SCIENCE OF OUR NUTRITION PLAN

The nutrition plan that most of our clients follow is oriented toward weight loss. We do not have you count calories, we teach portion management, environmental awareness, sound nutrition principles, and weight loss solutions. It works because you replace sugars (candy, cookies, wine, alcohol, processed foods, etc.) in your diet with low glycemic foods (lean meats, green vegetables, and healthy oils). Essentially, you are eating whole unprocessed foods. It is NOT a low carbohydrate diet; it is a low starch and no sugar nutrition plan. You may have almost any lean meat or vegetable you want, just not meat or vegetables that have a high glycemic number (i.e. baked potatoes and Wonder bread). We help focus your nutrition as a lifestyle change that will last the rest of your life, and teach you how to keep the weight off once you have lost it.

The unique aspect of our nutrition plan is that it will work for everyone. It is impossible to not lose weight on this nutrition plan if you follow the principles correctly. You can expect to lose up to 5-10 pounds the first two weeks. By eating better quality foods, you automatically reduce your carbohydrate calories and the extra water weight that these calories cause, which sets your body up to burn fat. It’s about making better food choices or substitutions that lower the level of blood sugar (glucose) circulating in your blood stream. This decreases the release of insulin, a fat/muscle storage hormone excreted from the beta cells in your pancreas. You will feel satiated with the amount of food you eat, but because of the macronutrient manipulation, you ingest fewer calories that take longer to digest. In turn, those calories will not be stored as fat.
Again, insulin is a fat storage hormone. Think of insulin as a key that opens a door. It literally opens the door for your muscle/fat cells (tissue) to absorb the required glucose (what food is broken down to). When there is a rapid increase in blood glucose (Starbucks muffin) there is also a corresponding release of insulin from your pancreas. When the level of blood glucose exceeds the demand (muscle cell full of glucose), insulin facilitates entry into the fat cells, where the glucose is stored as FAT!

Less insulin release means less fat storage in your adipose tissue (fat cells). When there is excess glucose in the blood (Starbucks muffin), your body is not burning fat at all. Instead, the body is in fat storage mode. This is not what you want. Starchy foods and sugar (white flour, white rice, white sugar, and alcohol) should be eliminated from your diet if fat loss is the goal. If you don't do this, even if you’re working out three to four times per week, your body will continue to utilize the glucose in your blood and glycogen (stored carbohydrate) in your muscles and liver before it ever taps your fat cells for energy. When you eat starchy carbohydrates, your glucose levels are high and your insulin levels are high. High insulin levels keep your adipose cells (fat cells) from releasing its energy to be used by the body, and the fat just stays put.

You want your body to start utilizing your fat stores, so you must eat foods that are low glycemic. What this means, is that you want to eat foods that don't get broken down quickly and absorbed into the lower intestine and liver at a high rate. A Starbucks muffin on a scale of 1-10 will be absorbed into the blood stream very quickly (9-10 on a scale of 10); a steak or piece of chicken will be a 3-4. What this means is that your insulin levels are not rising and glucagon (balance hormone of insulin, excreted by the alpha cells of your pancreas that assists in breaking down fat) is released, which TELLS your body to start utilizing fat as an energy source. It is literally a fat burning hormone. If insulin levels are high, glucagon is not secreted, meaning you are not burning fat.

Glucagon secretion is stimulated by the intake of protein (THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, so you must eat protein at every meal) and suppressed by the intake of carbohydrates, especially processed (cookies, chips, bread) carbohydrates. After blood glucose spikes (Starbucks muffin), it deceases dramatically below where your blood glucose levels were before you ate the Starbuck’s muffin. When this happens, your body essentially crashes (low blood sugar or hypoglycemia) and releases a cascade of counter regulatory hormones throughout your body (cortisol, adrenaline, growth hormone, AND glucagon). This resulting cascade results in hyperphagia (strong hunger drive). The feeling of hyperphagia is what you feel when you say you are starving, which lasts for several hours or all day if you didn’t eat breakfast or lunch! So what do you do after starving yourself? You overeat something, because you’re hungry, and you make a poor food choice.

