GUEST
Doug Varrieur: Fat to Skinny
CBN.com
– SUGAR AND CARBS = FAT AND LARGE
Fat to Skinny author Doug Varrieur, 53, recalls struggling with his weight ever since he was a little boy. In 1968, at the age of 12, Doug says he was wearing husky-size jeans. A year later, he ballooned to a size 38 pant.
At 17, Doug earned the name “Porky.” Using diet pills and starvation diets, Doug’s weight yo-yo’d up and down the scale. By middle age, Doug weighed 260 pounds and suffered a near-fatal heart attack! Then Doug decided to make a conscious decision to make it his life’s work to discover the answers to weight gain and weight loss.
When Doug’s 71-year old mother, who had also struggled with her weight, dropped 40 pounds in six months, he asked her how she did it. She said two words: SUGAR CONTROL. She had gotten a recommendation from her doctor to try a low-sugar diet. “If you are constantly battling your weight, then you are consuming too much hidden sugar,” says Doug.
Doug started eliminating sugar from his diet, and after four months, he lost 50 pounds. He watched his carbohydrate intake and kept it to 20 grams each day (the body metabolizes 4 grams of carbs the same as 1 teaspoon of sugar, so take total carb intake and divide by 4). In another four months, Doug lost 50 pounds.
Doug, who weighs 170 pounds today, says sugar is what is making this country overweight. Refined sugar is found in processed foods, soda, candy, cookies, ice cream, etc., and is a simple carbohydrate. The body turns it into fuel before burning anything else by turning it into glucose (blood sugar).
“What we don’t use, the body stores as fat,” says Doug. “When it comes to weight loss, fat doesn’t make you fat.” Excess blood sugar equals fat and can lead to diabetes. “We have a generation of people who will live a shorter life span because of obesity and diabetes.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consumed 158 pounds of sugar per person per year. Sugar is hidden in countless foods. In a typical fast-food meal, Doug says there are 12 teaspoons of sugar in an order of fries, 14 teaspoons in a soda, 6 teaspoons in the hamburger bun, and 11 teaspoons in an order of peach pie. That’s 43 teaspoons in one meal which is equivalent to almost 1 full cup of sugar (48 teaspoons).
A DIVINE MISSION
In 2007, Doug felt an uneasy heartburn sensation in his chest. After several tests including a nuclear stress test, doctors discovered that Doug had major blockage in the left anterior descending artery, the major artery in front of the heart providing blood to the pump. The doctor said he was inches from death and needed immediate surgery. His wife Sherri drove Doug to the emergency room and was prepped for surgery the next day. His only regret was that Fat to Skinny had not gone to press at the time.
Fully awake and unsedated through the operation, the doctor attempted to insert a stent in Doug’s artery three times. If the doctor tried again, there was a possibility that the artery could split and Doug could die of a massive heart attack. Doug was filled with peace and told the doctor to continue. Then the stent miraculously slipped into place! Doug says even though he had lost 100 pounds, the high triglyceride counts which were formed by high levels of blood sugar had already done the damage years ago. Within a week of the surgery, copies of his book were on order and his mission to tell the world about the hidden perils of sugar began.
Free Factsheet:
Sugar Is Your Enemy
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