You should eat little bit of fat with every meal together with protein and carbohydrates for its blood sugar regulating effect.
Fat is big zero when it comes to insulin stimulation, so eating fat will not cause your body to store more fat. For this to understand, you have to be thinking hormonally, not calorically.
Fat slows down the entry of carbohydrates into the bloodstream and with that prevents overproduction of insulin.
You need to eat fat to loose fat.
Your body stores fat, when the insulin levels are high.
The slower the rate that carbohydrates enter the bloodstream, the lower the insulin production.
And the lower the insulin levels, the more likely you are to release stored body fat for energy.
Fat also causes the release of the hormone cholecystokinin from the stomach. Cholecystokinin goes directly to the brain to say “STOP EATING.”
What type of fat should you eat?
The answer is monounsaturated fat. Excellent sources of monounsaturated fat are nuts, avocado, olive oil, canola oil.
Add a little bit of fat to every meal.
Use a little bit of fat like table spoon of olive oil, few nuts or avocado with every meal. You will not get fat from this. You will get leaner.
If you are already very lean, don’t be afraid to add some more good fat into your meal for better health and performance.
My advice about carbohydrates shifted a little. Here is the best advice for you about carbohydrates consumption:
Summary of simple powerful rules on carbohydrate consumption:
1. Eat always lean protein and some monounsaturated fat like olive oil with your carbohydrates – protein stimulates glucagon, which reduces insulin secretion, and fat and fiber slow down the rate of entry of any carbohydrate to further reduce insulin secretion.
2. Eat primarily low-density carbohydrates, like fruits and most fiber rich vegetables – keep track of the amount of carbohydrates you are consuming in a given meal. By eating low-density carbohydrates, it is very easy to avoid over consumption of carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates.
People are genetically designed to eat primary fruits and vegetables as their major source of carbohydrates. And that’s exactly what I want you to do. Make fruits and vegetables to be the main part of your carbohydrates eating.
Grains, starches, bread, pasta, rice are very high-dense in carbohydrate making it bad stuff to put into our system.
If you want to bring your health and performance to the next level, limit your carbohydrate consumption to only fruits and vegetables. Little bit of brown rice or pasta is fine here and there. But only little bit and only with protein and healthy fat together when you eat it.
Carbohydrates act like powerful drug.
This is a fact that most people don’t realize. Excessive carbohydrate consumption causes your body to overproduce insulin. And than your body goes through very big, unhealthy blood sugar level swings caused by elevated insulin.
What causes elevated insulin in your body?
1. It causes foggy thinking by reducing blood sugar levels to the brain.
2. It will decrease your overall physical performance.
3. Elevated insulin effects your overall health in very bad way.
4. It makes you fat.
5. It is one of the causes of the heart disease.
Everyone needs to be aware of the effect of carbohydrate on insulin. If you want to improve your health, performance and loose weight, keep this rule in mind:
Let most if not all of your carbohydrates come from fruits and vegetables, and use grains, starches, pasta, rice and bread in moderation.
I personally tried it. I used to be a competitive athlete and I still engage in very high energy demanding activities like surfing, running and bicycling long distances and strength training. You would really thing that my performance would go down switching pasta and rice for fruits and vegetables. But, the opposite is true. My performance is like never before. And knowing than when I was a competitive rower, what I know now, my medal collection would be much bigger.
The best carbohydrate choices:
Kale
Broccoli
Blueberries
Blackberries
Chickpeas
Celery
Cauliflower
Asparagus
Strawberries
Spinach
Lettuce – arugula, butter head, romaine
Mustard greens
Raspberries
Swiss chard
Kohlrabi
Peaches
Onions
Mushrooms
Leeks
Kidney beans
Grapes
Yellow squash
Cherries
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Radishes
Green beans
Grapefruits
Fennel
Eggplant
Cabbage
Black beans
Bell peppers
Barley
Apples
Pears
Plums
Oranges
Okra
Oats – steel cut
Wine
Nectarines
Lentils
Kiwi
Brussels sprouts
Bok choy
Artichokes
Turnip greens
Apricot
These are carbohydrates rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals.
This perfect health and performance diet recommends eating primarily fruits and vegetables for its carbohydrate sources. It is a diet that is exceptionally rich in fiber, yet moderate in the amount of insulin – promoting carbohydrates consumed.
Eating most of carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables will supply you not only with large amount of fiber, but also with very significant levels of vitamins and minerals.
You need to control the amount of carbohydrate you eat in a meal to control insulin secretion.
Your body needs a constant intake of carbohydrates for optimal brain function. Too little carbohydrate in the blood stream, and your brain will not function efficiently. Too much carbohydrate in the bloodstream, and your body responds by increasing the secretion of insulin to drive down blood sugar to a level too low for your brain to function effectively.
What your body and brain need for perfect functioning is not too much, not too little carbohydrates.
It is almost impossible to overeat on these best choices of carbohydrates.
