The Coconut Diet: The Secret Ingredient for Effortless Weight Loss. Cherie Calbom

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      4 Eat a moderate amount of lean protein. Protein stimulates the release of glucagon, a hormone that mobilizes fat stores into energy, and it plays an important part in blood sugar stability. Choose naturally raised, organically fed animal products. Such animals yield healthier, leaner proteins. But eat protein moderately. Over consumption of protein can cause an increase in uric acid and taxes the kidneys.

      5 Exercise on a regular basis. Aerobic exercise and strength training help increase insulin sensitivity. See pg. for exercise recommendations.

      6 Drink green or herbal tea, avoid coffee, and drink at least 8 glasses of water each day.

      Now that you know which carbs are good and which ones are bad, you can make wise choices the rest of your life that will encourage healthy blood sugar balance. In the next chapter, you’ll learn the truth about fats and oils. If you were surprised by some of the information in this chapter, I think you’ll be amazed at how misinformed our culture has been about fats. Saturated fats have gotten a bad rap for no good reason. And, a lot of misinformation about these fats has been popularized in mainstream media. Chapter Three presents the lowdown on fats and oils. It is quite possible that your entire manner of preparing food will never be the same after you finish this section. Best of all, you’ll discover which fats make you fat and which ones help you trim your waistline in The Big Fat Misconception.

chapter 3

       the big fat misconception

      For decades we have been told to cut back on the fats in our diet if we want to maintain a healthy weight and prevent heart disease. Marketers of low-fat foods have championed this concept. But according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, the results have not been what we were promised. In 1999-2000, an estimated 30 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 years and older—that’s nearly 59 million people—were obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, and 64 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 years and older were either overweight or obese, defined as having a BMI of 25 or more.¹ (The BMI is a measuring system that determines obesity based on body-fat content rather than weight.) That accounts for almost two thirds of our adult population being classified as overweight. And heart disease is still the number one killer in the West.

      Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said, “We’ve seen virtually a doubling in the number of obese persons over the past two decades and this has profound health implications. Obesity increases a person’s risk for a number of serious conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and some types of cancer.”²

      Obviously, low-fat diets have not helped us lose weight. Isn’t it time to “stop the insanity” about fat. Fat is not the substance making most of us overweight. Not that overeating certain fats wouldn’t put weight on, but the major culprit for most people is refined carbohydrates—foods like sugar, potato chips, soda pop, pasta, pizza, breads, and other products made with refined grains. These types of foods are without doubt the major reason we are fat. And it’s no wonder! They are a big part of the typical Western diet.

      We’ve been told for years that we should avoid fat as much as possible. Some people have been on a torturous low-fat regimen, trying to avoid all fat in their diet. Now we are learning about the dangers of low-fat diets. Health professionals have had a chance to observe the results of years of eating low-fat and no-fat diets—results that have been very detrimental to our health. We need good fats, especially the essential fatty acids, to stay healthy. And we need a certain amount of fat in our diet to prevent overeating.

      We are also learning that the saturated fat scare has turned out to be—a “big fat lie!” Gary Taub wrote a startling article in the New York Times in 2002 titled “What If it Were All a Big Fat Lie!” In it he stated:

       The cause of obesity [is] precisely those refined carbohydrates at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid—the pasta, rice and bread—that we are told should be the staple of our healthy, low-fat diet, and then add on the sugar or corn syrup in the soft drinks, fruit juices, and sports drinks that we have taken to consuming in quantity if for no other reason than that they are fat free and so appear intrinsically healthy. While the low-fat-is-good-heatth dogma represents reality as we have come to know it, and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research trying to prove its worth, the low-carbohydrate message has been relegated to the realm of unscientific fantasy.

      Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus. Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. “Those data,” says Willett, “clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.”³

       Fats that Heal

      Fats have always been a part of human nutrition, until the late twentieth century that is, and they were even recommended in days of yore for treating serious medical conditions.

      Rex Russell, M.D. writes: “It was 1944, and World War II was roaring. A young mother was wasting away with an infection diagnosed as tuberculosis. Antibiotics were unavailable. Her doctor prescribed (1) isolation, (2) bed rest, (3) exercise (eventually) and (4) a diet high in fat. Surprising, but true! High-fat diets were often the recommended protocol by the medical profession during those years. Before you scoff, you might want to know that this lady recovered. She is my mother, and she has stayed on this diet through the years. Presently she is enjoying her greatgrandchildren.”⁴

      While the experts claimed, “fats are good,” prior to World War II, we have heard just the opposite in recent years. What actually constituted a “high-fat” diet prior to the late 1940s was mostly butter, cream, eggs, nuts, seeds, lard, and beef tallow. Just mentioning some of these fats make many people gasp today, but they made up the typical diet of yesteryear. Margarines, which were introduced in the 1860s, were butter substitutes made with animal fats such as lard and beef tallow or the saturated vegetable oils from coconut oil and palm oils, eventually with yellow dye added to make them look like butter.

      Today, saturated fats are considered by many people to be the worst fats one can consume. However, drastically reducing saturated fats from the modern diet has not solved our health problems. Statistics show that obesity rates are at an all-time high as is heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke. The low-fat advice is losing credibility. And, surprisingly, people on a high-fat diet using coconut oil are discovering that many of their ailments as well as excess weight are disappearing.

       I’ve been taking about 1 to 2 tablespoons of virgin coconut oil per day for about 4 months now. I definitely notice a difference in my energy. It’s steady through the day—no longer have the surges of ups and downs, especially that sleepy feeling after a meal.

       Marty

       I am 52 years old and I am keeping up with my visiting grandsons (6 and 8 years old) as if I am 30 something. I have lost 10 pounds in about five weeks and have 10 more to go. My dry eyes СКАЧАТЬ