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Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It?
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Doctors recommend Fiber because they don't have a clue how heart health works in regards to cholesterol and insulin.
Fiber is not 'heart healthy'....carbohydrates are heart killers.
Read "Why we get fat" and you can learn much more about the medical side and how since the 1960s they have been ignoring the truth. http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
If you buy into Gary Taubes's low carbohydrate school of nutrition, then pasta and soda are equally bad for you. Sugar is cheap, and carbohydrates are essentially sugar.
I certainly can't eat more than a few servings of almonds a day, and picky kids definitely aren't going to.
I'm not sure how the ketostix work, or what exactly they're testing for.
I could be wrong, though. Googling this shit is impossible, though. You have to read books on this stuff.
I already linked this, but I got that info from Gary Taubes in Why We Get Fat.
First read this book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. Learn about low, slow, no carb diets and try them until you find one that will work for you. Exercise is good for you but diet is what will determine your weight loss. It sucks but the sodas will have to go, switch to diet if you need something carbonated. Good Luck!
ugh. this makes me really sad. I just read Why We Get Fat and this kind of thinking is totally backwards and wrong. We shouldn't shame ourselves because doctors and the diet/health/fitness industrial complex has lied to us for decades.
For the first time in my life I'm not feeling ashamed or guilty for being ~10-15 lbs overweight and now that I understand the science behind it I'm quickly on my way to losing it all.
Seriously, this kind of thinking is fucked up and has to stop.
At work so can't watch. Posting here to for a lazy bookmark :D
I read the BOOK recently. Putting some of it into practice and it is already working! (eating mostly meat, little too no carbs; after plateauing on a 4HB/slow carb diet!). People really need to read and understand this shit!
>"law of conservation of mass"
Is this another way of saying "the laws of thermodynamics?"
As Sinamon just said, the calorie in / calorie out model is flawed. Not just flawed, actually.. fatally flawed. It's not the black in white. If you've read through the comments here, you've seen discussion on insulin levels and hormones.
It's obvious you've done enough reading on nutrition to get you here, but I suggest you keep going.
Pick up this book: "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It"
However, your premise is correct. Paleo is not a weight-loss diet. Our goal is not always to lose weight, but just to become healthier people. Paleo will do that for you.
Coincidentally, if you're not the weight your body has been designed to be, you will, overtime, come closer and closer to that weight.
I'll quote Taubes' 2nd book here. You'll have to accept that psychology does enter into the equation (but it's not the whole story!) because obviously it's possible to remain in a state of starvation indefinitely and remain thin; people unable to obtain enough food adequately prove that. Equally obvious, I hope, is that such a thing is unsustainable and unhealthy.
> Thermodynamics tells us that if we get fatter and heavier, more energy enters our body than leaves it. Overeating means we're consuming more energy than we're expending. It says the same thing in a different way. Neither happens to answer the question why. Why do we take in more energy than we expend? Why do we overeat? Why do we get fatter?
> The very notion that expending more energy than we take in - eating less and exercising more - can cure us of our weight problem... is based on yet another assumption about the laws of thermodynamics that happens to be incorrect... The thinking is that we can choose to eat less, or semi-starve ourselves (reduce calories-in), and this will have no effect on how much energy we subsequently expend (calories-out) or, for that matter, how hungry we become... Intuitively, we know this isn't true, and the research in both animals and humans, going back a century, confirms it.
> In short, the energy we consume and the energy we expend are dependent on each other... Change one, and the other changes to compensate. To a great extent, if not entirely, the energy we expend will determine how much we consume, while the energy we consume and make available to our cells (a key point, discussed elsewhere) will determine how much we expend. The two are intimately linked. Anyone who argues differently is treating an extraordinarily complex living organism as though it were a simple mechanical device.
Unfortunately, we can't pin the problem of obesity on the obese people, which seems like what you're doing with your "dozen burgers" example. It's absurd to claim that people magically lost willpower over the last twenty to thirty years. That diet and exercise are more popular than they have ever been should make it seem very strange that the people who diet and exercise the MOST (Americans, believe it or not) are also the fattest.
In order to solve the obesity epidemic, we need a diet that actually works for actual people. "Eat less, move more" works for less than 2% of people who attempt it, in time frames longer than one year. And yet, doctors prescribe it to nearly all of their overweight patients. If "eat less, move more" was a drug, it would be a drug that made people better for a few months, then in 98% of cases, made them worse. Should we be prescribing that drug?
