Diet ditcher

We’ve heard of training the brain, but training fat cells, or rather, re-training them? This new book tells you how

May 22, 2017 01:36 pm | Updated 01:36 pm IST

Let’s start with the simple rules. Calories in, calories out: Don’t eat more than you can work off. Except, people followed these rules and still got fat. Along came Atkins, South Beach and the Zone diet. Then Paleo, Primal and Keto exploded on social media. Along with bulletproof coffee, turmeric lattes and cauliflower rice. If you’re a serial dieter, you’ve probably tried it all.

Why is Dr David Ludwig’s Always Hungry (AH) different? After all, every year someone comes up with a ‘radical’ new diet plan that promises to make you drop several dress sizes, get you bikini-ready and earn you a rash of super-likes on Tinder. A New York Times best seller, this book (recently released via Hachette in India) has sold more than 2,00,000 copies and spawned an active AH Facebook group with almost 10,000 members.

Described as an ‘obesity warrior’, Dr Ludwig is a practising endocrinologist, researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School. He also directs the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. But, most importantly, he doesn’t believe diets have anything to do with willpower. Can’t resist that third piece of chocolate cake? It’s not your fault.

Conventional wisdom tells us that overeating makes us fat. Dr Ludwig says the process of getting fatter is what causes us to overeat. Discussing the AH diet in an interview with MetroPlus over Skype, he explains how, by locking away calories in fat tissue, there are fewer circulating in the bloodstream to meet the body’s requirements. The central problem is one of distribution. “We have an abundance of calories, but they’re in the wrong place. As a result, the body needs to increase its intake.

We get hungrier because we’re getting fatter,” he says.

Use it, don’t lose it

Dr Ludwig has been working on these ideas for 25 years. “If you are looking at food as simply calories, you tend to naturally gravitate to an ‘eat less, move more’ approach. That never works, because the body fights back. Deprive your body of calories, and you lose weight, but hunger increases. Even if you could ignore that, your metabolism slows down next. And that is a battle between your mind and metabolism that you will lose. Even if it works for a while, you will feel so miserable you’ll eventually want out.”

According to Dr Ludwig, food is information. “Depending on what you eat, your hormones can change in dramatically different ways, and that’s a way to communicate with cell tissue. You can use food to make your body feel better, and to lose weight.” He adds, “If you give your body the right food, you don’t have to starve it. It will shed calories without you trying to take control.”

Even if you have been 10 kilos overweight for longer than you want to remember. “Years ago, you would almost never see obesity. Now it is common. That is not genetic. If we figure what is causing our weight to go up, we can push it back down,” he says. His book explains how to reprogram fat cells by eating in a way that lowers insulin levels. This in turn reduces inflammation, prompting fat cells to release excess calorie stores. As your body enjoys better access to fuel, he says metabolism improves, cravings subside and weight loss begins. The book also emphasises on the importance of stress control and quality sleep to improve how your body functions and lose fat.

Eat it, to beat it

The AH diet comes with a set of recipes that are high-protein, with high-quality fat and carbs from fruits and pulses. Spinach omelettes with cheddar cheese, chickpea waffles with whipped cream, coconut curry shrimp... There’s also a decadent breakfast shake with coconut milk, blueberries, peanut butter and whey protein. “This is designed to be maximum benefit for minimum deprivation. On AH, for the first two weeks, you give up grains, potatoes and sugar, but can eat a range of vegetables, fruits and beans,” says Dr Ludwig. He adds, “The weight-loss is slower. But if you’re not hungry and uncomfortable, who cares how long it takes.” He says this is particularly useful in India, with its high diabetes rates. “Eating this way targets the underlying problem, which is the same for obesity as it is for diabetes: too much insulin. And insulin resistance. When you treat that—when your fat cells calm down—you don’t have to make as much insulin.I’ve been using an approach like this with my patients for many years.This book is based on 20 years of research and hundreds of studies.”

Dr Ludwig’s wife, Chef Dawn Ludwig, has created recipes for the book, and is currently working with him on an AH cookbook that will be published by March 2018, with 150 new recipes. Yes, this includes dessert. “The advantage of not focusing on calorie restriction is we don’t have to demonise fat. Fat is delicious. And it is helpful for weight loss because it doesn’t raise your insulin. Instead of sugar, we emphasise on desserts that are rich, like berries with heavy cream. Or real dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa. I lost almost 10 kilos over three months of eating this way.

And I have chocolate almost every day,” he says, adding “Forget calories. Focus on food quality. Let your body do the rest.”

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