Thursday, May 1, 2014

How Our Bodies work, Part 1: Fat Regulation

Or - How people get fat and how to lose it.

How we grow:
  • Just as we don’t think children are growing due to eating more food than they need, adults don’t grow/get-fat because of eating more food than they need.
  • Just like all Animals, our growth (height/width, fat /muscle size) are all regulated by 1 thing and 1 thing only: Hormones.
    • Not exercise
    • Not eating more/less.
  • We eat more because we are growing; We don’t grow because we are eating.
  • Exercise can't help you lose fat, but it will help your cardio, and to grow and maintain muscles.
  • Fat people didn't get fat because they ate too much and/or were too inactive.
  • People get fat because of a hormonal imbalance that drives fat into fat cells. This can be caused by a number of reasons:
    •  Eating sugar and grains (carbs) which cause enzymes and hormones to store fat.
    • Genetic defect causing a hormonal imbalance, perhaps hereditary.
    • Removing a female’s ovaries (which secrete an enzyme that inhibits the amount of fat stored).
      • Which is also why women gain fat more easily after menopause.
How we use energy/calories:
  • A calorie is a measure of energy.
  • There is a balance between calories and our energy levels.
    • Expend more energy, you’re going to eat more calories.
    •  Expend less energy, you’re going to eat fewer calories.
    • Eat fewer calories, and you’re going to have less energy.
    •  Eat more calories, and you’re going to have more energy.
  • Asking someone to expend more energy (exercise) while at the same time eat fewer calories (diet), is asking something ridiculous and unsustainable.
  • Your body will demand the amount of calories (energy) that it needs to balance the energy expended.
How we can stay thin and healthy:
  • Avoiding sugar and grains is the #1 thing to do for your health and appearance.
  • What are Grains? bread, corn, rice, pasta, cereals, potatoes, etc.
  • The worst types of sugar and grains we can eat are types that are easily digested, such as liquid: soda, beer, fruit juice.
  • Beer should be thought of as "liquid bread".
  • The more fat you have, the more your body will crave carbs.
  • The key: Keep your blood-sugar/insulin levels down and your body will allow stored fat to be released for fuel. If those levels are up, your body won't let fat out of storage but will drive fat into them.
Why don't most people seem to know this information?

  • All of this information was "Common Sense" and accepted in the world of medicine for hundreds of years.
  • Only in the 1960s did Nutritionists start believing in the idea that a Low-Fat Diet was healthy for people and began pushing what they called "Heart Healthy" grains and low fat food, which modern science has proven to be actually unhealthy for us. That is also the time that obesity began to greatly increase in America.
  • Keep in mind that agriculture has been around for less than 1% of the history of humans, and all our ancestors ate for 99.9% of our history was primarily meat and fat. So our bodies have not evolved to eat and digest these fat-building carbs we are eating today which wreak havoc on our bodies.

References:
  • Fitness Confidential by Vinnie Tortorich
  • Why We Get Fat and What We Can Do About It by Gary Taubes
  • Grain Brain by David Perlmutter

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