The marketing of food products is a tough and cut throat business. There must constantly be new and supposedly  improved products or the marketing machine grinds to a halt.  It is no coincidence that nearly every product you can buy has been fortified with the latest miracle nutrient or substance.  As I walked down the aisle of my local grocery store today I had never seen so many products with omega 3s and acia berry.  The funny thing was I was not in the fish aisle or the produce section, but in the dairy.  As far as I know none of these foods naturally contain either one of those other two substances. Anybody ever think that maybe there is a reason for that?  Just by putting something that is suppose to be healthy in a product, this seems to give license to claim that that food now has the same beneficial properties.  I am not convince it works that way, but I am already getting off topic about what I want to talk about and that is natural and organic sweeteners.

The two words “natural” and “organic” are probably some of the biggest marketing buzzwords over the last few years.  If those two words appear anywhere on a label, the consumer has been taught to automatically assume “Healthy”.  So with these two words plastered across cereal boxes and granola bar packages the consumer leads the charge to the cash register confident in the knowledge that the extra money they are doling out is well worth it for their increased health. Most of these products contain 3 or 4 different “natural sweetners” but no actual sugar appears on the label.  If fact the claim “no sugar added” is often emblazoned  across the box.  True, no actual sugar was added. None was needed.  The natural cane extracts and fruit nectars are more than sweet enough, and no less damaging to your waistline than pure white sugar.

One of the latest natural sweeteners to make its appearance  on supposed health food is pure Agave nectar or Agave syrup.  This sweet elixir comes from the blue agave plant, the same plant used to make tequila.  Extracts from the blue agave plant have shown to have anti-inflammatory properties and contain many anti oxidants.  There is no evidence that these health benefits are carried on to the commercially made syrups. Of course that does not stop the syrup from being marketed like it is a proven scientific fact. Since we are speaking of facts, lets look at what we actually know about Agave syrup.

Agave syrup is an amber colored liquid that is thinner than honey and much sweeter than sugar. Many companies promote it as health food because it is gluten free and also is suitable for vegan diets.  The biggest hype about agave is that it scores very low on the glycemic index. This allows it to be marketed as a diabetic friendly sweetener.  This is no small advantage as diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in the western world.  Everything here seems to look pretty good.  Like most things, if it looks too good to be true it probably is.

The reason for agave syrups low glycemic index is because it is almost completely fructose (up to 90%). Fructose does not have much effect on blood sugar but  has been shown to have some very metabolically damaging effects on the body when used in high concentrations as a sweetener.  Fructose causes insulin resistance and raises blood triglycerides.  In studies fructose was also linked to increases in belly fat.  All of these factors can lead to the onset of diabetes and heart disease.

If you have read my previous blogs you might be a little confused.  I even wrote a blog titled In defense of fructose. Have I flip flopped on this sweet substance?  No not at all.  As stated in the previous post, fructose in its natural state (fruit) is just fine. The reason for this is the concentration of fructose in fruit is actually quite low. An apple for example is about 7% fructose.  The rest of the apple is made up vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, and probably hundreds of other healthful compounds that we don’t even know about yet.  All of this is put together in perfect combination to make a nutritious healthy food.  When fructose is commercially extracted from fruit (or agave) all of these compounds are stripped away and all that remains in a very high concentration of fructose.  This high concentration is what causes the metabolic problem.  Agave syrup can be up to 90% fructose. Even high fructose corn syrup cannot match that coming in at 55% fructose.

The take home message here is don’t fall for marketing that claims just because something is natural it is healthy.  To be fair a small amount of agave syrup once in a while probably will not do you any harm.  Just don’t convince  yourself that it is healthier than plain old sugar.  if you really want a quilt free sugar fix, grab some fresh fruit.  That is something you can feel good about, no marketing required.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

Anyone who know me knows I love coffee.  Maybe a little too much. Although everybody knows that C is for “cookie” to a certain blue haired googly eyed friend, C is definitely for “coffee” when it comes to Kevin.

I have always enjoyed dark, strong coffee. I have never drank it any other way but black and the blacker the better.  I believe it is properly referred to as “bold”. I don’t really care what it is called, all I know is I like it, I want it, got to have it.

