Description:This title is a play on the popular series of books about the human body, “You: The Owners Manual” was the first, written by Roizen and the wildly popular Oprah doc, Mehmet Oz. I’m no doctor, far from it! I’m a judge, but I’ve learned some things about the functioning of the body as a body for lifer that I hope will help you understand the whats and whys of this great program.

It’s all about sugar and insulin! Greatly simplified, the success of the body for life diet is all about controlling blood insulin levels. Insulin regulates blood sugar, because excess blood sugar is corrosive to the circulatory system and elsewhere. So, when blood sugar rises in response to food intake, especially if it rises rapidly due to eating sugary foods, this triggers the release of insulin from the “storage tanks” to the bloodstream. Insulin, again greatly simplified, “arrests” the excess sugar and takes it and stores it into the fat cells, in order to protect the circulatory system. Insulin usually does its job so thoroughly that the blood sugar level is then a bit too low for normal activity, which is why you feel kind of really weak and even shaky after you’ve bombed down 3 krispy kremes and then crashed!

What are you craving after the crash? Sweets and bready carbohdyrates aren’t you? So, you return to the scene of the crime so to speak, and the cycle happens again. And once again the insulin tosses the sugar into fat cells. This entire cycle explains why people can get fat even though they may not gain scale weight, and why those who eat just one big meal a day do a really, really dumb thing! It also explains why those who drink lots of fruit juice, colas or other sweet drinks are usually significantly overfat.

Ultimately, things get even worse. A person can abuse their body this way to the point that they develop a form of diabetes because their body becomes resistant to their own insulin. This complicates things much more.

When the diet is right, and the dieter is eating the six small meals, which are designed to contain mostly lower glycemic carbohydrates, things work the way they are supposed to. The nutrients go to the storage of glycogen in the muscles and organs, where it can be used as energy by the body. And they also go to repair and build muscle that has suffered “microdamage” during the strenuous exercise sessions. Not only is their no fat storage going on, but there is fat burning, and muscle building. WIthout the insulin spikes, there are no great “swings” of energy, emotions, and hunger pangs.

Better, much better, to eat right, eat often and work out hard. You on BFL–much better!