Red's Health Tips

Moderation is the best medicine for almost any endeavor you select. Moderation in eating, drinking and exercising will develop into healthy habits. Insulin is needed to get fuel to the cells in your body. Excess insulin stores more fat. Carbohydrates are needed as the primary source of fuel for your body. Excess carbohydrates result in excess fat being stored.

Excess carbohydrates over time can result in a condition called insulin resistance. Under normal conditions, your cells are ready to grab the glucose from your bloodstream and store it for your energy needs. Cells continuously inundated with insulin become unresponsive – their sensors are ‘desensitized’ so to speak. Symptoms of insulin resistance are high fasting blood glucose levels, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, obesity, drowsiness after eating, depression, mental fatigue, and temporary loss of memory.

If you find yourself overweight, constantly tired, and forgetting things more easily, you might have insulin resistance. Reduction in total calories and reduction in simple carbohydrates is a good way to start retraining your insulin response. Reduce your daily intake of sugar, processed flours and starches, white rice, processed potatoes, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to totally abstain, but you do have to significantly reduce the amount you consume.

Carbohydrates have a tendency to make you hungrier shortly after eating. Insulin is the primary culprit. It is looking for more fat to store – and, the only way to get that extra fat is for you to eat when you don’t need to eat – and, to eat those comfort foods that you have become used to over the years. Proteins have the reverse action – they keep you feeling full longer.

Insulin resistance can be fought by exercise, restricted calorie intake and soluble fiber, just to name a few. Nutritional balance is needed to keep your body operating correctly when you reduce your total calories. Chromium, vitamin K2 and several other supplements are effective in reversing insulin resistance.

I blogged yesterday that I had a nice pasta meal last night with garlic bread and a cookie for dessert. That was my personal reward for successfully completing Week 2 of my 28-day Fast Start Weight Loss program. On this lifestyle change program, I weigh myself once a week. I decided this morning to see what impact last night’s meal and two glasses of wine did for my weight. I weighed in this morning and found myself less than I weighed yesterday (the end of Week 2). I was pleasantly surprised. Any single meal will not have any affect of your lifestyle change program.

My wife started yesterday and she plans to have a nice Mexican food meal in two weeks. You need to reward yourself for your efforts and your successes. You are developing new lifestyle habits. I was very conscious of eating last night. I chose half of what I normally would have had. I chose a single piece of garlic bread. I chose half a cookie. Those were portion control habits I am adopting for my new lifestyle.

The foods I am selecting and the portions will result in an ‘end’ weight and fat content for me at some time in the future. This is a permanent change to my lifestyle. If I am not happy with that final result, I can always reduce my portion size and change my foods again, just like I am doing right now. If I arrive at my ‘goal’ weight and I am happy with how I look, and I continue to lose weight, then I know that I have flexibility in my food choices. I will stay with the same portions – they will have been established as habits in my life at that time.

Having flexibility means that I can splurge periodically on things I would not think about doing today. Splurge means once or twice, but not establishing a new habit. Maybe that means a couple of cookies instead of one; or, maybe a bowl of ice cream with a piece of pie. It gives me options that I will not consider today.

In your new lifestyle you must get control of your insulin response. It is the strongest hormone for driving fat into your fat cells. Control of your insulin response will give you better control over your fat burning. Reduced carbohydrates equals less glucose in your bloodstream and your body will start burning fat for fuel. Burning fat for fuel means that you are losing inches in those places that are important to you. Just because you want to lose fat around your middle or hips doesn’t mean that your body will comply. You put fat on slowly and it will come off slowly according to your body’s fat selection processes.

Red O’Laughlin
Your Prosperity Professor
281-437-8114 H/W 281-687-1188 C

I reached the end of Week 2 and decided to celebrate.  My weight this morning was 192 lbs – 3 pounds less than last week.  A total of 11+ pounds for the two weeks.  Yes, it is a lot less than I loss the first week, but I still believe that the first week was primarily water loss - something that comes easily and loses easily.  I am finally in that fat burning zone that produces real weight loss.

I observed water weight loss many times when I was on the Atkins diet.  I ate less than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day for months at a time.  Any one time that I had a large carbohydrate-filled meal, I would gain nothing.  If I kept it up for a weekend, I would gain significant weight.  Returning to Atkins would result in returning to my old weight in ten to fifteen days.

I have been on a reduced carbohydrate diet during my first two weeks.  Carbohydrates cause insulin to drive fat into your fat cells.  Reducing carbohydrates minimizes insulin’s interaction with your fat.  I haven’t been on 20 grams or less a day.  Maybe one or two days I might have, but it wasn’t intentional.  I try to stay around 40-60 grams a day.  Some days I succeed and some days I don’t.  I choose foods that are complex carbohydrates when I had the choice.

I’m down three pounds this past week.  That’s twelve pounds a month on the average.  Once I lost my water weight from Atkins years ago I averaged eleven pounds a month.  During Atkins I was not taking vitamins and minerals to balance my nutritional requirements.  I am now.

What about my measurements?  Good question!  My hips and chest remained the same.  I lost one inch off my waist.  I lost a half-inch off my neck.  I am very happy to trade one inch off my waist for three pounds total weight loss.

I didn’t plan on splurging today.  I did plan to have a glass of wine tonight if my numbers were good.  I went to a business meeting tonight and there was a pasta buffet.  I decided at that meeting to have some pasta, but to maintain portion control.  I did just that.  I had much less pasta than I have had in years.  I had one piece of garlic bread and half a cookie for dessert.  I felt full after eating.

I came home and had not one glass of wine, but two with my daughter in celebration.  Tomorrow starts another dedicated adherence to my 28-day plan.  Week 3 concentrates on hormones - insulin, testosterone and estrogen; plus fat absorption.  I’ll talk more about each of these topics as we progress through Week 3.

I might gain a pound of two tomorrow, but I doubt it.  If I do, then I’ll lose that weight by the weekend and continue my two to three pounds a week total weight loss.  And, more importantly, fat loss where I need to lose fat – around my waist.

This coming week will be a bit more complex since I’m driving to New Orleans for a seminar.  I lived in New Orleans for years and really like the food.  I have the discipline to maintain moderation and portion control while I’m there.  I’m very happy that I’ve broken through the water loss phase and have entered the fat burning phase.  Two to three pounds a week might now sound like a lot.  I put the weight on a lot slower than that, but I’m taking it off a lot faster than I put it on.  I’m burning fat and that’s the focus of my overall weight loss program.

My immediate plan is to continue my present course of actions – my meals, exercise program, nutritional supplements, stress reduction, etc.  I have found a comfortable level of living with the food intake (other than today) that I have chosen over the past two weeks.  The key to a lifestyle change is to find a new comfort zone for eating.

I was talking to several people tonight about my book.  Most of them had an extra thirty or more pounds that they could afford to lose.  Many were interested in losing weight and want to know when my book is available.  Some, interesting enough, were happy with their lifestyle choices and didn’t want to lose the extra weight that they had accumulated over the years.  Leaving your comfort zone is very difficult!

It’s all personal choice.  You either want to or you don’t want to.  Living with that extra weight around your waist will affect the quality of your life as you age.  Like the old Fram Oil commercial – pay me now, or pay me later.  You can change you lifestyle now, or you can pay later for those extra pounds that you will carry around for the next couple or more decades.  It won’t get cheaper to live in retirement carrying thirty, fifty or more pounds.  Make the decision now to change your lifestyle.

Red O’Laughlin

Your Prosperity Professor

281-437-8114 H/W  281-687-1188 C