Ignore Everything you think you know about Weight Control and Fat Loss and Read this Now

I am a food & lifestyle coach. But the truth is, weight loss was not the focus of my practice, despite the fact that 800 thousand million people are trying to lose weight (and failing at it) at any given time. But I can’t ignore the fact that most of my clients are seeking help because of the threat of developing chronic lifestyle diseases and obesity.

So I had a little change of heart. I refuse to become one of those charlatans promising to help you lose 30 pounds in 30 days and then blaming you when it all falls apart. So instead I’ve taken it upon myself to educate everybody who wants to know how weight control and body fat actually works, based on science.

Most of the information available about weight loss is industry hype or greatly influenced by industry hype. It’s broken down into random bits and pieces of adulterated science designed to sell products by confusing people into believing that weight loss is much more complicated and difficult than it actually is.

Let’s break it on down. First and foremost:

• If you are gaining weight it is because you are consistently consuming more energy in the form of calories than your body needs on a day-to-day basis to function. So your body is storing the excess energy as fat.

• If you’re maintaining a steady weight (regardless of whether you think you’re over, under or desired weight) you are consuming the amount of energy in the form of calories that your body needs on a day-to-day basis to function.

• If you are losing weight then you are consistently consuming less energy in the form of calories than what your body needs to function on a day-to-day basis, so it is borrowing from your stored fat to supplement.

So that’s it! There’s no hidden meanings or magical concepts to figure out. There is no such thing as “fat burning mode”. Although various hormones do affect your body’s tendency to store or use fat, the bottom line is energy intake and output.

So, is a calorie just a calorie, no matter what?

What is a calorie? A calorie is a unit of measurement for how much energy is in food. It’s determined by the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.

It’s measured with a bomb calorimeter. The scientists put the food in a sealed container surrounded by water and heat it until the food is completely burned off and record thee rise in water temperature. Then they measure the amount of calories in a person’s poop and subtract it from the calorie count. Now, this is vastly inaccurate and the FDA allows a 20% margin of error in calorie counts.

The inaccuracy in calorie counts is the first problem that makes it difficult for us to even know how many calories being consumed, and with manufactured food products, it’s even worse because the numbers are controlled by manufacturers.

Calorie counts matter but are not the only factor in weight control. The human body is an extremely complex machine. It’s impossible to point to only one factor per condition when there are multiple factors that affect an outcome. For example, the macronutrient makeup of foods has a huge variety of differences in how they affect your hormones, hunger signals and energy levels. And genetics, regular activity levels, stress levels, illness and more also have an affect.

How specific hormones affect weight and fat storage

These three hormones, insulin, leptin and ghrelin all play a major role and need to be paid attention to when it comes to weight control. For the most part, their roles are rather indirect, in that they relate back to the calorie because they control the amount of calories consumed. But it is impossible to override the signals, insensitivities or over sensitivities of these hormones. And all three of these are affected by dietary balance or imbalance, irrespective of actual numbers of calories.

• Insulin is excreted by the pancreas to use up blood sugar for energy or for fat storage. Obesity and related factors can disrupt the function of insulin and prevent blood sugar from getting used by cells, and this is a condition called insulin resistance. Eating foods that spike blood sugar levels like sweets and refined grains exacerbate the problem and create a vicious cycle of fat storage and insulin resistance.

• Leptin is secreted by the fat cells to signal to the brain that the body has enough fat and prevent overeating. The more fat the body has, the more leptin there is, the less hunger. It’s a long term weight regulator, But there’s leptin resistance, which is fueled by chronic inflammation which is driven mainly by stress and an inflammatory diet made up of mostly ultra processed foods. So, if you’re already fat, continuing to overeat the foods that helped make you fat causes leptin resistance, which results in overeating even more.

• Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach when it’s empty, signaling the brain to tell us to eat, so we don’t starve to death. Overweight and obese people may have a lower level but an over sensitivity to ghrelin, making them feel hungry more. It is believed that eating high amounts of sugar disrupts ghrelin response, leading to overeating.

