Everyone at one time or another considers joining the Peace Corps, but of all the sites on the web, no one talks about their journey to enlist. Follow this extended series of honest articles and you will know for yourself what it takes!
I will confess I'm a former Atkins Diet survivor. I counted carbs and ignored everything else. I lost weight for a while, but then it stopped dead. When I emailed a letter to the “Ask Atkins” portion of their website, they told me something totally different from their program – “maybe you should start counting calories and switch to low or no fat versions of the foods you're eating”. It was at that moment I ended my diet, furious that once again I had been mislead with a quick, temporary weight loss program that most likely harmed my health.
If there's anything positive to be found in the Atkins experience or the Barry Sears' Zone Diet (both are similar in their bad approach), it's that they did hit on a few basic facts that helped me to find a diet that works for me. Currently I am on a program called “Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle” (BFFM for short) and it has some roots in both the Sears and Atkins approaches, but is much healthier and doesn't advocate dieting extremes. In fact, it's probably the most balanced programs I've ever been on, and to call it a diet is a disservice – it's really a lifestyle change that isn't hard to stick to after you reach your goals. For the first time, I can see myself maintaining this dietary lifestyle until the day I die. I love the energy it's given me and my taste buds have changed so much, I can actually taste the natural flavors of foods. It's not about eating, it's about fueling!
When I started on the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (BFFM) program, I thought I had a pretty solid understanding about foods and vitamin sources. I had jogged several times around the diet block and simply couldn't stick to the other programs. I was watching a rerun of the old TV show, “Roseanne”; Jackie and herself were in a retreat spa for a weekend. She was given a nouveau cuisine dinner plate that was almost empty, and told by the waiter she had been ordered on a strict 800 calorie a day diet by her trainer. It's really funny to see how we ate in 1996, and sad because we still do a lot of the dumb things that hurt our bodies today.
“BFFM” filled in a big gap that Atkins had left out – how to look at carbohydrates and how to interpret their effects on the body. That's a huge piece of the puzzle that guides how we eat to avoid extremes, but I hadn't thought too much about it. I knew starchy carbs were digested faster and were more prone to spike your insulin levels. I understood high insulin releases creates a condition called “insulin resistance”, making it hard for the body to lose stored fat. I just didn't have the time to put the pieces together in order to view the larger picture. I defined carbohydrates by a “sticky” scale – rice mixes, pastas, oatmeal, breads, pastries, cakes, and potatoes because I was taught that was the fastest and easiest way to identify the starchy culprits. What BFFM did was teach me how to look at carbohydrate values in food and view them in a totally different way that's manageable and realistic.
On average, the starting point in the BFFM program borrows one point from the Zone Diet – the idea of percentages, but that's where the two also part company. Tom Venuto, the creator of the BFFM, adjusted these numbers to be realistic and healthy. A starting formula might be 45 percent carbs, 35 percent protein, and 20 percent fat, but this plan allows you to customize the percentages based on your body type. For endomorphs that tend to hoard weight as if it were gold because you're insulin resistant, too many carbs would grind your weight loss to a halt, so the percentages might change to 40 percent carbs, 45 percent protein, and 15 percent fat. There are rules that will take you through figuring a percentage that's right for your body based on a number of aspects, so don't take these numbers as gospel!
When it comes to carbohydrates, stop looking at them as “good” or “bad” – view them based on the quality of the carbohydrate.
For instance, most of us can readily identify “bad” carbs:
- Cheesy poofs that are made out of something completely unidentifiable!
- Doritos chips
- Cakes
- Pastries
- Pretzels
- Snack bars that are supposed to be “healthy”
