Jelly beans. Pretzels. Fudge sauce. Cracker Jacks.
They`re not the stuff low-fat diets are typically made of. But they could be.
Not that any of these snacks is especially good for you. As far as nutrients go, none offers much more than empty calories.
But then, they`re not especially bad for you either, when you consider their fat content is minimal to nil. Which is helpful to know when hunger strikes and carrot sticks just aren`t going to satisfy your craving.
Diet experts are telling us that it`s not just the amount of calories that counts when you`re trying to lose weight and maintain a healthy diet. The source of those calories is just as significant-maybe more so. If more than 30 percent of your calories are coming from fat, you`re asking for trouble.
Obesity is only one of the potential side effects. So is heart disease, certain types of cancer and a slew of other ailments.
The simplest explanation is this: Fat is the most fattening nutrient in our diet. Fat calories add up at a rate of 9 calories per gram, compared with 4 calories per gram for sugar, starch or protein, and 7 calories per gram for alcohol. All calories not equal.
There`s another twist, too. Recent studies have suggested that the body burns carbohydrate calories faster than fat calories, dispelling the commonly held notion that all calories are created equal. If this theory holds true, that means an extra 100-calorie hunk of bread is less likely to do damage to your waistline than the 100 calories (about an ounce) of cheddar cheese melted on top.
Scientists refer to the body`s innate fat-burning potential as the
”thermogenic effect.” Diet guru Martin Katahn has a layman`s term for it:
the ”T-Factor.” That`s also the peg for his latest book, ”The T-Factor Diet” (W.W. Norton, $18.95).
”It`s primarily fat in the diet that makes people fat,” contends Katahn, a psychology professor and director of the weight management program at Vanderbilt University. ”Our bodies require fat in their fuel mixture. When you cut fat in your diet, your body pulls it out of the fat cells.”
Decreasing fatty foods in the diet to lose weight, of course, is hardly a new idea. It`s Katahn`s advice on calories that`s been drawing attention-and some controversy.
He says you can ignore them, as long as you keep your fat-gram intake to a minimum. Protein and carbohydrate calories don`t matter that much, he reasons, because the body has to work so much harder to get energy, or make fat, out of them. And according to Katahn, eating extra complex carbohydrates- i.e., grains, breads, pasta, beans, corn, potatoes and even high-calorie dried fruits-can actually help you slim down by speeding up your metabolism. Dietary fuel mixtures
Katahn bases his theory on metabolic research conducted at Vanderbilt and other universities. With the help of a registered dietitian and other Vanderbilt professors involved in diet research, several thousand volunteer participants, and a state-of-the-art calorimetry chamber, Katahn studied the impact of various dietary ”fuel mixtures,” as well as exercise, on weight loss.
He was in south Florida recently to discuss those findings, which are revealed in ”The T-Factor Diet.” Lately that book has been getting major media hype, particularly since actress Susan Ruttan (Roxanne of television`s
”L.A. Law”) plugged it in a recent issue of Family Circle magazine, claiming she`d shed nine pounds ”in almost no time.”
If Katahn`s name doesn`t ring a bell, chances are the title of his previous book does. A best seller several years ago, ”The Rotation Diet”
described how you could lose weight quickly by alternating several weeks of low-calorie dieting with ”vacation” periods.
And for a lot of folks, it worked. At least for a while. But even the author concedes that most of the dieters failed to stick with it in the long run.
So why, then, does he think the T-Factor Diet would be any more effective?
”Because it`s so easy,” he says emphatically. ”There`s a big difference in the way weight control is perceived on this program. People don`t feel like they`re on a diet. They are simply learning where the fat is.”
And where it`s not. Like in Smucker`s chocolate fudge sauce. Check the label and you`ll find it has only 1 gram of fat per 2 tablespoons (even though it contains a not-so-modest 130 calories). A 1.45-ounce Hershey bar, on the other hand, contains a whopping 13 fat grams (230 total calories). Forgo the guilt trip
So if you`ve got an insatiable craving for chocolate, Katahn says you don`t have to deprive yourself-so long as you choose your sins wisely. Instead of having the Hershey bar, he says, spoon a dollop of chocolate sauce over a piece of angel food cake or scoop of frozen non-fat yogurt (both have less than 1 gram of fat per serving)-and forgo the guilt trip afterward.
