How to Rip your Abdominals

There are two players on the stage to achieve a set of wash-board abs. It is the purpose of this email to introduce  them to you and find out their secrets. There are however a few things that I need to make clear. Body•fat can come down while total weight and lean muscle mass can increase. So if you want your abs to come out  you need to try and increase lean muscle mass while you are working on your abs. The next question is “why”. Every pound of muscle increases your basil metabolic rate by 50 calories a day. Lose 10 pounds of muscle and you will need to eat 500 calories less per day forever. That is BAD!  Also, if you lose lean muscle weight, you’ll also lose muscles in your face. Your face will become gaunt and hollow. If you increase your weight to try and regain your looks it may not work. A perfect example of this face muscle loss phenomenon is Farah Fawcett. Long before she was diagnosed with cancer she lost a bunch of weight to appear in a pictorial. Boy did she ruin her looks. Another example is Whitney Houston. The media suggest that both of their weight•loss was drug induced. That wouldn’t surprise me but their lean muscle loss seems to have been permanent. Both of their faces look horrible. That is why it is important to do resistance exercises and get plenty of lean protein to help maintain lean muscle mass as you burn fat to reveal your abs.

Remember, short of cosmetic surgery and liposuction, spot reduction of fat is not possible. Even after liposuction the body tries to adjust the total percentage of body•fat and you will find yourself chasing the fat around your body with additional lipo. It’s a waste of time and it’s expensive.

What this introduction has been about is the following. Use common sense when you decide to lose  body•fat. If you are over  forty be even more careful. At around  forty the  body’s human•growth•hormone  production slows significantly. Please use my H•G•H Stimulate product  it does a wonderful job to allow your body to produce additional H•G•H. Maintaining proper levels of H•G•H are critical to burn fat and to  build and maintain lean muscle. Also Remember even competitive body builders only really “cut up” one or two weeks out of the year. You can look great year round but to be ripped continually is extremely hard to maintain. Plus it’s not very healthy. If you became ill your body needs the extra calories stored as fat  for reserve energy. As a man if you stay between 12% and 15% body•fat you will look great. To totally rip you abs you need to be around 7%. If you really want to know you body•fat percentages, we have  body•fat calipers available at the office. So let’s set some reasonable goals and some long term goals that will be maintainable. Above all let’s get healthier during this process and develop new long term healthy habits.

MAINTAINING MUSCLE MASS & INCREASING YOUR METABOLISM WHILE LOSING BODY•FAT:

THE KEY TO LOOKING GREAT!

• Lose Fat, Not Muscle—The Key to Success

• It’s the Carbohydrates that Make you Fat!

• How Hormones Control Weight•Loss & Gain

• What is Your Genetic Predisposition for Fat Gain?

No country on earth is more preoccupied or has a greater fear of an aversion to dietary fat than the United States. Yet there is no place on earth whose citizens are nearly as fat as Americans. I cannot begin to add up all the times people have come into my office, called me over the telephone or stopped me at a seminar and asked me how they could lose weight. I have heard countless stories of desperate people who have attempted to lose weight unsuccessfully through dozens of diet plans.

When I began my career thirty years ago as a nutritional therapist and counselor, I had previously spent years as a competitive athlete. For me, gaining or losing weight was simply a matter of adding or eliminating a few foods from my diet. So when these people would come to me after years of yo-yo dieting, depressed and feeling like failures, I tried to encourage them to stay on their diets because it had worked for me. All they need is will power, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, more will power did not work very often, and the overweight person went on his or her way without any significant improvement.

Then a single event occurred in my life that forever changed my opinion on the subject. This milestone was so personally dramatic that it sent me on an exploration of all the pertinent medical data on the subject of diet and weight•loss and I was forced to completely re-evaluate my opinions. I tirelessly spent months researching diet and weight•loss. The event?  I turned 40. Remember that was 13 years ago. I had not developed the  fat•loss products I have today. What I would have  given for a can of my H•G•H Stimulate  back then.

Over the years that I have worked in the field of diet and nutrition, I have maintained the habit of good, consistent exercise. When I went on a tour, I would sometimes put on a few pounds, but a week or two in the gym always took care of the problem. Then as the years progressed, I began to notice that when I returned from an extended trip and would have put on three pounds or so, I could lose the first pound quickly, but the last two pounds became very stubborn. Then before I was able to lose those last two, I would be off on another tour, with the opportunity to gain still more weight. It was alarming to say the least.

I was exercising just as strenuously and at the same intensity levels as before, but the extra weight stubbornly clung to me like polyester pants filled with static electricity. Being a nutritionist, well read in the field in the 90’s, I took the advice of the scientific community and radically reduced my dietary fat intake. I am an “everything or nothing” type of person and I consumed so little fat that my body did not produce enough essential fatty acids to nourish my skin. As a result, it became dry and flaky. Even with this extremism, the weight still fought me. I spent weeks pondering the current literature on diet, wondering if maybe there was something wrong with my body or metabolism. Finally it occurred to me. The problem was hormonal. As my age had increased, the levels of different hormones in my body had changed, which made losing weight more difficult. In this article I will explain to you exactly what I have done to take control of this situation. Remember, your H•G•H levels continue to decline as you age. I will continue to drill this into your  brain until  it starts to make sense. So please bear with me for being redundant.

