Atkins Diabetes Revolution (29 page)

1. Choose your vegetables:

1. cabbage or baked beans?
   
2. broccoli or baked potato?
   
3. sweet potato or mustard greens?
   
4. corn or cauliflower?
   

2. Choose your fruit:

1. orange juice or grapefruit?
   
2. strawberries or prunes?
   
3. pear or raisins?
   
4. plum or banana?
   

3. Choose your grains:

1. barley or cornflakes?
   
2. soy pasta or semolina pasta?
   
3. old-fashioned oatmeal or English muffin?
   
4. brown rice or white rice?
   

4. Other choices:

1. lentils or baked beans?
   
2. Swiss cheese or skim milk?
   
3. macadamia nuts or cashews?
   

Answers
c,
Swiss cheese;b,lentils;a,4.brown rice.d,fashioned oatmeal;
old-
c,soy pasta;b,barley;a,3.plum.d,pear;c,strawberries;b,fruit;
grape-
a,2.cauliflower.d,mustard greens;c,broccoli;b,cabbage;
macadamia nuts.
a,1.

FIGHTING HIS OWN WAY

Mark Anthony Montaquila says a lowfat diet had him nodding off after meals, with less than optimal cholesterol and triglycerides, and unable to build muscle despite a vigorous exercise program that includes martial arts. Atkins pointed him in a new direction and helped him battle back to health and fitness, decreasing his body fat to 12 percent.

I’m a longtime practitioner and teacher of aikido, a martial arts discipline whose founder proclaimed, “True victory is victory over the self.” Maybe that mind-set is what kept me faithfully adherent to a fat-free diet for years, even though it didn’t seem to be doing me any good.

I ate pasta and potatoes, avoided fat, and avoided meat because I believed the low-fat junk. But I didn’t like the way I looked. I’d always been an exercise person and that’s why it drove me nuts. Even when I was training for boxing, doing round after round and running three miles,nothing would happen. I couldn’t get ripped and the reason why was that I was eating carbs.

BEFORE AFTER

N
AME
: Mark Anthony

Montaquila

A
GE
:38

O
CCUPATION
:

    
Corrections officer

H
EIGHT
: 5 feet 8 inches

W
EIGHT
B
EFORE
:

    
189 pounds

W
EIGHT
N
OW
:

    
175 pounds

But worse than the way I looked was the way I felt. I didn’t know why I’d fall asleep for two hours after breakfast and feel sleepy after every meal. Now I look back and realize it was because my blood sugar was all out of whack. I was having two or three cups of sugary, black coffee that left a sludgy residue on the bottom of the cup, along with some pancakes and syrup. I figured that since it didn’t have any fat, it must be okay.

I didn’t have any serious health problems. My blood pressure was normal and, thanks to an intense cardio routine, my heart rate was in the 40s. Still, given my intense exercise regimen, my borderline-high cholesterol and elevated triglycerides didn’t make sense. I was worried that I was headed for diabetes by the time I reached my forties. Some of my relatives were diabetic at that age, and I sensed that my starch-filled diet might be sabotaging my healthy lifestyle. When you exercise, that’s two steps forward. When you eat junk, that’s three steps back.

I shared my concerns with my brother, who suggested that I look at
Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution.
When I read the chapter that asked, “Is this you?” I was hooked. I read a third of the book that night and decided to start doing Atkins right away. I went on Induction and had absolutely no problem sticking to it. I was so upset by what I read that it was easy to give up my pasta and rice. Because I knew what they were doing to me, I never missed them and I never looked back. I was on a mission.

Within three months, I went from 189 pounds to 159. I subsequently gained some 15 pounds of lean body mass through weight lifting. My sludgy coffee and pancake breakfasts were history. I ate eggs and cheese every morning for three months and it was great! I stayed on Induction for two weeks and then gradually added back modest amounts of carbs to my diet, eventually reaching my current maintenance level of approximately 30 grams per day. I also started taking some of the nutrients Dr. Atkins recommends: selenium, zinc, chromium, and green tea. Pretty soon, my cholesterol and triglycerides were down and my energy was up.

The weight loss set off a wonderful chain of events. First, I got certified as a personal trainer and golf-conditioning specialist. Then, I made some golf instructional videos and hosted my own local TV show on golf. Losing weight gave me a lot of confidence, and I was also very inspired by Dr. Atkins. He always stood up for what he believed, even when the medical
establishment ridiculed him. I had unconventional beliefs about how one should train for golf and he inspired me to make those videos.

All of my video work and TV experience made me a better presenter. I believe that’s what catapulted me to my current job. About a year ago, I was hired to teach fitness, nutrition, and wellness classes at a corrections facility. It was my dream job ever since I joined the academy. I have to give Dr. Atkins a lot of credit for my success. My life has really changed and it’s all because I bought that book.

Note: Your individual results may vary from those reported here. As stated previously, Atkins recommends initial laboratory evaluation and subsequent follow-up in conjunction with your health care provider.

Chapter 15

FIBER FACTS

When your diet is rich in fiber, your blood sugar stays steadier, and your food is more filling.And because fiber-rich foods are also usually rich in vitamins, minerals, and other valuable nutrients, you get an extra nutritional boost from eating them.

