PROTEIN, FAT, CARBOHYDRATES
The primary nutrients humans consume are protein, fat and carbohydrates. Understanding the role each of these primary nutrients plays on our health and on our ability to gain or lose weight is an important feature of the 3-Week Diet. I strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with this portion of the 3-Week Diet, as it will have long lasting ramifications on your daily life.
Protein
Proteins are the foundation of your body’s cells, tissues and organs. They are essential to your muscles, hair, skin, hair, organs and hormones. While the body can survive without eating another carbohydrate and while it can last for extended periods without eating fat, a lack of protein in your diet will cause degeneration of your muscle tissue and organs, which will eventually lead to death. Knowing how important protein is to the body, it is unbelievable to see how many people still get most of their calories from high-carbohydrate diets.
Several studies have shown that the recommended daily allowance for protein consumption is far lower than it should be. .especially for those engaged in regular exercise. What this research has shown is that people following the “recommended daily allowance” of protein consumption while engaging in regular physical activity, were actually losing valuable muscle tissue because there was not enough protein in the body to repair and rebuild their muscles after their workouts.
Proteins are made up of amino acids and there are just 20 amino acids that make up ALL human proteins. Of these 20 amino acids, the body can only produce 12 of these itself. This means the other eight amino acids must be obtained through the foods you eat.
Lysine, leucine, isoleucine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine are the essential amino acids that are not made by the body (there are two others necessary for infants and small children). We get these amino acids when we consume protein sources like meat, fish, poultry and legumes.
Protein sources that contain adequate amounts of all of the amino acids are called “complete proteins.” Those food items that do not contain all or adequate amounts of amino acids are know as “incomplete proteins.”
In general, animal proteins (meat, fish, poultry, cheese, eggs) are considered “complete proteins.”
The “incomplete proteins” are those that are vegetable based, usually in the form of grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. To get enough essential amino acids through vegetable protein, one usually has to combine several different food groups together in a strategic combination.
Breaking down and processing protein takes a lot more energy and much more time than it does to break down other nutrients. In other words, the body has to work a lot harder to digest protein than it does with carbohydrates and fat.
The extra energy it takes to break down and process protein reduces the amount of energy your body receives from that food it consumed. Also, because it takes longer to break down and to assimilate protein, the process of emptying the stomach takes longer as well, which causes us to feel full longer, which reduces hunger pangs.
It is believed that the body can only use about 50% of the protein we eat. This means the other 50% is eliminated from the body as waste because protein is not stored in the body the same way that fat and carbohydrates are. So, when you eat calories primarily from protein, you can rest assured that these protein calories are repairing and rebuilding your body with the excess being eliminated as waste. The extra protein will not be stored as body fat. As you will see, this is in stark contrast to excess carbohydrates and fat we eat, which are stored on our bodies in our fat cells instead of being eliminated.
Adding protein to your meals causes your body to release a hormone called glucagon. Glucagon works to slow down the harmful effect of excess carbohydrates from being deposited into our fat cells. It does so by slowing the rate of absorption of those carbohydrates. Additionally, there are new studies that have shown that when the body releases glucagon (by consuming protein in your diet), it also works to stimulate fat-burning by freeing up your stored body fat, so that it can be used to fuel your body.
As you will see, when we increase protein consumption and significantly decrease the amount of carbohydrates we consume, we benefit from a dual fat-burning effect. On one hand, when the body does not have carbohydrates to turn to, to fuel the body, it begins to use stored body fat. Secondly, the release of glucagon into the body appears to have the added effect of attacking the fat stores that the insulin has worked to preserve. The 3-Week Diet is strategically designed to take advantage of both these events.
Fat
Unfortunately, fat has received a bad rap for decades. So much so, that it has become ingrained in our minds to intuitively reach for anything that says “low fat” even when we know better!
The notion that fat makes us fat makes perfect sense at face value, especially when you considered how calorically dense fat actually is. A gram of fat contains 9 calories while the same gram of protein or carbohydrates are only 4 calories.
Fat doesn’t have anywhere near the thermic effect that protein does (only 3% vs 30%), so consuming fat is not necessarily going to “turbo charge” our metabolism. On the same token, it is important to note that fat by itself also does not make us fat.
In fact, fat plays an important role in many parts of the body. While we can go for long periods of time without fat, we cannot live without it completely. Those fats that we cannot live without are known as essential fatty acids (EFAs). Research has shown that these EFAs actually help us burn the stubborn, stored body fat that we want to get rid of, in addition to numerous other health benefits. In the 3 Week Diet, we will focus on getting an optimal amount of these good fats, to enhance our ability to lose weight fast, while, becoming more healthy.
Fat Cells
Recently, research has shown that once a fat cell is created, it never goes away. Fat cells get larger and larger until they can no longer hold stored fat. When this happens, your body creates new fat cells to hold the excess. And again, once those new fat cells are created, they are yours for life.
While we cannot totally eliminate fat cells from the body, we can get rid of the gooey fatty acids and dangerous triglycerides that those fat cells are holding which will make us thinner.
Understand that fat is actually the perfect fuel for your body. When we can switch your body to using this “better” fuel, we can effectively turn your body into a 24/7 fat-burning machine.
Carbohydrates
Although carbohydrates are the most common source of energy in humans, the simple fact is, there is not a single carbohydrate that is essential to human life.
Carbohydrates are classified into two types: Simple & Complex.
Simple carbohydrates are also known as simple sugars. Simple sugars are those found in refined sugars (and the foods they are made with like cookies, candies, etc) but also in food like fruit and milk.
Complex carbohydrates are known as starches. Starches include grain products such as cereals, bread, pasta, crackers and rice. Like simple carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates can be refined or left unrefined. Refined carbohydrates are considered to be less healthy as the refining process strips away much of the vitamins, protein and fiber. Unrefined carbohydrates cause less insulin spike and because of that, they are considered to be the most healthy of the carbohydrates.
Regardless of whether the carbohydrates are simple or complex, they both cause spikes in blood sugar. As you will see shortly, these spikes in blood sugar are the #1 cause of unwanted body fat.