Also, the high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet I was on actually made matters worse. Most well informed individuals in the ‘90’s followed a low fat diet. The news from the American Medical Association is that the high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet is what all Americans should eat to avoid the risks of heart disease and cancer, not to mention obesity. The truth is that the high-carbohydrate/low-fat diets has had devastating effects on our health. It has sent obesity through the roof. Raised cholesterol  and increased the risk of plaquing. Not  from the food as much as the increase of insulin. This report will go into detail concerning this topic. By the way your  brain in primarily fat  it  contains large amount of cholesterol. When  you take statin drugs  it impedes brain function. because it reduces the needed cholesterol for the brain. To  put it simply it impairs cognitive function and makes a lot of patients using  it appear stupid. Sorry but that is just the truth. I have had so many patients tell me that they can’t think when taking statin drugs and it makes them feel stupid.  By the way cholesterol  only affects heart disease minimally if art all  in most cases.

In the 1980’s when scientists began to warn us of the drawbacks of consuming dietary fat, cursing red meat, egg yolks and poultry skins, at the same time they began to extol the virtues of consuming a high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet, explaining that weight•loss would be instantaneous and pain free. Manufacturers got into the act, producing new LOW-FAT and FAT-FREE products aimed at satisfying the public’s demand for these healthy foods. New companies emerged and new product names rolled out onto the shelves of our supermarkets.

Further, aerobics became the craze of the day. Thirty minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week combined with the low-fat diet and we were off to Slim City Jazzercise, dancercise and gyms with new fancy equipment that were emerging on every street corner. The home exercise market boomed. Enough equipment was sold for every man, woman and child to exercise at the same time with plenty of leftover equipment stuck in the bedroom corner to be used as a clothes rack.

It has now been almost 25 years since this scientific revelation and one would fully expect that Americans would have shed many of their unwanted pounds. Since we are consuming so much less fat and so much more carbohydrates we should be thinner. Right?  Wrong. According to the National Center for Health Statistics in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prior to the revelation of the high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet, about 25% of the American population was so overweight that they would be considered obese. In just 11 years the number of obese people in America has actually increased to 32%!  According to these statistics, every man, woman and child in the United States have gained 10 pounds in only slightly more than a decade!  Although we have altered our eating patterns to the new supposedly healthy way of eating, today at least 33% of the American population is actually clinically obese. It is amazing but true. We are consuming drastically less fat, but are becoming dramatically fatter.

Why?  The first reason, as I alluded to above, is hormonal. Generally when we think of hormones, we think of those associated with sexuality, i. . testosterone for men, estrogen for women. But the body produces many other hormones, each with a specific task of bodily function. Other non-sexual hormones include thyroid hormone, anti-diuretic hormone, insulin and glucagon to name only a few.

The function of hormones is to regulate the bodily functions. Thyroid hormone regulates the over-all metabolism rate of the body. Anti-diuretic hormone regulates the water balance of the body through the kidneys. Insulin and glucagon regulate the metabolism of food, specifically glucose, and the production of fat. Insulin and glucagon are the hormones responsible for fat gain and the difficulty we have in losing it. Insulin and glucagon are the two players that I want you to learn about today!  By the way elevated insulin is one of the primary factors affecting heart disease. That is why diabetics have such a high rate of heart disease  blindness and amputations. Excessive insulin is dangerous. It cause an over ionization of the blood vessels. It does that because  it’s a salt. That  ionization acts like an electromagnet  which contributes to plaque sticking to the artery  walls. Remember too much salt conducts too much electricity. Our bodies are an electrochemical  creation. Hormones  need to stay in balance. It’s called homeostasis or equilibrium. Insulin is manufactured in the pancreas and secreted into the blood system after we eat as a response to rising levels of sugars. This is the hormone associated with diabetes. The role of insulin in the body is multi-fold. When we consume a meal, the food that we eat is broken down into three main constituent parts: protein, fat and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates, once digested, are then immediately broken down into glucose or sugar, the body’s main fuel source. Then glucose travels through the blood system bringing nourishment to all the cells of the body. The only problem is that glucose cannot directly enter the cells.

The internal environment of our cells is highly regulated and large molecules like glucose are kept out by dense cell walls, which keeps the inside of our cells intact. Insulin works very much like a key that unlocks cellular gateways allowing glucose to enter. Actually, insulin is more like a funnel, which forces glucose into cells, as we shall see later.

Insulin is also responsible for reducing levels of glucose in the blood stream after consumption of sugary meals. When we eat that extra dessert with ice cream, our blood sugar levels can rise to dangerously high levels in the blood system in a matter of minutes. Insulin is secreted to lower these levels and does so by forcing glucose into the cells throughout the body.

Insulin is also a storage hormone, causing the body to store fuel for later use. Storage is where the problem begins for the overweight individual.

We have said that glucose is the major fuel source for the body. It is, in fact, the only fuel source for the brain, though some authors suggest otherwise. Ironically, as important a fuel source as glucose is, the body has a very limited capacity to store it in its purest forms. Stored glucose is called glycogen, and it is found almost exclusively in the liver and muscle tissues. Only about 400 grams, or 1,600 calories of glucose can be stored in the body at any one time. A little  bit of biochemistry:  protein  and carbohydrates (glucose) produce  4 calories of energy per gram. Fat produces 9 calories of energy per gram. The liver is responsible for about 100 grams, or 400 calories of glucose, while muscles hold the remaining 300 grams. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that 1,600 calories is not a lot of extra fuel. In fact, if one stopped eating, this reserve could be depleted in only 20-30 minutes of intense exercising. With this small of a reserve, replenishing the supply should not be difficult. In fact, that is just the case. After exercise, one high-carbohydrate meal and the tanks are topped back off. However, few people ever really tax this storage system, which means that the extra carbohydrates from every meal must be dealt with. Here is where insulin becomes our enemy.

