Six

Foods (and Beverages) That Can Make You Fat

Now that you know how many fabulous foods you can and should be eating on the Quick & Clean Diet, we need to talk a bit more about foods to avoid. We’ve talked in general about why you need to stay away from refined sugar, processed foods, and bad fat, but we haven’t really discussed which foods specifically you need to avoid or cut back on eating. So that’s what we’re going to do now—just so there isn’t any doubt.

Dry Goods

Cakes, cookies, and pies: I’m not going to tell you that you can never have another cookie or a slice of cake or pie for the rest of your life, but I also shouldn’t have to remind you that these are treats to be consumed sparingly and saved for special occasions.

Granola: Delicious! But also high in calories and sugar. So it’s not necessarily as healthy as it sounds, and is definitely not a “diet” food.

White flour (bread and pasta): When wheat is refined to make it white, the bulk of the nutrients are lost along with the bran and the germ. That’s why white flour is often “enriched” in an effort to put back some of the good stuff that’s been removed. But enriched or not, it turns to glucose in your body much faster than whole wheat flour, which means that it causes your blood sugar to rise—and then fall just as quickly.

White rice: Like white flour, white rice has been stripped of its nutrients, leaving only the starch, which quickly turns to sugar in your bloodstream.

Fruits

Canned fruit: Loaded with sugar and packed with preservatives, canned fruit is more like candy than fruit. Stay away from it and enjoy fresh fruits in season.

Fruit juice: Even pure juice is naturally high on the glycemic index, meaning that it raises blood sugar quickly, because it lacks the fiber in whole fruit. Eat fruit instead; if you must have juice, dilute it with water or seltzer.

Jams and jellies (except all-natural, no-sugar-added): Most commercial jams and jellies are loaded with added sugar or sugar substitutes that are just as bad for you. These are candy in a jar.

Vegetables

Canned: Aside from the fact that they’re mushy and don’t taste very good, most canned vegetables are loaded with salt and preservatives. Stay away from them, and if you can’t buy fresh, go for frozen, with no additives. Read the label!

Meat

Canned: Hash, Spam, whatever—forget it. Too much fat and too much sodium.

Cured (bacon, ham, and hot dogs): What these meats are “cured” with is sodium nitrite. Although it was once thought to be carcinogenic, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Cancer Society, and the National Research Council all agree that there is no cancer risk from consuming sodium nitrite. That said, however, there is certainly a health risk from consuming all the sodium in these meats. So stay away from them, or at least save your hot dogs for the Fourth of July.

Luncheon meats (cold cuts): Like cured meats, these are high in sodium and also in fat. Stick with fresh white-meat turkey or chicken for your lunch.

Sausage: The problem is that you usually don’t know what’s in a sausage. But even if you do, it usually has more fat and salt than you should be consuming. I say stay away.

Sauces, Fats, and Oils

BBQ sauce: Forget it! This stuff is full of sugar!

Bottled salad dressings contain additives that preserve their shelf life but do nothing to preserve your health. Make your own with extra-virgin olive oil.

Ketchup: No, it’s not a vegetable, no matter what the government says. And, yes, it has heart-healthy tomatoes, but also way too much sugar.

Convenience Foods

Energy bars: Have you ever really looked at the ingredients lists? They can be as long as your arm, with too many things I can’t pronounce. Definitely not clean eating.

Frozen dinners are really not a good option. Even those that are labeled healthy or low cal have too many preservatives and too much sodium. Cook in batches and make your own frozen dinners at home.

Pizza: Heavy on the starchy carbs and fatty cheese, pizza is a no-no at least until you reach the Stability Stage of Quick & Clean. And then, when you do indulge, eat it sparingly, go for a thin whole wheat crust, and stay away from the meaty add-ons—oh, and no extra cheese!

Sweets

Brown sugar is a bit better than white sugar because it is less processed, but it still turns to glucose and raises blood sugar rapidly. In this case, sugar is sugar.

