Eat Lean, Eat Well

It’s not difficult to eat lean and healthfully at almost any restaurant chain—but you must be proactive. This means ordering from the “lighter fare” or “healthy choices” side of the menu—or, if these aren’t available, requesting a more diet-conscious preparation of the regular dishes, such as less salt and less added fat, and grilling and steaming rather than frying and sautéing. In the past, many of the so-called healthy meals offered by restaurants were pretty bad. I knew when I created this diet that it had to include a wide variety of foods so that boredom never has a chance to set it. Today, it isn’t necessary to trade “delicious” for “healthy.” You simply need to shift the balance in a healthier direction by eating more of the foods that fill you up with fewer calories and less of the foods that pack on the pounds. Sounds easy—and it is!

Just beware. The restaurant chains, with a few exceptions, don’t design their menus with healthy eating in mind. Quite the opposite: they load up most of the expensive dishes with fat, salt, and sugar because that’s what consumers are used to—and are willing to pay more for. You’ll certainly save money by ordering from the low-cal side of the menu in addition to saving yourself 40 to 50 percent of consumed calories. You’ll also get less saturated fat because the restaurants have to trim back on butter or vegetable shortenings to hit those advertised low-calorie limits. And you’ll find more vegetables on your plate, which are naturally low in calories. Don’t worry about leaving hungry. You won’t. Eating lean protein, healthier fats, and low-glycemic carbohydrates, such as beans and vegetables, will fill you up without overloading your system with unnecessary calories. You can even have seconds.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can gradually (and painlessly) eat well and still lose weight at today’s most popular chains. The listings and examples that follow represent only a portion of the healthy possibilities.

Battle of the Salads

The ideal diet for the fastest possible weight loss (and good health generally) features as many vegetables and fruits as you can eat. One of the easiest ways to load up on produce is to eat a salad with (or for) lunch or dinner. Or both. Unfortunately, quite a few of the fast-food outlets dish up salads that are higher in salt than just about anything on the main menu. They aren’t always so great on the fat and calories, either. Take Burger King’s Tender Crisp Salads. Those fried chicken strips served over greens drive the calorie count to more than 500 and the total fat to 22 grams. Eat a few of those “healthy” salads a week, and you’ll gain as much weight as you would if you stuck to the burgers and shakes.

There are some good (and good-tasting) salads to be found, and I highly recommend them. Just don’t ruin a good thing by slathering on the high-fat ranch, blue cheese, Thousand Island, or other creamy dressings. You’ll do better to stick with vinaigrette—or at least use as little of the other dressings as you can. Here’s a look at how the salads compare at the different chains.

Wienerschnitzel

You can now buy low-fat hot dogs in supermarkets, and it’s possible to get a reasonably lean dog in a take-out joint. Not easy, but possible.

I can’t bring myself to totally condemn hot dogs. Just about everyone loves them, and they’re less likely than their burger cousins to come slathered in mayo or other creamy, caloriedrenched dressings. Low-calorie? Nope. Low-fat? Nope. Good for you? Nope. But hey, life is short. What else are you going to eat on the Fourth of July! Here are their three best menu items.

Wendy’s

The fifth-largest restaurant chain, Wendy’s has done a pretty good job of catering to weight-conscious customers. Most of the menu items, as you’d expect from a burger chain, are devoted to the usual high-calorie, fat-drenched standards. The Big Bacon Classic, for example, boasts 580 calories and 29 grams of fat, nearly half of them saturated. Throw in a shake and you can pretty much count on blowing your calorie budget for the day. But Wendy’s, unlike many of the other fast-food chains, offers a good selection of healthier options. Here are five good choices from Wendy’s.

Taco Bell

You probably remember that cute Chihuahua with enormous ears that turned the advertising slogan “Yo quiero Taco Bell” into a cultural catchphrase. The pooch, like the Mexican-style fast-food restaurant itself, seemed to be everywhere. But judging from this corporate canine’s sleek profile, he probably wasn’t eating much from the hand that fed him.

The core Taco Bell menu, heavy on ground meat and cheese and low on vegetables, won’t do your health (or your weight) any good. That said, there are a few menu choices that fall within the good (if not great) zone. Example: Order the tacos “fresco” style—they dress them with salsa instead of cheese and sauce. Here are seven good choices from Taco Bell.

McDonald’s

It’s tougher to find items on the main menu at McDonald’s that promote real weight loss and general health. The Big Mac alone, which isn’t all that big compared to some of the other burger behemoths out there, delivers 560 calories. To its credit, McDonald’s has included quite a few non-burger meals on the menu. Unfortunately, these aren’t the things most people want to order. In the meantime, there are a few items that won’t blow your fat or calorie budget. Here are your best picks at Mickey D’s.