Once inside the cell, glucose must commit to either being used for energy immediately, stored as glycogen in the liver or muscle tissue, or the third, most frequent and abominable possibility, be converted  to fat. So when your glycogen levels are full, glucose has no choice but be turned to fat. Yes, that is right, those carbs must be either burned or they turn very rapidly to fat. After all, how do farmers make cattle fat—by feeding them fatty foods or lots of low-fat corn and grains?  So, what really happens to those calories you consume when you eat that high carb meal?  You guessed it. If it is not burned or used to replace glycogen that was used earlier, it turns to fat.

Two little biochemical gems must be pointed out at this time. In order to comprehend the simplicity of real weight gain and weight•loss, these facts must be fully understood.

1. Once glucose has been converted to fat, it can never be converted back to glucose. Fat is a structure, which has no ability to convert to sugar or even muscle. It can only be burned as fuel. So, those old PE teachers who used to tell the heavy football players to “convert their fat to muscle” had no idea of the body’s biochemistry. The only way to get rid of fat once it has been produced is to burn it off.

2. Protein, however, can be converted to glucose. A simple explanation of this conversion process is what happens during starvation. Since glucose is needed as fuel for the brain, and the body breaks down stored protein, i. . muscle and facial muscle, and converts it into glucose for the brain, starvation is the result. Basically, since the body does not receive nourishment, it provides its own. This second biochemical reaction is vitally important to understanding how the body can best convert fuels and lose fat without losing muscle, which will be fully explained later.

It is very important that these two facts become indelibly imprinted in your thinking.

One way to clear up some of the confusion about carbohydrate metabolism is to consider the glycemic index for food products. The glycemic index (GI) is basically a consideration of how long it takes after a food product has been eaten, before its effects (glucose) are found in the blood system, and how rapidly insulin is produced to counteract this glucose. When researchers began to study this metabolic pathway, they hypothesized that high sugar foods such as fruits would have a rather high GI, or would enter the blood stream very rapidly, while white flour pasty type foods would have a lower GI, implying that the pasta meals would raise blood glucose levels more slowly. The result of their studies indicated that exactly the opposite was true!!!  Even though fresh fruits have a large quantity of sugars (mainly fructose, which must be biochemically converted to glucose in the body, thus slowing its entry into the blood), when eaten in their natural state, they do not appreciably raise glucose levels in the blood.

One reason for this is the natural fiber. In order for the sugars from fruit to enter the body, we must first chew and break down the fiber which encapsulates the juice. In the stomach and intestines, this process of digestion continues, which slows entry time. White pasta, devoid of natural bran and fiber, has no mechanism to slow its entry into the blood system; thus pasta raises blood glucose levels much more rapidly.

Another way of looking at this process is as follows: Juice is the sugary extract of fruit. Drinking it is like drinking a carbonated beverage in that it is very sugary and there is nothing to slow the entrance of the sugar into the blood system. White flour is the sugary portion of the grain, which will also enter the digestive system almost immediately. They glycemic indexes for both the carbonated beverage and white flour are practically the same, and they are both high. Ironically, the dietary standard of many diets, puffed rice cakes, has one of the highest glycemic indexes, similar to that of white flour. Listed at the end of this report are some of the worst glycemic index foods, as well as some of the better choices. (A high glycemic index (GI) means that the food will rapidly enter the blood as glucose and be more likely to cause an insulin response.)

So, how exactly is the GI for different foods determined?  Basically, test foods are fed to various people, some with diabetes, and some without. Each is given a type of food in portions that contain 50 g of available carbohydrates. For sugar, that would not be much, while for iceberg lettuce the person would be grazing for some time.

Then the blood sugar levels are carefully and periodically monitored over the next three hours and the response curve plotted. The response to the reference food is tested at least three times and the results averaged. Then the date is graphed and the GI for the test food is expressed as a number in reference to the standard GI, which is white flour. Finally, these percentages from each subject are averaged together to obtain the GI for that food. At the end of this report you will find a more comprehensive listing, which is suitable for placing on your refrigerator.

So, what does all this mean?  Simply put, the more glucose that reaches the blood in the first three hours, the higher the glycemic index . Since the reference food GI is white flour, numbers greater than 100 tend to raise the blood glucose faster than white flour, and numbers less than 100 are slower than white flour. A food is generally considered to have a high GI if it is greater than 69, which is ½ of the value of glucose.

I believe at this point we need to examine in detail how this insulin-carbohydrate antagonism really works, and how it affects the entire body. In the morning, it’s time for breakfast. We have slept all night, and through the night the liver has supplied the brain with plenty of glucose (from glycogen) for fuel and it is time to replace it. Remember, the entire liver only holds 400 calories of glucose (100 grams) and sleep hardly taxes this supply. Hungry as we think we are, we eat a healthy bowl of cereal, toast and juice. Believe it or not, this simple breakfast can easily have 600 calories from carbohydrates alone, and those not used for immediate fuel or replacing reserves spent during the night will be converted to fat. This amount of carbs will cause an insulin response. Insulin will force the glucose out of the blood system and into the cells very quickly. Remember, 600 calories is about 150 grams of glucose, one and one half of the total capacity of the liver. That is a lot, no doubt, but it is actually more than you think.

