Can You Eat Yourself Thin?

Why do about half of Americas weigh more than they should, when there are more weight loss programs today than ever before?

The answer is that what Americans are doing obviously isn’t working! Any other explanation defies basic logic.

The big question then arises... When so many people are trying to lose weight, why can’t they?

The answer to that question is a multifaceted one, but the simple answer is that our modern lifestyle has created the “perfect storm”.

Many believe the answer to weight loss lies in burning off more calories than they are taking in. This theory sounds reasonable, but the reality is more complex, since a calorie is not a calorie. More about that later.

Many also believe that cutting fat from their diet is an essential step, but this too is a myth. Cutting healthy fats may actually prevent you from achieving weight loss.

You cannot exercise your way out of a poor diet either. Research shows that without the proper food intake, exercise can be ineffective for producing any significant amount of weight loss on its own.

While you do burn more calories when you exercise, you cannot burn off thousands of excess calories every day.

For example, to burn off the calories from a Snickers bar you’d have to walk about five miles and to offset a one -soda-per-day habit, you have to walk one hour per day just to prevent additional weight gain.

The good news is that weight loss can be achieved by almost everyone, once they understand 3 basic concepts:

1. Exercise effectively and get regular movement
2. Eat REAL food
3. Time your meals to optimize metabolic function

When it comes to weight loss, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), when combined with intermittent fasting is an effective combination.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, HIIT workouts tend to burn anywhere from 6 to 15% more calories compared to other workouts.

Intermittent fasting helps “reset” your body to start burning fat rather than sugar as its primary fuel.

When done together, they create a powerful synergy that effectively sheds body fat and promotes optimal metabolic function.

The human body evolved performing very high-intensity activities for brief periods of time. This is also how children play, or used to anyway, prior to all of the electronic devices.

I prefer high-intensity exercises on a recumbent exercise bike. This is a link to learn more about HIIT and weight loss.

A key piece of information is that all calories are not created equal. You can eat more calories and lose weight, or eat fewer calories and still gain weight. Your weight is affected by the source of the calories, not just the number of calories. Zoe Harcombe’s book, The Obesity Epidemic, is one of the most comprehensive documents pertaining to the calorie myth
Research by Dr. Robert Lustig has shown that not even calories from different kinds of sugar,such as glucose and fructose, are not treated identically by your body.

Refined fructose is actually broken down very much like alcohol, damaging your liver and causing mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction in the same way as ethanol and other toxins, whereas glucose does not wreak this kind of metabolic havoc.

It is important to know which calories will promote health and which ones will sabotage it.

Ditching calorie-rich fats and/or opting for artificially sweetened products is not going to do you any favors whatsoever.

As recently noted in The New York Times:
“In recent years, a number of studies have cast doubt on the health benefits of the traditional low-fat diet, suggesting instead that eating more fat, with the exception of trans fats and less sugar and refined carbohydrates might be better for overall health.”

Even if you do initially lose weight on a low-fat diet, you’re sacrificing your long-term health by promoting insulin resistance and related diseases for the simple reason that low-fat diets tend to be high in sugars instead.
Weight comes off much easier when you eat more healthy fats and less non-vegetable carbohydrates, such as added sugars, processed fructose and processed grains.

In a nutshell, all you really need to remember is that processed foods contain loads of ingredients that promote metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance and obesity, so the key is to eat REAL food.

Most people have been indoctrinated to equate saturated fats with heart disease, but there’s really no evidence supporting this notion. On the contrary, an overwhelming amount of recent research has effectively dispelled this myth. Not only do saturated fats not promote heart disease, you actually need saturated fats for brain and immune system health.

Moreover, many vitamins, such as vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble and you have to have fat in order to absorb those vitamins from your food. Many also don’t realize that processed foods labeled as “low-fat” typically contain massive amounts of added sugars or artificial sweeteners instead. Start reading the labels and you’ll soon realize that the fat is simply traded for sugar and that’s what’s really packing on the pounds.

Timing Your Meals Can Significantly Boost Weight Loss Success:

There is compelling evidence suggesting that when you eat morning, noon and night, you increase your risk for both obesity and diabetes. It also causes biological changes that result in metabolic dysfunction and subsequent weight gain and diminished health.

Our ancestors did not have access to food 24/7 and from a historical perspective it appears your body was designed for intermittent periods of fasting. In fact, a number of beneficial effects take place when you go for periods of time without eating. If you eat from 11 AM until 7 PM, you will have an intermittent fast of 16 hours a day. If you struggle without breakfast, you have breakfast and stop eating for the day 8 hours later. The key to remember is to only eat within a window eight consecutive hours each day.

You should also avoid food for at least three hours before bedtime. Eating too close to bedtime is another meal-timing factor that can sabotage your health.

By following these steps, you have a great chance or normalizing your weight and this can all be done without an expensive weight loss program. You will turn yourself from a sugar burner into a fat burner. You will know when this happens because you will only be hungry if you miss a meal, you won’t get lightheaded, weak or shaky.

You should consult a physician prior to starting any diet or exercise program.

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