The 17 Day Diet (6 page)

Like vitamins, minerals play a role in metabolism. But a major difference between the two nutrients is that minerals are constituents of bodily structures, such as bone, cartilage, and teeth, providing their hardness and strength. While vitamins help manufacture these structures, they do not become part of the structures themselves.

The minerals you need daily are found in the 17 Day Diet as follows:

Iron:
Meats, poultry, eggs, green leafy vegetables and fruits.

Calcium:
Yogurt, salmon, green leafy vegetables and broccoli.

Copper:
Meats, shellfish.

Magnesium:
Meats.

Phosphorus:
Meats, poultry, fish.

Potassium:
Fruits and vegetables.

Selenium:
Whole grains, fish and eggs.

Zinc:
Shellfish, meats, whole grains and vegetables.

The Benefits of Bugs

Not the kind you swat, spray or stomp, but the friendly bacteria called probiotics that live in your intestinal tract (hereafter referred to as your gut). You have a hundred trillion bacteria in your gut—ten times the number of cells—across three hundred to five hundred different species, and two hundred of these species can be lethal. This makes us more microbe than man. So you need to make sure you have enough of the good bacteria to ward off the bad.

There are actually two processes going on here. One is the good bacteria help your intestinal wall construct a barrier against the bad bacteria. The second is the good bacteria are like hostage negotiators you see on TV. They talk to the bad bacteria to keep them from starting a fight. The bad bacteria know the good guys mean business, so they drop their weapons and wave white flags.

The good guys do even more: Probiotics may help people lose weight, according to lots of new research that adds to emerging evidence that part of the obesity problem might be an imbalance of bacteria in the gut.

Scientists are still exploring why, but many experts believe that people with certain communities of gut microbes may get more calories from their food and therefore pack on more fat than people with a different set of bugs. If you have a set of very, very efficient bacteria, they’re going to extract every last bit of energy (calories) from what you eat. Manipulating these bacteria by diet or medications, you’d change how many calories you absorb. This may eventually become one approach to fighting obesity.

On the 17 Day Diet you’ll enjoy foods that contain probiotics. These foods help your body digest foods and extract calories. Some types of probiotic foods include yogurt, kefir, miso, tempeh and others.

Fluid Assets

While following the 17 Day Diet, you should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of pure water daily. Drinking this amount of water is essential to weight loss.

First, it just takes up so much space in your tummy that you don’t feel like eating anything else.

Second, water also helps your body metabolize stored fat. Your kidneys can’t function properly without enough water. When kidneys don’t work to capacity, some of their work is dumped onto the liver. One of the liver’s primary functions is to metabolize stored fat into usable energy for the body, but if the liver has to do some of the kidneys’ work, it can’t operate at full capacity. As a result, it metabolizes less fat and more fat remains stored in the body, and weight loss stops.

Water also helps the body get rid of waste during weight loss. During weight loss, the body has a lot more waste to get rid of, and water helps flush it out.

Surprisingly, drinking an ample amount of water is the best treatment for fluid retention. When the body gets less water, it perceives this as a threat to survival and begins to hold on to every drop. Water is then stored outside the cells. This causes swollen feet, legs and hands. The best way to overcome the problem of water retention is to give your body what it needs: plenty of water. Only then will stored water be released.

So drink up. Before long, you’ll be the skinniest person in the bathroom.

BEWARE: Negative Water

T
he following fluids, which I call negative water, do not count toward your must-have daily allotment of water.

Coffee*

Tea*

Diet sodas*

Regular soda

Energy drinks

Juice

Sports drinks (dilute with water—½ water and ½ sports drink if you are an athlete and use these products)

Flavored waters

* Coffee and tea are allowed on the 17 Day Diet, but do not count toward your 8 glasses of water.

Special Mention Fluids: Green Tea and Coffee

For added fat-loss benefits, another beverage of choice is green tea, although it is technically a negative water. Certain natural chemicals called catechins in green tea increase fat-burning and stimulate thermogenesis, the calorie-burning process that occurs as a result of digesting and metabolizing food.

Green tea is also one of the foods that may block angiogenesis (sorry, I have to slip one technical term in here). Angiogenesis refers to a process of blood vessel growth. For example, angiogenesis that builds up a blood supply to tumors can unfortunately make the tumors grow. Scientists have discovered that angiogenesis does the same thing with fat tissue: It creates a blood supply to fat tissue too, so it can grow. Fat tissue and cancer feed on oxygen delivered by these new blood vessels.

There’s excellent science published in the best journals that something in green tea inhibits angiogenesis. The jury is still out on all this, but until we know more, I suggest drinking three cups of green tea a day.