Nutrition guidelines are wrong. The paradigm is based on faulty science. There are diets that consistently, reliably yield permanent results. Eat less, move more is not one of them. If you still disagree, I have plenty of evidence I can show you, but if you're really interested, check out a copy of Why We Get Fat from the library.
The only criticism I'd have is to find a better dressing. You can find ranch/Caesars that are 1-2g per serving.
Lettuce is good, but there are more nutritious greens. Broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, spinach, etc... Make friends with all of these.
As for 20g of carbs, it's definitely a good hard limit to start. At first generally the closer to 0 the better, (which you'll never do unless you neglect veggies, which you shouldn't do). But people can go as high as 50g or more and still be in keto. Everyone's different but just don't freak out if you're at 25g a day or something. You'll learn your limits.
Also, don't pay much attention to calories, and read Why We Get Fat.
Good luck!
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that she was "sitting at home and eating Bon-Bons". What I meant by saying "I don't see how she could not be insulin resistant" is, if she is obese at such a young age, then something in her hormone balance has to be out of whack. No one's body wants them to fat, really, it's just that when we eat the wrong foods, we're sending the wrong signals to our bodies. I'm not blaming either her or you for that -- our government recommends that the bulk of our diet be the very foods that send those wrong signals, and it can be easy to chalk it up as "just genetics", because there are certainly a lot of people that eat that way and manage to stay skinny. I think those people did just get lucky with genetics, they tolerate the modern mainstream high carb diet better. But for those of us that didn't win the genetic lottery, so to speak, which I count myself in that group and probably your daughter too, keto and/or low-carb is very often the answer.
It's awesome that she's active, and you're right, exercise helps regulate insulin resistance, but there's more to it than just that, I believe diet definitely plays a bigger role in hormonal balance than does exercise (some people even say 90% diet, only 10% exercise). Additionally, it sounds like it's all cardio, and cardio can actually hinder weight loss as it releases stress hormones that cause your body to want to hold on to its "emergency stores" of energy. I don't know why I forgot to recommend this book in my first comment, but you may also want to read Why We Get Fat. It's a fantastic book, very easy to understand even if I wish it was shorter. It will turn your ideas about what is healthy upside down.
You are welcome. It seems that education, in this diet above all others, is important. You have to understand that bacon doesn't make your heart blow up, and that there are factors for heart disease that are heightened by carbohydrates. In other words, the USDA food pyramid is upside down. Seriously, watch the videos, read the literature, order Why We Get Fat... from Gary Taubes off of Amazon.com ($14.33) and let him read that. You read it too and there will be no more doubt.
Congrats on wanting to change your life! All of us r/keto-ers are happy to lend our support and encouragement.
But first, some real talk:
The hard part is re-learning what you know about diet and nutrition. For the past 50 years, doctors have been pushing dietary advice that is well-meaning, but based on some bad science.
For example, you say dietary fat is your "real problem," and that you're concerned about calories. These are the two biggest fallacies of mainstream dietary advice. What researchers like Gary Taubes have discovered is that, if you look at all the scientific research we have, most of what we've been told is just plain wrong. Most notably:
- Eating fat does not make our bodies create fat
- Calories are mostly irrelevant
I second the recommendation to read <em>Why We Get Fat</em> by Gary Taubes. It's extremely important that you understand how and why your body creates fat tissue, and how a low-carb ketogenic diet corrects it. This is not a "fad diet." This is science.
Cut out carbs, increase fat, and never look back.
Do not worry about portion sizes. Do not worry about calories. Do not worry about fat. Do worry about what you eat, not how much. There's overwhelming scientific evidence that carbohydrates quite literally make us fat, and that fat and protein do not.
> obesity is caused by the consumption of excess calories (energy)
Maybe not: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702/ref=asc_df_0307272702/
I hope you do see the benefits of getting your fat intake up, since on keto your body is using fat for energy. You need to consume fat to have something for your body to run on. Let me know how it works out for you :)
And in response to your last statement...it's not that neither are an issue on this diet per se, it's that over the past 50 years we've been given a ton of misinformation about the "dangers" of saturated fat and dietary cholesterol.
In a nutshell, heart disease is caused by inflammation in the arteries which is 100% NOT caused by what we commonly refer to as "high cholesterol" or by eating saturated fat. The inflammation is caused by a carbohydrate rich diet. When you eat keto, you actually reduce your risk of heart disease.
Do just a bit of research and you'll be convinced that what you thought you knew about healthy eating is really not the way it actually works. I highly recommend reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes to understand this better, and/or watch the documentary "Fat Head" on netflix or youtube.
