Tag: #BodyBabySteps

Don’t Eat in the Evenings

It’s very good news that even the leanest among us has at least 50,000 calories stored in our body fat.

The bad news is that because of when and how frequently we eat, most of us can’t access that stored energy.

Lacking energy, we get tired and hungry and eat more.

We store even more energy in fat, which we still can’t access, and that extra weight means we need even more energy to move our bodies, which makes us still hungrier.

It’s a death spiral.

To access this energy we have locked in our fat stores, we must first burn through enough of our blood sugar to achieve lowered insulin levels.

In the early 1970s that happened naturally for most Americans. We typically ate three meals a day, the last of which was done by 6 p.m. or so. That meant we had about 12 hours of the day during which our blood sugar was elevated, balanced with a roughly equal amount of time overnight with lower blood sugar and reduced insulin.

Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash

We need periods of low insulin to get our fat cells to release fatty acids into the bloodstream, giving our other cells access to their energy. In future posts I’ll talk about more constricted eating windows and longer fasts to extend these low-insulin periods.

But for now, your first goal should be to avoid eating after 7 p.m., or three hours before bedtime, whichever is earlier.

How can you do this?

  1. Make your evening meal your main meal of the day.
  2. In that meal, seek satiety in real food with filling fats and reasonable amounts of protein, but very low carbs (less than 15g).
  3. Eat slowly so your body has time to send you the satiety signals, but eat until you feel full. Don’t go away from the dinner table hungry.

You should have low carbs in all of your meals, but especially in your evening meal. By avoiding carb-related blood sugar spikes, you’ll avoid the cravings that typically come a few hours later.

If you get truly satisfied at dinner, you won’t be hungry later in the evening. You won’t feel compelled to raid the refrigerator.

You’ll also sleep better. Eating too close to bedtime reduces your sleep quality, the importance of which we’ll discuss later in the #BodyBabySteps.

Time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting will be important contributors to your eventual health, but the first step to getting there is to limit yourself to three meals a day, with no late-night snacks.

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Check out My Health Journey for the full story of our health improvements, and my #BodyBabySteps for an approach to how I would do it if I were starting today, based on what I’ve learned.

Getting Started with a Satiety Sandwich

When Dr. Peter Attia, one of my top Health Sherpas, is about to go into an extended fast, such as a three-day or seven-day water-only fast, he has found that a week of nutritional ketosis on either side of the fast makes it much easier.

He calls it a Nothingburger: the “meat” in the middle (the fast) is literally nothing, and it’s sandwiched between two slices of ketosis. Being in ketosis when starting a fast means his body is already using ketones because he has been consuming high levels of fat, very few carbs and a modest amount of protein.

So when he switches to fasting (the “nothing” part of the burger), he’s already in fat-burning mode, and his body smoothly moves from using the fats he’s been eating to using his stored body fat.

No wild fluctuations in blood sugar. No carb cravings. And when breaks his fast, he resumes his ketogenic diet, which helps prevent refeeding syndrome.

You can accomplish a lot metabolically without engaging in these longer fasts. We’ll discuss fasting and time-restricted eating in #BodyBabyStep Four.

But for now, as you’re getting started in your body makeover, another gastronomical metaphor will be more helpful.

Nothingburger vs. Satiety Sandwich

It’s helpful to think of the first three #BodyBabySteps as a Satiety Sandwich, but unlike the Nothingburger you “eat” them all at once.

All three are essential. Without stopping sugar and cutting carbs, your insulin will stay high and won’t lose weight. And if you don’t embrace filling dietary fats, your hunger hormones will eventually wear down your willpower, and you’ll overeat the carbs.

Filling fats from healthy natural sources such as beef, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, olive oil, avocados and nuts will help you feel satisfied so you can resist the sugar and carbohydrate cravings.

So unlike Dave Ramsey’s financial baby steps or the three stages of the Nothingburger, you don’t take the first three #BodyBabySteps one at a time.

They’re a delicious and satisfying package. With filling fats you can drive the sugar and carbs toward Nothing.

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Black, Creamy or Bulletproof

Whereas Lisa and I were previously Folger’s drinkers, now we buy the roasted beans and grind them just before brewing our morning cup(s). We usually each have a 20-ounce Contigo container per day, although we sometimes brew a second pot and have a refill.

I drink coffee one of three ways, depending on what I’m trying to accomplish with my eating patterns.

Black. If I’m in a fasting or time-restricted eating mode, I take it straight. It doesn’t break my fast, and it actually has an appetite suppressant effect. Sometimes I’ll add a half-teaspoon of cinnamon, which also isn’t a fast-breaker.

Creamy. When I’m not concerned with extending a fast, I treat myself to a creamy concoction. And by creamy I don’t mean with Half-and-Half: we’re talking full-fat, organic heavy whipping cream. I also usually add MCT oil and cinnamon. I use a hand frother to break up the fat so it’s dispersed and doesn’t float on top of the coffee. Any blood sugar or insulin spike is minimal, and hunger stays away.

