Living Low Carb (52 page)

31. W
OMEN’S
H
EALTH
P
ERFECT
B
ODY
D
IET

C
ASSANDRA
F
ORSYTHE
, MS

WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL

An excellent plan for women that allows you to tailor the dietary component depending on your level of carb sensitivity, which you determine from some very smart questionnaires included in the book. Strong on both dietary information and exercise, and highly recommended.

About Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet

Without a doubt, this is one of the best diet and exercise books ever.

You might think of the
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
as a kind of companion book to the TNT diet (which is more geared to men). It’s no coincidence that the books share a common sensibility, since the author—Cassandra Forsythe—is a close research associate of TNT Diet co-author Jeff Volek at the University of Connecticut. This book is smart, well informed, and practical, and it contains incredibly useful information that reflects a great deal of what we’ve learned about low-carb eating these past years.

It’s easy to see why this book will appeal to women and why it deserves a wide audience. It begins with a foreword from the editor of
Women’sHealth
, Kristina M. Johnson, in which she states clearly the goals they had in mind when deciding to publish a
Women’sHealth
official diet and exercise guide, goals that are likely to appeal to a lot of women:

•  The
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
should be custom-fit for every woman. (“After all,” she adds, “hormonally speaking, our bodies vary tremendously. I want the best plan for
me
.”)

•  The
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
should make me feel strong. Not weak. Not starving.

•  The
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
should be easy to maintain as a permanent lifestyle change. (“Studies show that 95 percent of dieters gain back the weight they lose within 1–5 years,” she adds. “Give me something I can stick to for life.”)

If these goals interest you, read on, because Cassandra Forsythe’s book delivers on its promise.

The “diet” is actually
two
distinct dietary plans. Forsythe recognizes that we’re hormonally and metabolically different, and that some people are good at metabolizing sugar (carbohydrates) and some aren’t. Carbohydrates are particularly detrimental for women who don’t metabolize them well, Forsythe correctly explains. “Too many carbs actually slow down your fat-burning furnace so that your metabolism is not running as hot as possible,” she says.

A clue to which group you’re in (and which diet plan to follow) is found by looking at your body shape. You’ve probably heard about “apples” and “pears,” a common way of describing body types that focuses on where your fat is stored. “Apples” are rounder and tend to store their fat around the middle. “Pears” are bottom-heavy and tend to store their weight around the butt and thighs. To this well-known dyad, Forsythe offers a third body type—“avocados.” These are folks who could go either way (more on this in a moment).

It’s pretty well known at this point that there are some people who absolutely thrive on a vegetarian diet while others drag around all day feeling tired all the time; and some people absolutely thrive on a highprotein diet while others feel bloated and heavy. Clearly there are huge individual and metabolic differences in how we respond and adapt to different diet strategies. Your body type—apple or pear—actually says a lot about your metabolism and suggests what kind of dietary program you’ll respond best to.

To decide which of the two dietary plans to follow, you take an ingenious test for “Carbohydrate Intolerance.” The test is simple. There are two breakfasts—a high-carb breakfast and a low-carb breakfast. On the first day (say, Monday), you eat the high-carb breakfast; on the second (Tuesday), you eat the low-carb one. At 6 timed intervals after eating breakfast, you simply answer a series of easy questions relating to how you feel—your energy, your mood, your hunger, and so forth. (The whole process of answering the 10 questions probably takes less than 2 minutes, so even filling out the quiz six times is a time commitment of less than 15 minutes!) On Wednesday, you eat your regular breakfast and go about your business. You repeat the process on Thursday (high-carb breakfast) and Friday (low-carb breakfast) just to confirm the results, and you take an average of your scores for high-carb and low-carb days. (Incidentally, though the process may sound involved as you read this, trust me, it’s simplicity itself and takes very little time.)

Once you discover your level of carb intolerance, you’re ready to begin the program. (Incidentally, there’s nothing like actually experiencing the comparison between how you
feel
with a high-carb breakfast versus how you feel with a low-carb one. Experiencing it for yourself is better than any theoretical explanation, and will help motivate you to stick with the plan that’s best for your metabolism.)

Apples are also more likely to score higher on the “carb-intolerant” scale and should start on the Greens and Berries Plan (see below). Pears, on the other hand, can usually tolerate relatively higher levels of carbs, and should begin on the Grains and Fruit Plan (see below). Those avocados among you who could go either way will learn a lot from doing the 5-day breakfast test, and it will be pretty clear which plan to start on. The good news is that you really can’t go wrong on either plan; and if one doesn’t quite work, you can adjust it toward the other.

The Greens and Berries Diet (best for apples) is the one that’s lowest in carbs, most of which come from—as you might expect—green vegetables and berries.

