Diet Science e Book

7/29/2019 Diet Science e Book

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eating2.com drinking2.com

Eat and Drink smartly to stay healthy

This ebook covers:

☞ Understand Low Carb and Low F

☞ Learn how to count calories with

Low Fat DietsWhat are calories and their effect on

your body?

☞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 advan-

tage?

☞ Defining Overweight and Obesity

Benchmarking Weight and Calories

charts.

“One in five adults in this country are obeseand it is causing more chronic illness even thansmoking.”

UK National Obesity Foru

Diet Science: Losing weight but not your social li

PDF ebook

http://www.eating2.com/








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Eating2.com •

Introduction

Dieting has been the hot topic for the past decade and will continueto 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 sug-

gests that the current interests are highly related to the increase in

health warnings on weight related diseases and obesity.

This book provides an insight into science behind modern diets and

suggest ways for you to devise your own dieting scheme. It does notcover 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.

The book is organised into 5 chapters, Dieting, Calorie, Food, Fat & Fat

Cells and the Atkin’s diet. We don’t favour the Atkin’s diet as such, the

coverage of is only to outline the major differences of high protein dietsto conventional low calories diet which is explained in the earlier chap-

ters.

Please note that the content in this book and/or website is for informa-

tional 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.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)You expend energy no matter what you’re doing, even when sleep-

ing. Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories you would burn if

you stayed in bed for a whole day. If you’ve noticed that every year, it

becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim, you’ve also

learned that your Basal Metabolic Rate decreases as you age. Likewise,

depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases yourBMR, a drawback to your intentions. However, a regular routine of car-

diovascular exercise can increase your BMR, improving your health and

fitness when your body’s ability to burn energy gradually slows down.

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

is around 1200.

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

Body Mass Index (BMI)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 be-

cause it is a way to determine your potential risk of developing obesity-

related diseases*. The higher your BMI is over 25, the greater the risk of developing these conditions.

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 per-

sons who are very muscular and it can underestimate body fat in per-sons who have lost muscle mass (e.g., many elderly). People with more

muscular builds may be classified as overweight according to BMI num-

bers even if they have a very healthy body fat percentage. A high BMI

from increased muscle alone is not associated with health risks.

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

OverweightOverweight 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.

ObesityObesity 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 adipos-

ity) includes concern for both the distribution of fat throughout thebody and the size of the adipose tissue deposits. Body fat distribution

can be estimated by skinfold measures, waist-to-hip circumference ra-

tios, or techniques such as ultrasound, computed tomography, or mag-

netic resonance imaging.









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Waist circumferenceWaist 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.

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)

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 pop-

ulation may not apply.

Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is the ratio of a person’s waist circumference

to hip circumference, mathematically calculated as the waist circumfer-

ence 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.)

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 dan-

ger zone for undesirable health consequences, such as heart disease

and other ailments connected with being overweight.









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Chapter 1 - Dieting

Dieting is one of those things that is completely integrated into theWestern 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:

• 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

You probably recognize many of these names because you hear themall 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.

Your Body’s EfficiencyHave you ever wondered why, for so many people (and especially for an-

yone older than 30 years old), weight gain seems to be a fact of life? It’s

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.

At rest (for example, while sitting and watching television), the humanbody 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:

150 X 12 = 1,800 calories per day

Twelve calories per pound per day is a rough estimate - and you canrefer to the previous chapter on calories to find out more about how to

work out your BMR.

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 exam-

ple, 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.

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 be-

ing 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)!

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 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 McDonald’s and order an

Extra Value meal, you will get a burger, a large order of french fries and alarge Coke. This meal contains:

• 710 calories in the burger*

• 540 calories in the french fries*

• 310 calories in the drink*

(*See McDonald’s Nutrition Facts @ McDonalds.com for details.)

A meal at McDonald’s can add up to almost a whole day’s worth of calo-

ries.

In other words, just this one meal provides 1,560 calories you need dur-

ing a day. If you get a McFlurry with it for dessert, you’ll get 630 more

calories, so you are already consuming almost 2,200 calories just at this

one meal!

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, that’s 1,390 calories - just 410 calories shy of a full day’s

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, re-

ally is not that hard to do - you’ve taken in 660 calories. That’s more than

one-third of the daily caloric intake.

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. Let’s take a look at what someone might con-

sume in a typical day.

Sample MenuFace it, many of us are over-worked, over-booked and totally over-ex-

tended. 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. That’s the problem.

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 onlytakes 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 to-

day’s society. Food is just too easy to find.









