Nutrient Density
The Secret Weapon to Achieving Permanent Weight Loss
By Joel Fuhrman M.D.
Dr. Fuhrman is a board certified family physician and a graduate of the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine. He is the author of the national best selling book Eat To Live and is considered a world leader in the area of nutrition-based weight loss. Dr. Fuhrman has appeared on Good Morning America, Fox News, CNN and MSN. Mehmet Oz M.D., the renowned heart surgeon, calls Dr. Fuhrman's program: A Medical Breakthrough.
Dear PEERtrainer Members,
They say any diet will work if you stick with it, and that is why I wholeheartedly support the PEERtrainer solution. Dieting is tough enough. Going it alone has proven to be nearly impossible as I am sure some of you had experienced before joining PEERtrainer.
What most of you probably don't realize is that more diets have failed you in the past than the other way around. If a diet cannot be maintained as an on-going lifestyle, then permanent weight loss and health can not be achieved. If a diet does not provide the nutrients you need to function properly, your body will demand more food and it will be more difficult to maintain a favorable weight. My years of research in this area have uncovered the secret to permanent weight loss- and it can be incorporated into any diet strategy.
Sixteen years ago, I dedicated my medical practice to the study of weight loss and the prevention of chronic illnesses. At that time, I had no idea how badly America would need the information I now offer. My findings are simple:
Low Nutrient Foods promote food cravings and overeating.
High Nutrient Foods promote a normal caloric drive and a normal weight.
The reason many people still feel hungry when they diet is that their body is not getting the nutrients it needs.
I call this toxic hunger. More and more evidence has revealed that eating more high nutrient food is the only way to lose weight permanently. Learning how to incorporate this into your life and the diet you have chosen to follow is the secret to controlling food cravings and overeating behaviors. High nutrient eating is not a fad, and it will never go out of style or popularity. It can be your fountain of youth. However, in order to achieve and maintain your ideal weight, look younger, and avoid chronic illnesses; these changes must become a permanent way of life. If the changes you make are permanent, then you are no longer on a diet; you have merely changed your eating-style.
My formula* for sustained weight loss, optimal health and beauty is simply:
H= N/C
Health = Nutrients Over Calories.*patent pending
The scientific principle represented in my formula is known as nutrient density. Nutrient Density is a measure of the nutrients provided per calorie of food, or the ratio of nutrients to calories (energy). Heres an example: Why is an apple a better choice than a bag of pretzels? They have roughly the same number of calories, but the apple is also a great source of fiber, vitamin C, potassium and hundreds of other beneficial phytochemicals. Therefore, the apple has a higher nutrient density. By eating the apple, you have more energy, feel fuller, and, over time lose more weight. While preparing this article, a research study was released. The findings support what I have been teaching my patients for years.
By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY : Tuesday October 23, 2007
NEW ORLEANS The Next Diet Craze May be The Apple Diet.
"A new study shows an apple a day keeps the calories at bay. People who ate an apple about 15 minutes before lunch consumed almost 190 fewer calories than when they didn't have the apple."
The evidence is tremendous and of course the answer involves lots more than just apples. When the ratio of nutrients to calories is high, people eat less, excess pounds disappear, and health and beauty are restored. With more nutrient-dense food consumed, the more you will be satisfied with fewer calories, and the less you will crave fat and high-calorie foods. One of the huge benefits to high nutrient eating is that people lose their food cravings, hypoglycemic symptoms and other sensations that drive people to overeat. They get put back in touch with their body's natural instinctive signals to eat- when food is really needed. These natural, true hunger signals will help direct you to your true ideal body weight. You will simply desire less food. If you choose foods based on nutrient density, you will essentially be choosing foods based on their overall quality and their ability to have a positive influence on your body and overall health.
Now that you understand nutrient density, you must be wondering which foods score the highest. In other words, which offer the most nutrients, and which offer the least nutrients per calorie. Most of the foods on the following chart will be of no surprise. Vegetables, fruits, and beans score the best- by far. However, there are some surprises that may change the way you eat forever. With Kale scoring the highest nutrient density of all 20,000 foods tested, we gave it a score of 1000. If a product scores a 500, it offers half the nutrients of Kale
Strawberries, the #1 fruit, only offer one/fourth the nutrients of Kale.
An Apple is only one/third as valuable as Strawberries.
Apple Juice is One/Fifth as Nutritious as an Apple per Calorie.
And take a look at Olive Oil. At 120 calories per tablespoon, the nutrient density score is very low. Omitting Olive Oil from your healthy salad may be the first step in incorporating nutrient density into your life.
This information is vital to any dieter trying to stay healthy and lose weight.
In closing, I want to bring your attention to the critical health crisis in our country and the need for more nutritious eating. This may be hard to believe with our tremendous weight problems and obesity epidemic, but America is an overfed yet undernourished nation. It's now estimated less than 10% of adults and only 2% of children get the minimum daily requirement of vital nutrients their body needs to seek its ideal weight or ward off chronic illnesses. The chronic illnesses that develop as a result of poor eating have become so serious that in 2006 the Center For Disease Control and Prevention announced that this generation of children may be the first not to live as long as their parents.
With Americas future on the line, I urge you to incorporate high nutrient dense foods into your diet as much as possible.
Click here to download Dr. Fuhrman's complete Food Scoring Guide.
In the coming weeks, I'll be writing to you about a variety of health and nutrition topics like: how you can avoid and even reverse chronic illnesses through nutrition, Toxic Hunger, and Building a Healthy Child. So keep using PEERtrainer, and lets work for your long-term benefits together. Until then,
Eat Right America!
Joel Fuhrman M.D.