You may well remember that one of the tests used by physicians to test for diabetes is the Glucose Tolerance Test. In this test, only 100 grams of glucose are given to the patient, which is more than sufficient to produce a reaction of blood sugar elevation and insulin response, which will confirm or deny if the patient has diabetes or hypoglycemia.

Getting back to our meal, because of this 150-gram sugar burden, the pancreas will have to work hard and fast to counterbalance the high levels of glucose in the blood stream. (Please Note:  Caffeine is a stimulant and causes the body to enter into a high stress condition known as “Fight or Flight.   Simply put, this is the condition when the body is prepared to fight for its life, or run for its life, as if a bear was chasing it. When this happens, the body calls upon the liver to dump all of its glycogen into the blood stream for an immediate source of fuel for the muscles to do their work. If you add to this breakfast scenario the caffeine from coffee that will force liver to dump its 100 grams of glycogen into the blood stream and now you have 250 grams of glucose to deal with.   So, insulin will have to work very hard to quickly lower the levels of glucose in the blood back to normal levels.

Over the years, this type of dietary pattern will condition the pancreas to hyper-secrete insulin at meal times. When this pattern develops, low levels of glucose in the blood will quickly follow the high levels of glucose in the blood stream. This is because the body has become conditioned to release high levels of insulin at each meal time and the insulin forces the sugars out of the blood and into the cells, often too effectively. These decreased levels can many times become so low that the body and brain are not able to function normally.

Remember that the brain uses glucose as its primary source of energy, and once the levels of glucose get sufficiently depleted in the blood, the brain will get sleepy. During the morning when this happens, your subconscious mind begins to call out for sugary snacks and coffee, to rebound the glucose supply for the brain. Usually this occurs around 10:00 a. . around the traditional coffee break time. So, our snack causes a glucose rebound giving us a powerful boost of energy. Unfortunately this is usually followed by an equally powerful insulin response.

At the work place, though our minds work exhaustibly, our bodies rarely exert any real effort. This means that our glycogen stores have really not been taxed during the day, except perhaps for the liver stores, which can be completely replenished with just one small muffin. Yet by the time lunch rolls around, since we are ready for another meal because we are eating more healthily, we decide to go out for pasta.

A normal pasta meal at any restaurant could easily contain 800 calories, which is equivalent to 200 grams of carbohydrates or glucose. Remember one gram of carbohydrates produce four calories. However, because our glycogen stores are full, where do these extra carbs have to go?  That’s right, fat. But once again, insulin will play a role. Most pasta dinners are highly processed white flour, and the carbohydrates go immediately into the blood system as glucose, dramatically raising blood sugars quickly.

The pancreas, being programmed to respond to this way of eating, will hyper-secrete insulin to counteract this glucose. The glucose is forced into the cells, which must either use the energy or again convert it to fat. If forced to make this choice it will choose the fat pathway every time. Then, because of the rush of glucose into the system and the response of the pancreas, levels of blood sugar begin to fall. Sometimes this happens quickly, sometimes it may take as much as two to three hours. But by mid-afternoon a haze begins to cover the mind, called brain fog.

INSULIN INDUCED BRAIN FOG:

BRAIN FOG, by the way, is when levels of glucose become too low for the brain to properly function, and is caused by insulin dropping the levels of glucose in the blood too low too fast. Now your brain is pretty smart, and it knows better than your conscious mind that you need to quickly raise that level of glucose in the brain. So what does your brain do?  It tells you that you are hungry in the mid-afternoon, even though you have eaten lots of food all day long with no physical activity. It is a craving for something sweet, or for a caffeinated beverage, because caffeine will force glucose out of the liver, as we have stated earlier.

Does this sound like your typical eating pattern around the office?  I have had literally hundreds of business people tell me that this scenario sounded just like them.  Consider the lost productivity during those periods of brain fog. How many times have you been sleepy behind the desk, even though you have slept well the night before?  How many business mistakes have you made after eating a nice “light” lunch, but the day is not over?  We still have another meal to consume, and being Americans, we are not going to miss out on even one!  Once home, it is time for dinner and another reasonable meal is consumed. And once again, two to three hours after eating more than enough, hunger pains are felt as the brain demands more food. The late night snack is searched for, and devoured right before bed. Have I been reading your mail?

Before we leave our discussion on insulin, you need to know that insulin is actually still more sinister than this. Insulin hormonally prevents the body from breaking down fat. This is because insulin is a storage hormone. Its job in our body is to lower sugar levels in the blood and store the extra. So, when we eat one of those high carbohydrate meals, it causes lots of insulin to be produced. Obviously it is impossible to break down fat (lose weight) and store fat (gain weight) at the same time. So the high carb meal with the insulin response greatly inhibits if not completely eliminates the breakdown of fat. So you get fatter and fatter.

Exercise is touted as the best method of burning off stored fat in the body, which in a sense is true. However, current theory states that in order to perform at one’s peak athletically, a high carb diet must be adhered to. Nothing can be further from the case. In fact, the high carb meal eaten before exercise can actually reduce athletic performance significantly. The problem is hormonal and biochemical, two areas in which most athletic trainers are inexperienced.

