Here’s the secret to weight loss: It’s all about crowding out, not cutting out. Crowding out is a term used in nutritional circles to describe how to eat in a healthy way so that you never even have the chance to feel hungry. You literally crowd out the junk you think you want to eat by choosing to eat key foods throughout the day so that you’re always satisfied. Isn’t that preferable to depriving yourself of foods and white-knuckling it all the way?
When you gradually add in nutrient-dense, fiber-rich foods, you simply stop feeling cravings. You run out of space in your belly for the old junk. Instead of craving, you feel full, fulfilled, and content.
Here’s how it works: All you have to do to get started is to add healthier choices to whatever else you’re already eating. Before you dig into whatever it is you really want to eat, have something with some natural fiber in it — ideally, an apple — because in all the medical literature, the one dietary component most associated with weight loss is fiber consumption. The reason fiber helps us control our weight is that it fills the belly yet yields few calories since fiber is, for the most part, not something that we can digest. It also slows down the digestion of food, so you get a slow and steady source of glucose sans the rollercoaster ride of blood sugar crazies and the cravings that follow.
Most Americans don’t get enough fiber each day to meet their nutritional requirements. It’s recommended that women get at least 25 grams of fiber per day on a 2,000 calorie diet — or to be more precise, 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories consumed. Men are recommended to get 38 grams. However, the average American only gets about 15 grams daily. Twenty-five grams is actually at the low end of what your optimal fiber intake, so there’s no reason not to aim higher. We humans actually evolved eating more than 100 grams of fiber a day, largely from wild greens. So back to that apple: How does an apple measure up in terms of fiber? Eating just one apple a day (skin on) will give you an average of 4.4 grams of fiber, about one-fifth of your daily need.
And apples don’t have just any old fiber, they are a rich source of a particularly powerful kind called pectin. It’s what’s used as a gelling agent to make jams and jellies, and in our stomach it can delay stomach emptying through a similar mechanism. Researchers at UCLA showed that by swapping in pectin for regular fiber, they could double the time it took subjects’ stomachs to empty from about 1 hour to 2 hours, which meant subjects felt full that much longer.[1] And in another study published in the journal Nutrition, scientists found that instructing participants to eat an apple or a pear before meals resulted in significant weight loss.[2]
The participants were told, in effect, to eat more food, to add the fruit on top of their regular diets, and what happened is that the fruit crowded out less healthy choices, they ended up eating fewer calories overall, and they started shedding pounds.
While singing the praises of the humble apple, though, I would be remiss not to mention the extraordinary health benefits associated with eating them. It seems the old adage, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” just may hold truer than we knew.
A major review published in 2008 out of the German Cancer Research Center found that indeed, compared with those who eat less than an apple a day, those who eat one or more had less risk of oral cancer, cancer of the voice box, breast cancer, and colon, kidney, and ovarian cancer as well.
This makes sense given new research from Cornell showing that apple peels have potent antioxidant and growth-blocking effects on human breast cancer cells examined in a petri dish, and the higher the apple concentration, the fewer the cancer cells. And apples seem to work best against estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer, which is much harder to treat than the receptor-positive kind.
How do apples do what they do?
There are three stages of tumor formation. Carcinogens cause the initial DNA mutations (the initiation stage), and then oxidation, inflammation, and hormones cause it to grow (the promotion stage); finally, metastasis occurs, in which the cancer spreads throughout the body. Which steps have apples been found to block? All of them. Apples not only have antimutagenic, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects, but they may even enhance our immune systems to help clear out any budding tumors before they get their start.
So if you’re rooting around for something to eat, grab an apple while you’re looking, and usually by the time you’re finished eating it, your hunger will have been sidelined; it’s crowding out at its best! Have it in the midmorning, in the afternoon, or before a meal; it’s entirely up to you. But before the day’s end, do eat an apple. Not apple juice or applesauce (and certainly not apple pie or an apple muffin!). Just a good ol’ whole apple. Any kind will do. You might just be pleasantly surprised at how the weight starts coming off and your health begins to soar!
For more by this author and to learn about her most recent book, “The Lean: A Revolutionary (and Simple!) 30-Day Plan for Healthy, Lasting Weight Loss,” visit www.kathyfreston.com.