Sonic

While most fast-food chains have transformed themselves over the decades into sit-down restaurants, Sonic has stayed true to its drive-in roots. It’s the nation’s largest drive-in chain, with more than three thousand restaurants coast to coast.

You can easily order a meal at Sonic that packs in enough fat and calories to really sink your diet. (You don’t even have to walk to pick it up, since carhops deliver orders right to your window.) As with the other fast-food outlets, however, Sonic has made an effort to include some healthier choices. Here are your best menu picks at Sonic.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Just about every weight-loss expert advises substituting chicken for beef. Chicken has less total fat—and much less saturated fat—than regular ground beef. But when you wrap any chicken in breading and submerge it in a deep-fat fryer, it becomes a Frankenbird. Not long ago, the Federal Trade Commission took KFC to task for claiming in advertisements that two Original Recipe chicken breasts had less fat than a Whopper and were therefore healthier. Turns out they were telling us a “whopper.” What the ads didn’t mention is that the chicken breasts have three times the trans fat and cholesterol and more than twice the sodium. Oops.

You can peel the skin off fried chicken and knock down the fat by about half—but who’s likely to do that? Fortunately, there are a few other things—but only a few—on the menu that can keep calories in a reasonable range. Here are your best choices at KFC.

Burger King

It’s the country’s second-largest burger chain, and the first to dish up a vegetarian burger—with reduced-fat mayo, no less. But hold the applause. Even though the Veggie Burger is a winner, with only 429 calories, the thrust of Burger King’s menu is decidedly toward bigger, more, and higher. The Double Whopper with Cheese hovers around 1,000 calories, with a knock-down 27 grams of saturated fat. The Old Fashioned Vanilla Milkshake is almost a meal by itself, with 700 calories and 41 grams of fat (26 of them the artery-clogging saturated kind).

To be fair, Burger King’s fat-and-calorie bombs aren’t any worse than the competitions’. They just seem to have more of them. There isn’t a lot on the BK menu that fits comfortably into any reasonable diet, but you can cherry-pick and find a few things that are more or less reasonable. Load up your sandwiches with onions, tomatoes, and lettuce, and you’ll push your vegetable and fiber intake in a healthier direction without adding substantially to the calories. Here are six good choices from BK.

Chicken Breast Filet at Arby's

It’s quite a bit higher in calories and total fat than the Regular Roast Beef, but it’s lower in saturated fat—good news if you’re trying to lower cholesterol and keep your heart in the safety zone. This sandwich comes with leaf lettuce and tomatoes, pushing your fresh veggie intake a little higher. Given the relatively high calories, you’ll want to eat a little leaner throughout the day. Vital stats: 500 calories, 25 grams total fat, 4 grams saturated fat.

Regular Roast Beef Diet at Arby’s

It’s not the biggest sandwich in town, and it might not be enough food if you have a bigger-than average appetite. But for most folks, one is all it takes—and it’s lean enough to have every day. (If you order the Jr. Roast Beef instead, you’ll knock off 50 calories.) Vital stats: 320 calories, 13 grams total fat, 6 grams saturated fat.

Cheese Addiction

Like chocolate and sugar, cheese triggers a class of opiates (casomorphins) that can be highly addictive. When you consider that a thumb-sized piece of cheese packs about 15 grams of fat and 200 calories, you can see why cheese binges can really put on the pounds.

■ You don’t have to give up cheese to curtail cravings or calories, but you do have to eat less. Try dairy-free soy cheese as a substitute. It provides real cheese texture and flavor without the addictive properties.
■ Order your burgers without cheese at the fast-food counter. When getting a pizza, ask that it be made with half the usual amount of cheese.
■ When you have to have cheese, look for reduced-fat products such as low-fat mozzarella and ricotta. Better yet, substitute other foods that give the same creamy mouth feel without all the fat and calories, such as avocado or yogurt.

Chocolate Addiction

For millions of Americans, chocolate is among the leading sources of extra (and excess) calories. Hard to give it up? You bet! Apart from its opioid-like effects, chocolate contains addictive caffeine, a stimulating substance called theobromine, and a drug-like chemical called phenylethylamine. It also has chemical compounds that resemble those found in marijuana. No wonder so many people call themselves chocolate addicts or chocoholics.

