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PDF ebook

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Diet Science: Losing weight but not your social life

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This ebook covers:

Understand Low Carb and Low Fat

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Learn how to count calories with

Low Fat Diets
What are calories and their effect on
your body?

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What can you eat with Low Carb?

A full list of food you can eat.
The biology behind food digestion
and metabolism.
How to use science to your
advantage?
Defining Overweight and Obesity.
Benchmarking Weight and Calories
charts.

One in five adults in this country are obese

and it is causing more chronic illness even than
smoking.
UK National Obesity Forum
Eat and Drink smartly to stay healthy

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Introduction

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Dieting has been the hot topic for the past decade and will continue
to be in the years to come. Some say it was the change in fashion trend
since the late 70s which has caused this hype, but recent surveys suggests that the current interests are highly related to the increase in
health warnings on weight related diseases and obesity.

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This book provides an insight into science behind modern diets and
suggest ways for you to devise your own dieting scheme. It does not
cover all common dieting schemes on the market, but give you the
knowledge you need to judge for yourself which is best scheme for you
to enjoy a life-long healthy diet.

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The book is organised into 5 chapters, Dieting, Calorie, Food, Fat & Fat
Cells and the Atkins diet. We dont favour the Atkins diet as such, the
coverage of is only to outline the major differences of high protein diets
to conventional low calories diet which is explained in the earlier chapters.

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Please note that the content in this book and/or website is for informational purpose only, we strongly recommend you to consult your doctor
before proceeding with any dietary scheme.

Edition 1.1 May 2004

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Before you start reading further, you should familiarise yourself with the
following common dieting terms.

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Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

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You expend energy no matter what youre doing, even when sleeping. Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories you would burn if
you stayed in bed for a whole day. If youve noticed that every year, it
becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim, youve also
learned that your Basal Metabolic Rate decreases as you age. Likewise,
depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases your
BMR, a drawback to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular exercise can increase your BMR, improving your health and
fitness when your bodys ability to burn energy gradually slows down.

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An average male adult BMR is around 1800 and an average female adult
is around 1200.

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*Coming Soon* You can use our BMR calculator online at Eating2.com

Body Mass Index (BMI)

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BMI is a mathematical calculation derived from height and body weight,

and is highly correlated with body fat. It is good to know your BMI because it is a way to determine your potential risk of developing obesityrelated diseases*. The higher your BMI is over 25, the greater the risk of
developing these conditions.

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Health professionals support the use of BMI because it provides a more

accurate measure of total body fat compared with the assessment of
body weight alone.
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* Note: There are some limitations to the BMI calculation, because it

does not measure body composition. BMI overestimates body fat in persons who are very muscular and it can underestimate body fat in persons who have lost muscle mass (e.g., many elderly). People with more
muscular builds may be classified as overweight according to BMI numbers even if they have a very healthy body fat percentage. A high BMI
from increased muscle alone is not associated with health risks.

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*Coming Soon* You can use our BMI calculator online at Eating2.com

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Overweight

Obesity

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Overweight refers to increased body weight in relation to height, when

compared to some standard of acceptable or desirable weight. NOTE:
Overweight may or may not be due to increases in body fat. It may also
be due to an increase in lean muscle. For example, professional athletes
may be very lean and muscular, with very little body fat, yet they may
weigh more than others of the same height. While they may qualify as
overweight due to their large muscle mass, they are not necessarily
over fat, regardless of BMI.

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Obesity is defined as an excessively high amount of body fat or adipose

tissue in relation to lean body mass. The amount of body fat (or adiposity) includes concern for both the distribution of fat throughout the
body and the size of the adipose tissue deposits. Body fat distribution
can be estimated by skinfold measures, waist-to-hip circumference ratios, or techniques such as ultrasound, computed tomography, or magnetic resonance imaging.

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Waist circumference

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Waist circumference is a common measure used to assess abdominal fat

content. The presence of excess body fat in the abdomen, when out of
proportion to total body fat, is considered an independent predictor of
risk factors and ailments associated with obesity.

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What waist size is risky? Undesirable waist circumferences differ for men
and women.

Men are at risk who have a waist measurement greater than 40
inches (102 cm)

Women are at risk who have a waist measurement greater than
35 inches (88 cm)

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NOTE: If a person has short stature (under 5 feet in height) or has a BMI
of 35 or above, waist circumference standards used for the general population may not apply.

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Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)

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Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is the ratio of a persons waist circumference

to hip circumference, mathematically calculated as the waist circumference divided by the hip circumference. For most people, carrying extra
weight around their middle increases health risks more than carrying
extra weight around their hips or thighs. (NOTE: Overall obesity is still
more risky than body fat storage locations or waist-to-hip ratio.)

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What waist-to-hip ratio is considered risky?

A waist-to-hip ratio of 1.0 or higher is considered at risk or in the danger zone for undesirable health consequences, such as heart disease
and other ailments connected with being overweight.
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Chapter 1 - Dieting

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The Atkins Diet

The Cabbage Soup Diet
The Grapefruit Diet
The Hollywood Miracle Diet
The Rice Diet
The Scarsdale Diet
The South Beach Diet
The Zone Diet

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Dieting is one of those things that is completely integrated into the

Western culture. On any given day, a huge portion of this population is
on a diet and counting calories in one way or another. And look at
how many of the diet names in the following list you recognize:

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You probably recognize many of these names because you hear them
all the time!
In this section, we will look at weight gain and why gaining weight is so
easy. Then we will look at what you can do about weight gain - in the
form of diet and exercise - to maintain a consistent weight.

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Your Bodys Efficiency

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Have you ever wondered why, for so many people (and especially for anyone older than 30 years old), weight gain seems to be a fact of life? Its
because the human body is way too efficient! It just does not take that
much energy to maintain the human body at rest; and when exercising,
the human body is amazingly frugal when it comes to turning food into
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motion.

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At rest (for example, while sitting and watching television), the human
body burns only about 12 calories per pound of body weight per day
(26 calories per kilogram). That means that if you weigh 150 pounds (68
kg), your body uses only about:

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150 X 12 = 1,800 calories per day

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Twelve calories per pound per day is a rough estimate - and you can
refer to the previous chapter on calories to find out more about how to
work out your BMR.

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Those 1,800 calories are used to do everything you need to stay alive:

They keep your heart beating and lungs breathing.

They keep your internal organs operating properly.

They keep your brain running.

They keep your body warm.
In motion, the human body also uses energy very efficiently. For example, a person running a marathon (26 miles or 42 km) burns only about
2,600 calories. In other words, you burn only about 100 calories per mile
(about 62 calories per km) when you are running.

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You can see just how efficient the human body is if you compare your
body to a car. A typical car gets between 15 and 30 miles per gallon of
fuel (6 to 12 km/L). A gallon of fuel contains about 31,000 calories. That
means that if a human being could drink gasoline instead of eating
hamburgers to take in calories, a human being could run 26 miles on
about one-twelfth of a gallon of gas (0.3 L). In other words, a human being gets more than 300 miles per gallon (120 km/L)! If you put a human
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being on a bicycle to increase the efficiency, a human being can get well
over 1,000 miles per gallon (more than 500 km/L)!

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That level of efficiency is the main reason why it is so easy to gain

weight, as we will see in the next section.

Taking Calories In

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The 1,800 calories that a typical person at rest needs per day is just not
that many. For example, if you go to your local McDonalds and order an
Extra Value meal, you will get a burger, a large order of french fries and a
large Coke. This meal contains:

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710 calories in the burger*

540 calories in the french fries*

310 calories in the drink*
(*See McDonalds Nutrition Facts @ McDonalds.com for details.)

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A meal at McDonalds can add up to almost a whole days worth of calories.

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In other words, just this one meal provides 1,560 calories you need during a day. If you get a McFlurry with it for dessert, youll get 630 more
calories, so you are already consuming almost 2,200 calories just at this
one meal!

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Similarly, if you go to Pizza Hut and get a Super Supreme pizza, each
slice contains 360 calories.* If you eat three slices and get a large drink
to go with it, thats 1,390 calories - just 410 calories shy of a full days
worth of calories. (*See the Pizza Hut Nutrition Guide for details.)
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Similarly, if you eat 12 Creme Cookies - which, if you think about it, really is not that hard to do - youve taken in 660 calories. Thats more than
one-third of the daily caloric intake.

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The point here is not to slam these products or make them look bad but
to show that, in most developed countries, it is incredibly easy to find
and consume calories. Lets take a look at what someone might consume in a typical day.

Sample Menu

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Face it, many of us are over-worked, over-booked and totally over-extended. So, convenient food often takes the lead in our daily diets. In a
typical day someone might consume something like this:

You might have cereals for breakfast,

then pizza for lunch,

grab some crisps and a diet coke for a snack,

get take out for dinner

and top it off with some ice cream while watching TV.
You can see how the number of calories coming in can easily reach
3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 per day without any effort at all. Thats the problem.

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Your body, it turns out, is extremely efficient at capturing and storing

excess calories. Whenever your body finds that it has excess calories
on hand, it converts them to fat and saves them for a rainy day. It only
takes 3,500 excess calories to create 1 pound of new fat on your body. If
you are taking in just 500 extra calories per day, then you are gaining a
pound of fat per week (500 calories x 7 days in a week = 3,500 calories/
week). Since it is easy to get 500 calories from just one ice cream cone or
a few cookies, you can see that weight gain is completely effortless in todays society. Food is just too easy to find.
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The Idea Behind Dieting

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Lets imagine that you are overweight and you would like to lose several
excess pounds. To lose 1 pound of fat, what you have to do is burn off
3,500 calories. That is, over a period of time, you have to consume 3,500
calories less than your body needs. There are several ways you can create that deficit. If you assume that you weigh 150 pounds and that your
body at rest needs 1,800 calories per day (150 * 12 = 1,800) to live, here
are several examples (some realistic, some not):

You could lie in bed and starve yourself. Since you are lying in
bed, you are consuming 1,800 calories per day. Since you are starving
yourself, you are taking in no calories. That means that, every day, you
create a deficit of 1,800 calories and, approximately every two days, you
will lose 1 pound of body weight.

