This is the final installment of The Excess Fat Accumulation Series. If you haven’t yet checked out articles 1, 2, or, 3, I recommend beginning there.
Or, if you are here for an overview of how you can approach weight management using the RSA, feel free to begin here (and then, I recommend circling back to 1, 2, and 3).
Throughout this series, we have seen how the problem of excess fat accumulation in adipose tissue is more complex than the simple message that is generally taught to the public (that message being that we gain weight because we eat too much and exercise too little). Rather, the problem that is the build-up of fat in excess has to due with a failure of the systems supporting the body to effectively manage the supply and demand of energy, and the result is a positive calorie balance that takes the form of excess fat stored in adipose tissue.
Let me state that once again so that we are crystal clear on cause and effect:
The excess fat accumulation problem is caused by a failure of the systems supporting the body to effectively regulate energy supply and demand.
The result of this failure is a positive calorie balance, which manifests as the build-up of excess energy as fat in adipose tissue.
Note what this is not saying. Contrary to what is commonly taught to the public, the problem of weight gain is not caused by an energy imbalance. Weight gain is a positive energy imbalance, and that imbalance is caused by something else.
It is these causal factors that we will examine in-depth in this article so that we can make effective decisions that allow us to maintain (or achieve) a healthy body weight.
To do so, we will be thinking through the problem using The Reprogrammed Systems Models – a series of models designed to help us all understand how our decisions directly impact the functioning of the complex, dynamic system that is the human body, leading us down a path of good vs. poor health.
We finished up the previous article with a brief introduction to The Energy Signaling Model as it relates to the excess fat accumulation problem:
The Energy Signaling Model helps us visualize how all of our decisions impact the complex, dynamic system that is the human body via two interconnected mechanisms:
- Energy regulation – the ability for the systems supporting the human body to effectively communicate their needs via specific biochemical signals (e.g. insulin, pro-inflammatory cytokines)
- Metabolic function – the overall ability for the systems supporting the human body to perform their essential duties
Applying the Energy Signaling Model to the excess fat accumulation problem, we saw how one particularly relevant decision – the consumption of industrial not-so-foods – leads to the accumulation of excess body fat as the body loses its ability to effectively regulate its energy supply and demand.
The avoidance of industrial not-so-foods is one important piece to the big picture that is a healthy lifestyle; and yet, it is still only one piece. If we want to have the ability to make healthier decisions, we need to know how we can continue to absorb new information and integrate it into our own framework for making healthy decisions.
Given wherever each of us is on our own journey of understanding healthy decisions, let us examine how we can think about how we may build on the foundation that we each have built as we take in new information – using the excess fat accumulation pathway as an important example.
Drivers of The Excess Fat Accumulation Pathway
We begin, again, with the failure of the systems supporting the body to effectively manage the supply and demand of energy, resulting in a positive calorie balance that takes the form of excess fat stored in adipose tissue.
We can view this from a number of perspectives. As a refresher, here are two models discussed earlier in the series:
The next essential question for us to answer: What causes this system-wide failure?
The answer, as discussed in the previous article, can be understood from two perspectives in combination:
- Dysregulation of energy signals
- High total energy load
The Energy Signaling Model (Figure 1) helps us visualize this first item. When we make unhealthy decisions, the systems supporting the human body may lose their ability to effectively manage the supply and demand of energy. This happens as the systems supporting the body:
- lose their ability to effectively communicate (energy dysregulation) and
- lose their ability to function overall (metabolic dysfunction)
To understand both energy signaling and energy load in combination, it would be useful to have a model that takes overall energy balance into consideration, without losing sight of energy signaling. This model would help us envision how our specific actions directly impact the internal state of our bodies.
Similar to The Energy Signaling Model, we would see how external factors directly impact the internal state via our decisions – but in this specific case, we could envision the overall balance of energy across our bodies so that we understand whether our decisions are leading to a positive, negative, or homeostatic energy balance.
We could then ask useful questions, such as:
- What external factors cause a positive energy balance (weight gain)?
- What external factors cause the body to hold onto this excess fat?
- What external factors will allow the body to release this excess fat and return to a healthy body weight?
Let’s make an attempt at that new model, shall we?
The Energy Balance Model
Overall energy balance is established based on the workings of the complex, dynamic system that is your body and its interaction with the environment.
The complex, dynamic system involves internal factors:
- cells, tissues, organs (components)
- connected via two primary networks – circulation (bloodstream), nervous system
The environment involves external factors:
- physical substance (food, chemicals, etc.)
- signals from sensory input (what we see, hear, smell, etc.)
The interaction, or connection between the environment and the complex, dynamic system that is your body, is entirely* dependent on one factor – your decisions:
- what physical substances do you decide will enter your body
- how do you react to the world you live in
These two items are captured in the following model:
The model captures the external physical substances that you decide will enter your body primarily via caloric inputs. This model is useful because it clearly helps us think about the total energy load that is entering the body.
