Chapter One
Calorie Counting: Count Your Way Down, Then Back Up the Scale
How many times have you stood in front of your closet and completely ignored anentire section of clothing? Before I discovered the Somersize solution, I wouldstand in front of my crammed closet and think to myself, "Someday I'll fitinto my skinny clothes again." My clothes spanned three to four sizes, mysuper-skinny clothes, my normal clothes, my need-to-lose-5-pounds clothes, andmy fat clothes. When an important event was pending, I would muster up thewillpower to go on a strict diet to get down to that "skinny" outfit.
My diets always consisted of severely cutting down on calories — adhering tominuscule portions of tasteless food. Or I'd eat diet food supplements likeshakes or prepackaged food with the consistency of cardboard. I got results, butI suffered! I would lose the weight, but how I missed my dear friend, deliciousfood! How I missed preparing wonderful meals for myself and my family. (Well,c'mon, if I was going to suffer you don't think I could watch my husband, Alan,indulge around every corner!)
I would get down to my "skinny" clothes for the date I needed to lookmy best, and then I would go home and reward myself with a feast of all theglorious treats I'd been missing. I'd make roast chicken with gravy, mashedpotatoes loaded with butter and cream, and vegetables tossed in butter andParmesan cheese. And since I hadn't eaten sweets for soooooo long, I'd bake asinful chocolate cake and devour two large pieces (plus a few extra forkfuls asI was cleaning the kitchen).
Of course, I would vow to get right back to a "healthy" way of eatingso that I would not destroy all the progress I had made. I wouldn't stay on thestrict diet, but I would try to eat balanced meals like a "normal"person. Before too long I'd find myself creeping from the skinny clothes intothe normal clothes. I wasn't eating that much! Why was the weight coming back sofast? When I could no longer squeeze my way into my normal clothes I'd graduateto my need-to-lose-5-pounds clothes. Then I'd either start another diet, or moveon into my fat clothes.
The cycle continued, year after passing year. I was never obese, but once I hitforty, I seemed to have a constant battle with my weight, a battle that spannedabout 15 pounds. I knew I was to blame. I had no willpower. If only I had theappetite of a bird, then I could always be thin. If only I could resistdelectable butter sauces and chocolate brownies. If only I could survive on astarvation diet. If only I could devote three hours a day to exercising. But,no. I was lazy and without conviction, and my fat clothes and I would have tolive with the consequences.
Now I realize I could not have been more wrong. I was not to blame. And neitherare you. Ninety-five percent of us who go on diets gain back all the weight andoften more. Why? Are we all just lazy slobs with no willpower? Conventionaldieting in the past few decades has presumed that cutting calories andincreasing activity level is the key to weight loss. We've all tried it andsucceeded for limited periods of time, but cutting calories is only a temporaryweight loss solution. It is also a potentially dangerous weight loss solution.
SENDING YOUR BODY INTO SURVIVAL INSTINCT
Here's what happens physiologically when you reduce your calorie intake. Let'ssay your body is used to 1,500 calories a day and you reduce your intake to1,000 a day. Since your body is used to running on 1,500 calories a day, it mustmake up for the missing fuel source first by burning off your glycogen andprotein stores. (Glycogen is stored with water, and therefore weighs more thanfat. The scale may reflect a substantial weight loss due mostly to the loss ofwater, not fat. That's what the term water weight means.) After your glycogenand protein stores have been depleted, then your body will begin to burn offyour fat reserves to provide you with enough energy to get you through the day.This initial burning of fuel is why you will lose weight when you cut yourcalories. After this initial weight loss, many of us reach that frustratingplateau. We're still counting every calorie, yet we've stopped losing weight.Why won't our damn bodies cooperate? It's survival instinct. As our glycogen andprotein stores are being depleted, our metabolism will actually slow down tokeep us from starving to death. Your body adapts to survive on less fuel than itneeded before. Plus, your new lower metabolism means you have a slower-runningmachine-quite simply, less energy to get through the day, leaving you tired andlistless!
Sound familiar? Tired, deprived, and a halt in weight loss. These are all thetrappings of a low-calorie diet. But it gets even worse. Your body recognizesthat it's not getting enough food, so it starts to store away a portion of thefood. It may use, say, 800 calories for fuel and store 200 as fat for later use.So even though you're still living on poached chicken, rice cakes, and celerysticks, you may actually start to gain a couple pounds. That's when thedeprivation outweighs the results and we feast on any and every morsel we canget our hands on. It gets worse still. By cutting our calories in the firstplace, we have forced our bodies to slow down our metabolism, so our bodyactually needs fewer calories to survive than it did before the diet. When yougo back to eating your previously "normal" 1,500 calories a day, yourbody will have an excess of fuel, because it has adapted to survive on 800calories a day. That leaves 700 calories that could be stored as fat for lateruse! That's why we gain all the weight back and then a little extra-it's our newlower metabolism, all thanks to cutting back on those calories.
