YOU on a Diet - Chapter 12

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A Portion of the Plan Many experts will tell you that the key to successful dieting comes from two works: portion control. That makes sense, but not in the way you might think. We emphasize that you eat healthy portions of food (about fistful per serving) and use nine-inch plates not to restrict your calories per se but to slow you down. If you can slow your calorie intake, you'll give your brain a chance to keep up-and activate the right amounts of leptin and ghrelin to keep you satisfied. So, start with the right servings of food, take your time eating them, then gauge your levels of satiety (using our fullness gauge on page 179) If you're still hungry, then have another serving (the size of a fist, not the size of a head) of a good-for-you food. Fill 'Er Up About twenty minutes before dinner, eat 1/2 ounce of walnuts with 1 cup of

your favorite YOU Soup. Or drink at least 8 ounces of water with 1 tablespoon of psyllium. Either will help fill you up so you won't want or need to eat as much to feel satisfied. The YOU Diet Crib Sheet Meal Strategy Three main meals plus snacks, so you're never hungry. No eating within three hours of bedtime. Consider dessert an every-other- day treat. Waist Foods (Eat 'em) Whole-grain carbohydrates; fiber; nuts, which include healthy monounsaturated and polyunsat- rated fats; protein such as lean meats (two-legged preferred) and fish. Waste Foods (Trash 'em) Added sugars, simple carbo- hydrates, fructose as in high- fructose corn syrup, trans fat, saturated

fat, non-whole-grain flour, and enriched and/or bleached flour. In a Hunger Emergency Apples, almonds,

walnuts, edamame (soybeans), sugarless gum, water, cut-up veggies, low- fat yogurt and cottage cheese, or premade YOU soup. Substitution Foods In any recipe or meal plan, you

can replace any fruit or vegetable with another to make recipes to your taste. Meal Journal You can keep track of what you eat at www.mychoicescount. com. Supplements Once a day, take a multivitamin as an insurance policy against less- than-perfect food choices. (It's even better if you split the pill and take half twice a day.) Through food and the multivitamin, you need to get a total of 1,200 milli-

grams of calcium, 600 IU of vitamin D, 400 milligrams of magnesium, and 300 milligrams of pantothenic acid (vitamin B5). Also, take 2 grams of distilled fish oil for omega- 3 fatty acids and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon daily. And make sure

you get 10 tablespoons of cooked tomato sauce weekly. The Team Don't be afraid to enlist advice from qualified nutritionists and trainers. But one of your most important team members

will be your support partner-someone who can encour- age you and be a deterrent to

failure, too (you won't want to report to that person a four-doughnut binge. The YOU-Turn It's OK to make mistakes. The important thing is to catch them, recognize them, control them, and allow yourself toe opportunity to get back on the right (waist manage- ment)

road. Best Blade Plans When following any eating plan, what you do and don't do with your fork and spoon are your most erucial actions. But don't underestimate the power of a great knife-to make what you do in the kitchen as enjoyable as what you do at the table. Overpay to buy the best eight-inch chef's knife (without serrations) you can afford. And follow these rules, to avoid leaving a finger in the guacamole: Always keep the pointed edge on the cutting board; just lever from the point and cut sliding away from you under the back end. Always cut away from yourself. As you're lining up foods with your noncutting hand, tuck the tops of your

fingers under the bottoms, so you let your knuckles, not your whole fingers, be the guide. See www.realage. com for more cutting instructions. Be Prepared Here's a waist management fact: Bad foods aren't bad just because of the ingredients they contain but also because many of them are fast and easy, which are the exact traits that can get you into a whole lot of trouble. The key to successful dietary contingency plans is to have premade foods ready for those times when you've been conditioned to reach for bags of sugar-containing waist killers. Instead, choose your favorites of these options to make once a week so you'll have something to grab when you need it. Cut-up Vegetables: Your choice. Cut them, bag them, eat them. Nothing wrong with baby