■ The average chocolate bar has about 200 calories and more than 10 grams of fat. That’s a lot of extra calories, especially if you eat one or more every day. Helpful hint: Buy individually wrapped chocolates, such as Hershey’s Dark Chocolates, for easier portion control. You can still occasionally indulge your chocolate tooth while keeping the calorie count down and helping your heart at the same time.
■ Monthly estrogen swings are often behind chocolate cravings. If you eat more fiber-rich foods and cut back on fat around the time of your period, you’ll smooth out hormonal fluctuations that trigger these cravings.
■ Maintain or increase your regular exercise schedule in the cold months to combat feeling low. Winter depression often stimulates the urge for chocolate and other sweets.

Sugar addiction

Some recent diets emphasize “carbohydrate addiction.” This is a little misleading. You know anyone who’s addicted to, say, broccoli? The carbs that people really crave are crackers, pastries, and fries. Yes, these foods are carbohydrates, but the true addiction is to the concentrated sugars in them. When you eat highly processed, highglycemic carbohydrates, glucose floods the bloodstream. The pancreas churns out insulin to get rid of the excess sugar. The insulin then removes so much of it that you experience a glucose plunge. That’s about the time you start craving still more sugar.

To stop this cycle:
■ Eat low-glycemic, high-fiber carbohydrates such as beans, whole grains, vegetables, and so on. One study found that doing nothing more than eating regular, slow-digesting oatmeal instead of the instant kind caused participants to snack about 35 percent less throughout the day.
■ Eat more protein. This controls your hunger and improves the ability of insulin to remove sugar from the blood, causing less precipitous spikes and falls.
■ Eat enough and eat often. As long as you’re eating healthy foods, frequent meals stabilize blood sugar (and insulin) and reduce out-of-control cravings.

Avoid Addictive Foods

Just about everyone who struggles with their weight has a few “problem foods.” By this I mean snacks or treats that are so seductive and tantalizing that giving them up would take almost superhuman strength.

One of nature’s ironies is that these foods are never good for you. They’re things like crackers and chips. Greasy fastfood burgers and fries. Wedges of cheese. Chocolate and ice cream. The specific foods hardly matter; they’re different for everyone. But we all know which ones are a problem for us individually—and being free from the spell they cast over us would sure help us budge those stubborn pounds.

Why don’t we just quit eating them? For the same reason that smokers have such a hard time quitting or drug addicts keep going back for more. The truth is, certain foods affect the brain the same way heroin and nicotine do. They produce neurochemical changes that are addictive. That’s why willpower alone is never enough to erase their power over us —and why so many people say things like, “I know I have to quit eating [fill in the blank], but I just can’t.”

In his fascinating book Breaking the Food Seduction, Neal Barnard, M.D., reports on a study in which a group of chocoholics was given a drug called naloxone, which prevents narcotics from affecting the brain. After taking the drug, the volunteers were offered a tray filled with M&M’s and other chocolate snacks. Normally, these chocolate-cravers would have pounced on the candy. But after taking the drug, they had no interest. Why? Because chocolate affects the same parts of the brain that are stimulated by opioids such as heroin.

Chocolate isn’t the only food with addictive qualities. A number of other foods, including cheese, have also been found to stimulate opioid receptors. Some foods—mainly sugar and refined carbohydrates—cause alternating surges and drops in glucose (blood sugar) that stimulate appetite and food cravings.

Escape the Salt Mine!

By now most of us know that a high-salt diet is a major risk factor for hypertension, stroke, and heart attack. And it increases your weight. The body has a mechanism for keeping the salt level in the blood and tissues constant. If you eat a lot of salt, the body dilutes the blood and tissue fluids by retaining more water. But did you realize that the average American consumes twenty to thirty times more salt than his or her body needs? And that’s if you never pick up the salt shaker.

Nearly 80 percent of our daily salt intake comes from hidden sources like prepared foods, including fast food. Consider the “healthy” McDonald’s McVeggie sandwich. It contains 1,200 milligrams of salt, 80 percent of the upper recommended daily limit. McDonald’s is hardly alone. You can easily get a day’s worth of salt (or more) in a single meal at virtually any restaurant chain. It’s almost impossible to avoid salt when you eat out.

You can help lower your salt intake by choosing fish instead of a burger or chicken. For example, a McDonald’s filet of fish has 640 mg. of sodium versus 1,140 mg for a Double Cheeseburger and 1,210 mg for a Premium Grilled Chicken Classic. A baked potato (one of nature’s best sources of heart-healthy potassium) is much better for you than french fries. More realistically, since most restaurant food is awash in salt, you should plan on cutting back on processed, packaged, and other salt-rich foods when you’re eating at home, where you can control the ingredients. If you are salt-sensitive or have blood pressure problems, a good general rule for healthy eating is this: If you eat fast food today, don’t eat any food that’s packaged in a can or box tomorrow.

How Hungry Are You Really?

