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Robert Sepehr's low fat/carb diet plan

Robert Sepehr and the understanding of weight and lifestyle. In order for you to see how well a diet is working, you must have something to compare it to -- a starting point. That's easy when it comes to weight loss alone, just take your starting weight and use that as the standard by which you judge your diet's effectiveness. The same is true of clothing sizes.

However, the low-carb way of eating is so radically different from "low fat" or "low calorie" diets that most people are used to, it is important for you to realize just how good a low-carb lifestyle can be for your overall health. Therefore, it is essential that, before you actually begin your diet, you get a blood test and have your blood pressure checked.

Everyone should have a blood lipid profile done. This will check your total cholesterol, your HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol), and your triglycerides. Normal values for these are as follows:

Total Cholesterol: < 200
HDL: > 35
LDL: < 130
Triglycerides: < 200
If you are a diabetic, you should also get your fasting blood glucose measured and have a hemoglobin A1c test done. A normal fasting blood glucose level is between 60 and 110. The Hgb A1c should be less than 7.

After a month or two of following a low-carb eating plan, you should find that your total cholesterol has dropped, if it was high before. More importantly, however, the ratio between your HDL and your total cholesterol will be lower. Try to maintain a TOTAL CHOLESTEROL-to-HDL ratio of less than 4.

You should also find that your triglycerides are down markedly and that your HDL cholesterol has gone up. The higher the HDL the better.

Some people are concerned that their total cholesterol does not drop as expected. It might even go up slightly. But a look at the HDL level might help to explain why. As long as your ratio is less than 4, your cholesterol profile is fine.

Type 2 diabetics should see an almost immediate improvement in their blood glucose level. Within a few days on a low-carb diet, your blood glucose level should be approaching normal.

A normal blood pressure for most adults is 120/80. If yours is running higher than 140/90, you have hypertension. After a month or so on a low-carb diet, you should see your blood pressure approaching normal.

It is important to point out that many people are able to go off their blood pressure medication or their diabetes medication (for type 2 diabetes) within a short time after starting a low-carb lifestyle. However, it is very important that you not stop or reduce any medication without first consulting your doctor. Also, if you are an insulin-dependent diabetic, you may want to closely monitor you blood glucose levels the first few days on the diet, because it could be necessary to reduce the amount of insulin you need to take. Again, check with your doctor.

Now that you have your blood work done, you will need to prepare for your new way of eating by getting rid of all those high-carb foods in your pantry and refrigerator, unless you have people in your household that won't be switching to the low-carb lifestyle. After the first week or two on a low-carb diet, you will lose most cravings for those sweet and starchy foods, anyway.

If you are alone, or if your whole family will be starting a low-carb lifestyle, then either eat or give away all the breads, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and other high-carb foods in your kitchen. If you don't have them around, you won't be as likely to "cheat."

Now, go ahead and take your starting weight. Take it first thing in the morning, before you eat, but after you have used the bathroom. Take it before you get dressed, and use the same scales each time you measure your weight.

DO NOT use daily weight changes as any indication of how your diet is progressing! Your weight will vary. It will not drop continuously and steadily. The same is true of any diet. You may find that your weight loss slows after the first two weeks. This is totally normal. Do not get discouraged. If you weigh yourself daily, use those numbers to calculate your average weight at the end of the week by adding the daily weights together and dividing by the number of days you measured your weight.

On any diet, your weight will bounce around a little. Some days you will gain a bit, others you will lose a lot, but over the course of several weeks or months, you will definitely lose. A better measure of your progress will be how loosely your clothes start to fit.

How much should you ultimately expect to lose? That varies with the individual. It depends on your starting weight, your sex, and of course, on how committed you are at sticking with the eating plan. Males tend to lose quicker than females and heavier people will lose quicker than those who are already near their goal weight. On average, men will lose 10-15 pounds and women 8-10 pounds after the first two weeks.

How Much Protein?

Contrary to popular myth, a low-carb diet is not equivalent to a high-protein diet. Rather, it is actually an adequate protein diet. Consuming too much protein may cause weight-loss stalls. (Although increasing your intake of protein won't harm your kidneys, as you've probably been told. That's a common myth.)

On a low-carb diet, calorie counting is not usually that important, but the amount of calories you usually consume per day can help you estimate your protein needs. Most people typically consume between 1800 and 3000 calories in any given day. To figure out how much protein you should be consuming, a good rule of thumb to use in determining your protein requirement is to prepare a list of foods that you might typically eat in a day (before the low-carb diet). Add up the calories and see where your typical daily calorie level falls.

If you generally consume up to about 2100 calories per day, then you need to eat about 100 grams of protein every day on the low-carb diet. If you normally consume more than 2100 calories per day, then you will need to eat 125 grams of protein daily. It doesn't hurt to go a little above these estimates, but not significantly above them as too much protein can turn into blood sugar just as carbohydrates do.

Athletes or people who work out often can add another 25 or 50 grams of protein to the above estimates, depending on their body weight. Whatever you computed as your daily protein requirement, it pertains to all phases of the diet.

How Much Fat?

The amount of fat you can eat on a low-carb diet is not generally limited, except that you should not stuff yourself with anything, including fat. More important than the amount of fat, which should make up between 65 to 75% of your dietary calories, is the type of fat.

Partially hydrogenated trans fats should be strictly limited. Most margarines and shortenings contain a lot of these harmful fats. Most polyunsaturated vegetable oils should also be limited. These include corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil. They contain far too much of the omega-6 fatty acids and too little of the omega-3 fatty acids. Canola oil is probably ok, but the high-temperature manufacturing process is suspected to increase the amount of trans fats it contains.

Get your omega-3 fatty acids from fish or flax seed oils. Lard is a great supplier of both monounsaturated fats and saturated fats, both of which are needed for proper lipid balance in the body. Other good sources of fat include olive oil, peanut oil, flax oil, nuts, and butter.

Getting Started
There are two distinct ways of beginning a low-carb diet. The method you choose is up to you, but here are some guidelines:

If you fall into any of the following categories, you would be well advised to follow Method 1 to begin your low-carb diet. This is the slow-start method.

If you are over 50
If you already have one or more degenerative diseases such as diabetes or heart disease
If you started originally with Method 2 and had poor results or undesired symptoms
If you are the type of person who likes to start things slow and easy
A low-carb diet can benefit almost anyone. However, if your body has already been damaged by a lifetime of eating a high-sugar diet, then it might be beneficial to allow your body time to get used to the new way of eating.
Robert Sepehr's dieting tricks.