1- Carbohydrrates

2- Proteins

3- Fat

4- Vitamins and Minerals

5- Water

I will try to discuss all these groups in the simplest way possible. if we eat all these five groups everyday, then it is good to know about them in the first place. by knowing them we can choose wiser and have a healthier eating habit.

1- Main treatment

2- Maintenance

3- Back to normal diet

There are many weight loss treatments in the market and most of them can do the job with satisfactory results. It is the maintenance part that makes that diet useful or useless. When you are dieting your body tries to adapt. This adaptation starts with reducing the metabolism rate and eventually results in lower capacity of burning food afterwards.

It means after every diet there is a period that body can not burn food effectively. This period last 3-4 weeks depends on the diet type. You must be really cautious in what you eat during that period.

The third and the last step needs a simple nutrition consultation for minor and major diet tweaks and basics of healthy eating as a normal person. If these three steps done perfectly you do not gain weight again. otherwise no matter how successful your weight loss was, you will gain what you lost. Unfortunately most treatment plans do not have a good maintenance program or do not stress on maintenance enough. As a result, there are many people that do the diet very well, but end up gaining weight very fast. So have this in mind: ask your practitioner about the maintenance part and make sure that it works.

1- Food Intake

2- Food burning

Food intake and metabolism

Our body needs food to keep itself up and running. It has this ability to digest food and convert it to its basic elements. Starch is converted to simple sugars, proteins are converted to amino acids and fat is reduced to its basic ingredients. Body uses these basic elements in construction (mainly proteins) and producing energy (fat and sugar). Vitamins and minerals are tools for these complex processes and help them get done smoothly. We call it metabolism. Metabolism is the summation of anabolism (making) and catabolism (destroying).

The rate of metabolism says you will gain weight or not. People with strong metabolism can eat lots of food and gain no weight. People with slow metabolism eat much less and gain weight.

The question is: why is it so? Can we help our body to have a better metabolism?

The reasons for slow metabolism are many. I list the most important ones here:

- Genetics: having the history of obesity in family makes you a good candidate for having a slow metabolism.

- Medical conditions: slow thyroid or hypothyroidism, some genetic disorders, diabetes and hormonal imbalance are good examples of medical conditions causing obesity.

- Low level of body activity: it makes our body lazy and results in slow metabolism over time.

- Stressful life style and lack of sleep: this completely messes with our body physiological balance and is very common.

- Foods: Some types of food are not suitable for body metabolism. Food additives and preservatives worsen the issue. You find this is more common in western countries.

There are many other reasons for slow metabolism, but I want to get to the main issue here and that is how food intake is related to slow metabolism and obesity.

In body calorie is the main energy unit. Normally our body needs around 22 calories per kilogram of body weight to operate normally. For a 70kg person it is around 1400 calories.

Carbs produce 4 calories per gram, proteins 4 calories per gram and fat 9 calories per gram. As you can see body can store more energy as fat compare to carbs and proteins.

In other words 9000 calories is equal to one kilogram of fat. For carbs and proteins it is 4000 calories. Imagine a man who is 70 kilograms and eat 2000 calories of food per day. He is able to burn 2000 calories too. The net is zero and his weight is stable. Now he starts adding 500 calories by eating chips or nachos while watching movie every night. After 18 days he has 9000 excess calories. It is equal to one kilogram of fat. Body has no way of burning it because its capacity was 2000 calories per day.

It is a simple calculation you have to do for proteins and carbs. Excess food is always converted to fat and then stored. There is no way around it. You can’t cheat it and you don’t have a magic wand to reverse it. So for the man in this example problem shows itself with increase in weight and size. he can’t put on his new pants and realized that those chips are the reason. He stops eating them and get back to 2000 calories a day. Net energy balance is zero again. Can he lose weight what he gained? NO! He goes on diet…. 1500 calories a day. He assumes that he can burn the excess 9000 calories in 18 days. Unfortunately body losses fat more slowly than it gains it. why?

Because of the survival mode!

Survival mode

Our body is much the same as human body 10000 years ago. It has different mechanisms of adaptability. In those times it was hard to find enough food to eat. Especially in winter they had to endure long periods of starving. So the body learned to reduce the metabolism rate in starvation and store extra food as fat as soon as it reaches food for the next round of starvation.

Now we are in 21^st century, but our body physiology is exactly the same. Our fictional man turns on his body survival mode when goes on diet. Before gaining weight he could burn 2000 calories a day. Gradually his body reduces the metabolism rate to match his present food intake that is 1500 calories a day. He loses weight very good at first but then it becomes slower and slower. He gained weight in 18 days, but now he can’t get rid of it that easily. Moreover, after he starts eating normally (2000 calories a day) he starts gaining weight very fast. Remember! He can burn 1500 calorie now. Even worse…that extra fat made him heavier, so his physical activity is now less. It complicates the situation.

This scenario is pretty much the same scenario happens to everyone who is susceptible to weight gain. Those conditions I mentioned earlier make our body burning power weaker. So people in those conditions have more problems shedding the extra fat.

