Holiday Saboteurs, Culprits to Derail Your Diet

FIRST and FOREMOST- ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS, BUT WATCH and CHECK YOUR SERVING SIZES is very IMPORTANT and schedule your MEALS and PARTIES!

December arrives with lights, decoration, festive parties, and a banquet of innocent-looking foods that some are actually culprits to our diets if you don’t check the serving sizes in trying to maintain or lose weight. Most people blame cookies, pie, and other desserts for holiday weight and inches that they gain, but the real saboteurs are everyday items loaded with simple carbohydrates (starches that spike blood sugar exactly like sugar,

These are items that I referred to as those hidden sugars) that rarely scream “danger” and ARE NOT listed on the nutrition label like simple carbs. Simple carbs are not listed on the nutritional label nor are the healthy fats that we need for mental and our physical health.

These stealth culprits include potato chips, French onion dip, cream cheese, sour cream, coconut flakes, mashed potatoes, stuffing mixes, cranberry sauce, and especially dips. These are just a small example, that we love, especially during the holidays. If we don’t limit the serving size these become a problem. Those simple carbohydrates (unhealthy starches) hide in plain sight, but are NOT LISTED on the nutrition label.

A single ounce of potato chips (or about 17 chips) looks tiny on the label, but like most people, we don’t eat the 17- chips that are listed as the measured serving size. Especially at parties we can loses count of the chips we are eating. These potato chips with a MACS of 4.06 for just 17 chips delivering 60–90 grams of fast-acting like those unhealthy starches. Remember the ad that stated- YOU CAN’T EAT JUST ONE!

 Couple that with other Holidays Favorites

Couple potato chips or other items with French onion dip and sour cream that sounds “creamy,” not “sugary,” yet commercial versions add modified food starch, dextrose, and onion powder (mostly starch) that convert to glucose almost instantly in our digestive system. Just the serving size of 2 teaspoons on the label of French Dip has a MACS Factor of 12.0. That is 342.8% over the MACS Factor of 3.50 just with 2 teaspoons of French Onion Dip.

Cream cheese in your cheesecake? Even if the cheesecake contains the light version of cream cheese has a MACS of 10 for just 1 ounce. Many brands contain carob bean gum, sugar gum, and added starch thickeners. Cream Cheese is 285.7% over the MACS Factor of 3.50 in just one oz.

You are beginning to see why people gaining weight during the holidays with what foods that they think are not adding those pounds and inches. But after the holidays is when we see the results of those booby-trap foods at our waistline that makes us make New Year’s Resolution to lose inches in January and February. The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is that 96% of the people that make New Year’s Resolutions give up by the middle of February. You want to take action in December to avoid the hard workout in gyms and not seeing any results.

I am not saying you Can’t Enjoy the Holidays Dishes, Just Limit the Serving Size and Meals you have Them

I am not saying that you have to avoid these ingredients all together, but more of a factor of limiting them to a special occasion and limiting the serving size to half or quarter sizes. For example limiting the amount you put on your plate and do not go back for seconds or thirds.

You will see success in your diet by getting familiar with the nutrition labels of food that are above the MACS Factor of 3.50 for 90% of your meals. Second limit these foods to those special occasions. Like for example, I have three times per year that I have items above 3.50 but below 5.75 for these special occasions. Like for example, I have a quarter serving size of cheesecake, but I have it only three times per year. That way you can enjoy meals with family and friends and enjoy the success of maintaining or/and losing weight and inches.

Ingredients that Make Healthy Selections Unhealthy, like Fruit Salad 

Even fruit salad with coconut flakes that you might think is harmless is a booby-trap for your diets with a MACS Factor of 9.33 for just 2 teaspoons. Sweetened coconut flakes can pack 20+ grams of hidden sugar per ¼ cup that isn’t always declared separately from “carbohydrates.”  

I was preparing a fruit salad for a dinner I was having that called for two of the biggest culprits to diets, coconut flakes and sour cream that later added 1.5 inches to my waistline in just two sitting. Sour cream with a MACS Factor of 10.0 for just 2 teaspoons and coconut flakes with a MACS of 9.33 for 2 teaspoons added the booby-trap of hidden sugars that I failed to check. But, now I check all my ingredients going into all my dishes.

