Get-Fit Tips: Tip 2: "Understanding and Applying the DHP Whole Food Groups Pie Chart and Eating Plan"

Like our Balanced-Body Pyramid, the DHP Whole-Food Groups Pie Chart is a clear and concise method to effectively present the main themes of our eating plan. Specifically in our pie chart we are addressing whole foods, meaning as unrefined and as close to nature as you can get. This does not mean we are eliminating all processed or prepared foods, such as pastas, or casseroles. This just means we want you to emphasize whole-foods in your diet.

We also address the most ideal way to divide up your daily calories: 40-50% carbohydrates (4 cals per gram); 30-40% protein (4 cals per gram); and 20-30% fat (9 cals per gram). This ensures you will meet your sustained energy needs for performance with complex carbs; you will meet your protein requirements for muscle maintenance and tissue repair; and meet your minimum fat requirements.

The type of carbohydrates you choose and how you combine your foods is very strategic so that you can moderate your insulin and make it work efficiently so that you will have sustained energy throughout the day. This is why we emphasize complex and whole-grain/unrefined carbs, for higher fiber contents and slower digestion. You can also combine your carbs, proteins, and fats during meals for an over all lower glycemic load, so that insulin release is slowed and minimized. The high fiber content of complex carbs is essential for making you feel fuller, maintaining colon function and cardiovascular health. In our book, ‘How Much Fat are You Carrying?’ we also discuss food-combining during meals to facilitate ideal digestion, as well as providing you with a glycemic index of foods chart in the appendix.

Whole-fruit is the only simple-carbohydrate, or sugar (fructose), we emphasize daily, because it is packed full of phyto-nutrients, fiber, anti-oxidants, cancer fighting flavonoids, and, it can really satisfy a sweet tooth! As you will learn in our book, it is ideal to eat fruit by itself since it comes from nature with its own digestive enzymes, and if you eat it with a large meal, the fructose and fiber can start to ferment in the stomach until all the other food is digested (leading to gas and discomfort).

However, under our DHP meal plan guidelines we do NOT require that you eliminate ANY food groups. We believe everything is ‘legal’ within moderation. In fact we encourage you to have an occasional cheat meal to satisfy your cravings for must-have foods that other diets ban. This is because one cheat-meal keeps your sanity, prevents out of control binging and follow on guilt, and, may even have the added benefit of boosting your metabolism, since chronic low-calorie dieting suppresses your metabolism and can drive your body into starvation-mode.

Not restricting or counting calories is another key principle under our DHP eating plan: Ultra low-calorie diets bog down your metabolism, and let’s be honest – counting calories at each meal is difficult and a down right pain in the butt! However, we do apply portion control and moderation because after all, total-caloric intake is a factor in weight gain. But we do this through training your natural-intuition and practice gauging portion size, not counting calories. You will begin by dividing up your daily food-intake into 5 or 6 smaller meals/snacks and eat every 3 hours or so, never feeling too full, but eating just enough to take away the hunger. Your stomach should never feel stuffed, or bloated, or heavy. After you eat a meal if you still feel very hungry, give your mind and appetite a few minutes to catch up with your stomach and it should go away. If not, simply eat some more veggies, or drink more water, or a cup of Green tea or coffee. The extra (calorie-free) volume filling your stomach WILL then shut down the hunger signal. Another trick is a few raw nuts after a meal: the healthy fat from the calorie-dense nuts will satiate you but with no additional insulin impact.

Lastly, we allow more carbs than most current diet plans, but that is because we expect you to exercise or at least be active 5 days per week. Because when you exercise carbohydrates once again become a welcome food group, and in fact, are the body’s preferred source of fuel for any kind of intense exercise, (exceeding 75% of your max HR), as well as for strength training. So if you are exercising consistently then you get to enjoy additional carbs…imagine that! And if you take a rest day or are too busy to exercise one day, then simply reduce your carbs and substitute in more protein or unsaturated fats.

