The Six Week Cure: Ground Zero « Lovin' It Low Carb

The Six Week Cure: Ground Zero

September 11, 2009 by Ramona Denton

Tomorrow I start my cure!

Tomorrow, I’ll be starting to follow the six-week program designed by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades in their new book, released eariler this week:

The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle:
The Simple Plan to Flatten Your Belly Fast!

Program Summary

The Six-Week Cure is a nutritional program designed to help you lose excess visceral fat, the health-threatening fat that has invaded your internal organs, and turned your liver into foie gras. Visceral fat is a precursor to a host of health problems you really want to avoid: fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, etc. The good news it that visceral fat can be booted out of your innerds pretty quickly, if you just give it a chance. The Six Week Cure may provide that chance!

Weeks 1-2
The first phase of THE CURE is targeted to cleanse the liver, boost visceral fat release, and restore proper liver function. This is done through restricting calories and carbs while making sure you have adequate intake of protein and saturated fat. Only one solid meal per day is allowed, plus three protein shakes.

Hunger is not a part of the program in any phase, so I expect the shakes to be plenty filling. At my weight, I will be taking 3 shakes per day that each contain at least 60g protein, 20g fat and 400 calories. If that wasn’t enough, I’m allowed (according to my body weight) 6-8 oz of meat in my solid meal, which is at least another 47g protein, 22g fat, and 400 calories.

After two weeks of calorie restriction, your metabolic balance should be restored, your insulin levels reduced, and your liver purged of much of its fat. Some report loss of 2-3 or more inches from waist measurements in the first few days!

The Rules

No alcohol
No caffeine
No unnecessary medications
Follow the 3 + 1 Food Plan (3 protein shakes + 1 solid meal)
Take important supplemental nutrients
Substitute a tablespoon of the oil you usually use with a tablespoon of Enova DAG Oil
Drink water or caffeine-free, water-based beverages
Get a good night’s sleep, at least 7 hours, every night
Add sea salt
Add D-Ribose
Donate blood at the end of the second week

Personal Notes: Weeks 1-2
I already drink almost zero alcohol and caffeine, so this will be normal for me. I am not on any Rx or OTC meds on a regular basis, so my biggest focus will be to skip ibuprofin that I may desire for an ocassional ache or pain.

I already take most of the supplements that are recommended. I will have to increase potassium, which is recommended because of the diuretic effect of the ultra low carb diet. As the body is hydrated and the liver cleansed, potassium must be replaced, so they recommend taking 99 mg 4x per day. They also recommend a fairly large amount of leucine, which is intended to preserve lean tissues like muscle, organs, skin, hair, nails, etc. You want to lose FAT, visceral fat in particular. But, you want to lose as little lean mass as possible, so you add leucine to the protein shakes!

In a comment on Dr. Michael Eades’ blog, somebody said they could not afford the Enova DAG oil. Dr. Eades answered her by saying it can be helpful, but it is nonessential to the program’s overall success. He encouraged her that she could still get good results without it. I am going to check the price at the grocery store this weekend, and see how much it costs. I’ll probably buy some and give it a try.

From Wikipedia:

DAG (Diacylglycerols) and TAG (triacylglycerols) are natural components in all vegetable oils. Through a patent-protected, enzymatic process, the DAG content of a combination of soy and canola oils is significantly increased. Unlike TAG, which is stored as body fat, DAG is immediately burned as energy. With DAG-rich oil containing more than 80% DAG, less of the oil is stored as body fat as compared to traditional oils, which are rich in TAG.

As a sufferer of sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, I have already worked on my sleep hygeine pretty extensively. I schedule a full 8 hours for sleep every night, and hardly anything stops me from getting to bed on time.

I have ordered D-Ribose from VitaminShoppe dot com, but it has been backordered. If I get it before the end of the first two weeks, I’ll try some. otherwise I’ll skip that.

I got a tattoo in April 2009, so I am not eligible to donate blood until May 2010. Dr. Eades suggests going to the doctor’s office to have blood drawn (and then destroyed) if you are donation restricted as I am. I don’t have a Primary Care guy that I really like right now, so I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I may just repeat the program after I can donate (for use by others).

