You Are Being Lied To

We are now half way through the third week of 2013. How many of you are still going strong on those resolutions and goals to lose weight? How many of you are starting to get discouraged because despite following every piece of information 'they' tell you about the 'right' way to lose weight, you just aren't seeing results?

Want to know why?

You are being lied to. 

Ask any 'expert' on weight loss what the secret is and most will tell you the same. Calories in vs calories out. 
Somewhere along the way our views of food went really, really wrong. We have been told over and over that 3500 calorie deficit will give us a one pound weight loss and that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. And once upon a time I believed that too. I played the calorie counting game for over a year and you know what I lost. Not a whole lot.

                                      About a year of hard work and counting calories right there.

The biggest reason I created this blog in the first place was to help people skip through some of the learning process of losing weight by sharing my own experiences. Everything I write is my opinion mixed with some of the scientific mumbo-jumbo I have found through researching stuff for myself and then my results as a guinea pig. My guinea pig results with just calorie counting, not really restricting what I ate, just the amount, weren't optimal. I still stand behind journaling your food in some way, shape or form and I personally like to do the calorie count option. I like to know what I'm eating, not just calories but macro and micro nutrients. But I have learned something important in the past year.

It's not how much you eat, it's what you eat. 

Where those calories come from matter. Just does. If you follow what the government has promoted since the 1980's you're probably avoiding fat and cholesterol since the recommendations are 2-3 servings of meat and protein a day plus  sparingly eating fat sources like oils. You're also probably consuming most of your calories through grains. Hopefully you've at least switched to whole grains, but doubtful since most people don't like the texture of them. 

To be clear this is NOT an optimal way to eat. It's just not.

Grains

Let's start at the bottom and work our way up. Grains. We are supposed to base our entire diet on them but they create a crazy insulin response in our bodies. When we eat a slice of bread, our bodies break it down into sugar and releases it into the blood. The more grains and carbohydrates you consume the more your blood sugar spikes. When your sugar spikes the body releases insulin to direct the sugar flow, it either goes to muscles for use for energy or it gets stored as fat. When you have more sugar in your system than what your body needs as energy it gets store as adipose fat for energy use later.

After all that sugar is stored or used the insulin is still just floating around in your system so what does your body do? Tells you it needs more sugar. More carbohydrates. That's why you get tired between meals and partly why you get sudden cravings that send you running to the nearest bakery.

Typical mid day snack? 

It is more complicated than that, there are numerous reasons why you get cravings and why your body says it's hungry when it's not. It has to do with taste, stress hormones and plenty of other chemicals that are very easily tipped out of balance which causes the distressed system and food addiction. Click here to read about how taste affects cravings.

What's more is most of the nutrition in grains come from the outer shell, which we don't consume. The fiber in whole grains that 'they' say you need to eat them for? You can get them and more by replacing your grain servings with veggies and fruit. Since switching to Paleo, while still logging all my food, I've finally been able to hit the recommended 35 grams of fiber when before, while eating whole grains, I was only ever getting to around 20 grams. Plus those veggies have more vitamins and minerals in them so I'm no longer worried about taking daily vitamins!

So not only does your body knock all those extra carbs straight to your booty or beer belly for storage, but they cause you to run out and get more when you don't actually need it. And it's depriving you of space on your plate for veggies which have more fiber and more nutrients per calorie.

Hear me on this though, I'm not saying that all carbs are 'bad'. I'm not saying you should cut them out completely. I'm just saying you should rethink where you get them from. You want to eat whole grain because you can't imagine giving up oats or toast? Fine. Just stick to one or two appropriately sized serving of the least processed version of your food as possible. The more processed the grain the more it messes with your body.

Protein 

Somewhere along the way we got it in our heads that the only people who need to eat decent amounts of protein are body builders and athletes. Which is probably why so many of us have low lean body mass and high body fat percentages. (Skinny fat anyone?)

Protein is the building block for your body. It repairs tissues like the muscles, it is used to create essential hormones that run your body, it is used in processes like balancing hydration, muscle contraction and transportation of nutrients. It helps prevent disease and keep you energized. Yet 'they' want you to eat minimal amounts of it?

Yes, eating too much protein can have negative side effects but unless you eat 50 grams of protein at every meal for days on end, you're probably going to be fine.

The biggest problem people have when consuming protein products, and the reason 'they' recommend you limit your protein is fat and cholesterol. Let's take a look at that.

Fat

Fat is not your enemy.

In the 1980's the government released several studies that said eating fat makes you fat. Which couldn't be farther from the truth. This is something I would like to go more in depth on at some point but for today let's summarize this.

Fat provides energy. In fact by cutting back on grains and the overall amount of carbs you eat your body will learn how to burn fat more efficiently, and not just body fat stores but the fat you put into your body. It doesn't get broken down into sugar (it gets made into fatty acids) so it doesn't end up being stored as more adipose fat when there is excess or cause blood sugar spikes that leave you craving more food two hours after a large meal. Fat is essential in absorbing vitamins A, S, E and K. It also helps slow digestion, keeping food in the stomach longer so you feel full for a longer period of time. One type of hot topic fat, Omega-3's, help with inflammation and improve you health in many different ways. Our bodies need fat, and eating fat does not make you fat!!!

Just like calories, one kind of fat is not the same as another. The absolute worst kind of fat? Trans-fat. The fat that is not produced by nature, it is a by product of modern processes used to make food. Avoid processed food, avoid trans-fat.

Cholesterol becomes a concern for some when adding fat and protein foods to a diet. What most people don't realize is your body makes a large majority of the cholesterol in your system. It's made in your liver and it does play an important role in your body functioning properly by producing hormones, cell membranes and it converts vitamin D from sunlight.

Some of the biggest risk factors for high cholesterol are being over weight and lack of activity. A lot of the dietary sources of cholesterol don't absorb well, if much at all. The best thing you can do to lower cholesterol is to workout for at least 30 minutes a day and focus on lowering your body weight. I'm not saying you have a green light to eat 2 dozen eggs a day (although there has been studies recently that suggest the cholesterol in eggs don't get absorbed by the body so maybe you could?) but you shouldn't avoid meat and fat because of it either. 

So What?

I'm sure you're wondering why you should care about this at all. If you are looking to lose weight, you will only be able to go so far by just eating a few less grains, or worse limiting your carb intake by lowering fruit and vegetable servings!!

Remember the picture of me up above? The one where I had worked my butt off for close to a year, staying below 1500 calories a day and working out for around an hour everyday as well? Try this one. 

Another year of working out constantly and eating the same amount of calories daily (between 1500-2000) but the calorie type was forced to change. I couldn't eat gluten the second half of that year and because I'm too cheap to buy gluten free substitutes, I gave up almost all grains. The weight just melted off.

I eventually did add gluten free grains back in, towards the end of last year, and while I didn't balloon up like crazy I did gain about 5 pounds in one months time. In 2 weeks of eating Paleo I lost it again. Now to work on the other 5 I gained from the months prior to December that I spent eating grains again! 

Summary

Your body uses different types of nutrients for different things. It needs a balance of carbohydrates, protein and fat in order to work optimally. In a SAD we overload our bodies with grains and empty carbs which eventually leads to weight gain and diseases of civilization. If you cut out (or waaaay back) on the grains, replace them with veggies and fruit so you still are getting carbs and focus on eating healthy sources of protein and fat you will lose weight, and maintain it, easier than counting carbs.