References:
[1] Di Lorenzo C, Williams CM, Hajnal F, Valenzuela JE. “Pectin delays gastric emptying and increases satiety in obese subjects.”Gastroenterology. 1988 Nov;95(5):1211-5.
[2] Conceicao de Oliveira M, Sichieri R, Sanchez Moura A. “Weight loss associated with a daily intake of three apples or three pears among overweight women.” Nutrition. 2003 Mar;19(3):253-6.
What life threatening, life sapping, energy robbing condition affects one in every two Americans (that is, every other person) including 80 percent of those overweight and up to 40 percent of normal weight people? What condition is responsible for more deaths from heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and dementia than anything else? What condition also causes acne, infertility, sexual dysfunction and depression?
What condition accounts for more then 70 percent of our $2.4 trillion annual health care bill and will account for most of the $47 trillion we will spend globally over the next 20 years to deal with chronic disease? What is responsible for nearly twice as many deaths every year as infectious disease, even in the developing world?
And what condition is not even diagnosed in over 90 percent of those who suffer from it?
What condition are doctors not trained or reimbursed to diagnose, treat or prevent, yet makes up the majority of health care visits and costs?
And what condition is nearly 100 percent preventable, treatable and reversible?
Diabesity.
It is the single biggest health challenge facing us individually, as a nation and as a global community.
Diabesity is the continuum of metabolic disturbances from mild blood sugar and insulin imbalances to pre-diabetes to full blown type 2 diabetes. It occurs in about 40 percent of people of normal weight – these are the skinny fat people who look thin but are metabolically fat and have all the same risk factors for disease and death as those who are overweight. And it occurs in 80 percent of overweight people.
Since it affects every other American, watch this video to see if you have it.
The solution is not coming from our healthcare system or doctors, not from our government, or from most corporations. There are too many people vested in maintaining the status quo or worse: profiting from making us fat and sick. We need a solution.
That is why I wrote, “The Blood Sugar Solution.” It has a bold central goal: to address and begin to reverse a global epidemic. It is a personal guide and plan, as well as a program for helping people get healthy together, based on functional medicine, and it is a blueprint for us to take back our health as a society.
Obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes or what I call diabesity, which now affects one in two Americans, arises out of existing social, economic and political conditions. In fact, obesity and diabetes are social diseases and need a social cure and collective action on many levels to reverse the tide.
Over 10 years, these conditions will cost America over $3.5 trillion in direct costs, not including lost productivity and the costs in quality of life. From 1983 to 2008, worldwide diabetes rates increased seven-fold from 35 million to 240 million. In just 3 years from 2008 to 2011, the roll call for diabetes increased another 110 million.
Children less than 10 years old now get type 2 (or adult onset) diabetes, and have strokes and heart attacks by age 15 or 20. One in three children born today will have diabetes unless we do something differently.
It is a personal plan that breaks through myths about obesity and diabetes that keep us sick and fat. And lays out the seven key steps to preventing, treating and reversing diabesity by dealing with the underlying causes. It is an eight-week plan that takes you through step by step how to reboot your metabolism, lose weight, reverse type 2 diabetes.
It is a plan for us to be more successful by working together to get healthy. We do twice as well and lose twice as much weight when we get support from others in community. We are better together.
We recently did a “beta test” of this program with about 150 people. Their results were astounding:
The group lost a total of 1,536 pounds in just eight weeks. That’s an average weight loss of over ten pounds per person!
More than half the group lost more than ten pounds. Some lost as much as 28 pounds.
Average waist size decreased by 1.5 inches, and some people lost so much of their waist that they had to go out and buy new clothes. One woman lost eight inches from her waist. Imagine, eight inches in eight weeks. No medication can help you do that.
But “The Blood Sugar Solution” is about far more than weight loss; it’s about taking back your health and your life. People who completed the program reported an average reduction of 14 points on their systolic blood pressure, their fatigue evaporated and they had more energy than they had felt in years, their joint and muscle pain vanished; the program improved their mood and sleep, eliminated their brain fog, and a provided a deep sense of well-being. The Blood Sugar Solutiongave these people a new lease on life.
