New Nutritional Pyramid For Weight Loss

USDA Food Guide Pyramid

Have you ever really looked at the US Government Food Guide Pyramid?

It has bread, cereal, rice and pasta on the bottom (6-11 servings.) Then fruit (2-4 servings) and veggies. Then meat and milk. Then fats and oils.

Now, with the current state of obesity -- over half of the adult U.S. population overweight -- let's take a look at how this nutritional pyramid is constructed.

Dietary guidelines?

OK. Why is that nutritional pyramid made the way it is? Is it because you need 11 servings of bread and grains per day?

Isn't 6-11 servings of bread and cereals a lot? They answer this exact question on the USDA website, and their simple answer is, "It may sound like a lot, but it's really not."

It's not a lot? Let's take a look. A serving of the category Bread, Cereal, Rice and Pasta is "1 slice of bread, 1 ounce of ready-to-eat cereal or 1/2 cup of cooked cereal, rice or pasta."

Eleven servings is over half a loaf of bread.

Is the government saying this is the optimum nutritional intake?

The politics of food

The US Food Guide Pyramid is not just a nutritional document. It is a political document.

The United States has 62 million acres of wheat. That's a lot of wheat.

And the food guidelines help to answer this question, "How are we going to sell all this wheat?"

But that doesn't help you, because you need to lose weight. By the way, do you know how they fatten cattle? Look on the label. It says "grain fed beef."

So what makes a good diet?

Is it a bagel and creamcheese? A bagel -- that's your grains food group. Creamcheese -- that's dairy.

How about a fruit smoothie? Plenty of good fruit!! Fruit is diet food, no?

OK, listen. I know a lady who is trying to lose weight. And she was telling me what she ate for breakfast. Chicken nuggets from the drive-through.

Why? Because it was chicken -- and chicken is healthy. She knew that. And she needed to lose weight.

So, can YOU lose weight with bagel, creamcheese, fruit smoothies, and chicken nuggets? The answer to that is a big fat...

No. Sorry. Can't be done.

Not enough nutrition

Why not? Because it is too many calories and not enough nutrition. Too much carbs. Too much fructose. Not enough protein in the diet. Not enough fiber.

And the chicken nuggets? Deep fried.

Oh, it will keep you alive. But you'll get fatter.

And you'll get sick -- high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and eventually heart disease or strokes and maybe cancer. Yikes!!!

The myth of the "good diet"

I talk to a lot of people about what they eat. They're "doing fine." They're "watching their diet." But for some reason they just can't lose weight.

What's their breakfast? Breakfast for them is cereal, toast, juice.

Add it up. It's almost all bad carbohydrates. Their poor pancreas (the pancreas makes insulin) is crying for help.

They just never learned how to eat to lose weight.

A slow death

I had a man in the hospital the other day. He was 100 pounds overweight. He had abdominal pain.

I asked if he possibly ate something bad. "Oh, no," he said. "I just went to the diner…" He listed what he ate. Orange juice. Hash browns. Toast. Just carbohydrate and oil.

I talked to him about the metabolic syndrome. That's where being overweight causes high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

He thought about it for a while, talked it over with his wife, and he decided to reform. He proudly announced that starting tomorrow he was going to have cream of wheat for breakfast.

Weight loss meals

Well, cream of wheat, in case you don't know, is just about pure carbohydrate. And any meal that is just carbohydrate will cause you to gain weight.

You shouldn't have any meals that are just carbohydrate. That is the last thing you need when you are 100 pounds overweight. You will never get a healthy body fat percentage if you eat like that.

Any time you eat anything you should consider it a meal. Whether it is a sit-down dinner, drive-through food or a snack from the vending machine, it's a meal.

And get this: If you have a small amount of lean protein and some fiber at every meal, your weight problem will start to disappear.

You can build a lean body

Do you want to build a lean body? Then you have to eat lean body food!! That is how you can have successful weight loss.

What is lean body food? Lean protein. Fibrous vegetables.

Some starchy vegetables, too.

And some fruit is OK, but not too much. It's easy to overdo the fruit.

Good healthy oils.

And take your vitamins.

French fries and ketchup

So, you can have some starchy vegetables. That's potatoes, rice, and yams. Those are fine too.

But you need some real vegetables. Green and red and purple vegetables. The kind they ate back on the farm years ago when nearly everyone was lean.

They are the healthy carbs, part of what they call a high complex carbohydrate diet. Are French fries vegetables? The answer to that is...

Sorry, no. French fries are not vegetables. French fries -- and particularly potato chips -- are grease holders. And ketchup is not a vegetable either.

Bread is OK too. But not too much. And a bagel for breakfast? Or a sweet roll and coffee? That's not breakfast!!

Bagels are fat pills.

And a sweet roll can hardly even be considered food. Certainly not part of a good nutritional pyramid.

Is this going to be a bit of adjustment for you? It sure is.

So what should you do?

A new nutritional pyramid

What is a good diet? A good diet is based on foods that you can eat without causing you to gain weight. This makes a stable nutritional pyramid. These are lean protein and non-starchy vegetables.

The lean protein -- that's chicken breast, tuna, turkey, lean pork, carefully selected beef, cold-water fish and egg whites.

The vegetables is this nutritional pyramid are colored -- green, red, purple, yellow. They are full of nutrients, they provide fiber, and you can eat them in unlimited quantities. Lettuce? That's green water. Have all you want.

The power of protein

A healthy nutritional pyramid has these, especially the protein, at every meal. That means every time you eat something you have some good protein with it. And some veggies.

You eat some junk food. You're human -- it happens. But then you eat some chicken breast too, right afterward. Even if you're not hungry, you still eat the chicken breast.

Why? Because chicken breast has lean protein, and protein gives you strength, it gives you energy -- real energy, not that fake sugar high. It's part of a stable nutritional pyramid.

And it gives your body what it needs to digest the junk food. Otherwise the junk food just drains you of nutrition, until you are a blubbery mess.

Lean protein and veggies at every meal. Then starches and whole grains. Some fruit, but not too much. Water. Vitamins. Minerals. A sensible nutritional pyramid that will help you take the weight off.

For real weight loss...

When you're finally ready to lose weight -- if weight loss matters to you -- then you need a copy of Dr. Dan's Super Weight Loss Plan. To get your copy click here now.

It's the complete reference to help you succeed at weight loss.

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