformation. Foods contain trans fats if they have partially hydrogenated oils. These are highly inflammatory. They ruin blood vessels, lead to insulin resistance, and promote obesity. Avoid them at all costs.

French fries, potato chips, crackers, baked goods, and all kinds of processed foods are loaded with saturated fats, trans fats, or both. These are triple-whammy early death foods because you get: 1) lots of bad fats, 2) lots of inflammatory carbohydrates, and 3) very low nutrient density.

Evil, I tell you!

Stay away from them!

Your Eating Plan

The success of a good fat burning diet depends on consuming only valuable, nutrient-dense foods. You don’t have to get crazy and start feeling as though you are depriving yourself of good food. Fat burning foods should be appealing, tasty, and offer lots of variety that you can look forward to without feeling as though you are deprived.

Enjoy!

For the best fat burning diet,

Dr. D

Thinking about my fat burning diet at the moment. I was just standing out in my yard, in the warm sunshine among the poppies in the desert landscape, sipping on my day’s starter shake. So it occurred to me to tell you about what a great way this is to start the day. Here’s what I do.
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Imagine this…

First off, I throw a banana into the blender, today with a couple of large strawberries. Eve finds ripe bananas and other mature fruits at the dollar store. This is ironic, because the produce section there is supposed to be the dregs, the end of the line for stuff that the supermarkets couldn’t sell. It is great stuff, though.

Okay, I digress. On top of the fruit I add a serving of my protein powder (these days it is an unflavored soy protein product – I don’t buy into claims that soy is responsible for the wimpification of American males), a raw egg (dietary cholesterol is NOT a problem, regardless of what anybody else tells you), a scoop of greens powder, enough water for drinkable consistency, a powdered vitamin mix (means fewer pills today), and a collagen powder (a must every day for everyone! more on this topic soon). Just right, not too sweet, not to thick. I love these shakes! They are a great way to add a delicious and nutritious meal to my day. These are nothing like those crappy meal replacement powders (you know who you are!) that last about 20 minutes until I get hungry again. No, my shakes are solid and last for hours. In fact, in a couple of hours I’ll probably go out for a nice, easy 5-mile run just to get more oomph out of my liquid delectable.

All the best for your body fat loss,

Dr. D

My friend Dan sent me an email with this link. I don’t know how he discovered it, although I am grateful that he thought of me to send it to. Very interesting. It poses some great questions, not all of which are obvious in the article itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

By the way, this is the response that I sent back to Dan, just as a little window into my thinking on the subject of the nutrition professor’s Twinkie diet:

Hi, Dan:

This is very interesting, although not surprising. As a case study, it is not informative. As a scientific study, well it isn’t scientific. I’m tempted to give this diet a trial myself. I missed the chance at having deep fried Twinkies, though, which were available at the State Fair last month.

At least the professor is clear on the lack of meaning in his experiment, as a scientist should be. The most disturbing aspect of this article is this quote:

“His success is probably a result of caloric reduction, said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a dietitian based in Atlanta, Georgia.”

Suggesting cause and effect after the fact is retrodictive, whereas the scientific method is supposed to be predictive. In other words, Ms. Jackson proposed a hypothesis (i.e., a tentative explanation) after the fact. This is, unfortunately, an all too familiar practice by scientists and non-scientists alike. They seem to get their exercise by jumping to conclusions!

Now I’m thinking about Twinkies.

Cheers,
Dennis

Fun with Twinkies,

Dr. D

Related articles

• NOT FOR ME, BUT AMUSING: Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds. For 10 weeks, Ma… (pajamasmedia.com)
• Twinkie Diet Works (patspapers.com)
• What’s The Craziest Diet You’ve Ever Been On? (thefrisky.com)
• The Twinkie Diet: Convenient? Yes. Misleading? Totally. (blisstree.com)

The granddaddy of all hormones for regulating aging is human growth hormone (HGH). Loss of HGH over time also leads to a decreased ability to burn off food calories as you get older. The result is fat gain.

The Catch-22 of this scenario is that it also works in the other direction. Fat gain suppresses HGH levels, which accelerates aging. It almost seems like you are trapped on a closed loop. Less HGH leads to more fat. More fat leads to less HGH. And the consequence is that you age faster and faster as you gain fat and lose HGH.

The relationship between HGH and overweight was first described in a research article in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 1991. The scientists behind this study pointed out that, on average, for men aged 21 to 71 with a normal body mass index, the production rate of HGH decreased by 14 percent with each decade of life. In comparison, each unit of Body Mass Index (BMI) reduced the daily HGH secretion rate by 6 percent.