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You could consume fewer calories than your body needs. For
example, you might choose to consume 1,500 calories per day rather
than the required 1,800 by controlling what you eat. That creates a 300calorie deficit every day. That means that approximately every 12 days,
you will lose 1 pound of weight (12 days x 300 calories = 3,600 calories).

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You could consume 1,800 calories per day and then choose
to jog 2 miles (3.2 km) every day. The jogging would burn about 200
calories per day, and over the course of 18 days you would burn about 1
pound of body weight (18 days x 200 calories = 3,600 calories).

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You could consume 2,500 calories per day and run 10 miles
per day. You will burn 1,800 calories per day at rest and then 1,000 calories per day running, for a total of 2,800 calories. You are consuming 300
calories fewer than you need, so you would lose a pound every 12 days
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or so (300 calories x 12 days = 3,600 calories).

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As you can see from these examples, the only way to lose fat is to consume fewer calories per day than your body needs. For every 3,500 calories that your body takes from its fat reserves, you lose 1 pound (0.45 kg)
of body fat. You can create the deficit either by monitoring and restricting your intake of calories, or by exercising, or both.

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The idea behind most diets - everything from Weight Watchers to the
grapefruit diet - is simply to help you somehow lower the number of
calories that you consume each day. Thats all they do.

Why Diets Tend Not to Work

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The reason why most diets tend not to work for very long is because
they are not sustainable. A person gains weight because he or she consumes more calories per day than needed. The diet creates a temporary
deficit. When the diet ends, the person goes back to normal eating and
the weight comes back.

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Lets look at an example. Say that you weigh 150 pounds. That means
that you burn 1,800 calories per day in a resting state. Lets also imagine
that in the course of a day you burn 200 more calories living your life
- walking up and down steps, carrying in the groceries and so on. Your
calorie needs then are, on average, 2,000 calories per day. Now lets further imagine that, on average, you consume 2,050 calories per day. On a
daily basis your body is taking in, and therefore storing, 50 calories more
than it needs. So every 70 days (3,500 calories in a pound / 50 calories
each day = 70 days) you gain 1 pound (0.45 kg). If that 50 extra calories
per day trend continues, then over the course of a year you would gain
5 pounds. This, by the way, is the pattern for many developed countries.
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If you over-consume by just a few calories per day, over time you will
gain weight. Keep in mind that just one Oreo-type cookie contains 50
calories, so over-consuming is incredibly easy.

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Now, you go on a diet - the amazing Get Slim Miracle Diet. On this diet,
you consume nothing but 2 cups of brown rice and a can of Vienna sausages, along with all the onions you care to eat, every day. You start this
diet and you are consuming only 1,000 calories per day. You also start
jogging 2 miles a day. That means that, on a typical day, you are consuming 1,200 calories less than you need. Over the course of three days
(3,500 calories in a pound / 1,200 calories each day = approximately
3 days), you will lose 1 pound of weight. You keep on this diet for two
months and lose 20 pounds.

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The day you go off this diet, what is going to happen? First, you are
probably going to eat a lot more than normal because you have been
eating nothing but rice and Vienna sausages for two months! Then you
will settle into your normal eating pattern that you had before the diet.
And eventually all of the weight comes back.

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This is why diets dont work for most people. You do lose weight, but
then go off the diet and gain it back. What is needed instead is a sustainable diet - a food consumption and exercise plan - that lets you live a
normal life and eat normal foods in a normal way.

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Building a Sustainable Diet

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Building a sustainable diet and exercise plan is the key to maintaining a

consistent weight. This is not easy for many people. As described in the
previous sections, the landscape is literally covered with calories, and
exercise takes time and energy.
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Calorie Counter

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The first step to building a sustainable diet is to start counting the calories that you consume in a day so that you become conscious of two
things:

You need to understand exactly how many calories you are
eating on a normal day.

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You need to realize where each calorie comes from - you need
to build a calorie database in your brain so that you know, whenever you
eat something, just how many calories it is supplying.
In the United States, any food that you buy in the grocery store is required by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to have a nutritional label
with that foods calorie content. You can also look at a chart like this one
to find out the number of calories in different foods. Any chain restaurant will supply you with nutrition information both at the store and on
the Web (or you can see a Web site like this).
The second step is to figure out how many calories you need in a day.
You can use the 12 grams per pound rule, or you can get more precise
by looking at the formulas in How Calories Work.

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Pick your ideal weight - the weight that you would like to maintain.
Then calculate how many calories a day you can consume to maintain
that weight.

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The third step is to compare the two numbers - You may be startled
by the difference between the number of calories you need and the
number of calories that you take in in a day. That is where the extra
pounds are coming from.
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Above is an example of what you could eat to follow the food pyramid
guidelines.

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The fourth step is to figure out how to bring the two numbers in line.
What you will soon realize is that 1,600 or 1,800 or 2,000 calories per day
just isnt that many. You have to watch and count everything you eat
and drink every day and stick to your daily limit.

Cutting Calories

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The fifth step might be to add exercise to the mix so that you can raise
the number of calories you can consume per day. Online resources like
this exercise calculator or this exercise chart will show you how many
calories different forms of exercise can burn. Burning 250 or 500 calories
per day through exercise can make a big difference.

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In an effort to reduce the number calories you take in per day, here are
several strategies that you might find effective:

Be conscious of every calorie you consume, and keep a daily
journal. Stick an index card in your pocket each day and write down everything you eat and drink.

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Eliminate the food myths from your mind, as described later in
the article.

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Eliminate all calories that come in through drinking. In other
words, drink water. The problem with drinks - everything from cola to
orange juice to beer - is that they can bring in lots of calories and they
have absolutely no effect on your appetite. For example, if you drink
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10 ounces of orange juice (300 ml), you take in 140 calories but it does
nothing to curb your appetite. If, on the other hand, you eat an orange,
three things happen:

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You take in fewer calories.

You get to chew the orange, which has a psychological effect.

It fills your stomach, which curbs your appetite. An orange actually gives you a feeling of fullness, while orange juice does not.

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The same holds true of any beverage that contains calories - the calories
come in but your appetite remains the same.
Eliminate white sugar. This eliminates all sorts of high-calorie

cookies
cake
ice cream
cola
candy
candy bars

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foods:

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Similarly, try eliminating all fried foods, including:

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By simply refusing all foods that contain lots of sugar, you make it easy
to eliminate a big class of snack foods.

potato chips
cheese crisps
french fries

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onion rings
donuts
fritters
fried chicken

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Fat from deep frying gives these foods lots of calories for their size.
Eliminating fried foods and sugar together pretty much eliminates all
high-calorie snacks. Entire aisles in the grocery store become irrelevant
to you.

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Try to replace high-density foods with low-density foods. A
cookie is a high-density food. It contains lots of sugar and fat, so it is lots
of calories in a small package. One or two bites and youve taken in 50 or
100 calories. A banana, on the other hand, is low-density. It takes many
bites to eat a banana, but you take in only 100 calories.

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Just about any fruit or vegetable in its natural state

Many non-sugared breakfast cereals, like shredded wheat
Rice cakes
Unbuttered popcorn
Whole-grain bread, preferably with lots of fiber
Brown rice

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Heres a good mental exercise that helps you understand the point: Most
people would not find it hard to eat a dozen Oreo-type cookies. Thats
600 calories. Now imagine trying to eat six bananas at one sitting - you
would explode! But its the same number of calories. Look for low-density foods like bananas that fill you up without giving you that many calories. Foods that are low-density include:

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Things that are high-density include any food or beverage high in sugar
and/or fat. Nuts, most meats, candy, cookies, crisps, fried anything, coke,
beer, and so on are all high-density and should be avoided.

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Try wearing form-fitting clothes instead of sweats. The tight
clothing acts as a subliminal reminder of what you are trying to accomplish.
If you follow these guidelines and, through diet and exercise, keep the
number of calories you consume below the number of calories needed,
you will lose fat and maintain a consistent weight.

Fitting in Exercise

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Exercise is one tool you have to control your weight because exercise
is a way to increase the number of calories that you burn in a day. Online resources like this exercise calculator or this exercise chart show
you how many calories different forms of exercise can burn. One way
to make the most of exercise is to integrate some form of exercise into
your daily routine. Here are several examples:

Try to find some type of exercise that you enjoy (or at least can
tolerate) and do it every day for 30 minutes, 60 minutes or more. It might
be walking, riding an exercise bike while watching TV, or working out in
a gym at lunch.

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Try to fit micro-exercises into your daily life. For example, instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. Park farther away from stores
when you go shopping. These little things can add up.

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Put a set of weights at your desk and use them three or four
times during the day, as you think or talk on the phone.
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Find an exercise partner. Exercise, for some people, is a lot easier if there is someone to talk to. A partner will also help make exercise a
routine.

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Try to exercise every day. It is easier to remember to do something if you do it every day.

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Weight Loss Myths

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There are dozens of weight-loss myths that help to derail people. Here is
a list of some of the most common so you can try to avoid them:

The myth that some kinds of calories are different from others - A calorie is a calorie. If you consume 4,000 calories by eating 1,000
grams of white sugar or 4,000 calories by eating 444 grams of fat, it is
still 4,000 calories.

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The myth that low-fat foods are okay or that you can eat as
much as you want if it is low-fat - A product can have 0 grams of fat but
still have lots of calories. Many fat-free foods replace the fat with sugar
and contain just as many or more calories as a fat-containing product.