Hormonally, high carb meals cause a high insulin response. The carbs in the meal are then quickly depleted. In approximately 20 minutes of aerobic exercise stores of glucose in the muscle are almost exhausted. Then the body begins to use stored fat as its energy source. Stored fat is actually a better source of fuel for exercising muscles than is glycogen or glucose. Marathon runners can go for hours and hours burning stored fat, seemingly tirelessly. The problem arises because insulin is a storage hormone, signaling the body to store, not break down fat. These high levels of insulin in the body can actually prevent the metabolism of fat stores for energy, and without energy, performance is greatly hindered. So, in this scenario, any person seeking to decrease fat through exercise, can actually increase body•fat stores through the high carb meals.

Another reason men especially have more difficulty with the battle of the bulge as they age are changes in their body’s production of testosterone, the major male hormone. As men age, levels of testosterone begin to decrease. With this change, other hormones, often considered female hormones, begin to increase. The outward effects of this change are evident in the change of the male chest and hips. In youth, the male chest is muscular and defined. As men age, the definition is lost and an embarrassing feminization of breast tissue takes place along with a rounding on the hips. This is because when the body loses testosterone, several other hormones are produced, including precursors for the female hormone estrogen. These hormones are derived from the precursor of all sex hormones, cholesterol.

Now, if insulin is the villain in the battle of the bulge, there must be a hero hormone to come to our rescue, right?  Well, there is and its name is glucagon, which is also manufactured in the pancreas. While one of the roles of insulin is to lower blood glucose levels by driving glucose into the cells, glucagon raises blood glucose levels by freeing stored glucose from the muscle tissue and liver. In the battle of the bulge, glucagon acts to stimulate the breakdown of fat for the energy. Glucagon also HALTS fat storage, channeling the available glucose for immediate use for the body. With this information in mind, it becomes clear that in order to effectively lose fat we must increase levels of glucagon while decreasing levels of insulin. How is that done?  Exercise and low glycemic - carbohydrate meals are the only way I know. Low carb meals prevent large quantities of insulin from being produced in the first place, while protein actually stimulates glucagon production. Exercise also stimulates glucagon production, perhaps better than the low carb meal. Remember, the more strenuous the exercise the more dramatic the body’s response. So, light exercise will help levels of glycogen rise, but sustained serious exercise will elevate them radically.

I am often asked why people seem to gain weight more easily as they age even though they are not eating more, or are actually consuming much less. The problem is a combination of events, starting with insulin. When we are young, we are much more active. Throughout our twenties we are more aggressive, more athletic and participate in more active lifestyles. This burns glycogen, which gives the carbs we eat somewhere to go instead of being converted to fat. Then as we age, have a few children, sit behind a desk ten hours a day, nothing in our lifestyle burns the stores of glycogen in our bodies. Then, we eat the high carbohydrate meals and there is nowhere for the glucose to go, which leads to only one alternative ---- IT BECOMES FAT.

Let us now examine some of those new LOW-FAT products the food industry is trying to sell us as healthy. On just about any supermarket shelf in America, you will find new fat-free cookies called SnackWells. So, if fat is not in the ingredients, what is?  Let’s take a look. First: High fructose corn syrup (a sugar product with a fancy name), white flour, and then sugar. I am astounded that there is actually more than twice as much sugar as there is flour in these cookies!  And these are called a healthy choice!  If we take an honest look at the FDA’s new food pyramid you will see that we are advised to eat 6-11 servings daily of breads, cereals, grains or pasta. The only problem with this is that generally speaking the only carbohydrate products we Americans consume have been totally adulterated by processing. Because of this processing, which removes much of the natural vitamins, minerals and fiber, all that is really left are the carbohydrate calories, which as we saw are very rapidly converted to glucose in the body. In order for carbohydrates to be properly metabolized by the body, they must be in their natural state, or as near to natural as possible. Rice must be brown, unprocessed rice. Flour must be 100% whole grain, without being bleached or otherwise adulterated. Pasta, which is nothing more than white flour and very little water, must be eliminated. White rice and even potatoes must vanish from our plates.

Before we actually delve into how to reverse this insulin fat storage problem, we really need to examine some of the other diets that have been tried unsuccessfully by thousands and see where they fall short. The first is the diet in a can. “Simply drink this liquid meal replacement three times a day and watch the pounds melt away,” advertisers inform us. Celebrities tout how they have lost hundreds of pounds on the “UltraSlimFast” plan. It is obvious than anyone on a 500 calorie a day diet will lose weight. But not all weight•loss is good weight•loss. If you needed to lose 30 pounds of fat, but instead lost 5 pounds of fat and 25 pounds of muscle tissue, would you consider that a successful diet?  Of course not!

On these liquid diets, most of the actual weight that is lost is muscle weight. By necessity a low calorie diet must be low in fat, but they are also low in protein and carbohydrates. When carbohydrate levels get too low for the brain to optimally function, your body begins to break down protein, muscle, and convert it into glucose for fuel. The problem here is two-fold. First, consuming this low of a calorie diet for a prolonged period of time will slow the overall metabolism of the body. Your body will simply not allow you to burn 2,500 calories a day while you are consuming only 500-1,000. It will slow down due to its own built in guard against starvation. The long term problem with this is that when you have lost the 20 or 30 pounds you wish to lose and resume your old eating habits, your new slower metabolism will make you gain your weight back very quickly. Second, muscle burns calories, and the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. Because of the muscle, which was lost for brain fuel during this diet, your normal calorie needs will be even lower still, compounding the weight-regaining problem. This is the epitome of the yo-yo diet syndromes you have heard so much about.

