We’re talking today to Nicolette M. Dumke, author of the health/fitness book, Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss: Control Your Body Chemistry, Reduce Inflammation, and Improve Your Health (Allergy Adapt, Inc.).
If it’s something I know about diets and losing weight, it’s that all people are made differently. What might work for one person might not work for another. I’ve been struggling with weight problems for the last ten years or so but I never really understood what my body was saying to me until it was too late and I developed an ulcer. No more fried food! Ack. Not fun. But our guest today has an excellent book that will help you with all your diet and losing weight questions and I’m happy to have her here today.
Q. Thank you for this interview, Nicolette. Can we begin by having you tell us why you wrote your book, Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss?
I write because someone has a real – in some cases desperate – need for the information in my books. For some of the books, a family member or I needed the information and recipes that later became a book. I began my latest book, Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss, after I heard of the struggles a friend with multiple food allergies was having to lose weight on the Weight Watchers™ program. Then I remembered how I had been unable to lose on a similar diet thirty years ago but finally discovered how to achieve painless and permanent weight loss. I had also talked to many people who gained weight on a gluten-free diet and couldn’t lose it, so I knew she wasn’t alone in her need for weight loss help.
Q. What are some of the things you discuss in your book?
I discuss the factors and physiology that make us overweight and how to reverse the process. These factors include hormones such as insulin, cortisol, and leptin, and surprisingly, inflammation. Inflammation from any cause—from allergies to being overweight itself causing overstretched, leaking fat cells—inactivates leptin, thus making it difficult to lose weight. As individuals decrease their inflammation and move toward a normal weight, leptin function begins to return to normal. A properly functioning leptin system will keep people at a normal weight by raising their metabolism and decreasing their appetite when they overeat. For more about how hormones affect and control weight, visit this page.
Q. Why do you feel conventional weight-loss diets work against rather than with our bodies?
Conventional diets are usually low in fat, thus making them low in protein, and high in carbohydrates. Without enough fat and protein, it’s hard to remain satisfied for very long after a meal. Furthermore, high carbohydrate intake raises insulin levels. High insulin causes hunger and “tells” our bodies to deposit food as fat as well as to hold onto body fat. Thus, conventional diets cause our hormones to work really hard to prevent weight loss.
The key to losing weight permanently and without hunger is to keep your body in a “burn fat” mode by keeping your blood sugar level stable and your insulin level low and stable. This can be achieved by eating protein-containing breakfasts and small between-meal snacks and by keeping carbohydrate intake at a sensible level with most of the carbohydrates low to moderate on the glycemic index (GI). (Low to moderate GI carbohydrates do not promote dramatic swings in blood sugar and insulin levels). Carbohydrates should be eaten with protein rather than alone. For more details about how to balance carbohydrates with protein for stable insulin and blood sugar levels, see the third paragraph of this page.
Q. Does counting calories work?
Conventional medicine has told us that all that matters when you want to lose weight is the number of calories consumed minus the number burned by physical activity. Although calories do have an effect, they are not the primary determining factor in how much we weigh. Our hormones, such as insulin, cortisol, leptin, and others, are what really determine our weight. If your hormones are saying, “Deposit that food! A famine is in the land!” you will not be able to lose weight even if the number of calories you consume is very low. Because they work against body chemistry, calorie-counting diets rarely result in permanent weight loss. After dieters reach their goal, they usually re-gain most or all of the weight they lost. They may even be heavier than when they started; if they lost muscle mass, their metabolic rate will be lower than before their diet—and the cycle continues.