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The myth that any passive device, acupressure rings and
bracelets or soaps or whatever, can help - There is no way to burn calories but to burn them.

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The myth that you can lose 54 pounds in 6 weeks - Despite
what the ads say (I LOST 54 POUNDS IN 6 WEEKS WITHOUT DIETS OR EXERCISE!!! or LOSE 10 POUNDS THIS WEEKEND!), you cannot lose a pound
of fat unless you burn off 3,500 calories. To lose 54 pounds in 6 weeks,
you would need to lose 9 pounds in 7 days, or 1.3 pounds per day. That
1.3 pounds of fat is equal to 4,500 calories, so you would have to burn
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off 4,500 calories per day. The only way to do that would be to eat nothing AND run a marathon every day for 42 days. Thats impossible. The
only way to lose that much weight that quickly is either through dehydration or amputation. The ads are lying.

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The myth that anything can create an enzyme-driven fatburning cycle - All sorts of things, from nettle seeds to apple pectin,
are supposed to contain enzymes that create an ENZYME-DRIVEN FAT
BURNING CYCLE THAT BURNS CALORIES 24-HOURS-A-DAY!!! No.
What is true is that you have to eat fewer calories than you burn in a day
if you want to lose weight. You can do that by eating fewer calories than
you need, or by exercising more, or both. It is true that some people burn
more calories per day than others (just as some people are taller than
others, some people have to use the restroom more frequently than
others, some people lose their hair faster than others and so on - people
are different). You simply have to find the number of calories your body
burns in a day and consume fewer calories than your body needs. Thats
not to say its easy - the psychology of food and eating is very powerful.
But that is what you have to do. It is a mental game, and there is no way
around it. But now you know the rules of that mental game.

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For more information on dieting and related topics, check out the links
on the next page.

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Chapter 2 - Understanding Calorie

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For years now, calories have been all the rage - people are counting
them and cutting them, and youd be hard-pressed to find something at
the supermarket that does not list its calories per serving somewhere on
the package. But do you know what exactly a calorie is?

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In this chapter, well find out what calories are and why we need them,
and examine the relationship between calories and weight.

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What is a Calorie?

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A calorie is a unit of energy. We tend to associate calories with food, but

they apply to anything containing energy. For example, a gallon (about 4
litres) of gasoline contains about 31,000,000 calories.

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Specifically, a calorie is the amount of energy, or heat, it takes to raise

the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). One calorie is equal to 4.184 joules, the SI unit of energy used in
the physical sciences.

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Most of us think of calories in relation to food, as in This can of coke has

200 calories. It turns out that the calories on a food package are actually kilocalories (1,000 calories = 1 kilocalorie). The word is sometimes
capitalized to show the difference, but usually not. A food calorie contains 4,184 joules. A can of coke containing 200 food calories contains
200,000 regular calories, or 200 kilocalories. A gallon of gasoline contains
31,000 kilocalories.
The same applies to exercise - when a fitness chart says you burn about
100 calories for every mile you jog, it means 100 kilocalories. In this book,
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when we say calorie, we mean kilocalorie.

What Calories Do

dis

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Human beings need energy to survive - to breathe, move, pump blood

- and they acquire this energy from food.

Re

1g Carbohydrates = 4 calories, 1g Protein = 4 calories, 1g Fat = 9 calories

Do

No
t

The number of calories in a food is a measure of how much potential

energy that food possesses. A gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, a
gram of protein has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories. Foods are
a compilation of these three building blocks. So if you know how many
carbohydrates, fats and proteins are in any given food, you know how
many calories, or how much energy, that food contains.

mp

le

Co
py
-

If we look at the nutritional label on the back of a packet of cereal, we

find that it has 160 calories. This means that if we were to pour this a
serving of this cereal, set the cereal on fire and get it to burn completely
(which is actually pretty tricky), the reaction would produce 160 kilocalories (remember: food calories are kilocalories) - enough energy to
raise the temperature of 160 kilograms of water 1 degree Celsius. If we
look closer at the nutritional label, we see that our cereal has 2 grams of
fat, 4 grams of protein and 32 grams of carbohydrates, producing a total
of 162 calories (apparently, food manufacturers like to round down). Of
these 162 calories, 18 come from fat (9 cal x 2 g), 16 come from protein
(4 cal x 4 g) and 128 come from carbohydrates (4 cal x 32 g).

Sa

Our bodies burn the calories in the cereal through metabolic processes, by which enzymes break the carbohydrates into glucose and other
sugars, the fats into glycerol and fatty acids and the proteins into amino
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acids. These molecules are then transported through the bloodstream

to the cells, where they are either absorbed for immediate use or sent on
to the final stage of metabolism in which they are reacted with oxygen
to release their stored energy.

dis

BMR

le

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

Re

Just how many calories do our cells need to function well? The number
is different for every person. You may notice on the nutritional labels of
the foods you buy that the percent daily values are based on a 2,000
calorie diet - 2,000 calories is a rough average of what a person needs
to eat in a day, but your body might need more or less than 2,000 calories. Height, weight, gender, age and activity level all affect your caloric
needs. There are three main factors involved in calculating how many
calories your body needs per day:


Basal metabolic rate


Physical activity

Thermic effect of food
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body
needs to function at rest. This accounts for about 60 to 70 percent of
calories burned in a day and includes the energy required to keep the
heart beating, the lungs breathing, the kidneys functioning and the
body temperature stabilized. In general, men have a higher BMR than
women. One of the most accurate methods of estimating your basal
metabolic rate is the Harris-Benedict formula:

mp

Adult male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in
inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Sa

Adult female: 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in
inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
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Your Caloric Needs

dis

tri

As you now know, there are three main factors involved in calculating
how many calories your body needs per day: your BMR, physical activity
and the thermic effect of food.

No
t

Re

The second factor in the equation, physical activity, consumes the next
highest number of calories. Physical activity includes everything from
making your bed to jogging. Walking, lifting, bending, and just generally
moving around burns calories, but the number of calories you burn in
any given activity depends on your body weight.

Co
py
-

Do

The thermic effect of food is the final addition to the number of calories
your body burns. This is the amount of energy your body uses to digest
the food you eat - it takes energy to break food down to its basic elements in order to be used by the body. To calculate the number of calories you expend in this process, multiply the total number of calories you
eat in a day by 0.10, or 10 percent.
The total number of calories a body needs in a day is the sum of these
three calculations.

Calories, Fat and Exercise

Sa

mp

le

So what happens if you take in more or fewer calories than your body
burns? You either gain or lose fat, respectively. An accumulation of 3,500
extra calories is stored by your body as 1 pound of fat - fat is the bodys
way of saving energy for a rainy day. If, on the other hand, you burn
3,500 more calories than you eat, whether by exercising more or eating
less, your body converts 1 pound of its stored fat into energy to make up
for the deficit.
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One thing about exercise is that it raises your metabolic rate not only
while youre huffing and puffing on the treadmill. Your metabolism takes
a while to return to its normal pace. It continues to function at a higher
level; your body burns an increased number of calories for about two
hours after youve stopped exercising.

No
t

Re

Lots of people wonder if it matters where their calories come from. At its
most basic, if we eat exactly the number of calories that we burn and if
were only talking about weight, the answer is no - a calorie is a calorie. A
protein calorie is no different from a fat calorie - they are simply units of
energy. As long as you burn what you eat, you will maintain your weight;
and as long as you burn more than you eat, youll lose weight.

Sa

mp

le

Co
py
-

Do

But if were talking nutrition, it definitely matters where those calories

originate. Carbohydrates and proteins are healthier sources of calories
than fats. Although our bodies do need a certain amount of fat to function properly - an adequate supply of fat allows your body to absorb
the vitamins you ingest - an excess of fat can have serious health consequences. Common guideline is that a maximum of 30 percent of our
daily calories come from fat. So, if you eat 2,000 calories a day, thats a
maximum of 600 calories from fat, or 67 grams of fat, per day. However,
many doctors and nutritionists now set the maximum number of fat
calories at 25 percent of our daily caloric intake. Thats 56 grams of fat
per day for a 2,000 calorie diet.

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Chapter 3 - Food

dis

tri

It is safe to say that one thing youll do today is eat some food - food is
pretty important to all animals. If you dont eat, it can cause all sorts of
problems: hunger, weakness, starvation... Food is essential to life.

No
t

Re

But what is food? Whats in food that makes it so important? What happens to the food once you eat it? What is food made of? How does it fuel
our bodies? What do words like carbohydrates and fats really mean
(especially on those Nutrition Facts labels you find on almost everything these days)? What would happen if you ate nothing but marshmallows for a week? What is a calorie? Why cant we eat grass like a cow
does, or wood like a termite?

Co
py
-

Do

In this chapter, well give you all of the information you need to understand what a burger or a banana does to keep your body running every
day!

The Basics of Food

Sa

mp

le

Think about some of the things you have eaten today - maybe cereal,
bread, milk, juice, ham, cheese, an apple, potatoes... All of these foods
(and pretty much any other food that you can think of ) contain seven
basic components:


Carbohydrates (simple and complex)


Proteins


Fats

Vitamins


Minerals


Fiber

Water
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Your bodys goal is to digest food and use it to keep your body alive. In
the following sections, we will look at each of these basic components
to understand what they really do and why they are so important to
your body.

dis

Carbohydrates

Re

You have probably heard of carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide your body with its basic fuel. Your body
thinks about carbohydrates like a car engine thinks about gasoline.

