EAT LESS SUGAR. This is one of the 10 Easy Habits of Eating Well, Being Well.

Earlier this year, as I was editing the book, I stepped up further on eating less sugar in my every day meals. While I usually have a few chocolates, sweets or an occasional scoop of ice-cream, I reduced these treats even more significantly. I made a decision to cut back further on refined sugar because of several reasons but weight loss was not one of them. Unexpectedly, I lost 4.5 pounds (2 kilograms) in about 2 weeks.

On the surface, this seems straight forward – eat less sugar, eat less calories, weight comes off. Logical? So it would seem. But here’s the twist!

While I stepped down on these sweet treats, I stepped up on more food, including carbohydrates. While I normally have carbohydrates every day, I ate even larger portions of complex carbohydrates in the form of root vegetables, pumpkin, rice and rice noodles. During this time, I also added a little more good quality coconut oil or olive oil into my daily home-cooked meals. I also ate solid portions of protein – such as ¼ of a roast chicken at lunch and at dinner. And I still continued to meet friends outside for delicious lunch and dinners. I wasn’t counting calories at all. So what was going on?

One of the answers lies in managing the body’s insulin response. To understand this better, we’ll need to look at the simple chemical reactions that are happening inside the body when we eat. To keep the key ideas easy to go through, I have deliberately taken a few complex processes and simplified them.

When we eat, the food is digested and broken down into ever simpler forms that can be absorbed by our body’s cells. For example carbohydrates are broken down into ever simpler forms of sugar, ending with absorbable glucose. Proteins are broken down into amino acids. Fat is broken down into fatty acids and monoglycerides. The simple digested food finds its way into the blood stream.

Insulin is produced by the pancreas. It acts like a key, unlocking cells and allowing them to absorb nutrients, use the energy from the food or store the excess. Cells use the energy from the food to allow us to think, move, carry things, exercise and for core organs like our heart, kidneys, lungs and liver to function. Amino acids, vitamins and minerals provide nutrients to repair old cells and rebuild new cells.

What happens when we eat too much and have indulged in a carbohydrate and sugar rich meal? The body stores some of the glucose as glycogen in the muscles and liver. But the muscles and liver can only store a set amount of glucose as glycogen. When there is much more glucose than expected, the body produces even more insulin. Guess what the excess glucose is stored as? If you guessed FAT, you are correct!

Cells that are designed to store fat are unique. There has been a lot of research to study fat cells’ behavior and their apparent limitless ability to store fat. Some of these studies found that the number of fat cells in a human body remained unchanged over the course of a lifetime. Instead, they grow in size to accommodate the amount of additional fat that needs to be stored. Another study found that people who lost weight through fat reduction surgery had the same number of fat cells two years afterwards. Incredibly, new fat cells were created to replace the ones that had been removed through surgery! With studies such as these, researchers had better answers as to why it is so hard for many of us to lose weight and why many dieters seem to gain and lose the same pounds and kilos over and over again.

So what I had I done these last few weeks to trigger weight loss? I had managed my body’s insulin response even better than I had done up to now. Not surprisingly, insulin is often referred to as “the fat storage hormone”.

So could a few pieces of chocolate and sugary treats have made that much difference? In my body’s case, it seems that the answer was a resounding, "YES!"

These foods would have been classified as “high glycemic index foods”, in other words, they result in a faster, more sudden spikes in blood glucose levels when they are eaten regularly. What happened when I had them? I had trained my body to expect these bursts of sugar, to produce more and larger surges in insulin and to store away the excess glucose as fat more quickly and efficiently!

So what happened when I stopped having these sweet treats daily? My body learned very quickly to produce less insulin and in the process, I started storing less of what I was eating as fat. Personally I was surprised at how quickly the weight came off.

Weight loss programs like The Atkins Program work because they strive at removing as much carbohydrates from one’s daily eating as possible. At its core, the eating plan is focused on meals with protein, vegetables and fat/oil. In The Atkins Program, starchy vegetables and roots veggies are discouraged. This form of eating results in two things:
1) It triggers the body to produce a lot less insulin.
2) It triggers a ketogenic response in your body, where your body draws upon existing fat reserves for energy.

People certainly lose weight on The Atkins Program. A few people I know tried it. They lost weight. However, some found it quite restrictive and not sustainable in the long run. Some regained weight once they went off the program.  (Note though that the updated Atkin's Program does indeed allow carbohydrates in the diet.   Initially all carbs are removed from the diet to put the body into a ketogenic state.  Subsequently, a small amount of complex, un-refined carbs are added back, a week at a time until weight loss stops.  They describe this as the optimal level of carbs that the dieter's body can handle and recommend that you stick to an amount just below that.)

At the start of this article, I mentioned that I had added larger portions of complex carbohydrates to what I ate. While these were not excessive, I still made sure I was eating enough carbohydrates because I do believe in eating in a balanced way and this means, eating enough protein, fat/oils, vegetables and carbohydrates.

So how did I still manage to lose the weight? Something else interesting was happening to me internally as I enjoyed my meals of complex carbohydrates, proteins and fats together. If you would like to eat carbohydrates every day and still lose weight, please stay tuned for my next blog!

