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hello health champions if you're one of the
millions of people who have tried various diets to lose weight and lose belly fat but
without results or maybe you had some results but the weight and the belly fat came right back
then this video is for you because today i want to talk about the best diet to lose belly
fat to lose weight for good forever and i want to emphasize i know you think this is sort of
self-explanatory but i want to emphasize a couple of things in this phrase for good that means to
not gain it back because if you lose the weight and then you gain it back then what was the point
of it all i know you're desperate and you just want to lose it fast you want to lose it now i
don't care but yes you do care you do not want to gain it back all right and the second word
is diet we want to get past the idea of a diet so many people think i'm going to do this for
a while i'm willing to do anything for a week a month three months but as soon as we have that
mindset then we're gonna do something for a while we get some results and then we're gonna stop
doing that something and we're gonna go back to doing the same thing that created the problem in
the first place and that's why we have hundreds of millions of people who are yo-yo dieting
because they're doing something for a while get over that idea what we have to do is adopt
a lifestyle adopt some principles around which calories but we're going to cover this in some
detail because a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie it starts with high blood sugar high blood
glucose because that triggers high insulin levels and insulin does many things in the body but
one thing it causes indirectly is fat storage the insulin acts on the glucose the glucose gets
into the cell we can use some of it right now but most of it we're going to store for later
and most of that storage is going to be as fat but if we maintain that insulin high because we
keep eating frequent meals with high carbohydrate now that high insulin prevents us from using
that fat storage so even though we store all that energy we can't get to it as long as we
maintain high insulin one more thing happens and this is low blood sugar right
so if we eat high glucose high carbs frequently we teach the body to depend on that
but we also sort of confuse the body over time and the body learns to make a bunch of insulin
and oftentimes that's going to overshoot and it's going to push if we have high blood sugar
it's going to rebound and cause low blood sugar that's a glucose roller coaster that is why
a lot of people even with insulin resistance are going to have hypoglycemia so even though they
may have high blood sugar according to an a1c test in between they're actually hypoglycemic and this
is extra bad when you can't get to the fat storage because of high insulin so you have all this
energy stored you need some energy because of your low blood sugar but you can't get to it because
of that high insulin and now what the body does it says i gotta have some energy let's create
some cravings and a craving is an urgent need to bring your blood sugar up and this is why
they put a vending machine and a soda machine on every corner in every office and every business
in every school so that we can get a quick blood sugar fix we can get some comfort foods and
now of course that creates high blood sugar so we're sort of stuck in a loop and that makes
it very very difficult to get out of this loop because we're constantly hungry we have high
blood sugar but the high insulin keeps us from ever using that fat that we have in storage so
insulin is the first and most important thing we have to understand the second one is that low
blood glucose creates a second hormone it triggers the body's cortisol and cortisol is a messenger
that tells the body make more blood sugar all right so there are two ways you can do this
you can eat it by cravings or your body can generate it from glycogen or from protein
but you can't really get it from the fat still and so this cortisol raises blood sugar and
now you have a second loop where you get stuck and this is why it's so difficult to just eat
less because you're not really breaking this pattern and for a lot of people there's one more
factor called stress because what does stress do stress is a state where your body says i need more
energy because there's a threat there's something i gotta get done i'm having heightened demand
so we have to make more energy so no matter what your glucose levels are when you're stressed your
body still wants more because that's fast energy so stress is also going to create cravings
and stress is going to raise cortisol and if we want to lose belly fat for good we have
to be absolutely clear on what triggers insulin and we already said that it's triggered
by blood sugar but then obviously the next step is the foods that can become blood sugar and
carbohydrate is the obvious candidate but there's more to it first of all there's enormous confusion
around carbohydrate we hear all the time that white bread and processed carbs are
bad but complex carbs are good as in white bread is bad and whole wheat bread is
good it's not true it doesn't work like that high sugar things like candy and soda they're
out of the question everyone agrees on that but things that are starchy like white bread or
whole wheat there's still eighty percent starch they break down the same way the fact that one
has a smidgen of fiber makes no difference they break down into glucose within minutes and they
have a huge impact on blood sugar and insulin so any concentrated form of carbohydrate and starch
is a bad thing if you're trying to reduce insulin and lose weight so if we compare the
insulin response between different foods then high sugar and high starch we'd put
around a hundred okay there's some variation in in that group but just to give an idea
high starch carbohydrates and high sugars they're like a hundred how does that compare to
other foods well low sugar and low starch like berries and leafy greens and cauliflower and
broccoli and brussels sprouts and asparagus they're still all the energy that they have
pretty much is carbohydrate but there's so little of it it's mostly water so in comparison
a non-starch or low starch carbohydrate would only produce a fraction as much insulin
