The Life Plan (8 page)

Since your goal is to lose weight, you need to decrease this number by 20 percent. Multiply your current daily average by 20 percent, and then subtract this result from your present daily average to get your new daily calorie limit.

It’s important that you not decrease your intake by more than 20 percent, because this will put you into a muscle-losing, slow-metabolism mode. If you are one of those fortunate few men who need to gain weight, just reverse by adding 10 to 20 percent to your average daily caloric intake. You will start packing on the weight before you know it, and if you do so while following the exercise program, you’ll gain muscle instead of body fat.

Next, you need to calculate the number of calories you need from fat. Take your new daily calorie count and multiply it by 15 percent: This will give you the number of fat calories your body requires. Divide this number by 9 to convert fat calories into grams of fat.

Then, you need to calculate the number of calories of protein you will need to maximize your muscle-building efforts. Simply take 1 gram per pound of your body weight and multiply this number by 4 (4 calories per gram of protein), and this will give you the number of protein calories you need each day.

Add your protein calories to your fat calories and subtract this amount from your new total daily caloric limit to get the number of calories of carbohydrates you should eat. Carbohydrate calories can be converted to grams by dividing by 4 (4 calories per gram of carbohydrate).

For example, my patient Tony was a 190-pound, 45-year-old male. Here’s how I came up with his caloric needs:

Present daily caloric intake

2, 800 cal

20%

560 cal

New daily caloric limit

2, 240 cal

15% fat calories

336 cal

Fat calories/9 = gm of fat

37 gm

1 gm/pound of body weight

190 gm

190 gm x 4 cal/gm

760 cal

Protein 190 gm

760 cal

Fat 37 gm

336 cal

Carbs 378 gm

1,144 cal

Total

2,240 cal

Occasionally some men reach a plateau in their fat-loss program, and they just can’t drop any more body fat. It is rare for my patients to not lose weight on my program, but it’s fairly common for men to reach a sticking point just short of their ultimate fat-loss goal. They just can’t seem to get past it even in the face of extreme caloric restriction.

This resistance to fat loss can be caused by several factors, including medications. Psycho-tropic drugs are the major culprits, and they include antidepressants and antianxiety agents. Hormone or hormonelike medications, including prednisone, are also contributors to this metabolic resistance syndrome. Cardiovascular, blood pressure, diuretic, and antiarthritic (NSAIDs) drugs can also produce metabolic resistance. If you are taking a medication that you think may be contributing to your failure to lose body fat, don’t just stop taking it. Talk it over with your doctor and see if an alternative can be used that won’t adversely affect your fat-loss efforts.

If medications aren’t the problem, make sure you don’t have an underactive thyroid gland. The tests listed in Chapter 14 can help you determine if you need to take thyroid hormone replacement medication to correct your resistance to weight loss. And if medications and thyroid problems aren’t the cause of your metabolic resistance syndrome, then modify your nutrition plan. Begin eating slightly fewer calories. If, after a week, you still haven’t broken through your sticking point, then slowly begin replacing some carbohydrate calories with more healthy fats (including foods high in omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, which I’ll discuss later) and protein. It’s very likely that if you stay at that ratio of fat and protein to carbohydrates you will begin seeing the fat disappear right before your eyes.

Metabolism is the energy we expend to maintain all physical and chemical changes in our body. Our metabolic rate reflects how rapidly we use our energy stores. This rate is influenced by many factors, including our genetics, natural hormonal activity, body size, and body fat composition. While we can’t change our genetics, we can control all of the other factors that influence our metabolism. It’s also interesting to know that contrary to popular belief, your age has a minimal effect on your metabolic rate. Instead, it’s your hormone levels and level of fitness that are the key components. For example, I once calculated the basal metabolic rate (BMR) of a 20-year-old male weighing 154 pounds, and compared that to a 60-year-old male weighing the same. The 20-year-old’s resting energy expenditure was 1,750 calories per day, and the 60-year-old’s was 1,691 calories per day—only 59 calories less. The key to the older man’s success was that he was actively maintaining his healthy hormone levels.

The second secret to keeping your metabolism running is simple: You need muscle. The more muscle or lean body mass you have, the greater the number of calories you will burn throughout the day. You can improve your muscle mass through exercise (both resistance training and aerobic exercise), which can dramatically increase your daily energy expenditure and burn off excess body fat. If the exercise is intense enough, you will continue to burn extra calories throughout the day.

It takes energy, in the form of calories, for the body to metabolize food. This is called dietinduced thermogenesis (DIT). DIT is the amount of energy (calories) the body uses to digest, metabolize, and store the foods we eat. We know that it takes more energy to digest and convert proteins and complex carbohydrates (up to 25 percent of the meal’s total calories) than for fats and sugars. So it makes sense for us to focus on meals that are high in protein and complex carbs, which will burn off more efficiently and leave fewer calories for storage. High DIT foods include chicken, turkey, lean red meats, brown rice, wild rice, yams, vegetables, apples, and other nontropical fruits. Foods that have a low DIT include all processed foods that are high in carbohydrates and fat (like the ones found in most fast-food restaurants), white bread, white rice, French fries—in other words, most of the things we all love to eat.

