The ruling model for weight management goes something like this:
- Want to lose weight? Simple – just eat less and exercise more
- That is, to lose weight, consume fewer calories and exercise more to burn more calories so that you create a calorie deficit.
- Because fat is the primary way your body stores energy (calories), if you create a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.
- So, like I said – just eat less and exercise more. Simple.
Energy Balance
This concept is taught to the public as the idea that part of being healthy is being able to control the amount of energy that we take in and balance it with the amount we expend.
If you are overweight, this means that you have let yourself eat too much while exercising too little. To counteract this, you need to eat less and exercise more.
As the majority of modern humans are overweight, this means that we live in a society made up of individuals who are living life focused on eating less and exercising more.
- How can I keep myself from getting seconds?
- What is the lowest calorie option on the menu?
- Is this slice of cake too big?
- How many days can I get to the gym?
- How can I push myself harder while I’m already here at the gym?
But as we are all familiar, this approach to weight loss is lacking in its ability to produce sustained results.
We may know this because we’ve experienced it first hand. Maybe we’ve experienced some success counting calories, only to have that weight come back once we let up on the reigns.
Or, maybe we know this because of the simple fact that this is the weight loss approach that has been ruling our society for decades, and yet our society is currently made up of individuals, most of whom are overweight.
Today, my goal is to help you understand why.
The problem with calorie balance as an approach to weight loss
Here’s the problem with this approach to weight loss. It is not that the theory is incorrect. The first law of thermodynamics does indeed tell us that an energy deficit occurs if we consume fewer calories than we expend. And, indeed, we do know that the human body stores excess energy in the form of fat.
Therefore, theory tells us that losing weight must be accomplished by consuming fewer calories than we expend.
However, does this mean that to lose weight, what we should best be doing is to focus on eating less and exercising more?
Or is there a gap somewhere between theory and practice that is causing a significant problem?
Based on the lack of effectiveness, I think it’s reasonable to assume there’s a gap somewhere. Let’s see if we can find it.
The gap between energy balance (theory) and practical advice
Energy in – Energy out = Change in internal energy
This is an equation summarizing the first law of thermodynamics. It is a statement of fact; it describes what is and what must be.
- If energy in increases and energy out does not change, there must be a corresponding positive change in internal energy
- If energy out decreases and energy in does not change, there must be a positive corresponding change in internal energy
This is useful. It helps us understand how our actions can impact the state of our internal energy stores.
But here’s the important piece: what happens when we want to create a desired change in our internal energy stores? For example, what happens if we want to lose weight?
Do we follow standard advice to “eat less and exercise more” with the purpose of creating a calorie deficit?
Let’s go along with this advice and see what can happen.
What happens when we try to eat less and exercise more?
First, let’s say a particular individual eats less to decrease energy in. What could happen?
- He could lose weight from fat mass: the body could understand that less energy is coming in so it needs to release some of the excess fat that is stored.
- Or, he could lose weight, but do so by losing significant amounts of muscle mass.
- Or, he could experience significant low levels of energy because the body is not responding to less energy in by releasing energy from fat stores.
- Or, he could soon after gain weight because the body has received the signal that energy is not available in the environment and that it needs to store any energy it takes in just in case.
Second, let’s say another particular individual exercises more to burn more calories so that we are increasing energy out. What could happen?
- She could lose weight from fat mass because her body understood that this stored energy was available for use
- She could lose weight from muscle mass because she is pushing hard enough to require substantial amounts of glucose to sustain the workout.
- She could feel tired all of the time because her blood sugar levels are so low from using up so much glucose.
- She could feel hungry all of the time because her hunger hormones are revved up.
To summarize, here’s the big idea: when we eat less and/or exercise more, we can lose weight.
However, we can also lose muscle mass, feel exhausted, and fight serious hunger.
The goal of our work here at Your Health, Reprogrammed is to build healthy bodies and live out amazing lives that are enabled by having a healthy body.
To me, feeling tired, hungry, and lacking in lean body mass is not aligned with this goal.
Still though, having balanced fat stores are an important piece of being healthy. So, what are we to do?
Step 1: Toss out the idea that we need to control our fat stores
Here’s the remarkable thing about the human body: it has an incredible ability to understand its needs and to initiate behavior change necessary to meet these needs. The cells that make up your body are hard at work continuously sensing their internal state, determining what is needed, and communicating this to the body, and eventually to the brain, so that the entire system understands what is needed.
If this system is working properly, then your fat cells (adipocytes) are able to understand when they are surpassing a healthy capacity.
That is, as your fat cells fill up, they send out signals to the body to make changes such that these fat cells are able to release that excess fat.
