FAB-D Diet | 7 Science Based Facts Why You Should Try It

Akash Sehrawat

8 min read | Sep 19, 2017

Introduction

 

What is a good diet plan? How does one differentiate between a good diet and a bad diet? Are there any healthy guidelines that can help us identify good diets?

 

Yes! I strongly feel any diet plan with the following 7 health components can help anyone lose weight/build muscle, and optimize their health.

 

Let’s analyze how the FAB-D Diet scores in each of the 7 components:

Health Components Of a Good Diet Plan

 

1) Minimize Or Eliminate Sugar

 

In today’s modern world, it’s not what you eat but what comes your way. There are thousands of products in the supermarket, and almost ALL are designed to make you fat.

 

The underlying component in them: Sugar

 

Sugar comes in a disguised form. Here is a chart that shows sugar in different formats:

 

 

If you happen to find any of these ingredients (especially in the first three of an item’s ingredient list), then as a thumb rule, the majority of the calories of that product come from sugar.

 

Did you know that in the 1900s, sugar consumption in the U.S. was 90 pounds of sugar per person per year? By 2009, it had risen to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per person!

 

Three Harmful Effects Of Eating Excessive Sugar

 

1) Excessive Sugar Consumption Causes Obesity

 

There is a close parallel between the upsurge in obesity and rising levels of consumption of SSBs (sugar-sweetened beverages). SSBs include soft drinks, fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy and vitamin water drinks, and sweetened iced tea.

 

Recently, a large number of epidemiological studies quantified the relationship between SSB consumption and long-term weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease risk. 1https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20138901/

 

A meta-analysis of 88 studies found a clear association between soft drink intake, increased energy intake, and body weight. Higher soft drink intake was also associated with lower intakes of milk and calcium, as well as lower intakes and other nutrients and an increased risk of several medical problems, including diabetes. 2https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829363/, 3https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15328331/

 

2) Excessive Sugar Consumption Can Cause Type 2 Diabetes

 

If one starts to eat too much sugar, a metabolic syndrome called insulin resistance can develop. In this case, your pancreas releases more insulin to curb the excess sugar in your bloodstream, but eventually, it loses the battle. Your blood sugar keeps rising, and you end up with diabetes. 4https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002914999002118, 5https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15328324/

 

3) Excessive Sugar Consumption Can Give You Cancer

 

Multiple studies link higher sugar consumption with cancer. 6https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9298574/, 7https://www.jstor.org/stable/3553490, 8https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0306987783900956 Clearly, Sugar is the main culprit, and if any diet minimizes (or eliminates) it, it will help anyone literally to lose weight and become healthy.

 

FAB-D Diet goes one step further and eliminates grains, fruits, and cereals. Huh?

 

What’s the rationale behind it? The body will eventually metabolize carbohydrates in any form other than fiber into sugar. It does not matter if it’s a fruit, whole grains or cereal. So there is already an overload of carbohydrates in our diets.

 

Let’s briefly talk about the Indian Diet.

 

An Indian Meal comprises of daal, subzi, and chappati. Daal and Chappati are high in carbohydrates and can easily account for over 70% of calories. That’s highly skewed. And it’s fewer calories from healthy fats and proteins. That’s why most Indians are deficient in proteins.

 

There is another big problem. The type of carbs that are available now is refined and processed. After having analyzed and counseled thousands of people, it seems pretty clear that those people consumed few calories come from brown rice and sweet potatoes.

 

Mostly its cereals, oats, biscuits, bread, pasta and other sweets. Calories from these foods cause insulin resistance over time. Calories from these foods cause insulin resistance over time as their glycemic index is high and causes a rapid rise in blood sugar.

 

This is also no surprise. India is the diabetic capital of the world, where more than 40 million Indians have type-2 diabetes, and an astonishing 77 million are prediabetic. Yet, the majority of them are not even aware of it.

 

2) Enjoyability

 

Dieting is always an event. Once people are off their diets, they usually revert back to their old eating patterns. Unfortunately, they also gain all the weight back! You cannot win against powerful energy such as sugar (or junk).

 

 

If we mention that we are going to eat pizza for dinner and somehow our 4-year-old son gets a hint, he does not stop reminding us until he eats his first bite:) I wish he had the same addiction to eating ‘Daal.’

 

Unfortunately, that can never be the case, as the food companies spend billions of billions of dollars every year in R & D. They employ super smart people to create chemicals that alter our brain chemistry and our taste buds so that no one can eat just one.

 

So let’s be smart and include these chemically altered sin foods in our healthy diet plan.

 

How?

 

Give yourself the freedom to eat a percentage of calories from your favorite foods one day of the week. Not just for one meal, but for the entire day!

 

Applying the 80/20 rule to this, why not allow 20% of calories from unhealthy foods? 20% of 2,000 comes to around 600. Multiple this by 7, and it’s about 4,000 calories.

 

FAB-D Diet will allow you to eat close to 4000 calories per week from your favorite foods!!

 

However, there is a condition. Instead of eating these calories spread out throughout the week, you will be given an entire day/week, preferably a Saturday, where you can eat those calories. Why just one day of the week? We are creatures of habit. If we eat junk every day, two problems will arise:

 

-First, we will become more habitual in eating junk. You create strong habits if you do more of something every day, even if it’s less in quantity.

 

-Secondly, it is super hard to control once you start with junk food. For example, just two slices of a cheesy pizza have more than 600 calories. How many people do you think will stop at two slices?

