Articles

1 Diet Doesn’t Fit All

Nancy Bennett, MS, RD, CDE

There is a lot of controversy brewing these days about what kind of diet is best for the American public. Some swear a high protein, low carbohydrate diet is best for helping overweight people win the battle of the bulge, while others swear a high carbohydrate, low fat diet is the way to eternal fitness. Who's right? Perhaps they both are. The diet that is best for you depends on where you "wear" your excess fat.

"Apples" wear their extra weight primarily around their waist, while "pears" carry it around their hips. The truth is that apples metabolize carbohydrates differently than do pears and they have a higher tendency of turning carbohydrates into fat.

Apples' trouble starts with a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin, a hormone that allows sugar or glucose to enter muscle and liver cells, becomes ineffective. The body responds to insulin resistance by producing higher levels of insulin, which stimulates fat production.

What's an apple to do to get out of this mess? Two things. First, start moving! Activity of any kind makes insulin more effective, thus requiring less of it. In fact, walking for thirty minutes or longer sucks fat out of your fat cells and sends it to the muscles where it is burned. Think of it as "cheap liposuction."

The second step is to avoid sweets and other foods laden with sugar. Sugar-free foods are a good substitute, but don't start eating half your body weight of them. Though they may be sugar free, they still have carbohydrates and high doses of any carbohydrate food will hike up insulin levels.

How much carbohydrate should an apple eat? Eat at least 190 grams a day. The brain burns 150 grams and the red blood cells burn another 40 grams of carbohydrate a day. The brain and blood cells don't have the metabolic machinery or enzymes to burn anything else, so if you don't eat at least 190 grams of carbohydrates a day, your body will convert muscle protein into carbohydrates to feed the brain and blood cells. This results in muscle loss. Since muscle is required to burn fat, decreased capacity to burn fat is the last thing any apple, or pear for that matter, needs.

What should an apple eat to get their 190 grams of carbohydrates a day? A balanced diet would include two servings of dairy, 6 servings of breads, cereals and starches and 5 servings of fruits each day. Your fist is about the size of three servings of starch and two servings of fruit, so in the real world of people who love to eat, it's not as much food as one might think.