This type of talk about a substance seems to border almost on obsession or addiction to some and I guess I would have to agree. If you have to have something everyday to be happy you are probably addicted to it.  I can accept that.  I am not sure it warrants a room full of my friends and family telling me how it has negatively affect my relationships with them, but it is an addiction all the same.

Like most addicts I have always been able to justify to myself why I needed coffee and how it was not that big of a deal.  I turned a blind eye to any study that shone a negative light on coffee  or caffeine and always held steadfastly to the belief that it was not a harmful as it was made out to be.  I even preached to people about how coffee was not the problem, it in fact was the sweeteners and coffee whitener or cream that was doing all the harm.  This of course is a very convenient stand for some who only drinks black coffee to take. It was also based on nothing more than my own self serving imagination.

While I pay no heed to any studies that find negative effects from coffee,  I embrace the studies that show the positive.  There has been quite a few of them lately actually so I want to hurry up top my soapbox and shout them to the masses before the new batch of studies comes out that disproves everything the last study established.

It seems all this time coffee has gotten a bad rap because of the crowd it keeps. Regular coffee drinkers generally seemed to be people who did not get enough sleep, smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and overall led a less health conscious lifestyle. Rob van Dam, an assistant professor at the Harvard School Of Public Health, claims early studies that linked coffee with such conditions as heart disease and cancer did not take into account these other lifestyle factors. When larger more long term studies were conducted, no evidence was found that coffee had any effect on mortality rates from any cause including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Some of the subjects in the long term studies drank up to 6 cups per day (lightweights).

Van Dams research also found that coffee drinkers had reduced risk of liver disease and Type 2 diabetes. A recent study published in the Archives Of Internal Medicine suggested that 3-4 cups of coffee per day might reduce the chances of Type 2 diabetes by roughly 25 percent.

Harvard researchers found that drinking coffee might lower mens risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer by up to 60%.  The men who drank the most coffee seemed to receive the most benefit. Other studies have also shown coffee consumption can reduce your risk of ailments like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, dementia,colon and endometrial cancer and gallstones. Coffee has also been shown to improve mental and aerobic performance,endurance and mood, while decreasing depressive symptoms.

Sweet vindication!!  This black gold is nothing short of a miracle elixir!  I knew I was right all along and there is only one thing I like more than coffee and thats being right.  Ok back to reality.  Although the benefits of coffee have been well established just like anything else there is two sides to this story.  In my next blog I will discuss the other side to this coin and show why some people should avoid coffee all together, or at least some types of coffee. Until then enjoy that cup of coffee. I know I will.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

Now that we have looked at all the various indexes that are suppose to help us chose the proper foods for fat loss, it is time to get down to the real issue. How can you make intelligent decisions  when it comes to planning meals? Does every food you choose have to have a Glycemic index of less than 50, a Glycemic load of less than 10 and, and a satiety index of more than 100?  Good luck with that!  As I said before, the various indexs are not in agreement on what foods are best and what are worst. Personally I have no desire to  look up every food I choose before I eat it to see where it ranks either. There is an easier way.  All we have to do is apply some common sense and everything else seems to fall into place.

Essentially what was trying to be achieved by all of these indexes was 3 things:

1. control insulin secretion and stabilize blood sugar levels.
2. control calories
3. control hunger

These are 3 important things in my opinion if dropping bodyfat is your goal.  All 3 of these factors go hand in hand as well. Keeping your blood sugar stable throughout the day will control your hunger so you eat less calories overall. If you eat fewer calories than your body burns you will be in a deficit and will lose fat. Sounds pretty simple, and it actually is.  You just have to chose foods (or eliminate foods) based on one single question.

• How processed is this food?

Processing food essentially prechews, predigests, and preserves it.  Processing also removes water from a food and replaces it with fat, usually a saturated or trans fat so it will keep on the shelf longer.  Processing usually strips most if not all of the fiber out of the food, and adds salt and other “spices” (MSG is classified as a spice).  All of these things make the food taste better.  Unfortunately all of the processes cause a food have a greater impact on insulin secretion, allow us to eat more before we realize we are full, and cause use to be hungry again soon after eating.

