When we first heard about Jorge Cruise’s latest book “The 100” (William Morrow, $25.99), we thought that his eating plan would limit dieters to 100 grams of carbohydrates. But when we finally got the book, which was released last week, we discovered that the 100 in the title was calories, not grams of carbs. Cruise further explained the plan today on “Good Morning America.”
“It’s all about insulin,” Cruise told Juju Chang. “Everyone thinks that weight loss is all about ‘eat less, exercise more. A calorie is a calorie.’ As much as I love equality, I’m not about equality when it comes to calories. Not all calories are the same.”
Cruise’s “100 Diet” looks differently at food labels. In his world, all carbs are looked at as “sugar.” Instead of reading the grams of sugar on the label, you need to read the grams of carbs per serving and multiply those by 4 – that will get you the sugar calories. So on Cruise’s plan, a large apple would nearly max you out on sugar calories for the day.
In fact, the only calories you count are the 100 sugar calories.
If you’re stumped on what you can eat, “The 100” provides a 4-week meal plan, weekly shopping lists and recommended foods to keep you under 100 sugar calories (or 25 grams of carbs).
Cruise provides options for recovering carbaholics that use almond and coconut flours and ground flax instead of wheat that can still give you the texture and body of baked goods with vastly fewer carbs. He also coats chicken breasts with coconut flour to create a “fried” chicken dish. (You can find more recipes at jorgecruise.com.)
As you’d figure, his eating plan has the usual suspects of the typical low-carb diet – lot of protein, non-starchy vegetables, real cheeses, some nuts and other fats. But unlike those bacon cheeseburger fests that some remember, his protein sources are leaner and he allows up to two glasses of red wine a day as an evening treat.
What about exercise? There’s a chapter devoted to it, but it’s labeled “Forget to Exercise.” What does he mean by that? He points out that while exercise is great for heart health, immunity, brain health, mood and stress reduction, it’s just not that essential for weight loss. But he doesn’t ignore exercise completely. He offers a quick 20-minute strength-based routine that uses hand weights and body weight.
