Dietary Handbook Without the yo-yo effect ebook

Dorota Sawicka

DIETARY HANDBOOK

WITHOUT THE YO-YO EFFECT

© Copyright by Dorota Sawicka, 2024

Cover graphic: AI

ISBN e-book: 978-83-971254-6-9

All rights reserved.

Reproduction, distribution in part or in whole

without the permission of the publisher prohibited.

Edition I 2024

INTRODUCTION

If you are wondering how to lose weight permanently, there is a tip for that. First, you need to change your eating habits permanently. However, as you can easily guess, this is not the only thing losing weight is about. You also need to combine it with physical activity. The word 'diet' comes from the Greek and means a sensible lifestyle combining healthy eating with exercise.

There are many diets that start out on top and then recede into the background because another one comes along. All these diets have one thing in common - they are 'lauded' as ideal, and previous ways of losing weight become useless and unnecessary methods. This is how carbohydrates, for example, have been approached, once as a cause of excess weight, and at other times as an ingredient for a slimmer figure. It was very similar with a nutrient such as fat. The enemies of fat - mainly sports people - said it was fattening, while its opponents, as the name suggests, were of a different opinion. They propounded the thesis that fat adds energy.

The guidelines against the very common - in fact increasingly common - overweight do not consider the different metabolism of the human being. Not every person's metabolism is the same. It depends on the individual. Different people have different nutritional requirements.

You probably bought this book for the same reason as many other people - you don't like your figure. You have probably been on many different diets, all of which were followed by a yo-yo effect. The kilos came back in greater numbers than before the weight-loss diet.

By eating less and less to achieve rapid weight loss, you are moving away from your dream goal. This is not the way to go.

In my book, I will provide you with varied recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as for snacks between meals. Recipes that will leave you feeling full while improving your figure, health, and well-being.

These recipes are not based on theory and science. Several overweight people have already started to benefit from my diet during its creation. With the help of the diet combined with physical activity, they managed to lose up to 1 kilogram in a week.

In this book, I present some helpful tips and advice to make losing weight no longer stressful and difficult for you - as it used to be. I show you how to deal with bouts of ravenous hunger or anger over inconsistency in your diet.

WHERE MODERN EATING HABITS COME FROM

If you would like to better understand what has changed in the way we eat over the last 10-20 years and why these changes are leading to increasing obesity and related diseases, it is best to start at the very beginning.

You will probably find it hard to believe, but the eating and physical activity habits of people in primitive times have unfortunately influenced what they should look like in modern people.

People lived in small tribes for thousands of years. Every day they hunted the game that grazed in the grasslands. In this way, they provided themselves with good fats (which nowadays are no longer provided by artificially fed poultry and cattle) and lean meat. In addition, they harvested whole fruit and vegetables. Through daily gathering and hunting, they had - whether they wanted to or not - a great deal of physical activity, which consumed a great deal of energy. As you can easily conclude - physical activity was part of their daily life.

They were most fond of certain fatty, salty and sweet foods, whose nutritional properties helped them to survive. The fact that they liked fatty meat prompted them to hunt fat game, whose meat - obviously - was more filling than that of lean, small animals and was a good source of protein. Animal fat helped them store energy and sustain certain bodily functions and structures, including, for example, the nervous system. The sweet foods available at the time were mainly fruit and vegetables. They picked berries, which were and still are a rich source of vitamins, other nutrients, and fibre. On the other hand, the salt in salty foods was already then needed for cell function and to help maintain adequate blood volume in the body, just as it is today.

The fact that our ancestors had a strong appetite for fatty, sweet, and salty foods prompted them to eat the foods they needed to stay healthy. If we think about it a little longer, we will conclude that the liking for salty, sweet, or fatty foods is still high - even in our modern times.

It is easy to conclude that choosing fast food is not just a consequence of a fast-paced life. Our taste buds, which helped primitive humans to survive in a natural environment, now prompt us to choose harmful foods in an already unhealthy environment.