Here are the specifics:

The Greens and Berries Diet (for Apple Shapes)

The Grains and Fruits Diet is similar to the Zone in its distribution of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, and it allows for some grains and a wider variety of fruit.

Here are the specifics:

The Grains and Fruit Diet (for Pear Shapes)

Two things become immediately apparent, both of them good. One, there’s a
range
of recommended percentages, allowing for some flexibility within the plans and discouraging too obsessive an approach to meal planning. Two, both plans have considerably fewer carbohydrates than the average American diet, and considerably fewer than the usual amount recommended across the board by organizations like the American Dietetic Association.

And that’s good news.

There’s one more secret ingredient in the Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet: glucomannan. Never heard of it? Read on.

If you skip ahead to
chapter 9
, Supplements and Diet Drugs, you’ll notice that there’s one single supplement that trumps all the others when it comes to weight loss: fiber. And that’s exactly what glucomannan is. “It makes your stomach full without adding any extra calories to your diet, and it’s an indispensable tool for helping you stick to the Perfect Body Diet,” Forsythe says.

The benefits of fiber are legion, and I recount some of them in
chapter 9
. Suffice it to say that using glucomannan is a terrific idea. It’s the most soluble fiber found in nature: it can expand to 100 times its own water weight, helping you to eat fewer calories and feel full longer. The book tells you exactly how to add this super fiber to your diet easily. Come to think of it, supplementation with fiber from glucomannan isn’t a bad idea for people on
any
diet.

The book also contains an excellent exercise section for strength-building and toning that is photographed and described well.

Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet as a Lifestyle: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere

This is an all-around excellent fitness-and-diet book for women, probably one of the best I’ve ever seen. While there are very good exercise-andfitness books around, many of them are lacking in the kind of thorough, well-thought-out and scientifically accurate nutrition program that
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
offers. Similarly, many good nutrition books are a little light on the exercise component. This one has both, and, as such, it’s hard to think of a woman who wouldn’t benefit.

JONNY’S LOWDOWN
  

A smart, well-written, scientifically accurate program that takes into account individual differences and offers two distinct plans, depending on your level of carb intolerance. Both plans are excellent, with one plan being a little higher in carbs than the other. Both plans permit some flexibility within the ranges of the recommended amounts of protein, carbs, and fat, and should appeal to people wanting to individualize their programs.

The exercise program is terrific, the explanations are clear, and the information about both nutrition and exercise is first-rate. I especially like the way they make use of the fiber supplement glucomannan and integrate it into the program. Bonus points for an excellent recipe section.

32. Y
OU
: O
N A
D
IET

M
EHMET
C. O
Z
, MD
AND
M
ICHAEL
F. R
OIZEN
, MD

WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL

A good solid all-purpose book on eating and exercise by two of the most respected doctors in America. While it’s not a low-carb approach by any means, it’s an eating plan that is light-years better than the typical American diet. Benefits from the extremely user-friendly, conversational tone of these best-selling authors.

About YOU: On a Diet

The first thing you need to know about
YOU: On a Diet
is that the “
Diet
” part is far less central to this book than the “
YOU
” part. In fact, if you’re looking for the actual “diet,” you won’t find it until
chapter 12
, the very last chapter in the book, which should give you an idea of its importance (not very). Far more central to the book’s mission is to teach you what you need to know about how your body works, how it gains (and loses) both fat and health, and what you can do to tip the scales in the right direction.

YOU: On A Diet
is one of a fabulously successful series of
“YOU:
” books by the fabulously successful Mehmet Oz, MD (he of
Oprah
fame) and his writing partner, Michael Roizen, MD. (The others are
YOU: The Owner’s Manual
,
YOU: Staying Young
, and some assorted spin-offs like the
YOU: Staying Young Workout
.) All the books seem to go immediately to the Amazon best-seller list, where they take up permanent residence. Unlike many other popular publishing mega-hits, they actually deserve their success.

Mehmet Oz is the Suze Orman of health (or perhaps it’s the other way around—Suze Orman is the Mehmet Oz of financial advice). He has a way of breaking stuff down for you and making even complex processes fun to read about and interesting. He’s one of the smartest doctors I know, he’s frighteningly credentialed (Harvard University grad, a cardiothoracic surgeon and professor of cardiac surgery at Columbia University, founder of the Complementary Medicine Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and holder of an MBA from Wharton School of Business, which one assumes he picked up in his “spare time”), and he has a gift for communication, a great sense of humor, and a terrific writing style. He’s not stuffy or pompous, and—possibly most important of all—he’s a gifted healer. I have nothing but respect for Dr. Oz and consider him a national treasure.