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

The simplest carbohydrate is glucose. Glucose, also called blood sugar

and dextrose, flows in the bloodstream so that it is available to every
cell in your body. Your cells absorb glucose and convert it into energy to
drive the cell. Specifically, a set of chemical reactions on glucose creates
ATP (adenosine triphosphate), and a phosphate bond in ATP powers
most of the machinery in any human cell. If you drink a solution of water
and glucose, the glucose passes directly from your digestive system into
the bloodstream.
The word carbohydrate comes from the fact that glucose is made up of
carbon and water.

Sa

mp

le

Glucose (C6H12O6) is made of six carbon atoms (carbo...) and the elements of six water molecules (...hydrate). Glucose is a simple sugar,
meaning that to our tongues it tastes sweet. There are other simple sugars that you have probably heard of. Fructose is the main sugar in fruits.
Fructose has the same chemical formula as glucose (C6H12O6), but the
atoms are arranged slightly differently. The liver converts fructose to
glucose. Sucrose, also known as white sugar or table sugar, is made of
one glucose and one fructose molecule bonded together. Lactose (the
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sugar found in milk) is made of one glucose and one galactose molecule
bonded together. Galactose, like fructose, has the same chemical components as glucose but the atoms are arranged differently. The liver also
converts galactose to glucose. Maltose, the sugar found in malt, is made
from two glucose atoms bonded together.

Do

No
t

Re

Glucose, fructose and galactose are monosaccharides and are the only
carbohydrates that can be absorbed into the bloodstream through the
intestinal lining. Lactose, sucrose and maltose are disaccharides (they
contain two monosaccharides) and are easily converted to their monosaccharide bases by enzymes in the digestive tract. Monosaccharides
and disaccharides are called simple carbohydrates. They are also sugars
- they all taste sweet. They all digest quickly and enter the bloodstream
quickly. When you look at a Nutrition Facts label on a food package and
see Sugars under the Carbohydrates section of the label, these simple
sugars are what the label is talking about.

Sa

mp

le

Co
py
-

There are also complex carbohydrates, commonly known as starches.

A complex carbohydrate is made up of chains of glucose molecules.
Starches are the way plants store energy - plants produce glucose
and chain the glucose molecules together to form starch. Most grains
(wheat, corn, oats, rice) and things like potatoes and plantains are high
in starch. Your digestive system breaks a complex carbohydrate (starch)
back down into its component glucose molecules so that the glucose
can enter your bloodstream. It takes a lot longer to break down a starch,
however. If you drink a can of soda full of sugar, glucose will enter the
bloodstream at a rate of something like 30 calories per minute. A complex carbohydrate is digested more slowly, so glucose enters the bloodstream at a rate of only 2 calories per minute.
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You may have heard that eating complex carbohydrates is a good thing,
and that eating sugar is a bad thing. You may even have felt this in your
own body. The following quote from The Yale Guide to Childrens Nutrition explains why:

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

Re

dis

If complex carbohydrates are broken down to monosaccharides in the intestines before they are absorbed into the bloodstream, why are they better than refined sugar or other di- or mono-saccharides? To a great extent
it has to do with the processes of digestion and absorption. Simple sugars
require little digestion, and when a child eats a sweet food, such as a candy
bar or a can of soda, the glucose level of the blood rises rapidly. In response,
the pancreas secretes a large amount of insulin to keep blood glucose levels
from rising too high. This large insulin response in turn tends to make the
blood sugar fall to levels that are too low 3 to 5 hours after the candy bar
or can of soda has been consumed. This tendency of blood glucose levels to
fall may then lead to an adrenaline surge, which in turn can cause nervousness and irritability... The same roller-coaster ride of glucose and hormone
levels is not experienced after eating complex carbohydrates or after eating
a balanced meal because the digestion and absorption processes are much
slower.

mp

le

If you think about it, this is incredibly interesting because it shows that
the foods you eat and the way you eat them can affect your mood and
your temperament. Foods do that by affecting the levels of different
hormones in your bloodstream over time.

Sa

Another interesting thing about this quote is its mention of insulin. It

turns out that insulin is incredibly important to the way the body uses
the glucose that foods provide. The functions of insulin are:

To enable glucose to be transported across cell membranes
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To convert glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver and
muscles

To help excess glucose be converted into fat

To prevent protein breakdown for energy

Do

No
t

Re

dis

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Insulin is a simple protein in which two polypeptide chains of amino acids
are joined by disulfide linkages. Insulin helps transfer glucose into cells so
that they can oxidize the glucose to produce energy for the body. In adipose
(fat) tissue, insulin facilitates the storage of glucose and its conversion to
fatty acids. Insulin also slows the breakdown of fatty acids. In muscle it promotes the uptake of amino acids for making proteins. In the liver it helps
convert glucose into glycogen (the storage carbohydrate of animals) and
it decreases gluconeogenesis (the formation of glucose from noncarbohydrate sources). The action of insulin is opposed by glucagon, another pancreatic hormone, and by epinephrine.

le

Co
py
-

What you can begin to see from this description is that there are actually lots of different things happening in your body around glucose. Because glucose is the essential energy source for your body, your body
has many different mechanisms to ensure that the right level of glucose
is flowing in the bloodstream. For example, your body stores glucose in
your liver (as glycogen) and can also convert protein to glucose if necessary. Carbohydrates provide the energy that cells need to survive.

mp

Proteins

Sa

A protein is any chain of amino acids. An amino acid is a small molecule

that acts as the building block of any cell. Carbohydrates provide cells
with energy, while amino acids provide cells with the building material they need to grow and maintain their structure. Your body is about
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20-percent protein by weight. It is about 60-percent water. Most of the

rest of your body is composed of minerals (for example, calcium in your
bones). Amino acids are called amino acids because they all contain an
amino group (NH2) and a carboxyl group (COOH), which is acidic. Below
you can see the chemical structure of two of the amino acids.

No
t

Re

You can see that the top part of each is identical to the other. That is true
of all amino acids - the little chain at the bottom (the H or the CH3 in
these two amino acids) is the only thing varying from one amino acid to
the next. In some amino acids, the variable part can be quite large. The
human body is constructed of 20 different amino acids (there are perhaps 100 different amino acids available in nature).

Co
py
-

Do

As far as your body is concerned, there are two different types of amino
acids: essential and non-essential. Non-essential amino acids are amino
acids that your body can create out of other chemicals found in your
body. Essential amino acids cannot be created, and therefore the only
way to get them is through food. Here are the different amino acids:

Sa

mp

le

Non-essential

Alanine (synthesized from pyruvic acid)

Arginine (synthesized from glutamic acid)

Asparagine (synthesized from aspartic acid)

Aspartic Acid (synthesized from oxaloacetic acid)

Cysteine

Glutamic Acid (synthesized from oxoglutaric acid)

Glutamine (synthesized from glutamic acid)

Glycine (synthesized from serine and threonine)

Proline (synthesized from glutamic acid)

Serine (synthesized from glucose)
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Tryosine (synthesized from phenylalanine)

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Essential

Histidine

Isoleucine

Leucine

Lysine

Methionine

Phenylalanine

Threonine

Tryptophan

Valine

le

Co
py
-

Do

Protein in our diets comes from both animal and vegetable sources.
Most animal sources (meat, milk, eggs) provide whats called complete
protein, meaning that they contain all of the essential amino acids.
Vegetable sources usually are low on or missing certain essential amino
acids. For example, rice is low in isoleucine and lysine. However, different
vegetable sources are deficient in different amino acids, and by combining different foods you can get all of the essential amino acids throughout the course of the day. Some vegetable sources contain quite a bit of
protein - things like nuts, beans, soybeans, etc. are all high in protein. By
combining them you can get complete coverage of all essential amino
acids.

Sa

mp

The digestive system breaks all proteins down into their amino acids so
that they can enter the bloodstream. Cells then use the amino acids as
building blocks.
From this discussion you can see that your body cannot survive strictly
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on carbohydrates. You must have protein. The RDA (Recommended

Daily Allowance) for protein is 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body
weight. So a 150-pound person needs 54 grams of protein per day. The
photo above is the Nutritional Facts label from a can of tuna. You can see
that a can of tuna contains about 32 grams of protein (this can has 13
grams per serving and there are 2.5 servings in the can). A glass of milk
contains about 8 grams of protein. A slice of bread might contain 2 or 3
grams of protein. You can see that it is not that hard to meet the RDA for
protein with a normal diet.

No
t

Fats

Do

We all know about the common fats that different foods contain. Meat
contains animal fat. Most breads and pastries contain vegetable oils,
shortening or lard. Deep fried foods are cooked in heated oils. Fats are
greasy and slick. There is a full chapter on fat and fat cells after this one.

Sa

mp

le

Co
py
-

You commonly hear about two kinds of fats: saturated and unsaturated.
Saturated fats are normally solid at room temperature, while unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. Vegetable oils are the best
examples of unsaturated fats, while lard and shortening (along with the
animal fat you see in raw meat) are saturated fats. However, most fats
contain a mixture. For example, above you see the label from a bottle of
olive oil. It contains both saturated and unsaturated fats, but the saturated fats are dissolved in the unsaturated fats. To separate them, you can
put olive oil in the refrigerator. The saturated fats will solidify and the
unsaturated fats will remain liquid. You can see that the olive oil bottler
even chose to further distinguish the unsaturated fats between polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. Unsaturated fats are currently thought
to be more healthy than saturated fats, and monounsaturated fats (as
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unsaturated fats.

dis

tri

Fats that you eat enter the digestive system and meet with an enzyme
called lipase. Lipase breaks the fat into its parts: glycerol and fatty acids.
These components are then reassembled into triglycerides for transport
in the bloodstream. Muscle cells and fat (adipose) cells absorb the triglycerides either to store them or to burn them as fuel.

Vitamins

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

Re

You need to eat fat for several reasons:

As we will see in the next section, certain vitamins are fat soluble. The only way to get these vitamins is to eat fat.