Candy and ice cream: Can you say empty calories? Stay away until you reach Stability, and then save these sweets for special treats.

Chocolate: Studies have shown that dark chocolate (but not milk chocolate or white chocolate) has antioxidant properties and can help to lower blood pressure. But it should still be consumed in moderation—no more than one ounce a few times a week. I’d recommend avoiding it entirely while you’re trying to lose weight. You can get the same benefits from other, healthier sources.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS): Garbage. Fake. Corn syrup that has been processed to make it even sweeter. Research done at Princeton University has found that when rats were fed either table sugar or HFCS, those that ate the HFCS gained significantly more weight even when their total caloric intake was equal. In addition, long-term intake of HFCS caused abnormal increases in body fat, particularly in the abdominal region, and elevated triglyceride levels.

Honey (except raw): Honey has health benefits but can also raise blood sugar.

Refined sugar: What more do I need to say?

Sugar substitutes: Except for stevia and Truvia, which are all-natural herbal sweeteners, all sugar substitutes are—as their name implies—artificial. And should be avoided.

Artificial sweeteners are in just about everything—diet drinks, yogurt, pudding, ice cream, protein powders, even protein bars—so read labels carefully. Saccharin (Sweet’N Low), aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet, SugarTwin), and sucralose (Splenda) are the best-known artificial sweeteners on the market. While they might make you feel that you are making a less fattening choice, you’re actually not. A study published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine found that aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and saccharin all heightened the motivation to eat more—just like regular sugar.

Beyond weight loss, however, these sweeteners have also been linked to potential cancer risks as well as negative effects on the liver, kidneys, and other organs. They can cause headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and developmental problems in children and fetuses. Have you heard enough? I hope so.

Whipped cream: Also in the special occasion department for Stability only.

Beverages

Alcohol: Try to avoid it completely during the High Motivation Stage. Because virtually all alcohol is a carbohydrate, it turns to sugar in your body, and it also limits your body’s ability to burn fat. Drinking interferes with your normal digestion because your body is trying so hard to process the alcohol that it can’t properly metabolize the foods you are eating.

And of course, alcohol is nothing but liquid calories. Virtually all hard liquor has about 100 calories an ounce (that’s a jigger, if you’re measuring), and wine has about 100 calories in five ounces (about one glass). Twelve ounces of beer (one bottle) has around 150 calories. And then of course there are the mixers, which make it even worse.

Finally, drinking alcohol interferes with your thought process, so that the more you drink, the more you think it’s okay to continue drinking—not a good idea for many reasons, among which weight loss is only one. And it also seems like a good idea to have just one more handful of peanuts or whatever other munchies are right there on the bar.

One last word about wine: You’ve probably heard by now that a moderate intake of red wine has a cardioprotective effect. You can thank the flavonoids in the skin and seeds of red grapes for that. Flavonoids are antioxidants that have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease in three ways:

1. By reducing production of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)—the bad stuff.
2. By boosting high-density lipoprotein (HDL)—the good stuff—and lowering triglycerides in the blood.
3. By reducing the risk of clotting that can lead to heart attack or stroke.

So does this mean you should open the floodgates and let the red wine flow? No way! These protective properties are based on the consumption of a single five-ounce glass of wine a day for women and two for men, not a half a bottle. In fact, the very same studies show that drinking too much can negate the health benefits we just talked about and actually be harmful.

By the way, if you like red wine (and I love it!), consider this: Researchers at the University of California–Davis found that the following varieties of red wine, in the order they are listed, have the highest concentrations of flavonoids:

1. Cabernet Sauvignon
2. Petite Sirah
3. Pinot Noir

At the end of the day, it’s important to use good judgment when choosing to drink at all. It is undoubtedly very much a part of our culture, and I’m certainly not condemning social drinking, but if you have a goal that you truly want to accomplish, you must change your habits. And we know that too many cocktails will sabotage all your hard work. So why would you want to do that? Just something to consider. If you do enjoy a cocktail, take a look at the Quick & Clean recipes in chapter 14.