Cutting calories lowers our metabolism and puts our bodies on an unhealthy dietroller coaster with physical and emotional ups and downs that all of us wouldlike to eliminate. Somersizing will help you heal your ailing metabolism. Iswear to you, you will never have to diet again. All you need to do is commit tothis simple and delicious lifestyle and you will reprogram your metabolism. Mycloset is no longer stuffed with a spectrum of variously sized clothes. I havemy skinny clothes and my skinny clothes and I have Somersizing to thank for it.And guess what? I still eat roast chicken (including the skin!) smothered withmouthwatering gravy. I still cover my vegetables with butter and Parmesancheese. I still eat salad with real dressing. I just stay away from thepotatoes. And occasionally I still treat myself to sinful chocolate cake.
THE SIMPLE WAY TO MELT AWAY
In this book, I'll show you how you can eat sinfully rich foods, in abundantportions, in a way that reprograms your metabolism to burn fat and give you aconstant source of energy. Level One is the weight loss portion of the program.I'll explain the specifics later on in this book, but here's the basic overview.First I eliminate a small list of foods that wreak havoc on our systems, likesugar, white flour, and potatoes, and then I eat normal everyday foods incombinations that aid in digestion and weight control. In order to increase yourmetabolism, you must eat food! I eat whenever I am hungry. I do not skimp onportions. I eat until I am full and I never skip meals.
Here's how it works. I have taken readily available foods and categorized theminto four Somersize groups:
ProFats: Includes proteins like meat, poultry, fish, and eggs, and fats in theirnatural state like oil, butter, cream, and cheese.
Veggies: Includes a whole host of low-starch, fresh vegetables, from artichokesto peppers to zucchini and more.
Carbos: Includes whole-grain pastas, cereals, breads, beans, and nonfat dairyproducts.
Fruits: Includes a huge variety of fresh fruits, from apples to peaches totangerines and more.
The group of foods I eliminate are called Funky Foods, because they don't fitinto any of the four Somersize Food Groups.
Funky Foods: Includes sugars, highly starchy foods, caffeine, and alcohol. (Youwill find complete lists of all of these food groups in the following chapters.)
Here are the basic guidelines of Level One, the weight loss portion of myprogram.
SEVEN EASY STEPS TO SOMERSIZING
1. Eliminate all Funky Foods.
2. Eat Fruits alone, on an empty stomach.
3. Eat ProFats with Veggies.
4. Eat Carbos with Veggies.
5. Keep ProFats separate from Carbos.
6. Wait three hours between meals if switching from a ProFats meal to a Carbosmeal, or vice versa.
7. Do not skip meals. Eat at least three meals a day, and eat until you feelsatisfied and comfortably full.
Seven easy steps. These seven easy steps are your ticket to freedom. Freedomfrom the diet roller coaster, and freedom from the extra weight that surroundsthe skinny person inside you. As long as you follow all of the Level Oneguidelines, you may eat until you are full and still lose weight. That's thehonest truth. Nowhere in this book will you read that you have to mix powders ortake pills or count calories and fat grams, or fast for the first week. Justfollow these seven easy steps, enjoy delicious flavorful foods without evergoing hungry, and you will reprogram your metabolism to help you lose weight andgain energy.
I know this sounds too good to be true, but millions of Somersizers can't bewrong. They have lost weight and still get to eat all they want every day. Takea look at what you might eat in a sample day if you are Somersizing. You couldstart your morning with a piece of fruit, then have a shower and follow up witha bowl of whole-grain cereal with nonfat milk. For lunch you might choose alarge Caesar salad with chicken and a side of sautéed vegetables sprinkledwith Parmesan cheese. In the afternoon you could decide to snack on fresh fruitor a hard-boiled egg. For dinner, try a green salad with blue cheese dressing, abig juicy steak, a side of broccoli . . . covered with cheese sauce if you likeand even a bowl of my sugar-free Vanilla Bean Ice Cream made with my miraculousnew SomerSweet. No deprivation here.
The magic to losing weight while eating such rich food is correctly combiningthe foods you eat at every meal. Your perfectly combined steak dinner could beinstantly destroyed by eating a potato and a white roll with it, or having aplate of fruit for dessert. Fruit should not be combined with other foodsbecause it causes gas and bloating and may upset the digestive process of otherfoods. We keep proteins and fats separate from the carbos. But you do enjoywhole-grain carbos on the Somersize plan when eaten at the right times-they areespecially great in the morning, with nonfat dairy products. What a perfectenergy boost for the beginning of the day!