Food burning and treatment options

Now that we gained weight and our metabolism is slow for any reason, what are our options to lose again? Can we go on diet again? How can we fight survival mode? How can we diet and keep our metabolism up?

The answer is a little bit complicated. The answer for the first one is YES and a big yes. The others need explanation.

We had two problems:

1- Slow metabolism

2- Increased food intake

For the first one we have multiple choices. In case of medical conditions you need to treat them if possible. You can take medication for slow thyroid or hormonal imbalance. By fixing life style you can have a better sleep and less stress. You can choose better foods and so on. Familial obesity is a hard one. The only choice you have is food intake regulation and exercise. We get to that later. Remember that this familial obesity does not mean you are condemned to be fat all your life. It makes you susceptible to gain weight… by itself it can not cause obesity.

If obesity is caused by excess food then treatment is very straight forward.

1. Stop what is causing obesity. That means extra food intake
   
2. Eat in appropriate time of the day
   
3. Add exercise to your daily activity
   
4. Start a healthy diet
   

First important rule is stop eating excess food. If you don’t do it then you have to forget losing the fat off your body. So eat less!

Eating at night time is horrible. Body can’t burn food at that time. So it converts it to fat while you are asleep and dream about being slim!

Exercise is great, as it is a very good way to stop the survival mode from happening. Even 15 minutes of walking per day or every other day will do the job.

Start a healthy diet! Saying it is much easier than doing it, especially in this confusing weight loss market. Have these in mind as your first rule: Avoid protein free diets. It will destroy your body. Avoid using diuretics and laxatives. Avoid invasive procedures as much as you can. Do not use a diet without a good maintenance plan.

At the end I explain a little about ways of increasing the metabolism rate. The healthiest way is exercise. In different types of exercise aerobic ones are the best. Aerobic means the exercise uses lots of oxygen. Cycling, fast walking, jogging, swimming, running and Pilate are good example of aerobic exercise. Anaerobic exercise is like working with weights and is not good for weigh loss programs overall. Different body activities have different calorie usage.

Dancing and skipping rope are in the top of the list and it comes down to very usual ones like driving and even breathing.

I suggest you to look at the other articles and the new ones that I will add. know what you are planning to do with your body and you will help yourself and your practitioner to get the best results.

There are two groups of vitamins:

1- Fat soluble vitamins E, D, K and A

2- Water soluble vitamins like group B vitamins and vitamin C

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that some people call it youth vitamin. Antioxidant is a molecule that neutralizes toxins and waste products in body cells. These waste products are called free radicals in medical terms. They are highly active molecules and can damage cells wall and over time makes body look older than it really is.

Fruits and green vegetables have lots of vitamin E. So eating them daily helps your body fight toxins and free radicals effectively. Vitamin E supplements are widely used by many people. It comes in different brands with different dosage. Until recently it was believed that eating non organic vitamin E has the same effect as organic vitamin E. Many researches were done. It was shown that Vitamin E supplements are not the same as the organic counter part and they might even hurt body. Now the recommended dose is reduced until further tests are done.

Sources of vitamin E:

Particularly high levels of vitamin E can be found in the following foods:

• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Egg
• Milk
• Nuts, such as almonds or hazelnuts
• Seeds
• Spinach and other green leafy vegetables
• Unheated vegetable oils
• Wheat germ
• Wholegrain foods

check this link to get more information about vitamin E.(http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/126268-overview). As i said Many aspects of vitamin E potentials are still under research.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is another fat soluble vitamin. Food’s Vitamin D is transfered to skin and then sun light converts it to the active form which is “vitamin D3″. Vitamin D important role is in bone making. It regulates body calcium and phosphorus in concert with two hormones calcitonin and parathormone. Calcium is a mineral used in bones and muscle contraction. Calcium level in blood is regulated very carefully otherwise heart rhythm might be disturbed.

I really want to mention the importance of vitamin D and calcium especially in young girls and in menopause women. Estrogen and progesterone are two main women hormones. They have a protective effect on heart and blood vessels as well as bones. After menopause ovaries don’t produce hormones anymore and the protective effect wears off. It is said, if a lady consumes dairy products and milk regularly and enough in young age she would only lose 1% of her bones per year after menopause. If she does not take enough milk and dairy products at that age she would lose 5% of her bone for first 5 years after menopause and 1% bone every year after.This shows the importance of having milk and milk products in our diet especially in young age.

There are many different calcium and vitamin D supplements in the market and they are recommended by physicians as they help maintaining the bone health especially in women. In June 2007, the Canadian Cancer Society said that based on current research adults should consider increasing their daily dosage of vitamin D. The society said Canadians should now consume 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily during the fall and winter months, in consultation with a health-care provider.”

No need to say that daily need is changed according to situation. Bone health aside, vitamin D has a protective effect against cancer and cardiovascular (means heart and blood vessels) problems. It is said that vitamin D is one of the immune system regulators and has a role in protecting us against infectious diseases.