carrots, grape tomatoes, and broccoli florets, but if you prefer jicama, sugar snaps, and orange pepper strips, go for it. Sauteed Vegetables: Your choice. Saute them in olive oil with chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, or a good dash of tumeric. Refrigerate and sue for side dishes or hot (microwaved) snacks. Soups: Make one or more of our filling YOU Soups (see recipes) once a week and store them in serving-size cups in the refrigerator. Eat 1 cup as a predinner appetizer, to take the edge off, or have a cup of soup as a snack. Steel-cut Oats: If you're worried about time, cook up one week's worth of oats per directions and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. For some people, that may seem as appetizing as a slice of baked wrapping paper, but reheated oats actually taste

great. Emergency Foods: Every house needs fire-extinguisher foods-good-for- you foods that will put out three-alarm starvation fires. Our list of foods that you can reach for when you're hungry include any of the above foods saw well as a handful of almonds, peanuts, or walnuts; bags of store-bought, prechopped fruits and veggies; dried fruit (apricots, cranberries) ; and edamame (soybeans-look for microwave bags in the frozen food section). In a real pinch? Pop one of those mint breath strips-they can help turn off appetite by making food less appetizing. Dish List Nowadays, foods have more labels than a clothes rack, ingredient names look like the names of Greek goddesses, and cunning marketing lingo makes sugar-drenched cereal appear as if it's healthier than a bundle of prunes. And that's just not the case.

Prince Nurtrition sounds great until you read the label and find no nutrient other than sugar and saturated fat neatly disguised. The trick to navigating through store aisles is not only to shop for value and whisk the kids past the Admiral Nutrition candy bars and potato chips but also to shop for content-for ingredients and nutrients that allow you to eat smart, not diet hard. Here is our guide for ingredient inspection: Look for less. Generally, fewer labels and ingredients equal better foods. Natural foods that come directly from the ground generally don't require labels. (Ever see a marshmallow bush?) That's why any produce is generally OK for you. (One caveat: Make sure it has a great feel, a healthy smell and has not been waxed; waxed versions are like a Barbie doll-look great, but not much substance. These versions often have less taste and less

nutrition. Turn the package. Ignore what's on the front of the package and go directly to the food label and ingredient list. "Fat-free!" or "zero trans fats" may sound like a dieter's dream, but fat-free foods (especially salad dressing) can be loaded with more sugar than a baker's bowl. Another causation: Just because something "contains whole grains" doesn't mean it's made entirely or even mostly with whole grains (more on deciphering "whole grains on page 257). Bottom line: The front of the package isn't even as revealing as the outside of a new car. It might look seductive, but you really have to check what's under the hood to see what it's all about. The ingredient list is where all the answers are. Beware of the imposters. Many foods contain cheat words in their ingredient list-the words

don't clearly scream "imminent heart attack!" as some other words may, but they indicate danger all the same. Some notable clues to watch for: For sugar: Dextrose, sucrose, or anything with "ose." And mannitol, or anything with "ol." Those are alcohols that are quickly converted to sugar. Stay away from foods that have more than 4 grams of sugar in them. Even natural sugars such as maple syrup and molasses are sugar, so you should also keep them to fewer than 4 grams per serving, unless it's pure fruit (we make that exception because fruit has so many nutrients). For fats: Besides saturated fats (fewer than 4 grams per serving) and trans fats (avoid them all), you should avoid foods with other fat code works, like partially hydrogenated, palm, and coconut oil. Relax. We don't want you

to spend more time in the store than you did in freshman economics class. If you haven't inspected labels before, it'll just take some time before you know exactly how to ID the nutritional heroes and the imposters. We also don't want you to be paranoid shopper or paranoid about eating-some dangerous-sounding foods such as walnuts or real peanut butter or even honey (fewer than 4 grams per serving here) are OK in moderation. The Fourteen-Day YOU Diet During these two weeks, we'll give you the meal guidelines, the tools, the strategies, the tricks, the plan, and the help you need to change your diet into a live-it. By the end of the fourteen days, you'll have developed eating patterns and behavioral habits that will help get you on your way to changing your body from the inside out. Here we outline the seven-day plan and strategies for making smart decisions about food and

eating. In week two, you'll repeat the first week, making appropriate food substitutions where you wish. This is were you also want to get the book due to the fact that I trying to keep from completely plagiarizing Dr Oz and Dr Roisen. Work smart, not hard. Week one puts you into motion and allows your body to adjust. Week two gives you seven days to practice the plan, feel what it's like to eat well, and figure out what to do if you don't. Research shows that it takes two weeks of repetitive action to make the action become automated, so now you can take the plan and tweak it. Or repeat it. Or try new dinner recipes that you can find on our website, www.realage. com. Make adjustments based on our nutritional guidelines as well as your tastes. This Isn't