Overall, look at the balance of foods-we eat plenty of fresh fruit andvegetables to provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals; we get whole-graincarbohydrates for energy and additional fiber; and we supply our bodies with theprotein and fat from meat and dairy products that is so essential to our goodhealth. By eating real foods instead of processed and refined foods, we aresupplying our bodies with the building materials they need to keep us healthyand youthful-not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. There isnothing healthy about replacing real food with fat-free products that look likereal food, except for the absence of any nutritional benefit!
When Somersizing, you are eating delicious foods, in combinations that make yourdigestive system run like clockwork. Food is digested smoothly and efficiently.Your body extracts what it needs and discards the remainder while you melt awaypounds and have more energy than ever before. And because it's so easy to eatthis way, you can easily dine in just about any restaurant, and you can preparemeals for yourself by using any of my Somersize recipes or creating Somersizefavorites of your own. Simple. Effective. Incredible!
Later on, when you reach your goal weight, you will graduate to Level Two, themaintenance portion of the program. We loosen the reins a bit and show you howto Somersize for the rest of your life, without your weight fluctuating morethan a couple of pounds.
That's the basic overview of the program. For those of you who did not read myfirst two books, Eat Great, Lose Weight, and Get Skinny on Fabulous Food, youare probably still skeptical. I understand. We have been so brainwashed intothinking a low-fat, low-calorie diet is the only way to safely lose weight thatany program contrary to that notion sounds like quackery. I promise I will notlead you astray. I have always believed that my program is safe and effectivebecause I gathered information from many doctors and nutritionists whilecreating it. But this information is on the cutting edge and not universallyaccepted. Now, because of Dr. Schwarzbein's additional clinical research onsugar and fat, I have more medical research to back it up. Not only isSomersizing safe and effective, it is essential to our health. Please don'tconfuse my program with other high-protein diets that severely restrict certainfood groups, like fruit and carbohydrates. Somersizing is a balanced plan thatensures you get all the necessary nutrients and building blocks your body needsin order to thrive. Your body will love it from the inside out.
Excerpt
Sample Recipes from Suzanne Somers' Eat, Cheat, and Melt the Fat Away.
Grilled Onion Frittata
ProFats and Veggies — Level One
Serves Six
I love frittatas; they’re like omelettes, but lighter and fluffier. Thisone is made with grilled onions and Parmesan cheese.
1 red onion, cut into 8 equal-size wedges
1 yellow onion, cut into 8 equal-size wedges
12 teaspoon salt
14 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
14 cup olive oil
10 eggs
14 cup heavy cream
12 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine onions and olive oil and toss to coat well.
Preheat a grill pan over high heat. Arrange onion wedges on grill pan and cookuntil browned and tender underneath, about 5 minutes. Turn onions over and cookuntil very tender, 5-7 minutes more. Brush with more oil as needed.
In a large bowl beat eggs and cream until blended. Stir in cheese, salt, andpepper until smooth.
In a 10-inch braiser or ovenproof frying pan over medium low heat, melt butter.Add rosemary and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Pour egg mixture into pan and foldgently to combine rosemary and eggs. Arrange grilled onions over top of eggs.
Transfer pan to oven and bake until frittata is golden brown and puffy, about12-15 minutes.
Note.
If you do not have an ovenproof frying pan, transfer egg mixture into an 8-inchnon-stick cake pan and bake as directed.
Israeli Salad
Veggies — Level One
My friend Tuvia was born in Israel and loves all the good things in life. Onesummer weekend, while he and his wife, Kristi, were visiting our beach home, hemade this salad and now it is a favorite. Kirby or Persian cucumbers are thesmall little pickling cucumbers. They have a great favor but if you can’tfind them, you can substitute regular cucumbers. For a Carbos and Veggies meal,serve with grilled crusty multigrain bread. For a ProFats and Veggies meal, adda great-quality extra-virgin olive oil. If you have the oil and the bread, itbecomes Level Two.
6-7 Kirby or Persian cucumbers (or 1 regular cucumber)
4-5 tomatoes, seeded
1 green bell pepper, seeded
3 scallions
4 radishes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Finely dice all the vegetables into a uniform size. Toss with salt and pepper.Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.
Continues...
Excerpted from Suzanne Somers' Eat, Cheat, and Melt the Fat Awayby Suzanne Somers Copyright © 2003 by Suzanne Somers. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