The yo-yo effect can also be better understood through the lives of primitive people. In the prevailing periods of starvation and supplying the body with very few calories, survival was aided by a sudden drop in weight, which was caused by a slowing down of the metabolism. Even then, primitive people were able to function with far fewer calories consumed, which increased the possibility of survival. Today, a similar phenomenon is occurring. When we unexpectedly lose weight because of self-imposed restrictions or for external reasons, not only the amount of fat but also muscle mass in our body decreases. There is less metabolism in fat than in muscle. Because there is a higher metabolism in muscle than in fat, even under resting conditions we need fewer calories to live. For primitive people, this meant a better chance of survival. In modern times, people who are on diets that cause large weight loss in a short space of time also have a slowed metabolism. Unfortunately for us, for many of us this means the beginning of the yo-yo effect. Fewer calories are needed to maintain a lower body weight, so it becomes increasingly difficult to continue losing weight when you have a big appetite, and this leads to regaining previously lost weight, sometimes even more. This is why many drastic diets called "miracle diets" do not have lasting effects. Quite the opposite is true.

For a diet to be effective, we need to provide our bodies with good fats, good carbohydrates, lean sources of protein and plenty of fibre. We must remember to make the right choices.

THE CORE OF FAT BURNING

NUTRIENTS THAT HELP BURN FAT

Certain ingredients in food make the fat from food travel into the cells to be converted into energy. They lead to the burning of fat as well as the transport of nutrients.

There are many components that allow the body to burn fat quite quickly. These include enzymes, vitamins, proteins, or hormones that are involved in this process. However, the interaction of several factors is often necessary. For example - without vitamin C, the body is unable to produce fat-reducing hormones. This vitamin does not only work against infections and colds. It has a broad action. It is one of the ingredients that best breaks down fat. If we eat a fair amount of fruit and vegetables, we will provide the body with enough of this vitamin.

Carnitine and choline - transport substances

The best-known fat-burning substance is L-carnitine, which, by regulating metabolism, prevents large amounts of fat from being deposited in the blood. This is quite important for muscle cells, which become weak through too much fat. Choline, vitamin C and L-carnitine transfer fat to the combustion cells and convert it into energy. The body produces small amounts of L-carnitine, so it must be supplied in foods such as meat or dairy products, for example.

The protective coating of all nerve and brain cells includes choline, which belongs to the B vitamins. An insufficient amount of it breaks down cholesterol, which quite severely restricts the free flow of fat-burning substances into the fat cells. Soya products, egg yolks, meat and cauliflower contain the most choline.

Preventing fat accumulation - methionine and linoleic acid

An essential sulphur-containing amino acid for humans is methionine. It produces adrenaline and is also a component of carnitine. Overweight can often be caused by a deficiency of methionine, which, together with other components - such as vitamin B6, choline, folic acid, and B vitamins - keeps fat from entering the cells for too long. A good dose of methionine is contained in foods such as fish, poultry, eggs, lentils, cheese, liver, and yoghurt.

A fatty acid contained in vegetable oils that improves the condition of the intestinal mucosa is linoleic acid. The intestinal mucosa, if healthy and of sufficient thickness, can retain a considerable amount of fat during the digestive process. This fat is almost immediately converted into energy by the body. Linoleic acid contributes to the reduction of fats. Its second role is to lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood. A product rich in linoleic acid is mainly flaxseed.

Taurine helps with weight loss.

This is an amino acid made up of cysteine and methionine. Too little taurine means a deficiency of methionine. Thanks to taurine, the pituitary gland produces the right number of hormones such as growth hormone, which helps to eliminate fat.

The more taurine the pituitary gland receives, the better it works. Our body consumes the most taurine at night when the pituitary gland is most active.

Too little taurine in women can contribute to their being overweight. This is because one of the female hormones, oestrogen, can reduce the production of this substance by the liver, which can significantly prolong metabolism and may (but not necessarily!) lead to overweight. Therefore, women who are starting to become overweight should eat more products that have taurine in them. Liver, mussels, oysters, crabs, and red meat, for example, contain a high amount of taurine.

