.

Would be nice, but not likely, or not likely to last.  How about 20 lbs. in 20 months?  Sounds a little more likely and do-able!  Wow, that is a long time, though.  There is a lot of hype about fast weight loss with this pill or that diet.  There really are no short cuts that last.   As usual I have a good example for you…my wife.

She’s pretty happy today because she hopped on the scale for the first time in over a year.  She’s lost 21 lbs. in 15 months.  I was having a little challenge with her last year and I have something for you to ponder.  In the beginning of our challenge she was weighing herself every week.  Guess what?  She didn’t lose a lot of weight in a week.  She felt more and more depressed because nothing happened fast.

So she quit weighing herself and kept plugging away and quit worrying about it.  Instead of a scale, she used the French woman’s method.

She went by how her clothes fit and how she felt.  If her clothes kept fitting better she kept going.  She was also very intentional about what she ate.  If she didn’t feel good after eating something she didn’t eat that again.  You know when you eat a meal and within an hour you’re yawning and ready for a nap.

She stuck to the basics:

1. Weight training with kettlebells
2. Running every other day
3. No extra sugar in the diet.
4. One very special ingredient…

The one secret that we think made the biggest impact, was a significant change in supplements and herbs to focus on rebalancing her hormones.  I spent about an hour working through every possible combination I could find.  For women with weight issues, I am strongly convinced there is usually a hormonal imbalance. 

Good habits breed good success.  The reason people gain weight back is mainly because they fall back into bad habits.  If you have good habits, good things happen, but be prepared for it to take awhile.  The body heals and repairs itself slowly.  Stick to doing good things day in and day out as long as you feel good, that’s o.k.  If it took 20 years to gain 100 lbs. and to have successful long term weight loss it is going to take a while.  Start now and look to the future.  My wife is looking back and if she knew it was going to take 15 months to lose 20 lbs.  she would have been discouraged.  But looking back on her progress she is pretty proud of herself.

If you haven’t been successful losing weight, try a different approach, not a different diet.

From the desk of Dr. Altman:

I’m looking at an hourglass right now.  No, I’m sorry that’s a glass of wine.  For those of you wine connoisseurs that are hungry, what goes with red wine?

Standard jeopardy answer:  Red Meat

Not red turnips, nor red tomatoes, nor red grapes.   But, the sound of mooing is in the air…

I know this is dangerous territory for some but it is late and the wine made me do it.  Modern man suffers from two great sins, gluttony and sloth.  In many of the last articles we have discussed sloth.  As it is most obvious, when you look around town and around the country that we eat a lot.   If you haven’t watched “Super Size Me” on hulu.com yet, do that tonight.

Chronic diseases and obesity are everywhere.

These two plagues are a new phenomenon.   Our primitive ancestors didn’t have the abundance we do today.  They also had to hunt and gather their food.  Which for most of us would be impossible unless the animals had GPS tracking collars on.  So here we have a dilemma.  Our bodies developed to eat meat, veggies, and fruit yet we live in a world of fast pace and convenience that makes it easy to drift away from that.

Plus, sugar tastes so good. 

The average American has cereal, milk, and maybe a slice or two of toast.  Right!   Now, 2/3 of us are also too heavy and too sick.  Sick meaning, they take medications.  No other country takes as many meds as the USA.

The Blue Zones Book talks primarily about the diets of long lived societies.

It has a lot to offer and the most noted diet is the Mediterranean Diet.
In a nutshell it consists of:

• Whole grain cereals
• Low-fat dairy
• Legumes
• Veggies
• Fruit
• Fatty fish
• Modest alcohol
• Olive oil

Compared to the Western diet of processed food this is a big step up.  Plus, it lowers heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.  So I thought it was interesting when a group of Swedish researchers examined the Mediterranean diet compared to the diet of primitive man.

Primitive Diet:

• Lean meat
• Fish
• Fruit
• Veggies
• They also advised these following food restrictions (only one or less egg per day, nuts.go for walnuts, two or less potatoes per day, one tablespoon or less of olive oil)
• Notice the absence of breads, cakes, milk, cereal, soda…

These two groups were not told to count calories or were they given any restrictions the amount of food they could consume.  At 12 weeks the Mediterranean group lost 8.5 lbs and 1inch of the waist and the primitive group lost 11 lbs. and 2 inches of the waist.  The researchers noticed a much larger drop in fasting blood glucose, better sugar handling, and possibly better insulin sensitivity in the primitive group.  They also noted that the primitive group ate about 400 calories less daily.

