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Q: I hear a lot of people talk about their blood sugar being high, or most often being low. What is normal blood glucose, and why should I be concerned with it--isn't that something for someone with diabetes to worry about?

A: Normal blood glucose levels are between 80 and 120 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter, a way of measuring concentration or "how thick with sugar our blood is"). No, this is not something just for people with diabetes to be concerned with because blood glucose levels may be part of the reason why we slow down our metabolism and store fat.

Q: I am a 5'4" tall female and weigh 135 pounds. I want to be muscular, but get rid of fat without looking "masculine." What should I weigh, and what is that based on?

A: My clients usually come to me with the same goals: gain or maintain their muscle mass and get rid of some body fat. Although one may think that these are mostly aesthetic concerns, the truth of the matter is that body composition or body fat percentage is a true measure of health as opposed to how much we weigh. You may even be surprised to find that a pint of water (two cups) weighs a pound; and that you may gain or lose a pound or more of body weight based on your hydration status and daily fluid intake. Therefore, here at DietGuru.com, we do not measure our clients' success or progress based on their body weight. That is also why your DietGuru.com Executive program includes FREE body fat calipers so that we may monitor your progress and adjust your program accordingly based on your body composition and not your body weight.

You will be measuring your body fat percentage every week and emailing us the results. If we see a gain in muscle and a loss in fat, we know we have designed your meal plan perfectly. If we see a gain in muscle and an increase in fat mass, we know your meal plan includes too many calories. Finally, if we see a gain in fat and a loss in muscle, we know you are either not eating enough protein-not eating enough calories, or both. This is why it is critical to follow your meal plan to the letter for the first two weeks, and to keep in touch weekly for your follow-ups so that we may establish a "baseline" on how your metabolism is working and how it reacts to the nutritional and exercise plan introduced.

Q: I started on an exercise program to lose weight and after working out really hard, have found that I weigh eight pounds more than I did before I started working out. Why is this, and how can I lose the weight I want?

A: As a matter of fact, as you begin to exercise, your body starts to store more "fuel" in your muscle cells. This fuel is called glycogen, which is simply many glucose or blood sugar molecules hooked together and stored in your muscles and body cells for later use. These glycogen molecules are so highly concentrated that your body must also store water in your cells along with glycogen in a ratio of 1:3 (one molecule of glycogen to three molecules of water). Since water weighs a pound for every pint (2 cups) and glycogen also weighs considerably, your weight is sure to increase as you increase your exercise levels, and your glycogen and water storage increases in response to the increase in exercise. To make this easier to understand, follow the link to our car analogy.

Q: How much fat will I lose, and how much muscle will I gain on this program? How do you determine what to change on my meal pattern based on the body fat percentage changes you see from the caliper measurements I send in weekly? These calipers are really cool, and I like seeing progress, but how long do I have to keep emailing you weekly?

A: The amount of fat loss/muscle gains an individual achieves differs from person to person. You can look at some of the graphs depicting our clients' progress to get an idea of their fat loss, muscle gain, overall weight change, and even the amount and intensity of exercise they were involved in to achieve the kind of results you see. This will allow you to make an educated guess based on where you stand and what your results will be by comparing their information to your information. The whole idea is for you to gain muscle and lose fat regardless of whether you are male or female since gaining muscle increases your metabolism-burns up to 50 calories more per hour per Kg of body weight during exercise, and 10 or so while you are just sitting around. The difference in muscle gains between males and females is that males will gain more muscle than females just because females are lacking testosterone. This link will take you to a page with the information on how we modify your meal pattern based on your weekly caliper measurements as well as how your follow-up schedule progresses.

Q: My best friend is a vegetarian and she says that beans are considered a protein; yet I've read somewhere that legumes are carbohydrates. Is there a sure way of knowing which is which?

A: Even today after all those fad high protein diets, people are still confused on what the difference is between a protein and a carbohydrate. Well, I have come up with a real simple guideline to determine whether something is a protein or a carbohydrate: if it walks, swims, or flies, it is a protein. If it comes from a plant, it is a carbohydrate. Surely my vegetarian friends and readers must be squirming at this broad generalization. I would agree with you if you were to argue that beans are high in protein, as are many other legumes, plants and even some vegetables. By clicking on this link, you will be able to find out how the American Dietetic and the American Diabetic Associations both determine whether a certain food is considered to be a protein or a carbohydrate.

Q: I eat a healthy breakfast consisting of a bowl of cereal with non-fat milk, several pieces of toast with jam or jelly, and a glass of orange juice. By the time I reach my office I am already starving! Since I am trying to lose weight, I don't eat anything until lunch (some where between 1:00 and 2:00pm) consisting of a Chicken Caesar salad, but find that I am starving by then. To top things off, although I have actually lost weight, I look and feel fatter! Why is this happening, and how can I prevent this from going on?

A: Given the short gastric emptying time of carbohydrates, no wonder you can be hungry by the time you get to your office after having a bowl of cereal with milk, several pieces of toast with jam or jelly, and a glass of orange juice! These are all carbohydrates that leave your stomach really quickly, raise your blood glucose levels really quickly, most likely storing everything you ate for breakfast as fat, and lowering your blood glucose levels really quickly as well (which is what makes you so hungry). You then go on without eating until 1 or 2 pm, slowing down your metabolism even further (remember, low blood glucose levels cause your metabolism to put on the brakes) which will most likely cause you to overeat for lunch, or if you are "disciplined enough" and just have a (fat laden) salad for lunch, by the time you do have dinner you find that you are ravenous and cannot be satiated no matter what or how much you eat. You also look and feel fatter because of something called "gluconeogenesis."

Q: With so much stuff to know about diet and nutrition, how will I know exactly what to do?

A: Easy, just follow the 3 simple rules we have created for you at DietGuru.com that will simplify your life.