While a few of the fast food chains have cut back on their portions, “supersize” still sells in America. McDonald’s current Quarter Pounder, the original supersize burger, seems almost dainty today at a mere 700 calories. By contrast, the Double Whopper at Burger King approaches 1,000 calories. That’s half the calories the average person needs for an entire day!

Before you order: Ask yourself if your appetite really demands that much chow. A little forethought and knowledge will really help.Consider this:

■ The McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with cheese, a 16-ounce soda, and an order of large fries contain 1,166 calories.
■ The McDonald’s regular hamburger with small fries and a 16-ounce club soda weighs in at 481 calories.

If you did nothing else in your weight-loss efforts but switch to the second, smaller meal, you’d save over 3,400 calories a week. With this one simple change, you’d lose one pound a week! That’s 50 pounds a year! How would you like to lose 50 pounds without giving up fast food? Keep reading to see how.

Fear the Fries

Without a doubt, fast-food french fries pose the worst danger to your weight and health. Nearly everyone loves them—even people who aren’t fast-food junkies. Yet french fries are often soaked with trans fats, chemically altered oils that are an even greater risk for heart disease than saturated fats like butter and lard. French fries are also high in acrylamide, a chemical that forms in starchy foods like potatoes when they’re cooked in very hot fat and is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. And we haven’t even talked about the excessive salt sprinkled on them.

What should you do? No one wants the food police ordering them to hand over their fries. But you don’t want to keel over from a stroke or heart attack either, do you? So try this for compromise. If you have an irresistible craving for fries, order the small size and eat them s-l-o-w-l-y. Like one at a time. Enjoy every bite . . . and leave a few for a friend. Feeling better? Good. Because, in all honesty, you’ve reached your fry limit. This is one fast food you can’t have every week if you want to lose weight—or keep your blood fats in the healthy zone. Besides the deadly trans fats and cancer-causing acrylamide, french fries are loaded with calories. A typical small order packs between 200 and 300 of them. You’d have to walk between two and three miles to burn them off—and even then your arteries would still be stuck with the extra-fatty load.

Go for the smaller sips

At most fast-food chains, it doesn’t seem to make economic sense to get the smaller drinks, because the bigger sizes cost just a few cents more. Marketers plan it this way to encourage you to supersize your food and drinks. But the calorie difference can be significant. A large, 32-ounce cola contains about 310 calories. If you switch to the 16-ounce size instead, you’ll reduce the number of calories by half. (Remember: To lose a pound a week—or 50 pounds a year—you only need to reduce your daily calorie intake by 500 calories. This one painless switch gets you one-third of the way there!) Even better: You can eliminate soda calories entirely by drinking water or seltzer with lemon. If you drop a 300-plus calorie soda from your diet five times a week, you’ll lose nearly a half a pound a week. Or you won’t gain it. If you must have an occasional soda, dilute it with seltzer or soda water and you’ll save a bunch of calories.

Why Soft Drinks Are So Fattening

Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the North American diet, accounting for about 7 percent of our daily calories. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, teenagers get 13 percent of their calories from soft drinks. The average American drinks upward of 50 gallons of soft drinks annually!

Apart from their water content, soft drinks are mainly refined sugar. Teens suck down the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of refined sugar daily in sodas. That’s about the top end of the carbohydrate limit that experts recommend for all foods combined in a day!

Soft drinks have been named as one of the leading causes of overweight and obesity—along with Type 2 diabetes and other weight-related illnesses. They contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is toxic to the body, in particular the liver. HFCS also causes profound fat accumulation and weight gain. This inexpensive sweetener is dumped into soft drinks and is added to literally thousands of foods, from cookies and jams to supersized muffins.

It’s not merely the extra calories that make it such a nutritional nightmare. There’s evidence that high-fructose corn syrup acts differently in the body than regular sugar and may increase the risk of serious diseases. HFCS also causes a rise in triglycerides, the blood fats that have been linked to heart disease. Animal studies indicate that a high-fructose diet can trigger insulin resistance and excess levels of insulin. Even without these dangers, the extra calories alone are a good enough reason to avoid it.

In 1970, the average adult ate about half a pound of HFCS a year. Now that’s risen to about 70 pounds! Kids—with smaller bodies and a big thirst for sweets—chug down even more. It’s not only the sugar that makes sodas a problem, but also what they replace in kids’ diets. Children used to drink a lot more milk than soda. In the mid-1990s, the balance turned and children were drinking twice as much soda as milk. At the same time, they began getting lower amounts of vitamins and minerals in their diet.