Although doctors should set an example, I confess I’m not much of a green tea drinker. If I’m having a cup, I’m probably in an Asian restaurant. I promise to do better, though, and drink more green tea.

Coffee is also permitted on the 17 Day Diet. The caffeine kicks your metabolism into high gear. Caffeine also jump-starts the breakdown of fat in the body. One to two cups a day is ideal.

MISTER M.D., CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME

Am I allowed to I drink alcohol on the 17 Day Diet?

I knew you’d ask that. Alcohol can actually be good for you. Major studies have concluded that moderate alcohol consumption cuts heart attack risk in half, largely because drinkers have about 15 percent higher levels of HDL cholesterol than nondrinkers, which prevents heart disease by cleansing the blood vessels of fatty buildups. Moderate alcohol means one drink a day: 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer or 1½ ounces of hard liquor.

Although a little alcohol is good for your heart, it’s not that good for your waistline. Alcohol is dehydrating and interferes with fat-burning. The liver works overtime to metabolize the alcohol, so its job of burning fat gets less priority.

Once you get to Cycle 3, it’s fine with me if you have one drink a day. Now, I don’t recommend keeping it at your desk (at least for daytime use), but I do recommend it, especially red wine. One of my hobbies outside of work is enjoying fine red wine. To pursue my passion for drinking and collecting fine red wine, I enjoy attending wine tastings with my friends.

Red wine contains resveratrol (a powerful antioxidant found in grape skin). It turns off a gene for certain inflammatory proteins. These proteins ride around in your bloodstream. When there’s a foreign body, like a toxic molecule from an infection or a toxin, the proteins attach it to your arterial wall. This attachment stimulates inflammation. Inflammation can lead to clogged arteries, blood clots, impotence and even a heart attack or stroke. One glass of red wine a day may help prevent these things. So, cheers.

How Much Should You Weigh?

As you begin the 17 Day Diet, have a specific weight goal in mind. In other words, shoot for a weight at which you feel you will look your best. Keep in mind that there’s really no such thing as the “perfect” weight because we all come in a variety of body shapes, heights and bone structures. There are, however, “ideal weight ranges,” so there is a simple equation I tend to follow:

If you’re a woman:
Take 100 pounds for the first five feet of your height, and add five pounds for each extra inch to get the midpoint of what should be your ideal body weight range. Then you need to factor in your body structure. Some people are smaller boned; others are big boned. If you’re small boned, I subtract 15 percent from the normal-frame weights; if you’re large boned, I add 15 percent to the normal-frame weights. For a lot of people, that’s too much math. So I did the math for you:

WOMEN

Small-Boned Frame

5’ = 85

5’ 1” = 90

5’ 2” = 94

5’ 3” = 98

5’ 4” = 102

5’ 5” = 106

5’ 6” = 110

5’ 7” = 115

5’ 8” = 119

5’ 9” = 123

5’ 10” = 128

5’ 11” = 132

6‘ = 136

Midpoint

5’ = 100

5’ 1” = 105

5’ 2” = 110

5’ 3” = 115

5’ 4” = 120

5’ 5” = 125

5’ 6” = 130

5’ 7” = 135

5’ 8” = 140

5’ 9” = 145

5’ 10” = 150

5’ 11” = 155

6‘ = 160

Large-Boned Frame

5’ = 115

5’ 1” = 121

5’ 2” = 127

5’ 3” = 132

5’ 4” = 137

5’ 5” = 144

5’ 6” = 150

5’ 7” = 155

5’ 8” = 161

5’ 9” = 167

5’ 10” = 173

5’ 11” = 178

6‘ = 184

If you’re a man:
Take 110 pounds for the first five feet of your height, and add six pounds for each extra inch to get the midpoint of what should be your ideal body weight range. Allow for being small or large boned, as explained above.

How Often Should You Weigh Yourself?

Not too many people like to weigh themselves. Doctors know this. After patients step on the scales, they think it is giving them the weight of a completely different person, like Hulk Hogan. Since we won’t let them weigh naked, they tell us to subtract two pounds for their shoes, one pound for jewelry and three pounds if it is after the Big Mac and fries they had for lunch. Some people strip off this stuff faster than a Lexus left on a city side street at midnight and step on the scale again. But doctors’ scales do not lie. Patients have to accept the truth. Their bodies, without consulting them, have been converting doughnuts, pizza and ice cream into fat.

MEN

Small-Boned Frame

5’ = 94

5’ 1” = 99

5’ 2” = 104