Sources of vitamin D:

Natural sources of vitamin D include:

• Fish liver oils, such as cod liver oil, 1 Tbs. (15 ml) provides 1,360 IU (one IU equals 25 ng)
• Fatty fish species, such as:
  • Herring, 85 g (3 ounces (oz)) provides 1383 IU
  • Catfish, 85 g (3 oz) provides 425 IU
  • Salmon, cooked, 100 g (3.5 oz]) provides 360 IU
  • Mackerel, cooked, 100 g (3.5 oz]), 345 IU
  • Sardines, canned in oil, drained, 50 g (1.75 oz), 250 IU
  • Tuna, canned in oil, 85 g (3 oz), 200 IU
  • Eel, cooked, 100 g (3.5 oz), 200 IU
• A whole egg, provides 20 IU
• Beef liver, cooked, 100 g (3.5 oz), provides 15 IU
• UV-irradiated mushrooms (Vitamin D₂)

IU means unit and oz is ounce.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K role is mainly in blood coagulation. It is made partly in our intestine by bacteria residing there (microbes that live there and don’t hurt us). The rest comes from food. In vitamin K deficiency we would have bleeding and bruise problems. Vitamin K is stored mainly in liver.

Vitamin K₁ is found chiefly in leafy green vegetables such as spinach, Swiss chard, and Brassica (e.g. cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels); some fruits such as avocado and kiwifruit are also high in Vitamin K. By way of reference, two tablespoons of parsley contain 153% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin K. Some vegetable oils, notably soybean, contain vitamin K, but at levels that would require relatively large caloric consumption to meet the recommended levels.

Vitamin K in green plants has poor absorption in body. For example, cooked spinach has 4% absorption. However when one adds butter to the spinach, the absorption increases to 13% due to the increased solubility of vitamin K in fat.

Vitamin K is found in meat, eggs, dairy, and natto (is a traditional Japanese food made from soybeans fermented with a bacterium. It is popular especially as a breakfast food. As a rich source of protein, natto and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in Japan

Vitamin A

Vitamin A has an important role in body. It keeps our skin healthy and helps our eyes to see sharp especially at night. Here is vitamin A participates in :

• Vision
• Gene transcription
• Immune function
• Embryonic development and reproduction (
• Bone metabolism
• Haematopoiesis (making blood)
• Skin health
• Antioxidant Activity

Vitamin A sources are:

• liver (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish)
• carrot
• Broccoli leaf According to medical information’s broccoli florets have much less.^[11]
• Sweet potato
• Kale
• Butter
• Spinach
• Pumpkin
• Collard greens
• Cantaloupe melon
• Egg
• Apricot
• Papaya
• Mango
• Pea
• Broccoli

Liver has the most and broccoli has the least amount of vitamin A. I have to mention that these EDKA vitamins are fat soluble. It means their absorption depend on the fat you eat with them. They need bile secreted from liver and released by gall bladder too.

So when you are on diet and you use pills that bind to fat you are already limiting the E, D, K and A vitamins reaching your body. It is a problem doctors have when trying to lower blood cholesterol and fat bile acid sequesterants. These drugs attach to bile and neutralize it. Fat can’t be absorbed effectively and fat soluble vitamins with as well. The other issue is toxicity potential of these four vitamins. Consuming more than recommended dose will causes severe adverse effects. Disposing fat soluble vitamins is much harder than water soluble ones. We have plenty of water that come and goes every day, so disposing excess vitamin C and B is much easier and the risk of toxicity is minimal.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is probably the most famous vitamin. It is a very powerful antioxidant and participates in many body functions. It helps our skin build collagen (smokers destroy their vitamin C, so their skin losses its beauty over time) and It also helps our immune system to fight infectious diseases. it participates in making some of the important hormones our body needs.

In old times sailors got a disease named scurvy. A disease that is caused by vitamin C deficiency and is manifested by formation of red spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from all mucous membranes including mouth. sailors learned that eating lemon can protect them from scurvy in their long voyages.

Sources of vitamin C are:

I hope this table helps you choose wisely when it comes to vitamin C. Greens must be fresh. Heat destroys vitamin C, so steaming or frying or any kind of heat will kill vitamin C. stomach acid destroys vitamin C too, so if you want to have maximum absorption of vitamin C don’t eat it with meals. Try to take it with empty stomach that has less acid. Animal sources of vitamin C are mostly in the liver. They range from 36 mg/100gr to 2 mg/100cc in cow milk.

Vitamin B group

We have a long list of vitamin Bs. Most important ones are vitamin B1-3 , B5-7 , then vitamin B9 and finally B12. Here a brief list of what this vitamin group does:

• Support and increase the rate of metabolism
• Maintain healthy skin and muscle tone
• Enhance immune and nervous system function
• Promote cell growth and division—including that of the red blood cells that help prevent anemia.
• Reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal forms of cancer, when consumed in food, but not when ingested in vitamin tablet form.

As I said all B vitamins are water soluble, and are dispersed throughout the body with water. Most of the B vitamins must be replenished regularly, since any excess is excreted in the urine.