That means that, if you eat any of these carbohydrate choices and you eat them after or with protein and little bit of healthy fat, you can have as much of it as you can handle. But if you eat pasta or rice, you need to watch, how much you consume.
All carbohydrates have different carbohydrate density. For example 1 cup of pasta have the same amount of insulin promoting carbohydrate as 6 cups of cooked broccoli.
When you eat grains, pasta, rice or bread, have the same or less amount of it as protein on your plate. If it’s one of the best choices of carbohydrates, eat as much as you want of it with your meal.
Elevated insulin is the reason you get fat and stay fat.
Insulin is your body’s storage and locking hormone. The elevated insulin levels generated from large carbohydrate meal prevent your body from using any of it’s stored fat for energy. It prevents you from burning the fat you already have.
Protein is the most important part of your nutrition plan.
Why is protein so important?
Your muscles, your hormones, your immune system are composed of protein.
Your body looses protein constantly. Without adequate incoming dietary protein, critical body functions slow down to inefficient levels.
But most important, eating protein at every meal helps control excessive insulin production.
It is excess insulin that makes you fat, makes you hungry all the time, makes you mentally tired, decreases your physical performance, decreases the immunity system and increases the likelihood of chronic disease.
One of the main rules of perfect health and performance diet about protein is to eat it with every meal. For it’s insulin controlling effect eat the protein with every meal.
The best protein choices:
Chicken breast
Turkey breast
Cod
Crab meat
Egg whites
Lobster
Mackerel – fish
Milk – low fat
Salmon
Sardines
Scallops
Sea bass – fish
Tuna
Cottage cheese – low fat
Shrimp
Soybean imitation meat products
Soy cheese
Tofu
Trout – fish
Yogurt – low fat
Soy milk
Soybeans boiled
How much protein should you eat at a meal?
If you really want to keep it simple, fallow these simple rule: Never consume more protein in one meal than you can fit on the palm of your hand.
Your body can use only certain amount of protein at the time.
If you want to be more precise about exactly how much protein you need:
You can use part system. 1 part = 7 grams of protein. 1 part of protein could be 1 ounce of meat, like chicken breast, sliced turkey. 1 part of protein could be 2 egg whites, 1.5 ounce of fish or 3 ounces of firm tofu.
The simple rule:
If you are a typical American female, you will need between 2 and 3 parts (7 grams of protein per part) of protein at every meal, and if you are the typical American male, you will need between 3 to 4 parts of protein at every meal.
How much protein should you eat per day?
Everybody has daily unique protein requirements.
It depends mainly on your physical activity level and lean body mass on your body. Your lean body mass is everything your body consist of (muscle, bones, water, tendons, intestines, teeth) minus fat mass.
you have to eat right foods. And you have to eat them the right way.
With these diet; I will call it perfect health and performance diet (PHPD) you will maintain stable sugar levels and that will allow you to think better.
It will allow you to increase oxygen transfer to your muscle cells and you will perform physically better.
You will loose excess body fat fast and you’ll look better and become generally healthier.
Your brain will be constantly supplied with it’s primary fuel: blood sugar so you will not be hungry between meals.
I really think, that by now you really want to know about these diet. You can really benefit by just changing few simple things on your diet. The difference for me was amazing. My overall well-being, performance and energy level improved dramatically. I cannot even imagine fallowing any other diet now. It really works and it is really good for you.
What is the basic principle of these diet?
Eat everything in moderation, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, have always some protein at every meal, have some good fat (like olive oil) with it, stay away from sugar dense, processed foods and high in saturated fat animal products and meats.
These is very simple said and there are some specific rules to fallow. I will get to those little later.
As you can see Perfect health and performance diet is just normal healthy diet that is available for everybody. The sad think is, that very little people practice it.
Why is these diet so effective?
Food that we eat affects our hormonal response in our body. Hormones known as eicosanoids ultimately control our lives. When they are not in balance we suffer on many levels and we get fat. What takes them out of balance? It’s insulin. How do we control insulin? By a proper diet consisted of lean protein, some fat (healthy fat – mainly monounsaturated fat) and carbohydrates like fruits and vegetables.
These diet is incredibly easy to fallow on daily basis.
Example of perfect performance meal:
A moderate serving of low-fat protein (such as fish or chicken) with a significant amount of vegetables sprinkled by olive oil or covered with walnuts, and fruit as a desert.
Every time you eat, make sure that your carbohydrates come with protein and dash of fat. This is really important!
I would even take it further. Have protein first, than eat carbohydrate – fruits, vegetables right after you finish your protein. There is a reason for that. I will be getting to that in my fallowing posts.
For every cup of vegetables, or piece of fruit that you plan to eat, add an ounce of low-fat protein like chicken or fish. Than add a little bit of monounsaturated fat, like olive oil or a few almonds.
Do this at every meal and snack and during that 4-5 hour period between meals, your performance will be high, you will feel better, you will feel stronger, you will be thinking better and you will be also loosing stored body fat and getting healthier. And all that without being hungry.