Best of luck, I hope you become a true keto believer ;)
+++ for Taubes, check your library, "Why we get Fat" is an excellent, very well researched book, that does give hints as to the actual truth when it comes to the technical biological parts of these topics that probably even your doctor does not know, and certainly it seems no one on TV has a clue about, but it's still easy to read.
If your technically oriented, you can read its predecessor book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories" which was highly detailed in its research and sources and was aimed mostly at educating doctors on what is the truth. "Why We Get Fat" is all that research, and work Taubes did along with input from all the tours he did talking to doctors around the country after the Good Calories book distilled down into a book easier to read for the everyday person.
> my dad seems to think canola and vegetable oil is better for him
Yep, the public has been 'programmed' by clueless regurgitation of faulty dietary science since the 1980's. It's hard to combat ignorance and blind faith in what people see on TV.
Read How We Get fat & What We Can Do About it.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
The oatmeal is the problem not the fats.
+1 "Healthy" as popular culture defines it is broken. See http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
Actually the way to lose weight has definitively been proven NOT TO BE by "consuming less and burning more" as your metabolism will shift to keep the body in energy balance. The way to lose weight is biological, not physical, and by eating less carbohydrates your body will produce less insulin, which is the "master hormone" in dictating fat storage.
If you eat less you will have less energy and not be able to exercise much. If you exercise a lot you will literally "work up an appetite", as the saying goes. This has all been very clearly explained by Gary Taubes, who explains this in less than 90 minutes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyXa39ICIrk
and wrote a book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
Books are a great way to educate yourself and keep you motivated. Check the FAQ for resources. I'm enjoying Gary Taubes' *Why we get fat* book. I found Tom Venuto's *Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle* to be a great start also. There are plenty of audiobooks too that you can listen to while running or working out.
Food scale, as suggested earlier, is a must if you're planning to use calorie counters and having more control of the things you eat. And form your comment about weighting your bowel movements, I'm sure you'll have fun using it.
Resistance bands and push-up handles are way cheap. I know fittit will prefer barbells and dumbells and I know they're right. But as you, when I initiated (recently) I wanted to have a range of "equipment" for cheap to get myself started and motivated and all of these stuff I mention helped me.
Work out videos/programs (P90X, Insanity, etc) help too, not only as routines but as a way to learn about exercises/form/stretching. I've been doing Power90 (not P90X) for a few months and I'm waiting for my copy of Starting Strength to arrive and looking to get myself a bench press and barbell/weights.
And mostly r/fitness! Good luck!
Of course it is, but it is likely.
"Why we get fat" by Gary Taubes would be a good read http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702 he had a good podcast interview I just listened to as well http://www.latestinpaleo.com/paleo-podcast/2011/8/29/latest-in-paleo-episode-30-gary-taubes.html
So would Seth Roberts Shang Ri La Diet http://sethroberts.net/
and
Stephan Guyenet's bloghttp://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/
For weight/fat loss exercise only will not get you very far. Also calories in/calories out is not the best way to go about it either. Easiest and most effective, eat more fat and less carbs.
Here are some sources, there are many many more. Also look at /r/keto or /r/paleo http://primalmeded.com/2011/05/16/calorie-i/
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
For roller blading specifically you will burn some calories but because there is so little resistance you won't build any muscle or get much body composition change. Unless you are doing sprints and hills, or really long distances.
This book will explain that for you. And then blow your fucking mind.
You would've been far better off eating the drumstick than the sandwich, I'd say. Sugar and processed carbs are what make people fat, not meat. Check out /r/paleo and Why We Get Fat.
so, here's what's going on. Right now you're losing muscle, not fat, hence having a "normal" body weight, but not losing your belly.
You're in a state of semi-starvation. Because of your insulin levels, the fat in your body is taking most of the calories to maintain itself while your muscles are being broken down for energy. The end game is your heart muscle being broken down for energy and you die. I guess depending on your willpower you could keep it up for months or years, but can you honestly keep it up for the rest of your life? At some point, out of survival, your body is going to demand more calories and then you'll gain all the weight back.
Here is a good article http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html
and an awesome book if you want to learn more http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-Borzoi/dp/0307272702
I lost my first 30 pounds just by counting calories and going to the gym regularly. I switched to a Ketogenic diet after I read "Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It" by Gary Taubes It is all about how you want to lose weight and what works best for you. I love /r/keto because bacon and eggs is my favorite meal.
>Do you allow yourself to eat extra calories on days you exercise?