The deficiency of vitamin B group causes a wide range of medical problems. Here is the table explaining this. Remember that vitamin B group has their individual names as well:

Again,Like vitamin C this group of vitamins are water soluble and because of that risk of toxicity is really low even in overdose. B vitamins are found in all whole, unprocessed foods. Processing, as with sugar and white flour, tends to significantly reduce B vitamin content. B vitamins are particularly concentrated in meat and meat products such as liver, turkey, and tuna. Other good sources for B vitamins are potatoes, bananas, lentils, chile peppers, tempeh, beans, nutritional yeast, brewer’s yeast, and molasses. Marmite and Vegemite bill themselves as “one of the world’s richest known sources of vitamin B. As might be expected, due to its high content of brewer’s yeast, beer is a source of B vitamins, although this may be less true for filtered beers and the alcohol in beer may impair the body’s ability to absorb certain vitamins.

The B-12 vitamin is of note because it is not available from plant products, making B-12 deficiency a concern for vegans. Manufacturers of plant-based foods will sometimes report B-12 content, leading to confusion about what sources yield B-12. The confusion arises because the standard US Pharmacopeia (USP) method for measuring the B-12 content does not measure the B-12 directly. Instead, it measures a bacterial response to the food. Chemical variants of the B-12 vitamin found in plant sources are active for bacteria, but cannot be used by the human body. This same phenomenon can cause significant over-reporting of B-12 content in other types of foods as well.

Vitamin B may also be delivered by injection to reverse deficiencies.

Another popular means of increasing one’s vitamin B intake is through the use of dietary supplements purchased at supermarkets, health centers, or natural food stores. B vitamins are also commonly added to energy drinks. Many energy drinks have been marketed with large amounts of B vitamins (5-Hour Energy contains an astounding 8,333% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin B-12 and 2,000% of the RDA for vitamin B-6. Red Bull offers 360% of the RDA for vitamin B-6, 120% of B12, 140% of niacin (vitamin B3) with claims that this will cause the consumer to “sail through your day without feeling jittery or tense.” Nutritionists dismiss these claims as of course it’s brilliant marketing, but it doesn’t have any basis.

So the best choice for you is to stick to fresh and unprocessed food as well as green vegetable and drink less of energy drinks. B group vitamins store in liver. Most of them have high storage amount so dietary deficiency is really unlikely. Acid folic is different. Reserves last only for three months, so dietary deficiency can occur if unchecked. Acid folic is very important in pregnant women as it helps the embryo to develop with lower risk of congenital anomalies.

List of group B vitamin is larger than what I showed you here. Many of them does not known to have nutritional value and the others are not essential in humans. Examples are vitamin Bt that is L-Carnitine and B4 which is adenine. adenine is used in gene production in human body.

Minerals

This group is mostly a facilitator in body functions. Some like iron, calcium and copper used as structural components with special duties. Others like potassium, sodium and chlorate help maintaining water balance in body. Zinc helps immune system and molybdenum has a role in sugar regulation. I just give you a brief explanation about important ones.

Iron probably is the most important one from clinical view. Iron deficiency anemia (low blood capacity to carry oxygen) is very common in menstruating women. Vitamin B12 deficiency causes another kind of anemia if you remember from previous section. But iron deficiency is much more common. Anemia makes every function in body sluggish. Shortness of breath, getting tired after a little activity, heart racing, bad sleep and weakness in a woman with no other medical problem must raise the suspicion of iron deficiency anemia. It might go unnoticed for a long time and becomes really disturbing, before doctors can make a diagnosis. Iron is found in greens and animal sources. It needs a chemical from stomach to be absorbed completely. Vitamin C increases the absorption rate dramatically and drinking tea after meal compromises the process (so try not to drink tea right after meal if you have iron deficiency). Animal source iron absorbed better than plant source iron. best source of iron is red meat. In iron deficiency anemia and after diagnosis iron pills are recommended, because eating red meat as treatment is not enough. in iron pills look at the elemental iron and not the total iron. The elemental iron is the active part, so when buying iron supplements pay attention to label and check the elemental part. Most iron supplements has a low dose of elemental iron and are useless in iron deficiency anemia.

When iron enters the blood it goes to liver and then enters bone marrow. It is stored in bone marrow and is used for making blood elements.

Calcium is the other mineral that we talked about before. It is used in bone structure and also has a very important role in muscle contraction. Potassium and sodium are very important in water balance along with chlorate. Potassium has a role in muscle contraction especially in heart. Along with calcium it helps the heartbeat to have a regular rhythm. Copper stored mostly in liver (see how important the liver is!), muscle and bone. Copper is mostly used in various types of enzymes. Most important one is cytochrome c oxidase and the enzyme superoxide dismutase (containing copper and zinc). enzymes are like mechanical tools. Help body works smoothly. It is also used in cell function and helps the cell to use oxygen to “breath” normally. Arsenic and cyanide stop these enzymes and interrupt cell breathing, so are lethal to human body.

I want you to know that in the contrary to this assumption in the 5 groups of food ingredients only the first three are responsible for weight gain . Water and vitamins, as well as minerals do not cause weight gain. They are merely there to facilitate body functions. Without them we can’t live.

I hope the brief information here helps you have a better understanding of vitamins and minerals along with proteins, carbs and fat.

If you had any questions please leave it in comments and question section. you will have your answer shortly!