 

How many people do you think will stop at two slices?

 

We, humans, would prefer binge eating to control eating. Another advantage of these binges is that they could actually turn out to be beneficial for you. Most of the calories that you will eat on your cheat day will come from carbs. Extra carbs will completely replenish your glycogen stores, which directly impacts the quality of your workouts.

 

Your hormones, leptin and T3, will also be optimized. You see, a caloric deficit diet to lose weight is a stress to the body, and overall it results in low levels of these, causing headaches, cravings, disruptive sleep patterns and so forth. So a refeed (every week) will help improve your hormonal profile helping you to stick to your diet plan better.

 

3) Safeguard Against Cravings And Hunger

 

I am eating more Proteins. Protein has a satiety effect. It gives you that feeling of fullness. For example, when I eat this:

 

 

I don’t feel hungry for at least 3-5 hours! Including healthy fats along with proteins does help as one gram of fat has 9 calories, and therefore it slows down gastric emptying.

 

4) Inclusion Of Healthy Fats

 

For the past few decades, fats have been demonized. Saturated fats have gotten much attention in the press over the years, but these fats have been unfairly demonized. It all started with Ancel Keys and the Seven Countries Study.

 

Related Article: Saturated Fat: Good Or Bad?

 

Keys launched the Seven Countries Study in 1958 to research the relationship between dietary patterns and the prevalence of coronary heart disease. He uncovered a direct link between heart disease from high total serum cholesterol and saturated fat intake.

 

However, the study was seriously flawed; Keys started with data from 22 countries and simply omitted the data from the countries that didn’t fit his hypothesis! For the last four decades, because of him and his deceptive study, we have been eating cereals with skim milk instead of whole egg omelets made in butter.

 

FAB-D Diet has a lot of healthy fats, 50% calories, to be precise!

 

Fats can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It is easy to get confused when talking about fats because some are good, and some are bad.

 

Good fats like Egg yolk, ghee, coconut oil, walnuts, almonds, avocados, and so forth.

 

Bad fats like trans fats, which are added to virtually every processed food item, are completely eliminated from this diet.

 

Vegetable oils that people consider healthy are also a big nono as they turn rancid and toxic when used for cooking.

 

Fats play a host of important function in our bodies, makes our food tasty and slows down gastric emptying, which, when combined with protein, can help you alleviate cravings and hunger.

 

Related Course: Good Fat Vs. Bad Fat: Complete List And Chart

 

5) Enough Fiber

 

Most experts agree that the average person only gets about half of the fiber needed daily. Estimates indicate that most of us are getting no more than 12g a severely deficient day. Ideally, women should get about 25 grams a day and men at least 35 to 40 grams a day.

 

Related Article: What Is Fiber? Health Benefits, Food Sources And Daily Requirements

 

FAB-D Diet has beans, lentils, and vegetables as its core ingredients, so when it comes to fiber [both soluble/insoluble], it is certainly not an issue!

 

6) Probiotics

 

Optimizing one’s gut bacteria is the key to good health. Foods like chutney, buttermilk, yogurt and other fermented foods like kimchi and pickles are necessary and included in this diet.

 

Related Article: Probiotics Health Benefits | 9 Probiotics-Rich Foods

 

7) Balanced Levels Of Macro And Micro-Nutrients

 

FAB-D diet is not lopsided, where one macronutrient is completely missing. Calories from Healthy Fats are fixed at 50%, and calories from proteins and carbohydrates vary based on your food choices, mainly related to the fact whether you are a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian.

 

Fat- 50% of Total Caloric Intake

 

Proteins- 25 to 40%

 

Carbohydrates- 10 to 25%

 

What About Micronutrients?

 

 

 

Here is a snapshot of the FAB-D Diet with all its core food ingredients. Notice the levels of micronutrients and fiber. Almost everything is above 100% of the recommended dose.

 

Note: The best way to get Vitamin D is through the sun.

 

Related Article: Over A Billion People Worldwide Are Vitamin D Deficient….Are You One Of Them? 

Final Note

 

It seems like THE FAB-D Diet comprises all health components and guidelines that can help anyone lose weight/build muscle, and optimize their health. Millions of people have been following a diet plan with similar guidelines with great results.

 

But I am always the skeptical one. I am on it 100%, and I want you to try it.

 

Enroll in this free course and be part of this fab journey with me.

 

 

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below!

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About Akash Sehrawat

Akash is a creator of 25+ programs and certificate courses in which more than 200,000 students have enrolled both on Udemy and Fabulous Body's native platform. Akash is also an author of three books that can be found on Amazon. His answers on Quora have gathered more than 12 million views in less than a year.

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Anand
Anand
3 years ago

Hi akash …
Pls explain me that everyone is now days says that fat can increase ur weight like belly fat.. Fat is main reason for excess weight..thts y we take carbs for energy so how could u say that 50/ fat n low carb wil help is to lose weight .how it possible pls explain me…

pavan
pavan
3 years ago

hi, Akash
while discussing the topic of carbs you said cereals and oats are also coming under the same roof like other flours, but most of the people who follow diet patterns contain oats as their first meal i.e., in breakfast. can you explain me clearly regarding the effects caused when we consume oats on daily and also what is the recommended intake on daily basis.

Kumaresh Mudaliar
Kumaresh Mudaliar
Reply to  Akash Sehrawat
3 years ago

Is Quacker oats which is available in India is it refined highly or is it healthy