Lets use the simple potato as an example of how processing affects a food and how that affects you.  A baked russet potato has next to no processing. It has been washed (it better be anyway) poked a few times and baked.  A 7.5oz potato has 168 calories, 0.2 g of fat and 4 g of fiber. If we go to the extreme end of processing,  potato chips,  a 7.5 oz serving has 1123 calories, 67.5 g of fat and 7.5 g of fiber.  Nearly all of the additional calories in the chips are from fat. That is because the water in the potato that has zero calories has been replaced with fat that contains 9 calories per gram.  This is a very extreme example, but lets compare baked french fries that you buy and prepare at home.  They are just cut up potato that is frozen right?  What’s the difference between that and a whole potato?  Well all you have to do is flip them both over and read the ingredients.  I had a hard time finding the ingredients label on the potato but I am going to go out on a limb and say it contains “potato”.   The bagged frozen potato contained  not less than 10 ingredients, Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, Batter (Wheat Flour, Modified Starch (Maize, Tapioca), Rice Flour, Salt, Corn Starch, Natural Colours (Turmeric Extract, Paprika Extract))  A 7.5 oz serving of these potatoes was 365 calories. More than double what an actual potato is.  This of course does not include any oil you use in the cooking process and anything you add afterwards.  Also of note, if you cooked and broke one of these fries open, it was obvious that the rough, starchy, consistency of a potato was not there. It was more like it had been mashed to almost a liquid and then pressed into its current shape. Your body has to do very little to break these “potatoes” down, they almost melt in your mouth. Like they had already been pre chewed. This makes it very easy for you to eat a tremendous amount of calories in no time. A high intake of easily digested food spikes your blood glucose and causes a insulin spike to deal with the sugar in the blood steam. Once the insulin has dealt with the glucose you become hungry again.  The less food you eat and the longer it takes to digest the more stable your blood sugar remains and the lower the insulin response.

There are many other factors I consider when I design a fat loss diet for a client, like individual lifestyle factors, macronutrient breakdown, and portion size, but people can make tremendous progress just by eliminating processed foods as much from their diets as possible.  We need to worry about the elephant in the living room crapping on the floor instead of the dust on the blinds. Try this the next time you go grocery shopping. Try to buy as many things as possible with no label.  The things you do buy with labels, try the limit the ingredient list to 3 or less.  You might be surprised how different you cart looks going through the checkout. In a short time you might be surprised how you look to.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

In the previous post we discuss the Glycemic Index and its short comings. Of course when a flaw is found with a system an alternative is proposed that fixes these problems.  Walla!! the Glycemic Load Index or GL.  Lets see if this hold the answers to what foods we should be choosing for those ripped abs and tight butts.  First things first though. What exactly is the GL?

The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low. Many foods that were previously shunned because of their high GI, were found to have a relatively low GL. Some examples of these foods are carrots, parsnips,  broad beans and pumpkin. Even rice, that would certainly be considered high GI, has a very low GL when a reasonable serving size of 75g is considered.

I think the GL is a far better gauge of a food than the GI. That being said, basing your food choices on the GL does not seem to solve all of your fat loss problems.  A year long study done at Tufts University that compared high GL to low GL diets, showed no significant bodyweight or bodyfat difference at the end of the study between the two groups. I would venture to say that if eating low GL food provided no difference over high GL food, arguing the effectiveness of the GL over the GI is probably a moot point.  Perhaps there is more to fat loss than just how a food affects or blood sugar and insulin levels? Maybe the ultimate answer is staring us right in the face but we can’t see it because of all the indexes, charts and graphs?  Next time I will look past all of these distractions and show what truly matters when losing bodyfat is your goal.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

Many people are familiar with the glycemic index (GI) but for those that are not lets start with a brief description. The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels. It stands to reason that when fat loss is your ultimate goal a low GI diet is the path to the promised land and all high GI foods should be banished. Well maybe it is not that black and white.

