Before you embark on your low-dieting weight-loss program, you need to know that some medical conditions could prevent or stall your progress. If any of these apply to you, be sure to check with your doctor for advice.

Medications

Some prescription and over-the-counter medications can prevent or stall weight loss. They increase a person’s metabolic resistance. These include the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Thick Artery Walls

Elevated insulin levels cause the artery walls to grow thicker, which in effect narrows the diameter of the passageway. This makes it more likely that cholesterol will adhere inside the walls and lead to blocked arteries and heart disease. As the passageways of the arteries get narrower, blood pressure increases. Alas, insulin also has other ways of increasing a person’s blood pressure. Read the rest of this entry »

Open Carb. Now it gets really easy. American restaurants always have a variety of vegetables, potatoes, bread, salads, and desserts.

Open Protein. A big choice of unadulterated meats, fowl, and fish. Just make sure you eat right along with everyone else, and if you want three different items, you might want to select all of them or two of them from among the entrees. Read the rest of this entry »

Fat-free dairy products products, the second main component of the polish foods group, are a fabulous source of nutrients — calcium, potassium, phosphates, protein and many other vital vitamins and minerals. All too often these days, though, these important foods are left out of the diet. It’s very common to hear people — even doctors — claim that ‘milk is only for baby cows, not for humans’, or ‘dairy products are mucus-forming and cause sinusitis’.

I disagree with these sentiments entirely: read on, and you will soon see why. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me give you the bad news first: like red meat, chicken contains significant amounts of fat. The chicken skin is almost entirely composed of fat, and there is also fat hidden inside the flesh of the wing, the drumstick, the thigh and the neck. The only part of the chicken that is acceptable on the X Diet is the breast.

This may come as a surprise to ‘career dieters’, but even without its skin, a deboned chicken breast contains two teaspoons of fat. Read the rest of this entry »

Fish is a dichotomy, because broadly speaking there are two main categories of fish: fatty fish and non-fatty fish.

Fatty fish

I can almost hear you yelling, Tut fatty fish are supposed to be good for your heart!’ Yes, this much is true. Research has shown that the two main types of oils contained in fatty fish can lower cholesterol levels, protect you against heart disease and i_mprove blood fluidity. However, the idea that something is ‘healthy is, once again, disease-specific. The consumption of fish oils should certainly be encouraged in cholesterol patients who are lean, not over-fat. However, if you are over-fat and have high cholesterol levels, all types of fatty fish should be eliminated from the diet. Read the rest of this entry »

The fats that come from plants are called oils because they are fluid, not hard. In general, plant fats are better for your heart than animal fats because they are mostly unsaturated and barely contain cholesterol.

For the purposes of the X Diet, however, all oils are to be regarded as fats. The body, after all, does not distinguish between fats — it can’t tell whether the fat comes from a pig or a plant, and frankly it doesn’t care. A fat is a fat, and the body reacts to plant fats in the same way as it does to animal fats — it deposits them on the belly and thighs. Read the rest of this entry »

The dry-frying technique

`How do I fry without fat?’ is one of the most common questions my patients ask me. Let me introduce you to the concept or dry-frying, which is used in many of the recipes. Dry-frying is a method of sautéing -rood without using oil or butter. There is no difference in the flavour or the final dish, although the preparation takes a little longer.

Hoff fill a teacup with boiling water and add a teaspoon of’ stock powder. Stir until dissolved, then fill the cup to the top with red or white wine - any cheap plonk will do! CIF you don’t drink alcohol, use apple juice instead.) Read the rest of this entry »

Read the nutritional content tables

These tables, printed on the labels of many foods, offer consumers a quick and easy way of detecting fats in food, and are probably your most powerful tool in the quest for fat-free eating! Unfortunately, only some local manufacturers and two major supermarket chains (Woolworths and Pick ‘n Pay) include these tables on their products.

These tables usually show the nutritional breakdown of the food per 100 g of product, showing the proportion of carbohydrates, proteins, sugar, fats, and so on. For the purposes of the X Diet, you can ignore all the food groups except the fats. Read the rest of this entry »

Your pancreas releases insulin

Let’s go back to your blood. Your blood-sugar level has doubled since you ate the wholewheat toast, and your brain is buzzing happily. Not only that, but the ‘flood’ of glucose in your blood has stimulated your pancreas to produce insulin. Think of insulin as an army of soldiers embarking on a mopping-up operation. If there is a large flood of glucose into the bloodstream (caused by eating high-GI foods), the pancreas releases many insulin soldiers into the blood. Read the rest of this entry »