Want to lose weight without trying? Give up (or cut back) the soft drinks. At 140 calories per 12-ounce serving, you could easily lose half a pound a week (or more) by simply switching to water, ice tea, or carbonated seltzer from the soft drink fountain with just a dash of Sprite, 7-Up, or lemonade added for flavor. Here are some other tips:

■ Read food labels and limit your consumption of any beverages or foods that list HFCS as one of the first three or four ingredients.
■ Since corn syrup is the main ingredient in sodas, cutting back on them will make losing weight much easier. Try to substitute seltzer or sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon every once in a while (or more often, if you can).
■ Go for smaller drink sizes. Those Big Gulp cups are belly-busters—and a sure path to diabetes. If you must have bigger sized drinks, fill a Big Gulp cup halfway with club soda or seltzer from the soda fountain and the other half with your favorite soft drink. You’ll be cutting your calories by 50 percent.

Take smaller portions

Forget those hard-to-remember rules about portion sizes. They don’t work, because everyone requires different amounts of food. However, taking a little less than you think you want generally works. Studies show that people typically overestimate the amount of food they need—but once it’s on their plate they eat it, even if they’ve already had enough.

Eat slowly—and mindfully

A lot of the calories we consume are “mindless” calories. These are the result of automatic, hand-to-mouth feeding when we’re occupied with other things, like snacking in front of the TV or wolfing down calories at a bar. Eating on the run—when your stomach has no time to catch up with your brain—almost guarantees that you’ll take in more calories than you would if you sat down and really enjoyed your food.

Americans gobble their meals far more quickly than people in France, Italy, or other Mediterranean countries. Rapid eating is a sure-fire way to take in excess calories. Here’s why: once your stomach’s stretch receptors sense that it is close to being full, they send a signal to your brain to stop eating. Unfortunately, this signal can take as long as twenty minutes to get there. So people who eat quickly tend to consume a lot of extra calories before their brains get the message. Here’s how to avoid this:

1. Keep your hunger under control by eating frequently, say every two or three hours. This will prevent you from becoming so famished that you practically inhale your food when it’s set in front of you.

2. Take smaller bites and chew slowly. Appreciate the aroma, texture, and flavors, rather than gulping down your food.

3. Eat at the table, not at the kitchen counter. This will help you relax, slow down, and appreciate the food’s flavors and aromas.

4. Get in the habit of putting smaller amounts of food on your plate and on your fork. Don’t overload, either.

5. Set down your fork between bites. Pick it up again after you’ve chewed and swallowed your food. Americans have a habit of filling their fork for a second bite before they’ve finished the first. Food-in-hand quickly becomes food-inmouth.

Get enough good fat

Many so-called experts advise you to reduce the fat in your diet. But as you’ll see in the next chapter, between 25 and 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat—yet always in the form of fish, nuts, olive oil, or other sources of healthful fats. Adequate amounts of fat cause your metabolism to operate more efficiently, burning calories instead of storing them. As a bonus, it also promotes the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin K, and coenzyme Q

Don’t depend on “white” carbohydrates

This means white rice, pasta, white bread, and other starchy foods. There’s nothing wrong with eating these foods on occasion. And I’m not suggesting you peel the white bun off a burger and toss it in the trash, but white carbohydrates raise your blood sugar almost as fast as pure sugar does. After this initial spike, massive amounts of insulin are released into the bloodstream to quickly move the blood sugar (glucose) into your muscles, your liver, and your brain. Once the blood sugar is removed, you not only feel hungry again but will crave more carbohydrates. Additionally, refined white carbs encourage your metabolism to turn excess calories into fat and store them in your fat cells. Eating these foods in the evening when insulin is higher almost guarantees weight gain.

If you find that your energy consistently dips after eating, or you frequently become sleepy, it’s usually because you’ve had too many of this type of carbs. To lose weight and have a steady supply of energy (instead of the roller-coaster kind), eat more unrefined foods such as brown rice, beans, legumes, whole grains, and vegetables. (Sorry, french fries don’t count.)

Eat lean protein with every meal

Protein curbs hunger more effectively than fat or carbohydrates. If you want to test this yourself, have a bagel for breakfast, then clock how long it takes before you’re feeling hungry again. The next morning, eat that same bagel slathered with a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. You’ll see that this extra protein will keep you full for at least an additional two hours.

Try to eat at least 15 to 20 grams of protein with every meal—and more is even better. You’ll get that much from one egg or a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a Sonic burger for lunch, and one of Wendy’s Mandarin Chicken Salads for supper. When you find yourself hungry an hour or two after eating, it means you probably need to up the amount of protein in your meals.