the end of your waist-management plan; it's just the beginning. Somewhere between the second and third week of the program, data shows that the behavior changes that are crucial for sustained waist loss will start to become ingrained in you. About the same time, your newly detoxified body will become more sensitive to poor-quality foods. Instead, as you adopt the YOU: On a Diet habits, you will crave the foods similar to the ones we list. Your liver will enjoy not having to manage toxic elements and will pass along the love to the rest of the body by reducing inflammation. All the data we have on folks who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off points to using a steady, resilient program. You can make mistakes but still bounce back if you keep moving and keep making calm YOU-Turns without a lot of emotional baggage. They types of foods we advocate will always come to your rescue even if you make a few wrong

turns, anyway. When you reach a plateau-which you will-you will have three choices: drop another few calories from your daily intake, increase your physical activity, or see a physician about extra help if appropriate. But remember that the purpose of losing weight is to gain health, so when you reach your playing weight and your body is loving the feeling, just stay the course. Sample Eating Schedule Above, we've given you all the tools you need to reprogram your kitchen, your body, and the biochemicals that will keep you from going hungry and that will keep you from storing fat. Below, we put it all into action by giving you a sample week showing how the YOU Diet works. Want a plan that requires absolutely no thought at all? Then follow this schedule and shopping list on page 252. Note: Because we all have higher or lower caloric needs

(depending on genes, metabolic rates, activity levels, and other factors), we do not dictate serving sizes here. Your goal is to eat the amount that makes you satisfied-that' s a level three or four on our satiety scale (see page 179), not feeling more bloated than a puffer fish. For some people, portions may be a little more than a traditional serving size. Fore others, they may be a little less. Again, please go buy the book to get this information. Your Shopping List The first week, you'll be buying more stuff than all other weeks, as you're gathering the building blocks for your new fridge and pantry (including spices, oils, and other long term ingredients) . We believe in working form the inside of the store out to that heat and bacteria have less time to grow on your produce before you get it home. This list includes both your staples and your

ingredients for the recipes on our seven-day sample schedule (see page 250 for two people). You can make weekly or biweekly shopping lists for any of the recipes and snack choices and for any number of people (one to twenty-four) at www.realage. com. I'm not going to post the shopping list. The Whole Truth It used to be that the only thing with a hole in it was a doughnut. Now, it seems, everything is touted as "whole" this or that. Whole grains, whole wheat, a whole lot of health: It's the latest in food marketing. Why? Because food manufacturers know that whole grains are, in fact, one to the healthiest ingredients you can eat. Surely, more and more foods are made with them, but that doesn't mean all are created equal. Why? Because

those marketing works don't always present an accurate picture of what's inside the food. To decipher the whole mess, you first need to understand what exactly whole grains are and how they work. "Whole grain" means the grain still has all three of its original elements: the outer shell or bran, which contains fiber and B vitamins; The germ, which contains phytochemicals and B vitamins, and the endosperm (what a name), which contains carbohydrates and protein. The key is that they're "whole" and not "refined," by stripping away the bran and germ, which leaves you eating only the aptly named endosperm. Instead, the whole grain should be left intact-meaning you get more fiver and more micronutrients that help protect against disease. These whole grans are also healthy for you because they're absorbed more slowly than enriched or bleached flour and thus raise glucose and insulin levels less-keeping you fuller longer and slowing

