• Prioritising foods that provide adequate nutrition with minimal calories increases your chances of achieving health, satiety and weight loss.
• Weight loss can be achieved by eating high fibre, nutrient dense, low calorie density, low carbohydrate foods.
• Eating more on days when you are active and less on low activity days will be more effective in the long term than monotonous calorie restriction.
• Eating more fat than required for satiety you may not be giving your body a chance to burn body fat.

how to lose weight

Looking for a sure fire diet to lose weight, guaranteed?  Try eating this every day:

Breakfast

• mushroom – 200g
• spinach – 4 cups
• artichoke – 120g
• raspberries – 200g
• pepper – 6g
• parsley – 1 cup

Lunch  

• collard greens – 2 cups
• Swiss chard – 1 cup
• turnip – 200g
• steamed broccoli – 5 cups
• Brussel sprouts – 16 oz
• mung beans – 0.5 cups

Dinner

• lentils – 3 cups
• asparagus – 200g
• mushroom – 200g

Will this meal plan lead to fat loss?  Yes.

Could most people do this in long term?  Probably not.

On first glance it doesn’t look like a ketogenic diet, however given that you probably couldn’t actually eat all that food in a day and you’d end up using so much of your own body fat it would probably be ketogenic.

This high fibre, high nutrient density low calorie density would require you to eat a massive four kilograms (nine pounds) of food a day to get 2000 calories.

The positives of this approach are:

• extremely low calorie density,
• extremely high fibre (150g per day compared to the average western intake of 17g per day),
• extremely high nutrient density,
• extremely filling, and
• although 70% carbohydrates, the massive amount of fibre means the insulin load is only moderate, making it better for a diabetic than the typical western diet.

The negatives of this approach are:

• without any fat in the diet you may not be able to actually absorb all the nutrition from the fat soluble vitamins A, E and K,
• vitamin B, vitamin D, cholesterol and saturated fat are non-existent,
• protein quality is only moderate without any animal protein, and
• it may be hard to cook many of these foods without any added fats.

If you’re interested in a ketogenic diet you’re probably not going want to follow this sort of extreme vegetarian-style diet.  However there are a few things that we can learn from this approach that we could incorporate into a ketogenic approach.

high fibre, low calorie density

Eating high fibre, low calorie density foods will help to keep you full.  Non-starchy vegetables are bulky, contain a lot of water, fibre as well as lot of nutrients.

protein hunger

While counting calories will work over the short term, your body will win out over your mind and your iPhone app in the long term if you’re not giving it the nutrients it needs.

Recent research [1] suggests that we will keep eating until we get enough protein and eating foods low in protein leads people to eat more calories than they need.

Ensuring that you’re getting adequate protein (say 15 to 30% of calories) will cause you to be satiated with less calories.

nutrient hunger

In a similar way, if you’re not giving your body the vitamins and minerals it needs it will keep on seeking out more food.

In his Perfect Health Diet [2] Paul Jaminet notes that a nourishing, balanced diet that provides all the required nutrients in the right proportions is the key to eliminating hunger and minimising appetite and eliminating hunger at minimal caloric intake.  

intermittent fasting

If you keep your calorie intake consistently low for an extended period of time your body will sense an impending famine and slow down your metabolism, leaving you tired, cold, depressed and miserable.

Don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit with restricted calories a few days a week by missing a few meals on low activity days and then eating to satiate your hunger on higher activity days.

In our current food environment we don’t give our body any time when it’s not awash with calories and insulin than enable your bodies to use our stored body fat for energy.

Eat when you’re hungry.  But conversely, don’t be afraid to not eat when you’re not hungry.

“Break-fast” is an important meal, even if it occurs at 3pm in the afternoon!

eat fat to lose fat?

The reason that eating a high fat diet leads to increased satiety is that your body can access your stored body fat.

In most people eating a ketogenic diet leads to greater satiety because you’re using body fat for fuel, which leads to a reduction in food intake.

Conversely if you are eating a diet full of simple carbohydrates your insulin levels will stay high and your body fat will be locked away.

When you lose fat, your body burns the saturated fat on your body.  If at first you don’t succeed by reducing your insulinogenic load and intermittent fasting consider cutting back your dietary fat intake to create a caloric deficit which will be filled by your body fat. [3]

Some people can eat massive amounts of fat while keeping carbs low and lose weight, [4] however others can lose their way on a LCHF or ketogenic diet by eating too much dietary fat and end up not getting the results they hoped for.

Jimmy Moore emphasis that you need to eat fat to satiety. [5]  If you mainline dietary fat and are not hearing your natural satiety signals you’re not going to give your body the best chance to burn body fat.

insulin sensitivity

One of the most famous diet studies looking at low carb diets is Dr Chris Gardner’s A to Z Study. [6]  Gardner, a practicing vegan, was surprised to find that it was the Atkins dieters who lost the most weight in his study.