Eat five times a day

Most people trying to lose weight don’t eat breakfast. Many skip lunch as well. So by 5 p.m. they’re ravenous and often consume more calories at dinner than they would if they ate three sensible meals a day. They’ve also thrown their bodies into fat-hoarding mode by eating a giant meal. Eating three meals a day and snacking in between controls your hunger and prevents your blood sugar levels from dipping too low, which makes you want to eat, eat, eat.

Dinner is the largest meal of the day for most Americans. Unfortunately, this works against weight loss. In laboratory studies, animals who consumed most of their calories at night gained more weight than those taking in an equal number of calories throughout the day. Reason? The body’s secretion of insulin peaks in the evening and extra insulin ensures that more of the calories you eat will be stored as fat. You’ll lose weight more easily if you eat more of your calories at breakfast and lunch and fewer at dinner.

Keep your pantry and fridge well stocked

Most weight-loss attempts fail because of poor planning. If your refrigerator and pantry lack a variety of healthful, lowcalorie foods, you’ll grab whatever is handy when you get hungry. If you buy chips, candy, ice cream, and other fattening treats when you shop, that’s what you’ll eat when your blood sugar dips and makes you hungry. So if you shop a little smarter, you’ll naturally eat the good stuff when you arrive home as hungry as a bear.

Dietary Fats: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As with carbohydrates, not all fats are bad, either. Dr. Sears correctly pointed out that some fats are actually essential for good health. It’s important to recognize a good fat and a bad one. The biggest public enemies in the fat world, according to Dr. Sears and most scientists today, are saturated fats and trans fats. Why are they so bad? For one thing, they cause inflammation in the body. But even worse, they cause the body to produce harmful compounds called eicosanoids, hormone-like substances that increase blood pressure and promote blood clotting (a prescription for stroke), and trigger inflammation in the arteries (a major cause of heart attack). To add insult to injury, eicosanoids make it difficult for the body to burn stored fat, promoting weight gain.

Unfortunately, many fast-food menu items contain massive amounts of saturated fat and trans fat. These fats not only pack twice the amount of calories as protein and carbs, but they also trigger an onslaught of free-radical molecules that damage the body’s cells and accelerate the aging process. That’s why it’s so important to think twice before you order—and learn how to eat healthier.

The good guys of the fat world are monounsaturated fats, which predominate in olive oil. They actually reduce inflammation and lower the risk of heart disease by not eliciting the insulin response and making it easier for your body to burn off its fat reserves. Whenever possible, you should substitute olive oil for any other fat or oil you are offered. One final point: you have to eat fat in order to lose it. Without sufficient fat intake, your metabolism can’t work properly. I’ll tell you more about these beneficial fats later on.

Is it really possible to lose weight by eating fat? Absolutely. In a landmark study conducted almost fifty years ago, people on a low-calorie diet, with 90 percent of the calories coming from fat, actually lost weight. When the same people switched to a diet consisting of the same number of calories coming from 90 percent carbohydrates, they failed to lose a pound. Just keep in mind that all fats, good or bad, have the same number of calories (9 per gram) so you never want to overdo it—especially at salad bars, where this is easy to do. In other words, don’t overdo it on the olive oil.

Carbo-mania

Like everyone else, we were eating less fat, but we were actually taking in more calories from the carbohydrates in these foods than if we had eaten the full-fat versions. So guess what became the next “problem” food group for overweight people? In the late 1980s, carbohydrates became the new dietary demon, ushering in a new era of low-carb eating. Led by Dr. Robert Atkins, America’s low-carb guru, our nation embarked on a diet craze that bordered on compulsion. Protein became the new weight-loss “miracle” food, and eating carbohydrate foods such as bread, pasta, white rice, grains, and sugar was tantamount to dietary mortal sin.

Dr. Atkins encouraged his followers to eat protein—and lots of it—at every meal. People were having eggs, bacon, and sausage for breakfast, while skipping the fruit, juice, toast, and breakfast cereals. Lunch was a bun-less hamburger, a hunk of cheese, and a tall glass of milk. Dinners consisted of steaks, chops (or both), and maybe a small side of broccoli or a salad with blue cheese or ranch dressing. Restaurants obliged by offering heaps of meat and cutting back on the potatoes.

Even though the medical community soundly criticized the diet as being dangerous to cardiovascular health because of its high saturated fat content (as well as encouraging bone loss and overburdening the kidneys with excessive protein), lowcarb eating spread like wildfire from coast to coast. Given permission to eat all the rich, savory meat and cheese they wanted as a way to lose weight, millions of people jumped on the bandwagon. The food industry wasted no time hopping on board too, creating entire lines of low-carb foods, many of which were endorsed by the suddenly wealthy Atkins corporation. The main attraction, of course, was that people were free to eat the once-forbidden fatty foods they’ve always loved. As one medical critic put it: “People always love to hear good news about their bad habits.”

