Posted January 6th, 2008 at 12:09 pm in Low Carb

BELLY FAT! That's right, sports fans, this is the #1 cause of an out to in swing path which is a major contributor resulting in the dreaded slice. Forget open club face, forget angle of attack, forget reverse weight shift, it all boils down to an improper approach to the ball (out to in) and a big belly will cause it every time. It forces the club outside because you can clear your hips but you can't clear your belly. The flight of the ball tells all. I am just as guilty as anyone (by the way that's not me in the picture but it could have been just six short months ago). I decided I wanted to be a better player and my golf coach told me point blank I might as well learn to play the slice if I wasn't going to do anything about my weight. Well, my wife and doctor have been telling me this for years but hearing it from my golf pro is a wake up call if I ever heard one!

I asked my doc if I could try the low carb approach since I read that I could still eat steak, bacon, butter, mayo and some other stuff I could not imagine life without and he said, fine, as long as you can give up alcohol (temporarily, then only in moderation), bread, pasta and keep your fat intake moderate. In other words go ahead but don't think you can eat a pound of bacon for breakfast and three steaks for dinner! Thankfully my doctor is a fan of low carb and knows enough about it (he read the books!) so that he doesn't go off like the low fat crowd does, making people think that what Dr. Atkins advocates during the induction phase of his program is what he advocates eating forever. Of course he wants you to eat vegetables, of course he wants you to eat fruit, what moron would say otherwise? Just NOT in the induction phase of his plan which is the first two weeks to get you jump-started on the program. Dr. Atkins was a respected heart surgeon and he developed this program to get his overweight patients ready for heart surgery and the faster he could get the weight off the better their chances were of coming out of the surgery in good shape.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Michael Jensen an endocrinologist (and a fair golfer himself) at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and author of an article on the Mayo Clinic website in the Men's Health section titled: Belly Fat In Men: What You Need To Know. (read the whole article)

"Our bodies are designed to store fat for release during times when there is not enough food. But when we put on weight and never have these lean times, fat cells begin to release fat molecules into the blood at a higher rate. This affects normal metabolism and the way the body uses insulin. These metabolic changes can worsen or increase your risk of health problems, including:

Diabetes
Some types of cancers
High blood pressure
Sleep apnea
Abnormal lipids — high triglycerides and low HDL ("good" cholesterol)
Insulin resistance
Metabolic syndrome

When you lose fat through exercise and improved eating habits, you improve your metabolism. This reduces your risk of health problems — and may improve existing health problems."

And brother if the Mayo says it, I am all over it! The bottom line for me was the choice I made in the WAY I chose to lose weight and after researching it, it was hands down the low carb way. All the others had me starving myself with low calorie plans that I could stay on for about 3 days tops. I liked Atkins approach and I liked the South Beach plan too but I was also concerned about eating too much fat. So I created a concept of my own that is a combination of the two that I call; the At The Beach Diet. It follows the same principals as the Atkins Nutritional approach and the South Beach Diet but with a few twists and turns of my own. (Turns out I really didn't have to worry about eating too much fat because what I did eat was able to satisfy my hunger). Here is where I have to add that I am not a doctor, nor am I in the medical field. I'm just a golfer who was too fat to swing a club the right way and decided to do something about it. I went to my doctor first and that is the advice I would give to anyone wanting to get started on a serious weight loss program.