My friend and co-worker and CrossFit client Star lost 12 pounds this summer. She lost the weight not after ramping up her fitness training - she did that several months prior - but by changing a few pieces of her diet.
For example, she asked for help correcting the mid-morning crash, because after all it is bad form for the boss to fall asleep in a morning meeting. Well, that was an easy fix - replace the banana, juice and yogurt breakfast (in other words, a 40 gram carb bomb) with a palatable amount of protein (in Star's case, eggs), some quality fat and only a bit of carbohydrate ... if you really enjoy it and want it.
Why does this work? When you sleep, your body is able to perform some system maintenance. Assuming you don't end the day on a high carb metabolism wrecker, you convert to a combination of ketogenic metabolism and fat burning through the night. This is good, since you wake up with adequate glucose/ketones for your CNS to run well, and plenty of fat available for oxidation for the rest of your tissues. In other words, you are fasted but adequately fueled. While your body is purring along smartly on ketones and fat, it has been able to scavenge AGEed proteins in and beta amyloid proteins as well. This formula is all good!
If you break your fast with protein and fat, many of the good processes continue and hunger will be manageable. If you give yourself a sugar bomb, on the other hand, you'll interrupt all of your fasting maintenance functions, and set yourself up to be hungry before your mid day meal.
This all makes sense in light of the paleolithic model. Your cromag ancestors would not have been able to grab a muffin first thing every morning, and were more healthy because of that.
Congrats Star! You make a good example of how to make small, important changes which generate weight loss, hunger management, and health improvements all in one.
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