The three foundations of the GIFT diet: a diet as a friend
To sum up, the GIFT diet marks its targets (that are not confined to the loss of weight but aim at the psychophysical balance and re-establishment of an acceptable overall health) by strengthening the 'consumption' abilities of our body and not - like most diets - by reducing the number of calories taken.
GIFT is the acronym of the English words: Graduality, Individuality, Flexibility, Tone
The foundations
There are many important elements characterizing the GIFTdiet(r): we need to understand them and gradually, day by day, get used to them. Furthermore, the diet requires a straight psychophysical participation without which every effort would be vain: nobody will do for you what you are not willing to do.
The following are the 'foundations' around which all the GIFT diet's rules revolve:
1. Metabolic activation
2. Insulin calm
3. Nutrients quality
1. Metabolic activation
The first topic we suggest to those visiting our Centre in order to lose weight is that, by no means, we will count the calories contained in every dish. Whoever is forced to do this, gives up an important part of his/her freedom, and will experience his/her diet like a 'prison'. Instead, we focus on the metabolic activation.
An active metabolism means living with a body functioning at maximum speed for what concerns the consumption of calories, the elimination of toxins, the repair of damaged tissues, the mental speed and brilliancy and the ability to express ourselves physically.
An idle metabolism, on the contrary, means a slowdown in calorie burning, physical and mental indolence, accumulation of endogenous toxins, slow recovery from illnesses - in short - a proneness to fattening and the inability to lose weight.
All the diets requiring a greater or smaller calorie limitation, ignore or underestimate that as soon as the food intake decreases, our body reacts by slowing down the consumption of calories and that's because in the history of our evolution, we have always been more afraid of hunger than of food surplus.
Our body (this is a fundamental aspect of the GIFT diet) "thinks" in evolutionary terms. From a biological point of view, we are just like those primitive hunters and gatherers who lived in the African valleys more than one million years ago: our biological reactions and our physical and psychological mechanisms are still the same. When food is available, we eat with no delay (opportunities to get plenty of food, at that time, were certainly not frequent!), whereas, in case of lack of food, the body keeps in great consideration whatever it can find (including our fat reserves). If we don't understand these simple dynamics, this 'way of thinking', which often saved our lives in the past, may shorten it dramatically today.
To fully understand the implications of what was said above, we can imagine the assimilation and consumption mechanism, just like a bath into which the water level represents the optimal food intake. The jet from the tap represents the amount of food we swallow, while the emptying hole is what we burn.
Who grounds his diet on a rigid calorie calculation assumes with naive simplicity that the body is like a machine with mechanical reactions. You only have to reduce the tap jet, and Bob's your uncle!
But it's not like this: as soon as the jet decreases, even before you can see the effects, the body reacts tightening the exit hole, in anticipation of a later possible famine. With the result that not only you won't lose weight (to do that the tap jet should be zeroed, at the cost of huge psychophysical sacrifices!), but also the general metabolic rhythm of your body will dangerously slow down.
Even when the jet will be back to normal, a long time will go by, before the body re-opens the exit hole at the original conditions (for the evolutionary law of 'prudence' explained above). And during that time the body will regain - little by little - every molecule of weight laboriously lost, causing great frustration to those who (perhaps for months and months) underwent huge sacrifices. And, what's even worse, the continuous fluctuation of weight, nowadays much more connected to cardiovascular risk than plain obesity, can cause serious risks for the health.
And if it is true that the loss of weight occurs only when the intake of calories is less than the amount of calories spent (mathematics is an exact science), it is also true that it's possible to achieve the same result following the natural body tendencies rather than fighting them. And this is exactly the path that the GIFT diet follows.
Two are the basic factors to achieve the metabolic activation (whose goal is to keep high energetic consumption, thus being able to eat in a healthy and well-balanced way even during the diet period):
a. Meal distribution during the day
b. Physical activation.
(a) Meal distribution
On waking up, early in the morning, our 'primitive' body receives an environmental signal telling it if there is an abundance or a lack of food. A rich and complete breakfast in the morning, shortly after awakening, tells the body it can spend energy with no worry, and it activates all the mental and physical metabolic systems working on hormonal secretions, cytokines, or message peptides. In other words we live at 100%.
When the metabolism is slowed down, it is not the whole body to slow down (for example, at 90%): on the contrary, the body makes precise qualitative choices, according to which some systems are active at 100% and others at 70, 60, or 50%. The logic is that the 'less pressing' systems (like the immune or the emuntory system) can delay their functions for some hours or some days.