The Blood Sugar Solution is a plan for each of us to take back our health as a society. Our health has been hijacked from us, taken from us slowly, quietly, over the past century. Our current food, social, family, school, work, faith-based, and community environments, health care institutions, and government policies make it hard for us to make healthy choices. We are presented with choices that foster bad habits. But together, getting and staying healthy is possible given the right information, tools, support and collective action to take back our health.
Navigating the Terrain of Disease: Getting to the Root of the Problem
To effectively treat diabesity we must shift our focus away from the symptoms or risk factors of the disease and begin taking a hard look at the causes. All of our attention is on treatments that lower blood sugar (diabetes drugs and insulin), lower high blood pressure (anti-hypertensive drugs), improve cholesterol (statins) and thin the blood (aspirin). But we never ever ask the most important question:
Why is your blood sugar, blood pressure, or blood cholesterol too high and why is your blood too sticky and likely to clot?
Put another way: What are the root causes of diabesity?
Answering that question must be the focus of our diagnosis and treatment of the disease if we are going to solve this global epidemic.
The good news is that the answer is shockingly simple.
The Real Causes of Diabesity
The entire spectrum of diabesity including all of its complications—diabetes, elevated blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol—are simply downstream symptoms that result from problems with diet, lifestyle, and environmental toxins interacting with our unique genetic susceptibilities.
Those are the real causes of diabesity.
And the reason these dietary and lifestyle factors lead to diabesity is because they create a condition known as “insulin resistance.” Contrary to what most people think, type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much (not too little) insulin. Insulin is the real driver of problems with diabesity.
When your diet is full of empty calories and an abundance of quickly absorbed sugars, liquid calories,[i] and carbohydrates (like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes), your cells slowly become resistant to the effects of insulin and need more and more to do the same job of keeping your blood sugar even. Thus, you develop insulin resistance. A high insulin level is the first sign of a problem. The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance. Your body starts to age and deteriorate. In fact, insulin resistance is the single most important phenomenon that leads to rapid and premature aging and all its resultant diseases, including heart disease, stroke, dementia and cancer.[ii],[iii]
As your insulin levels increase it leads to an appetite that is out of control, increasing weight gain around the belly, more inflammation and oxidative stress and myriad downstream effects including high blood pressure; high cholesterol; low HDL, high triglycerides;[iv] weight gain around the middle; thickening of the blood; and increased risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression. These are all a result of insulin resistance and too much insulin. Elevated blood sugar is not the source of the problem.
And because insulin resistance (and diabesity) are a direct outcome of diet and lifestyle, the condition is 100 percent reversible in the vast majority of cases. Most people just need to eliminate the things that are sending their biology out of balance and include what’s needed to help the body rebalance itself. For most, the interventions required are extremely simply and extraordinarily effective.
8 Steps to Reversing Diabesity
In my new book, ”The Blood Sugar Solution,” I outline a comprehensive 8-week plan for overcoming diabesity in all its forms. Here is a sneak preview of the steps outlined in the book:
Get the right tests. Most doctors focus on fasting blood sugar. This is actually a poor indicator of diabesity. The best test to tease out the condition is an insulin response test where insulin levels are measured fasting and then 1 and 2 hours after a glucose drink. Demand this test from your doctor.
Get smart about nutrition. Despite the media hype and the seeming confusion amongst doctors, the basics of nutrition are extremely simple. Eliminate sugar and processed carbohydrates, include whole real foods like lean protein (for non-vegans: chicken or fish), veggies, nuts, seeds, beans and whole grains.
Get the right supplements. There has recently been a frenzy of negative reports about supplements. Most of them are unfounded. Supplements are an essential part of treating diabesity. A good multivitamin, vitamin D, fish oil* and special blood sugar balancing nutrients like alpha lipoic acid, chromium polynicotinate, biotin, cinnamon, green tea catechins and PGX (a super fiber) should also be included.
Get relaxed. Stress is a major unrecognized contributor to insulin resistance and blood sugar imbalance. Push your pause button every day with deep breathing, visualization, yoga and other relaxation techniques.
Get moving. Aside from changing your diet, exercise is probably the single best medication for diabesity. Walk for at least 30 minutes every day. For some, 30-60 minutes of more vigorous aerobic exercise 4-6 times a week may be necessary.
