I thought. Apples are full of important nutrients, have lots of fibre, taste delicious, and, most important for her, travel well. I suggested she eat an apple before each major meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) to see if that would solve her problem.
Amazing results in just seven days
Just one week later, she came back to have her body composition retested saying that since she’d been eating three apples a day, she felt her body had actually changed. She was excited because she hadn’t noted any changes for several months.
So we measured, and sure enough, she had lost 1 per cent body fat in one week! Now, a 1 per cent body fat loss (1.5 pounds of fat) in one week is difficult to accomplish in a fit person—and she was already lean at 16 per cent body fat.
“Wow,” I said. “Have you been running more?”
She said the only thing she had done differently was to add apples to her meal plan (which actually increased her caloric intake!).
At this point, I was cautiously optimistic. I decided to try this idea on others to see if the results could be duplicated. When Gold’s Gym of Wenatchee held its 12-week Get-in-Shape Contest in January 2001, I added apples to the diet (which was then called the “Get Lean” Diet).
The Get-in-Shape Contest
The annual 12-week contest, which I created in 1997, was (and is) a body transformation contest designed to lower body fat while retaining muscle tissue. Although judging is based primarily on visual change from before-and-after pictures, body composition changes are also recorded. As part of the contest, we provided the diet; exercise recommendations; tips on calculating calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and water; and other information pertaining to the program.
Apples and the “Get Lean” Diet
The original “Get Lean” Diet was always a balance of low-GI (see Chapter 7 on glycaemic response) carbohydrates, lean proteins, fruits and vegetables, and essential fats—with a calorie distribution of 40 per cent carbohydrates, 40 per cent protein, and 20 per cent fat. On this balanced 12-week fitness contest diet, women averaged a body fat loss of 5 to 7 per cent, and men averaged 7 to 10 per cent loss.
In 2001, when apples were added to the “Get Lean” Diet, Gold’s 12-week Get-in-Shape Contest participants experienced record fat losses! Women averaged body fat losses of 7 to 10 per cent, and men averaged losses of 10 to 12 per cent. Not only that, two women broke the “most fat loss” record with 21 per cent body fat loss each! One of those women, who later became a Gold’s Gym National winner, lost a whopping 53 pounds of body fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle!
The following year, one male contestant lost 84 pounds of fat and acquired 19 pounds of lean muscle. Another man lost 85 pounds of fat and gained 26 pounds of lean, calorie-burning muscle (see the success stories in Part V).
Remember, these changes were made in just 12 weeks!
What a bunch of (happy) losers!
We were on a roll and truly excited about what we had accomplished. In the 2002 contest, 346 people lost 6,126 pounds of fat. In 2003, 351 people lost 6,453 pounds of fat! In both of those years five of the ten Gold’s National contest winners hailed from Gold’s Gym of little old Wenatchee, Washington!
What’s the one thing Wenatchee winners all had in common? You guessed it … apples!
But was it really the apples?
After the first year of adding apples, even with all our contest successes, I still had reservations about whether apples were actually what helped these contestants lose more body fat than in years past. But adding apples was the only change we had made in the program.
Actually, I had eaten apples for many years when I was dieting for bodybuilding contests, but I never connected eating apples with losing body fat. In fact, I kind of felt like I was cheating when I ate them during my contest dieting phase—because they tasted so good!
It wasn’t until I had read some of the contestants’ amazing and inspiring personal stories—writing a personal story was a requirement for completion of the contest—that I was finally convinced. There just were too many testimonials naming apples as a major contributor to contestants’ success to be a mere coincidence.
The $500,000 Gold’s Gym Challenge
I became a true believer, and I was not alone. The entire staff at Gold’s Gym in Wenatchee was so strongly convinced that apples were a key to people’s weight-loss efforts that we approached the Washington Apple Commission and Gold’s Gym Corporate about sponsoring a national contest.
Of course, the folks at corporate headquarters were sceptical at first. But with real numbers, testimonials, and real contestants, they signed on to the idea, and the $500,000 Gold’s Gym Challenge was born. At the same time, Gold’s Gym Corporate adopted the Washington apple as “the Official Diet Pill of Gold’s Gym”.
How and why do apples work in fat loss?
I was never hungry. In fact, I had to retrain myself to eat enough. Never tiring of the three apples per day, I had no cravings for sweets. I believe the sweet Fuji apples helped in this area. I looked forward to having my apple as a snack every night! I had more energy and was amazed at how steadily I lost weight. I plan to continue using the 3-Apple-a-Day GI Diet to maintain my weight.
—Sandi Anderson, age 53, lost 31 pounds of fat and
gained 2 pounds of muscle in 12 weeks
When the Gold’s Gym Challenge began, I started getting a lot of questions about apples, mostly about how they work in fat loss and what research I had to back up the claims of significant fat loss from our contestants.
At first, I was unaware of any research studies that linked apples with weight loss—let alone fat loss! I chose apples originally because of their convenience, their sweet, crunchy texture, and their high fibre content (4 to 5 grams per apple). I had found a few studies linking increased fibre intake to weight loss, because increased fibre intake was associated with decreasing hunger and food intake, but none naming apples as the fibre source.
Recently, a Brazilian study of overweight women compared diets that contained three apples per day, three pears per day, or oat cookies, to determine their respective effects on body weight. The results showed that the women who ate either three apples or three pears per day lost significantly more weight than did the oat cookie group. This study is similar to what we found in our Gold’s Gym contest.
Apples are one of the only fruits that have high amounts of both soluble and insoluble fibre. The soluble fibre, pectin, helps steady your blood sugar. Researcher Kay-Tee Khaw at Cambridge University says, “Pectin turns into a sticky gel as you digest it, keeping your stomach from absorbing the sugar too quickly.” According to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, pectin eliminates the urge to eat for up to four hours.
Apples, too, are low on the Glycaemic Index (see Chapter 7), at a rating of 38 (compared with sugar at 70 or maltose at 105). Low-GI foods don’t spike your blood sugar level, making them an ideal appetizer prior to a main meal or a perfect snack between meals.
In a more general sense, a 12-year Harvard study of 74,000 women, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, concluded that those who consumed more fruits and vegetables were 26 per cent less likely to become obese than women who ate fewer
