3
Eat Clean, Stay Lean:
Choose the Right Foods
“I have learned so much about food and health since starting this program. I find myself reading the labels and ingredients now and I’m shocked by the junk on the shelves that we all thought was healthy. The Belly Burn Plan has opened my eyes!”
—APRIL L., AGE 38
Up until her early thirties, Jenny never had a problem managing her weight. In fact, she could eat just about anything she wanted without worrying about packing on the pounds. Even after the birth of her youngest son, Jenny was able to lose her pregnancy weight fairly quickly. Over the past five years though, the scale started creeping upward. Jenny was constantly trying new foods that offered any glimmer of hope that she might lose a few pounds.
Recently, with her two kids at her side, Jenny was shopping for clothes at a store near her home. Holding dark-colored shirts and dresses against her body, Jenny based her selections on what she thought would be the most comfortable. One of the store’s clerks took notice of Jenny, “Can I help you?” she asked.
“No,” Jenny said. “Thanks, I’m just looking.”
“Well, let me know if you need anything,” the clerk said. “It looks like you’ve got your hands full.”
The comment struck Jenny as odd as her two kids standing nearby were both well-behaved.
“When are you due?” the clerk asked.
Mortified, Jenny’s jaw dropped as she glanced over at her kids. Pressing her hand firmly against her stomach, she raised her eyebrows and responded, “I’m not pregnant.”
The clerk put her hand to her mouth and apologized. Embarrassed, Jenny put the clothing back and walked out of the store.
Jenny knew she needed to do something about her weight gain. More important than how she looked, Jenny wanted to lose the weight for her health. She tried hard to manage her diet by watching calories and fighting off cravings that would otherwise lead to regretful indulgences.
Most of what Jenny ate was preportioned, lower in fat and, at least according to the package, healthy. Most days, Jenny ate between 1100 and 1250 calories. She resolved to lose weight by tracking everything she ate and exercising more.
* * *
Jenny’s concern for her weight and busy schedule overwhelmed her ability to make clear decisions about what was healthy for her body and what was not. Her daily menu usually varied among low-fat yogurts, egg white omelets, fruit, sandwiches with no cheese or butter, portion-controlled single serving snacks and a modest calorie-controlled dinner with her family. At first glance, what Jenny chose to eat may not seem that bad. She certainly didn’t gorge herself by filling up on a huge breakfast or by eating too much for dinner, but in reality, her existing diet had a lot to do with her weight gain.
I can’t say enough about the effects of exercise. I’ve seen the wonders purposeful activity can do for my clients, creating significant physical, physiological and mental shifts. We feel better, our bodies operate more smoothly, and we’re happier and more relaxed, too. That being said, one thing exercise can’t do is wipe out the damage of a bad diet—whether it’s eating too much of the wrong foods, or not eating enough of the right foods. I’ve listened to far too many people justify a brownie, an extra serving of pasta or a sugar-loaded energy drink because they felt it was deserved after a workout. More often than not, the only thing those people have done is reload the calories they unloaded during their workout.
The food we put in our mouths controls about 70 percent of how we look and feel. The remaining 30 percent gets divided up between stress management and activity. Of course, this is just an estimation of the variables that control our overall health, but diet is, by far, the most important factor. Exercise is a great way to tone your body, improve bone density and maintain good cardiovascular health, but weight loss starts in the kitchen by making good choices that involve unprocessed foods full of nutrients. The quality, not just quantity, of food you eat will make or break long-lasting health and optimal body weight.
Far too often, we get caught up in basing the quality of our diet strictly on the number of calories we eat—no matter where the food comes from. Calories are a form of energy that the body can store as fat or use as fuel to help perform different functions, including digestion, energy production and muscular development. The greater the quality of the calorie, the easier it is for your body to do its job.
The common “calories in, calories out” mentality limits our thinking to body weight without much regard for health. Since your health greatly impacts your body weight, this way of thinking has to change. People who eat a diet based on quantity of food versus quality of food often end up unhealthy. They have sluggish digestion, poor energy and more body fat. Needless to say, these bodies are much more prone to gaining weight. So even if you strictly adhere to a diet limited to 1500 calories, if you’re not paying much attention to what’s actually in your food, you’ll have a harder time reaching an optimal weight.
A calorie is not just a calorie: A 200 calorie bowl of salad, for instance, gets used by your body a lot differently than a 200 calorie bowl of corn chips. One is nourishing, providing minerals, nutrients and healthy fats. The other is depleting, leaching nutrients from your body while loading it with preservatives and unhealthy fats. It’s so important to choose the right foods. Fortunately, healthy foods are everywhere; you just need to know where to look. You may have to play ingredient detective for the first few shopping trips until you’re able to separate the good from the bad. Let’s do some investigating.