What about those “metabolic weight•loss” programs advertised in newspapers, on the radio and television?  The ads proclaim “lost weight without exercising or dieting!”  What a concept!  Does it work?  Oftentimes it does, but there is a catch. (Any time there is something for nothing there is always a catch!)  Generally, the person wishing to lose weight goes to a “medical weight-loss clinic,” and receives some prescriptions to help him or her lose weight. Generally, patients are prescribed diet pills, thyroid medications and a sedative. The patient takes the diet pills and thyroid pills in the morning, which have a similar action as speed that drug abusers use. These drugs artificially elevate your metabolism causing you to lose weight. Then the patient runs through the day at a hundred miles an hour, not hungry and very jittery. Then at night they take the Valium to relax and sleep. There are numerous dangers with this. First is addiction to the medications. Millions of Americans are addicted to prescribed medications. Diet pills and Valium have the worst reputation for causing addictions. However, that is not the least of the unsuspecting patient’s problems. Once again, when the pills are gone, and the body returns to its old metabolic state, the weight inevitably returns, and it usually brings some extra. This type of diet is a very dangerous prospect and I highly discourage anyone from utilizing this method of diet plan.

What about high carbohydrate diets?  Well as we have seen, these diets stimulate the production of insulin, which hormonally blocks the body’s ability to burn stored fat. (You cannot both save and spend money simultaneously, neither can you simultaneously store and burn fat.   So, though you may be on only 1,500 calories a day, the insulin produced from eating these simple carbs can stymie your attempts to burn fat. The only real way for your body to burn fat while saving muscle is to cause the body to reverse its production of storage hormones, and stimulate the body’s ability to produce fat burning hormones. The sensibility of this concept is obvious, however, the majority of dieticians and nutritionists in this country also largely ignores it.

So, how does one begin to change one’s metabolism from that of storing fat to burning fat?  Actually, the answer is quite simple. Because insulin is the greatest enemy in the battle of the bulge, we must develop a dietary pattern that limits the ability of insulin to control our waistline. The only way to limit the ability of insulin to affect us is to limit the quantity of this hormone that our body produces. “WHAT???  You mean that I can alter the way my body produces hormones?” I am often asked. Without hesitation I answer with an emphatic “YES!”  Controlling the amount of insulin your body produces is actually very easy. All it takes is for you to stop giving your body those foods that cause insulin to be produced in the first place and insulin will not be produced. This is so simple that many health professionals dispute it. Without the stimulus for insulin production there will be no insulin produced. It is just that simple. The only way to limit insulin production is to limit carbohydrate consumption. I know this sounds like nutritional heresy, but it is biochemical/hormonal gospel. It is the way the body works.

Now, if you have read up to this point, I know that you are serious about losing fat. You have made an investment of your time, gained some vital knowledge of how your body functions and are ready to know how to implement this new knowledge into a diet plan that can help you shed your body of unwanted fat. I have broken this diet plan down into three basic phases. However, because of legal liabilities, I must take this opportunity to advise you to consult with your physician prior to beginning any new diet or exercise program. I am not your physician, nor am I prescribing any diet program. The information in this article is intended for education only and does not contain specific treatment recommendations for the general public.

Rip Your Abdominals - Phase 1: Force Your Body to Switch Gears

Let’s jump into Phase I. Phase I is a period of time, usually no more than two weeks, when you force your body to switch gears. It is a period when you alter your metabolism from a fat storing to a fat burning machine. The key to Phase I is to begin limiting your carbohydrate consumption to 20% of your total calorie intake. You will need to consume 10 calories for every pound of body weight you are now carrying. So, if you want to weigh 150 pounds, you must eat a minimum 1,500 calories to maintain basic metabolism. If your ideal weight is closer to 200, you must eat 2,000 calories daily to prevent decreasing your metabolism. As for carbs, if your diet is 1,500 calories a day, 20% is 300 calories, while a 2,000-calorie diet would allow 400 calories of carbohydrates. BUT these need to be low glycemic index carbs. A chocolate bar may contain less than 300 calories of carbohydrates, but I do not believe anyone would argue that chocolate would be counterproductive to any diet program. Get a carbohydrate counter and keep a written track. Remember that one-gram of carbohydrate equals 4 calories. Now, of these carbs, NONE can come from refined sources such as wheat, corn, potatoes, grains, breads, or fruits. Instead, utilize the best source, which are green leafy vegetables. Steam them, boil them or eat them raw. It doesn’t matter, just eat them and eat lots of them.

The balance of your diet should be 45% protein and 40% fat. Make sure that your fat is non-saturated: No butter, hydrogenated oil or lard. Use olive oil for your cooking needs. This oil can actually be helpful to your heart and help provide the essential fatty acids your body needs. Your protein consumption should consist of lean meats and eggs.

I can already hear the uproar. “NO FRUITS BUT LOTS OF MEAT!!!  HERESY! HERESY!”  Wait a minute. I am not advising a lifestyle of eating, I am showing you how to alter your metabolism. If you have eaten high carb meals for a decade or more, then you may well need some help altering the way your body responds to food and the method outlined here in Phase I will do that. Believe me, IT WILL WORK. But before we go any further, let us examine why it works.

As we mentioned several times, the brain requires glucose for food. When we deprive the body of glucose it can begin a biochemical conversion process, which will make glucose from protein. This protein can come from your biceps, or your last meal. Which would you prefer?  So, the high protein meal gives your body the building blocks needed to make fuel for the brain. However, this is not enough energy to meet the needs of your entire body.

