The Real Reason Most People Fail To Achieve Permanent Weight Loss Results Is…

They don’t understand food. Most people, my clients as a group anyway, fall on one side or the other of a spectrum. On one side, you have people who tend to under eat and the other is those who tend to over eat. In either camp, you find those who want to ‘fix’ it. The under eaters who want to be more healthy pick up a gym membership and usually completely change their type of food they eat- going vegan, vegetarian, Paleo or Met. The over eaters usually won’t start with the gym, they’ll start with trying some drastic diet like WW, Adkins, Keto, meal plans from the Internet or a food in a box mail program.

They’re both missing the point.

You don’t need to become a nutritionist or dietitian but, people need to get a better understanding of food. Look, this wasn’t a problem really until the 50’s. That’s when any and all foods became super easy to get. That’s when frozen foods, tv dinners and fast food became the rage.

Obesity wasn’t even really an issue in the US until then. Before then, you earned your meal much more so than today and the meal you earned looked very different than today. Most people ate meat, but it wasn’t cheap and it came fresh from the butcher. And people ate much more based on their geographic location. You weren’t getting produce in North Dakota in February. You ate more canned goods too, with far less preservatives.

Now, food is so cheap and easy it’s out of control. But eating in any extreme is unnecessary and often no healthier than doing nothing.

Should you eliminate carbs? Go vegan? Vegetarian? Eliminate fat? Salt?

I like what Wallace Wattles recommended in one of his books back in the early 20th century. Eat based on where you live- eat the foods that are naturally abundant and available, fresh, where you live. Eat seasonally, more red meat and fat in the fall and winter, more veggies, fruit and lean meats in the Spring and Summer.

Understanding the differences in food macros- protein, fat and carbs. Each of these macros has a specific purpose and each has both benefits and costs, upsides and downsides.

Protein, for example, is a great balancing nutrient- meaning the body can use it for immediate fuel by converting it to glycogen, it can also store it as fat and it provides essential amino acids the body needs for muscle support, growth and/or repair and maintenance. Of course, like all foods, you can eat too much but, most people eat too little. Most professionals recommend 30-35% of your daily food intake should be protein. I like to recommend a bit higher, 40% usually. I make this recommendation because of the flexibility of protein and the fact that it drives resting metabolism more so than the other 2 food macros.

Fat is the new black of the 21st century. For years, science and marketing marked fat as the bad guy of a food. Now, with the reclassification of Pluto, we know fat is actually fantastic in our diet. Fat digests the slowest, providing a great defense against hunger but, it doesn’t drive the metabolic rate like protein. Fat has many other benefits but it’s big downside is that it’s calorically dense- 9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbs and protein.

Finally, the most controversial nutrient of the modern day- carbs. Again, there is tons of misinformation out there about carbs. Keto rages on and combined with the an Adkins resurgence, carbs are the latest victim of food hate crimes.

Carbs are the preferred immediate fuel of the body, not fat. Lots of arguments will ensue here I’m sure, some people claiming the science that shows most organs use fat more than carbs, etc but that’s only partially true. The body will always first use the sugar stored in the body for immediate fuel first, unless you exhaust these reserves by forcing the body into starvation mode like going Keto. But, forcing the body to burn fat first is NOT as great as the cheerleaders would have you believe. This is especially true if you’re working out 3-5 times a week for more than 40mins each time.

But without going too much further down the rabbit hole, suffice it say that each of these types of nutrients- proteins, fats and carbs have different varieties. Carbs have simple and complex, fats have saturated and unsaturated and protein has plant and animal.

Here’s the absolute key to all of this goop- make the body work for it’s nutrients. For animal protein- whey is fast, egg is slow. Almost all plant proteins are pretty slow however, animal protein has more complete amino acid profiles and of them all, egg protein converts to tissue better than any other. I recommend using whey only right before or right after exercise but for weight loss, use the slower proteins.

Carbs need to be complex ONLY. Fats should be saturated ONLY. If you occasionally bump into a donut or a bowl of ice cream, be nice, do the right thing and eat them so you don’t hurt their feelings. Food hate crimes are real. But, eat them knowing that they should be treated as something special, a rarity not a regular.

If you make the body work for its’ nutrients by feeding it foods that require more time to break down and make the body work for its’ food with moderate, strength based exercise, you’ll find re-sizing is pretty simple. It may take longer than following the trends but, your resting metabolism will recover, your insulin resistance will recover, albeit more slowly, and you’ll find it much much more sustainable because you will have learned about what you’re putting in your mouth instead of just tearing open a box or committing a food hate crime by completely eliminating a food type your body actually needs and uses.

This is just food for thought- consume without the guilt.

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