When it comes to choosing the right foods, you as a consumer face an uphill battle put in place by food companies that want to persuade you to buy their products at all costs. In fact, some of the healthiest sounding foods on the market today are full of ingredients that are actually toxic to your body. Figuring out what to avoid and what to eat starts with getting to know your food.
There is a big difference between real food and food products. Real food is usually a single ingredient food, like a potato. A potato is just a potato until it’s sliced thin, deep-fried, fan-dried and loaded with lots of salt, chemical flavor enhancers and preservatives. In the blink of an eye, the nutritional value of the potato is lost. Enter the potato chip, a much less healthy descendent of the potato, and a junk food that we all know is not good for us.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a difference between those unhealthy potato chips and most of the preserved foods on grocery store shelves—regardless of how many “healthy” keywords are featured on the label. Sure, there may be varying levels of fat, carbohydrate and protein, but if you take the time to read ingredients labels, you’ll see there is no great distinction between what we think of as healthy and what we know to be unhealthy.
Compare Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Fruit Crunch Strawberry Parfait Granola Bars (1) and a serving of a generic store brand of mint chocolate chip ice cream (2). By including the words grain and fruit in the name of the product, we’re led to believe the granola bars are good for us. The mint chocolate chip ice cream, albeit tasty, is universally regarded as a treat, a dessert or something we should eat only once in a while. With that in mind, here is a side-by-side serving comparison. You be the judge of what’s healthier.
|
Nutri-Grain |
President’s Choice |
|
|
Calories |
180 |
160 |
|
Fat |
7 g |
8 g |
|
Sugar |
15 g |
15 g |
|
Protein |
3 g |
2 g |
|
# of Ingredients |
14 |
13 |
Not mirror images of one another, but pretty close. Were you surprised to see that the Nutri-Grain bar has the same amount of sugar as a serving of ice cream? It might also surprise you to know that one of the ingredients in the Nutri-Grain bar is trans fats (listed as partially hydrogenated palm kernel and palm oil), arguably one of the most dangerous ingredients out there, and prevalent in many processed foods today.
This label comparison does not mean you should swap granola bars for mint chocolate chip ice cream. The takeaway here is that both have a fair share of processed ingredients, not to mention plenty of sugar. But it’s important to look beyond the labels and buy things based on quality of ingredients.
Nutri-Grain Fruit Crunch Strawberry Parfait Granola Bar Ingredients:
WHOLE GRAIN OATS, SUGAR, VEGETABLE OIL (PALM, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL AND PALM OIL WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS), SWEETENED DRIED CRANBERRIES (CRANBERRIES, SUGAR, GLYCERINE, SUNFLOWER OIL), HONEY, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, CALCIUM CARBONATE, NONFAT YOGURT POWDER (CULTURED NONFAT MILK [HEAT-TREATED AFTER CULTURING]), SALT, NONFAT MILK, STRAWBERRY PUREE CONCENTRATE, SOY LECITHIN, WHEY, BAKING SODA, PEANUT FLOUR.
President’s Choice Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Ingredients:
CREAM, MILK, SUGAR, CHOCOLATE PIECES (SUGAR, UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLA EXTRACT, SALT), MODIFIED MILK INGREDIENTS, GLUCOSE SOLIDS, SOY MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CELLULOSE GUM, GUAR GUM, POLYSORBATE 80, CARRAGEENAN, NATURAL FLAVOUR, SODIUM COPPER CLOROPHYLLIN.
I already mentioned the trans fats, but the granola bars are also full of artificial sweeteners. The ice cream, on the other hand, is equally heavy on sugar.
It’s easy to be misled by labels on food products that are marketed under the false veil of health. Packaging with words and phrases like healthy, low-fat, whole grains, high fiber, and of course, natural makes us feel good about our purchase and hopeful about our diet. The same goes for organic. Boil organic foods down to packages that sit on store shelves for long periods of time and the result is a product that may be healthier than its conventionally produced counterpart, but still isn’t the best choice when it comes to what our bodies need.
There is very little debate that we eat a lot of grains and sugar in the United States. A little later in this chapter I’ll get to how grains, particularly refined grains and sugar, play a role in inflammation, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, for even the most conscientious person to shed unwanted pounds. But first, just how much grain and sugar are we eating?
The grain industry went through a tremendous growth period between 1950 and 2000 with annual grain consumption increasing from 155 pounds per person to 200 pounds per person (3). A vast majority of the grains consumed is wheat. In fact, the average American eats 132.5 pounds of wheat every year (4). That’s a lot—especially considering much of what’s eaten is refined.
