A:On the contrary. New research finds that milk and other
d a i ry products can reduce your fat cells’ tendency to store
calories. Michael Zemel, chairman of the nutrition depart m e n t
at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is one of the leading
researchers delving into the phenomenon. In one study he put
32 people who needed to lose weight on reduced-calorie diets,
but some of the diets included three to four servings of dairy
d a i l y. Six months later all the subjects had lost weight, but
those who were eating dairy lost 70 percent more—about 19
pounds of fat compared with only 11 pounds in the subjects
who didn’t eat dairy. Zemel says the reason is that when there’s
plenty of calcium in the blood, fat cells get the message to quit
storing fat and start burning it. On the other hand, when
calcium levels are low, the cells hoard fat.
Other studies verify those findings. In the mid-’90s Connie
Weaver and Dorothy Te e g a rden conducted a study at Purd u e
University to observe the bone health of women between the
ages of 18 and 31—but they noticed something else: Women
who ate a diet that included milk, cheese or yogurt lost or
maintained their weight, while those who didn’t put on pounds.
As Zemel says: “If people are cutting calories and not
including dairy in their diet, they’re making a big mistake.”
Bottom line: Be sure you’re getting enough calcium in your
diet. Check your meal-replacement supplement for balanced
calcium and magnesium—and always include some cottage
cheese and/or yogurt in your X-treme Lean meal plan.
Q: How much sleep should I be getting for best
results from the X-treme Lean program?
A :It varies from individual to individual. A good rule of
thumb is that if you have a difficult time getting out of bed in
the morning, you’re going to slow your progress. The fact is, if
you don’t get enough sleep, you make it more difficult to lose
bodyfat. In a study done at the University of Chicago, men who
got only about four hours of sleep a night showed lowere d
leptin levels. As you saw in Chapter 4, leptin is a hormone that