[Dave Banko continues his guest post series on healthy diet and lifestyle.]
The host of this blog, Crew Dog, wrote an excellent article posted on 9 February 2016 about the ‘What’s the Right Diet for You?’ program put together by doctors, nutritionists and dietitians from Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England. As mentioned in my first post, I watched this program just as I was starting my latest ‘diet’ and the comprehensiveness of the program along with the science behind their recommendations impressed me.
Of the 3 over-eating categories, Constant Craver, Emotional Eater, and Feaster, I was clearly a Feaster. I love food, and once I start, I don’t stop until I am literally stuffed. I no longer know what it feels like to be full.
A number of things could have led to this. Everyone in my family is overweight, so there may be a biological predisposition. I also learned to eat very fast growing up, and in the military, which bypasses the response time for your stomach. I wanted to get my money’s worth at ‘all you can eat’ buffets. And it’s just common courtesy when you are a guest and you enjoy the host’s food to have seconds (or thirds). I suspect all of these thing got me to this place, but now how do I get out of it?
The plan for the ‘Feaster’ is have a ‘high protein low glycemic index (GI)’ diet.
‘High protein’ doesn’t mean I should have an all meat or protein-based diet, but rather a higher ratio of protein than a general diet.
‘Low GI‘, doesn’t mean low carb. It means the carbohydrates I eat should have a low glycemic index.
The glycemic index is how quickly the carbohydrates are metabolized. A lower GI (below 55) metabolizes more slowly, prolonging the release of glucose and insulin into the blood stream.
High GI foods shock your system with a rush of glucose into the blood stream requiring a spike in insulin levels to accommodate. Too many spikes over a prolonged period of time reduces your body’s ability to respond and results in diabetes.
| Low GI Foods | High GI Foods |
| Hummus | Cornflakes |
| Beans/Legumes | Sugar |
| Whole Grains | White (Processed or Refined) Grains |
| Whole Grain Breads | White Bread |
| Pasta | White Potatoes |
So I cut sugar and eliminated processed/refined grains except on my cheat days on the weekend, but then still keeping them to small portions. I also made sure I added some form of protein to every meal.
The protein combined with the low GI foods helps me feel satisfied for longer.
I no longer could depend on my body to tell me when I was full, but by adjusting the foods I ate and the ratio, I would feel satisfied with less and it would sustain me for longer periods before I’d feel hungry again.
I didn’t stop there though. Just because I was a ‘Feaster’ didn’t mean I couldn’t learn something from the ‘Constant Cravers’ and the ‘Emotional Eaters’ too.
Constant Cravers were recommended to implement the 5 and 2 diet, so I skipped dinner 2 nights a week. Emotional Eaters were recommended to join a support group, so I joined the online Facebook Group my friend started to encourage each other in our weight loss and fitness goals.
I put the whole program together and the results were over 130 lbs lost in 13 months.
My routine looked like this:
- Sunday to Thursday, strict adherence to the eating program using food I like to eat.
- Tuesdays and Thursdays as my ‘fast’ days skipping dinner.
- Friday and Saturdays are my cheat days. (after our virtual weigh-in for our Facebook Group on Friday mornings)
On my cheat days I would enjoy some of the higher GI foods I avoided during the week, as well as wine and ice cream, but I still would not go crazy on portion sizes.
During the week, my plate would look like this:
½ fruit and veg, ¼ complex carbs, and ¼ meat or other protein source
At this stage you may ask, “What about exercise?”
One of the points stressed in the program is that exercise is beneficial to overall health and fitness but, to lose weight, the #1 factor is diet.
I can bear witness to this, as numerous times I started weight loss programs with exercise. In 6 to 9 months I might lose 10-15 lbs, but I didn’t control my diet. Then something would happen and I’d have to stop exercising. Because I didn’t control my diet, as soon as the activity ceased, I put on the weight plus some as I was eating more because I was hungrier from the physical exercise.
I did add exercise into my routine, but I followed the program’s advice and kept my primary focus on my diet.
I will expand on the details of my routine and how it evolved over time, as well as tips and food tidbits I picked up along the way, in subsequent posts.
For now, I have one final piece of advice to include in this post – Start Small!
You can’t sustain a crash diet, nor is it healthy for you. Also, if you would have told me before I started that I’d be satisfied eating as little as I do today (now I aim to consume 1800-2000 calories per day in a healthy balance) when at the time I must have been consuming 4000-5000 calories per day, I would have thought you were crazy. And I would not have been able to sustain that big of a drop.
Small changes will have an affect! If you reduce the foods that aren’t helpful and increase the ratio of the good foods while starting to decrease the overall portions, you will lose weight!
After a while, your body will adjust to the reduction and your weight will stabilize – the dreaded plateau! That’s the time to make another round of adjustments.
Let me give you an example. I was working in a city and because I was being reimbursed for lunch, I would go out to buy something every day. I found a great little shop that used whole grain breads and natural ingredients in their sandwiches and fantastic soups.
When I started, I would order a large soup, a large sandwich, a dessert and a diet coke. The first thing was to cut dessert and the diet coke (more on that coming later as well). After a while, I then reduced my sandwich from a whole to a half, later eliminating the sandwich altogether. My lunch calories started around 1500 and ended up being 300-400 (with the piece of whole fruit the office provided). The transition from 1500 to 400 calories for lunch took 6-9 months.
Remember Rule #1 – This is a healthy eating lifestyle, not a diet!
Habits take time to break and to form new ones.
Good luck and feel free to contact me at daveb.uk@hotmail.com if this has helped you or if you have specific questions not yet addressed.