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The Idea Behind DietingLet’s imagine that you are overweight and you would like to lose severalexcess 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 cre-

ate 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 inbed, 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.

• You could consume fewer calories than your body needs. For

example, you might choose to consume 1,500 calories per day ratherthan the required 1,800 by controlling what you eat. That creates a 300-

calorie 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).

• 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 1pound of body weight (18 days x 200 calories = 3,600 calories).

• 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 calo-

ries 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).

As you can see from these examples, the only way to lose fat is to con-sume fewer calories per day than your body needs. For every 3,500 calo-

ries 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 restrict-

ing your intake of calories, or by exercising, or both.

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. That’s all they do.

Why Diets Tend Not to Work 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 con-

sumes more calories per day than needed. The diet creates a temporary

deficit. When the diet ends, the person goes back to normal eating andthe weight comes back.

Let’s look at an example. Say that you weigh 150 pounds. That means

that you burn 1,800 calories per day in a resting state. Let’s 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 let’s fur-ther 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.

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 sau-

sages, 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 con-

suming 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.

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.

This is why diets don’t work for most people. You do lose weight, but

then go off the diet and gain it back. What is needed instead is a sustain-

able diet - a food consumption and exercise plan - that lets you live a

normal life and eat normal foods in a normal way.

Building a Sustainable DietBuilding 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 The first step to building a sustainable diet is to start counting the calo-ries 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.

• You need to realize where each calorie comes from - you need

to build a calorie database in your brain so that you know, whenever youeat something, just how many calories it is supplying.

In the United States, any food that you buy in the grocery store is re-

quired by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to have a nutritional label

with that food’s calorie content. You can also look at a chart like this one

to find out the number of calories in different foods. Any chain restau-

rant 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.

Pick your “ideal weight” - the weight that you would like to maintain.

Then calculate how many calories a day you can consume to maintainthat weight.

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 pyramidguidelines.

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 isn’t that many. You have to watch and count everything you eat

and drink every day and stick to your daily limit.

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.

Cutting CaloriesIn 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 eve-

rything you eat and drink.

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

• 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:

� 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 ac-

tually gives you a feeling of fullness, while orange juice does not.

The same holds true of any beverage that contains calories - the caloriescome in but your appetite remains the same.

• Eliminate white sugar. This eliminates all sorts of high-calorie

foods:

� cookies

� cake

� ice cream

� cola

� candy

� candy bars

By simply refusing all foods that contain lots of sugar, you make it easy

to eliminate a big class of snack foods.

• Similarly, try eliminating all fried foods, including:

� potato chips

� cheese crisps

� french fries









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� onion rings

� donuts

� fritters� fried chicken

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.

• 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 you’ve 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.

Here’s a good mental exercise that helps you understand the point: Most

people would not find it hard to eat a dozen Oreo-type cookies. That’s

600 calories. Now imagine trying to eat six bananas at one sitting - you

would explode! But it’s the same number of calories. Look for low-densi-

ty foods like bananas that fill you up without giving you that many calo-

ries. Foods that are low-density include:

� 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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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.

• Try wearing form-fitting clothes instead of sweats. The tight

clothing acts as a subliminal reminder of what you are trying to accom-

plish.

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 ExerciseExercise 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. On-

line 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 intoyour 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.

• Try to fit micro-exercises into your daily life. For example, in-stead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. Park farther away from stores

when you go shopping. These little things can add up.

• 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 eas-

ier if there is someone to talk to. A partner will also help make exercise a

routine.

• Try to exercise every day. It is easier to remember to do some-

thing if you do it every day.

Weight Loss Myths 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 oth-

ers - 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.

• 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 butstill 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.

• The myth that any passive device, acupressure rings and

bracelets or soaps or whatever, can help - There is no way to burn calo-

ries but to burn them.

• 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 EX-

ERCISE!!! 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 noth-

ing AND run a marathon every day for 42 days. That’s impossible. The

only way to lose that much weight that quickly is either through dehy-dration or amputation. The ads are lying.

• The myth that anything can create an “enzyme-driven fat-

burning 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 dayif 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. That’s

not to say it’s 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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We hope you have found this sample

chapter of our ebook useful.

Don’t forget that dieting is a life-longexercise and you should consult yourdoctor before any major changes to

your diet.

Please feel free to distribute this ebook to anyone you know.

If you want to buy the full ebook, it

is available on sale at our website forUS$1.95 (or £0.99). Click here to find

out more.

We are in the process of updating the

website to include many useful toolsand discussion forum for you to share

your experience with others! Staytuned!


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Diet Science e Book