Bulletproof. On special occasions, I melt a chunk of grass-fed Kerrygold butter in the microwave and pour into my Contigo, or else just let the hot coffee do the melting. Using the same hand frother keeps the butter fat from floating to the top. I typically add a pinch of salt and a half-teaspoon of cinnamon to the mix as well. With bulletproof I don’t add the MCT oil.

What we never add to coffee is any kind of sweetener. Lisa formerly used monk fruit, but as we have learned that even calorie-free sweeteners can trick your brain into triggering insulin release, she’s decided it’s not worth it.

The common thread with all of these ways of drinking coffee is that they promote satiety and don’t spike blood sugar.

If we haven’t eaten since 6 p.m. the previous evening, our bodies are already in or approaching fat-burning mode. Creamy and Bulletproof coffee just cause us to toggle between burning the fat in our bodies and the fat in the coffee.

Once that’s gone, we’re back to burning what we already have stored. It makes it easy to skip breakfast, and sometimes even lunch.

That’s why this post is part of #BodyBabyStep Two: Seek Satiety.

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How NOT to enjoy coffee

In our first three decades of marriage, Lisa and I didn’t exactly have sophisticated tastes when it came to coffee.

We drank Folger’s, typically flavoring it with manufactured creamers like what you see at right. As its ad copy says today:

Coffee mate Italian Sweet Creme flavor coffee creamer will transport you to a land of rich taste – right in your kitchen! Indulgently creamy and remarkably rich, the incredible flavor of Italian Sweet Creme is a silky smooth sip that’s lactose-free and cholesterol free. 

Cholesterol free! That’s got to be healthy, right?

Check out the ingredients:

Water, Sugar and Vegetable Oil make up most of it.

With apologies to Meat Loaf, “Two out of three ain’t good!”

Stopping Sugar is #BodyBabyStep One, so on that basis alone you should get rid of these non-dairy creamers. Vegetable oil isn’t much better, as we’ll address in future posts.

But tomorrow I’ll show three wonderful ways you can enjoy coffee without spiking your insulin.

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Juice is the Worst!

While much of what the U.S. government has done relating to food and nutrition has been counterproductive at best (such as the food guide pyramid), its incorporation of ingredient and macronutrient information in food labels is mostly helpful when read with discernment.

One thing you’ll find is that sugar is everywhere.

When you read a food label, if you see SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR, HONEY, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUCROSE, DEXTROSE, LACTOSE or any other -OSE – especially among the first few ingredients – stay away!

Juice is a special case, though. When you review an ingredient label for 100% fruit juice, you might see lists like:

  • INGREDIENTS: FILTERED WATER, ORGANIC APPLE JUICE CONCENTRATE, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C)
  • INGREDIENTS: Grapefruit Juice (water, grapefruit juice concentrate)

What could be wrong with those? They’re “all natural” or maybe even “ORGANIC”!

It doesn’t even list sugar as an ingredient.

Well, let’s do a comparison.

Few would consider Coca-Cola (or any other sugar-sweetened carbonated beverage, for that matter) a healthy drink. (I’m not picking on Coke, here; it’s actually the soda, or “pop” depending on your region, that I have most enjoyed over the years.)

Look at its Nutrition Facts label, you’ll see plenty of warning signs:

Obviously with High Fructose Corn Syrup behind only water among its ingredients, you’ll expect this to be high in sugar. And sure enough, each 12-ounce can has 39g of Total Sugars (all of them Added Sugars.)

That’s bad, right?

Well, let’s compare with several 100% fruit juices:

Orange, Grapefruit, Apple and Grape juice nutrition labels.

Each these lists “0g Added Sugars” as if that’s something of which the bottlers should be proud. I realize that’s an item the government requires them to note, but it detracts from the real news, which is that for an 8-ounce serving, total sugars for these juices are:

  • Grapefruit – 17g
  • Orange – 23g
  • Apple – 28g
  • Grape – 36 g

When adjusted to the same serving size as a can of Coke (and rounding down to be generous), those range from 26g to 54g for 12 ounces.

Apple juice and grape juice actually have more sugar per ounce than Coke!

Here’s my confession: in the last half of the 1990s, I would regularly stop at the convenience story on my morning commute and buy a quart of orange juice to drink on the way to work!

I actually thought that was a healthy choice! I mean, it had Vitamin C, right?

Based on the figures above, I was getting 92g of sugar before 8 a.m. almost every workday. And that was after I had eaten a bowl of cereal that typically included 16g of sugars and 41g of total carbohydrates.

I might as well have had a 48-ounce Coke for breakfast!

Fruit in reasonable quantities is good because it carries fiber with it, which fills you up and also slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream.

But my Nordic ancestors didn’t have fresh fruit year-round, and yet somehow here I am today. Fruit is less necessary than you may think.

So as you’re taking #BodyBabyStep One, quitting fruit juice (and all other sugar-sweetened beverages) is essential.

Don’t do as I did; do as I do now.

I drink coffee black, or with fat-based additives that don’t cause blood sugar spikes and also slow release of caffeine.

More on that next time.

If you think your friends might find this post and this series helpful, I hope you’ll share by email or on your social networks using the buttons below.

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