Weight-loss diet - Obesity Coach

Weight-loss diet

Obesity is indirectly single largest killer today. Obesity leads to a multitude of diseases which either lead to an untimely death or reduce the quality of life.

Long term obesity enhances the risk of a string of deadly diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers.

It does this through a variety of mechanisms. Not only it induces complex changes in hormones and metabolism, it also places the mechanical stress of carrying extra pounds. This is one reason why obese people are more susceptible to bone health issues or joints problems.

Now obesity is caused by several reasons, but one major reason is mismanagement of blood sugar levels in the human body. Mismanagement of blood glucose is often caused by our lifestyle choices. And although there are several facets of “lifestyle choices”, food choices happen to be a significant portion of them. The old english saying goes that “we dig our grave with our teeth”.

Goes without saying, the prevention of obesity in most cases can be considered a most significant step toward true well-being and longevity.

Here on the following pages we look at some questions dealing with food choices that cause blood sugar mismanagement which generally leads to Type 2 Diabetes and obesity.

Diabetes curry

While it is often speculated that the first dish to be cooked by human beings may have been a simple porridge made out of some pulverized grains, it is also believed that the first true embellishment to that bland porridge must have been provided by a curry. That very first curry may not have as many spices and condiments as generally are found today, yet it must have sparkled whatever meal it was served with. And that’s what curries continue to do to this day. They brighten up any meal which they are part of. Not a surprise that billions of people around the world are addicted to them.

Curries play a very important role in a diabetes meal plan. Given that rice is a staple food in more than 100 countries around the world, and given that rice provides almost a quarter of all the food calories to human beings on our planet, it is very essential to make curries a very regular part of a diabetic person’s meal.

This is important because curries are able to combine various proteins, vegetables, spices, and herbs right in one pot.

And when these curries are consumed with rice they provide wholesomeness to the entire meal as well as help reduce the glycemic load of the rice.

Wholesomeness of the meal is also very important because although today there is no shortage of basic food grains like wheat and rice, but there is a massive nutritional hunger in most of the world. This is as true for the developed world, however in developing world the consequences are truly bad.

Blood glucose curry

Any wholesome curry that includes lots of vegetables, good quality fats, and some beans and lentils becomes a recipe to help manage blood glucose levels silently.

Such curries are instrumental in reducing the glycemic load of the entire meal. Beans and lentils play a very important role in this process. Beans and lentils not only provide a lot of healthy protein but also plenty of fiber. Studies have shown that the impact of consuming lentils lasts for several hours, and lentils consumed at lunch continue to stabilize blood glucose levels even when the person consumes extra carbohydrates at dinner time the same day.

This is known as the “Second Meal Effect” or “Lentil Effect”.

Now whether curries have lentils or beans or vegetables, they have their own importance in the diet, and that is because they add so much nutrition. In fact there are many experts who recommend consuming at least 7 bowls of vegetables during a day. According to them, this quantity of vegetables is essential in order to have the required amount of fiber and potassium.

Potassium is an extremely important mineral and it is involved in hundreds of processes inside our body, and most people these days have some deficiency of it.

The problem with potassium deficiency is that it can adversely impact the sodium levels, so it is good to pay attention to potassium levels, and as we have seen, that can be easily done by consuming more vegetables.

Low blood sugar curry leaves

Now there are many vegetables that are believed in India to have the ability to counter diabetes.

The most famous are Karela (bitter gourd), lauki (ash gourd) and amla berry.

Yet another name in this list is curry leaves. These lovely condiment is generally used while tempering the curries in India. And many people beleive that they activate insulin production in the body, making them ideal for diabetic patients. The belief is so strong that some people call them “low blood sugar curry leaves”

But this is too tall a claim. The fact is there is no study to back this claim. Besides, curry leaves are generally used in such miniscule quantity that they can’t have a meaningful impact on the body. Generally an average person consumes around 1.5-2-2.5kgs food in a day, and the weight of curry leaves amounts no more than 5 gram.

Goes without saying, such miniscule quantity is not going to reverse diabetes or control blood glucose.

Curry leaves

One study on curry leaves was conducted more than 16 years back, and it showed that when curry leaf extract was orally administered to rats having type 2 diabetes, their blood glucose levels came down.

The study also mentioned that curry leaf extract was found to be a little more effective than even glibenclamide, a known antidiabetic drug.

However the fact it a lot more studies are needed in this direction. Besides, an even more important point is that generally, nobody consumes curry leaf extract. Most people generally remove the curry leaves while eating the dish, so there may not be much effect on the human body.

But it is true that curry leaves have a low glycemic index, and thus they are unlikely to cause a blood glucose spike. They are also packed with beta carotene and vitamin C and several other nutrients, so they satiate the human body at various levels.

Personally speaking, I use them because they have a fantastic aroma. When I use them, my kitchen gets perfumed. When I store the curries in my fridge, my fridge smells Indian curry. And that itself is a fantastic contribution to my life.

What vegetables are better for diabetics?

Although the word diabetics covers people facing Type 1 Diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes or Gestational diabetes, but the number of those facing Type 2 Diabetes is alarming. Type 2 diabetes is another name for insulin resistance, and insulin resistance is a situation where the body cells are not listening to the commands of insulin. Subsequently they are just not willing to soak up glucose molecules floating in the bloodstream.

The reason behind that is that the cells are already stuffed full of glucose molecules. This situation generally occurs because a person continues to eat lots of highly refined and highly processed food products, which are mostly carbohydrates, for a very long time.

And that’s why the best diet for diabetics tries to include least amount of carbohydrates.