Get clean and green. Environmental toxins also contribute to diabesity. Filter your water, look for green cleaning products and avoid plastics when you can.
Get personal. While the steps above will address 80 percent of the problems with diabesity, some may need to take additional steps to optimize key areas of their biology. Remember, the medicine of the future is personal medicine. Seek out your own biological imbalances and look for ways to address them.
Get connected. Research is beginning to show that we get better more effectively when we get together. Invite your friends, families and neighbors to change their diets and lifestyle along with you. Together we can all take back our health.
I hope that my book “The Blood Sugar Solution” will be the beginning of a larger transformation – for individuals, communities and for society. In the book I outline all of the social, economic, biological, and medical underpinnings of this health epidemic and provide an 8-week, step-by-step system that will allow you to dig deep into your own biology and heal even the most severe cases of diabesity.
[i] Chen L, Appel LJ, Loria C, Lin PH, Champagne CM, Elmer PJ, Ard JD, Mitchell D, Batch BC, Svetkey LP, Caballero B. Reduction in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with weight loss: the PREMIER trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 May;89(5):1299-306.
[ii] Bhashyam S, Parikh P, Bolukoglu H, Shannon AH, Porter JH, Shen YT, Shannon RP. Aging is associated with myocardial insulin resistance and mitochondrial dysfunction. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2007 Nov;293(5):H3063-71.
[iii] Ryan AS. Insulin resistance with aging: effects of diet and exercise. Sports Med. 2000 Nov;30(5):327-46. Review.
[iv] Gaziano JM, Hennekens CH, O’Donnell CJ, Breslow JL, Buring JE. Fasting triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, and risk of myocardial infarction. Circulation. 1997 Oct 21;96(8):2520-5.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is the day! Crazy Sexy Juices & Succulent Smoothies is here!
I am so excited to offer this beautiful e-book to you. It was a joy to create and it fills my heart with pride and fire knowing you have yet another Crazy Sexy tool on your health & happiness journey.
It means a lot to me to be able to share this luscious e-book with you on Valentine’s Day. Chances are you’ve heard my story, but in case you haven’t, nine years ago today, on February 14, 2003, I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable stage IV cancer.
This life-changing moment sparked a deep desire in me to learn how to take impeccable care of myself. I’ve written several books outlining my journey, philosophy and transformation.
If you take only one gem from all the jewels I teach, let it be making juices and smoothies. This simple practice will give you power, energy and strength beyond words. Juicing and making green smoothies has vastly increased the quality of my life (and countless others). It’s the one daily practice that I will never ever abandon. I’m so grateful to have a juicy compass and blueprint for healthy living.
Are you ready to learn what I know and taste some ridiculously awesome liquid love?
Crazy Sexy Juices & Succulent Smoothies is your go-to manual for everything juicing and blending. Seriously, at 80 pages, this downloadable baby is packed with the answers to all your juicing and blending questions: Want to know which juicer and blender to buy, the difference between juicing and blending and why both are great for you, how long juice lasts (hint: it’s different for every juicer), how to take your new healthy habit on the road, solid tips for picking the best produce to optimize nutrition (this will save you $$ every week), how to save time on the prep and cleanup, which superfoods really pack a punch in your smoothies, how to save money on kitchen equipment, and more — it’s all in here!
Plus, you’ll get 60 unique and delish recipes from me and the brilliant Crazy Sexy Community! I was blown away by your creative culinary skills. We received over 300 recipe submissions with ingredients like watercress, arugula, rhubarb, endive, mint and for those who like it spicy – jalapeño! You really spread the green love to every corner of the fruit and veggie kingdom, and I am so proud of you!
Now give yourself some Valentine’s Day self-love and grab your copy at crazysexyjuice.com. Oh, and I hope you enjoy the video! A special thanks to my awesome hubby for shooting and editing and most of all, for making us laugh. Laughing=health.