No... you are going to the gym to get rid of extra calories and help accelerate fat loss (and build muscle). If you burn 200 calories and then eat an extra 200 calories you just wasted your time.
>How many of the calories you eat each day are healthy vs healthy?
I started at 260 and cut my calories back gradually based on my BMR (go here to calculate it)
So when I first started I cut my calories down to 2000-2200 per day. Then after I got down to like 240-230 I cut it down again to 2000-1800, now on keto I don't keep track of calories I just eat till full and call it good. I think this is the best way to go because then you aren't starving yourself and you are allowing your stomach to shrink as you progress. You also give yourself time to learn what it means to be full and how you feel when you are full.
read this instead of that spam: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702/
Good resources: http://www.paleonu.com/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
Also read one of these, the first one is sort of a cliff notes version of the second one.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-Borzoi/dp/0307272702
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=pd_sim_b_1
>A diabetic patient is recommended to have foods rich in Carbohydrates
ಠ_ಠ
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
>If the USDA dietary guidelines—recommending that highly caloric grains and carbohydrates comprise 45 to 65 percent of daily caloric intake—are so healthy, why, he asks, has obesity among Americans been on the upswing? Why has this same diet, endorsed by the American Heart Association, not managed to reduce the incidence of heart disease?
i blame the "calories in vs calories out" paradigm, but according to it the blame is either gluttony or sloth. the whole paradigm is based on the belief that calories in and calories out are independent variables, that exercise won't increase appetite and/or that eating less won't decrease energy levels. this belief just isn't based in science...
>"There is also evidence," says Evans, "that many people who initiate an exercise program compensate by becoming less active for the rest of the day, thinking, "No, I don't really want to go for a walk, I have already done my exercise."
if anyone wants to actually understand why we get fat, i recommend reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
a great lecture explaining why fructose is by far the worst carbohydrate: http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717
Read this book and your fears about fat will melt away.
Eating a healthy diet which supplies adequate calories - this is the correct way to lose weight in ketosis, rather than intentionally cutting calories - means that building up a caloric deficit with exercise isn't very beneficial. You should be listening to your body and eating what you need to, and if you "run off" calories, your body should be asking for more.
At very long cardio durations (longer than a continuous hour, for most people) your body will begin to recruit significant energy directly from your fat stores; this is a fat-loss method, but it's impractical for the average working adult. Some people simulate the effects by doing their exercise in a fasted state, which leaves less glycogen for your body to burn and forces it to draw directly from fat stores sooner.
HIIT and weightlifting can burn through glycogen stores very, very rapidly, which can help you get into and stay in ketosis, but again, your appetite should increase commensurate with the additional calorie burn. Recent studies have indicated that HIIT uses significantly more energy per unit time than traditional cardio, and it delivers superior results in general fitness. Similar results are available for weightlifting. That's not to say that running is bad - if you like it, by all means, do it - but it's a relatively inefficient way to consume energy and improve muscle condition. If you think you're close to your max heartrate on a distance run, try a few serious HIIT routines and I suspect you'll change your mind. ;-)
Basically, do the diet right to lose weight. Exercise to be fit. The conventional wisdom that exercise is a crucial part of weight loss is simply wrong on this diet. You can somewhat speed up weight loss on keto with exercise, but it doesn't work like exercise does on a starvation diet; you'll need to go in with a whole different strategy if you want to seriously accelerate your losses with exercise.
For more, check out info on CKD, Fasted Exercise, and Gary Taubes' book.
This is required reading.
The answer is yes, based on information I could find here. The meals have a low glycemic index, avoid starchy vegetables and provide lean proteins (meat, chicken, fish). The main difference I think is that while on keto, you don't have to obsess about fat as the medifast people do.
If you don't mind looking out for carbs and can prepare your own meals, then you should be able to transition easily.
I've started keto @ 257 (pretty close to your starting point... I'm a 5'8'' dude). I've lost 20.24 lbs after the first two weeks. I'm at 38 pounds lost after 10 weeks, which is well within the Medifast claim of 2 to 5 pounds a week. Obviously, the first week or two are not good indicators, since MOST if not ALL of the lost weight is water weight.
I think your next step, whether or not you decide to switch to keto, is to understand why it low carb, keto or medifast work exactly. I can't recommend Gary Taubes' book "Why we get fat" enough for that.
Have him read Taubes latest book: Why we get fat and what to do about it
Everyone interested in Keto should read that book.
I also have a huge sweet tooth. Have you tried sugar alcohols? They won't affect your blood sugar levels, though some people claim that they are knocked out of ketosis by it. I just made a chocolate cheesecake with Truvia(erythritol) yesterday and had three slices today and ketosticks still turn purple.