Why?

The big differences came from the significant lower amount of carbohydrates consumed by the primitive group.  The glycemic load was almost twice as high in the Mediterranean diet.  Now, there are benefits from both.

So here is a quick list of things to do.

1. Eat more REAL food and less processed food.  Ie…meat, fish, veggies, fruit
2. O.k. -end of list.

To have that hourglass shape the waist needs to get smaller.  The primitive diet will accelerate that goal.  Men: I know you don’t want an hourglass shape, it will help you build and maintain muscle.  One little caveat to note:  The subjects in the study had blood sugar problems, abdominal obesity, and had survived heart attacks.   This is a clue for those concerned about your heart.  You can get on the fast track and start eating this way because we are going to talk more about this coming up soon.

I cheated and had the Primitive Mediterranean Diet tonight and combined my wine and meat.
Enjoy a long life and enjoy some REAL food along the way.

90 minutes afterwards
Aerobics - Only 30 minutes

Calorie expenditure for 30 minutes afterwards:
Resistance training – 95 Calories
Aerobics – 64 Calories

Spend your workout  time wisely.  Start with the weights.  If you still have time then do the cardio. 

It is even more effective when combined.
One study took 35 obese people and had them either diet (1500 calories), add aerobics, or weights and aerobics.
After 12 weeks all lost between 20-22 lbs. BUT…
Diet only - 7 out of 10 lbs. was fat loss (=3 lbs. of muscle loss) (=decrease metabolism)
Diet and aerobics - 8 out of 10 lbs. was fat loss
Diet, weights, aerobics - 9.5 out of 10 lbs. was fat loss

Similar results were obtained from a second study that lasted 6 months.
Aerobics 1hour, six days a week = 16.3lbs fat loss.
Weights 3 days, Aerobics 3days = 19.7lbs. fat loss.

So why does that work?  It is really because the resistance training has a longer metabolic boost AFTER the exercise.

If Joe and Betty come in and want help losing weight and getting in better shape I’ll be the doctor, and here is what I said.

“Hit the weights and skip the Carbs.” Psst…Dr. Altman’s exercise program will help you do both.(area365.com)

The belly fat is most common in men, often affectionately known as the beer gut. Women on the other hand tend to keep the center of gravity to the backside and hips. To confuse things men can have a large derrière and women can grow Milwaukee goiters.

Really, since men and women can both have the same problems, it boils down to where your body likes to put the extra stuff you eat. I will focus on abdominal fat for two reasons. #1 it is the most common and #2 it is the most dangerous. Belly fat increases the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and overall heart disease. Waist circumference is an accurate measurement of these risks.

“Women who carry excess fat around their waists were at greater risk of dying early from cancer or heart disease than were women with smaller waistlines, even if they were of normal weight.

For example, Women with a waist size equal to or greater than 35 inches also were twice as likely to die of cancer as were women with a waist size less than 28 inches.

A healthy waist limit for women is 35 inches and, for men, 40 inches. Waist circumference is determined by measuring around the waist at the navel line.” -Reported researchers from Harvard and the National Institutes of Health.

It boils down to the basics - either eating too many carbohydrates or calories and lack of exercise. The body starts to store the fat in the middle. Scientists believe an abundance of abdominal fat raises insulin, triglycerides, and cholesterol. In essence, that is the same stuff that happens when eating too many carbohydrates. I have a complete carbohydrate list on Day 2 of our exercise program.

The good news is that abdominal fat is reversible by exercise and decreasing carbohydrate consumption. Training helps improve insulin resistance, and helps move sugar around the body. Most people are told to walk more, but weight training combined with some endurance training is far more effective than just endurance training (ie. Walking, running or swimming). You must add weights.

If you are eating too many carbs and calories and not exercising, then alcohol is most likely adding to your waist line. Looking at international studies demonstrates this. In countries that exercise regularly and eat healthy diets, alcohol does not contribute to the classic beer gut.