The eat as much as you want diet

Here's what you need to know...

1. Forget counting calories. If you eat food from a nutrient-dense food list (which includes bacon), then you can eat as much as you want as often as you want.
2. Eating nutrient-dense foods leads to "toxic hunger" and even withdrawal symptoms when you try to clean up your diet. Toxic hunger is a condition in which the body lies to the brain and tells it that it's time to eat, even when it's not.
3. The list of nutrient dense foods contains a large number of surprises including nutritional powerhouses like liver. Surprisingly, fruit has a relatively low nutrient density.
4. By using foods from the nutrient density list, you can combine nutritionally appropriate foods that allow you to control your hunger, become healthier and lose body fat.

Counting calories is unnecessary

Has anyone ever lost weight effectively and consistently by counting calories? To do this properly, you'd have to weigh all your food, take into account your age, activity level, weight and body fat percentage, and then do a bunch of calculations that could give you a math prize.

And all of that would be pretty worthless if you weren't able to somehow figure out how much brown adipose tissue you have and whether the mitochondria in that and your muscles are youthful and vibrant or old and sluggish. Yes, calorie counting is a job for fools.

If you want to lose fat, forget about counting calories. Instead, eat as much as you want, whenever you want, as long as your diet consists of a balanced selection of specific foods.

I know, I know. Eating as much as you want was what was responsible for your fat deposits, but hear me out further. If your diet was based on what you need and not what you want, then you would say goodbye to hunger, lose body fat and get healthy. But what is what you need? Foods with a high nutrient density instead of foods with a high calorie density,

I'm going to throw a handful of new stuff into your mental blender - some new or little-known paradigms about nutrients and how your body responds to them and food in general. And I'm even going to throw you a tasty, nutrient-dense morsel right now to keep you interested: Bacon is high in nutrient density and it's something you should be eating more of. I'll tell you why soon.

What does "nutrient density" mean?

The main problem with nutrient dense foods has always been defining exactly what the term means. For now, let's just say that nutrient dense foods contain a high amount of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, etc. relative to their calorie content. Spinach, the first "super food", for example, contains a lot of nutrients and very few calories, so it fits the above definition very well.

But before we figure out what are bad foods, what are good foods and what are great foods, let's first figure out why you can eat a balanced diet consisting of all the nutrient-dense foods you want and lose body fat at the same time. Yes, eating too much food of any kind can lead to fat storage, but it's harder to overeat on protein or high nutrient density foods than on the processed carbohydrates found in high calorie density foods.

In other words, you would have to stuff yourself to the gills with high calorie density foods over and over again to reach a caloric surplus. Not so with junk food with a high calorie density. In general, eating foods with high nutrient density has the following benefits:

• High nutrient density foods allow you to control your calorie intake without counting calories.
• You will feel fuller for longer between meals.
• It will be much harder to overeat.

And it would also eliminate the newly recognized villain in the fight against fat: toxic hunger.

Real hunger vs. toxic hunger

There is a new theory in the nutrition community and it has to do with the difference in the physiological effects of hunger between a person who eats a diet that is nutrient dense and a person who eats a diet that is nutrient deficient.

Those who eat unhealthy foods experience a hunger response that is more reminiscent of the response of a heroin addict who has gone too long without shooting up. In other words, the hunger experienced by a person following a lousy diet, which by definition includes a lot of pro-inflammatory foods, is more like withdrawal symptoms than true hunger.

Normally, hunger occurs when glycogen stores are nearing their end. Hunger signals are sent to the brain and you feel compelled to search for food in the deep, dark recesses of the fridge. Eating prevents the process of gluconeogenesis, also known as the breakdown of lean body tissue to meet the need for glucose. Eating is a process that prevents the body from using muscle tissue as an energy source.

Compare this to toxic starvation. When someone continually eats nutrient-poor foods, hunger signals are sent to the brain much earlier in the digestive process and long before a breakdown of lean body tissue could become a problem.

"The body lies to the brain and tells it it's time to eat, even when it's not really."

Experiments have shown that people who go from eating high calorie density foods to eating high nutrient density foods actually go through an adjustment period during which your body learns to wean itself off eating pro-inflammatory foods. It's something similar to cold turkey withdrawal from drugs.

The implications of all this are that if people learned to eat foods with high nutrient density, they wouldn't need their "fix" of lousy food, even if it's not really needed. They would probably only eat when they are really hungry and when the body sends signals to the brain to start eating to protect muscle tissue. Hunger is one of the main obstacles to fat loss and people who follow a high nutrient density diet experience less hunger - and when they do get hungry, it's legitimate hunger.

