The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health (4 page)
Authors: Travis Stork
SPOTLIGHT ON BELLY FAT
Burning away excess belly fat is a major goal of The Doctor’s Diet. That’s not because it’s unattractive—although let’s face it, we all care about how we look. As a doctor, I care about belly fat because having excess fat around your middle is dangerous for your overall health.
Also known as “visceral fat,” belly fat is not just a benign bulge around your waist. In fact, it’s very metabolically active—which means it contributes to how your body functions every day. Belly fat can harm you by releasing fatty acids into your blood, pumping out inflammatory agents, and producing hormones that wreak havoc on your body.
What’s more, belly fat puts demands on your heart because it requires a constant infusion of oxygenated blood pumped by your heart. The more fat you have stored (in your belly and throughout your body), the harder your heart has to pump. Over time, this can dangerously strain your heart. Belly fat also threatens your heart by raising LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure.
You CAN banish your belly fat! The Doctor’s Diet gives you all the tools you need to burn it off and keep it off.
The good news is overweight and obese people often find that once they start to shed pounds, the fat around their belly is some of the first to disappear. Science tells us that specific foods such as yogurt, as well as calcium-rich foods, omega-3 fats in fish, and whole grains truly do trim your belly fat, thanks to their effect on hormones and metabolism. As soon as you start following The Doctor’s Diet, the fat around your middle will begin burning away.
Following The Doctor’s Diet can do incredible things for your long-term health, like lowering your risk of developing the kinds of chronic diseases that send people to the emergency room. As a doctor, that makes me ecstatic. But The Doctor’s Diet isn’t just about long-term benefits. Once you begin eating The Doctor’s Diet way, you’ll start noticing changes in how you feel
immediately
.
I know that sounds like a promise that can’t be kept. You may be thinking, “Dr. Travis, how is it possible to start feeling better
right away
?”
Here’s how: As soon as you commit to a healthier way of living, and as soon as you eat your first Doctor’s Diet meal, you’re going to begin feeling great about yourself.
Let me give you an example of this. Recently I chatted with someone who ate her first STAT Plan breakfast: a cup of blueberries, a scrambled egg, and half a cup of oatmeal sprinkled with chopped walnuts. (More on the STAT Plan soon.) It was the first time in years she’d eaten such a nutritious breakfast—usually her go-to was a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast biscuit and a sweetened coffee drink from her local drive-thru donut shop.
Even before she finished her berries, she started feeling better about herself—not because her weight had suddenly dropped or her heart disease risk disappeared, but because she realized that she had taken such a big first step on the road to good health.
Listen, one cup of berries and a bowl of oatmeal with nuts won’t
reverse the effects of years of breakfast biscuits. But it can be the meal that changes everything—it can be the breakfast that you look back on as the first meal of your new, healthier life.
Just knowing that you’re making changes that will lead to weight loss and better health can be incredibly empowering! It can make you
feel
healthier even before you actually
are
healthier, and that’s great, because the positive feeling you get in response to starting The Doctor’s Diet can fuel you. It can encourage you to make the right choices at other meals, it can give you the energy to go for your daily walk, and it can give you blasts of motivation that will keep you jazzed until the pounds really do start dropping off.
Although I know your number one goal might be to lose weight, The Doctor’s Diet is much more than a weight-loss plan. This plan is not just about cutting calories—heck, you can lose weight eating cookies all day, so long as you limit your calories. To really, truly boost your health—and stay out of the ER—you have to go beyond weight loss and eat foods that support every cell of your body in a healthful, life-giving way. By taking a whole-health approach, you can do way more than just lose weight and trim your waist. Sure, you want to look great. But won’t it be nice to know that you’ll be boosting your health while whittling away your waist?
Losing weight and eating a healthy, life-supporting diet are two of the best things you can do for your health. Don’t be discouraged if you’ve been unsuccessful in past efforts to shed excess pounds and change your diet. The Doctor’s Diet is a different kind of eating plan, one that you can stick with for the rest of your life. It’s not just a diet but a new way of life and a new way of eating. The Doctor’s Diet is unique because it includes many of the foods you already eat, so there’s no need to learn an entirely new way of cooking and preparing meals. The recipes and meal plans don’t call for crazy ingredients and unusual foods that cost a bundle online or at specialty grocery stores. Rather, familiar foods are combined in a new way, using specially designed Meal Plan Equations that optimize fat burn and weight loss. Yeah, I’ll ask you to try some new foods—super-nutritious foods that can boost your health and whittle away weight—but they’re all foods that you can buy at your supermarket,
prepare easily, and enjoy eating for the rest of your (long) life.
Not only that, but The Doctor’s Diet also gives you a personal physician: me. As you set out on your journey to better health and longer life, I’ll be with you every step of the way, giving you the information, advice, encouragement, and motivation you need to succeed.
