Target fat loss with exercise and supplementation
July, 1998
 Chitosan: Prices and Ordering Information
One of the characters in a recent movie, The Full Monty, had a memorable line: "The less I eat, the fatter I get." It's a phenomenon that plagues many dieters who eat less and lose muscle instead of fat. As a result, their metabolism slows down and it becomes more and more difficult to control weight. Fortunately, it isn't too difficult to lose the right stuff -- fat -- while improving muscle tone, metabolism, and health.
A new food attitude
Roy L. Walford, M.D., made a startling discovery while serving as staff physician on the Biosphere 2, a closed ecological space where eight people lived for two years. Biosphere team members ate only highly nutritious foods, i.e., low in calories, but rich in nutrition.
They lost both fat and pounds without even trying -- they simply wanted good health and lots of energy. Body fat dropped by 10 to 15 percent for the women and 6 to 10 percent for the men, and weight loss averaged 15 and 26 pounds, respectively. Because the food was nutritious, hunger was never an issue.
"Focus not on calorie count, but rather on calorie quality," says Walford, "and then, within reason, eat as much as you like."
To maintain good health, Walford recommends cutting back on calories by no more than 20 percent, for example, from 2,000 calories to 1,600. However, all the food you eat must be nutrient-rich to maintain good health.
Support from supplements
Many supplements can help in the fat reduction process, Including pyruvate and chitosan, pyruvate, found In red apples, some types of cheese, and red wine, stimulates fat loss and boosts exercise performance. Chitosan, an all-natural dietary fiber from the skeheliusns of shellfish, acts like a fat magnet, absorbing part of the fat you eat and flushing it out of the body.
Research on pyruvate spans nearly 30 years, demonstrating its ability to enhance fat loss. However, because earlier tests always involved large dosages (front 31 to 100 g per day), they weren't given much credence. More recent studies show pyruvate's effectiveness using much smaller amounts.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, 53 healthy, but slightly overnight (10 to 15 pounds), men and women were divided into three segments.
One group took 6 g of pyruvate daily, another received a placebo, and the third took nothing. All participants ate a 2,000 calorie diet and exercised for 30 minutes, five days per week.
After six weeks, none of the participants had lost weight. But -- and here's the important difference -- those taking pyruvate lost 4.8 pounds of body fat and added nearly 3.5 pounds of lean muscle mass -- a change you would definitely notice in the mirror. In addition, the pyruvate group reported a 71 percent decrease in fatigue and an 18 percent increase in energy.
What about safety? "In years of testing, I've never seen any significant side effects [after taking pyruvate]," says Douglas Kalman, M.S., R.D., of Peak Wellness Medical Center in Greenwich. Connecticut, one of the study's co-authors. "One person out of the 54 we began with developed an upset stomach, but as far as I'm concerned, pyruvate is one of the best natural supplements for weight loss that's available."
While pyruvate seems to kick metabolism into high-gear fat burning, chitosan operates at the other cad of the spectrum. When taken before a meal, the fiber in chitosan binds with fat in food and removes s it from the body, without being absorbed, it works this way because chitosan has a slight electro-positive charge, and fat has a slight electro-negative charge
Each gram of chitosan ingested absorbs roughly 5 g of fat, which amounts to approximately 45 calories. If you normally eat 2,000 calories per day, adding 5 g of chitosan to your diet can eliminate 25 g of fat or 225 calories, cutting your calorie intake by 11 percent.
Research throughout Europe has demonstrated chitosan's fat-blocking properties as well as its safety in the recommended doses. However, women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, children under age 14, anyone allergic to shellfish (because chitosan comes from shellfish) and anyone taking medications should consult their health care practitioner before using it.
Get moving!
Highly nutritious foods and supplements all work best when combined with physical activity. "If you just lose weight by dieting, you're what I call a 'skinny fat person,'" says Kalman. "Exercise is the healthiest non-drug out there when it comes to weight loss." And here's the good news -- what you do isn't as important as doing it.
According to the latest "Surgeon General's Research on Exercise Report," more than half of all Americans fail to meet the minimum guidelines for regular, moderate exercise. "We are moving less throughout the day not just because of computers and television sets but because of labor-saving devices such as garage-door openers and self-propelled lawnmowers," says Steven N. Blair, P.E.D., of the Cooper Institute for Aerobic Research and the chief scientific editor of the landmark 1996 Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health.
Getting enough exercise is easier than you might think. Thirty to sixty minutes a day spent walking, dancing, or doing house- or yard-work meet the minimum requirements. Best of all, that time can be broken up throughout the day.
"Physical activity builds muscle tone, strengthens bones, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels, eases depression, and helps with weight control," says Kalman.
Refernces
Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, 1996.
Adderly, Brenda, M.H.A., and Fox, Arnold, M.D. The Fat Blocker Diet. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Colker, C., M.D., Stark, R., M.D., F.A.C.C., Kalman, D., M.S., R.D., Minsch, A., Wilets, I., Ph.D., Roufs, J., M.S., R.D. "The effects of a pyruvate-based formula on weight loss, body composition, and perceived vigor and fatigue levels in mildly overfat individuals," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1997.
Walford, Roy, L., M.D., and Walford, Lisa. The Anti-Aging Plan. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995.
Brenda Adderly is the coauthor of The New York Times bestseller, The Arthritis Cure (St. Martin's Press), and more recently, Maximizing the Arthritis Cure (St. Martin's Press). This month, she releases The Pain Relief Breakthrough (Little, Brown).
Copyright 1998 Information Access Company, a Thomson Corporation Company;
ASAP Copyright 1998 Intertec Publishing Corporation, a PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved. Better Nutrition
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