Lose Weight Now!

The world has seen two World Wars and countless regional battles and skirmishes but the Battle of the Bulge is considered to be the mother of them all. The human struggle against weight gain has been on since time immemorial. The methods employed in this battle have ranged from the sensible to plain ridiculous.

People have tried rigorous exercise, liposuction, surgery, low fat diets, non-fat diets and even starvation. The problem with the anti-fat diets were that thought they worked initially, the body would constantly crave for food and the skin became sallow, it was a kind of slow starvation.

Food researchers have come up with a new diet that concentrates on carbohydrate intake and not on fats. It recommends that highly refined carbs such as white bread, sugary sweets, and rice be replaced with whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta, beans and non-starch vegetables. The diet also recommends moderate amounts of protein and heart healthy unsaturated fats. This diet eliminates the constant craving for food. Researchers have indicated that fibreless simple sugar carbohydrates such as low fat cookies and fat free chips may increase the tendency to feel hungry.

The carbohydrates work on the principle of its convertibility to glucose. When the body digests food it converts the carbs into glucose. Once converted into glucose it is either burned on the spot for energy or converted into fats and other substances for future use. Scientists have created a Glycemic Index (GI) to rank foods according to its convertibility into glucose. The higher the score on the GI index means the higher the conversion into fat.

A diet rich in high GI foods pushes the body to its limits. The blood glucose level hits the roof, and the pancreas must work harder to meet the demand for insulin. As the pancreas work on generating insulin everyday, the quality of insulin could fall and there is a risk of diabetes. People tend to become hungrier after a high GI meal. As a result of the low blood sugar level that occurs several hours after a high glycemic index meal people become hungrier and tend to overeat in comparison to what they would have eaten after a low glycemic meal. Canadian researchers have also found links between high GI diets and ovarian cancer.

Low GI meals generally contain those foods that are less processed and are accompanied by fiber, protein or fats. Since these nutrients take longer to digest the subject is likely to feel full longer and the blood sugar levels would not peak and plummet. High GI foods accompanied by low GI foods fall somewhere in between in their efficiency in glucose levels and fat conversion.

Almost all the major diet plans have been contrary to this particular plan. The evidence lies in the figures. Almost two-thirds of all Americans are obese and to counter their obesity Americans have steadily lowered the amount of fats and proteins in the their diets.

A recent study in a leading University has revealed that people who ate a moderate fat diet containing unsaturated fats such as nuts, olive oil and fatty fish lose as much weight as those who ate a low-fat diet. However those in the low fat diet gained the lost weight quicker than those in the moderate fat diet.

In another study conducted by a pioneer in the food research area, 20 obese adolescent boys and fed them with high, medium or low GI meals all containing the same amount of calories. For the next meal the subjects could eat as much as they wanted. The subjects that ate the most calories after their GI meals were the ones that ate the high GI meals.

Maybe its time for all the warriors in the Battle of the Bulge to retrain their focus and armory because the enemy may have changed.