From that poor choice (i.e. Value Meal), there is a spike in glucose. Glucagon (fat burning hormone) is suppressed, and you stop burning fat entirely. Upon satisfying your insane hunger, your body will crash in the next couple of hours. This process becomes cyclical. You eat more, starve, eat more, starve, eat more. Think of this process as a see saw slamming up and down; it is wear and tear (oxidative stress) on the cells in your body (muscle and fat cells) and insulin secretion (from the pancreas) sky rockets, which can lead to insulin resistance (muscle cell has down regulated and will not allow the current level of insulin to activate cell receptors that allow nutrients in). When this happens your body will only store fat (after millions of years we have become VERY good at fat storage for survival) because it can’t get into the muscle cell (insulin resistance). When you reach this stage (which at least half of America is in some stage of insulin resistance) you are not burning fat and the weight and fat keeps piling on. Heart disease, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancer, atherosclerosis, high triglyceride levels (fat in the blood), high blood pressure, high LDL (Lipo Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol (which is the bad cholesterol), low HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol which helps transport of LDL out of your body ) are sure to follow if your nutrition is left unchecked.

Remember, it has only been in the last 100 years that our bodies have been introduced to a processed food nutrition plan. For the last couple hundred thousand years all we ate were lean meats, vegetables (non-processed), berries, and nuts. NOT one person had a weight problem. 100 years ago we consumed 4 pounds of sugar per year, now the average American consumes over 170 pounds per year. Also, because something has a healthy heart symbol on the box DOES NOT MEAN it is fat loss food. Eating healthy does not mean or translate into actual fat loss. It is marketing manipulation (THAT MEANS THAT ALL PROTEIN OR ENERGY BARS ARE CANDY BARS). If we want you to gain weight (bulk up), then we would recommend these to you. However, these types of foods are not effective for fat loss. You are following a medium to high protein, low starch, medium to high fibrous carbohydrate, NO sugar nutrition plan, so we need to eliminate all white flour, white rice, white sugar, and alcohol.

There are times that you CAN have starchy foods though: within an hour AFTER your workout (AND ONLY WITHTIN AN HOUR OF YOUR WORKOUT). This is called the golden hour. The reason why is that instead of storing fat, the food you eat after the workout is stored as muscle glycogen (stored carbohydrate) within your muscles. This is good, because you are not storing fat and instead replenishing your muscles to recover quickly. Another time is right when you get up in the morning (within a half hour). After the induction phase or first month on the nutrition plan, you can begin to eat starch carbohydrates ONLY during these times (i.e. oatmeal for breakfast, sweet potato after a workout).
Now the workouts you are pushing yourself through will be effective, because your body will start to initiate a process called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL). This process hydrolyzes (releases what resides inside the fat cell, which are three fatty acids and a glycerol molecule) triglycerides. Think of HSL as a key that opens the door from the inside of the fat cell. If insulin levels are low, glucagon levels rise which signals HSL to unlock the fat cell and release its energy (fat) to the body. All this means is that now your body is prepared to release energy (because you’re working out AND eating right) from stored fat instead of using the glucose in your blood from that Starbucks muffin or stored carbohydrates (glycogen) in the muscles and liver.

So, fat burning is a two step process. The first part is – fat mobilization. Fat mobilization is regulated by levels of HSL or Hormone Sensitive Lipase (remember, the key that opens the door from inside the fat cell and instructs it to releases its stores). If we increase HSL we create more fat mobilization. How do we increase HSL? Produce higher catecholamine levels through exercise.  But HSL will not increase if insulin levels are high. If insulin levels are high glucagon levels are low, which equals low fat mobilization.

The second part is transport and oxidation.  When Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL) is increased, free fatty acids and glycerol are released from your fat tissue. These FFAs (fat) and glycerol molecules can now be used as an energy source and burned off. However, The FFAs must be transported to the mitochondria of the cell (think of the mitochondria as the power house of the cell) before it can be burned off (oxidation). That transport is regulated by Carnitine. When Carnitine levels are increased fat transport is increased.  Think of increased Carnitine levels by comparing a 1000 people entering single file into a stadium turnstile or a 1000 people entering a forty foot gate into the same stadium. Faster access to the cell mitochondria means accelerated fat burn off (oxidation). We increase Carnitine levels (faster access) by decreasing muscle and liver glycogen. This is accomplished through high intensity interval training and metabolic work that sends your metabolism through the roof. Combine the benefits of correct exercise AND insulin management and you create a highly effective system of fat mobilization, transport, and oxidation. This all adds up to accelerate fat loss.