I just got the the part in Why We Get Fat that claims that even thinking about eating carbs can trigger insulin in your body so maybe it's a mental thing?
As for your love of Chinese food, I'm with you there. I miss it...
That's the same bullshit advice that got us fat and with a diabetes epidemic.
Food quality is of utmost importance. Read:
Read:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-Borzoi/dp/0307272702
You won't ever be "always trying to lose weight" again...
Brain damage, damaged vagus nerve, Prader Willi, the list goes on.
EDIT: While I'm in no way defending the uglies of fat logic, obesity is a lot more than "eat less and exercise more" as this subreddit likes to think. Biological forces are in charge of energy balance and once you fuck up that feedback loop strict willpower just won't cut it for weight loss.
EDIT 2: Keep downvoting me, but after you hit that arrow go and read this and this
I'm not a great writer and I have no need in trying to convince to do something that is against your believing or whatever. We were all told in recent years that getting fit is about keeping calorie deficit because it's what first law of thermodynamics suggest and it would be right when speaking about engine and power plants but our bodies were not made by humans and this law doesn't apply as well as when it comes to any power plant. (couldn't thing of anything better you can blame it on my field of studies)
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/13464859-423/is-a-calorie-just-a-calorie.html
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
this are some articles (first is "interpretation" of second - second is a paper released after research).
Trust me I wasn't convinced at any of it in the first place because I knowledge of biology and chemistry was on high school level and I didn't really thought about how getting fat might work. But after reading http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Get-Fat-about/dp/0307272702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341526534&sr=8-1 it all actually had more sense that what I was thought to believe.
tl;dr: don't want to write a wall of text explaining why you're 100% correct - just read through links before judging anything
This is the most moronic reason to exercise, and precisely why exercise is not very good at weight reduction:
I recommend you read: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
Just throwing this out there. Everyone who wishes to lose weight should read this or this if you're more scientifically inclined. The former is basically a synopsis of the latter and without detailed footnotes/references.
The idea people get fat because they exercise to little and eat too much is false. There is no evidence for causality between calorific intake and getting fat. To put it in another more helpful way, you don't say children get tall because they eat too much. You say they get tall because of hormonal 'imbalances' which results in an increase in food intake. The same applies to obesity. You get fat and THEN eat more to compensate.
Obesity ultimately boils down to carbohydrate (particularly the refined ones, e.g. sugar) intake and the body's response. When you eat high amounts of carbohydrates, they appear as glucose in your blood stream. Cells will use this glucose as a source of energy, however there will almost definitely be a surplus of glucose that your cells cannot use immediately so your body stores it.
Insulin is a hormone which is released before, during and after you've eaten to help control blood glucose levels.This increased level of insulin will tell your cells to increase their uptake of the glucose from the bloodstream. How this is stored is dependent upon the cell type: muscle cells store it as glycogen (a rapid source of glucose), liver cells store it as fat and glycogen, while fat cells store it as, you've guessed it, fat. What should happen is that as your blood sugar levels decrease and insulin levels decrease in a corresponding manner, fat is released from fat tissue as a source of energy.
Once fat is in the fat cells its stored as triglycerides. These triglycerides are too big a molecule to get out of the cell and therefore stay there until broken down. Insulin is the hormone which is primarily responsible for the storage within fat cells via the increased activity of an enzyme known as lipoprotein lipase. Another enzyme, hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL), is responsible for the breakdown of triglycerides. Insulin also works to suppress HSL and therefore suppresses the breakdown of triglycerides. Basically insulin does its best to store and keep fat in fat cells.
Another implication of prolonged increased levels of insulin is that our body will 'lock down' energy stores and our cells are starved of the necessary energy source they require to function - we get hungry quicker. As a result, wee eat more often and/or we eat more when we do eat. Moreover, our bodies get bigger, we require more fuel and therefore eat more.
ANY diet that does work is one which cuts carbohydrates. It's just most diets miss the point and insist you cut down calorific intake (which usually means a proportional cut in carbs).
TL;DR - cut carbohydrates from your diet, not calories, if you want to lose weight in comfort. Replace lost carbs with more fat and protein. Eat shit load of meat. Buy above book(s) for better explanation.
Excess calories make you fat.
Citation: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702
Your science could be flawed. Read this book.
You really need to read a LOT more if you're giving credence to things like the "Twinkie diet." Get a copy of Why We Get Fat and have a look. There's so much more to the argument than what anyone can post here in a comment.
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