For this reason, a diet consisting of high calorie density foods will make a significant difference in how you look naked. Such a diet also has far-reaching health benefits, but I'm going to avoid that discussion because you're not a beginner. This is not "living beautifully", this is just common sense.

Heck, you know riboflavin is better for you than propylene glycol, which aside from being one of the main components of airplane de-icing fluid, is also a widely used food additive. Instead, let's tackle the more interesting topic of how some people have tried to define exactly what makes a food a nutrient-dense food. The answer might surprise you.

Beware of nutrition experts with agendas

When it comes to measuring nutrient density, there's no shortage of food rating systems that can supposedly help consumers figure out what's good for them and what's not. The problem here, however, is that many of these systems reflect the biases and prejudices of the people who developed them.

Some systems, like the ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) system you see on signs hanging around Whole Foods stores near Leapin' Lemur's Organic Grains, were developed by pale-skinned vegetarians wearing underwear made from unbleached organic hemp.

In addition to omitting a staggering amount of vitamins and minerals, these lists, including the ANDI list, include little protein overall, and especially little animal protein.

The ANDI system assigns foods a value between 1 and 1,000 based on certain nutritional parameters. Kale, collard greens and watercress get a score of 1,000, but meat, seafood and dairy products score below 50 and are not considered health-supportive. When you consider that chicken and beef only get a score of 27 and 20 on the list, you'd want to beat the ANDI people up with a hormone-free chicken leg.

Other systems judge the value of a food by what it doesn't contain, such as saturated fat, cholesterol or sodium, but this type of system is highly problematic. Among other things, scientific data suggests that cholesterol and saturated fat may be yesterday's villains and not today's, but the creators of these lists have not read the nutritional crime report to find that these "bad" nutrients have been exonerated.

As an example, consider that some fat-free yogurts contain only one-sixth the protein of cheese, but calculated per 100 grams, yogurt ranks much higher on the list because the fat in cheese skews the math in favor of yogurt.

Other systems weight things like fiber, but fiber is certainly not an essential nutrient. However, one of these systems gives fiber the same weight as 16 other nutrients including protein, calcium, iron, potassium, folate, etc. This system is called the "Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables" (PFV) classification scheme.

Unfortunately, as the name suggests, this list only looks at fruits and vegetables. Surprisingly, watercress is the food with the highest nutrient density in this list. Equally surprising is that only 7 of the 41 foods on the list are fruit, with all of these fruits at the bottom of the list. Interestingly, raspberries, blueberries and cranberries are missing from the list for unspecified reasons. These fruits are not used to being rejected in such a shameless manner.

Here is a selection of some of the superstars on this list:

Watercress	romaine lettuce
Chinese cabbage	collard greens
Swiss chard	Swede
Beetroot	Endive
Spinach	Chives
Chicory	Kale
Leaf lettuce	Dandelion
Parsley	peppers

Regarding this list, it is worth noting that apart from spinach, you have to go down to number 17 on the list until you find peppers, a vegetable that most people eat regularly. You have to go down to number 20 to find the first fruit (pumpkin) and the next fruit doesn't appear until number 30 (strawberries).

Even though this list is of limited value as it only addresses fruits and vegetables, it has definitely made me change my eating habits. Instead of relying primarily on the various "more familiar" vegetables that are at the bottom of the list, I've started eating the weirder and often less tasty members of the top 20 vegetables on the list. Hey, good nutrition is not for sissies.

There's another list that sees the value of meat, doesn't avoid silly things like fat and cholesterol, and doesn't consider fiber an essential nutrient.

"A Liver a Day Keeps the Doctor Away"

Nutritionist Mat Lalonde looked at all the definitions of nutrient density and found the same problems I did, so he decided to compile his own list. Unlike other systems, he basically took nutrients per serving and divided it by weight per serving so that foods are on a level playing field when compared to each other.

He then defined "essential" by listing the things that are really important for human health. This list includes essential fatty acids, amino acids and a variety of important vitamins and minerals. After compiling and calculating the values, organ meats and especially liver were at the top of the list.

Surprisingly, more "primitive" societies have long recognized liver and other organs as the perfect foods with high nutrient density. Liver, for example, is so packed with good stuff that the Inuit classify liver as both a meat and a vegetable. Native American tribes in continental America feed the muscle meat of hunted animals to their dogs, while they themselves eat the much more nutrient-dense organ meat.

In this context, I should perhaps mention that an apple contains 7 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams, while 100 grams of liver provides 27 mg. Or consider vitamin B12. An apple contains no vitamin B12, red meat contains 1.84 mcg per 100 grams and liver provides a whopping 111.3 mcg of vitamin B12 per 100 grams.

