Eat well and don’t gain weight! Even better than that, eat well and lose weight and lower your cholesterol!

How? you ask. Well, first, a little history:

Fighting– and mostly losing– the “battle of the bulge” for most of my life, I’ve been up and down the bathroom scale a half dozen times through the years. It didn’t seem like I was eating all that much, no more than other people, but the pounds would still accumulate.

I blame the invention of Doritos�, around age eight, for first contributing to my becoming a fat little kid. Well, maybe that and an early interest in cooking– I was the only kid I knew who watched the Galloping Gourmet. My mother said I could always take a leftover piece of chicken and whatever was in the cupboard and concoct something actually pretty good out of it. I have to admit I did like good food.

In high school, the acquisition of a ten-speed bicycle– which I rode endlessly, a pretty decent growth spurt — about 10 inches in a year, and the fact that Mom was on Weight Watchers and cooking only from their menus contributed to the loss of most of the weight I had gained since third grade.

After moving to New Orleans from the Midwest, and the exposure to a whole new, wonderful cuisine– not to mention the introduction to the college bar scene– the weight started gradually sneaking back. Again, no big increase in the amount of food I was eating, but the jeans kept getting tighter.

Throughout adulthood, the little roller-coaster of love handles continued. I learned never to throw away those old clothes– I never knew when I might fit in them again. I have jeans with waist sizes from 31 to 38 inches.

So, here’s the scoop. Recently, I’ve found something that not only works, but quite possibly is a way of eating that I may be able to comfortably continue the rest of my life. No gimmicks, no starvation, no odd-ball regimens, no shakes, powders, or bars, and no drugs. The diet is called Sugar Busters– you may have heard of it– and it’s key is the interesting way the body deals with sugar and carbohydrates.

In only four months, with only a few modifications to what I eat and when I eat it, I’ve lost over 30 pounds, and it’s still dropping. Shirts I haven’t been able to wear in years fit again, and I’ve moved from the second hole on my belt to the fifth.

(3/98 update – After 18 months, continuing to follow Sugar Busters, I am still maintaining at 35 pounds under my pre-diet weight.)

(8/99 update – Coming up on 3 years, and still maintaining at 35-40 pounds under my pre-diet weight.)

(12/2000 update – Over 4 years, and still maintaining.)

The premise is simple, if you understand what is sugar, and how the body responds to it. When you consume a meal, sugar and carbohydrates (which the body quite handily converts to sugar) cause an increase in blood-sugar (glucose) levels. The body’s response to this is to release insulin. A little-known side-effect of insulin is to signal the body to store fat.

Another hormone your body produces is called glucagon. Glucagon can, under the right circumstances, promote the mobilization of previously stored fat, but it is heavily supressed by – you guessed it – glucose!

Therefore, if you eliminate the consumption of sugar with other foods, and keep your intake of carbohydrates low, the insulin effect is foiled. It all has to do with something known as foods’ glycemic index. For a more technical explanation of this phenomenon, and the reasons whole wheat and brown rice are O.K. and white flour and white rice are not, please (I insist) check out the authors’ website at
www.sugarbusters.com, since I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.

And it does make sense. All those times in the past that the pounds were adding up, there were abundant sugars and carbohydrates. Corn chips, potato chips, sauces, popcorn, french fries, most alcoholic beverages are full of them. A lot of foods considered healthy are full of them: corn, carrots, potatoes, beets, white rice, white flour. It’s important to realize that sugar does not just come from a bag marked Domino.

p.s. What I find truly interesting, now that I read the product ingredients and Nutrition Facts labels on everything I buy, is the “healthy” foods that tout low fat or fat-free on their labels. Check the sugar content of those products against the sugar content of their “regular” counterparts. You’ll be shocked at what you find. You’ll stop counting fat grams and start counting grams of sugar.