In the same way that there are essential amino acids, there are
essential fatty acids (for example, linoleic acid is used to build cell membranes). You must obtain these fatty acids from food you eat because
your body has no way to make them.

Fat turns out to be a good source of energy. Fat contains twice
as many calories per gram as do carbohydrates or proteins. Your body
can burn fat as fuel when necessary.

mp

le

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines vitamin as:

vi.ta.min: any of various organic substances that are essential in minute
quantities to the nutrition of most animals and some plants, act esp. as
coenzymes and precursors of coenzymes in the regulation of metabolic
processes but do not provide energy or serve as building units, and are
present in natural foodstuffs or sometimes produced within the body.

Sa

Vitamins are smallish molecules (Vitamin B12 is the largest, with a molecular weight of 1,355) that your body needs to keep itself running
properly. The body can produce its own Vitamin D from tanning of the
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skin, but generally vitamins must be provided in food. The human body
needs 13 different vitamins:

Co
py
-

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No
t

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dis

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Vitamin A (fat soluble, retinol) comes from beta-carotene in
plants; when you eat beta-carotene, an enzyme in the stomach turns it
into Vitamin A.

Vitamin B (water soluble, several specific vitamins in the complex)

Vitamin B1: Thiamine

Vitamin B2: Riboflavin

Vitamin B3: Niacin

Vitamin B6: Pyridoxine

Vitamin B12: Cyanocobalamin

Folic Acid

Vitamin C (water soluble, ascorbic acid)

Vitamin D (fat soluble, calciferol)

Vitamin E (fat soluble, tocopherol)

Vitamin K (fat soluble, menaquinone)


Pantothenic acid (water soluble)


Biotin (water soluble)
In most cases, the lack of a vitamin causes severe problems. The following list shows diseases associated with the lack of different vitamins:

le

Lack of Vitamin A: Night blindness, xerophthalmia

Lack of Vitamin B1: Beriberi
Lack of Vitamin B2: Problems with lips, tongue, skin,
Lack of Vitamin B3: Pellagra
Lack of Vitamin B12: Pernicious anemia
Lack of Vitamin C: Scurvy

mp

Sa

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Lack of Vitamin D: Rickets

Lack of Vitamin E: Malabsorption of fats, anemia
Lack of Vitamin K: Poor blood clotting, internal bleeding

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A diet of fresh, natural food usually provides all of the vitamins that you
need. Processing tends to destroy vitamins, so many processed foods are
fortified with man-made vitamins.

Minerals

Sa

mp

le

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

Minerals are elements that our bodies must have in order to create specific molecules needed in the body. Here are some of the more common
minerals our bodies need:

Calcium - used by teeth, bones

Chlorine

Chromium

Copper

Fluorine - strengthens teeth

Iodine - combines with tryosine to create the hormone thy

roxine

Iron - transports oxygen in red blood cells

Magnesium

Manganese

Molybdenum

Phosphorus

Potassium - important ion in nerve cells

Selenium

Sodium

Zinc
We do need other minerals, but they are supplied in the molecule that
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uses them. For example, sulfur comes in via the amino acid methionine,
and cobalt comes in as part of vitamin B12.

dis

tri

Food provides these minerals. If they are lacking in the diet, then various
problems and diseases arise.

Water

Re

As mentioned above, your body is about 60-percent water. A person at

rest loses about 40 ounces of water per day.

No
t

Water leaves your body in the urine, in your breath when you exhale, by
evaporation through your skin, etc. Obviously, if you are working and
sweating hard then you can lose much more water.

Fibers

Co
py
-

Do

Because we are losing water all the time, we must replace it. We need to
take in at least 40 ounces a day in the form of moist foods and liquids.
In hot weather and when exercising, your body may need twice that
amount. Many foods contain a surprising amount of water, especially
fruits. Pure water and drinks provide the rest.

Cellulose
Hemicellulose
Pectin

mp

le

Fiber is the broad name given to the things we eat that our bodies cannot digest. The three fibers we eat on a regular basis are:

Sa

Hemicellulose is found in the hulls of different grains like wheat. Bran is

hemicellulose. Cellulose is the structural component of plants. It gives a
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vegetable its familiar shape. Pectin is found most often in fruits, and is
soluble in water but non-digestible. Pectin is normally called water-soluble fiber and forms a gel. When we eat fiber, it simply passes straight
through, untouched by the digestive system.

No
t

Re

dis

Cellulose is a complex carbohydrate. It is a chain of glucose molecules.

Some animals and insects can digest cellulose. Both cows and termites
have no problem with it because they have bacteria in their digestive
systems secreting enzymes that break down cellulose into glucose. Human beings have neither the enzymes nor these beneficial bacteria, so
cellulose is fiber for us.

Im Starving...

Co
py
-

Do

A normal person who is eating three meals a day and snacking between
meals gets almost all of his or her energy from the glucose that carbohydrates provide. What happens if you stop eating, however? For example,
what if you are lost in the woods, or you are purposefully fasting? What
does your body do for energy? Your body goes through several phases
in its attempt to keep you alive in the absence of food.

Sa

mp

le

The first line of defense against starvation is the liver. The liver stores
glucose by converting it to glycogen. It holds perhaps a 12-hour supply
of glucose in its glycogen. Once you finish digesting all of the carbohydrates that you last ate, the liver starts converting its stored glycogen
back into glucose and releases it to maintain glucose in the blood. Lipolysis also starts breaking down fat in the fat cells and releasing fatty acids
into the bloodstream. Tissues that do not need to use glucose for energy
(for example, muscle cells) start burning the fatty acids. This reduces the
glucose demand so that nerve cells get the glucose.
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Once the liver runs out of glycogen, the liver converts to a process called
gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis turns amino acids into glucose.

dis

tri

The liver then begins producing ketone bodies from fatty acids being
made available in the blood by lipolysis. Brain and nerve cells convert
over from being pure consumers of glucose to partial consumers of ketone bodies for energy.

Sa

mp

le

Co
py
-

Do

No
t

Re

Some of these alternative metabolic processes are actually used on

a regular basis. For example, Eskimos eating a traditional Eskimo diet
have virtually no carbohydrates on the menu. You may have also read
about several recent weight-loss programs that try to take advantage of
ketone metabolism to burn fat (there is a chapter on the Atkins diet,
which is a common ketone metabolism based diet scheme ). When you
hear about these diets you will now have a better idea of what theyre
about!

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Chapter 4 - Fat & Fat Cells

Re

Saturated fat
Unsaturated fat
Polyunsaturated fat
Mono-unsaturated fat
Fatty acids
Essential fatty acids
Trans fatty acids
Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids
Partially hydrogenated fat

No
t

Do

dis

tri

Between the food commercials you see on TV every day and the many
nutrition bulletins and reports you hear about on the news every night,
you get a huge amount of information about the fats that you eat. For
example, you have probably heard of the following terms:

Co
py
-

Have you ever wondered what it all means, or why it matters? Why cant
we just eat, drink and be merry? In this chapter, youll find out exactly
what these terms mean and how the various forms of fat you find in
foods affect your body.

le

What is Fat?

Sa

mp

We see pure fats in three places at the grocery store:

1) In the vegetable oil aisle you see oils created from different
seeds and nuts. There is corn oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, canola oil, olive
oil... All seeds and nuts contain some amount of oil, because oil is a very
good way to store energy. By the way, the only difference between oil
and fat is whether or not it is a solid at room temperature.
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2) In the meat aisle, you can look at different cuts of meat and see
them outlined by a layer of white, solid fat created by the animal to store
energy.

3) In the dairy aisle you see butter and margarine - fat made from
cream or vegetable oils, respectively.

No
t

Re

The rest of the grocery store is, of course, filled with fats and oils, although they are less obvious. Potato chips and french fries are cooked
in oil, cookies and cakes contain fats and oils, and so on. This is how we
come to eat the fat we need every day. And we do need fat - as you will
learn below, there are certain fats that we must have to survive.

Do

So what are these fats and oils really made of? Well, if you really want to
understand fat you need to study a little bit of chemistry. To talk about
fat, we need to start by talking about fatty acids.

Co
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A fatty acid is a long hydrocarbon chain capped by a carboxyl group

(COOH). The COOH cap is what makes these molecules acids. You are
probably familiar with acetic acid because this is the acid found in vinegar. You can see that the fatty acids are like acetic acid, but they have
much longer carbon chains.

le

To make a normal fat, you take three fatty acids and bond them together with glycerol to form a triglyceride.

Sa

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Since this particular triglyceride happens to contain three molecules

of stearic acid, it is also known as tristearin. This diagram shows one fat
molecule. When you eat fat, you are eating collections of molecules like
these. The choice of the fatty acids in the fat controls many different
things about the fat, including how it looks, whether it is a solid or a liqEating2.com

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uid at room temperature and how healthy it is for your body.

Saturated vs. Unsaturated

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In palmitic acid and stearic acid, the carbon chains are completely and
evenly filled with hydrogen atoms. In other words, the chains are saturated with hydrogen. Fats (triglycerides) that contain palmitic acid and
stearic acid are therefore known as saturated fats. Fats made up of saturated fatty acids are solid at room temperature.

No
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But oleic acid is not saturated. Two of the carbons are connected by a
double bond, and two of the hydrogens are missing. This fatty acid is
unsaturated. Fats that have a lot of oleic acid in them are liquid at room
temperature, and are therefore known to us as oils.

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-

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Oleic acid, because it contains one double bond, is also referred to as

mono-unsaturated. Fatty acids that have multiple double bonds, like
linoleic acid in the first figure, are called polyunsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats are also liquid at room temperature.