Thank you for reading my blog :)

P.S. I am presently eating more to regain the weight I lost.


Additional sources:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/264767-how-is-excess-glucose-stored/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/health/research/05fat.html?_r=0
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/fats-digested-8510.html

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SO,  WHAT HAPPENS TO HUMAN FAT WHEN WE LOSE WEIGHT?

Did that question stump you?  As someone whose weight had yoyo-ed up and down at different stages in my life, I was really curious where my human fat had gone. 

By the way, the photograph you see of me on the left was taken when I was 30 years old in 2001 at the Spring Ball, while at business school in the US. The me back then dieted often, counted calories and was always worried about my health.  On the right,  you have the "new me",  taken last month: 20 pounds (9kg) lighter and three clothing sizes smaller and eating a lot more without worrying about gaining weight.  

People who knew my in the 1990s don't usually recognize me. When they finally realize that it's Swee Lin, they admit that they no longer recognize me because of how much weight I lost. 

My book, 10 EASY HABITS OF EATING WELL, BEING WELL  is coming out very soon. I do not pretend to be a technical expert or guru in food and nutrition.  What I am is a layman who has researched and read voraciously on a topic which I am deeply passionate about. As a researcher, I can synthesize a lot of information from different sources and share the findings in simple, accessible everyday language.  I wrote the book because people kept asking me what I had done to lose the weight when I clearly eat well and enjoy food.  And no,  I do not go to the gym that often.  I hope that more people can benefit from what I have learnt through the years and tested on myself.  
 
For this blog, I decided to go back to what I enjoy best!  Researching, reading and life-long learning! Having sifted through tons of information when writing this book, I wanted to share a delightful, funny, informative video featuring Biochemist,  Ruben Meerman.   While I was very tempted to summarize the findings, in this case, I didn't want to have spoilers that would distract from the journey which Ruben takes us on. So, please enjoy this clip:  THE MATHEMATICS OF WEIGHT LOSS

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Image courtesy of Flickr


As a teenager, I read voraciously about oils and fats.  At the time, oil/fat was my #1 diet enemy.  Why? Because fat makes you fat, right?   Or so I believed. 

The medical and research community continues to adjust its way of thinking about what is a good fat and what is a bad fat. Here's a  brief recap. 
 
1970s through to early 2000:  mono saturated fats were good for you, polyunsaturated fats were better for you and saturated fats were the worst of the worst!   Examples of oils that are high in mono saturated fats include olive oil, peanut oil and sesame oil. Polyunsaturated fats were fats like soya bean oil, sunflower oil, vegetable oils, rapeseed oil and safflower oil.  Saturated fats were fats that were mostly animal based – lard, butter, ghee (clarified butter) plus any of the solid white or yellow fat found around meats.  A plant based example would be coconut oil.  Quite simply, if the fat solidified itself at in the fridge, it was likely to be saturated. 

Good and bad cholesterol – the basics: Good cholesterol, (HDL) protects against heart disease.  Bad cholesterol, (LDL) causes damage and is linked to heart disease.  When you go for your annual medical checkup, and test your blood for cholesterol levels, doctors also check for your good and bad cholesterol levels and the relative ratio to assess a person’s risk to heat disease.
Monosaturated fats raise HDL and lower LDL.  Polyunsaturated fats, typically the vegetable oils, were believed to be relatively neutral to both types of cholesterol.  Saturated fats on the other hand were believed to increase your LDL and lower HDL – so that was considered doubly bad.
Emerging strongly is a shift in what constitutes good fat and bad fat.  Nearly all research unanimously agrees that monosaturated oils like olive oil are still good for you.   However, what has shifted quite strongly is the perspective on polyunsaturated oils and saturated fats.  The thinking has reversed. 
 
Butter vs margarine?  Which is better?
For years, we were encouraged to give up butter in favor of margarine because butter was bad for you.   The opposite is now being promoted – that butter, especially butter from grass fed cows, is better for you and does not lead to oxidative stress in the heart and arteries.   However, margarine, a polyunsaturated fat that was marketed as a healthier alternative, has been shown to cause oxidative stress and damage to arterial walls.  The same is being found for other polyunsaturated fats such as rapeseed oil (also known as safflower oil), sunflower oil and soya bean oil.
 
Animal fat is okay for you?  Really?
We are also finding out that animal fats, especially from organic sources, are less likely to do us harm than hydrogenated vegetable oils.  So go ahead, it will be alright for you to start having a little of the fat in your beef when eating a good steak. I started eating the fat off my striploin for the last year.   The trick here to eat in moderation but it’s now alright to enjoy a little of this “bad” stuff!

So far, it hasn’t resulted in any weight gain for me.  In fact, because fat takes longer to digest, I stay full for longer.  So guess what? If you give this a try, the good news is you shouldn’t’ be reaching as quickly for your next snack out of hunger!