And it doesn't look much different when you consider the content of liver (or organ meats in general) in nutrients like phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron, copper, vitamins A, D and E, thiamine, riboflavin, pantothenic acid or virtually any other nutrient on Lalonde's list.

Liver and other organ meats may be the most nutritionally complete foods ever, and the fact that we don't eat many of them here in the U.S. may correlate with many of the degenerative diseases that plague us.

Surprisingly, herbs and spices rival organ meats on Lalonde's list. The only downside with these is that it's hard to flavor your food with nutritionally significant amounts of cilantro, basil, spearmint, parsley, oregano or thyme without giving your taste buds a seizure. Of course, if you use spices as frequently and as liberally as your taste buds will allow, you can still significantly improve your nutritional status in the long run.

Other interesting observations:

• Nuts and seeds are high up on the list, with Brazil nuts, hazelnuts and coconut leading the pack.
• Fruit is surprisingly low on the list, with apples and watermelon bringing up the rear.
• The common potato beats the sweet potato, apart from its vitamin A content.
• Pork is really high on the list and bacon almost reaches superstar status.
• Eggs are at the top of the list, but for goodness sake eat the yolks too.
• Exotic meats like emu and ostrich are high on the list, but duck is near the bottom.
• Kale and seaweed are very high on the list.
• Legumes are at the bottom of the list.
• Grains are near the bottom (raw grains are near the top according to Lalonde, but they are indigestible in this form).
• Beef and pork are higher on the list than vegetables.

Here are the approximate values for nutrient density according to Lalonde. Don't be put off by the negative values. These simply mean that foods are rich in certain nutrients, but may be low or completely lacking in other nutrients. All in all, there are very few foods like organ meats that contain everything, which is why a good diet requires a variety of foods with high nutrient density.

Lalonde values for nutrient density:

Food category	Value
Organ meats and oils	17
Herbs and spices	17
Nuts and seeds	10
Cocoa	8
Fish and seafood	1
Pork	0.7
Beef	0.3
Eggs and dairy products	-0.6
Vegetables (raw)	-0.7
Lamb, veal, game	-1.2
Poultry	-1.7
Legumes	-2.9
Processed meat	-3.1
Vegetables (cooked, canned)	-4.8
Vegetable fats and oils	-5.4
Fruit	-5.6
Animal skin and feet	-6.2
Grains (cooked)	-6.2
Refined and processed oils	-6.4
Animal fats and oils	-6.8
Grains (canned)	-7.0
Processed fruit	-8.1

If this list has a drawback, it is that it does not take phytonutrients into account. This probably has something to do with the fact that the science of phytonutrients is still in its infancy. We don't know which phytonutrients are important, what amounts are important and whether they act interactively rather than independently.

Of course, this probably doesn't matter. We should all know that fruit and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet and we should eat a wide variety of them, which in turn should ensure a high intake of phytonutrients.

How do we use this information?

Let's say you're planning a meal. You manage to overcome your aversion to liver and prepare some liver in a pan with some olive oil. Since liver is so nutritionally complete, you don't have to worry much about what else you eat.

However, let's say you eat some turkey breast. Turkey breast is an excellent source of protein, but it's not even close to liver in terms of nutrient density, so you could supplement your turkey meal with some raw green vegetables to get an equivalent amount of nutrients as a meal with liver.

Or say you cook up some black beans. These contain some nutrients and a few amino acids, but not all of them. So you could put on a flannel shirt and make a lumberjack meal of cooked beans with bacon, which is high in protein (and a number of important nutrients). You could also add a few herbs to spice up the flavor and nutritional profile of the meal.

Similarly, you could add a portion of a Greens Superfood product to anything you eat. These supplements don't fall into the conventional category of nutrient-dense foods (they often contain no measurable calories or macronutrients), but usually include large amounts of phytonutrients and a significant amount of antioxidants, allowing you to enhance any meal you prepare.

Forget the calories, think about the nutrition

Maybe the list doesn't tell you that much you didn't know before. In the end, regardless of your knowledge of nutrition, you will probably be aware that vegetables and fruit and seafood and meat are good for you, while ready-made cakes from the supermarket probably are not.

However, it is good for the body if you start to think about how foods can complement each other and a balanced diet is really nothing more than an intricate mix of a variety of food groups and doesn't just include the 15 typical foods that most athletes and bodybuilders eat week in week out.

It's as simple as this: if we follow a balanced diet consisting of foods with a high nutrient density, then we achieve the following:

• We can forget about counting calories.
• If you only eat foods with high values, it is almost impossible to consume too many calories.
• If you optimize your diet for high values, the calories take care of themselves.

And most importantly, we create lean bodies that are as healthy on the inside as they look on the outside.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/eat-as-much-as-you-want-diet

From TC Luoma | 10/23/14