Drinking enough water throughout the day is  necessary and makes our body work properly. nutritionists recommend drinking at least 8 glasses of water specially on dieting. Burning fat is a process that has many waste products. This waste products disposed mainly with water needs to be expelled from body. The fat burning process and expelling its waste products need water.

So please drink as much as water you can while doing a weight loss treatment and also when you are on your normal diet. As I said Optimum is 8 glasses of water a day, but if you can’t do it just drink as much as you can.

Fat is the energy rich material we have in our body and it is used to store extra food and energy.

When we speak about fat two important matters must be considered:

1- Fat calorie

2- Fat quality

If you want to eat healthy and you are not concern about weight then it is important to pay special attention to fat quality. Saturated fat and old style solid oil are considered bad and olive oil, fish oil and corn oil  are considered good quality oil. The fact is: calorie is the same for good and bad quality oil!

There are two sources of fat:

1- Endogenous; this means we make them by converting carbs and proteins inside our bodies.

2- Exogenous; this means we get them by eating.

Let’s talk about the second group. I explain this part in detail because many people are struggling with their weight or cholesterol or triglyceride (a kind of fat) all the time.

In a lab test and in your fat profile two things are routinely checked:

I- cholesterol

II- triglyceride

We have different type of cholesterol. we have good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

If you see the lab result you figure that three expressions are highlighted. LDL, HDL and total cholesterol.

The first stands for low density lipoprotein which is bad for body and the second is high density lipoprotein that is really good for body and cleans the blood from bad cholesterol. The first one increases the possibility of brain stroke and heart attack and the second one do the opposite.

Triglyceride is another kind of fat you see on lab tests  and it has different structure compare to cholesterol. High triglyceride is not good too.

the first thing tried for treatment is normally life style changes like exercise and diet  . Even on cholesterol or triglyceride lowering drugs those two must be done.

In brief fish oil, olive oil, nut oil increases the good cholesterol HDL.

In natural remedies Natural garlic is said to bring bad cholesterol (LDL) down. Garlic tablets and supplements are still under question for having such an effect.

Triglyceride story is different. Liver have this ability to convert protein, carb and fat to each other. For example extra protein can be converted to cholesterol (red meat) and Extra carbohydrate is converted to triglyceride. bread, rice, cake, pasta and alike are responsible for many imbalances we have in our fat profile, although they are not fat originally.

Based on thisو different foods are able to produce different amount of fat if they are eaten in large amounts. There is a fat conversion index that says how much of this extra food is converted to fat in our body. I give you approximate numbers to show the difference and also importance:

- bread 90% (it means if you surpass your calorie need and eat bread 90% of it is converted to fat!), Cake 95%, rice 80%, boiled potato 70%, fruit sugar 35-50%, meat 60% and so on…list is long, but I can give you a heads up already. snacking with fruits is much better than cakes, protein is better than carb and so on. because of that you must be careful about carbs even more than fat itself. most people don’t know this point and get fat just by snacking little amount of carb throughout the day. the best example is sugar or chocolate with coffee or tea.

Now that we realized connection between fat and carbs we can think of our treatment options with better insight.

carb→fat→carb

It is a cycle which these two can convert to each other. how can we slow, then stop and at last reverse this carb to fat conversion?  First thing is to watch carb intake by watching our food. Second is to eat when body has more power to burn food( in the morning and noon). Third is to activate our muscles. Muscles are huge stores of carb.  When they are used in work outs they cry out for more carb from blood stream nearby and start using blood sugar just to keep you moving. Blood sugar starts going down, but blood sugar can’t go down very much…right? you remember? our brain can use sugar only. so our body and mainly liver releases its stores of carb into blood stream just to maintain blood sugar. it is not enough definitely…so liver starts converting fat in blood stream to carb release it back to blood .

Fat comes from fat tissue and blood vessels carry this fat to liver. Here come another problem. what if someone has poor blood vessels, especially in fat tissue? The answer is body cannot take fat efficiently if you do nothing about it. Best example is someone who eats less and does exercise but still can’t get rid of the fat on belly and sides! when there is poor access how can body remove and transfer that fat? here is the part that cupping, massage, lumicell, warming and shaking belts, laser, warm wax and many more methods come in. what they do is simple. They stimulate blood vessels and make them grow larger. Like streets if they become larger they can carry more fat out of fat tissue. Another important point and a frequently asked question: Can laser, massage and even many fat burning capsules reduce my weight?

The answer is: they can help only. They must be used in combination with other treatments. Even if you don’t want or can’t do exercise you must have a diet to make them effective. it is true like any other weigh loss program: eating style must be fixed first. If you think there is a magic pill or treatment that does this for you without eating modifications, be my guest. You spend money for nothing.

Let’s get back to muscle problem and low blood sugar. It happens either with exercise or diet or both. This fat converting process is slow. Is there any other way muscles can use another source of energy other than carb? Yes!

Muscles normally start eating fat in the neighborhood. That is what trainers call body sculpturing. You want to get rid of the belly fat? Use muscles of the same area. Thighs and buttock? Run, do cycling or do skipping rope or walk fast. Arms? Legs? Muscles are everywhere, so use them.

