YAY!!!  Summer has sprung!  For those looking to capitalize upon their physical assets during the summer months and beyond, I do have some opinions to share … as if I could be without them!  The very best plan for maximizing your health is tackling it on two fronts simultaneously:  diet and exercise.  I know, that is asking for the moon!  However, what you eat either positions your body for lots of energy and regeneration/rejuvenation – which is just darn perfect for exercise.  OR you position yourself to have a hard time losing weight, erratic energy levels, etc. and most likely not real interested in exercise because you don’t have enough energy.

Here, you’ll find my basic suggestions on dietary approach.  And because I’m sooo long winded, you’ll have to get the exercise portion of this article in Agenda Bridal Issue, 2019 in print.  Should you tackle getting into shape on both fronts you’ll reach your goal quicker and easier.  AND you’ll also be giving your body several other huge benefits. Read on!

From a diet perspective, the simplest way to lose weight is by making sure you consume enough protein for your lean body mass and activity level.  The vast majority of bodies I see are protein starved, meaning they are not fed enough protein to assist the body in rebuilding and regenerating its tissues (all tissues – bone, muscle, organ, etc.) on a daily basis.  Building or rebuilding the tissues of your form requires amino acids, which are most richly found as the building blocks in the proteins of flesh of all types.  If you are vegetarian, please consider sprouted grains, beans and legumes for a truly amazing source of amino acids.  And you’ll also reap the benefits of some of the most nutrient dense foods available on the planet.

Here’s the challenge I”ll give you:  commit to eating the amount of protein your lean body mass requires.  After that, have no restrictions upon what you consume, save perhaps foods that cause allergic reactions or discomfort of some kind.  What I’ve found is this: people who eat enough protein for their body generally don’t have a pile of food cravings.  It’s hard to tempt a well fed, sated body.  And don’t even bother counting calories!  Count grams of protein instead.  

Most female bodies will require somewhere between 12 and 20 ounces of protein a day.  By the way, that equals three quarters to 1 and a quarter pounds of protein per day.  100% of the people I’ve worked with, once they dial in their body’s protein needs, very quickly lean out.  People who are A blood types will require less protein than other blood types.  In the Americas, Africa and Western Europe, most bodies are blood type O.  When consuming your daily stipend of protein, it is best to consume it in 3 – 4 meals per day.  That means, every 4 – 5 hours you either have 1/4 or 1/3 of your daily protein to eat.

If you have an active lifestyle, you need to eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.  If you’re not so active, aim for .75 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass.  If you are incredibly active (have a job that is manual labor or your play sports all the time or you spend a large percentage of your day in motion), you’ll need about 1.25 grams of protein for every pound of lean body mass.  There are 7 grams of protein in each ounce of flesh (that includes fish) and about the same in every egg (unless you have very large eggs).

If you’d like to determine your lean body mass (LBM), get a scale designed to calculate what percentage of a body is fat.  The scale will show you the percentage of body fat, and last I looked you still had to do the math in order to calculate LBM.  If you know your fat percentage, subtract that number from 100.  Place a decimal in front that number and multiply that number by your total body weight.  Voila!  Now you have a good approximation of the number of pounds which make up your LBM.  

LBM can be calculated via several means.  Before the advent of the scale which uses bioelectric impedance (available long before The Biggest Loser made it popular), health pros used calipers to measure skin folds on the tricep, abdomen and thigh (for women).  The aggregate value of the skin folds is then used to determine the approximate percentage of body fat based on height and weight of the subject.  Going back further in time, calculating LBM was trip to a specialized facility with large equipment …. and now I digress!  The point is there are several ways to find out what your LBM is, and know that none of them are 100% accurate nor illustrate an overall picture of health.

Here’s some good news: when a body is well fed with protein, hormones are more balanced and sugar cravings are lessened.  This happens because our diets are generally too sugar rich.  And by sugars, I do mean all sugars which includes natural sugars and complex carbs.  Just know, complex carbs are broken into simple sugars in order to be usable by the body and any excess sugars are stored as fat.  When we regularly administer protein to the body, our hormones maintain better balance because the body is not inundated with sugars which overwork the pancreas through excessive insulin production, or adrenal hormones which overwhelm the body with continued cortisol production for lack of food (BTW, chronically high cortisol levels cause all kinds of health issues).  The body’s hormones are a very delicate balancing act achieved by the endocrine system – a multi-glandular system, each gland specializes in producing its own hormones.  When the hormone production of one gland is up, the remaining glands as well as some organs will also be working hard to balance the overproduction of that hormone.  One other very important thing to consider is this:  when the body’s hormones are bouncing all over the place, our brain chemistry is affected which in turn, affects our moods and baseline stress levels.  One of the quickest ways to affect mood is through the food you eat or don’t eat.

More good news:  when a body is well fed with protein, muscles grow.  In order to achieve a ‘toned’ appearance, your muscles need to grow.  When you look at a body and label it ‘toned’, what you’re actually looking at is a body that has good muscle definition.  Sadly, women have been a bit uncomfortable with the concept of ’growing muscles’ most likely because of cultural indoctrination that dictates women with muscles appear too masculine or some other long standing line of average hoo-ha.  I would love to obliterate those perspectives right here!  While I could rant on for days on this subject alone, let’s just consider one example.  When I look at athletes like Serena Williams, I see women who are not only smokin’ hot, but feminine, sexy, and most importantly, physically strong.  As we age, we need a strong body to weather the test of time.  Those folks who have better muscular development (tone), will navigate later years with more ease on the front of movement.

For a deeper dive on the topic of protein, overcoming obstacles with weight loss, under-eating and caloric consumption, see Counting Calories …. well, THAT doesn’t work!  For the vegetarians, please see the section on sprouting included in the same article to increase protein consumption. Your body will become GREEDY for the nutrition in sprouted foods.

WooHOO, go have a steak …. or a slab of your favorite fish … OR some SPROUTS!

Originally published in Agenda Magazine, July 2020