LECTURE AT MUELLER COLLEGE
Good evening, My name is David Brown. I am a chiropractor right down the street from here.
Last November I tipped the scales at 215 lbs. I was buying size 40 waist pants because my 38’s were getting snug and I was into acceptance. I found that I needed to take a nap after lunch several times a week and my back hurt me most of the time.
My doctor wasn’t too excited with my blood work, he explained that my elevated cholesterol was probably due to my triglycerides being so high and suggested that I cut down foods that were high in fat, like cheese and butter.
I just ignored him because I know that I was eating a very good diet that was high in complex carbohydrates just like the ADA recommends in that food pyramid. I had some bad food habits but if I cut them out I’d be eating like a monk and anyway, his waistline was as big as mine.
Then one day my mother handed me a diet book to review for her. It had this corny title .. ENTER THE ZONE by Dr. Barry Sears. (HOLD UP BOOK). I went into immediate resistance .. My very first thought was “Oh no, not another fad diet book.” But for some reason I read it. And the darn thing has changed my life.
I made a small change in the balance of my food intake and within days I started to lose fat that I had been carrying around and complaining about for nearly 30 years. I’m now closing in on 35lbs less fat, I don’t feel tired anymore, my low back feels good, I’m doing aerobics twice a week.
My cholesterol/HDL ratio is down from 7.0 (high cardiac risk) to 3.6 (below the low range) and my triglycerides are the lowest my doctor has ever seen: They plummeted from a high of 238 to only 63! And cholesterol dropped 16% into the safe range.
Basically I have gone from a high cardiac risk to a low cardiac risk and I intend to stay that way.
Most people feel that they should loose some fat and need to go on a diet. In fact the statistics show that 75% of Americans are over their ideal weight and 20% are considered obese. (Hold up article)
How many here have tried a diet and found they couldn’t stay on it? (raise arm)
So what stops us from dieting?
*Diet food tastes bad.
*You get bored eating the same foods.
*You eat in fast food restaurants a lot.
*Can’t eat some of your favorite foods.
*Losing fat is slow so you don’t get rewarded with fast results.
*You have to be in the right mind set to diet.
*Fatty foods are bad to eat yet they taste the best.
*No snacking
( * = These are not a problem on Zone Diet)
?Easier if you are single and living alone
because you don’t have to cook for others or have bad food around.
?You can’t just grab and eat anything you see.
?You have to go grocery shopping more.
?It takes too much time to cook good meals.
?Bad foods are easier to cook.
?Dieting is a chore, it’s a job to focus on your food.
?Have to have family support.
( ? = These are questionable )
!You have to eat regularly.
(! = This is necessary on the Zone diet)
Can you think of any others...
(look at audience...)
It appears that changing eating habits is extremely difficult yet millions of people are on some kind of diet right now. Why are we trying to do the impossible? Is it for our health? Our vanity? Why?....
Why Change the way we eat?
*To lose fat and look better
*To get healthier
*To feel better
*To gain muscle
*To control your sweet tooth cravings
*The Doctor told you to lower your cholesterol
Can you think of any others?....
(Look at audience...)
But tonight lets look at one reason to decrease our body fat. And that is for better HEALTH .
Here are the deadly diseases of civilization: hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The common thread found with all of these diseases is EXCESS UPPER-BODY FAT.
The popular belief supported by the ADA, AHA, FDA, and most dietitians is that excess fat consumption leads to excess body fat. If you eat fat, you get fat. The fat that touches my lips goes to my hips. We have all been told to reduce our fat consumption in our diet to 15% of our daily calories and increase our grains and cereal, rice and pasta consumption to 70%.
(hold up cereal box with food pyramid)
But here is a paradox:
Americans have heeded the call to eat less fat. Food corporations have heeded the call to produce low fat/no fat foods for our consumption. We have succeeded in reducing per capita fat consumption over the past 10 years. And yet the deadly diseases of hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity have steadily risen over the same period. WHY?
The answer is INSULIN.
Now, I would like to ask you, how do you fatten cattle and other animals? You fatten cattle and other animals by feeding them lots and lots of low fat grains and cereals. So, how to you fatten the human animal? By feeding them lots and lots of low fat grains and cereals.
Could it be that it isn’t FAT that makes you FAT?
Could it be that good old carbohydrates make you FAT?
How can eating healthy grains and cereals cause these diseases of hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity?
Because the stomach is scared. It wants to survive. Our stomach is the same stomach that the cave people had. (Paleolythic)
The other reason is that the stomach can’t tell the difference between a 16 oz coca-cola and a plate full of spegetti The intestines convert all the carbohydrates into glucose and dump it into the bloodstream for our brain and muscles and organs to use. And any sugar left over is tucked away in the fat cells for that rainy day in the cave when the pickings are slim.