The hunger hormone leptin

Leptin influences the individual feeling of satiety. It is produced by fat cells. If the body has many fat cells, it also produces a lot of leptins, which gives signs that there is less need for food. However, if fat reserves have been used up, for example by eating very little food for a long period of time, leptin switches the body to a survival programme, which is characterized by greater feelings of hunger, a reduction in the production of hormones secreted by the brain transplant and a suppression of the sex drive.

METABOLISM-CONTROLLING HORMONES

Our body needs energy to function properly. Food components are converted into the substances and energy required by the body in the metabolic process. This metabolism takes place during digestion as well as during eating. The brain controls the secretion of certain hormones, each of which has a different action for this process to take place properly. They all stimulate the action of enzymes and carry information. A distinction is made between hormones that break down fat and those that deposit fat.

Insulin

Carbohydrates are initially deposited in fat cells during metabolism. Sometime later, fat molecules and amino acids are produced. To facilitate the absorption of the food, the pancreas, by releasing insulin, instructs the enzymes to break down the fat molecules into tiny particles. These particles enter the hips and abdomen at a rapid rate. The fat cells even wait for the transport of the new raw material, which very easily and for a long time settles in our organism. Most often, this happens when we do not supply our body with wholesome food.

Fat is not deposited because we supply our bodies with high-fat or high-protein products, but because we absorb foods that contain a lot of sugar. Blood sugar levels then also rise. This stimulates the body to produce insulin. Lean people in particular need insulin to regulate their blood sugar levels. When they eat foods rich in carbohydrates, their body starts to produce insulin, which lowers sugar levels.

Fat-burning hormones

For the body to convert fat into energy, it releases growth hormone from fat cells. This process starts just after falling asleep and continues throughout the night. When the amount of sugar falls below a given level, energy is provided by glycogen produced by the pancreas. To produce the necessary energy, the body uses a large amount of fat from the fat cells.

Adrenaline and cortisol, which support glucagon, are particularly greedy for fat. They could destroy it in a day. In a more moderate way, the breakdown of fat is regulated by hormones that are secreted by the thyroid gland rather than those produced by the pancreas. The thyroid gland needs an adequate amount of iodine to function properly. Therefore, iodised salt should be used in the preparation of food. Also important for the thyroid is an amino acid called tyrosine, which can be found in products such as cheese or soya.

Magnesium from whole grain products

Almost every reaction taking place in the cells of our body is influenced by enzymes. They burn fat and normalise digestive processes. A component of enzymes that stimulates the nervous system is magnesium. It speeds up the metabolism in the cells. A large amount of magnesium is found in legumes, whole-grain products, and nuts.

EASY WEIGHT LOSS

Whether you follow a separation diet, eat only eggs, dairy and healthy carbohydrates (such as potatoes) and avoid sweets, for example, then when you go back to your old eating habits - your weight goes up again. Therefore, you go on a diet again, and so on and so forth.... This is the so-called yo-yo effect. If you really want to lose weight and maintain a slim figure, it is worth following these rules:

1) Make sure your food composition is balanced. It is important how much you eat and that, above all, your food does not provide too much concentrated energy in the form of sugar, fat, or flour. The daily menu should include plenty of fibre from fruit and vegetables.

2) Ensure that the calorie balance is also balanced. If you eat more food than you need, the weight goes up. It doesn't matter whether you eat fattening calories from fat, protein, alcohol, or carbohydrates. If you are a physically active person, you can of course eat more and enjoy it more without remorse. If you are inconsistent in your physical activity, the weight may start to rise.

3) There is no clear answer to the question of how many meals a day you should eat. It depends whether we are talking about young children and adolescents, people who are highly stressed by mental work, adults of normal weight, overweight people, or athletes. Everyone should see for themselves what number of meals is right for them. The most important thing is not to starve yourself all day, to eat a huge portion in the evening or, on the contrary, not to snack all day. These two methods are not recommended for anyone.

The diet must suit everyone. The idea, of course, is that it should correspond to your metabolism and physical activity. Not everyone stores energy equally and not everyone can consume it as efficiently and easily. The best thing to do on a diet is to stick to a healthy balance applicable to all areas of life.

My