At last I want to remind you again:

Fat is not butter to melt away simply! you have to force your body to release them and there are simple rules for that!

If you had any questions regarding this article or the treatments please leave your comments in comment section or email me at health@drmehrshad.com

I would be happy to help.

Laser treatment and weight loss

Is it effective for weight loss? Is it effective for size loss?

Not effective for weight loss and not effective for size loss without diet.

If you read the fat section you realized that first step in weight loss and in every treatment is diet or at least improving the diet style. It is true here too. Laser treatments improve blood circulation in superficial parts of body and not very deep. It means laser provide a better access to fat tissue. This better access does not mean losing fat per se. because of that people experience about laser is mixed and confusing. Some get good results, but most get poor results. People have this imagination that laser would do the job entirely and nothing more is needed to be done. That is of course a false assumption.

Liposuction

It is a famous treatment and a frequently asked question. Liposuction is reserved for extreme cases and not suitable for everyone for everyone. It is an invasive procedure and should be done under complete supervision. There are micro and macro liposuction. Micro takes more time but the result is better. The dangerous but rare side effect is fat emboli.

Liposuction removes the fat tissue directly and physically. Fat tissue has lots of fat cells filled with fat droplets. During the procedure cell rupture may result in fat droplet leak to the blood. If it is big enough it travels in blood stream to the point it is trapped in narrow blood vessels and lung. As a result patient will have temporary shortness of breath and small bruises over the skin. More severe cases are really rare and that is the reason this treatments is permitted to be done routinely.

More important point I have to mention is the final result and the maintenance of liposuction.

Normally we have fat tissue all over the body. This fat tissue consists of millions and millions of fat cells. In slim persons these cells are empty. In fat people cells absorb fat and become very large. The result is increase in body size that we don’t want. In normal diet we force these cells to give up those fat droplets. They are broken and released into the blood stream to be used.

Liposuction is a bypass. It removes fat cells and fat droplets together. Although it seems perfect, it causes a problem if unchecked.

Imagine a lady with extra fat in buttock, thighs and belly. She does not like diet and decided to do the easy way. She goes to a doctor and asks for liposuction. The whole procedure takes 4-5 hours when it is over she lost most of the fat in those areas. She has to rest and give the damaged tissues time to heal (it differs in different persons from weeks to months. More fat has more recovery period). This lady used to eat food more than she needs. Because of that body converted this food to fat and distributed it all over body in fat tissues. This distribution is mostly even. Now the fat tissue in some parts partly removed. This lady thinks it is over and continues her diet style with this hope that fat has gone for good. Now the body has extra food at hand which is converted to fat again! Body searches for fat tissue to store the extra fat and unfortunately does not find it where it used to be. Forcefully it sends this fat in other body parts: face, arms, upper back, upper sides and so on. The result would be a disfiguring weight gain that can’t be resolved easily this time. Imagine the poor lady…what she thought and what she becomes now.

So again…if you want to do liposuction you need to watch what you eat after very very carefully.

Lipectomy

It is the same as liposuction. The difference is the model of approach. In liposuction the doctor make a hole in the skin and then enter a metal tube that grabs and sucks out the fat tissue.

In lipectomy a surgeon cut the skin and removes the fat tissue under his or her eyes. The result is the same, but the recovery period might be a little different. All other points are the same.

Protein powders

Most of them are high in protein, so are very good choices in high protein diets. They come in different tastes and must be mixed with water or milk or any other non carb or low carb beverage. Some are used in weight loss packages that have fat burning pills and other supplements and some used alone. Results vary largely. I have tried many of them on my clients and even myself. Alone they have poor result overall. In combination they show better result. My suggestion for you is to use them in combination. Try a simple protein powder with good protein absorption, Have a low fat and carb diet and add exercise. You can lose about 3-5 kilograms in one month if you do it right.

They can protect your body from protein loss if the diet is done under supervision and correctly. They have many brands. I worked with HERBALIFE more than others and I can say that it has a good quality.

Fat burners, laxatives, fat transporters, diuretics and others

They come in different brands. There is a crazy market selling different fat burning products out there. Open your eyes and don’t just buy anything that is offered. Laxatives are used by many people. It does not give enough time to intestines to absorb the food. Unfortunately the weight loss with this method comes with heavy price. Like laxatives some people use chelating agents. That means using drugs that attaches to fat and does not let the body absorb it. This one has a down side too. In laxatives, not only fat but also vitamins and proteins and carbs can not be absorbed efficiently. In the second one, fat soluble vitamins (vitamin E, D, K and A) can’t be absorbed to. So in long run there is a danger of vitamin deficiency. Diuretics (they produce urine) are abused as weight loss drugs too. It is a scam and sometimes dangerous. I saw a lady went to the hospital for losing lots of water because of these drugs. They are used in kidney and heart conditions mostly and not weight loss.

Fat transporters as I call them are a different group totally. Some of them like L-Carnitine used widely and give good results accompanying a diet. CLA is the same thing. CLA is not effective if taken lonely, but with diet it can make the weight loss process faster.