This means that the drop in HGH secretion rate with an increase in BMI from 21 to 28 corresponds to the average drop going from age 21 to age 45. In other words, all adult men whose BMI classifies them as obese (i.e., 27 units and above) have HGH levels that correspond to men who are at least 20 years older. This leads to high-speed aging and the increasing prevalence of age-related diseases in younger people.

Women are not off the hook just because this study included only men in the experimental group. Indeed, fluctuation levels of estrogen and other steroid hormones in women during monthly cycles and menopause may amplify the consequences of HGH loss. One such consequence is faster fat gain.

The Four Best Solutions

Belly fat loss would, of course, be the most important strategy for enhancing HGH levels and thereby additional fat loss. Even though this sounds logical, the failure rate for long-term fat loss is too high to just willy-nilly direct you to do so, wish you luck, and send you on your way.

Fortunately, the close connection between belly fat and HGH levels opens up the possibility of restoring hormone levels first, which then would lead to fat loss. This can, indeed, be accomplished as follows:

Solution 1. The most direct way to increase HGH levels is to receive HGH replacement therapy. This solution, however, requires medical treatment with a prescription drug. It is also very expensive and generally not covered by health insurance. If you can take advantage of this solution, however, you do not have to do anything else for fat loss.

Solution 2. This and the following two solutions entail the natural enhancement of HGH levels that your body already produces over a 24 hour period. One of the normal spikes in HGH levels comes at about two hours after you get to sleep at night. You can enhance this spike by taking certain amino acid supplements before bedtime. These act as what are called HGH secretagogues, which refers to their ability to induce your pituitary gland to release more HGH. The two most important supplementsl amino acids are L-arginine (2-3 grams) and L-lysine (1 gram).

Other amino acids that enhance nighttime HGH levels include L-glutamine and L-tryptophan. (The latter may also be replaced with 5-hydroxytryptophan, or 5HTP.) Most supplement companies offer products that are formulated specifically as HGH secretagogues, so the right amino acids are easy to find at most nutrition stores.

Solution 3. A high-intensity weight-lifting workout will cause a spike in HGH levels. You can boost this effect with HGH secretagogues, especially L-arginine and L-lysine. In addition, L-glycine will enhance the results of your HGH-boosting workout. Most supplement formulas do not include this particular amino acid, even though good research backs up its use for enhancing exercise.

You can get the best results for boosting HGH through a high intensity workout by taking amino acid secretagogues on an empty stomach, about 1-1.5 hours before your workout.

Solution 4. The most ignored and overlooked strategy for enhancing HGH secretion is related to when you eat. Normally your HGH levels will start to pick up at about 2 hours after meal, increasing to a peak amount at about 4 to 5 hours after eating. At first HGH works with insulin to help metabolize food into muscle building. Once the insulin is almost gone, HGH works solely to mobilize fat for burning as fuel.

The effect of HGH on fat loss is at its greatest more than 4 hours after a meal. Stimulating this HGH spike means that you have to space your meals at least 5 hours apart.

Now here is the absolute best way to boost your post-meal HGH surge: fasting. The mini-fast after 4 hours is helpful. However, fasting from dinner to breakfast the next morning, spacing them at least 12 hours apart (no between-meal snacking!), is much more effective for burning fat because of the overnight fasting.

Recently scientists have been studying the effects of more extensive fasting that is done once or twice per week. They call it intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting has become so important for weight loss, anti-aging, and many aspects of health that any internet search for this phrase will yield tens of thousands of pages.

Accelerating Belly Fat Loss

The best scientific results and the most supportive testimonials on intermittent fasting involve a 24 to 34 hour fasting period once or twice per week. One of the truly appealing aspects of this approach is that it removes a lot of worry about what to eat on non-fasting days, because the beneficial effects of a single fasting period are so powerful. This does not mean that intermittent fasting gives you free license to eat junk food. However, it does mean that you can lose fat, reverse and slow down the onslaught of aging, and enjoy great health and fitness just by using this simple strategy to boost recovery of your own HGH to youthful levels.

Although the concept of intermittent fasting seems simple, you have to really know what you are doing to get optimum benefits from it. Fortunately for you (and me), I have found a resource that provides all you need to know. You can see more details about this resource on a special page that I have for this purpose, here:

Of course, is not really a secret. I just wanted to get your attention. Most weight loss folks, however, don’t seem to know anything about it.