Again, this is just a brief summary of our DHP eating plan and the pie chart. We do hope that you will by our holistic fat-loss book, ‘How Much Fat are You Carrying?’ for a complete and in depth explanation of the ideal methods to eat to set your metabolism on fire, making it virtually impossible for your body to store fat. That’s right – you can re-program your physiology and restore your insulin function and sugar metabolism by applying the techniques we teach in our book.

Best of luck to achieving your new, healthy, and leaner body, and let us help you on your journey!

Sincerely,

Candace and Max

I started writing this topic with the intent of making it the second of a two part summer series for simply looking good in a swim suit.  For most of us, we just care about what we see in the mirror, and would love to see a 6-pack set of abs reflecting back at us.  This can be great for motivation, but after extensive research on the relentless belly or gut afflicting so many people, (63% of Americans are overweight, and 35% are obese), what I found was that this area of fat storage is mysteriously linked to many health problems, and perhaps even the cause of them.  The ‘apple shaped’ body type.  Belly fat, or visceral fat is a strange animal, producing inflammatory and immune triggers, converting precious testosterone to estrogen, and is directly linked to insulin resistance/glucose intolerance.

    So what should motivate you to lose your belly even more than the mirror or beach vacation might instead come from clinical lab tests from your doctor.  Poor lab test results from tests such as fasting-glucose test, cholesterol and triglyceride tests, and ‘C-Reactive Protein’ tests, could indicate that you are on your way to becoming insulin resistant or even diabetic, have heart-disease or clogged blood vessels, hypertensive, or have systemic/body-wide inflammation.  And medical and physiology research now has confirmed that there is a direct correlation between how large your mid-section is, termed ‘central obesity’, and major epidemics such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease.  There are several new buzz labels for this disorder affecting so many Americans, such as ‘Metabolic Syndrome’ and ‘Syndrome-X’, characterized by central obesity/visceral fat, and insulin-resistance or poor glucose tolerance – (unable to store and metabolize sugar properly.)   Even the commercial diet market has jumped on board to capitalize from the American belly-fat syndrome, largely blaming it solely on chronic, elevated Cortisol levels.  However this mass marketing is incorrectly skewed, as Cortisol is only partly to blame.  Excess sugar, refined foods, lack of dietary fiber, and lack of exercise are the real underlying culprits of America’s bulging belly and sugar-metabolism problems…sound familiar…it is not rocket science!

 Don’t Panic – Let This Serve as a Gut Check:

Quite often I realize I can come across as a ‘doomsday guy’, when really it is only my intent to raise your awareness.  So let me reassure you that you can be over weight and still be perfectly healthy…perhaps just not look like a cover model.  Obesity is when all the major health risks and increased mortality rates typically become a reality, (Obesity is clinically defined as having a body mass index BMI of greater than 30.)  I may be OCD about fitness, but I do realize and accept that there will be some decrease in lean body mass as we all age, especially past age 40.  It is not inevitable that we get fatter, and you need not accept such a fate.  Certainly as we age it is more difficult to maintain muscle mass, but there is no physiological reason to gain fat.  Major hormonal shifts are mostly to blame, as testosterone and growth hormone levels drop off, and DHT and estrogen levels rise, (in men).  However, don’t ever give up the fitness battle and keep your gut in check, because regular exercise and eating right delays and minimizes all the negative aging effects.  Exercise is the number one way to keep insulin under control and make it function normally to fuel muscles, vs. just storing fat and causing inflammation.  Even if you only gain 5 pounds a year, (50 excess calories per day), that adds up very quickly and next thing you know you’re a fat guy with high triglycerides, high cholesterol, hypertension, pre-diabetic, enlarged prostate, elevated C-reactive protein levels and no energy for exercise.  You see when you’re excessively overweight you get handed all these health issues in one nasty package.