But what happens in those systems considered as 'less pressing' when the metabolic slowdown gets steady? The consequences are in front of everybody's eyes: allergies, intolerances, degenerative diseases, premature ageing. Living at 90% (or at 70 or at 50%) means first of all, that we lose a precious balance for our life.
No wonder then, if 'traveling at 100%' makes us feel physically and mentally at our best. And we are not talking about that sensation (temporary and also false) connected to a partial fast, which represents an adaptive answer focused on food search. We are talking about the renewed balance related to the full and complete expression of ourselves.
The GIFT distribution of meals over the day then provides for a rich and complete breakfast, a balanced lunch and a light dinner. This calorie distribution causes the body to start at full capacity and to slow down its rhythm at night, in order to limit the night anabolic phase (accumulation), thus avoiding the peculiar stratification of fats in those who eat exceedingly before going to bed.
On the contrary, people who start the day going hungry or almost doing that (just a coffee and a cookie...) send to their body a message of famine, to which the whole body pretty soon gets used to, and that causes a decrease in the consumption level. The result will be that they will inexplicably grow fat eating just like little birds.
(b) Physical activation
The other primary factor for the metabolic activation is physical exercise. The effect on body of a regular and continuous physical exercise, provides a coherent activation of all the muscular, cardiovascular, skeletal, tendinous, pulmonary, hepatic etc. regions which lasts over time and doesn't decrease during rest time.
If we think it over, this is due to the evolutionary considerations just made. Primitive hunters and gatherers moved all day long: they walked, searched for water and food, went hunting, swam, fought, and ran away when needed. They got rest only at night, when they slept or during the very few moments of relax and recreation; in this way their vital systems continuously worked at full activity and efficiency.
At that time, only those forced to by specific conditions would stay still: for example sick or injured people or women near their period. For these reasons, today our body connects sedentariness to a state of illness, and directs the dietary balance towards energy conservation (the injured couldn't get food easily and lived begging others for it), and anabolism, that is the accumulation of reserve fat and the repair of damaged tissues.
The more appropriate physical exercise to achieve the goal of metabolic activation is certainly the one more similar to the natural activity of the primitive man: walking in the woods and occasionally running, swimming, climbing; lifting some weights, jumping over natural obstacles and so on all day long.
We shall then prefer activities like walking, running (also on a treadmill), swimming, cycling (with an exercise, a spinning or a mountain bike), cross-country skiing, in-line skating, rowing, step, aerobics, rather than just weight training, speed running or playing anaerobic team games.
Any of these sports must be practiced as gradually as possible and with fun; without fun it is not possible to make this exercise a habit that we can repeat at least twice or three times a week.
The activity we practice needs to be intense enough to make us burn enough calories and feel the positive effects we are looking for. Sports that make us burn energy over a long time will require us to practice for a rather long time and this is something that not everybody is able to do.
We have to select carefully the activity we'd like to perform, knowing that, at the beginning, (specially if we never practiced sport in a regular way) we will have to start with great patience, giving the body all the necessary time to trigger an overcompensation, which is the essential basis for any physical progress.
A regular use of our muscular, skeletal and cardiovascular systems will very soon lead to an increase, in absolute value, of our lean mass which in other words will increase our "engine", boosting our energetic consumption even during rest (intense consumption of the brown adipocytes) and activating every apparatus in a balanced way with the result of an overall metabolic activation and stunning consequences.
A regular and continuous aerobic movement has a series of very strong effects on our psychophysical health: it improves the insulin functionality, removes toxins, rouses physical pain resistance, produces endorphins in the brain, increases our muscular mass, has an antidepressant effect, lowers the blood pressure, cleans arteries from LDL the so- called 'bad' cholesterol, expands the cardiac range, increases lung ventilation, raises the feeling of auto-effectiveness.
2. Insulin calm
Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas. It has the very important function of monitoring the level of sugar in the blood. That's not its unique function, of course. In fact, it is also involved in re-establishing the glycogen stocks (the reserve sugar of the animal world), as well as in stocking reserve fats inside the adipocytes.
Since insuline has all these functions, which are key elements in the dynamics of fattening and, as we will see later, in the development of a permanent internal inflammatory state, a careful monitoring of its behavior in our body may help us considerably in losing excess weight and, at the same time, preventing the onset or a worsening of a number of diseases such as diabetes, heart attack, obesity and allergies.