All the best for your belly fat loss,

Dr. D

Salads Make the Best Summer Weight Loss Recipes

Salads not only make the best summer weight loss recipes but also top the list of fat loss recipes for women. As modern day women are always busy going to office, managing the kids and taking care of their hubbies, they hardly get time …

Publish Date: 05/10/2010 15:56

http://diet-trends.suite101.com/article.cfm/salads-make-the-best-summer-weight-loss-recipes

And take a look at how an experienced chef puts this together. A video is worth more than 10,000 words!

Healthy Low-Fat Salad Recipe, Ep52

Join Natasha on her raw food weight loss journey! Today Natasha shows you how to make her favorite raw food recipe– a low-fat simple, easy, fast, and delicious salad recipe www.rawradianthealth.com

And, as always, Twitter Universe has a few notes, too:

By luvurbody_now at 05/07/2010 11:06

It is pretty amazing what great information is at your fingertips. All this posting about food makes me hungry for something cool, crunchy, and delicious!

All the best,

Dr. D

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• Recipe: Warm Golden Beet Salad with Greens and Almonds (thekitchn.com)
• Recipe: Spinach Salad with Citrus-Chili Dressing (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

High fructose corn syrup is bad news in so many ways. First off, fructose is not the benign sugar that it has been widely acclaimed to be. Its low Glycemic Index means nothing. Fructose is the most lipogenic (fat building) sugar of all, even more than table sugar. Take a look at a surprising article that cites the latest research on the most pervasive sugar in processed foods and sweetened drinks:

High-fructose corn syrup linked to obesity

Researchers at Princeton have shown that if you keep the number of calories the same, rats eating high-fructose corn syrup “gained significantly more weight” than rats who ate table sugar.

I must admit that I used to talk about fructose and high fructose corn syrup in glowing terms. Then I discovered the real research. This is one food additive to keep off your diet if you want to stay trim, that’s for sure.

Dr. D

Related articles by Zemanta

• High Fructose Corn Syrup and You (fitnesstipsforlife.com)

A lot of ruckus exploded in the media from a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article itself is titled, “Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates” (Feb 26, 2008; vol. 360(9): pp. 859-873). It has all of the earmarks of good research: 1) a reputable journal; 2) a famous institution (Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health); 3) a big bunch of professional scientists in the by-line (Sacks FM, Bray GA, Carey VJ, Smith SR, Ryan DH, Anton SD, McManus K, Champagne CM, Bishop LM, Laranjo N, Leboff MS, Rood JC, de Jonge L, Greenway FL, Loria CM, Obarzanek E, Williamson DA); and, 4) paid for by just the right government agency (the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health). All of these might fool a non-scientist into thinking that this research answers a nagging question about what the best weight-loss diet is. Indeed, it fooled all of the journalists who trumpeted the article as a guide for the ideal strategy for weight loss.

Get a Different Perspective on Poor Research at Harvard

Unfortunately, this article fell short in so many ways that it is just a big waste of time and taxpayers’ money. The statistics are weak, the comparisons among diets show poor results, the experimental set up was biased and incomplete. Indeed, I could go on and an about how truly bad this article is. It is very unfortunate that biased reporting in the media gave it such a thumbs up. I found a great analysis of all this idiocy by low-carb enthusiast, Jimmy Moore, in his blogpost at: “If New Research Says Weight Loss Is All About The Calories, Then Why Was The Atkins Diet Omitted From The Study?” So rather than me repeating all the good editorializing by Jimmy and the commentary by his visitors (including one by yours truly), I’ll just encourage you to read it for yourself at that link. Enjoy!

I am chagrined, although not surprised, that bad science gets published. This has always been the case. It is a dirty little secret that we scientists are good at hiding. Just thought you’d like to know.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

All good fat burning diets must include three components. WHAT you eat is equally important to WHEN you eat and HOW MUCH you eat. Each of these is a separate topic, so for now this article will focus the first of these, the foods themselves.

Fat burning foods provide calories with nutrients. That is almost all there is to it. In addition, the best foods also do not cause too much inflammation. Paying attention to nutrient content and inflammatory potential is the simplest and most effective approach to choosing what to eat for burning fat. Let me give you an obvious example. Oranges contain a lot of sugar AND a lot of nutrient value. Fruity Pebbles contain a lot of sugar and very little nutrient value. This is a no-brainer. By the way, both contain the same exact kind of sugars, either sucrose or fructose or a mixture of the two. This is not really important. You already know that Fruity Pebbles are awful for fat burning diets.

Processed sugar and other nutrient-free carbohydrates also cause inflammation. Excess sugar drives up your insulin level. Insulin is a caustic protein that causes damage when you have too much in your bloodstream. Excess insulin from a high sugar intake is just one of the inflammatory responses you will have by eating the wrong kind of food for fat burning  diets.

