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Starvation Is NOT Healthy. Stop counting calories & go #SANE w/me at http://SANESolution.com

So Many Veggies and Protein That You Are Too Full for Starches and Sweets

This part one of a multi-part series started here. If it is a non-starchy vegetable, overeat it. I am talking ten or more servings of non-starchy vegetables per day. “Cutting back on carbohydrates and replacing those calories with protein lowers the levels of triglycerides that increase the risk of heart disease and also boosts […]

2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

Calorie Quality Factor 3: Nutrition (Part 2)

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Looking at Nutrition per calorie (see previous post) is important because: It gives us a more accurate view of which foods are nutritious. It helps us burn body fat instead of slowing down or burning muscle. Like Satiety and Aggression, a food’s Nutrition depends on water, fiber, and protein. Water and fiber have no calories, […]

2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

So Many Veggies and Protein That You Are Too Full for Starches and Sweets

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2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

Calorie Quality Factor 3: Nutrition (Part 2)

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2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

So Many Veggies and Protein That You Are Too Full for Starches and Sweets

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This part one of a multi-part series started here.

If it is a non-starchy vegetable, overeat it. I am talking ten or more servings of non-starchy vegetables per day.

“Cutting back on carbohydrates and replacing those calories with protein lowers the levels of triglycerides that increase the risk of heart disease and also boosts HDL, the protective form of cholesterol.” – Dr. W.C. Willett, Harvard University

While it is absolutely not required, eating ten or more servings of non-starchy vegetables per day is dramatically easier if you use a blender to make vegetable and fruit smoothies (recipes, recommended blender). Don’t use a juicer. It removes filling fiber and healthy nutrients. Use a blender and mix a lot of any green vegetable with a little bit of strawberries or oranges. Add some vanilla-flavored whey protein powder, cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and the smoothie is quite tasty.

If fresh non-starchy vegetables are not available, frozen ones are fine. Wheat grass and other powdered green “super foods” are convenient but taste bad.

Avoid canned vegetables and canned fruits if at all possible. Focus on fresh or frozen, deeply colored, non-starchy vegetables that grow above ground. When it comes to fruits, focus on berries and citrus. They are the most SANE options.

When it comes to protein, divide your protein intake into evenly throughout the day (What about intermittent fasting?). Fortunately, this is easy. Here is one way to do it.

Step 1. Add eight egg whites to breakfast (Why egg whites?). Scramble them. Microwave them. Whatever. This shot of pure protein jump starts your fat metabolism system and sets you up to burn body fat all day. A whey protein shake also works. Make sure the shake has less than ten grams of sugar in it, and at least thirty grams of protein in it. Prep time: five minutes.
Step 2: Drink a SANE and scrumptious protein and veggie shake between breakfast and lunch. Same sugar and protein recommendation as above. Prep time: five minutes.
Step 3: Eat a double portion of protein along with a triple serving of non-starchy vegetables for lunch. Prep time: no additional time. You have to do something for lunch anyway.
Step 4: Drink another SANE and scrumptious protein and veggie shake between lunch and dinner. Same sugar and protein recommendation as above. Prep time: five minutes.
Step 5: Eat a double portion of protein along with a triple serving of non-starchy vegetables for dinner. Prep time: no additional time. You have to do something for dinner anyway.

Total Prep Time = Fifteen minutes

Total Positive Impact = Dramatic

If you enjoy the convenience of protein powders I’ve recommended a couple good options here. Other inexpensive and convenient forms of protein are canned tuna, canned salmon, egg whites, frozen salmon burgers, frozen turkey burgers, fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese, fat-free or low-fat plain Greek yogurt (Why low-fat?), and canned chicken (Going SANE on a budget). When it comes to seafood and meat, canned is fine. I am not a fan of what canning does to the taste of the food, but it is less expensive and more convenient.

“Diets with increased protein have now been shown to improve adult health with benefits for treatment or prevention of obesity, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, heart disease.” – Dr. D.K. Layman, University of Illinois

Putting these recommendations all together, the first step to eating more—smarter—is as simple as doubling the amount of seafood, nutritious meat, eggs or egg whites (depending on your goals), fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese, or fat-free or low-fat plain Greek yogurt, and tripling the amount of non-starchy vegetables that you would typically eat at each meal. This guarantees you will be too full for starch or sweets while never leaving the table feeling deprived.