I later eliminated the coconut flakes and substituted low sugar Greek yogurt for my sour cream and used the same fruit that provided a fruit salad with a MACS of 3.35. I don’t have anything items on my diet that is higher than a MACS of 3.50 and I eat all my meals between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. The one-and-a-half inch that I added from the fruit salad, I dropped within two days on the Catabolic Diet.

The foods over the MACS Factor of 3.50 Detect the Composition of the Calories

In December 2014, armed with my chemical engineering background, I decoded nutrition labels and created the MACS Factor in the Catabolic Foods Diet that is contained in my NEW Book- IRONCLAD-150 Fitness and Catabolic Diet Program. I just use nine (9) key data points on nutrition labels to detect the composition of the calories; not all calories are created equal just like fats and carbohydrates aren’t all equal. If you are a diabetic, you want to be careful in selecting your complex carbs while eliminating simple carbs. Healthy complex carbs are whole grains, beans, non-starchy vegetables and fruit.

The Nine (9) Data Points

As noted above in my Waistline Chart, I dropped four inches off my waistline in the month of December of 2014—while everyone around me gained weight. Those nine checkpoints are:

1. Total Calories
2. Total Fats
3. Saturated Fats
4. Trans Fats
5. Total Carbohydrates
6. Dietary Fiber (Important point in the Catabolic Diet to be high)
7. Sugars minus Added Sugars (You want to eliminate dextrose and glucose)
8. Protein grams (helps slow absorption key is to select foods high in protein)
9. Serving Size (Important to track, anything over is a force multiplier)

Note: Pinto Beans are apart of every lunch and dinner meal I have, they are considered the perfect Food source.

The Importance of the MACS Factor to Losing Weight and Inches

You want to consume food in your diet foods that are at or below MACS (Metabolic Analytics Catabolic Score) Factor of 3.50. Consuming food at or below MACS of 3.50 identifies where the calories are coming from in your diet are foods your body can easily convert to energy. The MACS allows you to turn your body into a turbocharged calorie-burning juggernaut that burns food for energy instead of storing your food as fat. Again, NOT ALL calories or fats are processed by the body the same method.

My Catabolic Diet allows me to have incentive foods like those that are posted above, but I use the serving size to control the amount of these foods that I consume to keep the MACS Factor below 5.75. The other factor that I allow myself are certain foods on special occasions as a reward for keeping my waistline at or below 29.50 inches.

Figuring Your Healthy Waistline

A healthy waistline is simple to figure- Take your height in inches and divide by 2. Because I model and make training videos, I use a higher denominator of 2.25 instead of 2 because the camera adds 10 pounds to you. So example in my case- I am 66- inches tall so, my healthy waistline is 66/2.25 = 29.33 inches.

 

Using these nine metrics to analysis your food will help you navigate through your holidays with ease, while enjoying your family and friends. The objective of the IRONCLAD-150 Fitness and Catabolic Diet Program is to develop an exercise program that includes strength training along with cardio and aerobics exercises that will follow you to follow healthy diet limiting your exposure to unhealthy fats and simple carbohydrates, what I call the hidden sugars. You will also lower your blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and your waistline.

It is Important to Enjoy Holidays with Family and Friends

You can still enjoy those holiday foods but limit your exposure to unhealthy ingredients by paying attention to your serving size and MACS Factor. This holiday season, I read labels like an engineer reads specifications and become an educated consumer with the facts about food that I can consume. Skip the chip-and-dip tray, choose cheese and olives instead, swap sour cream for Greek low sugar yogurt, and eliminate coconut flakes from your diet.

Mastering the Nine data Points

You can now get a jump-start on your New Year’s Day Resolutions before January and not have to face the gauntlet that is usually associated to those New Year’s Resolutions that many people make after Christmas and New Years Day.

You can start now like I did on November 28^th, 2014, where I lost 4- inches in December of that year. I proved that it is possible in the toughest month of the year to drop—four inches during December. You can get the jump-start on dropping your waistline during December and get a jump-start on your New Year’s Resolutions to drop weight, inches, and improve your health numbers and years off.

I mention strength training because it allows your muscle to produce a natural growth hormone that contains collagen, the very element that allows us to feel and appear younger than your age even over our 60’s. In the photograph below, I am 68 years old appearing with Tiffany. This photograph was taken in October of 2025 for promotionals preparing for an open house at our hangar for our annual classic car and airshow.