If the amount of grains consumed per person has your head spinning, then hold on tight, because we eat even more sugar. Every year the average American eats about 152 pounds of sugar (3), or about 3 pounds a week. The American Heart Association recommends that children consume no more than three teaspoons of sugar a day, women consume no more than six and men consume no more than nine (5). Despite our willingness to spend more on healthier-sounding foods, the average American is consuming far more sugar than our bodies can handle. Approximately forty-two teaspoons of sugar make it down the hatch each and every day!
You may be wondering where these massive amounts of grains and sugar come from. Let’s take a look at common sources of these ingredients.
Culprit Foods: Pasta, bread, crackers, cereal, wraps, white rice and many snack foods.
How Your Body Responds: Foods that are high in refined grains are higher on the glycemic index and get converted to sugar much quicker in your body. This creates a spike in your body’s insulin levels, leading to unruly cravings, low energy and more eating. Refined grains give your body a big shot of refined carbohydrates, which turn into sugar that we just don’t need. If your body doesn’t use this extra sugar we gain weight, and that extra weight is usually stored as fat.
Refined grains have also been stripped of many nutrients that would otherwise be found in their whole grain counterparts. Fiber, iron and B vitamins are a few essential nutrients that are removed on the food assembly line en route to the package you see on the shelf. Don’t be fooled by the word enriched, or the small amounts of the same nutrients that have been pumped back into the product at the end of processing. It’s nowhere near the amount of nutrition you actually need—and would receive—from a real food versus a food product.
Watch Out For: Common refined grain offenders. Labels with the words whole grain or whole wheat do not guarantee that the food inside is unrefined. Keep an eye out for these foods that can still send your blood sugar levels on an undesirable roller coaster ride:
Seek Out Clean, Unrefined Options: These foods are not refined and therefore break down more slowly than their refined counterparts, which helps to give your body sustained energy it can use. A few of my favorites include:
Culprit Foods: Bread, salad dressing, yogurt, sports drinks, low-calorie single-serving snack packs, cereal, fruit snacks, juice and smoothies.
How Your Body Responds: Similar to the refined grains that throw off your body’s blood sugar levels, sugar—in any form—wreaks the same havoc on your system. What’s more, sugar is extremely addictive (6), which makes it challenging to cut back on these foods, much less eliminate them entirely. People who consume diets that are high in sugar are at greater risk of developing heart disease (7), elevated triglycerides (8) and obesity (9) … even if the foods commonly eaten are very low in fat.
Watch Out For: Sugar by another name. Our bodies still treat sugar like sugar, whether it’s organic or conventional. If you’re trying to eat lower in sugar and the food you’re looking at contains one of these ingredients, put it back:
Seek Out Healthy Options: You want something sweet, so what can you eat? That’s the million-dollar question. The more sugar we eat, the less sensitive we are to its taste, so even foods that are naturally sweet, such as fruits, don’t have as much of a kick unless they’re laced with added sugar. Think this sounds unnatural? It is, but it’s something we’ve become accustomed to. Just look at the amount of fruit-flavored yogurt, fruit snacks or sugar-enhanced teas and coffee drinks we consume.
Natural, unrefined sugars are always going to be the smartest option. But it’s a good idea to cut back on your overall sugar consumption so you can taste the difference. One of the first things my Belly Burn clients tell me after they complete the program is how much less sugar they actually need to eat to taste the sweetness. They’ve kicked their addiction!
If you really have a hankering for something sweet, try to make it as clean as possible. Here are a few suggestions:
Fruit can be healthy, but its main sugar is called fructose, which is closely tied to obesity (9), insulin resistance and high triglycerides (8), increasing your risk of heart disease (7) even if eaten in moderate amounts. If you’re facing metabolic concerns and having a tough time getting your waistline under control, cutting back on fruit for the time being might be just what your body needs. More on this in Chapters 4 and 5.
Nearly everyone who is trying to lose weight today has been indoctrinated to believe that eating a low-fat diet is not only good for you, but downright healthy! The number of egg yolks that have gone to waste in the name of health is shameful. One of the main reasons people try to cut back on fat is because they think it creates fat. Thankfully, that’s not how the human body works. Dietary fat is not the same as any form of our body fat, not even a little bit. Nonetheless, millions of people go out of their way to avoid this all-important macronutrient. Not only does fat help us better manage our appetite and control cravings, but it also makes it possible to absorb many minerals and nutrients, including vitamins A, D, E and K. Fat also helps our bodies to regulate hormones and energy production.