The stomach is afraid that this is the last meal it will have for a few days. It wants to save all the glucose it can for those long cold nights in the cave. So we developed a special hormone through evolutionary selection. A powerful hormone that sweeps the precious glucose out of the blood and stores it safely away in the cells. That hormone is INSULIN.
But we don’t live in caves anymore. We have refrigerators. We have cars to take us to supermarkets so we can fill those refrigerators. And we have insulin ... an extremely efficient storage hormone.
This is a deadly combination because we also have access to the most abundant food supply in the world while at the same time we have an extremely efficient biochemistry to convert it all into fat.
Excess body fat is due to over eating. The old nutritional advice that excess calories leads to excess fat is true. But what is unknown is that excess fat is a result of excess insulin production. Too much insulin and the blood rapidly clears out all the glucose in it. We get hungry and eat more.
Excess insulin leads directly to hypoglycemia or low blood sugar which leads to cravings for sweets, feeling hunger and low energy levels. Hunger is what makes us over eat. If we could just control the amount of food we eat, we could stay thin but America is fat because it just can’t stop eating. It’s not a matter of controlling how much FAT is on our plate, it is a matter of controlling how much INSULIN is in our blood.
To control insulin is to control the desire to over-eat.
But high insulin levels cause more than excess fat on our bodies. It is responsible for something more deadly than that.
(DRAW ICEBERGS)
(Four peaks labeled HEART DISEASE, HYPERTENSION, DIABETES, OBESITY)
Our well meaning doctors and researchers have been battling these diseases with every medical miracle that they can muster.
For Hypertension they use beta blockers and diuretics.
For Heart disease they slice open the chest and perform 300,000 coronary bypasses last year alone.
For High cholesterol we use clofibrate but research has shown that although cholesterol blocking drugs reduced death from heart disease, an equal number of patients died of violent deaths, like suicide and homicide. (Hold up Death Curve Charts)
For Diabetes we inject more insulin.
And for Obesity we are put on fen/phen and starvation diets that lead to a yo-yo effect where we gain all the fat back and more.
What is under all of these icebergs? What is the root cause of these modern diseases?
(Write on the bottom of the icebergs) “HYPERINSULINEMIA”
Basically what you eat causes a hormonal reaction in your cells between Glucagon and Insulin. The pancreas produces these two hormones which are opposites. If one is elevated, the other is suppressed. Carbohydrate intake stimulates insulin production while protein intake stimulates Glucagon production and also effects fat metabolsim.
(Hold up and read “The Roles of Insulin and Glucagon)
(Hold up “Eicosanoids ar Controlled By Dietary Fat”)
When you metabolize fat in the presence of Glucagon, you produce more P1 hormones (Positive effects or “good” hormones). When you burn Fat in the presence of insulin you produce more P2 hormones (Negative effects) or “bad” hormones. (metabolites of Aracodonic Acid)
(Hold up Eicosanoid Hormone Chart)
Prostacyclins act as vasodilators or vasoconstrictors. These effect all arterioles and can restrict or enhance the flow of blood to the heart muscles.
Prostaglandins a similar but are more involved with controlling inflammation and pain.
Thromboxanes activate platelet aggregation and can cause blood clots that lead to heart attacks.
Leukotrienes Dilate airways or cause bronchial constriction. They play a role in the allergic response and asthma.
Lipoxins are involved in the inflammatory response.
And hydroxylated fatty acids regulate immune function.
This production of positive hormones is The Zone Effect. It is the goal of the diet, the reason for eating. It turns out that it is strongly controlled by the balance of protein foods to carbohydrate foods at each meal. So strongly, in fact, that food alone is probably more powerful than any drug in controlling insulin levels, glucagon levels and shifting the activated fatty acids into favorable metabolic pathways.
This Zone balance shifts the production of positive hormones to the side of anti-inflammation, anti-thrombosis, vasodilation and bronco dilation but furthermore there is an experience of increased physical endurance. This is the reason why being in the Zone has had a powerful impact on athletes and will play a major role in the Olympic Games this summer.
(Hold up Protein to Carbohydrate Ratio chart)
The portal to the Zone effect depends upon eating combinations of Protein and Carbohydrates that come as close to the center of the Zone as possible. Depending on the person’s sensitivity to insulin, a “slop factor” allows most people to “eyeball” the quantities after a little practice.
Some of the people in my Zone Group consider the diet to be a “thinking person’s diet” because sometimes you have to do some additions and multiplications. if you know that, for example, 7 goes into 28 four times you will find this part easy.
What leads to HYPERINSULINEMIA Eating too much sugar. But what is
sugar? A carbohydrate.
So eating too many carbohydrates leads to hyperinsulinemia.