The epidemic of obesity has grown dramatically in recent years, most notably in children, one-third of whom have been swept up by weight problems and are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer, among other problems.Unfortunately, the battle against obesity is getting a lot harder. First of all, people trying to lose weight have been lied to. They have been told that the problem is a lack of exercise, when, in fact, studies clearly show that weight gain in the United States over the past 30 years is almost entirely due to changing eating habits, not a lack of physical activity.They have been lied to about food, with quick-fix, low-carb advocates pointing a finger of blame at bread and fruit, when carbohydrates actually have only four calories per gram, unlike fats, which have nine. That’s why people in Asian countries stayed thin and healthy until Western fast-food chains brought in meat, cheese, and other junk foods that displaced traditional rice-based meals.
They have been lied to by some well-meaning, but not-yet-well-informed fat-acceptance advocates who, while helpfully rallying against discrimination, have also sought to minimize obesity’s dangers with phrases like “obese but healthy.” You can also be “a smoker, but healthy,” but that simply means the complications have not yet arrived.
As a result of this lack of forthrightness, obesity has settled in for the long term, and many people have simply become resigned to it for themselves and their children. The consequences will be devastating: Experts estimate that one in three children born in 2000 will go on to develop diabetes—a disease strongly linked to excess weight.
The obesity epidemic is not caused by inactivity, bread, rice, gluttony, weak will, or a bad childhood. It is caused by a tsunami of unhealthful foods, and one of the worst, perhaps surprisingly, is cheese. Typical cheeses are about 70 percent fat, and every last fat gram packs nine calories that no one needs. Most of that fat is saturated (“bad”) fat—the kind that increases cholesterol levels and puts us at risk for diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other diseases. A 2-ounce cheese serving also packs 350 milligrams of sodium and, ounce for ounce, as much cholesterol as a heart-stopping steak.
In 1909, the average American consumed only 3.8 pounds of cheese in a year’s time. Today, that number is pushing 34 pounds. That’s an increase of 30 pounds per person this year, next year, and again the year after that, thanks to the combined promotional efforts of government and industry. Of those extra 30 pounds of cheese we are stuffing into our mouths every year, it would only take one or two to stick in order to explain the entire weight problem in America. Of course, there are other co-conspirators in the obesity epidemic, too, notably the rise in meat and sugar consumption.
A Wake-Up Call
PCRM erected billboards in New York State depicting a heavy-set man and woman and pointing out, clearly and simply, that cheese contributes to obesity. Judging by the press response, it was a message that was badly needed. Many reporters had no idea that cheese was so high in fat and calories.
We knew that the dairy industry would object. But the fact is, dairy farmers and their families need this message, too. After all, they run the same risks as their customers.
Some overweight people may object, too. Just as cancer organizations have used images of tobacco-damaged lungs and anti-drunk-driving organizations have shown grim accident scenes, graphic visual reminders are painful for the victims of these conditions.
Certainly, there is no value in blaming overweight people for a condition that results from a mixture of industry marketing, government promotions, addictive qualities of foods, genetic vulnerabilities, medication effects on appetite, and, in the end, overeating. Instead, it is essential to zero in on the problem foods, expose them, and do what we can to get them off our collective plates. The PCRM billboards are a mirror, showing obesity as it really is, linking it appropriately to cheese, and making it clear that there is a problem here.
The worst thing that doctors or the public can do is to slow down the fight against obesity and against the foods that contribute to it. Prying a generation away from tobacco was tough, and prying people away from obesogenic foods today will be far more challenging. People struggling with weight problems deserve understanding and support, and we do them no favors if we hide the problem, sugar-coat it, or fail to address its causes. We have to face the dangers of obesity directly, make it clear that certain foods are serious problems, and do all we can to support the changes that are essential for good health.
For more information on how to optimize your health, visit NealBarnard.org
The major determinant of your long term health is the nutritional quality of the calories you eat. It is the quality of the fat you eat, the quality of the protein and the quality of the carbohydrate that influences your health.
Ask yourself, is the food I am about to eat a whole, natural plant source of calories? Is it packaged with fiber, antioxidants and phytochemicals? Does it contain not just discovered nutrients, but plenty of undiscovered nutrients too? Or were most of those fragile, but beneficial nutrients lost in the way the food was processed or prepared? These are the questions, to ask yourself, not whether it is a low fat or high fat food.