The amount of fat you should eat is dependent on your body type, which we’ll get to in the next chapter. Regardless of your shape, everyone should eat a fair share of good-for-you fat.
When it comes to getting the most from the foods you eat, quality counts—and fats are no exception. In fact, fats found in food sit along a spectrum that ranges from downright unhealthy to incredibly healthy. For the past sixty years we’ve been taught that if we’re going to eat fat, it should be either poly or monounsaturated fat. Because they’re unsaturated, we’ve been told they help to prevent heart disease, stroke, cancer and a lengthy laundry list of other complications. On the flip side, we’ve been told to avoid or significantly cut back on unsaturated fat’s evil twin, saturated fat … or so we thought.
In recent years, new research has turned that logic on its head. Saturated fats provide our bodies with much more protection than we once believed. What’s more, everything we’ve been told about eating many types of unsaturated fat is entirely true. Just like refined carbohydrates that have gone through the ringer of over-processing, making them less healthy, refined fats, specifically commercial varieties of vegetable oils, are subjected to the same type of refinement. Refined vegetable oils can be a hazard to our health, more so today than ever before.
Added to thousands of common packaged foods from salad dressings to frozen entrées, fats such as corn, canola or soybean oil are refined and produced into the clear liquid you see sitting on the store shelf. They went through a multi-step process of extracting, heating, bleaching, deodorizing—and that’s not even the half of it. In our bodies, the problem comes down to the type of oil that’s being processed. Polyunsaturated fats are particularly sensitive to heat, air and light—all three of which affect the oil in the refinement process. The result of being exposed to these sensitivities is oxidation. When an oil oxidizes, it releases free radicals when it is consumed. When we consume these oxidized oils, inflammation (10) in our bodies grows, potentially increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes and numerous other inflammatory-related conditions.
It’s important to understand the role these types of fat play in our overall health. You know the way rust can damage a car? Think of oils doing the same thing to our bodies. Eating foods that increase inflammation gradually rusts our bodies on the inside and out. The good news is that there are still plenty of healthy poly and monounsaturated fats; the only difference is they haven’t been refined to quite the same extent and their benefits are well intact. Eating clean, unprocessed foods is a surefire way of avoiding this type of exposure to oxidative oils.
Our bodies want whole, clean foods. What does that really mean? Foods that don’t contain countless unpronounceable ingredients and haven’t gone through thirty steps just to make it to the grocery store before heading home with us. It’s a lot easier for our bodies to do good things with foods that make it to our plate in as close to their natural form as possible. The Belly Burn Plan is loaded with dozens of recipes, meal suggestions and even shopping lists to help get you on the right track so you’ll know exactly how to eat healthfully. Don’t be surprised if you notice more than a shift around your waistline or the number on the scale. Belly Burn Plan veterans have improved energy, better control of their blood sugar levels, greater muscle tone, brighter skin and a happier disposition.
One of the biggest culprits of stubborn belly fat is chronic inflammation. I’m not talking about acute inflammation such as a sunburn or paper cut, rather ongoing inflammation that flares up and sticks around for long periods of time.
Chronic inflammation plays a critical role in weight loss. In fact, if you have chronic inflammation, it will be very difficult for you to lose weight at all. Chronic inflammation can affect anyone at any age. This type of inflammation isn’t just arthritis or achy joints; it’s also eczema, psoriasis, celiac disease, lupus, Crohn’s and even allergies. In fact, when we’re overweight, our fat cells can actually produce inflammatory molecules.
Weight gain and inflammation can become a vicious cycle. One of the best ways to stop the cycle is to cut out foods from our diets that create inflammation. The Belly Burn Plan meals are based around anti-inflammatory foods. A few of the biggest triggers of dietary inflammation include refined carbohydrates, sugar, wheat and refined fats. You won’t see many of those in the plan, but you will see an abundance of healthy and delicious whole foods that your body will love and thrive on.
The connection between the foods we eat and inflammation should not be overlooked. As you might have guessed, inflammatory foods produce inflammation in our bodies. Compound this with a stressful lifestyle and excess body weight, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Chronic inflammation doesn’t necessarily hit you like a freight train. Rather, it can be subtle, ongoing and low-grade. It’s estimated that 75 percent of Americans of all ages deal with chronic inflammation on a daily basis. If you have any of the following conditions, you’ve got chronic inflammation:
One of the simplest ways to help prevent inflammation is by cutting out inflammatory foods and replacing them with anti-inflammatory foods.