Both L-Carnitine and CLA( conjugated linoleic acid) are natural body elements. Body produces them to transport fat in the cell. Using them seems to help this transportation process. It means body will have a better access to fat as I mentioned before.

Food packages

They were planned to offer an easy way for the people who want to lose weight. All of them follow a basic rule: increasing protein and decreasing fat and carbs. Most of them are safe and effective. If you want to try them just be sure they don’t charge you for useless stuff.

The downside of these treatments is their price and being slow. Maintenance is another issue that must be addressed and you must know about it before spending your money.

Cellulite treatment

Let’s be honest. There is no 100% cure for this problem. Men do not have cellulite and the reason originates in hormonal difference. Women hormones have an affinity for fat. Best treatment is prevention. Some women are more susceptible to cellulite compare to others. Cellulite is fat accumulation under the skin. It changes the smooth architecture of the skin makes it bumpy.

These dimples and bumps are very resistant. They can not be removed with diet only. Liposuction is useless and laser treatment has nothing to do with cellulite at all. Laser and cellulite is another frequently asked question. Let me tell you that laser can’t treat cellulite. It brings more water under the skin. It stretches the area and conceals cellulite to a degree. As soon as the laser treatment stops it’s effect wears off and cellulite comes back.

The only thing that makes it better more than anything else is a combination of diet and intense daily massage. Other than that….please tell your dear sister, mother or daughter to consume less fat. Once cellulite appears there is nothing you can do about it.

Surgery

By surgery I mean stomach stapling and balloon. Both of them are reserved for morbid obesity (BMI or body mass index over 40). It is a hard surgery and causes many side effects. If you are overweight only don’t think about it. The whole point in this treatment is to decrease stomach volume either by taking a part of it out, or stapling it or inserting a balloon inside it.

We feel hungry when blood sugar falls and stomach is empty. When we start eating, stomach becomes full gradually. The resulting stomach wall stretch send a signal to the hunger center in brain and suppress it. With smaller stomach wall stretch starts sooner and you feel full.

This is also the reason that you feel full sooner, when you eat less for some time. Stomach has this ability to increase it’s volume from 200cc to almost 1000cc! The more you eat in each meal the larger it becomes.

I will try to add new drugs, supplements and methods as they come up. If you think that something important is missed here please let me know. This post will be updated regularly. Post your questions or comments to health@drmehrshad.com .

Dr. Mehrshad Mahmoudi

Proteins are the second group of food ingredients. Unlike carbohydrates proteins are mostly used in body structure. Our muscles, skin, bones and internal organs like liver, kidney and lungs are mostly made by proteins.

Like carbohydrates, proteins are basically consisted of smaller elements that are called Amino acids. It is like making a house with smaller elements. Body combines these small amino acids to make more complex structures and eventually proteins.

Our sources of proteins are mainly animals. Red meat, poultry, sea food and so on. These foods are ingested and digested in stomach and intestine. Body breaks them down to the last point (Amino acids). They enter blood stream and then goes to liver (liver is a miracle and a complicated factory).

Liver has this amazing ability to convert almost everything to everything. It can convert fat and amino acids and carbohydrates to each other. Under healthy nutritional state body keeps amino acids and proteins for the best. In starving and unhealthy diets proteins are used for maintaining blood sugar and producing energy. To put it simple this process goes like this:

Protein (meat, egg white, soy…) —->stomach and intestine—> amino acids—> blood stream—> liver and other organs—> distribution and construction. Look at this picture:

Synthesis means making and viscera is what we have inside our belly. We have two important points here:

1- Our intestine can absorb 30 grams of protein every 4 hours. More than that cannot be used and is expelled from body or converted to fat.

2- Protein waste product is urea. It is excreted from kidneys. People with gout disease must limit their protein intake especially red meat.

For a healthy eating style and for a healthy diet we must have enough protein intakes. Dairy products, egg white, sea food, red and white meat and soy are excellent sources of protein we must have. As usual we must focus on breakfast and lunch and not the dinner. Take a look here:

Alcohol—>carbs—>protein—>fat

Body burn alcohol easier and fat harder. It means if you consume too much alcohol body will burn it first and then go to the next which is carb. Again, if you eat too much carb (like bread and rice) you can burn fat until carb is completely burned. By looking at the simple scheme a problem emerges…how can we get to fat without burning protein? We don’t want to burn our body protein at the same time we are losing fat.

That is when external proteins come into play. Many diets use protein powders or higher amount of food protein just to compensate for this problem. It is not always 100% but with some small tweaks and tricks we can manage that.

Diet speed also plays a role here. With only one exception speedy diets have more protein wasting. Slower ones preserve more body proteins. In treatment section I introduce the only method which you can lose fast very fast and leave your body proteins intact. No need to emphasize that protein depleted diets will destroy your body very soon.

I think now you can say why is it mandatory to have a protein source externally when we diet.

So these are the important point you must know about proteins in your eating and diet:

1- Never go on a diet without a source of protein. Water diet, tea diet, celery diet….they are all wrong.

2- Do not over eat protein specially the red meat. It increases your cholesterol and stresses the kidney.

3- Try to avoid processed meat at all cost. Click on the link below to see why.

Watch what you eat!!