 Basic Body Fat Physiology and Contributing Factors to Belly Fat:

I’m talking about body fat here, as an organ, not dietary, macro-nutrient fat that you eat.  By all means is this not all-inclusive, and these statements are generalizations that I feel are noteworthy and could make an impact on your fat-fighting strategies and get-fit lifestyle.  There may be exceptions!  This should also serve to bust a few fat myths:

1. You do not spot-store and cannot spot-reduce fat.  I.E., crunches will not cause you to lose the subcutaneous fat covering your abs.  Creating a calorie deficit each day through diet and exercise will slowly melt away your fat stores.
2. Excess daily calories can either be used to build muscle, store as glycogen in muscle in liver cells for energy, or store as fat in adipose tissue, sometimes all of the above.
3. The body stores fat in adipose tissue, either subcutaneously under the skin, or viscerally, (internally), in the abdomen mostly on a large piece of connective tissue/organ called the OMENTUM.  Fat can also be stored within our muscles and as fatty acids in our livers, for more immediate energy.
4. Insulin is a transport hormone that shuttles glucose and nutrients to the cells for energy and for growth and repair.  Insulin will store excess glucose as fat.  In insulin-resistant, pre-diabetic folks, the cells do not respond well to insulin and blood sugar stays elevated.
5. When extra energy is needed your body accesses fatty acids from your liver first, then from visceral/Omentum, (internal belly), fat through the portal vein.  Then subcutaneous fat and intra-muscular fat is accessed.
6. Reducing visceral/Omentum fat is how you reduce belly size.  Reducing subcutaneous fat is how you look more defined, tone, and vascular.
7. You cannot burn purely fat for fuel, ever, even when you are in an emergency energy metabolism state called ketosis, because even in this condition you are also breaking down muscle tissue for protein as an energy source.  In normal aerobic energy production, the body always requires some form of carbohydrate from glucose or stored glycogen to burn fat, known as the Krebs cycle.
8. Fat cells, called adipocytes, enlarge as you store more fat, but they never divide into more fat cells.  Your set number of fat cells is established during adolescence, so if you were overweight as a kid then you probably carry more fat cells.
9. Men generally store more fat in their upper body adipose tissue while women store more in their lower body adipose tissue.  The adipocyte cells located in the mid-torso have the potential to super-enlarge.
10. Adipose tissue produces the satiety, (fullness), hormone known as Leptin in proportion to how much body fat you have.  Obese people become insensitive to Leptin hormone.
11. Fat/adipose tissue is not an inert storage organ, but rather an important metabolically active endocrine organ that is vital for good health and releases a long list of hormones, enzymes, cytokines, molecules, and other factors involved in body metabolism.
12. Adipose tissue produces in enzyme known as Aromatase that converts testosterone into estrogen.  The more body fat you have, the higher your estrogen levels will be and consequently the lower your testosterone levels.  This is why obese men can develop gynecomastia, (man-boobs).  This is also why some women become ‘estrogen dominant’.  Don’t forget that testosterone builds muscle, drives libido, and increases lean-body mass.
13. Visceral/internal belly fat secretes large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals known as interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, as well as free-radicals.  These molecules directly cause systemic inflammation, oxidation, and can damage blood vessel walls, causing lesions where oxidized cholesterol can attach.  In addition, they trigger immune response.  Also the Omentum can pump toxic fat and inflammatory chemicals directly into your liver via the Portal vein.
14. Growth Hormone is a major player in maintaining lean body mass, and especially reducing visceral fat.  To maximize Growth Hormone levels, get a good night's sleep, and incorporate more intense, lactic acid producing exercise into your training plan.