With this book in your hands, everything you need is at your fingertips.
USING THE DOCTOR’S DIET MEAL PLAN EQUATIONS
The Doctor’s Diet meals are built around unique daily Meal Plan Equations that rev up your metabolism, accelerate fat burn, and lead to high-octane weight loss. Each day, your meals and snacks are planned according to easy-to-remember Meal Plan Equations. This fantastic meal-planning tool shows you how to combine protein, certain types of carbohydrates, healthy fats, fruits, and various vegetables into each meal and snack—simply, and without counting calories.
When you plan your meals according to my Meal Plan Equations, you get the right balance of nutrients—protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and everything else you need for great health, maximum fat burn, and speedy weight loss. Plus, you get delicious, satisfying meals that give you loads of energy.
DETERMINING YOUR GOAL WEIGHT
The best way to figure out your healthiest goal weight is to talk with your doctor. But in general, the research suggests that it’s best to aim for a body-mass index (BMI) in the low to mid 20s.
BMI is a number calculated using a person’s height and weight. Doctors use BMI as a guide to whether people are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. BMI is not a 100 percent accurate way of determining goal weights, because it doesn’t take into account the size of your frame or the amount of muscle you have. Muscle is denser than fat, so a very muscular person who has a perfectly healthy weight can have a BMI in the overweight range. But in general, doctors use BMI as a starting point for a discussion about goal weight.
Use the chart below to determine your BMI. Once you have it, check the BMI guide to see where your weight falls.
BMI | WEIGHT CATEGORY |
Less than 18.5 | Underweight |
18.5 to 24.9 | Normal Weight |
25 to 29.9 | Overweight |
30 and over | Obese |
I
’ve designed this book to give you everything you need to make life-saving changes that will keep you out of the ER and fully, vibrantly engaged in your healthy new life. To make things easy, I’ve structured The Doctor’s Diet in this way:
You’ll jump right into the Doctor’s Diet with the STAT Plan. When someone is wheeled into the ER on the edge of death, the medical team leaps into action right away. The medical phrase for this is “STAT,” from the Latin word
statim
, which means
immediately
. You’ve probably seen doctors on television use this word while barking orders to nurses—for example, “inject 1 mg of epinephrine STAT!”
In a medical emergency we rush to administer life-saving medications. When weight is an emergency, the same immediate action is called for. We want to start making health-boosting changes STAT. That’s why I call the first phase of my eating plan the STAT Plan.
We’re starting with the STAT Plan right away. No need to wait—just flip to
page 30
, and you can start following it at your
very next meal
. Seriously! Excess weight is a true emergency, and you can start your “treatment” right away.
Sure, I do want to explain everything about it to you eventually—for example, I want you to understand why I’m suggesting berries at breakfast or lentils at lunch—but I don’t want you to have to spend hours or days reading about your new eating plan before you dive in. And I want
you to get a thumbs-up from your own health-care provider before you make any major changes to your diet, especially if you have heart disease, diabetes, or any other health problems. But otherwise, there’s no reason not to get started right away—STAT!
Think of it this way: When someone is wheeled into the emergency room having a heart attack, the medical team doesn’t sit down with them and chat for a few hours about the structure of the heart and the finer points of myocardial infarction. We jump into action, administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, infusing medications, sometimes rushing them off to the operating room for surgery. And we do it all with lightning speed—STAT.
The same goes for weight-loss emergencies. Being overweight or obese is a major health emergency that requires your immediate action. Not an emergency administration of drugs, medical procedures, or surgery, but an immediate change in your diet. If your weight is an emergency, you can start giving it emergency treatment right now by diving in to The Doctor’s Diet STAT Plan right away.
| BEING OVERWEIGHT OR OBESE IS A MAJOR HEALTH EMERGENCY THAT REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION. NOT AN EMERGENCY ADMINISTRATION OF DRUGS, MEDICAL PROCEDURES, OR SURGERY, BUT AN IMMEDIATE CHANGE IN YOUR DIET. |
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THE DOCTOR’S DIET STAT PLAN
Using my high-intensity 14-day STAT Plan, you’ll see
immediate
results. Within two weeks, you’ll:
Lose weight rapidly (up to 10 pounds in 14 days).
Lose fat and start to reduce the size of fat cells.
Burn dangerous belly fat.
Begin to cut diabetes risk by stabilizing blood sugar and boosting insulin sensitivity.
Begin to improve your heart health by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure.
Break your addiction to sugar, simple carbohydrates, and junk food.
Start to feel healthier, stronger, and sexier.
Feel a sense of mastery that comes from taking control of your health.
Feel a sense of accomplishment that will fire up your motivation.
After 14 days on the STAT Plan, you’ll transition to the RESTORE Plan.