WHAT IS FIBER?

Dietary fiber comes from plant foods and falls into two main categories: digestible and nondigestible.

Nondigestible fiber
(sometimes called insoluble fiber) comes in the form of cellulose, which makes up the cell walls of plant foods. Cellulose absorbs water, but it doesn’t dissolve in it. Nondigestible fiber is found in wheat bran, nuts, the skins of vegetables and fruits, crunchy vegetables such as celery and bell peppers, and leafy green vegetables such as collards and lettuce.

Digestible fiber
(sometimes called soluble fiber) comes from the various gums, pectins, lignans, and other natural substances found in plant foods. Although it’s never actually digested—like nondigestible fiber, it cannot be broken down by your digestive system and simply passes through you—digestible fiber dissolves in water to form a soft gel in your intestines. Good sources of digestible fiber include beans, oatmeal, oat bran, apples, and pears.

Most plant foods contain at least some of both forms of fiber. The more fiber a food contains, the more likely it is to fill you up quickly— and keep you feeling full longer. High-carb, low-fiber foods—brownies, for example—don’t really satisfy your hunger for long. The sugar from these foods enters your bloodstream almost instantly, giving you a temporary feeling of satiety that quickly disappears as your blood sugar drops.You could eat five brownies in a row and still end up ravenously hungry—to say nothing of irritable, shaky, and mentally foggy—several hours later.

But what if you ate a protein-and-fat snack along with some fiber—a stick of celery stuffed with cream cheese, for instance? You’d be getting about 2 grams of protein and about 10 grams of dietary fat from the cream cheese,along with about 1 gram of fiber.This crunchy, easy-to-make snack will fill you up without sending your blood sugar up and down—in fact, it will help stabilize your blood sugar so you won’t be hungry or cranky later.

As you just learned in Chapter 14, fiber slows the rate at which glucose from your food enters your bloodstream. Generally speaking, foods that are low on the glycemic index and have a low glycemic load also have a lot of fiber. Review the AGR charts beginning on page 467 and you’ll see an extensive list of high-fiber vegetables— such as broccoli, cabbage, and zucchini—in the “eat regularly” column.

NET CARBS: THE ATKINS ADVANTAGE

Net Carbs have been explained briefly in earlier chapters, but we’d like to elaborate on this important concept. When you follow the Atkins Nutritional Approach (ANA) or the Atkins Blood Sugar Control Program (ABSCP), you need not count the dietary fiber in a food when calculating the amount of carbohydrates in a portion. In other words, the Net Carbs are the total grams of carbohydrate content per serving
minus
the fiber content (also minus the sugar alcohols and glycerine found in some reduced-carb foods). Why don’t you count the fiber? Because although fiber is technically classified as a carbohydrate, your body can’t break it down and convert it to blood sugar.

In most cases,the number of grams of Net Carbs per serving will be lower than the number of grams of total carbs. The only exceptions are foods that have virtually no fiber content, such as eggs and cheese. For these foods, the grams of total carbs and Net Carbs are the same.

How can you find the carb and fiber content of a food to calculate the grams of Net Carbs? On packaged foods, check the food facts panel, being careful to note the (often underestimated) definition of a serving that tops the list. Then look a little further down on the panel for the total carbohydrates listing—this gives you the grams of carbs per serving. Indented just below the total carbohydrates listing are the grams of dietary fiber per serving. To find the Net Carbs per serving, subtract the fiber per serving from the total carbs for that serving. To take a good example, consider the carbs in a 1-ounce serving of macadamia nuts. There are 3.2 grams of carbs in the serving and 1.9 grams of fiber. To find the Net Carbs, subtract 1.9 from 3.2 to get 1.3 Net Carbs per serving (3.2 – 1.9 = 1.3).The Net Carbs are less than half of the total carbs.

Reading the food facts panel only works with packaged foods, of course. For foods such as fresh vegetables, or when you’re eating out, you’ll need a little extra help.We suggest carrying
Dr. Atkins’ New Carbohydrate Gram Counter
with you or checking the free online carb counter at www.atkins.com.
1

It’s tempting to think that a high-carb, high-fiber food is more acceptable when you look at it on a Net Carb basis. That’s almost always not the case, however. Foods that tout their healthful high-fiber content often still turn out to be very high in Net Carbs.Half a cup of bran cereal (not to be confused with unprocessed bran), for instance, has about 15 carb grams,but only about 3 fiber grams,so the grams of Net Carbs per serving still are about 12. If your carb threshold is 60 grams of Net Carbs or less a day,those 12 grams of carbs are a big part of your daily allowance.

If you have diabetes and are watching your blood sugar response with a glucose meter, observe closely for signs of elevation any time you eat a carbohydrate-dense food, regardless of the fiber content. If you have questions about the effect of a new food, check your blood sugar 90 minutes after eating the food.Your aim is to keep your blood sugar below 140 mg/dL after this interval. If your sugar spikes higher than that, you should probably avoid the food. But why even risk a blood sugar spike and the unpleasant blood sugar dip that will almost certainly follow? Instead, turn to the AGR list to help you choose carbohydrate foods wisely.