Meet Our CarbLovers!

 By Shaun Chavis

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Last week here at Health’s Alabama office, we kicked off an exciting project: A group of 14 women and two men are trying our new diet plan, The CarbLovers Diet.

We’ve been working on this diet for two years, and it’s based on emerging research about “resistant starch”—a starch that can help boost your weight-loss efforts, and is naturally found in foods like bananas, potatoes, rice, pasta, beans, and bread. (Yes, carbs are back on the menu!)

I started reading about and researching resistant starch, and have worked some of the principles into my own life. For example, I eat beans every day now (usually in my breakfast burrito, sometimes on a lunch salad), and they help keep me full.

But satiety’s just one of the benefits of resistant starch. Resistant starch also helps you cut calories, boost your body’s metabolism, burn more fat, reduce abdominal fat, and maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

Now, I’m not alone in putting these principles to practice. We’ve had a great group in New York try the diet—you’ll read more about the participants when The CarbLovers Diet comes out in early August, and you’ll get a sneak peek at the diet in Health’s July/August issue (I’m working on that now).

We’ve also got a crew of 16 in Birmingham on the resistant starch bandwagon: excited volunteers who are doing our plan for 12 weeks, using our recipes, our menus, and under the supervision of a wonderful registered dietitian.

They’re filling up on banana shakes, fish tacos with a yummy slaw, cheddar and egg sandwiches, and sirloin steak. And there’s nothing that’s banned—they get to have chocolate, wine, real cheese, pasta, and even potato chips! (I just couldn’t tell someone to go without their favorite foods when on a diet, and that’s something the editors here all agreed on.)

Some of our Birmingham dieters are already blogging and Tweeting their experiences on The CarbLovers Diet. Check them out:

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