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le

If you have a bottle of corn oil, what you have is a bottle of polyunsaturated oil with a high concentration of linoleic acid. Because it is polyunsaturated, it is liquid at room temperature. If you would like to solidify
it and turn it into margarine, what you do is hydrogenate it. That is, you
saturate it with hydrogen by breaking the carbon double bonds and
attaching hydrogen. To do this, you heat the oil and add pressurized
hydrogen gas and a nickel catalyst. In this way, you create partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. PHVO is the main ingredient in things like
vegetable shortening and margarine.

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Fat and Health

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Most of the nutrition science you hear about right now points to monounsaturated fats as the good fats. Olive oil and canola oil are both
mono-unsaturated. Mono-unsaturated fats are thought to lower cholesterol.

No
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In general, the fats to steer clear of are the saturated fats. Saturated fats
are bad because they clog your arteries. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (which are artificially saturated fats) are now considered totally
evil, both because of the saturation and a side-effect of hydrogenation
called trans fatty acids.

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Do

Fatty acids that have double bonds come in two forms: trans and cis.
Trans and cis refer to the direction of folding that occurs at the carbon
double bonds in unsaturated fatty acids. Cis fatty acids are the normal,
natural directions for the folds. A trans fatty acid is chemically identical
to the cis form, but folds in an unnatural direction. The trans fatty acids
are created by heat (as in deep frying) and by hydrogenation.

le

It turns out that in the body, the enzymes that deal with fat are unable
to deal with the trans fatty acids. Therefore, the enzymes get tied up trying to work on the trans fatty acids, and this can lead to problems with
the processing of essential fatty acids.

Essential Fatty Acids

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The most common fatty acids are found in animal fats and include:
Palmitic acid
Stearic acid
Oleic acid

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Your body is able to create these fats whenever it has a caloric surplus.
It can create them from straight sugar if there are enough sugar calories
coming in (see How Food Works for a discussion of carbohydrates and
sugar).

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Linoleic acid (LA) (omega-6)

Arachidonic acid (AA) (omega-6)
Gamma linolenic acid (GLA) (omega-6)
Dihomogamma linolenic acid (DGLA) (omega-6)
Alpha linolenic acid (LNA) (omega-3)
Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) (omega-3)
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (omega-3)

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Do

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It turns out that there is another class of fatty acids called essential fatty
acids that your body cannot manufacture. These fatty acids include:

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Because your body cannot manufacture them, they must come in from
the food you eat.
Essential fatty acids fall into two groups: omega-3 and omega-6. The 3
and 6 refer to the first carbon double bond position on the fatty acid
chain. All essential fatty acids are polyunsaturated, so the 3 and the 6
mean that the first double bond is either 3 or 6 carbons in from the end.

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Omega-6 fatty acids are everywhere: corn oil, sunflower oil and soybean
oil all contain them. Omega-3 fatty acids are harder to find. Things like
flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and walnuts are high in omega-3 fatty acids,
as are salmon, trout and tuna. Current thinking is that these two fats
need to be balanced in the diet at a ratio like 1-to-1 or 2-to-1, rather than
the normal 20-to-1 ratio seen in most Western diets. About the only way
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to do that is to supplement your diet with omega-3 vegetable oils or to

start eating fish in a big way (meaning two or three times a week).

tri

So What Should I Eat?

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Summarizing all of this information, the current scientific thinking on fat

consumption goes something like this:

Fat Cells

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Limit your fat intake to about 30 percent of the total calories
you consume. Do not try to cut fat intake altogether, because you do
need the essential fatty acids. A gram of fat has nine calories, meaning
that if you consume 2,000 calories in a day your total fat intake should
hover around (2000 * 30 percent / 9 calories/gram) 67 grams of fat.

When consuming fat, try to focus on mono-unsaturated fats
like olive oil and canola oil, or on essential fatty acids.

When consuming essential fatty acids, try to balance your intake of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Do that by consuming tuna/
salmon/trout or omega-3 oils like flax seed oil.

le

About one in five adults in the United Kingdom and about half of the
adults in the United States are overweight. Thats in excess of 100 million
people who have too much fat. Many of which exercise and go on diets
to reduce their amount of body fat.

mp

When a person gets fat - gains weight - what is actually happening inside the persons body? What are fat cells and how do they work?

Sa

Lets take a look at the world of the fat cell. We will examine where fat
cells are located, how they store fat and how they get rid of it!
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Wheres the Fat?

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Fat, or adipose tissue, is found in several places in your body. Generally,

fat is found underneath your skin (subcutaneous fat). Theres also some
on top of each of your kidneys. Other locations depend upon whether
you are a man or woman:

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Re

An adult man tends to carry body fat in his chest, abdomen
and buttocks, producing an apple shape.

An adult woman tends to carry fat in her breasts, hips, waist
and buttocks, creating a pear shape.
The difference in fat location comes from the sex hormones estrogen
and testosterone.

Do

Your body contains two types of fat tissue:

Co
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White fat - important in energy metabolism, heat insulation
and mechanical cushioning.


Brown fat - found mostly in newborn babies, between the
shoulders; important for thermogenesis (making heat).

le

Fat tissue is made up of fat cells. Fat cells are a unique type of cell. You
can think of a fat cell as a tiny plastic bag that holds a drop of fat:

Sa

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White fat cells are large cells that have very little cytoplasm,
only 15 percent cell volume, a small nucleus and one large fat droplet
that makes up 85 percent of cell volume.


brown fat cells are somewhat smaller, are loaded with mitochondria and are composed of several smaller fat droplets. The mitochondria are able to generate heat.
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Fat cells are formed in the developing fetus during the third trimester
of pregnancy, and later at the onset of puberty, when the sex hormones
kick in. It is during puberty that the differences in fat distribution between men and women begin to take form. One amazing fact is that fat
cells do not multiply after peuberty - as your body stores more fat, the
number of fat cells remains the same. Each fat cell simply gets bigger!

Re

In addition to fat tissue, some fat is stored in the liver, and an even smaller amount in muscle.

No
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How Fat Enters Your Body

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When you eat food that contains fat, mostly triglycerides, it goes
through your stomach and intestines. In the intestines, the following
happens:

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le

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1. Large fat droplets get mixed with bile salts from the gall bladder in a process called emulsification. The mixture breaks up the large
droplets into several smaller droplets called micelles, increasing the fats
surface area.

2. The pancreas secretes enzymes called lipases that attack the
surface of each micelle and break the fats down into their parts, glycerol
and fatty acids.

3. These parts get absorbed into the cells lining the intestine.

4. In the intestinal cell, the parts are reassembled into packages
of fat molecules (triglycerides) with a protein coating called chylomicrons. The protein coating makes the fat dissolve more easily in water.

5. The chylomicrons are released into the lymphatic system they do not go directly into the bloodstream because they are too big
to pass through the wall of the capillary.

6. The lymphatic system eventually merges with the veins, at
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which point the chylomicrons pass into the bloodstream.

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You might be wondering why fat molecules get broken down into glycerol and fatty acids if theyre just going to be rebuilt. This is because fat
molecules are too big to easily cross cell membranes. So when passing
from the intestine through the intestinal cells into the lymph, or when
crossing any cell barrier, the fats must be broken down. But, when fats
are being transported in the lymph or blood, it is better to have a few,
large fat molecules than many smaller fatty acids, because the larger
fats do not attract as many excess water molecules by osmosis as many
smaller molecules would.

How Fat is Stored in Your Body

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Chylomicrons do not last long in the bloodstream - only about eight

minutes - because enzymes called lipoprotein lipases break the fats into
fatty acids. Lipoprotein lipases are found in the walls of blood vessels
in fat tissue, muscle tissue and heart muscle. The activity of lipoprotein
lipases depends upon the levels of insulin in the body. If insulin is high,
then the lipases are highly active; if insulin is low, the lipases are inactive.

le

The fatty acids are then absorbed from the blood into fat cells, muscle
cells and liver cells. In these cells, under stimulation by insulin, fatty acids
are made into fat molecules and stored as fat droplets.

Sa

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It is also possible for fat cells to take up glucose and amino acids, which
have been absorbed into the bloodstream after a meal, and convert
those into fat molecules. The conversion of carbohydrates or protein
into fat is 10 times less efficient than simply storing fat in a fat cell, but
the body can do it. If you have 100 extra calories in fat (about 11 grams)
floating in your bloodstream, fat cells can store it using only 2.5 calories
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of energy. On the other hand, if you have 100 extra calories in glucose
(about 25 grams) floating in your bloodstream, it takes 23 calories of
energy to convert the glucose into fat and then store it. Given a choice,
a fat cell will grab the fat and store it rather than the carbohydrates because fat is so much easier to store.

Re

It is important to note that as your body stores more fat, the number of
fat cells remains the same; each fat cell simply gets bigger.

Hormones That Act Opposite to Insulin

pancreas - glucagon
pituitary gland - growth hormone
pituitary gland - ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)
adrenal gland - epinephrine (adrenaline)
thyroid gland - thyroid hormone

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When you are not eating, your body is not absorbing food. If your body
is not absorbing food, there is little insulin in the blood. However, your
body is always using energy; and if youre not absorbing food, this energy must come from internal stores of complex carbohydrates, fats and
proteins. Under these conditions, various organs in your body secrete
hormones:

mp

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These hormones act on cells of the liver, muscle and fat tissue, and have
the opposite effects of insulin.

How Your Body Breaks Down Fat

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When you are not eating, or you are exercising, your body must draw on
its internal energy stores of complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
Your bodys prime source of energy is glucose. In fact, some cells in your
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body, such as brain cells, can get energy only from glucose.