It’s important to note that just because a food is anti-inflammatory does not mean you won’t react to it. Many people are sensitive to certain foods that create an inflammatory response, such as headaches, bloating, water retention, nasal congestion, fatigue, etc. Do your best to eat largely anti-inflammatory, but pay attention to how your body reacts to what you eat as well. If you suspect you might be sensitive to a specific food, try to eliminate it for several days. Afterward, reintroduce it. If you notice the same symptoms come back, consider eliminating it permanently.
Foods that are common triggers for food sensitivities include:
All foods have the ability to reduce or increase inflammation. Below is a list of foods categorized by three inflammatory groups: Anti-inflammatory Foods, or foods that fight inflammation in the body; Low Inflammatory Foods, or foods that produce minimal inflammation; High Inflammatory Foods, or foods that have the potential to produce great amounts of inflammation in the body.
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Anti-Inflammatory Foods |
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|
Vegetables |
||
|
Garlic |
Brussels sprout |
Olive |
|
Onion |
Kale |
Asparagus |
|
Cabbage |
Cauliflower |
Celery |
|
Carrot |
Spinach |
Mushroom (portabello) |
|
Leafy Greens |
Sweet potato |
Bell pepper |
|
Broccoli |
Leek |
Squash (summer and winter) |
|
Fruits |
||
|
Avocado |
Cherries (acerola) |
Lemon |
|
Blackberries |
Pineapple (fresh only) |
Lime |
|
Raspberries |
Kiwi |
Orange |
|
Strawberries |
Grapefruit |
|
|
Meats |
||
|
Duck |
Turkey (breast only) |
Wild game (elk, bison, deer) |
|
Goose |
Chicken (breast only) |
Pheasant |
|
Beef (grass-fed only) |
||
|
Seafood |
||
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Salmon |
Halibut, cod & tilapia |
Oysters |
|
Tuna |
Shellfish (lobster, crab, shrimp) |
Anchovies |
|
Herring |
Sardines |
|
|
Spices |
||
|
Turmeric |
Oregano |
Chili pepper |
|
Ginger |
Mint |
Cocoa (unsweetened, |
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Curry |
Basil |
|
|
Nut, Seeds & Oils |
||
|
Olive oil |
Macadamia nuts |
Brazil nuts |
|
Fish oil |
Cashews & cashew butter |
Chia seeds |
|
Almonds & almond butter |
Hazelnuts |
Flax seeds (ground) & flax seed oil |
|
Low Inflammatory Foods |
||
|
Vegetables |
||
|
Artichoke |
Mushrooms (oyster, |
Tomato (including sauce) |
|
Beet |
Parsnip |
Potato |
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Corn |
Peas |
Eggplant |
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Fruits |
||
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Banana |
Watermelon |
Pomegranate |
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Prune |
Fig |
Peach |
|
Cranberries |
Apple |
Pear |
|
Meats |
||
|
Chicken (dark meat) |
Eggs |
Turkey (dark meat) |
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Pork (bacon, chops, ribs) |
||
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Legumes |
||
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Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) |
Lentils |
Black beans |
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Kidney beans |
Peas |
Lima beans |
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Grains |
||
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Quinoa |
Rice (brown) |
Buckwheat |
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Oats |
||
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Nuts, Seeds, Fats & Oils |
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Coconut oil |
Butter (grass-fed) |
Walnuts |
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Cheese |
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High Inflammatory Foods |
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Fruits |
||
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Currants |
Raisins |
Banana chips |
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Fruit leathers |
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Meats |
||
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Fried/breaded meats |
Turkey bacon |
Cheeseburger |
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Chicken |
Beef |
Duck liver |
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Legumes |
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Baked beans |
Northern beans |
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Grains |
||
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Breads, pastas, pastries (white flour) |
Rice (white) |
Crackers |
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Corn meal/corn flour |
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Oils |
||
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Corn oil |
Soybean oil |
Mayonnaise |
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Processed/Refined |
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Fried food |
Pancake/waffle syrup |
Fruit-flavored yogurt |
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Fruit juice & soda |
Processed cheese |
Cereal |
|
Milk chocolate |
Canned soup |
Ice cream |
|
Jelly/jam |
Snacks (pretzels, chips, crackers) |
|
As you can see, there is a big difference between food products and whole, clean foods. More importantly, the damage from food products full of unhealthy ingredients versus the benefits of whole, clean foods that allow our bodies to thrive is increasingly significant. You’re nearly ready to dive into The Belly Burn Plan with both feet. By the end of the program, substituting healthier counterparts for the sugar, processed flours and vegetable oils you’ve gotten used to eating will be second nature. But first, let’s move on to learning about your body type and how important it is to choose foods for your type in order to get rid of stubborn belly fat, and to balance your body as a whole.