Moreover, as I love to explain, food is so much more than simply energy. It contains information, and the same goes for any other physical substances that you allow on or in your body (phytochemical from plants, synthetic chemicals from laboratories, potentially infectious microorganisms, etc.). This is captured within the model as the ability for the systems supporting the body to effectively regulate the energy that is received.
As for the second point – how you react to the world you live in – this is captured by the internal complex system as its functioning changes drastically based on how you respond to what is happening in the environment. For example, if your body is in a stressed state, then the system will be functioning entirely differently than if you happened to be in a relaxed state – that is, adrenaline and cortisol would be elevated which would be telling the body to release (not store) energy; moreover, muscle tissue would likely be more insulin resistant in this stressed state.
Finally, one last key point is the caloric output piece of the model. This captures the many ways in which the body uses up energy as it performs various functions (movement, sleep, thinking, etc.).
Keeping in line with our discussion of The Excess Fat Accumulation Problem, we can use The Energy Balance Model to help us think through how all of these items combine to result in a positive, negative, or neutral energy balance. Remember from our previous discussion on energy balance:
Energy In – Energy Out = Change in Internal Energy
- If Energy In is greater than Energy Out, then a positive energy balance will be the case.
- If Energy In is less than Energy Out, then a negative energy balance will be the case.
- If Energy In is equal to Energy Out, then energy balance will be the case.
What we need to know is how this model can be useful as a tool to help us visualize how our own decisions lead us to our desired outcome.
- If weight loss is the goal, then we need to know how to create a negative energy balance.
- If maintaining a healthy weight is the goal, then we need to know how our decisions allow the body to maintain an energetic balance over time.
As we do so, I want you to be aware of two things:
- This is a model – it is not all-encompassing of the reality of the world; its job is simply to capture information as accurately as possible such that the information becomes useful
- We have another model in our toolbox that captures the same system from a different perspective, serving its own uses
Remember this other model (Figure 1), in which we want to think about how all decisions impact the workings of the same complex, dynamic system via energy regulation and metabolic function.
Putting the Models to Use
With these two models, my hope is that we can understand how external factors directly impact internal factors via our decisions.
At this point, we have spent a lot of time discussing internal factors involved in the excess fat accumulation pathway. Let us now turn our attention to external factors so that we can make healthy decisions.
As we do this, it is useful to take a structured approach. It won’t do us a ton of good to start diving into a long list of potential factors that could have an impact on this fat accumulation pathway. For one, the list would be too long to capture and discuss in a post, or even an entire book.
To give you a general idea of some of these decisions, one could:
- eat fewer calories, overall
- eat low carbohydrate to minimize insulin secretion
- eat low fat to minimize calorie intake
- exercise more to burn more calories
- exercise strategically to increase oxidative capacity
Clearly, there are lots of strategies that we could employ to attempt to create this negative energy balance. The question then is, What should you choose?
Here’s the deal – I am never here to tell you the answer that will work for you. This is not because I don’t want to give you answers, but rather, because it’s an impossible task. For one, the answer is far too complex for me to know what will work best for you. For another, listing out all of the possible ways in which one external factor can influence one internal factor would take far too many books for me to write and you to read in any reasonable amount of time.
I could also select a handful of factors out of the hat and try to educate you on this small selection. However, this is not today’s task.
Instead of all this, we will maintain the primary focus that is learning to think through how you can integrate all of the information you care to find into a useful framework so that when you come across information regarding how a particular decision may lead to an impact on your body’s fat accumulation pathway, you have a framework for using this information such that you end up making the healthiest decisions possible.
Making Wise Decisions to Avoid (or reverse) The Excess Fat Accumulation Problem
Finally, we arrive at the most important question regarding this particular problem:
How do we think about making decisions that lead to the avoidance (or reversal) of the excess fat accumulation pathway?
That is, how do we achieve:
- healthy fat balance over time
- a temporary negative fat balance if necessary, leading towards long-term healthy fat balance
Note that what we are asking is not what is a good approach to losing weight as fast as possible.
What this is is an approach to taking control of our health so that our bodies are capable of effectively managing their own internal energy balance.
Let’s think about reversal first: what happens if we first need to make decisions that result in a negative energy balance and, thus, fat loss?
To achieve this negative energy balance, we know that we need to ultimately have a system in which less energy is entering than is leaving:
- Energy In is less than Energy Out
The question is, which system are we talking about? Because remember, we aren’t here to discuss how to decrease a number on the scale; we are here discussing how to reverse the excess fat accumulation pathway and achieve good health. This means creating a negative energy balance across two particular systems:
- Adipose tissue
- The body, overall
Combined, we can envision it as such:
Now, let’s take this same idea and apply it to The Energy Balance Model:
As we look at this model, think about how, if we are to be able to lose fat in a manner that is aligned with healthy functioning, we need to meet two criteria:
- Calories consumed must be less than calories expended
- The systems supporting the body must be able to effectively communicate and function such that energy is released and oxidized in a healthy manner.