The main task of the insulin hormone is similar to that of a 'fireman' who is called to put out a 'sugar' fire that broke out in the blood. The level of sugars in the blood is strictly controlled: if it is too low, the pangs of hunger are immediately triggered. If it is too high, on the contrary, the risk of toxicity is so high that a warning signal is immediately sent to the pancreas so that it can secrete the amount of 'fireman' insulin needed to put out the fire.
Our body considers 'normal' an extremely steady level of sugar in the blood. The compensation of excesses is considered as an exceptional event, like a drunk or an indigestion. As soon as the glycaemia level rises up after our Pleistocene body ate a plate of white pasta, it sends a strong alarm signal calling insulin to action until the level of sugar is back to normal.
Nevertheless, this situation has several drawbacks. First of all, we know that when there is an emergency we cannot split hairs. Therefore green light to the "fire extinguishers". And who cares if the pancreas ability to produce insulin will not last forever.
A continuous use of this hormone will lead to diabetes, which is the inability to face up with glycaemic rises. Moreover, due to the production of cytokines causing the immune system to react in that way, the insulin circulating in the bloodstream causes an organic predisposition to inflammatory states that has pathological consequences of different kind.
And that's not all. The "fireman" continues to work on the blood (there was a fire, wasn't there?) until he is quite sure the fire will not spread. So he won't stop exactly at the perfect point, but he will go further with his action, so that the glycaemia lowers down ( at a 'safety' level). At that point (a couple of hours after eating the 'plate of pasta') our level of glycaemia will be very low and we will the pangs of hunger inducing us to eat again. But that will be a false hunger, which does not correspond to a real need expressed by our body, but only to a reaction to the secretion of insulin. At this point, if we have a snack based only on carbohydrates (for example bread and jam or a coffee with sugar and a croissant) our glycaemia will increase rapidly again causing the secretion of insulin and the repetition of the cycle.
Only understanding the (evolutionary) reasons and (metabolic) dynamics of this extremly dangerous process we will be able to understand why we sometimes put on weight unawares. Only adopting some healthy dietary habits aimed at preserving the insulin calm, we will succeed in reversing this tendency and thinking about losing weight.
The methods followed by the GIFT diet in order to achieve the task of the insulin calm are fundamentally based on:
- Proteins/Carbohydrates combination
- Choice of food with low glycaemic index
- Monitored glycaemic load
- Prevalent use of whole food or carbohydrates rich in fiber
- Rejection of industrial refined sugary food
- Increase of receptor sensitivity by physical exercise
- Stress control and reduction of the need of sugars
3. The quality of nutrients
A correct combination of proteins and carbohydrates at the main meals ( 20- 30% of proteins on the total calorie amount) causes an intense reduction of the required amount of insulin thanks to the antagonist action of glucagons, another hormone secreted by the Langerhans isles of the pancreas as a consequence of the protein intake.
Unlike other diets, requiring to respect the precise proteins/carbs ratio and so making the day by day application of the diet difficult and boring, the GIFTdiet considers this factor as ONE of the useful ways to achieve the insulin calm. This rule does not necessarily have to be respected at every meal with an exact measuring of the proportion. On the contrary, we must pay an overall attention to other important side factors such as the food glycaemic index or the total glycaemic load.
Food with a high glycaemic index, like soft drinks, white bread and pasta, sweets, ice-creams, jams or spirits, can rapidly rise the level of sugar in the blood causing the prompt intervention of insulin. But also foods which usually require a slow assimilation, like vegetables or fruits or whole pasta, if taken in excessive quantities, may easily produce sharp insulin rises even if they are combined with right amount of proteins.
It's obvious that a balanced choice includes both an overall control on the total load of nutrients and the frequent use of wholemeal, high in fiber foods (such as brown bread, wholemeal pasta, raw or half-cooked fruits and vegetables, possibly with skin and seeds) and the rejection of refined industrial products that are full of saccharose added in order to disguise an odorless and tasteless whitened, treated or refined starchy base.
Monitoring our insulin level has of course also some effects on our psyche and behaviors. If we think about the reactive huge hunger, we are subject to after a couple of cocktails or two hours after a nice plate of white pasta, we can understand by intuition how the level of sugar in the blood, and consequently in the brain, can strongly affect our behaviors.
Only a gradual introduction of all the above described methods in our daily habits can help us in monitoring our insulin activity. None of these methods is crucial if applied individually but it is the harmonious acquisition of all of them that will allow us to lose weight and regain our health naturally and without stress.
translation courtesy of Daniela Massarani and Paola Orlando
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