One problem is how the GI of specific foods are determined. In a clinically controlled setting,  portions of food that contain 50g of carbohydrate are fed to people who have fasted overnight. The rise in blood sugar is measured every 15 minutes for 3 hours and then plotted on a graph. The area under the curve is measured and indexed against glucose at 100. That number is the food’s glycemic index. The higher the rise in blood sugar, the higher the glycemic index of that food. Although this makes nerds in lab coats happy, because of the controls that can be imposed, this is not a reflection of real life.  The digestion/absorption of previous meals, as well as the context of the carbohydrate food can drastically alter GI. Rarely are foods eaten in isolation and in the amounts that are seen in these tests. For example carrots, contain about 7% carbohydrate. This means you would have to eat more than 5 lbs of carrots first thing in the morning, by themselves, to get a GI rating. That’s not realistic. Also the GI of a food is different if it is cooked or raw, mashed or chopped, and more or less ripe.  Adding protein, fat or fiber to a carbohydrate further alters it GI.

If a lean, ripped physique is you goal, choosing food based on GI alone holds many pitfalls. Many high calorie foods have relatively low GI ratings. Ice cream, milk chocolate, and peanut M&M candies all have a lower GI rating than a yam.  I have designed many successful fat loss diets that included yams. I have yet to reccomend ice cream for someone seeking a ripped six pack.

Although I would like to take credit for exposing these flaws in the GI that is very far from the truth. These short coming have been known for a long time. Of course when a flaw is found with a particular system an alternative is proposed to pick up where the other fell short.  Enter the Glycemic Load Index or GL.  Next time we will see if this holds the answers to the never ending battle of the bulge. Have a great day.

Get a custom fat loss diet designed for you.

If you would like to contact me shoot me an email at kevin@kevinweiss.com

Many people are familiar with the glycemic index (GI) but for those that are not lets start with a brief description. The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels. It stands to reason that when fat loss is your ultimate goal a low GI diet is the path to the promised land and all high GI foods should be banished. Well maybe it is not that black and white.

One problem is how the GI of specific foods are determined. In a clinically controlled setting,  portions of food that contain 50g of carbohydrate are fed to people who have fasted overnight. The rise in blood sugar is measured every 15 minutes for 3 hours and then plotted on a graph. The area under the curve is measured and indexed against glucose at 100. That number is the food’s glycemic index. The higher the rise in blood sugar, the higher the glycemic index of that food. Although this makes nerds in lab coats happy, because of the controls that can be imposed, this is not a reflection of real life.  The digestion/absorption of previous meals, as well as the context of the carbohydrate food can drastically alter GI. Rarely are foods eaten in isolation and in the amounts that are seen in these tests. For example carrots, contain about 7% carbohydrate. This means you would have to eat more than 5 lbs of carrots first thing in the morning, by themselves, to get a GI rating. That’s not realistic. Also the GI of a food is different if it is cooked or raw, mashed or chopped, and more or less ripe.  Adding protein, fat or fiber to a carbohydrate further alters it GI.

If a lean, ripped physique is you goal, choosing food based on GI alone holds many pitfalls. Many high calorie foods have relatively low GI ratings. Ice cream, milk chocolate, and peanut M&M candies all have a lower GI rating than a yam.  I have designed many successful fat loss diets that included yams. I have yet to reccomend ice cream for someone seeking a ripped six pack.

Although I would like to take credit for exposing these flaws in the GI that is very far from the truth. These short coming have been known for a long time. Of course when a flaw is found with a particular system an alternative is proposed to pick up where the other fell short.  Enter the Glycemic Load Index or GL.  Next time we will see if this holds the answers to the never ending battle of the bulge. Have a great day.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

In the last post it was established that your body would not burn fat for energy when insulin is present. Since insulin is released every time we eat the trick is to get insulin levels back down as fast as possible after a meal so we can get back into fat burning land. How do we do that though? Well there are a few ways and if you are reading this blog,  you are probably already doing some of them. One of the obvious ways is to eat a low carb diet, but that has many drawbacks and needs to be implemented properly to maintain workout intensity. That is a subject all its own so I will address that in a future blog. What I want to focus on today is minimizing insulin resistance, and maximizing insulin sensitivity.