Where will your body get the needed extra energy?  FAT!!!  Your body will begin to break down fat to use as fuel, which is exactly what you wanted to happen all along!  Imagine, burning fat without sacrificing lean muscle!  “It’s a miracle!”  No, it’s biochemistry. Your body breaks down fat into keytones, which are then used as fuel.

Now, two important details must be closely adhered to. First, the end products of these keytones must be removed from the body as waste. The best route is through the urine. Because of this, it is vital that you drink half your body weight in ounces of purified water daily. If you weight 150, drink at least 75 ounces of pure water daily. Double that if you still begin your day with a cup of coffee. In a way when you burn fat you are cleaning your body. Cleaning anything requires a lot of water and your body is no different. If you do not assist your body in flushing this waste matter from your body you may notice that your breath or perspiration has a peculiar smell. Simply put, if you do not give your body what it needs to flush out the wastes through the urine, your body will find other ways to eliminate it.

Second, this phase of the diet is low in dietary fiber, and I recommend taking a fiber supplement, (not a laxative) with a large glass of water at bedtime. I strongly recommend a fiber product available through our office. This will further assist your body in cleaning itself. Please call for information. Also eat a lot of salad. You need to keep your bowels moving.

Finally, specific vitamin supplementation has proven to be beneficial in weight reduction and I will make some recommendations at the end of this report.

Before we move on, I cannot over emphasize the need for purified water. If you do not have a purified water source, either reverse osmosis or distilled, we have made special arrangements to provide special discounts to readers of this report. Our products have gained acclaim worldwide as the best water purification products available. There are without question cheaper units available, but none meet the industry standards we have established. These discounts are not available to anyone except through this offer. For example, a house purifier can easily cost $4,000. Our counter top distiller is only $398.99. Call my office at 1-800-726-1834 or visit our website at www.HealthMasters.com and place your order.

Now, let’s take a closer look at a Phase I meal plan. A good start in the morning would be rather than having the usual cereal, juice, toast, and coffee, try an omelet made from three egg whites and one whole egg, with lots of vegetables. Green peppers, onions, zucchini, but not too much tomato. You can even add cheese, as long as it does not contain carbohydrates. (Most fat-free cheeses are high in carbohydrates.   Try adding some salsa for an extra bit of zest in the morning. One of the things you will be amazed at while on this type of diet is that you do not get as hungry as the morning progresses. When morning coffee break comes, you should not be surprised to find that you are not as hungry as you usually are. If you do find that you are ravenously hungry, I suggest that your breakfast become a little more substantial by adding a piece of broiled chicken to your plate. (But stay away from the pork. Pork kills. For more information on pork, contact our office and request the Eat, Drink and Be Healthy program.   If you do find that you are in need of a mid-morning snack, keep a high protein snack nearby, such as a piece of chicken, or dry hamburger patty. It will be enough to tide you over until lunch, without altering your diet or you can use our New Zealand whey based FIT Food protein drink. It is low glycemic and tastes great! REMEMBER, NEVER EAT MORE THAN 300 CALORIES PER MEAL.

At this point I must bring your attention to a very important point. NEVER skip meals or deprive yourself of food to try to lose weight faster. It will NOT work. First and foremost, when you are exceedingly hungry, you are more likely to eat things, which will lead to a high insulin response. Your will power will be greatly diminished which can lead you to lose control of your diet plans. Secondly, if you deprive your body of calories, your metabolism will slow down. There are no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts” about it. So, if you are hungry, EAT!!!  Just do not eat any carbohydrates unless they come from green leafy vegetables, or low glycemic carbohydrates. Remember, your ideal weight times 10 is your required calories daily.

When lunchtime tolls around it is not time for sorrow during Phase I, as it is with most diets. While colleagues on the diet in the can are getting out their straws and shaking up their cans, you can order a nice, filling, satisfying meal. Steak?  Sure!  Only pass on the potato and ask for extra broccoli or salad. How about chicken fajitas?  Go for it!  Just ask the waitress to hold the rice, beans and tortillas. Often they will gladly substitute extra vegetables for these items. Chicken fajita meat with onions, peppers, summer squash and zucchini is a feast. You can even have the guacamole!  Plus, with fajitas there is always a little left over which will make an excellent afternoon snack, should you feel you need one. (But do plan ahead and have a high protein snack available.   Dinner is just as easy as lunch was. How about blackened snapper, steamed vegetables and a salad?  Does this sound like deprivation?  Is this what Garfield meant when he said, “Diet is Die with a T?”  But wonder of wonders, it works!  Your body will lose fat, your health will improve, your vitality will return!!!  Does this mean that you will not have cravings?  NO!!!  You are human. At least if you are reading this I would expect you to be human. We are creatures of habit, and if we habitually eat a cinnamon bun every morning with a cup of coffee you may still crave it. But that is where eating full meals come in. When you are not hungry, your will power is much stronger. But when you are hungry, and that obnoxious guy who knows you are on a diet comes into your office with a fresh, hot cinnamon bun, your will power will be at its lowest level, and resisting may be expecting too much for anyone.

