Dr. George Best: Hello, I am Dr. George Best with Best Health and Wellness in San Antonio, Texas. In this video, I am going to talk about a question I commonly hear in practice and also just commonly hear when I'm talking to people and that is, why can't I lose weight.
Well, if you've been trying to lose weight and you've been unsuccessful no matter what you try, I can tell you that it comes down to really two things in most cases. The first is that you're not eating the appropriate diet, you're eating too much of the wrong food, pretty simple. Second part of it is that you're not getting the appropriate exercise for your particular situation, also pretty simple. That's actually it, so I guess I can click out this video and thank you for watching. Actually, I can probably go into a little bit more detail than that. What I am going to do is I am actually -- this is the first of a series of videos on why can't I lose weight.
In this one, I am going to start by discussing the first part of the problem and that is you're eating too much of wrong kind of food. What is wrong kind of food? Well, unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you've probably heard that high carbohydrate intake is a big part of weight gain for a lot of people. A lot of people have heard this and I think they probably believe it but I don't think they really understand it.
For instance, when I get people and then they ask me, doctor, why can't I loose weight, I am doing everything right, I am dieting, I am exercising. I'll certainly be saying, okay, well, tell me what you had for breakfast? They'll say, well, I had a bowl of cereal or maybe they say, I had some donut holes. Most people know that it's not a good diet food. But yeah, they might had some Special K, one that supposed to help you burn the fat or maybe they had a bagel with some cream cheese or something like that. They only think, okay that was not really high in calories, low in fat, it's good.
Then I talk to him and say, well, what you usually have for lunch? Well, I usually get sandwich or something like that, pretty good. What did you had for dinner last night? Oh, let's see, we had some chicken and some mashed potatoes and my wife made some corn baked stuff and to go with the chicken. Okay, yeah. How about what did you had for dessert? Oh, yes, we got some really good ice cream, you should try it, Ben and Jerry is the flavor. What that person is eating is not exactly well in carbohydrates.
We'll take it a step further, what exactly is a low-carbohydrate diet? A lot of people automatically associate low-carbohydrate with Atkins. Atkins is a low-carbohydrate, but also an extremely high fat, high protein diet. The Atkins diet is effective for weight loss for a lot of people at least initially. It's not really a healthy diet, I am just staying on. In fact, even the Atkins diet doesn't recommend you stay on that. What their initial phase is for a long period of time, a lot of people do and they wanted to actually hitting a plateau and then actually gaining weight they are.
But anyway, low-carbohydrate means staying away from things that have sugar in them, staying away from things that made with flour and staying away from anything that's been refined, like white rice that kind of thing. In particular, I recommend people stay away from things that contain sugar and flour because it's tend to be a really big issue.
So, people do eat potatoes, sometimes to excess, sometimes people eat rice to excess, but really the big problem is the grain based products. The things are made with corn, things are made with wheat, things are made with any type of sugary type foods, those are the big issues. Why are these a problem? The main reason why is not because they are high in calories, so I can say, well, I am trying to watch by calorie intake. Well, calorie intake is not as important as you think it is.
I've heard this set over and over again, well a calory is a calorie. That is true in a test tube, that is not true in the body. A calorie from carbohydrate sources is basically the same unit of energy as a calorie from a protein source, but the hormone reactions that occur when you eat a lot of carbohydrates versus when you eat a lot of protein or a lot of fat are totally different. The big difference is in insulin release. Most people have heard of insulin, they know that diabetics have a problem and they need to take insulin, but they don't really understand what insulin is. Insulin is a fat storing hormone. What it does is when you eat a lot of carbohydrates. By release its insulin, insulin triggers the body to take up the excess bone sugar and store it as fat. That's what insulin does.
So, when you are trying to burn fat, the first thing you want to do is avoid triggering a lot of insulin release because not only this insulin store fat, it also inhibits all of the hormones and processes in the body that burn fat. So, when you eat something that triggers a large insulin release, a large insulin release from just one meal or even just one snack if you just have a big piece of chocolate cake or something, the insulin release from one meal is enough to prevent you completely from burning fat for 1-2 days. One meal prevent you from burning fat for 1-2 days, okay, completely, you won't be able to burn fat at all no matter what you do, no matter how hard you exercise, no matter what, I won't burn fat. It'll burn muscle tissue, which is bad, but it won't burn fat.
So, you want to stay away from things that trigger insulin release, where we've already talked about, anything as far you know, anything that's been with wheat corn, anything that has sugar in it. But how much can you get away with it? I think everybody is always looking to scrub the issue. What I recommend for anybody who is really serious about loosing weight is eliminate them altogether. Any carbohydrates that come into your body should be coming in the form of vegetables and to some extent fruits, no wheat products, corn products, no sugar. But for most people who want to cheat, what's the limit? Everyone else knows what exact line they can cross.
Generally speaking, to be able to burn fat effectively, you want to stay under 25 grams of refined carbohydrates per day. How much is 25 grams? If you look at different products, you'll see different things. But just to put in perspective for you, you basically want to keep your carbohydrate intake down to less than what is in a single slice of white bun, standard sandwich bun per day. Yeah, that's not very much, is it?
So that's why I just tell people, eliminate altogether, it's a whole lot simpler. But if you're going to cheat, keep it to a really, really, really small amount. You know we're talking maybe a piece of hard candy a day, you know we're talking, half of a slice of bread, maybe couple of times a day, maybe a quarter cup of cereal, just kind to get the taste of it, if it's flakes and maybe half cup, half cup of natural pasta at a time, you don't want to eat very much.
So that's the basics of you're eating of too much a wrong thing. If you're eating really any carbs at all, you're eating too many, if you're trying to loose weight. Carbs do certain purpose and you do want fiber in those types of things. You can't get fiber from vegetables and fruits and other sources. You need to be eating very fine carbohydrates to get your fiber. So that's basically the story. In the next part of this, I'm going to talk about calorie intake and how eating too few calories can actually sabotage your weight loss.
So, thank you for watching this video and look for part two of, why can't I loose weight here on your favorite video source. Thanks for watching.
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