4- We have 5 different body types. Different proteins are suitable for different body types.

Check the treatment section and related post to get more information.

Very famous! This group is categorized as simple and complex. Simple carbs are like glucose (our blood sugar), fructose (fruit sugar) and galactose (milk sugar). Complex carbs are like bread, rice, pasta, cake and many more that we know as starch.

Carbohydrates are easily absorbed, digested and also our best source of energy. They keep us up and running. Our brain can use only a simple sugar named Glucose. Blood sugar test that is routinely done measures this element in our blood. From now on, if I mention blood sugar it means glucose.

Blood glucose or blood sugar is monitored closely and precisely to keep it from going to high like diabetics or down in rare conditions mostly caused by taking too much blood sugar pills. Liver has the primary role regulating blood sugar with the help of some hormones. For example insulin is a hormone secreted by pancreas and it reduces blood sugar. Glucagon and adrenaline do the opposite and increase blood sugar. They work together to keep the blood sugar in normal range in blood.

Explaining this, I want you to see what happens when you eat a complex carb like bread:

1- It goes to stomach and then small intestine

2- It starts breaking down to simple sugars by means of enzymes and hormones in small intestine.

3- Simple sugar enters blood. By that blood sugar increases and that is when Insulin starts to come around to get it back to where it was.

4- Liver traps sugar in the blood and starts distributing it. Remember, our brain can use Glucose only. So this duty of liver is important.

5- one hundred grams of sugar stored in liver. The rest are sent to muscles and stored again. If anything more remains, liver converts it to fat and stores it in fat tissue. Again, we don’t want that to happen. At least not so often!

When we starve or go on diet and even between meals when we don’t eat anything, our blood sugar falls and everything reverses. Brain and liver sense that too, so:

1- Liver releases that 100gr of starch stored very fast.

2- Liver then tries to convert everything in its disposal to sugar and releases it into blood.  It uses starch stores in the muscles, fat stored in fat tissue and then the worst of all… our body protein.

3- As mentioned before low blood sugar stimulates brain and it causes you feel hungry. You body wants you to eat again. The reason is clear: your blood sugar is low.

Normal blood sugar is 70-110 mg/dl. Just forget about the scary part “mg/dl”. I want to tell you that liver duty is keeping blood sugar in this range.

Everybody has a blood sugar set point. This set point may be high or low but it falls in this normal range. I hear from many people that “if I don’t eat my blood sugar will fall and I would faint”. The reason is simple. Some people get used to a high normal blood sugar level. Others get used to a low normal blood sugar. Below that level both groups feel hungry and crave for food especially sweet carbs. as you can see both groups are in normal range (70-110) by mentioning the word NORMAL, but first group has a better eating style with a lower normal blood sugar, while the second group has a bad eating style and a high normal blood sugar. You can guess that second group must eat more not to feel hungry. They are the group nagging and complaining about diets being hard and they can’t do their weight loss treatments according to the plan. Unfortunately they are the group more prone to sugar intolerance and diabetes (sugar over 125).

Good news is: this set point can be changed. You can force your body to get used to a lower blood sugar, before it is too late. I suggest you take a look at how to lose weight section to see how it is done.

Now back to our important question: how can we stop fat being accumulated in our body?

I will discuss it in how to lose weight section and treatments, but for the sake of this article I explain it in brief. Fat is accumulated in adipose tissue or fat tissue; if blood sugar remains high all the time (by eating too much or snacking all the time) and liver can’t find a place to store the extra carb.

Just look at this picture:

Just forget about unfamiliar expressions there. Glycogen is a kind of starch assembled from our simple sugars: Glucose, fructose (fruit sugar), and lactose (milk sugar). As you can see there is a balance between starting point, liver, muscle and fat tissue (adipose tissue).

Food—>intestine—-> Blood stream—->liver—->muscle—-> fat tissue

When we start dieting or starve this will happen:

starving—> ↓ blood sugar—> brain senses ↓ blood sugar—> you feel hungry—> liver starts sending orders to fat tissue and muscle to release stored fat and starch—-> liver breaks down released fat and starch to simple sugar—-> ↑ blood sugar

As you can see it is a two way street. You eat too much and you will end up storing lots of fat. Vice versa and you will convert that fat to simple carbs for producing energy. At all time your body keeps blood sugar level in normal range, unless a medical condition happens. In many liver diseases people lose the ability to regulate their blood sugar. In diabetics, lack of insulin or insulin resistance is the cause. So if you want to help your body:

1- Eat less! Specially simple and complex sugars. Remember that extra carb converted to fat at the end.

2- Eat less fat. Any questions?!

3- Do exercise. Workouts deplete starch reserve in muscle and all of us have lots of muscle in our body. Liver begs for starch and fat to increase blood sugar and get it back to normal. You depleted starch reserves in muscles before, so more fat will be burned instead.

4- Regulate how frequently you eat. There are diets that you are forbidden to eat between meals. There are others suggesting you to eat smaller potions, but more frequently. I will discuss it more in other section. Just remember body needs energy in the morning and slowly goes to sleep at the evening. By eating late you body makes more fat at the end.