14. Visceral/Omentum/internal belly fat interferes with insulin function and promotes glucose intolerance, and may increase levels of Resistin hormone which further causes cells to resist insulin and not uptake glucose – a viscous cycle develops.
15. Visceral/Omentum/internal belly fat can become ‘sick’ or dysfunctional and this has been termed adiposopathy and is pathological adipose tissue dysfunction.
16. Chronic, elevated Cortisol levels are linked to excess visceral/Omentum/belly fat, but scientists aren’t sure exactly why.  This fight-or-flight, stress response hormone mobilizes energy by increasing blood-glucose and releasing fatty-acids into the blood stream, and consequently, insulin increases as well.  So if you’re just sitting around and not “fighting or flighting”, you’re just causing more fat storage and blood-sugar fluctuations.  It is thought that the Omentum organ simply has a many cortisol receptor sites.  Therefore, belly size is a good indicator of your stress levels.
17. Insufficient sleep causes an increase in the hunger hormone known as Ghrelin which is produced by the stomach.  Sleep deprivation promotes increased appetite.
18. Human metabolism was biologically evolved thousands of years ago for times of famine and starvation, so we’re very efficient at storing fat.  Nothing puts your metabolism into efficient fat-storing mode more, then skipping breakfast, fasting all day and then eating a huge dinner late at night.
19. BEER DOES NOT CAUSE a ‘BEER BELLY’!  Excess calories, lack of exercise, poor diet, and other lifestyle factors cause a fat, large Omentum, which gives the look of a beer/pot belly – so by all means enjoy your beer…in moderation! 

What You Can Do to Combat Visceral, Omentum, Belly Fat:

Referencing the fat-fact list above should give you a general overview of what lifestyle factors contribute to obesity, and visceral fat, and how to mitigate it.  In a nutshell a healthy lifestyle is healthy in all ways and no special diet is needed for this, that, or the other latest marketing buzz.  A truly healthy lifestyle consists of eating whole foods, avoiding/minimizing refined foods – especially white flours and sugars.  Your meals should be divided up into many smaller snacks throughout the day vs. fasting all day and then having a large meal late at night.  You need regular exercise, incorporating aerobic and strength training.  You need to get a good night of sleep.  You need to take action to minimize stress.  Please reference my pilot-portal library archive for extensive details on eating properly, exercising, dealing with stress and Cortisol, and even detoxing.  Specifically:

1. Minimize sugar and refined carbohydrates.
2. Exercise, exercise, exercise!..especially intense workouts which produces lactic acid and consequently stimualtes Growth Hormone.
3. Eat a high-fiber diet, at least 30 grams per day.
4. Get adequate, quality sleep.
5. Find ways to minimize and deal with your stress and lower your cortisol.
6. Consume caffeine and other stimulants in moderation.
7. Ingest healthy essential omega fats from nuts, olive and flax oil, and cold-water fish.
8. Eat soy products. Soy isoflavones block unhealthy estrogens and synthetic xeno-estrogens.
9. Try adding these supplements regularly:

-  Vitamin C, all doses safe. (Anti-inflammatory, balances Cortisol, anti-oxidant)

-  Vitamin E, up to 1000 IUs daily, (Anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant)

-  Fish Oil (Anti-inflammatory)

-  DHEA, 25 mg per day, after discussing it with your doctor. (Regulates Cortisol and balances all adrenal hormones.)

-  Zinc.  (Blocks estrogen/promotes testosterone)

- Cinnamon extract improves insulin efficiency and glucose uptake by muscle cells.

- Green Tea increases thermogenesis and fat burning.

-  Amino acid L-Arginine taken before bed time on an empty stomach, 1 teaspoon, or up to 3 grams, will trigger a great GH release.

Remember fat is an actual endocrine organ that serves many necessary functions for living.  We need it!  And the Omentum serves many beneficial purposes, including securing our organs in place with connective tissue, immune function and fighting off abdominal cavity infections.  We just need to keep our guts in check so we don’t end up like approx 25% of the adult population who has now been labeled with ‘Metabolic Syndrome X’.  If you suspect your pot-belly is taking control of you, it is never too late to fight back.  Insulin resistance, hypertension, heart disease, and man-boobs do not need to be an accepted way of life.  Take charge of your belly now!