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The first line of defense in maintaining energy is to break down carbohydrates, or glycogen, into simple glucose molecules - this process is called
glycogenolysis. Next, your body breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty
acids in the process of lipolysis. The fatty acids can then be broken down
directly to get energy, or can be used to make glucose through a multistep process called gluconeogenesis. In gluconeogenesis, amino acids
can also be used to make glucose.

Do

No
t

In the fat cell, other types of lipases work to break down fats into fatty
acids and glycerol. These lipases are activated by various hormones,
such as glucagon, epinephrine and growth hormone. The resulting glycerol and fatty acids are released into the blood, and travel to the liver
through the bloodstream. Once in the liver, the glycerol and fatty acids
can be either further broken down or used to make glucose.

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Brown Fat: Making Heat

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When you are first born, your body does not have much white fat to
help insulate and retain body heat; although there are white fat cells,
there is not much fat stored in them. A newborn baby produces heat
(thermogenesis) primarily by breaking down fat molecules into fatty
acids in brown fat cells. Instead of those fatty acids leaving the brown
fat cell, as happens in white fat cells, they get further broken down in
the mitochondria and their energy is released directly as heat. This same
process occurs in hibernating animals, which have more brown fat than
humans. Once the newborn baby starts eating more, developing layers of white fat, the brown fat goes away. Adult humans have little or no
brown fat.
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Losing Weight and Losing Fat

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Your weight is determined by the rate at which you store energy from
the food that you eat, and the rate at which you use that energy. Most
experts agree that the way to maintain a healthy weight is:

Sa

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le

Co
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Do

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Eat a balanced diet - appropriate amounts glucose, fat and
protein

Do not eat excessively - for most people, a diet of 1,500 to


2,000 calories a day is sufficient to maintain a healthy weight

Exercise regularly

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Chapter 5 - The Atkins Diet

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Lets face it, you or someone you know has been on a diet at one time
or another. In fact, theres a good chance that many of the folks reading
this book are on some kind of diet right now. There are all sorts of diets
out there, but most of them have one basic thing in common - in following the plan, youre required to watch the amount of calories you eat.
A majority of diets also require you to avoid high-fat foods. Theres one
diet out there, though, that doesnt do this. Unlike other diet schemes, it
allows you to eat fairly large amounts of red meat, eggs, cheese, butter
and even bacon - all of which would be considered contraband on other
plans.

Co
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Do

Obviously theres a considerable amount of controversy over such a program; the Atkins diet, now known as the Atkins Nutritional Approach, is
a frequent topic among the media. While dieters across the nation are
thrilled with the results of following this unorthodox plan, the medical
community is fairly-well divided on how healthy an approach like this
can be for someone - especially in the long run.

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Right now youre probably wondering how a diet like this could actually
lead to weight loss. According to the late Dr. Atkins, its all about limiting
carbohydrates. In this junk food world, we eat a large amount of carbohydrates. These are foods that contain white flour and refined sugar. In
other words, most of the packaged foods we eat such as pasta, bread
and cereal are carbohydrate-rich. According to the core principle of the
Atkins diet, by limiting carbohydrates in a four-phase process your body
is forced to burn its stored fat, rather than carbohydrates, for fuel.
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What is Low-Carbohydrate Dieting?

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bohydrate dieting. We will look at the four phases of the Atkins diet and
what foods the plan allows you to eat. And finally, well discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the program and what medical experts have to
say about it.

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In 1972, Dr. Robert Atkins first published his book, Dr. Atkins New Diet
Revolution, which suggested a new way to diet. Up until this time, dieting consisted of lowering the number of calories eaten per day or lowering both the amount of fats and carbohydrates eaten. But, Dr. Atkins diet
was strictly focused on limiting carbohydrate consumption. So, what are
carbohydrates?

Co
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Do

You have probably heard of carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. They come in many forms including rice, pasta, bread, crackers,
cereal, fruits and vegetables. Carbohydrates provide your body with its
basic fuel. You can think about the relationship between your body and
carbohydrates in much the same way you would consider the relationship between a car engine and gasoline.

le

The simplest carbohydrate is glucose. Glucose, also called blood sugar

and dextrose, flows in the bloodstream so that it is available to every
cell in your body. Your cells absorb glucose and convert it into energy to
drive the cell.

mp

The word carbohydrate comes from the fact that glucose is made up of
carbon and water. The chemical formula for glucose is C6H12O6.

Sa

Glucose is made up of six carbon atoms (carbo...) and the elements of six
water molecules (...hydrate). Glucose is a simple sugar, meaning that to
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Fructose
Galactose
Lactose
Sucrose
Maltose

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our tongues it tastes sweet. There are other simple sugars that you have
probably heard of:

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Glucose, fructose and Galactose are referred to as monosaccharides.

Lactose, sucrose and maltose are called disaccharides (they contain two
monosaccharides). Monosaccharides and disaccharides are called simple carbohydrates. When you look at a Nutrition Facts label on a food
package and see Sugars under the Carbohydrates section of the label,
these simple sugars are what the label is talking about.

Sa

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le

Co
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There are also complex carbohydrates, commonly known as starches.

A complex carbohydrate is made up of chains of glucose molecules.
Starches are the way plants store energy - plants produce glucose
and chain the glucose molecules together to form starch. Most grains
(wheat, corn, oats, rice) and things like potatoes and plantains are high
in starch. Your digestive system breaks a complex carbohydrate (starch)
back down into its component glucose molecules so that the glucose
can enter your bloodstream. It takes a lot longer to break down a starch,
however. If you drink a can of soda full of sugar, glucose will enter the
bloodstream at a rate of something like 30 calories per minute. A complex carbohydrate is digested more slowly, so glucose enters the bloodstream at a rate of only 2 calories per minute. Complex carbs can be
either high in fiber such as broccoli or low in fiber such as bananas or
potatoes.
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Carbohydrates are not the only substances the body uses for energy.
The body also uses proteins and fats for fuel. Protein is contained in
foods like red meat, poultry fish and cheese. Fats are also an important
part of our diet. Many foods contain fat in different amounts. High-fat
foods include dairy products like butter and cream as well as mayonnaise and oils. The idea behind low-carbohydrate dieting is to restrict
the amount of carbs you eat and increase the amount of protein and fat.
In other words, eating a low-carb diet would allow you to indulge in a
cheeseburger but you must order it without the bun. Remember, bread
contains carbs and the burger and cheese contain protein and fat. So,
low-carb dieting is just what it sounds like - you can eat protein and fat,
but you must limit the amount of carbohydrates you eat.

The Four Phases of Atkins

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The Atkins diet consists of a four-phase eating plan. The foods you eat
vary depending on what phase you are in and your own personal metabolism. The four phases of the Atkins diet include:

le

1. Induction - This is the first phase of the Atkins diet. It is also
considered the most restrictive phase. In other words, phase one allows you to eat very little to no carbohydrates. You are limited to only
20 grams per day. The carbs you are allowed to eat consist of salad and
other non-starchy vegetables.

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2. Ongoing Weight Loss - Phase two allows you to add some
carbohydrates to your diet. In this phase, carbs are increased to 25 grams
per day. Each week, you can increase the number of carbs you eat by
five grams. So, the second week of phase two, you can have 30 grams of
carbs. The third week you can consume 35 grams of carbs and so on. You
continue on the course of slowly increasing carbohydrates until your
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body stops losing weight. When that occurs, you subtract five grams of
carbohydrates from your daily intake. This level will allow you to maintain your weight.

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3. Pre-Maintenance - In this phase, you transition from weight
loss to weight maintenance. You can increase your carbohydrate allowance by 10-gram increments each week as long as you continue to keep
the weight off.

Do

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4. Lifetime Maintenance - The final phase allows you to select
from a wide variety of foods, while still limiting the amount of carbohydrates you eat. It is this phase that allows you to continue to keep your
weight down as well as allows you to eat more foods than in the previous phases.

The Foods You Can Eat

le

Co
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The Food Pyramid taught at school recommends a diet rich in carbohydrate consumption. The Atkins food pyramid looks very different from
this one. In fact, one of the reasons the Atkins diet was popular in the
1970s and has become popular again today is because it allows dieters
to eat more of the foods most diets restrict or would never even allow
- such as red meat and high-fat dairy products like cheese and butter.
According to the Atkins Web site, the Atkins plan helps people feel less
hungry and less deprived than many other diets.

Sa

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Unlike the traditional food pyramid, the Atkins pyramid places dietary
emphasis on protein sources as opposed to whole grain foods. Additionaly, the Atkins plan doesnt set limits on the amount of food you eat.
It only sets limits on the type of food you eat. For example, you cannot
eat white rice or foods made with white flour like cake or pasta, but you
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can eat a large amount of fish, poultry, red meat, eggs and cheese. These
foods are made up mostly of protein and fat, as opposed to carbohydrates. Furthermore, Atkins is different from most diets in that you dont
need to count calories. In fact, many people on Atkins consume more
calories than they were before the diet (one gram of fat contains 9 calories, while one gram of any carbohydrate contains 4 calories).

Do

No
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Re

Since the Atkins diet occurs in four phases, what you can eat will differ
slightly in each phase. As you go through the phases, you are allowed
more and more carbohydrates, but they should consist mostly of fiberrich carbohydrates like leafy greens and certain vegetables. White rice,
white bread, potatoes and pasta made from white or processed flour
remain forbidden-foods for the duration of the Atkins plan. At this point,
you may be asking yourself How can someone lose weight on a diet like
this?

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Lets examine how the Atkins plan can result in weight loss.

How Atkins Causes Weight Loss

le

As you now know, the Atkins plan begins by restricting carbohydrates.