Measures of Success

I will be tabulating the following:

The Importance of Sagittal Abdominal Diameter (SAD) Measurements

One of the main measures of success in the book, are Sagittal Abdominal Diameter (SAD) measurements. Basically your SAD tells you how thick you are at the middle of your abdomen. It is a straight measurement from front to back, or the diameter of your waist measurement. The circumference of a circle is the round measurement, all the way around the outside of the circle (like we measure our waist or hips). The diameter is the length of the straight line right across the middle, from one edge to the other.

SAD measurements are taken in pairs, standing up and lying down (S-SAD and L-SAD). The purpose is to get an idea how much of your abdominal fat is subcutaneous and how much is visceral. Subcutaneous fat sits just under the skin, and while is not good for anything, it poses fewer and less serious health risks than visceral fat. Visceral fat lives in your viscera, in and around the internal organs within your abdominal wall. This type of fat is a precursor to things you really want to avoid: cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, etc. The Six Week Cure is a program designed to significantly reduce visceral fat quickly and healthfully.

The idea in the SAD measurements is that your subcutaneous fat only has your skin to hold it in, and it moves with gravity, so it pools in different locations when you are standing up than it does when you are lying down. If most of your fat was subcutaneous, you would see a big difference in your L-SAD vs. S-SAD measurements. Contrast this with your visceral fat, which is bounded by your ab muscles, and holds its round shape in your belly, regardless of gravity or body position. If most of your fat is visceral, you will see a smaller difference between your L-SAD and S-SAD measurements.

SAD measurements taken at home are done by standing up or lying down with your back flush against the wall or floor, placing a yardstick parallel to the surface on the biggest part of the abdomen between the breastbone and the belly button, and then measuring the perpendicular distance between the surface and the yardsick. If the program works as it claims to, I should see the difference between my S-SAD and L-SAD increase as I lose inches in my waist circumference, indicating that less of my abdominal fat is visceral, and most of what I have left it the less-deadly subcutaneous kind.

Creature Comforts

Size Matters

We all want to be smaller, right? Well, with certain exceptions. One of the biggest measures of success, to me personally, will be losing size. For example, I am flying from Los Angeles, California to the UK in a few weeks. I want to be comfortable on the long flight. How much can I reduce my size in only 4 weeks? Will I be able to buckle my seat belt without a seatbelt extension? I hope so!

I would like to fit into smaller clothes, into the more average sizes that are more readily available in styles that I like. I find it impossible to get clothes that fit me at size 26W. I no longer even look for clothes that fit. For many years, I have had to settle for clothes that are big enough.

When all is said and done, I would like to be a size that doesn’t scare small children! I am really getting tired of people staring and glaring at me because I’m fat. While it is true that I may only imagine it is because of my size. My non-morbidly-obese friends certainly do not have this problem. So, pardon me if I attribute it to body size. p.s. I do NOT mind people staring at me because I ride up on a hot motorcycle! I like THAT kind of attention. Woo-hoo!

Health Matters

I would love to see improvement in various health problems I have been struggling with since I hit the middle age wall. Among these are: allergies, asthma, sleep apnea, RLS, PLMD (aka PLMS), insulin resistance. I’ll post some details later if there is anything interesting to tell.

Mostly, I’m just really fat. And I’m sick of being really fat. And I’m sick of being ill and in pain. So, I’m really excited to have something new to try. I have friends, I assume we all do, who think like… Oh Ramona. Trying another diet. Getting all excited. But these diets never work. She would do better if she would… whatever. Whatever they think is the answer to healthful, balanced living. I’m not imagining this. I know people think it because they tell me so.

Do you know why it is exciting to have something new to try? Because everything I have tried so far has failed to some extent. To the extent that I am still morbidly obese. Low Carbing works, and it even works for me, but it is not all I need.

Never give up
Never give up. Never. Especially don’t give up because of what other people might think. Other people don’t have to live you life. You do.

The information in this post is summarized on my new Six Week Cure homepage, which is also accessible on a TAB at the top of this page.

I hope you enjoy following along with me as I try to tame the middle-aged middle!

Tally Ho! And, away we go!

Lovin’ It Low Carb
Ramona Denton