Or if it`s potato chips you`re craving? Eat pretzels instead, he advises. A mere 10 chips pack in more than 10 grams of fat, while the fat in the same amount of pretzels isn`t even worth counting.
”Any diet that requires lifelong restraint will fail in the end,” he contends. ”The key behavior modification concept here is selectivity.”
Not that he advises making a habit of pigging out on junk food; the bulk of your diet, he says, should come from high-fiber, complex carbohydrates, such as pasta, potatoes, whole-grain breads. But the operative word here is freedom-not restraint. It`s important to emphasize that, he says, from a psychological standpoint.
He puts no restriction on the amount of just about any vegetable, fruit, grain, pasta, legume or other starchy food you want to eat-so long as it contains no more than 1 gram of fat per serving. That way, he reasons, there`s no reason you should ever have to go hungry; there`s always a low-fat alternative you can fall back on-even if your only source of sustenance is the vending machine.
”Look at how people eat in other parts of the world,” he points out.
”As the carbohydrate-to-fat ratio increases, you get thinner people. The solution`s been staring us in the face all along.” A lifetime approach
Katahn, who lost 75 pounds 26 years ago by changing his eating habits, likes to think of the T-Factor Diet more as a ”healthy lifetime approach to nutrition,” than as a weight-loss plan. Moderate your fat grams, he maintains, and you can throw away your calorie counters forever. And make sure most of the fat you do eat is polyunsaturated or monounsaturated; saturated fats tend to raise body cholesterol levels.
He also recommends beefing up your fiber, because fiber is filling and may provide additional health benefits, such as lowering cholesterol and reducing the likelihood of intestinal cancer.
For women, Katahn suggests sticking to roughly 20 to 40 fat grams a day; for men, 30 to 60 grams per day. Most Americans, he says, are fat because they`re taking in more than 100 fat grams daily. Since each fat gram is worth 9 calories, that means more than 900 calories of their daily caloric intake comes from fat.
And counting fat grams, he says, is easier than counting calories; with so many foods you can partake of freely, there`s not that much to calculate. In his book, Katahn includes a fat and fiber counter for common supermarket items, as well as some fast food selections. (The goal for fiber, he says, is 20 to 40 grams for a woman and as much as 50 for a man.)
There are other more comprehensive guides to nutrient counts on the market; one of the best is ”The Complete Book of Food Counts” by Corinne T. Netzer (Dell, $4.95). It`s also a good idea to get into the habit of reading labels; you`d be amazed at how the fat content of a product can vary from one brand to another..
The fattier the food, the more precise you have to be in measuring it. Take salad dressing, for instance. Since each tablespoon weighs in at about 7 or 8 grams, a generous ladleful-about a quarter of a cup-could blow your entire daily fat-gram allotment.
By the same token, weight loss may occur by simply cutting out a few super-fatty items from your daily diet. Katahn knocked off more than 7 pounds, he claims, just by avoiding cheese and mayonnaise-after realizing that half the fat in his diet was coming from those two items.
How do dietitians rate the T-Factor Diet? Overall, pretty favorably-with a few criticisms. Lately, the American Dietetic Association has cautioned the public that, while very low-calorie diets do promote rapid weight loss, they`re not a magic cure and may pose health risks.
The loss, he says, was slow but sure. And within a few weeks, he found that the low-fat substitutions were second nature. Today, he says he still uses mayonnaise-but he`s content with only a smear as opposed to a dollop.
For those who are in a hurry to see results, he offers a ”Quick-Melt”
plan: a fat and calorie-controlled set of menus that isn`t a lot different from other weight-loss plans that follow dietary recommendations for the public. Exercise, he believes, also helps speed up the fat-burning process tremendously.