All of this is to say, you don’t have to control your fat stores because they are already controlling their energy supply themselves. They know what they need, and who are you to tell them any different?
Except, clearly, there’s a problem with all of this because, for most modern humans, adipose tissue has lost the ability to perform this function.
So, what are we to do about it?
Step 2: Understand the real problem
A part of being unhealthy may be that excess fat is accumulating.
However, a deeper part is the why – why is fat accumulating in excess?
The simple answer: the body’s adipose tissue has lost the ability to communicate its current state.
It is unable to initiate the change required to take in less energy, overall, and it is unable to release the stored energy and to allow it to head to tissues throughout the body to be utilized as a fuel source.
The problem is not that too much energy is entering the body and that not enough is leaving it. That’s a symptom.
The problem is that the body has lost its ability to regulate energy.
Step 3: Begin taking action that addresses the real problem
The human body has been designed with systems in place to manage the energy requirements throughout the body.
These systems were designed over millions of years as our species evolved into the remarkable beings that we are.
In the last couple hundred thousand years as our species emerged, our ancestors spent the vast majority of this time roaming around, gathering plants and hunting animals.
No worries, this is not a talk about how we need to go paleo to be healthy.
Rather, this is a talk to address specific facts about a human species that has been designed over millions of years. Let’s look at two aspects of this design that relate directly to your most important health-centered decisions:
The human body has been designed to consume real, whole foods.
This food comes in all different forms: plants, animals, even some fungi. The important piece is not which specific foods are best for our bodies, but instead, this:
When we consume food – real, whole foods – the body understands what is being received. This happens because the human body evolved alongside real, whole foods. As we all evolved together, our systems have been designed to work together.
When we instead consume the not-so-foods that have been designed by our species over the past hundreds of years (especially those engineered in laboratories over the past decades) what the body receives is energy in the form that it does not clearly understand. (Read more about this is in the full article on the human diet)
The problem is not that these foods contain too much energy. The problem is that the energy contained within these not-so-foods does not align with the systems in place to manage energy within the body.
Real, whole foods are complex.
Plants come with fiber and an assortment of micronutrients that, when enter the digestive system signal to the brain that food is entering the body. Moreover, the fiber slows digestion and gives the body time to manage that energy.
Animal-based foods are also complex. The higher protein and fat content are strong satiety signals. The micronutrients present in these also signal to the brain that food has entered, and the combination of connective tissues (or other proteins) control their breakdown as the body manages this load of energy.
When not-so-foods are crafted in a manufacturing plant, this complexity is stripped away. Instead, a basic structure composed of refined sugars and refined fats are added together, upon which sweet sugars and other flavors are added.
Sure, manufacturers may go a bit further to add back in some of the components that are deemed “healthy.” Fiber or vitamins may be added back in, and this can certainly be an improvement. But it doesn’t change the very essence of the food that has been created.
We cannot replicate the complexity of a food that has been designed by nature by anything we attempt in a laboratory. That is a fundamental feature of nature.
2. The human body has been designed to move
The human body is a physical structure with networks designed for motor action. When we do not engage these systems, the body takes this as a signal that these structures are not necessary.
The body doesn’t want to be expending resources that it doesn’t need to, so if it understands that these structures are not necessary, then it will break them down and use the proteins from these structures elsewhere in the body.
This leaves the individual lacking the structures and functionality necessary to perform motor actions, which will do two things:
- Impact the ability of the individual’s body to utilize energy over time such that the individual will accumulate energy instead of being able to use it
- Impact the experience of the individual by making it more difficult and less motivating to move his or her body
See what’s happening here?
Not only is the individual storing fat instead of using energy, but the individual is also losing the motivation and ability to go and move around, which is going to, yes, lead to even less movement, propagating this positive feedback loop.
So what does this all tell us about energy balance?
Energy balance is useful because it tells us what must happen if we are going to lose weight.
If the body has been in a positive energy balance, then to reverse this, we need to create a system in which less energy is coming in than is being expended.
The question becomes how?
How do we create a system in which less energy is entering than is being expended?
And, even more important, how do we ensure that this is happening within the correct system?
We don’t really need this negative energy balance across the entire body. Really, we need this negative energy balance across adipose tissue, or across any other tissues in which fat has accumulated in excess (this fat accumulation can also happen within muscle, around our organs, and even within organs).
To me, this is the important question, and this is what we will be diving into as we move through this series.
For now, you know what to do based on the general design of the human body:
- Go build a diet based on real, whole foods
- Go out and move your body
- Work on establishing a balance of stress and rest in your life.