When your body is not given fuel in the form of carbohydrates, it uses
fuel in other ways. So, lets say youve just started following the Atkins
plan and are consuming a modest 20 grams of carbohydrates or less.
Here is whats happening inside your body:

Sa

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The liver stores glucose by converting it to glycogen. It holds perhaps
a 12-hour supply of glucose in its glycogen. Once you finish digesting all
of the carbohydrates that you last ate, the liver starts converting its stored
glycogen back into glucose and releases it to maintain glucose in the blood.
Lipolysis also starts breaking down fat in the fat cells and releasing fatty
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acids into the bloodstream. Tissues that do not need to use glucose for energy (for example, muscle cells) start burning the fatty acids. This reduces the
glucose demand so that nerve cells get the glucose.

dis

Once the liver runs out of glycogen, the liver converts to a process
called gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis turns amino acids into glucose.

No
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The liver then begins producing ketone bodies from fatty acids being
made available in the blood by lipolysis. Brain and nerve cells convert over
from being pure consumers of glucose to partial consumers of ketone bodies for energy. This process is called ketosis - which is why the Atkins plan is
also known as a ketogenic diet.

Co
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Do

So, what does this mean in simple terms? In theory, the Atkins diet enables your body to switch from a machine that uses carbohydrates for
fuel to one that uses fat for fuel. Therefore, a diet with little or no carbs
forces the bodys storage of fat to become its main energy source.

Sa

mp

le

To further understand the way your body loses weight on the Atkins
diet, you must consider the way the body uses sugar as fuel. To turn sugars into fuel, your body uses the hormone insulin. Insulin enables our
cells to turn carbohydrates into glucose by controlling the amount of
sugar in our blood. The body secretes insulin to keep blood sugar from
getting too high. Insulin is a storage hormone, meaning that it causes
sugar we dont use for fuel to be stored as fat. It also keeps the body
from burning stored fat. The Atkins diet suggests that it is this insulin response that continues to add fat to our bodies. This function is an asset
when food is scarce, but an abundance of sugar-filled and high-carbohydrate foods will promote the accumulation of body fat.
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On the contrary, a low-carbohydrate diet allows your body to release

less insulin. According to the Atkins plan, when insulin levels are normal, your body will begin to burn its own fat as fuel; thereby resulting
in weight loss. By keeping insulin levels stable, not only does your body
burn fat, but it may also lead to less hunger and fewer cravings. Simply
put, according to the Atkins folks, their diet attempts to control insulin
levels by controlling the amount of carbohydrates you eat.

Benefits and Drawbacks

Do

No
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Now that you understand how the Atkins plan works, lets examine
some of the benefits and drawbacks of low-carbohydrate eating. According to the Atkins Web site, there are four main benefits participants
gain from following the Atkins plan:

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1. Weight Loss - When you cut down carbohydrates, your body
converts from using carbohydrates for energy to burning fat as the primary energy source. This results in weight loss.

le

2. Weight Maintenance - Each individual has a level of carbohydrate intake at which they will neither gain nor lose weight. The Atkins
plan allows the body to determine this amount through the eventual
increase in the amount of carbs you can eat.

mp

3. Good Health - Atkins dieters are encouraged to eat nutritionrich foods with vitamin and nutritional supplements as needed.

Sa

4. Disease Prevention - Lowering carbohydrate intake and, in
turn, insulin production may help prevent diseases like diabetes.
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The Atkins Web site also lists a few drawbacks to the diet. The two main
drawbacks are bad breath, which is a result of excess ketone production,
and constipation.

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While some may consider the strictness of the diet a drawback, Atkins
dieters are quick to point out that only carbohydrates are restricted leaving a large selection of other food options.

Your cravings will be reduced

Protein-rich and high-fat foods are more satisfying and filling

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And, unlike many other diets, for the most part the amount of food you
eat has no restriction. Although, according to the Atkins plan, its unlikely
that youll be overeating because:

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The medical and nutritional communities have been increasingly concerned about some additional drawbacks to the Atkins diet. Many
believe that the diet is a temporary fix for the permanent problem of
weight loss. In other words, limiting carbohydrates to the degree the Atkins plan does, may be very difficult to maintain for many people. After
all, the typical American eats a large amount of carbohydrates and the
almost total elimination of this food group may not be something dieters can stick with for an extended amount of time.

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Many medical groups have voiced concerns over the potential longterm health risks of the Atkins diet, such as kidney stones, ulcers and
repeated kidney infections. Furthermore, in the past, research has shown
that eating high levels of saturated fat - as Atkins dieters often do - may
have negative health effects including increased cholesterol which can
lead to heart disease and stroke.
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Debates over the Atkins diet continue and it would appear that the
medical community is somewhat split on the issue. Lets take a closer
look at what the experts are saying.

The Experts Weigh In

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As mentioned earlier, there has been a great deal of controversy over

the Atkins plan and other low-carbohydrate diets. The controversy generally revolves around the consumption of high-fat and high-protein
foods, which are by and large believed to lead to heart disease and other ailments.

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The controversy heated up when the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in the US came out against the Atkins diet in December 2003 claiming that high-fat, carbohydrate-restricted diets lead
to increased risk of chronic diseases and health problems. According
to the PCRMs 2003 report, 429 people reported problems with highprotein, carbohydrate-restrictive diets. These ailments included kidney
stones, heart problems (13 individuals reported heart attacks), gastrointestinal problems including ulcers and diarrhea and kidney infections.
In fact, the American Academy of Family Physicians claims that high
protein intake is largely responsible for the high prevalence of kidney
stones in the United States.

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However, critics of the PCRM data believe these studies cannot prove a
cause-and-effect relationship between the Atkins diet and health problems. In fact, until recently, there has been little research into the longterm effects of the Atkins diet. It would appear that more studies will be
needed to fully examine the effects of the Atkins plan and other lowcarbohydrate diets. According to a recent report from ABC News entitled
Is the Atkins Diet Dangerous?, experts suggest that additional randEating2.com

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omized, long-term studies are needed:

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Most of these diets are used by individuals for short times. The impact
of any short-term intervention on heart disease is negligible. An important
question is what happens for the long term, said Dr. Arthur Frank, director
of the George Washington University Weight Management Clinic in Washington, D.C.

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Id like to see a long-term study of at least 18 months, preferably two
years, good compliance and follow-up to see what happens, said Ayoob.

These studies would monitor weight and cholesterol and track patients
for adverse reactions such as heart disease and kidney problems.

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According to another ABC news report, a new study published by the

New England Journal of Medicine compared the weight loss of obese
individuals on the Atkins diet versus traditional low-fat, low-calorie diets.
After one year, there was no weight difference between the groups. The
Atkins group, though, did increase their HDL (the good cholesterol)
levels. These results seem to suggest that the Atkins diet may not contribute to higher cholesterol levels even though the diet contains cholesterol-rich foods.

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However, much of the medical community remains concerned about

the increased levels of protein and fat consumed while following the Atkins plan. In addition to cholesteral levels and heart disease, theyre also
concerned about kidney function. An increased consumption of protein
leads to an increase in ketones in the kidney. The increased level of ketones, or ketosis that occurs with the Atkins diet may be responsible for
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decreased kidney function. According to Harvard researchers, quoted in

the PCRM study, individuals who consume large amounts of animal protein may be at risk for permanent loss of kidney function.

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Regardless of the successful weight loss of people on the Atkins plan,

doctors and nutritionists will continue to worry about the health effects of the diet. The PCRM Atkins Diet Alert suggests that carbohydrates
are not necessarily responsible for weight gain. In fact, many people
throughout Asia eat large amounts of carbohydrates and generally have
lower body weights than Americans. Furthermore, many experts are
quick to mention that carbohydrates are an essential part of the human
diet.

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In answer to this, Atkins supporters would point out that the Atkins plan
limits carbohydrate intake, but does not eliminate it all-together. Although carbohydrate consumption is quite restricted during the induction and ongoing weight loss phases of the Atkins plan, progressively
more amounts of carbohydrates, especially good carbohydrates like
green, leafy vegetables and fruits are allowed during the pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance phases.

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In the end, deciding to go on a diet, including the Atkins plan, is a personal decision. And, as is the case with any radical change in diet, its a
good idea to first discuss this with your physician.

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Glossary of Atkins Terms

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Carbohydrate: One of the nutrients that supply calories to the
body. Compounds composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen arranged
as simple sugars. Sources include grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes
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and other plant foods.

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Induction: The initial phase of the Atkins plan, which lasts a
minimum of two weeks. During this time, it is recommended that carbohydrate consumption not exceed 20 grams a day, in order to trigger ketosis, in which the body burns its own fat for energy.

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Insulin: A naturally occurring hormone secreted by the pancreas that helps transport glucose into muscle cells and other tissues,
where it is stored for energy use. Insulin is also known as the fat-producing hormone.

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Ketone: The normal products of fat metabolism, when there
are insufficient carbohydrates as a source of energy. For people who are
restricting their intake of carbohydrates, ketone presence in the urine
indicates achievement of a fat-burning phase that will result in weight
loss.


Ketosis: This is a biological process that results when sufficient
glucose as a source of energy is not available from dietary carbohydrate
and the body switches to primarily using fat.

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Protein: One of the nutrients that provide calories. Protein,
needed for the growth and repair of all human tissues, is composed of
22 amino acids. Protein provides the body with energy and heat, and
is needed for the manufacture of hormones, antibodies and enzymes.
Forms of protein include meat and poultry.

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Source: the Atkins Web site

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Dont forget that dieting is a life-long

exercise and you should consult your
doctor before any major changes to
your diet.

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We hope you have found this ebook

useful and worth your money.

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Please support our work by not giving away copies of this ebook to your
friends.

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Ask your friends to buy it from our site,

Eating2.com or better still, buy a copy
for your friend at a 10% discount. Click
here to find out more.

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We are in the process of updating the

website to include many useful tools
and discussion forum for you to share
your experience with others! Stay
tuned!
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