Here is the process:
Eat carbos
blood sugar rises rapidly
pancreas reacts by releasing large amounts of insulin
The insulin clears the blood of the extra sugar - it is a storage
hormone.
Blood sugar level over shoots to the low side
The brain gets sleepy and tells the body to shut down for a nap
The stomach sends out pangs of hunger
You go in search of more carbohydrates (read cookies).
Over years and years of over eating pure carbohydrates our cells are in constant stimulation and eventually become resistant to the insulin and the pancreas has to put out even more insulin than it did before to produce the same action that it used to get. This is the beginning of a condition called “Adult Onset Diabetes”. Another more accurate way of looking at this is to call it “Insulin Resistance”. There are 14 Million Diabetics in USA and 90% are Adult onset, the type that responds well to dietary control.
It is the long term over-eating of carbohydrates that leads to insulin resistance, excess insulin blood levels and the diseases that are associated with excess insulin; heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
How do you control the release of insulin? By slowing the digestion of the carbohydrates we eat. This is actually a simple and effective method and this is where the Zone Diet comes in.
The Zone plan is a lot like your grandmother. Remember she used to say “You should always eat regular, balanced meals”? She was right. But now we have medical and practical evidence that proves she was right.
(Hold up Diet Composition circle graphs)
Here is why balanced meals are helpful. When you eat carbohydrates along with protein and fat, the extra foods slow down the carbohydrates from leaving the stomach too fast and alarming the pancreas. Also protein foods have stimulate the production of Glucagon which has the opposite effect of insulin. Fat in the diet is slow to be converted into glucose in the blood so you stay satisfied longer between meals so you are not tempted to snack on carbohydrates. Also fat and protein do not stimulate insulin release.
(show “How Food Affects Insulin and Glucagon”)
How ironic this all is. Fat does not turn into fat. Those healthy grains and pastas at the base of the food pyramid turns out to be bad for our health. And it turns out that it may be more healthy to eat those fat laden meats than a plate of healthy rice and beans. Good heavens, how can this be?
How about this? Eat a Mars bar and two fat free cheese sticks and you have a better balance of food that will produce healthy hormones for 3 hours than if you had the same amount of calories of spegetti with marinara sauce. You will probably find that you won’t be hungry in two hours either.
The reason is because the stomach is Politically incorrect (as Dr. Sears puts it). It can not tell the difference between one carbohydrate and another. They all turn into glucose and that’s that. Now actually some carbohydrate foods enter the blood stream quicker than others and so are said to be less desirable than others but you can go a long way to counteracting the stimulating effect of any carbohydrate on insulin by adding a balancing amount of protein and fat (in this case, the cheese sticks).
I know that I am the only parent on my block who says to my little girl “Sure honey, you can have that slurpie ..... but be sure to eat a cheese stick with it.”
OK. Now I’ll just finish up here with a quick list of the mechanics of the diet and then I’ll answer some questions if I can.
The diet may be considered to be a reduced carbohydrate diet. But actually it is more accurate to say “a moderate carbohydrate diet” because you are eating more than you need to provide quick energy and keep you out of ketosis.
The diet is considered to be a protein adequate diet- not high protein. In fact, the entire diet is based on the exact amount of protein your body needs daily. All other quantities of food are based on this initial calculation to insure that your muscles, bones and blood receive enough protein to grow and repair.
The diet is considered to be a low fat diet although based on what the dietitians have been telling us, it feels like a liberal fat diet because fat is required and sought after instead of feared and avoided.
The diet is based on consistency and balance and never gluttony or lopsidedness. You never think of eating only cabbage soup all day or other strange, fad diets. The meals are spread as evenly as possible through out the day: Breakfast, Lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, bedtime snack. This is the key to smoothing out the insulin spikes.
Each meal ALWAYS consists of all three macro nutrients in as close to the same ratio as possible. For every 7 grams of protein you eat, combine it with 9 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fat. This is the second key to smoothing out the insulin spikes.
Certain foods are considered desirable over other foods. For example, olive oil is superior to corn oil. Avocados are superior to cream cheese. Green beans are superior to carrots. Fish and turkey are superior to beef or liver. These foods can still be eaten but with awareness and they can be adjusted for by altering one of the other foods in combination. (Remember the Mars bar and cheese sticks).
Meals have a limit to their size both as to too much and too little. Too much at one time will stimulate insulin and too little will not be enough to create the Zone that enhance the production of positive hormones. The positive hormones are what make you feel good and shift your fat burning mechanisms into high gear.
So if you want to feel better, stronger, and be free of the risk of heart attack or diabetes, this is the way to eat.
Oh , and by the way... losing excess body fat ...That’s also a byproduct of being in the Zone too.