CLA
Guess what else I have up to in my kitchen?  I can’t believe that I rendering and saving some of the fat in grass-fed beef for cooking!  I’ve another good reason for doing this.  Remember these three letters:  CLA.  They stand for Conjugated Lenoic Acid.  The best and most natural sources of CLA are in grass fed animal fats.  While commercial  sources in the form of supplements are usually derived from vegetable oils, CLA from grass fed animal fats are supposed to be the most effective.   

According to various research reports, the beneficial properties of CLA include weight loss – in other words, eat fat to lose fat! According to a number of studies, CLA is supposed to increase your resting metabolic rate i.e., the rate at which you burn calories, even if you are sitting still or lying down.  Simply put, you will burn more calories while sitting still if you have been consuming CLA. 

Additional studies being conducted are assessing CLA’s hypothesized benefits in improving immune system functions, decreasing heart disease, reducing Type II diabetes risk and allergies, and even improving muscle strength.  I can’t wait to see what these studies find and will share them with you as they emerge. 

Thank you for reading my third blog. :)

1980s and 1990s: 
Stick to a low fat.  Low fat diets, especially those low in saturated fats, prevent heart disease.
Does any of this sound familiar? 

Thus, as I began reading about nutrition and calories in the 1980s, I began my targeting the most obvious culprit: FAT!   I embarked on a “low fat” and “low saturated fat” craze.  Out went full cream milk, full fat cheese, regular stir-fried vegetables, meat, chicken and fish.  “Too much oil, too much saturated fat, too many calories!” I thought.  In came 0.1% low fat milk, low-fat cottage cheese, raw or steamed vegetables (healthy but devoid of flavor), boiled or steamed meat, chicken and fish without added oil or salt. What happened when I ate out? Much to the annoyance of my family, I would ask for bowls of hot water to “rinse off” as much of the oil or sauces.

Guess what? I wasn’t exactly healthy despite these changes.  I fell sick often and my skin, especially on my legs, was dry and scaly.  And my skin didn’t have a healthy glow either.  It looked eerily grey-green-white!  (Years later, a friend of mine would coin the term “corpse grey” for me.)

So what had happened?  I had created a nutritional imbalance in my diet.  I didn’t realize that many essential vitamins, such as Vitamin A, E, D and K, were fat soluble. By removing as much “fat” as I could from my every day eating, I was also not getting the full range of nutrients I needed.  

 
Fast forward to the 2000s: 
Go ahead, add fat back into your diet! 

What a u-turn!  When I first read the articles and the research recommending this, I was in complete shock.  Apprehensively, I went ahead and added a lot more fat back into my diet and stopped worrying about its caloric content.  

​Where did I start?  I began with the oil which was widely believed to have the best benefits: olive oil. Olive oil is a monosaturated oil, which means it lowers your Low Density Lippoproteins (LDLs) a.ka. "bad cholesterol", while it raises your High Density Lippoproteins (HDLs) a.k.a "good cholesterol"! 

At least 2-3 times a week, I add 1 tablespoon of good quality olive oil at breakfast with my eggs and salad. I also use it quite liberally in stir fries, roasted meats and vegetables.  It adds great flavor and the added fat, keeps me full for longer as it takes more time to digest than carbohydrates. 

I was worried that I would gain weight on my “higher fat” diet, but I didn’t.  I was worried that my blood cholesterol levels would change for the worse.  They didn’t.  My good to bad cholesterol ratios improved.  I even tried cutting back on exercise too to see if I would gain weight. I didn’t.

Oh and my skin looks better now!  Would I ever deliberately want go back to eating the “low fat” way?  Absolutely not!  Adding good fat back into my every day eating is just one of my eating essentials. Good fat is good for you. 

Contemplating how best to add more fat into your diet?  Besides olive oil, what fat should you consider? Which are good?  Stay tuned for my next blog. 

Where did this journey to being well begin? 

At 10, while being measured by a tailor for a mouse costume for a ballet performance, I was made aware for the first time that my measurements were not “mouse-like”. I was certainly larger than the other girl-mice in the performance.  It didn’t matter to the tailor that I was 2 to 3 years older than the other “mice”, I just had a large waist according to Madam Tailor.  So the 10 year old in me, sucked in her tummy during measurement taking, only to end up with a tailored costume that looked even tighter on me than it should have.  I looked more like Porky Pig on stage than a mouse.  Looking back, I can see the humor in this! 

At 12, I started one crazy diet after another.  At 12 I stunted my growth.  At 12 I wanted to understand how to lose weight and keep it off.  Unfortunately, I didn’t keep it off. I would lose the same 2 kilos (around 5lbs) and regain it over and over again.  Sometimes, I would gain an extra 2 kilos after I stopped my diet.

As I approach my 45th birthday, my weight and body are stable. I like my size. I like my weight. I like my health.  I am 1.6m tall and generally weight 46-47kg on most days.  I seldom fall ill, even when I am around people who are down with colds and fevers.  I like the surprising amount and wide variety of foods that I can eat – not just salads, but hearty foods like chicken, steak, burgers and fries.   And I enjoy being well.

​If you are interested in finding out how I reboosted my metabolic rate and rebalanced key hormones in my body that now allow me to eat more and much better than I have in years,  follow me on my blog as I reveal what I did and what I do now to maintain my overall well-being.