and that's why you can still eat those things even though they're all carbohydrate because it's
mostly water and if you're counting carbs then these are the kind of carbs you count but there
are other things that can turn into blood glucose if the protein you eat is like egg or meat then
a fairly high percentage gets turned into tissue because the composition matches the composition
of your body pretty closely but if you eat a much much less of that protein gets turned
into tissue which means more of it gets turned into glucose so protein can become glucose and
then it will affect insulin so on the low end it might be like something like this which
is more than the non-starchy carbohydrate and if it's on the high end it would be a little
bit more still but we have to understand that even though it turns into protein it's not in the same
way that this does it's not nearly as much and it is much much slower than carbohydrate so it has a
lesser and a slower impact which is very favorable and even fat can become glucose the fat itself
can't but the way we package fat in the body is called triglyceride three fatty acids on a
glycerol molecule and this glycerol is about five percent of the weight so a few percent of
the calories in fat can actually become glucose but again it's much much less and it's vastly
slower than either protein or carbohydrate so if we have a relative relationship in how
much insulin is produced this is pretty much what it looks like and why do we need to know
about cortisol why is that important because cortisol is a hormone that's produced in response
to stress and when you're stressed your body puts a break on the healing and inflammation so they
use that principle by giving you a medication that is the same molecule but man-made of cortisol and
if they give you a shot like in a joint somewhere they're going to call that cortisone cortisone
shot and if they give you a pill for a systemic effect it's going to be something like prednisone
and there's many different names to these they're called steroids and they're many different brand
names but what they all have in common is that they are glucocorticoids and the only thing you
need to know there is that it affects glucose and if there's any doubt as to how important how
profound this can be then just ask anyone who has been put on prednisone and they will tell
you in many many cases the side effects are weight gain high blood sugar increased thirst in
some extreme cases some more severe cases and also frequent urination and if you notice if you watch
some of my videos or if you're a diabetic you know that that's another word for diabetes high
blood sugar increased thirst frequent urination is diabetes so this is something that contributes
very very strongly to weight gain and diabetes so the best diet slash lifestyle is simply the
one that you can stick with right so we're not trying to promote a special brand or a special
diet we just want to understand how do they work and if you're in favor of calorie restriction then
you're probably going to get hungry so if you lose weight and you want to be if you're okay with
being hungry for the rest of your life if that works for you then that might be the diet for you
if you're okay with deprivation then that might be an okay diet for you and if you want to do it
like the people on the biggest loser and exercise four five six seven eight hours a day
and they lose enormous amounts of weight if you are comfortable with keeping
that up for the rest of your life then that might be the model for you but if you're
like most of us then we want to start applying these principles in an intelligent way then what
is it going to take for diet success and when i say diet i mean the principles governing your
food choices the proper food for humans well if you want to lose weight first you have to create a
calorie deficit that's a given but it's not enough because if that's all you do it will be short term
there'll be rebounds you can't keep it up and so forth that's why 98% of diets fail in addition
to that we have to solve the hunger deprivation problem we have to create a plan that will
keep us satisfied where we're full when we eat and not so hungry between meals we have to solve
the problem of unstable blood glucose because if it keeps being high and low every time it's high
you have insulin being high you can't burn fat every time it's low you're going to get cravings
and you get hunger and deprivation you have to get you to where you have metabolic flexibility that
your body can live off can create energy flexibly from whatever you give it and it can burn the
fat when you don't feed it for a little bit and when you feed it it knows what to do with it also
have to solve the problem of insulin resistance because when we have insulin resistance we can't
burn fat that insulin has to come down before the fat off the body is burned and
we also have to create a long-term lowered insulin resistance we have to become more
insulin sensitive to change our set point because if we can't change the set point then we will
have a rebound no matter how few calories you eat and most importantly it has to be satisfying and
so easy that you won't go back you can't go back because if you do then you're going to create the
problem all over again so let's talk through some of these variables and the different popular diets
so when i say usda i'm talking about the standard version standard recommendations that count
your calories eat low fat because fat is high in calories avoid saturated fat eat skimmed milk eat
lots of fruits and vegetables lots of grain lots of bread and all the other things that haven't
worked so initially you create a calorie deficit but how about hunger and cravings well you're
going to have plenty of them and what about stabilizing blood sugar no it won't do
that because you eat low fat and high carb and frequent meals so your blood sugars can
keep being all over the place because of that you're going to create some reduction in
insulin resistance just because you eat less but because of the unstable blood sugar you're not
going to solve your insulin resistance problem you're not going to be consistent enough you're
not going to be able to do it long enough to truly change that insulin resistance and therefore