High DIT meals burn more calories than meals with low DIT even when they both have the same number of calories. For example, a plain peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread may have the same calories as a ham sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread. However, the peanut butter sandwich is better for you, because it has a higher DIT. Ideally, if we want to get leaner, each of our meals should be designed to maximize its DIT.

Better still, DIT calories are burned without our having to do anything, because we have to eat and digest our food in order to survive. By choosing the right foods, you can potentially lose weight without even trying. You can also maximize your DIT by choosing when to eat. Since DIT is greatest just one hour after eating, it makes sense to eat frequently throughout the day. That’s why I suggest that you have five or six small meals a day, so that you can take advantage of the increased metabolic rate that accompanies eating.

The foods on the Life Plan are chosen specifically for their ability to increase your energy by supplying your body with the nutrients it needs. Not only will increasing your metabolism make you feel more alive and awake every day, but you will also be training your body to burn food more efficiently, creating more energy to literally pump up your workouts and eliminate body fat. This is the good kind of vicious cycle: When you increase your energy, you’ll have more energy to exercise, which in turn increases your metabolism to burn more food, leaving you leaner and healthier.

A 1993 study by Romon et al., published in the 57th edition of the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
researched the relationship between DIT and the time meals were eaten. These scientists were able to demonstrate that if a meal is eaten in the morning, 16 percent of its calories are used to metabolize the meal. When the same meal was eaten in the afternoon, 13.5 percent of its calories were needed to metabolize the food. When the meal was eaten at night, only 10.9 percent of its calories were used to metabolize the food. In other words, if you eat a meal at night rather than in the morning or afternoon, you lose the benefit of the thermogenic response you would have gotten earlier in the day. You are allowing foods with high DIT calories to be stored as body fat rather than being used by your body to process the food. This is clearly a problem in America, since most men consume the largest proportion of their calories in the evening.

On the Life Plan, you will consume the majority of your calories by 6:00 or 7:00 P.M. If you must eat after that, choose lean proteins (a small piece of chicken, or a tablespoon or two of peanut butter, for example) and avoid fats and carbohydrates. Only 3 percent of fat calories are used for DIT, while 23 percent of carbohydrate calories and a whopping 30 percent of protein calories are burned as a result of DIT.

For the best muscle-building and fat-burning potential, you will need to eat within one hour after your workout. The exercise has done its job of stimulating your muscle growth. Now protein and carbohydrates are needed in the right combination to promote the ideal hormonal conditions for maximum growth. It is these nutrients that trigger the release of insulin and growth hormone, which move valuable amino acids and carbs into your muscle cells.

A great way I have found to make sure I have the right food at home and in my office is to avoid shopping at grocery stores and shop online instead. A 2007 study in the
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
found that buying groceries online not only reduces unhealthy choices from impulse buying, but also helps you budget better.

The best food to consume immediately after a strength-training workout is 12 ounces of a liquid protein/carbohydrate drink. The drink should consist of 0.7 grams of a high-glycemic-index carb per pound of body weight (about 100 to 140 grams) and 0.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight (about 30 to 40 grams). Carbohydrates should be high-nutritious, high-glycemic-index sources such as fruits (bananas, strawberries, oranges, and so on) and honey. This is the only time I recommend eating a high-glycemic food (more about the glycemic index later). Protein sources can include nonfat milk, nonfat yogurt, soy milk, and protein powder supplements.

We have been programmed to believe that food is good and more is even better. Our thoughts and feelings about food have been implanted in our brains by our parents, our culture, and Madison Avenue advertising executives. In addition, the genetic code we have inherited from our ancestors that enabled them to survive in the face of severe deprivation compels us to eat high-calorie and low-volume foods even when we are not hungry, preparing us for a future famine that never comes. That’s why just about every guy is plagued with occasional or even frequent episodes of a complete loss of control in terms of food.

This has created a culture of men who have consumption disorders, also known as food addiction. Literally hundreds of thousands of men have become addicted to food. You may be one of them. Take the following test and see where you stand. If your answer to many of these questions is “yes” then consider yourself one of an ever-increasing number of us (yes, I used to be) who have become carbohydrate addicts. I am proud to say that I am now a recovering food addict.

According to G. Douglas Talbott, M.D., a noted authority on addiction, food addiction involves “the compulsive pursuit of a mood change by engaging repeatedly in episodes of binge eating despite adverse consequences.” Food addiction is not a result of a weak will or a behavioral problem. Rather, it’s a metabolic or biochemical disorder that produces all of the characteristic signs and symptoms of addiction. The irony is that food addicts eat foods to feel better that actually make them feel worse.

If you are a food addict, don’t be discouraged. The first step in conquering this addiction is to recognize that you have the problem. You can then begin taking the necessary steps to get your eating under control—the absolute key to permanent fat loss and great health.

Take this simple quiz. If you answer “yes” to more than eight of these questions, you may have a diagnosable food addiction.

Have you ever thought that food is a problem for you?

Have you ever tried to cut down or control your use of sweet foods?

Do you eat more sweet foods than you used to?

Have you noticed an increased sensitivity to sweet or white flour foods resulting in increased irritability, tiredness, and depression?

Are you preoccupied with certain foods and the thoughts of food?

Do you hide wrappers?

Has your eating ever interfered with any part of your life?