Coffee: This is another issue on which the research findings differ. And as with alcohol, I’m discussing coffee drinking only in terms of its effect on losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If you have any medical or other concerns, you should certainly consult a health care professional.

From all that I have read and the many doctors I have talked with, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, there is nothing wrong with that. So I’m going to say that if you want to have coffee as part of your Quick & Clean Diet plan, go ahead and have it, although I’d recommend refraining during the High Motivation Stage in order to detox your body. If I can do it, so can you. In fact, you might even get used to it and then ask yourself why you’ve been drinking so much coffee all these years.

Too much coffee (and how much is too much seems to vary widely from one person to another) can stimulate your nervous system, causing your adrenal gland to produce cortisol, a hormone your body releases in response to stress. That’s great when you’re actually in danger, because cortisol gives you the quick burst of energy you need to get out of the situation. But when the danger has passed, cortisol should dissipate and your nervous system function should return to normal. The problem with drinking coffee all day is that your cortisol levels are constantly elevated, and that’s bad for your health. Chronically elevated cortisol has been shown to impair cognitive function, elevate your blood pressure, increase levels of blood sugar, and increase fat storage, particularly in the abdomen.

But here’s what’s tricky: A little bit of caffeine—let’s say one cup of coffee, without all the added stuff (I’ll get to that in a minute)—has been associated with weight loss. At least one study done by researchers in London found that subjects who consumed one hundred milligrams of caffeine (a cup has about one to two hundred milligrams) experienced a 3 to 4 percent increase in their resting metabolic rate and an 8 to 11 percent increase in energy expenditure. What that means is that, at least in the short term, you’ll be burning calories faster after drinking a cup of coffee. Some diet pills actually include caffeine as one of their ingredients.

Coffee is also a known diuretic, meaning that it will help flush excess water out of your body. Sounds great, but keep in mind when you get on the scale what you’re losing is water, not fat, and the water loss is only temporary. In fact, it’s not much different from what you’d experience if you sat in a sauna for a bit sweating and then hopped on a scale right after. The scale may indicate weight loss, but honestly, the minute you have something—anything—to drink, the fluids will be right back in your body and the number on the scale will rise again.

In addition, coffee has thermogenic properties, meaning that it produces heat and thereby takes on a fat-burning characteristic. But this isn’t unique to coffee; there are plenty of other foods that have these qualities as well—for example, cayenne or chile peppers, mustard seeds, green tea, or even curry.

The problem is that the same properties of caffeine that may help you to lose some weight can cause you to become jittery and overstimulated, which is why people say they can’t drink it at night, or even in the afternoon because it prevents them from getting to sleep. And several studies have shown that people who don’t get enough sleep also tend to eat more and weigh more than people who do—for a variety of biochemical reasons including the fact that lack of sleep leads to increased cortisol levels, and we’ve already discussed the problems that can cause. In the end you need to know your own body’s reaction to caffeine and let that be your guide.

Finally, let’s talk about all the stuff people love to put in coffee—the cream, the sugar, the vanilla shot, the hazelnut shot, the extra milk, whatever. Those add-ons are guaranteed to make you fat. You have no chance when you start putting all those extras in your coffee. In fact, you’re no longer having a morning beverage to get you going; you’re actually having dessert for breakfast. And if you think you can still pull it off by using fat-free half-and-half, Splenda, and sugar-free vanilla or hazelnut flavoring, forget it. Those are nothing but unhealthy chemicals. If you can drink your coffee black, do it. If not, cut down on the bad stuff. Use less milk, used skim or low-fat milk, use light soy milk, and use stevia (see chapter 4) as your sweetener.

Soft drinks: Nothing but chemicals. Stay away from them.

Okay, you’ve got the background. You’ve read about the various health concerns related to being overweight, and you’ve seen the foods you can embrace and those I want you to stay away from. Now it’s time to prepare for the challenge. Ahead you will find all the guidelines you need to start the Quick & Clean Diet High Motivation Stage.