In reality, high-protein, low-carb diets like Atkins’s actually do work—at least in the beginning. When the body runs out of stored carbohydrates, it begins burning fat for energy. It wasn’t unusual for folks on Atkins-type diets to lose 5, 10, even 20 pounds during the first month or so. Word quickly spread, and the popularity of the low-carb diet grew.

Unfortunately, this impressive weight loss didn’t continue; it invariably ceased within a few months. Doctors later discovered why. The Atkins diet forces the body into an abnormal state called ketosis, where potentially toxic ketones are created in the tissues. When the body creates ketones, they need to be eliminated, causing people on these diets to urinate a lot. This initial weight loss was little more than water. The body’s fat reserves were barely being touched.

Actually, just the opposite was occurring: body fat was increasing. That’s because eating excessive amounts of protein raises the amount of insulin in the bloodstream. And one of insulin’s jobs is to convert excess calories, whether they come from protein or carbohydrates, into body fat. When people finally saw the long-term effect that the various low-carb diets were producing, they dropped them like hot potatoes.

A study conducted by Tufts University Medical School found that 22 percent of people on either low-carb or low-fat diets abandoned them after two months. After a year, the dropout rate was 50 percent.

The Happy Medium

Around the time that the low-fat diet was being abandoned and the low-carb craze was taking off, a young scientist named Dr. Barry Sears developed a weight-loss approach that was very different from either of these extremes, called the Zone Diet. Dr. Sears argued that it was too simple-minded to blame either fats or carbohydrates for our weight woes. The real problem, he said, was the kind of fats and carbohydrates we were eating. He was one of the first to state that there are good and bad fats, as well as good and bad carbs.

I want to tip my hat to Dr. Barry Sears, whose pioneering research and scientific insights recognized the inherent flaws in both the low-fat fad and the low-carb craze early on. His groundbreaking book, The Zone, which describes one of the most sane, sensible, and balanced diets ever conceived, has helped countless thousands of people to lose weight and improve their health. His “40-30-30” dietary recommendation (that our diets should be about 40 percent low-glycemic-index carbohydrates, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fats) has stood the test of time and scientific scrutiny. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.

Carbohydrates are natural sugars that are present in just about all foods, with the exception of animal products, oils, and other fats. Sears described “good carbs” as carbohydrates in their whole, natural state. Examples are fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Because these foods are not refined (meaning their fiber content has not been reduced or removed), they are bulkier, contain fewer calories by volume, and are digested more slowly. Hence, the stomach becomes filled with a greater volume of food but fewer calories. Since this feeling of fullness lasts longer, it takes longer before you are hungry again. The result? You eat less frequently and therefore lose weight.

What’s Wrong about the Low-Fat Craze

The low-fat diet got started in the 1970s. Though this approach was never scientifically proven, it seemed to make sense. Since fat has twice as many calories as carbohydrates or protein, it seemed logical that consuming fatty foods—including fried foods, red meat, cheese, and other dairy products—was the fast lane to weight gain. Low-fat eating became the rage, and an entirely new category of reduced-fat foods filled supermarket shelves. We had no-fat cookies, fat-free ice creams, low-fat pastries, nonfat milk and cheeses, and on and on. Every food manufacturer was eager to capitalize on this new diet craze.

But a curious thing happened. After fifteen years of eating less fat, scientists discovered that Americans hadn’t slimmed down at all. In fact, we had grown progressively fatter. During the years when fat consumption was dropping, the weight of the average American adult increased by about 10 pounds. Why? Because Americans, believing that low-fat foods would help them lose weight, ate more of them. It wasn’t unusual in those days for an individual to consume an entire box of lowfat cookies in one sitting.

As a cardiologist, I bought into the low-fat theory too. Meats and other fat sources disappeared from our dining room table and our cupboards began to fill with low-fat “light” pasta meals and no-fat salad dressings. I even fed our Norwegian elkhound Charlie the same “healthy” food we were eating. Needless to say, while we loved the carbohydrate foods and snacks that filled our bellies, my wife and I were packing on the pounds—and so was our dog!