You may have heard that nuts, seeds and avocados are fatty and fattening and are foods to be shunned. However, recent evidence from many different studies showing a wide variety of health benefits from eating these foods has finally buried this myth. It is important to emphasize that the health problems associated with high fat diets are from consuming animal fats, processed oils and trans fats, not from the consumption of avocados, and raw nuts and seeds. There has never been a study that showed any negative health outcomes from consuming these natural, high fat, whole plant foods. In fact, the studies that have been done only show positive health benefits, and conclude that these foods should be an important part of a well-rounded, healthy diet.
Macronutrients are the three sources of calories—fat, carbohydrate and protein. Americans eat too much of all three and we need to reduce all of them. I intentionally do not give a preferred percentage of each macronutrient in the diet and I do not recommend fat be significantly limited. Trying to micromanage the precise amount of each caloric source misses the most critical issue in human nutrition. The real critical issue in human nutrition is meeting your macronutrient needs without excess, for all three macronutrients, and getting sufficient micronutrients in the process (vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals—the parts of food that do not contain calories). There is a broad acceptable range in the macronutrient ratio as long as one is not overeating calories.
However, adhering to a diet that is less than 10 percent of calories from fat is not an appropriate recommendation for ideal health and often results in less than ideal health outcomes. One could be on a healthful diet that is 15 percent of calories from fat or a healthful diet that is 30 percent of calories from fat too. As long as the diet is rich in micronutrients and does not exceed our need for calories, the lower fat diet has no advantage in the prevention and treatment of disease. There is no evidence to suggest that a diet of equal calories that is much lower in fat is an advantage for prevention or treatment of heart disease or any other disease. Studies that compare dietary fat percentages suggest that it is not the fat level, but other more critical qualities that make the diet more or less beneficial.
To achieve an ideal level of phytonutrients and other micronutrients it necessitates eating a large amount of green vegetables each day. Any diet that does not recommend sufficient consumption of vegetables is lacking. When you eat lots of vegetables, especially green vegetables, you meet your body’s need for fiber and micronutrients with very little calories. Then to comprise the balance of the diet and fill our caloric needs we can choose an assortment of other foods, preferably ones that are of the highest nutrient quality. Unlike some other doctors and authors advocating a plant-based diet, I recommend more vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds and use less bread, potato, and rice. With the addition of nuts and seeds, which average about 175 calories an ounce, one or two ounces a day brings the diet up to the 15 – 30 percent of calories from fat range. My recommend diet is definitely not under 10 percent of calories from fat and because of the addition of seeds and nuts it is also considerably higher in protein too.
It might seem logical to restrict higher fat foods like nuts seeds and avocado because high fat foods are higher in calories and fat is 9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories a gram for carbohydrates and protein. Of course one should take care not to eat too many calories and adjust the level of these foods to maintain a slim body and not to overeat on them or any other food. However, there are lots of good reasons to include at least some of these higher fat foods in one’s diet.
Evidence is accumulating that a diet as low as 10 percent of calories from fat Is too low, even for the overweight, diabetic or heart disease patient and that the judicious use of these higher fat foods is beneficial for not just heart disease, but for weight loss and diabetes too. The scientific literature corroborates my clinical experience over the last 15 years caring for thousands of patients with obesity, diabetes and heart disease, and provides evidence to show that for every calorie removed from the diet from rice, potato, bread or animal products and substituted with raw seeds and nuts you get many health benefits, such as:
• Lower blood sugar
• Lower cholesterol
• Lower triglycerides
• Better LDL/HDL ratio
• Better antioxidant status
• Better absorption of phytochemicals from vegetables
• Better diabetic control
• Lower weight
• More effective reversal of heart disease
• Prevention of cardiac arrhythmias in heart patients
• More weight loss, not weight gain
• Better nutritional diversity and satisfaction with less calories
• Increased protection against cancer
• Better muscle and bone mass with aging
With the growing awareness of the health properties of nuts and seeds, we must also realize that they must be eaten in moderation. Should we all sit in front of our TV’s, eat the entire bag of nuts in an hour, and complain when we gain weight? Of course not. Healthy eaters avoid excessive calories and do not eat for recreation. Eat only an ounce a day if you are significantly overweight, but if thin, physically active, pregnant or nursing eat 2 – 4 ounces according to your caloric needs.