We already know that insulin delivers glucose to the muscle cells, fat cells and liver. That”s a good thing. When these cells become “resistant” to insulin’s effect, bad thing definitely start happening.  Muscle cells will not “uptake” the glucose to be stored as glycogen, the fat cells release more free fatty acids into the blood steam,  and the liver ignores the signal to stop producing more glucose. Elevated blood fatty acid levels, reduced muscle glucose uptake, and increased liver glucose production all contribute to elevated blood glucose levels. This causes the pancreas  to release more insulin and the vicious circle continues. Next stop, type 2 diabetes.  Hopefully, and quite likely, if you are reading this you are a long way from this condition and are just trying to get leaner. So lets look at how to maximize your insulin sensitivity so you can get those insulin levels down and burn off  some body fat.

Here are the main factors that will help increase insulin sensitivity:

• eating less saturated fat and fewer total calories.
• keep blood sugars stable throughout the day.
• drink little or no alcohol.
• exercise regularly
• not smoking
• reducing  stress.

Obviously doing the opposite of these thing will increase insulin resistance.  If you are doing all of the above CONSISTENTLY, good for you! You are well on your way to that six pack. If you have room for improvement, and most of us do, it could be the reason you fat loss goals have stalled.

Next week I want to talk about the glycemic index, how it relates to controlling insulin levels, and why it can be misleading when planning a diet. Have a good week.

Nearly everybody  wants to know how to lose fat. In this post I want to talk about how insulin and insulin levels affect how your body does or does not burn fat.  Insulin has gotten most of its “bad rap” because it is indeed heavily involved in fat storage. Hey it is a storage hormone, that’s what it does.  For a very long time it was believed that it was the only, or at least the most important, hormone involved in fat storage. This turn out not to be true, even if some people still cling to the belief.  A compound called acylation stimulation protein or ASP has been know to be the most potent stimulator of fat storage in the fat cell for over 30 years. That point aside, insulin is still very involved in the process of fat storage and the inhibition of  fat mobilization from fat cells.  Even small increases in insulin levels essentially stops fat from being mobilized or released from the fat cells.  No fat being released from the cells, no fat available to be burned for energy.  The simple solution to this seems to be keep insulin levels low at all times. Then fat mobilization would not be inhibited and we could burn fat for energy all the time. Sounds grand doesn’t it?  And since eating carbohydrate is responsible for insulin levels rising  all we have to do is eat no carbs and the problem is solved. Ahh, if it were only that simple. As usual there is more to the story.  It is a misconception that eating carbohydrates is the only thing that raises insulin. Eating protein raises insulin too. In fact eating protein and carbs together raise insulin more than either one of the two when eaten alone.  Well now we are really screwed. How are we suppose to burn fat for energy if  the body keeps shutting down fat burning by releasing insulin every time we eat?   The answer lies in not trying to stop the release of insulin (you definitely do not want that) but rather controlling  how long insulin levels are  elevated. The sooner insulin levels drop, the sooner we can get back to tapping into the bodies energy stores. Next time i will talk about how make this happen. Have a good week.

A calorie of protein provides the same amount of energy to the body as a calorie of fat or carbohydrate.  This may in fact be true but lost in this broad statement is the fact that these different nutrients have different effects on metabolism and hormone secretion that are far  more important than just their caloric value. One of the major hormones influenced by nutrient intake is insulin.

So what is Insulin? In simple terms insulin is defined as a polypeptide hormone  that regulates carbohydrate metabolism.In simpler terms this means that after a meal, insulin deals with the rise in blood sugar by delivering it to the cells where it can be used for energy.  While this function is very important, insulin does much more. A study in 1999 showed that insulin is involved in many critical metabolic functions including, the breakdown and utilization (burning) of both dietary and body fat. Insulin was shown to inhibits fat breakdown, so when insulin levels are elevated your body cannot break down stored fat to be used for energy.  If you cannot burn bodyfat for energy it does not seem likely you will reduce your fat stores. Insulin must be the worst thing in the world! Anything that stops us from burning bodyfat and achieving that highly coveted six pack must be completely done away with! Not so fast.  That type of thinking gets babies thrown out with the bath water.  Over the next several posts I will discuss, 

1)Why and when insulin is bad.

2)Why and when insulin is good.

3)How to eat to minimize the bad and maximize the good.

Not sure how many posts this will be broken into as it is a massive subject but I hope you stay tuned.