Sources: ‘The Inflammation Syndrome’ by Jack Challem; ‘Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 2006 12(1):10-16); www.medicineau.net; www.wikipedia.com; healthfully.org; Dr. Oz and his book, 'You on a Diet!' as seen on Oprah.

by Max Wettstein, Copyright 2006
**Not medical advice*

Combat Omental-Fat our 'Get-Fit-Tips' # 3b
Central Obesity
Part 2

This is part 2 in an ongoing series to raise awareness, understand and conquer internal, visceral (dangerous) belly-fat that stores on the Omentum within the abdomen.  Part 1 is an entire discussion on Central Obesity and the over all negative health consequences, as well as an in-depth discussion on the different types of adipose tissue stored in our body and their respective characteristics

As I stated in part 1 of this series, many times the case is a bulging belly while all other areas of your body appear to be relatively lean, (especially in men who are approaching age 40 or over).  The general rule is that we don't spot-gain fat, and this is still the case where subcutaneous (under the skin) is concerned.  There is a place however where our body will spot-gain fat and rapidly at that, and that is within the abdomen beneath our muscles and over & around our organs, on the Omentum.  The Omentum (Greater & Lesser) is a layer of adipose (fat) tissue that drapes off the stomach and hangs down underneath the muscles and partly attaches to your transverse colon.  It serves many useful functions to include supporting your organs, storing visceral fat supplied directly from the small intestine, secreting immune-response factors to protect from peritoneal infection, binding cortisol,  and supplying immediate fat to the liver via the Portal Vein for quick energy.

    The omentum is yellow in color (from fat) and looks like thin, permeable webbing draped off the stomach but can fluctuate in thickness greatly depending on how much fat you're storing.  It has the potential to expand enormously with fat globules swelling up to maximum capacity, squishing your organs and pushing against your abdominal wall, making your belly bulge yet perhaps still be quite firm to the touch since all the fat lies beneath the Abs-muscles.  (Many happy-go-lucky, middle-aged men often almost affectionately refer to this localized phenomenon as their 'beer-belly', incorrectly giving beer a bad rap!)

    The Omentum could be considered our 'Abdominal Fat Depot' as Dr. Oz characterizes it, and the liver has direct and immediate access to this omental-fat via the Portal vein.  This can be good in times of need for immediate energy, but other times it is bad because the liver is bombarded with fat, cholesterol and inflammatory chemicals, stressing and contributing to 'fatty-liver disease'where the liver becomes engorged and inflamed with excess fat and its metabolic functions are impaired (damage may be reversible).  (Excessive alcohol consumption further contributes to Fatty-Liver Disease.)

    The Omentum also has many cortisol receptors.  Remember, cortisol is a stress-response hormone secreted from the adrenal glands and is also beneficial in the short term during times of real fight-or-flight stress, or strenuous physical activity.  Cortisol also balances melatonin to set our sleep-wake cycle or Circadian rhythm.  But during chronic stress cortisol remains elevated and the omentum helps to clear this excess cortisol by binding to it and this uptake of the cortisol (steroid) hormone turbo-charges the omentum's ability to store fat.  Now we see the direct link between chronic stress and increased belly-size, and a legitimate case of spot-gaining fat!

    As if this wasn't enough to cause your belly to swell internally, the omentum also sucks large amounts of insulin out of circulation so that the pancreas has to continue to over-produce more to help muscle cells absorb glucose out of the blood for fuel.  An over-fat omentum feeds on insulin and is a significant, direct causal factor to insulin-resistance and eventually (adult-onset) Type-2 diabetes because it pulls so much insulin from the blood stream impairing its ability to transport glucose and nutrients out of the blood and into cells for energy and glycogen storage.  (Exercise directly and immediately fixes this dangerous scenario: At once making your body more insulin-sensitive/efficient and more glucose-tolerant, more readily up-taking glucose - sugar - for energy.)