you're also not going to change your set point and this is why almost every time this becomes a
yo-yo diet because the set point makes you rebound and can you create long-term health maybe if you
eat all of the whole foods even if they're low-fat you can probably create pretty good health but can
you stick to it probably not next we have low carb high fat which if you take the carbs very low then
you get into ketosis your diet is ketogenic and again you can create a calorie deficit now
the difference is you also address your blood sugar your hunger and cravings and your insulin
resistance very profoundly it's going to be very powerful in addressing all of these and because
of that it's much easier to create and to maintain that calorie deficit and what about the set
point well i put a question mark here because it depends on you for a lot of people doing low
carb high fat slash keto is going to be enough the majority of people will lose weight permanently
and have find it easy to maintain that but if your body is really stubborn what tends to happen
is you lose some weight and then you hit a plateau so for some people that set point does
not change enough will this create long-term health depends on the quality of the
foods you eat so you can eat low carb high fat and you can eat food with a bunch of chemicals you
can eat processed foods you can eat margarine and it will work for these four things but if you
put a bunch of chemicals and foreign stuff and frankin food in your body then that's not going
to create long-term health you might lose the weight and you get skinny but skinny people get
headaches and cancer and autoimmune disease and they suffer from a bunch of other things so you
want to look for the bigger picture and also look at the quality so you can create long-term health
next is intermittent fasting and this is one of the easiest ways to create a calorie deficit and
get good results because you eat fewer meals you go longer between meals it's much easier to eat
less you train your body to expect fewer meals now the rest of them as far as handling cravings and
blood sugar and insulin resistance and set point it's going to depend on the person and it's
going to depend on the type of foods you eat a lot of people can still keep eating pizza and ice
cream and not have cravings but for some people you're gonna have cravings unless you also combine
it with foods that are low insulin stimulating same thing with stable blood sugar some people
are going to be hyper and hypoglycemic unless they teach their body with good foods with
low carb foods whereas others can actually become metabolically flexible still
eating pizza and ice cream same thing with insulin resistance same thing
with set point it's going to depend on the person if you eat more carbs it can still
work but you're going to have more insulin swings so it's going to be adequate for some people and
not for others same thing with long-term health it's going to depend on the quality of the food
skinny people get sick too and what about paleo paleo is where you eat like people ate before
agriculture before civilization so now you cut out the dairy you cut out the grain you cut out sugar
and processed foods and if you're a more strict version you also cut out beans and various forms
of legumes and this is going to give you a huge advantage over the standard usda because you're
going to naturally eat lower carb not necessarily super low carb but you're going to eat low carb
you're going to stabilize blood sugar you're going to improve all of these but depending on how
sensitive you are it may or may not be enough okay if you have stubborn metabolism you may have to
go lower carbs than that allows for paleo can be a keto diet so then you would get more and more of
those benefits same thing with the mediterranean diet what does mediterranean really mean it's
just more of the type of foods they eat around the mediterranean but that's a huge variety so
for most people that just means that they eat more whole foods and less processed foods so
it's kind of like the paleo but they do allow some bread and the biggest difference is that
they eat more olive oil so in that sense it's a higher fat diet than the usda and you're getting
it from a whole food source because the olive oil that they're eating is still a relatively stable
and healthy fat source so how does it help with all these other factors well it's exactly like
the paleo it depends on what you do with it if you understand what we said about insulin and
cortisol then you can adapt it you can make it low carb or you can make it high carb but the
advantage is it has more whole foods and it has some good healthy fats in there then how can we
check off all of these boxes well now we go to what i call ideal or clean keto we eat low
carb high fat to the degree that we need as low as it takes to correct the problem in our
case and then we also understand that margarine is not a good food chemicals are not good
processed high fat low carb foods are still not great food and now we start addressing obviously
the same four as previously but we also getting some long-term health what about set point well
for an even larger number we're talking probably 95 percent of people are now going to have
success in permanent weight loss they're going to lose weight they might have a short plateau
but then they'll keep losing again but if you're among the most stubborn then you'll hit that you
lose a little weight then you hit that plateau and just getting in ketosis is not enough what
those people have to do if you're among the most stubborn now you also have to add intermittent
fasting and now we get to check all the boxes how much intermittent fasting depends on how stubborn
your plateau is if you do 16 or 18 or 20 hours and it works great if not you got to do 24 or 36 or
48 and then once you have addressed all of these now you can have permanent weight loss and
then you'll have some flexibility to vary the amount of fasting period and the amount of
carbohydrates and so forth but you understand what governs these principles you can eat
till you're full and you can have a satisfying lifestyle for the rest of your life if you enjoyed
this video you're going to love that one and if you truly want to master health by understanding
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