The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution: The Best Eating Plan to Control Your Weight and Improve Your Health for Life (A DASH Diet Book)

by Marla Heller

start making meals and snacks that are rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, dairy, and additional protein-rich foods such as eggs, lean meat and poultry, seafood, and beans, along with heart-healthy fats.

A meal or snack high in starch and/or sugar will make you feel satisfied for a short time, but will t...

Don’t Lose Weight, Lose Fat! If you are trying to lose weight, you only want to lose fat, not muscle. Losing muscle slows your metabolism. By choosing the right foods, you can maintain your muscle (or minimize muscle loss) and reduce fat in unwanted places, especially around your waist. Belly fat is unhealthy fat symptomatic of storing excess carbs in your abdomen, particularly if you are unable to process glucose as well as you should. The more fat you gain in your belly, the more likely you are to lose the ability to make enough insulin to clear glucose out of your blood quickly enough to avoid even more fat storage. And you could be on your way to type 2 diabetes. With the Med-DASH plan, you are going to learn how to reverse the fat storage machine of your abdomen and how to avoid losing the ability to produce sufficient insulin. In doing so, you will also lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, and some kinds of cancer. You will relearn how to eat. You will be more satisfied with each meal or snack, and cravings will become a thing of the past. Exercise (or movement, for a more positive image) will also be pleasurable; you won’t be forced to join a boot camp or do three hundred crunches, lunges, or planks (unless of course that is something you really enjoy). You will choose healthy movement that is fun for you, activities that are pleasurable. Your heart will become stronger, your muscles and bones will become stronger, your everyday activities will become easier. Y...

The glycemic load has been shown to support weight loss in people who were not in clinical trials, and free to choose their own foods and quantities.5

In the OMNICarb study, it was found that the DASH diet was effective regardless of the glycemic index of the individual foods.

6

Becoming more physically active is also a key component of the program.

Phytochemicals These are compounds made by plants that protect the plants from their environment. Most are not technically nutrients, but they do include powerful antioxidants, which can protect us as well. In the body, some of the carotenoids such as beta-carotene can be converted into vitamin A.

It turns out that over 90 percent of your serotonin is produced in the intestinal tract, as opposed to in the brain (who knew?).1

Without fiber in the diet, the cells in your intestines may atrophy.

Soluble fiber will ferment in the large intestines and produce gases, some of which are beneficial but some of which have no currently known benefits.

Both prebiotic and probiotic solutions can promote better metabolic health by helping to reduce inflammatory digestive by-products.

Beneficial plant substances called polyphenols, in addition to being antioxidants, can also enrich the beneficial mix of the microbiota.3 Rich sources of polyphenols include fruits, vegetables, seeds, whole grains, and herbs, and beverages derived from plants, such as coffee, tea, cocoa, and wine (or grape juice for nondrinkers).

Prebiotics and Probiotics Prebiotics are substances that promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. They include fermentable fiber (most types of soluble fiber) and supplements such as fructooligosaccharides (FOS). A high-sugar or high-starch diet promotes the overgrowth of harmful bacteria. Prebiotics help support the development of a healthier mix of bacteria to reverse the problem. Probiotics are beneficial organisms, such as the Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus microbes in yogurt and the Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidus in acidophilus milk (milk fermented with these bacteria), each of which can help develop a healthy mix of intestinal bacteria. Beneficial bacteria can also be obtained through probiotic supplements.

Polyphenols: Flavenols Examples: Quercetin Good Food Sources: Onions, garlic, broccoli, tea, apples, wine Polyphenols: Flavenones and flavonones Examples: Good Food Sources: Citrus fruits (oranges, grapefruits, lemons, etc.) Polyphenols: Flavones Examples: Good Food Sources: Parsley, tea, chamomile, mints, citrus fruits, carrots, celery, olives, lettuce Polyphenols: Isoflavones Examples: Genistein Good Food Sources: Soy Polyphenols: Flavanols Examples: Catechins Good Food Sources: Fruits, tea, wine, chocolate Polyphenols: Anthocyanins Examples: Good Food Sources: Blue-red fruits and vegetables, including blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, red cabbage, radishes Polyphenols: Phenolic acids Examples: Good Food Sources: Whole grains, wine, berries Polyphenols: Stilbenes Examples: Resveratrol Good Food Sources: Red grapes, wine, strawberries, peanuts Polyphenols: Lignans Examples: Good Food Sources: Fruits and vegetables, tea, coffee, whole grains, flax Table 4

Some Foods Rich in Antioxidants Apples, bananas, blueberries, broccoli, cauliflower, dark chocolate, garlic, grapefruit, kidney beans, lettuce, onions, oranges, peaches, peas, potatoes and sweet potatoes, raspberries, red and green cabbage, red grapes, red plums, red wine, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes

Dangerous Nutrition Myths

Eat 11 or 12 servings of grains each day.