This is where vegetables score over various other food products. Although they do have carbohydrates, most of them are complex carbohydrates, in the shape of dietary fiber. And these carbohydrates are far different compared to simpler carbohydrates like table sugar and starch and are thus difficult for the body to breakdown into glucose molecules.

Although most vegetables are excellent for diabetic persons, some vegetables do stand taller than others, and these are green leafy vegetables.

Although most countries have a wide selection of leafy vegetables, but I speak here in Indian context. Indian diabetic patients are lucky to be in a country where fresh vegetables are available throughout the year. And in most cases the leafy green vegetables are available at extremely reasonable prices. In the recent past there have been periods when the prices of tomatoes or onions have shot up, but most often the green leafy vegetables continue to be affordable.

Apart from green leafy vegetables, often there are fresh legumes and beans and lentils available. This is a seasonal bliss, but often seasons can last several months at a stretch. And fresh beans and legumes have their own unmatched nutritional profile.

Best diet for insulin resistance

And that’s why vegetables are necessary for diabetics as well as non-diabetics. They add lots of soluble fiber to the meal, and this dietary fiber provides a buffer against all those highly refined, highly processed carbohydrates. Fiber increases the gastric emptying time of the meal and even pushes out at least some (unfortunately not all) of the trans fats consumed as a part of that meal. In addition to all these advantages, most vegetables are low in glycaemic index, and thus don’t cause much spike in blood glucose.

According to Dave Asprey, the famous bio-hacker and the author of Super Human: “the best way to live a long time is to start eating a lot more vegetables”.

With this background it is easy to understand that the vegetables which are considered better for diabetics are those which will not raise the blood sugar beyond a certain point. For example tomato is also considered a vegetable, but it has some fructose, a reason why it appears sweet in taste.

Such vegetables are basically green leafy vegetables; these vegetables are packed with lots of dietary fiber. Other vegetables in this category are broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, and all these belong to the cruciferous vegetable group.

Other vegetables are lettuce, eggplants, peppers, gwar fali(cluster beans), chawli greens (Amaranth leaves), and several other fresh beans which are available throughout the year in our markets.

Avocado good for diabetes?

Since past couple of years avocados have become extremely popular. They are naturally high in fats, and thus satiating. And they are extremely easy to use as a salad dressing or blend in a smoothie. And no matter how one uses them, they always taste great.

Besides, they are loaded with monounsaturated fats. A 100 grams avocado pulp supplies you with almost 15 grams fat.

Goes without saying, they can be a diabetic’s best fat option, given that they provide fats in their most original packaging. No human processing has been done on them. More, the natural fats found in Avocado are satiating, so they keep off the food cravings and desire for frequent snacking.

Can I lose weight eating avocados?

And in spite of being high in natural fats they are not so high in calories. A 100 grams avocado pulp supplies you with 160 calories.

They are also low in carbohydrates, a reason why they are loved by most Ketonistas – the followers of Ketogenic diet. A 100 grams avocado pulp supplies you with about 8.5 grams carbohydrates, out of which sugar content is extremely low as almost 7 grams belongs to fiber alone.

Such an amount of fiber helps reduce cholesterol and improves lipid markers. On the famous Habitual diet and avocado trial (HAT) study it was found that although the consumption of an avocado on a daily basis did not reduce the belly fat or the visceral fat, but it did lower the cholesterol markers, and particularly the LDL or bad cholesterol.

Whether seasonal or perennial, most vegetables bring a host of advantages to any meal. The most significant are that they are calorie-poor and nutrient-dense. And to make the whole thing even more compelling, they add a ton of fiber, which helps the body at several levels.

According to Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, the author of New York Times bestseller Fiber Fuelled: “Legumes are jam-packed with fiber. A cup of green peas, for example, has 7 grams of fiber. A cup of lentils? A whopping 16 grams. Pinto beans have 30 grams of fiber per cup. Excess weight melts away when you eat a diet high in legumes. Your waist gets smaller. Your blood pressure and cholesterol drop to the point of tapering your drug. Your blood sugar balances and the diabetes disappears. And your risk for having a heart attack or developing colon cancer just got chopped in half.”

Dietary fiber good or bad

However in spite of such very clear benefits most people don’t consume much fiber. It is said in the US almost 90% people consume much less than recommended daily intake. One reason is excessive processed ready-to-eat foods. Yet another reason is misplaced misconceptions about fiber.

Sometimes when you tell people to consume fiber, they hit back with the story of how once they consumed some fiber or some vegetables, and subsequently felt bloated. Well… in most such cases they often ignore a simple fact: what else they consumed that day alongwith that fiber. Most of us have poor memory. Most of us generally consume dozens of food products in a day, and then start blaming just one of them, for a particular health reaction.

It is possible they ate something else that was the cause of the trouble and not the fiber intake as they were presuming.

Often the blame lies not with legumes and beans but with some disbiosys in their gut.

Gut dysbiosis

This disbiosys not only disturbs our mood, metabolism, libido, immunity, and even causes mental fog, but it also affects our ability to process the carbohydrates. Often carbohydrates are not processed properly because the gut microbiome was not fed with enough carbohydrates in recent past, as a result the microbiota handling the carbohydrates breakdown literally disappeared.

Often it results when we reduce the plant food diversity in our diet. That’s why Dr. Bulsiewicz insists on increaing – and not decreasing – the diversity of plants in our daily diet.

And that is the reason why there are so many people struggling to deal with carbs these days. We’re not eating enough complex carbs to train our gut, and the simplest way out is to begin to eat some, and then gradually increase the quantity.