The Belly Fat Buster

Posted: Tuesday 12 October 2010 12:03pm

Jorge Cruise used to be 18kg overweight. Today he is internationally recognised as a health expert for busy people and is the author of three consecutive New York Times bestselling series with more than five million books in print. The following is an except from his latest book: The Belly Fat Cure*.

Would you like to lose as much as  1kg (even more) a week before the festive season kicks off – without dieting?

For years, experts have told you that you’re overweight because you eat too much and don’t exercise enough. They were wrong. The truth is that you are eating too much sugar.

Here’s a fact: we consume more than 47 teaspoons of sugar each day – that’s about 189 grams a day. Research has shown that before the Industrial Revolution, around 200 years ago, daily consumption of sugar was some 15 grams.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets; but when you eat too much sugar, or what are technically called “caloric sweeteners” (sugar from cane or beet, corn syrup, fruit juice, or even milk), you develop belly fat in one primary way.

Consuming sugar and refined carbs affects one of the most critical hormones in your body: insulin. Insulin is produced by your pancreas to manage your blood sugar and control the accumulation of fat, especially around your waistline.

According to Nobel prize-winning physicist Rosalyn Yalow, co-inventor of the first accurate test used to measure insulin in the bloodstream, insulin is the “the primary regulator of fat tissue.” Increased levels of insulin will make you fat and make sure you stay fat.

Research published in The European Molecular Biology Organization Journal determined that insulin is probably the most important hormonal factor influencing the creation of fat, or what is scientifically called lipogenesis.

In the book Transcend, my friends Ray Kurzweil and Dr Terry Grossman used a scary visual to describe what happens to your blood when you consume too much sugar and it gets converted into fat – they suggested that your blood actually turns into a “pink cream.”

Imagine the most vital fluid in your body turning to a gooey glob that can barely get through your veins (yes, this can lead to problems other than belly fat; namely, high blood pressure and increased risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes).

If you’re a healthy person, this fat in your blood may filter out in a few hours, but if you have diabetes or are pre-diabetic, it could linger in your blood even longer or never go away.

Even in healthy individuals, this fat still has to go somewhere, and it’s most likely going to get deposited in abdominal fat cells.

Once the fat in your blood (otherwise known as triglycerides) gets locked into your fat cells, they actually have to be broken down before they can move out and become usable energy. Insulin plays an important role here as well by preventing the triglycerides from breaking down. It wants to make sure that the fat stays put. And it does.

Only when insulin disappears for a while can this fat escape from the cell to be used. That’s the primary way stored fat is released. Your insulin levels absolutely have to be low.

What’s vitally important to understand is that not all foods trigger the same type of insulin response. Fats and proteins, for example, don’t ever significantly drive up your insulin level. Sugar and processed carbs, on the other hand, cause a rapid and dramatic increase in insulin levels, which directly causes your body to store fat.

Sugar consumption can also lead to a condition known as “insulin resistance,” which by itself drives up insulin levels and keeps them up.

Various breakthrough studies done at Harvard University over the past decade have clearly shown that the main reason you have “belly fat” is that you’ve been eating too much sugar and processed carbohydrates, which keep your insulin levels chronically high, not because you’ve been eating too much fat or protein. It’s that simple.

To paraphrase George Cahill, a former professor of medicine at Harvard and an expert on insulin: “Carbohydrates [sugars] is driving insulin is driving fat.” Does this mean you can eat a whole cow or 10 sticks of butter because it won’t trigger insulin production? No. You need to use common sense.

But the good news is that proteins and fats satiate your hunger fast, so it’s almost impossible to overeat them.

My top pick for proteins are almost always lean meats. My top picks for fats are those that come from egg yolks, raw butter, extra-virgin olive oil, flax oil, or fish oil – and never dangerous hydrogenated oils.

When you reduce your intake of sugar and processed carbs, you’ll ensure that you keep your insulin response low. Plus, the great news is you’ll begin to lose belly fat and have a flat belly for Christmas.

* From The Belly Fat Cure by Jorge Cruise (Hay House, RRP $29.95), available at leading  retailers. Visit www.hayhouse.com.au for more information.

by Jenni Gilbert

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