When eating a double serving of protein and a triple serving of non-starchy vegetables is not practical, mix a scoop or two of protein powder and some milled flax seeds or chia seeds with water and drink it before the meal. Blend it with some ice if it is convenient.

Of course nobody can to do this all the time, but the more non-starchy vegetables and protein that you eat in place of starches and sweets, the healthier you will be and the more body fat you will burn.

2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

Calorie Quality Factor 3: Nutrition (Part 2)

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Looking at Nutrition per calorie (see previous post) is important because:

It gives us a more accurate view of which foods are nutritious.
It helps us burn body fat instead of slowing down or burning muscle.

Like Satiety and Aggression, a food’s Nutrition depends on water, fiber, and protein. Water and fiber have no calories, and protein calories do not “count” as much as carbohydrate or fat calories (more on this in future posts…the short version is that the body burns a significant amount of calories from protein during digestion). Since a food’s Nutrition is found by dividing the number of nutrients by the number of calories, more water, fiber, and protein reduce the relative number of calories in the food and therefore increase its Nutrition.

Viewing Nutrition in terms of water, fiber, and protein gives us a dramatically different view of which foods are nutritious. Consider cereal, bread, or “healthy” whole grain starches. They are all dry and contain little protein, so they are starting out zero for two. Fiber is their only hope.

The companies selling starchy products say we get a great deal of fiber from their whole-grain products, but is that actually true? Well, the four grams of fiber in 250 calories of whole-grain cereal is 100% more fiber than the two grams of fiber in 250 calories of refined-grain cereal, but that is only comparing grains. You have to ask if grains are a good source of Nutrition relative to more water and protein-packed foods we could be eating. So are whole grains good sources of Nutrition relative to non-starches?

Not even close.

Sure, whole grains are better than processed grains, but that is like saying one broken leg is better than two. It does not make either option good. Look at the fiber per calorie in whole grains compared to more water and protein-packed foods:

Fiber Per Calorie in Whole Grains Compared to SANE Foods

Whole grains do have six times more fiber than doughnuts, but non-starchy vegetables have nearly fifty times more fiber. Whole grain toast is better than a doughnut, but that is not saying much considering the other foods we could be eating. For example, if we eat 250 calories worth of non-starchy vegetables, we will get about forty-six grams of fiber. To get the same amount of fiber from whole grains, we would have to eat a whopping 1,917 calories worth of whole grains.

Calories Needed to Get 46 Grams of Clog-Clearing Fiber

Starch is an excellent example of how careful you have to be when trying to judge Nutrition—comparing nutrients per calorie. We could be eating all sorts of whole-grain starches thinking we are at the top of the Nutrition mountain, while we are actually sitting at the bottom getting buried with low-quality calories. A little Nutrition plus a lot of unSatisfying and Aggressive calories is not a happy combination.

Fortunately for us, we do not need to do all sorts of math with Nutrition labels to maximize the Nutrition of our diets. Researchers at Colorado State University did the math for us. They analyzed the Nutrition quality of the most common foods and found that if we maximize the Satiety and minimize the Aggression of our diet—by eating more water-, fiber-, and protein-packed foods—we will get the most Nutrition per calorie automatically.

Nutrition quality also affects the need to burn body fat instead of the need to slow down and burn muscle. When we eat more water-, fiber-, and protein-packed food, we get more Nutrition while avoiding overeating—or overwhelming the body with glucose. Combine more nutrients with less glucose, and we burn body fat without the negative side effects of eating less. After all, our fat metabolism system has more Nutrition than ever before. A surplus of Nutrition is the opposite of starvation.

Drewnowski A. Concept of a nutritious food: Toward a nutrient density score. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Oct;82(4):721-32. PubMed PMID: 16210699.
Rolls BJ, Bell EA, Castellanos VH, Chow M, Pelkman CL, Thorwart ML. Energy density but not fat content of foods affected energy intake in lean and obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 May;69(5):863-71. PubMed PMID: 10232624.
Bell EA, Rolls BJ. Energy density of foods affects energy intake across multiple levels of fat content in lean and obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001 Jun;73(6):1010-8. PubMed PMID: 11382653.
Drewnowski A. The role of energy density. Lipids. 2003 Feb;38(2):109-15. Review. PubMed PMID: 12733741.
Layman DK. Dietary Guidelines should reflect new understandings about adult protein needs. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2009 Mar 13;6:12. PubMed PMID: 19284668; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2666737.

2018-02-18/0 Comments/by SANE

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