Now, it’s no mystery that dietary imbalance and chronic inflammation are two suspects that keep on popping up when these three hormones are ineffective or disrupted. The dietary imbalance, regardless of the number of calories consumed has a huge effect on weight, and ability to lose excess fat.

How exercise affects  weight control and fat loss

How many times have you heard people blaming being lazy and not exercising enough for their weight woes? Or talnbout “working off or burning off” the calories they ate on a desert binge or Thanksgiving dinner? Ok here’s why none of that is happening.

Exercise is a magic pill for overall health. The benefits of regular exercise are endless: improved moods, stronger and more toned muscles, better sleep, more energy, decreased risk of developing chronic lifestyle diseases and helping to regulate hormones, including insulin, leptin and ghrelin!

But as far as “burning off calories” or “blasting thighs” exercise will leave much to be desired. This is because out of all the calories your body needs only 10% – 30% is needed for exercise. The other 70% is used for the brain, digestion and organ function, also known as your basal metabolic rate. It doesn’t matter if you exercise all day and all night, it’s still only less than 30% of your calorie burning.

But based on all of the benefits I mentioned above, exercise does influence energy, sleep, mood and hormones, and all of this indirectly affects weight control, though not by “burning off calories”.

So should you exercise to lose weight? YES! But, instead of stressing yourself out about incinerating some calories, you should focus on whatever will help you consistently exercise, forever. Doing something fun that you love to do instead of some temporary grueling torture you do for a month and then fall off the wagon.

Stress

When your body is experiencing stress it can trigger all kinds of chemical and physical reactions in the body that can prevent the proper use of stored fat or actually encourage the body to store more fat.

The effects of stress on fat are largely behavioral. Have you ever developed these habits when you find yourself under a lot of stress?

• Emotional eating
• Skipping meals
• Craving sweet, salty and processed foods
• Not sleeping
• Resorting to fad diets

All of these habits need to be addressed before you can get to and maintain a healthy weight. But a prolonged stressful bout can be extremely difficult to resolve because in the midst of the disruptions it’s hard to even notice that these things are happening.

Another way that stress messes you up is by affecting your hormones. Cortisone is often nicknamed the stress hormone because it prepares your body for a fight or flight response. So it increases blood sugar levels and provides a burst of energy. This is fine in temporary situations but long term being in this stressed state compromises your health.

Chronic inflammation, aggravated by poor lifestyle choices cause an increase in cortisol, which is dispatched to reduce the inflammation. But then cortisol goes too far and suppresses the immune system, which leads to more problems. These problems can then turn into another vicious cycle of weight gain, health problems and stress.

The bottom line

While you do have some control over your weight, you don’t have as much as you may wish. The type of thinking that you can decide to lose x number of pounds in x amount of weeks is fantasy, and archaic.

It’s time to take a holistic approach to health that will allow you to both be healthy and to maintain a healthy weight long term. Fortunately, the prescription for this is the same across the board. Forget about the constant influx of “new studies”, supplements and fad diets and aim to consistently live a healthy lifestyle overall. Otherwise, the struggle will continue.

There is no fast fix and all you li’l time frames are just useless. Here’s what you do:

• Design your lifestyle around healthy eating. Do what you need to do to allow the time, skills and creativity to eat real, whole delicious food consistently.
• Stop stressing about your weight. It’s contributing to your inability to lose it.
• Instead of fretting over individual superfoods and supplements, eat a wide variety of plant foods to make sure you get the most bio-available nutrients to meet all of your needs.
• Find a form of movement that you love and will continue on a regular basis, long term because if it’s a chore, you’ll find ways to not do it.
• Experiment to find out what, if anything contributes to you overeating and curb those behaviors.
• Don’t fall into the trap of the fake spirit of healthy living, that’s all for show and external validation because that’s stressful. Be true to yourself and what you love.
• Manage your everyday stress with exercise, spirituality, joy and connection. Celebrate life as you are in your current state and have fun every day.
• If you need help designing your healthy lifestyle don’t wait, contact me. I can meet you where you are with no judgment and help you make it work for you and your family.