    **(IFBB pro-bodybuilders take note: This is the primary cause of your distorted'roid-gut: When you inject (abuse) insulin, not only are you endangering your life, your muscles are not the only tissue becoming hyper-anabolic...your omentum is being turbo-charged to grow and store fat.  Growth hormone abuse is also causing your organs to hyper-grow in size - these combined factors causing your belly to swell internally while yet you still possess a lean 6-pack set of ABS.  Meanwhile your health has been compromised for vanity.  Your drug-engineered image does not belong in any 'Fitness' or health publication.)

    Finally, an unhealthy, swollen omentum squishes your organs causing discomfort and secretes inflammatory chemicals throughout the abdomen and directly into the liver via the portal vein.  So it is a contributor to systemic inflammation which we now know is a factor in almost all disease as well as 'Metabolic-Syndrome'.  And it appears an over-fat omentum literally secretes the appetite INCREASING hormone LEPTIN and decreases levels of the fat-regulating chemical adiponectin.

    So while a normal healthy omentum serves many important physiological functions, a fatty-omentum clearly sets off a chain reaction of health-problems that can quickly cycle out of our control.  The most important and first step is become AWARE of this silent, and invisible layer of adipose tissue, which I have hopefully accomplished for you with this analysis.  By now you can clearly understand that not all adipose or fat tissue is created equal: While both internal, omental-fat and subcutaneous fat both provide stored energy - subcutaneous fat, while it may not look good if obscuring your abs, is relatively harmless, inactive and does not directly contribute to and elevate obesity-related health risks.  Internal, visceral omental-fat is a marker for of heart-disease, diabetes, syndrome-X, fatty-liver, and functions as an active organ.

    Putting it all together: Lets over simplify and point out direct lifestyle causal factors that will cause your belly-fat to grow:

1.  A SEDENTARY lifestyle (Causing insulin-resistance & Glucose-intolerance.)

2.  A diet high in sugar and refined-foods (High-Glycemic Index foods, triggering insulin excess.)

3.  A diet high in caffeine and other adrenal stressors (Triggering cortisol.)

4.  Exposure to chronic stress (Elevating levels of cortisol.)

5.  One or two giant meals per day, versus 5 to 6 smaller more frequent meals (Bombarding your omentum with too much fat & calories at one sitting - the immediate storage depot for fat.)

    So there it is: Address these lifestyle causal factors FIRST, and see if this starts to slim your belly - and maybe allow you to live longer as well!  Liposuction is not even an option for INTERNAL omental-fat - in fact there is no cosmetic surgical option.  There is no diet pill that directly addresses it.  Stimulant, thermogenic diet supplements will most likely serve only to further aggravate omental-fat by stressing adrenals (even if you are able to reduce subcutaneous fat.)

    There is good news: Since omental-fat is the first and most easily stored early in the digestion process, and is directly available to the liver for energy via the portal vein, that means it is the first accessed for energy after immediate blood-based fatty acids and liver fatty-acids begin to deplete.  Ironically the less dangerous subcutaneous fat deposited on top of your abs or on the back of your thighs weaved into cellulite takes much longer to access.

    Remember though, during any kind of intense exercise you are primarily burning glycogen (carbohydrates) for fuel so fat is a little slower to come off and is a less efficient fuel source during exercise.  But as long as you consistently exercise, limit sugar and refined foods, and create a small net-calorie deficit each day, you will eventually access all your hard-to-reach stored fat or adipose tissue in due time.  You may think that doing low-intensity exercise would best serve you if you intend to burn primarily fat as your fuel source, but this strategy has proven ineffective: You simply don't burn enough over all calories during low-intensity training unless you can exercise for 2 hours or longer.  Also, shorter duration, high-intensity exercise is leaves your metabolism elevated for much longer due to the after-effects of EPOC: Excessive Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption.

    You are now AWARE and ARMED with knowledge to prevent and combat internal, omental, belly FAT!  Good luck in your conquest!  And remember this is more than about vanity - this is about living longer and healthier.

copyright Max Wettstein Fitness 2009 - Opinion only!
Max Wettstein is the official ABS-Expert & Lean-Body coach for Destination Health Plus