- Which means less energy is going into storage than is being released from storage and oxidized
If you are getting lost on these two points, I have two recommendations:
- head back to the second article in this series where I took us through energy balance across these two systems (adipose tissue and the body itself)
- head back to the third article in this series where I took us through the many sub-systems involved in this pathway. These sub-systems are responsible for the storage, conversion, and oxidation of energy as it circulates through the body, and if our decisions do not align with their ability to function, then the ultimate goal that is the healthy loss of fat will not be achieved.
Now that we understand the reversal of the excess fat accumulation problem, let’s switch back to the idea of maintaining a healthy energy balance over time:
Fortunately, this one is even simpler than a negative energy balance. If we want to achieve a neutral energy balance over time, then we know that we must have a balance between calories in and calories out. To achieve this, the body must be able to effectively manage the load of energy it receives such that there is a balance between how much is stored and is released and oxidized.
Taking Action
Now that we understand how we can use The Reprogrammed Systems Models to help us think through how our decisions may impact the health of our own bodies, let’s wrap up with some practices that we can employ to make this life of good health a reality.
So here’s our final question: How do we achieve our desired energy balance, whether it means first creating a negative energy balance or not?
My answer, as outlined in The Reprogrammed Systems Approach, is the following:
We begin, simply, with The 3 Key Practices:
- Eat real, whole foods
- energy from real, whole foods tends to be released from the digestive tract and into circulation in a controlled fashion
- appetite control – the body is good at recognizing real, whole foods and the energy content they deliver. When we consume real, whole foods, the brain receives a signal that energy is entering the body, and appetite will generally be suppressed
- nutrients essential for the functioning of sub-systems are contained within real, whole foods
- Move your body regularly and dynamically
- regular movement sends a signal to release fat from storage and provides the demand to oxidize it
- regular and dynamic movement sends a signal to improve systems involved with the particular movement, leading to enhanced overall functioning (e.g. greater efficiency leading to fewer potentially damaging by-products of oxidation, elevated number and efficiency of mitochondria for enhanced oxidation)
- Practice a balance of stress and rest
- acute stress builds up the machinery the body needs to effectively oxidize energy
- rest allows the body the time it needs to recover and come back stronger
Then, once these have been established, your job (if you desire more significant fat loss) is to dive into the mountain of information regarding potential healthy choices to figure out what works for you:
This is the interesting part where you get to do your own research, think through what you believe may be a good idea for your own body (based on your own framework of what a healthy decision is), and do some testing as you try out different options. Here are a few ideas to pick from:
- Choose a low-carb diet to minimize insulin production.
- Choose a high protein diet to increase satiety
- Choose a plant-rich diet to consume large volumes of nutrient-dense foods without a high load of energy
- Lift weights to increase oxidative capacity
- Increase aerobic activity to release fat from storage and oxidize it
- Try intermittent fasting to create larger windows of time during which insulin is low and fat is being released and oxidized
What will work for you? You won’t know until you try. But I’ll say it again – don’t go try until you’ve done the groundwork first: establish a diet based on real, whole foods, move your body regularly and dynamically, and establish a balance of stress and rest.
From this place, if you choose, then it may be time to get creative with specific diets or exercise plans.
Until then, start simple with The 3 Key Practices.
Meanwhile, work on building your own framework(s) for healthy decision-making. Use the models I created, or create your own.
Finally, once you’ve built a solid foundation, then feel free to jump into the complex world that is specific diets, exercise plans, and other lifestyle factors that may (or may not) improve upon the hard work that you’ve already done.
Notes
*I know! You’re going to object to this. Sure, we may have some control over what happens to our bodies, but we don’t have complete control over everything that may impact our health. So let me explain… I get it – in life, we have a great amount of control over what happens to us; but, we sure don’t have all the control. Life happens. We get put in situations where we are out of control (as I write this we are in the midst of the COVID 19 stay at home order and I feel like I have lost most of my control. I get it. Life happens)
But, here’s the deal. While you may not always have all of the control, almost all of us always have enough control to be able to make decisions about what will make the most significant impact, at least most of the time. Let’s talk strictly dietary decisions as an example… We generally have an ability to decide what gets stocked up in the kitchen or where we may stop to pick up food. And ultimately, we always have the decision as to what we put on our fork.
Or, even if we don’t have control over certain factors right now, we do have the ability to change our circumstances so that we gain that control in the future. This means that even if you can’t control exactly what circumstance you will be in at your next meal, you do have the ability to change your life such that your future self may be better equipped to make healthier decisions.