your digestion. But not all foods that tout whole grains or whole wheat are the healthiest form. Some fake-out words you should watch out for: Made with: It may have a drop of whole grains, but unless it's made entirely with them, you won't reap all the potential benefits. 100 Percent Wheat: This means it could have some or a lot or no "whole" wheat. Multigrain: This tells you nothing about whether the grains are whole or refined. Even if you're getting 38 grains, that isn't much good if they are all refined. Whole Grain: If the label doesn't say "100 percent whole grain," it may have many blends. Bad words to see: enriched, bleached, unbleached, semolina, durum, and rice flour. Blends: "Whole grain blend" means it usually doesn't have much whole grain at all. Good Source: This means it has 8 grams of whole grains per serving or as little as 13.5 percent. Don't confuse whole grain with fiber; 8 grams of whole grain my have less than 1 gram of fiber. Excellent Source: This means it has 16 grams per serving or as little as 27 percent. Support Heart Health: Any food can say that it "supports" an organ. What you want to see on the label: "May reduce the risk of..." This means that the food has ingredients clinically shown to be effective in reducing the risk of, say heart disease or high cholesterol, depending on the food. To make sure you receive the health and dietary benefits of whole grains and wheat, the

labels should read "100 percent whole grain" or "100 percent whole wheat." Anything else means that the food is also make with the less-beneficial enriched or refined flour. Remember to avoid those with added sugars like high-fructose corn syrup or honey. The Perfect Eating Environment Research shows that your surroundings may play a role in determining how much you eat. Specifically, the more comfortable and relaxed you are, the more you lower your inhibitions. If you want to create the mood to keep you the fullest, make this your dining-room feng shui: Choose bright lights over soft lights. Choose a warm room temperature over cold. Choose conversation over music or TV, which can distract you into eating more. When You Need the Fast-Food Fix We understand how it is. Sometimes you need that absolute quickest

path from food to belly. While most fast-food options are more destructive than a 4 a. m. vandal, you can still make smart choices in the drive-through lane. Some things to remember: There are some main dishes that can be good for you, but you have to be careful. Some slight name variations can make the difference between causing your fat and keeping you flat. Avoid side dishes and desserts unless indicated below. They're all loaded with bad fats and simple sugars, and they often have more calories than the main dishes. Choose low-calorie dressing, not low-fat. Low fat dressings are steeped in HFCS, which has plenty of calories, and the fructose tricks your body into staying hungry. Don't eat breakfast at fast-food places. There are virtually no healthy options on any breakfast menu we could find. Restaurant Tricks Eating out can be a great experience-for

everyone except your gut. With Rushmore-sized portions and dietary disasters in every plate, basket, and spoonful, restaurants are dangerous places. While you should always follow our guidelines for good foods (the waist foods, not the waste foods, in our crib sheet), you should also know that most dietary mistakes are made within the first and last then minutes of any restaurant experience. Some times for bookending your meal the right way: Return the free bread and ask if you can have cut-up raw vegetables instead. (Do this four times in a three-week period, and we've found that most good restaurants remember the trick and automatically make that change every time they see you-if they see you at least once a week.) Order oil and vinegar in separate containers and on the side for salad dressing, and put a little on. (You have to do this; relying on the waitstaff or chef to do so gets you about 400 extra calories per

side salad.) Ask to replace the potato or rice with sauteed vegetables. If you're going to have dessert, order one for the table and have just a few bites. For a quick guide, use this chart to make smart eating-out choices. Ready-made Meals Sometimes it's easier to reach into the freezer than it is to pull out the pots, even when you do have drag-race-worthy recipes. That's OK. Plenty of ready-made choices are available for you to sub for one of your lunches or dinners, if that's easiest for you. You should still follow guidelines we've outlined (look at labels to avoid high levels of waist-busting ingredients, like more than 4 grams per serving of sugar or saturated fat and any trans fat). These are some of the ones we favor. Soups: Check sodium to make sure it's less than 400 milligrams per serving, and avoid soups with

noodles, since they may be cooked in saturated or trans fats. Dried: Healthy Valley and Fantastic Always Natural Canned: Eden Organic, Health Valley, Amy's Organic Soups, Muir Glen Organic, Wolfgang Puck Snacks: Low-calorie cheese: Horizon Organic part-skim mozzarella sticks and veggie singles Meals: Check to make sure a meal is low in trans and saturated fats. Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, Amy's Kitchen Factoid To ensure that a whole grain food has a slower absorption in your digestive system and thus lowers your sugar and insulin levels, eat a little fat with it-in the form of 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil with our bread. Alternatively, eat six walnuts, twelve almonds, or twenty peanuts about twenty minutes before you eat the whole

grain. Ok. This does it for all of the Chapters. All that is left is one more appendix to go through to complete the book.