Juicing and smoothies are a great way to get fruits and veggies into your diet.

Protein bars are great meal or snack replacements.

Small changes are best.

Americans eat too much protein.

Weight loss is the goal of your diet.

It’s in my genes to be heavy [or to have heart disease, or diabetes, etc.].

Nobody needs to lose weight.

You need to count calories to stay on track.

To lose weight, just reduce your calorie intake and exercise more to give a 500-calorie-per-day deficit.

The Countdown on Calories Is a calorie a calorie? Almost all diet doctors will tell you that your weight is based on “calories in and calories out.” They will tell you that the first law of thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, you can’t make or destroy energy. (We measure energy by calories.) However, it has been misinterpreted to mean that the only key issues for weight loss are calorie intake versus calorie burning. But it is not that simple. First, the human body is not a closed system. Our metabolism is very complicated. Even our gut microbiome can influence how much of our food is digested and absorbed, and therefore how much energy we derive from it. Not all sources of calories are equal. Protein consumes more energy when it is metabolized than do carbs.2 Furthermore, the old philosophy ignores that free-living people (i.e., those not cooped up in a metabolic lab) eat according to their own wishes. A large part of that has to do with how satisfying the food is, and how long it keeps you feeling satisfied.

Losing weight is just based on calories in, calories out.

All foods can fit.

But it’s healthy!

Eat Less, Move More (ELMM).

If you want different results, you need to do things differently. Oops! This one is really hard for many people. It can be very difficult to give up all these myths that you were told would make you healthier. For some people, it’s the smoothies or the protein bars that will be difficult to change. For others, it’s adding foods with heart-healthy fats instead of always choosing fat-free foods. They may believe it will be impossible to survive without their old ideas, which have become the bedrock foundation of how they eat. If you are here to get different results and adopt a new way of eating, let’s give it a try and move forward.

Eat to satisfy hunger and stay full longer. We are going to learn about a new way of eating that will make it so easy to stay on track. You will love this new style of eating and will be amazed at how far off track all your old ideas were. I love it when readers complain that they have trouble eating all the foods included in a typical day on the Med-DASH plan. That happens when you have lots of veggies and fruits, eat enough protein, and avoid reduced-fat foods. People get full. When was the last time you heard this about a diet plan? Never?

Focus on what to include, not what to limit. Traditionally, diet books have focused on what to avoid. Bad foods. Excess calories. Scrap that! How much more fun will it be to focus on what you want to include, not what you want to limit? What could be better than fresh foods? Delicious, beautiful food, with a Mediterranean overlay. Italy, Greece, Spain, southern France, Morocco, and the coastal regions of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. This is where the Slow Food movement isn’t just a trend but a way of life...

Follow a lifelong eating pattern. It is great to find a healthy eating plan. But what good does that do you if you can’t sustain it for the long run, if you are hungry a half hour after you’ve eaten, if you or your family don’t really like the foods on the plan, or if it doesn’t fit into your lifestyle? The Med-DASH plan is going to chan...

Focus on Your Mo...

There are all kinds of motivations for getting started on a new plan. But first, you need to think about what you are willing to do. If you set your expectations super high, you may disappoint yourself if you can’t be perfect, quickly. If your goal is to add more cardiovascular (aerobic) activity to your day, you don’t start by trying to run a marathon. Obviously, this would set you up for failure. But can you walk for 10 minutes? Or maybe a half hour? That would be a great start.

You want to set realistic expectations, which are achievable. Focus on your actions rather than the outcomes you are expecting.

you will learn strategies to make the Med-DASH plan work for your whole family. This plan will set the stage for your success.

Fats, proteins, and carbs are known as macronutrients, and they are the nutrients that provide calories.

Since we are focusing on whole foods instead of individual components, we are also going to learn a little about some of the non-caloric, non-macronutrient components that accompany these healthy foods.

DASH and Mediterranean diet foods are rich in nutrients and other components that help to make us healthy.

Another benefit of fats is that they help with the absorption of certain key vitamins, the fat-soluble ones, like vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin K. The very important antioxidants, carotenoids, are also fat soluble. They include beta-carotene (the orange in carrots and the provitamin converted to vitamin A in the body), lutein (a pale yellow in sweet corn, and found in especially high levels in spinach), lycopene (the red color from tomatoes), and zeathanthin (a red-orange compound found in high amounts in leafy green vegetables, among others).

There are three main categories of fats, monounsaturated (MUFA), polyunsaturated (PUFA), and saturated fatty acids (SFA).

so which fats should we choose?

Olive oil:

Fish oils:

Flaxseed:

Monounsaturated fats (MUFA) are a key part of the Mediterranean diet.