It’s What You Eat, Not How Much

We are genetically programmed to eat until the sensation of “fullness” sets in—a complex response involving blood sugar levels, brain chemicals, and other biological factors, aided by tiny “stretch receptors” in the stomach that signal the brain when its capacity has been reached. The human stomach is a pouch about the size of a clenched fist. Most people assume it to be larger, but normally it isn’t. However, the stomach will stretch in size if we continually cram it with food. When this happens, the stomach requires ever-increasing amounts of food to trigger the stretch receptors that signal fullness. But this overeating isn’t the main reason we become overweight, because it isn’t how much food we pack into our stomachs that causes the problem, but rather the kind of food. Calories, not the volume, are the real culprit. This is an important distinction, and understanding it is the single most important key to controlling your weight, or slimming down.

Ounce for ounce, modern processed foods contain far more calories than anything found in nature. They are loaded with extra fat, which contains more than twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates and protein. Many commercial foods also contain added sweeteners in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, a highly concentrated source of calories. We also eat loads of refined, calorie-dense carbohydrates such as breads, cookies, cakes, crackers, and candies, to name just a few of the popular foods that pack an enormous amount of calories into a few bites.

One of the most extreme examples of these calorie concentrated foods is what we have come to call fast food a greasy hamburger topped with cheese, slathered with mayonnaise-based sauce, and sandwiched between a big bread bun. This is a meal unto itself; but it is frequently served with a side of deep-fat-fried french fries and a soft drink that can contain the equivalent of 40 teaspoons of sugar.

By the time your stomach signals it is full from the physical volume of one of these calorie-intense meals, you could have easily consumed 1,200 calories or more. This is nearly twice as many calories as the body can put to immediate use, so the excess is converted into fat and stored away in your fat cells. Just one meal like this contains nearly all the calories needed by the average female, whose intake shouldn’t exceed 1,800 calories per day if she doesn’t want to gain weight.

Add to this a breakfast, a sit-down dinner, a few snacks, and another soft drink or two or three, and it’s easy to see the enormous impact that a simple fast-food lunch can have on your weight and, ultimately, your health.

So here we are, surrounded by an unprecedented abundance of food that is more concentrated in calories than anything humans have ever known. To make matters worse, we are conditioned to eat three meals a day. “Three squares a day” was a necessity back in the days when our forefathers were hardworking farm families. Back then, the average man and woman labored from sunrise to sunset—the equivalent of running ten miles a day—requiring as many as 5,000 calories a day.

You’re Genetically Programmed to Eat More and Eat Rich

Back in the early days of human development, our ancestors expended up to 1,500 calories or more per day in search of food. Often, the energy they spent in their daily quest exceeded the calories they found. Deficit eating was the rule of the day. Needless to say, there were no overweight or obese people. On those rare occasions when our ancestors happened upon a large supply of food, they gorged themselves until they couldn’t eat another bite. They did this for two reasons. First, they were ravenous with hunger. But more important, they instinctively knew they had to store as many calories as possible to get them through the lean days and weeks ahead. When the body misses a meal, it actually holds on to its fat reserves and burns calories at a slower-than-normal rate. This is why dieting isn’t a very successful way to lose weight—because eating less causes the body to hoard its fat.

Why am I telling you all this? I want you to understand that the primary reason we are so overweight today is not our supposed lack of willpower or self-discipline. Instead, it is genetic programming that has evolved the human body into a fat storage machine designed for survival. Let me explain.

Calories are a measure of the energy contained in our food. Our bodies are able to process only about 600 to 900 calories per meal. Anything above this amount is immediately converted into fat and stored in case we aren’t able to eat again anytime soon. When times are lean, our bodies naturally slow the rate at which those stored fat calories are burned, rationing them until we need a sudden burst of energy, say for running after (or away from) a wild animal.

This mechanism served humankind remarkably well during the prehistoric days of hunting and gathering, but today it’s an enemy within us when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight. In the industrialized parts of the world, every meal is a feast without the threat of famine. The result is that we store more and more energy in the form of body fat around our hips, thighs, bellies, necks, and jowls that we will never burn off unless we choose to be physically active.

In contrast to third world populations, people in developed countries are dying from the results of too much food. Over consumption of calories is causing a variety of degenerative diseases that are cutting years off our lives and making middle and old age uncomfortable, if not downright miserable.

Are You a Candidate for a Heart Attack?

There’s an easy way to tell. Once upon a time, doctors relied upon something called the body mass index (BMI) to determine who was at risk for heart disease. But these days, that’s old-school. Scientists have just discovered a method that’s more accurate—and much easier to calculate.

It’s called the waist-to-hip ratio. You simply measure your waist and divide it by the measurement of your hips. If the number you get is higher than 0.85 in women or 0.9 in men, you’re in the danger zone. The higher the waist-to-hip ratio,the higher your risk of heart attack. It’s as simple as that.

And what if you find yourself over the cutoff point? The best way to lower your risk of a heart attack is to lose weight.That’s what this book is all about.