Exercise is a vital part of Phase I, as should it be in every phase of life. In the arena of diet, exercise forces the body to expend energy. Remember, the body’s first source of energy is glucose, but when glucose supplies are short, or after 20 minutes of aerobic exercise the body begins to burn fat as fuel. Isn’t that great!!!  During Phase I, because glucose is in such short supply, your body almost immediately begging to burn fat during exercise. And here is another goodie. If you eat too much protein, your body theoretically could become very skillful at converting that protein to glucose, which could elevate those levels too high, creating the same type scenario as the high carb meals. But, when you exercise and expend the levels of glycogen stored in the muscles, you now have a demand placed on any and all extra glucose that has been transformed from the protein. The spare glucose goes back to feed the muscles, enhancing the body’s ability to burn fat!!!  Isn’t this great!!!

You need to exercise using weights and some cardio. Start on my beginning exercise DVDs as a starter. If you will simply do the equivalent of jogging slow or walking fast for 30 minutes a day, I can all but guarantee that you can lose 1-2 pounds of pure fat a week while on Phase I. You may not see it on the scales every day, because with the exercise combined with the added protein in the diet your own muscles often will become larger which may slow your weight•loss but speed your fat•loss. In fact, you may actually gain weight but you will be losing fat and gaining muscle. No  matter, you will see the difference in the mirror, on the tape measure, and the way your clothes fit. Which brings about a good point, before you start on any diet use every means available to measure your starting point and your progress. This includes weighing yourself, measuring your neck, chest, waist, buttocks and thighs, taking pictures or video tapes of yourself in a swimsuit or even having your body•fat measured (we have calipers available). As you progress on your fat•loss, these items will greatly motivate you towards greater and greater success!!

Rip Your Abdominals - Phase 2: Reinforcing Your Metabolism Reversal

After about two weeks on Phase I, it will be time to slowly start Phase II. In Phase II, you will begin to re-enter more carbohydrate foods into your diet. But highly refined foods must still be avoided. During this time I would recommend that total carbohydrate intake remain between 30%-40% of your total daily intake. So, for the same 150-pound person on the 1,500 minimum calorie diets, 30% would be 450 calories, or roughly 112 grams of carbohydrates. Protein should be 40% of the diet, while the remaining 30% should be fat. You may add some dried beans, even an apple to your daily plan. You will notice your weight reduction continues to progress nicely, though not as fast during this time. Exercise and consumption of large amounts of water are still vital to your success.

The ideal part about Phase II is that you can stay on it until you have lost every drop of unsightly fat that you want to lose. It will continue to reinforce the metabolism reversal that was desired from the beginning, and the fat will keep on burning. If during Phase II you find that you reach an undesirable plateau in your fat•loss, simply return to Phase I for a week and you will easily overcome this obstacle.

Once you have reached your desirable goals, a new lifestyle of eating must be accepted to continue your success. Simply put, eat all the low glycemic carbohydrates you desire, as long as they are unprocessed, unrefined and unadulterated. Processed grains including cereals, cakes, breads, white rice, and flour must be considered luxuries, and eaten conservatively. They cannot occupy the mainstay of your diet as they have in the past. Continue to eat plenty of lean proteins with lots of vegetables. An exercise program, pure water and vitamin supplementation round out your new way of living.

Speaking of vitamin supplementation, I mentioned that there were some specific vitamin supplements, which would assist your body in burning fat. To begin, a meager daily vitamin is mandatory for everyone, dieting or not. Our food supply is simply too deficient in numerous vitamins and minerals, and to not supplement is just plain nonsense. Normal cheap supplements available at your local grocery store are just that, cheap. These so-called supplements usually do not have vitamins or minerals in molecular formulas, which the body is able to absorb. Often times these pills can be seen undigested on X-rays of the abdomen, because of their metallic content. Quality of vitamin product is another topic altogether, however, remember that you get what you pay for. Generally, I recommend the following vitamin and mineral supplementation be taken by anyone dieting to ensure proper nutritional intake:

1. H•G•H STIMULATE—1 packet twice daily (burns body•fat, increases lean muscle)

2. FAT BURNER CLA-1—2 soft gels twice daily

3. ULTIMATE MULTIPLE – As labeled

4. MAGNESIUM - As labeled

5. NORWEGIAN OMEGA 3 OIL - As labeled

6. D3-5000 - As labeled

7. CINNAMON EXTRACT FUEL BURNER—2 capsules twice daily

8. SUPER POTENT E—2 soft gels daily (hearth and cardiovascular system)

10. COQ10 MAX—2 soft gels daily (100 mg) (healthy heart)

11. EXCELLENT C—3,000 to 10,000 mg daily in divided doses (buffered crystals with bioflavonoids)

12. B-COMPLEX—1 capsule twice daily (energy)

13. FIT FOOD PROTEIN—2 scoops daily (meal replacement shake)

14. EVENING PRIMROSE OIL—4 capsules daily (healthy skin)

15. INTESTINAL CLEANSER—1 tablespoon 2 times per day (healthy colon)

Call our office for top quality supplements. I recommend that you order these products from me to start with. That way you will know that they are the same ones that I personally use.

By the way, over 50% of the population is affected by this insulin/glucagon/carbohydrate problem. I happen to be one of them. The other 50%, because of the roll of the genetic dice, can pretty much eat whatever they want and stay thin. This however does not mean that they are healthy. Hundreds of thin people die every day from heart disease, cancer and diabetes. So always remember to follow the Eat, Drink and Be Healthy program to maintain your heart and cardiovascular system. Also, follow the guidelines of this report if you are like me. And always remember to exercise, take your supplements and drink plenty of pure water EVERY DAY!!!  Remember, use dairy sparingly and no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, juice, or dried fruit. They all raise insulin. Please do not hesitate to call my office with any questions. 1-800-726-1834