heart-healthy-weight-eat bread 90-lose weight with carbs

Can I Eat Carbs and Lose Weight on this Diet?

Lose weight? Even if I’m eating carbs in the form of a pound of bread a day?

When I am running errands and people see me munching on my bag of bread, I get some strange looks. When I smile and tell them I am eating a loaf of bread a day for three months, they look at me like I am nuts and always make a comment about how fattening bread is and that I am going to gain so much weight. I invite them to subscribe to my blog to track my progress, and I seriously hope that I will prove them all wrong.

Maybe I will even lose weight! The calories in the food we eat are used to fuel our bodies at rest and in motion. What we eat is digested and converted into energy we can use. Catabolism involves the breaking down of molecules into smaller parts to be sent to our cells where they are converted into energy.

In contrast, anabolism uses energy to build simple molecules to create larger complex molecules, which allow the body to construct and maintain muscle cells and tissues.

Lose weight by understanding calories and digestion

To function properly, our bodies use more or less stable number of calories to run all their essential processes from keeping our heart beating and circulating blood to digestion. The rest of the calories are used to fuel our daily activities and physical exercise. If we consume more calories than what we burn each day, the excess is stored and eventually we gain weight.

lose weight exercise diet calories

If overall calorie intake remains the same, but the types of foods we are eating changes, our digestion will be affected.

We all know that there are foods that make us feel bloated and drowsy, and others that keep us feeling energetic for hours. We have all experienced increased bloating and gas from eating certain foods, and know that there are some foods that are more easily digested than others.

Bread, like any food made up of several ingredients, contains protein, vitamins, fat and carbohydrates. When you take a bite of a sandwich, digestion of the bread begins in the mouth when food is mixed with saliva. As it’s swallowed and continues to the stomach, the components are further broken down.

Carbs in bread

Each nutrient has a unique process for being digested and converted into energy. For example, lipid catabolism breaks down fats using lipases in cells, which are enzymes that break the fats down into glycerol and fatty acids to release energy. The type of bread we eat and its fiber content impact digestion and overall metabolism.

What I can say for sure is that I am eating constantly in order to finish a delicious loaf of bread a day. I am also drinking more water than usual to help my body with digestion. I am never hungry and the constant eating is keeping my metabolism revved up all day long. I would not be surprised if I end up losing weight. After all, fat burns in a carbohydrate flame means that your body simply cannot burn fat on its own.

plate-crumbs-eat bread 90

The Calorie Police: Day 21

Franz Bakery's 100% Whole Wheat bread.

Franz Bakery’s 100% Whole Wheat bread.

Ok, look. I’m not shy about what I eat, or reporting the sinful things that I eat on this blog. I was at a reception today, and was about to take a bite into a delicious fruit tart when a friend said “Are you supposed to eat that? This doesn’t substitute your bread consumption, right? You can’t cheat that way.”

People, people, people, relax! I’m not cheating. I’m still eating a pound of bread, and this luscious and sinful dessert is counted on top of that.

The usual response I get after explaining my diet is, “how do you get to eat so much? Doesn’t bread take up all your calories for the day?” The answer to this is NO. The calories from a pound of bread is about 1100. That leaves room for dessert cheats within the range of 300-400 calories. If I threw in a 35 min cardio in there, I could still safely consume another 1000 calories on top of a pound of bread. This gives me plenty of options to consider while consuming my bread throughout the day.

Bread every day

So, while I do appreciate your concern about my diet and policing me on it, also know that I eat a pound of bread every day to meet the minimal requirements of this bread eating challenge. Remember, every day, for 90 days.

Today, I finished up my whole grain white bread, and opened a new bag of Franz® Organic whole wheat bread. I wanted to compare eating a whole grain white bread to a whole wheat. After all, they should be similar.

The difference is very subtle. If you closed your eyes, or if you’re color blind, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference because these two breads taste very similar. So yes, you are getting the whole wheat goodness in both bread.

Here’s what I ate on Day 21 of EB90:

Food Portion Calories
Franz Organic Whole Grain White 4 slices (40g) 400
Franz Organic 100% Whole Wheat 6 slices (43) 700
Tilamook Butter (Salted) 3Tbsp 300
Smucker’s Sugar Free Strawberry Jam 2 Tbsp 20
Tillamook sliced cheddar 1 Slice 45
Orange 1 orange 45
Sauteed Spinach 1 C 48
Fruit Tart 1 300
Smucker’s Sugar Free Strawberry Jam 2 Tbsp 20
Fried Fish Dinner 1 C 300
Banana 1 105
Run -300
Swim -200
Total 1783

 

workout-exercise-eat bread 90 -run

Diet and Exercise During EB90

Now that I’m adding a loaf of bread daily to my diet, the main comment has been something like, “OMG! You are gonna get soooo fat!” So, I have asked the experts in the health and nutrition fields to take a look at my diet and exercise plan and provide feedback. They all harp on the importance of exercise during the 90 days I am eating a loaf of bread.

Though this does not qualify as a high risk diet, I will be monitoring well beyond the 90 days should anything change with my health. The experts have recommended a regime of intense exercise in the evenings lasting a minimum of 30-40 minutes.

Sticking with what works

Since the ideal form of exercise is something you will actually do, I plan on running, swimming, cycling and walking. A recent study published on JAMA provides some encouragement. The researchers found that “weekend warriors and other leisure time physical activity patterns characterized by 1 or 2 sessions per week may be sufficient to reduce all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality risks regardless of adherence to prevailing physical activity guidelines.” Because my calorie intake will be on the high side of recommended daily levels I will be a full-time exercise warrior!

My target calorie intake including 1 lb (11-13 slices) of bread every day with other foods from the vegetable, fruit and protein categories should equal 2,000 calories a day. I may have to make the occasional exception for my mom’s curry; she really is a bad influence!

Staying on top of the calories

With the 2000 calorie intake I have figured a basic exercise regimen to include:

  • 45 minutes of running to burn 340 calories
  • 20 minutes of swimming to burn 200 calories
  • 70 minutes if cycling to burn 767 calories.

My initial observations after a few days of my East Bread 90 diet have been positive. I am really happy with the diet.  It is keeping me on track with exercise and I have lots of energy and drive. The bonus of eating so much bread is that I am not hungry at all!

I hope you all will follow my journey and join the conversation about the health benefits of eating bread!