Foods for Fat Burning Diets – Nutrient Density

High nutrient density includes mostly fresh foods. Dieticians, nutritionists, and naturopaths mostly agree that the highest nutrient density comes from several categories of foods, which include:

• VEGETABLES: Arugula, Bell peppers, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Leeks, Onions, Romaine lettuce, Scallions, Shiitake mushrooms, Spinach, Tomatoes, Sweet potatoes (NOT yams!)
• FRUIT: Apples, Blueberries, Cherries, Grapefruit, Oranges, Pomegranates
• FISH: Flounder, Salmon (esp. wild caught), Sole, Tilapia
• MEAT AND POULTRY: Beef, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, Turkey, Wild game
• HERBS AND SPICES: Basil, Black pepper, Cardamom, Chives, Cilantro, Cinnamon, Cloves, Garlic, Ginger, Parsley, Turmeric
• NUTS AND SEEDS: (raw, unsalted) Almonds, Flaxseeds, Sesame seeds, Walnuts
• OTHER: Eggs (esp. the whites)

Do you suppose that you could survive on any of the fat burning diets if they were based only on foods taken from this list? Of course! This is a list of incredibly delicious foods, and the variety of taste treats is endless when you use different combinations of herbs and spices.

A Little Surprise – Frozen Foods

Fruits and vegetables are often picked when they are unripe, then stored in a cold box. They are fumigated with ethylene gas just before they are put out for sale. This gas makes them look like they are ripe. Looks are deceiving, since they have little of the nutrient value that comes from naturally ripening. You know this is the case when you bite into a really beautiful orange or tomato that has almost no flavor. Flavor, like nutritional value, goes hand in hand with natural ripening.

What about frozen foods? Fruits and veggies are left on the tree, bush, or vine longer if they are to be picked for freezing. They have to be ripe at that time because they are going to be frozen right away. By ripening naturally, they have a higher nutrient density than their fresh counterparts. Nevertheless, be sure to get only  unadulterated frozen foods for the best benefits to your health and fat reduction program. Food manufacturers consistently offer high-sugar and high-salt frozen foods, which should be a crime. Don’t buy them!

Foods That Are Not So Good

Think about potatoes and rice. These foods are excluded from the list above because they carry a big load of starch and little else. “If it is white, don’t bite,” is generally good advice regarding these foods. It also includes anything made with enriched flour of any kind. If the flour is enriched, then it was first stripped of its nutritional value. No amount of “enrichment” can make up for the stripped-out nutrition.

Juices are also missing from the above list. Commercial juices are almost all a bunch of sugar-laden crap. If you can get whole, completely unprocessed, fresh or frozen juices without adulteration by apple or grape juice, go for it. Just be sure to count the calorie density in your daily intake, because a glass of juice can be a big load of calories.

Really Bad Foods

You must consume all three food groups – carbohydrate, protein, and fat – to be trim and healthy. Fats, however, have acquired an evil reputation, which is idiotic  and oversimplified. The key is to eat the right kinds of fats and avoid the wrong kinds.

The biggest culprits among bad fats are the saturated fats from animal products and the trans fats from chemical processing. Saturated fats most often come from meat and dairy and from processed and fried foods. Just be sensible about eating meat by eating less meat that is fatty. Marbled steak, as good as it tastes, is too fatty. Chicken and turkey skin are too fatty. Most pork is too fatty, although not all. By the way, the added hormones and antibiotics in commercial meats also stick fat on you like super-glue. The best fat burning diets are free of hormones and antibiotics.

Trans Fats: Evil Non-Food

Trans fats have become the whipping boy of the health food industry, for good reason. You probably know by now that trans fats are made by a synthetic chemical transformation. Foods contain trans fats if they have partially hydrogenated oils. These are highly inflammatory. They ruin blood vessels, lead to insulin resistance, and promote obesity. Avoid them at all costs.

French fries, potato chips, crackers, baked goods, and all kinds of processed foods are loaded with saturated fats, trans fats, or both. These are triple-whammy early death foods because you get: 1) lots of bad fats, 2) lots of inflammatory carbohydrates, and 3) very low nutrient density. Evil, I tell you! None of these foods will be part of good fat burning diets.

Your Eating Plan

The success of fat burning diets depends on consuming only valuable, nutrient-dense foods. You don’t have to get crazy and start feeling as though you are depriving yourself of good food. Fat burning diets should be appealing, tasty, and offer lots of foods that you can look forward to without missing the ones that you must avoid. Enjoy!

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D