More interestingly though were the results of a follow-up analysis where he assessed peoples’ insulin resistance.  He found was that people who were insulin resistant lost the most weight on the low carb diet while the insulin resistant lost nothing on the higher carbohydrate diets. [7]

How do you know if you’re insulin resistant?  Your weight and waist line are pretty good indicators, but your average blood sugar is even better.  If you want to know what diet is right for you, pick up a blood sugar metre from your local chemist and do some testing.

If your average blood sugars are in the excellent range according to the values below then focussing on carbohydrates as your primary goal may not be ideal.

risk level	HbA1c	average blood sugar
	(%)	(mmol/L)	(mg/dL)
optimal	4.5	4.6	83
excellent	< 5.0	< 5.4	< 97
good	< 5.4	< 6.0	< 108
danger	> 6.5	> 7.8	> 140

food choices for weight loss

We can use the food prioritisation system [9] to identify foods that align with these goals by prioritising nutrient density (20% weighting), fibre (10% weighting), and low calorie density (30% weighting).

ND / calorie	fibre / calorie	ND / $	ND / weight	insulinogenic (%)	calorie / 100g	$ / calorie
15%	10%	10%	5%	20%	30%	10%

The resultant foods are listed below, in order of priority, using these weightings.

A few items that you would not generally expect to see on a ketogenic diet come to the top of the list such as lentils and mung beans due to their low calorie density, high fibre content and low cost.

This weighting system does not give a high priority to fats and oils as they are coming from the body fat stores.  The list of nuts and seeds is also quite short in view of their high calorie density.

I’ve also developed this ‘cheat sheet‘ using this approach to highlight optimal food choices depending, wither they be reducing insulin, weight loss or athletic performance.   Why not print it out and stick it to your fridge as a helpful reminder or when you’re looking for some inspiration for your next shopping expedition?

vegetables & spices

• spinach
• chives
• turnip greens
• coriander
• mushrooms
• broccoli
• Brussel sprouts
• kale
• artichokes
• Bok choy
• peas
• kidney beans
• lettuce
• sweet potato
• carrots
• lima beans
• seaweed
• asparagus
• celery

animal products

• organ meats
• oyster
• herring
• sardine
• pork sausage
• ham
• chicken
• pork
• turkey
• salmon
• mackerel
• anchovy
• crab
• lobster
• trout
• beef

fruits

• avocado
• olives
• guavas
• raspberries
• kiwifruit

dairy

• whole egg
• egg yolk
• ricotta cheese
• parmesan cheese
• feta cheese
• milk

nuts, seeds & legumes

• lentils
• chick peas
• mung beans
• kidney beans
• lima beans
• coconut milk
• peanut butter
• peanuts
• brazil nuts
• coconut meat

fats and oils

• butter
• coconut oil
• olive oil
• fish oil
• flaxseed oil

example daily diet

Below is an example daily meal plan for someone wanting to lose weight by reducing calorie density and maximise nutrition using the prioritised list of foods above.  There’s nothing radical or objectionable here other than the high amounts of nutrient dense green veggies you need to eat in a day.  Some added fat is used for cooking.  There are no snacks and no calorie dense nuts and seeds.

Using this approach we achieve great nutrition and protein scores along with an impressive 36g of fibre per day.

This approach involves eating nearly two kilograms of food which would leave you feeling quite full.

Although this diet is full of veggies it still has 60% of the dietary calories coming from fat.  If we ran a 1/3 calorie deficit in the early stages of a weight loss program we would have 73% of the calories coming from fat when your body fat is included.  This would very likely be ketogenic.

With the high amount of fibre, the net carbs are quite low at 44g per day which would still qualify as low carb diet.

If you find your blood sugars are unacceptably high you should consider backing off on the carbohydrate containing foods.   On the other hand if your blood sugars were excellent you could even consider increasing the non-starchy veggies to increase satiety and reduce the calorie density.

In our next article we’ll look at nutrient dense foods options that might work for you if your blood sugars are excellent and you’re doing intense exercise.

references

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ATDvhZQo4A&t=1677

[2] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet/

[3] http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/tag/ron-rosedale

[4] http://live.smashthefat.com/why-i-didnt-get-fat/

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Keto-Clarity-Definitive-Benefits-Low-Carb/dp/1628600071

[6] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916

[7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3504183/

[8] https://www.facebook.com/BurnFatNotSugar

[9] https://www.dropbox.com/s/ninuwyreda0epix/Optimising%20nutrition%2C%20managing%20insulin.docx?dl=0