If you have not seen part 1 take a moment to review it. So what is the key to weight loss
anyway? Although there is a lot of press out there stating that
“Calories do not count” and “just focus on eating healthy” the fact is that
regulation of bodyweight and bodyfat (two different things!) are primarily
controlled by the balance of energy you take in from food and beverages
(calories) and the energy you use to maintain all your cells and fuel all
movement. So why are people (some very bright researchers as
well) saying that calories don’t count?
First
because a lot of research that is quoted was done WITHOUT controlling calories
taken in and using participant recall to estimate calories taken
in. Here is the problem with this – we are lousy at estimating
calories taken in. In fact even trained dieticians frequently
underestimate their calorie intake by 40%! Imagine running a business and
underestimating your bills by 40%! In literally every case when food
intake is precisely controlled or measured through a process using “doubly
labeled water” (which can be used to measure food intake with 100% accuracy
without having to measure and provide food) people do in fact lose weight based
on calories in and calories out!
Second
because there is confusion about a process that is built into every human being
called “Metabolic Adaptation”. Simply put your body adjusts
to any prolonged reduction in calorie intake (regardless of the type of diet!)
by reducing resting metabolic rate. In addition if the
reduction in calorie intake is really large your level of spontaneous physical
movement will be reduced. This process is based on hundreds of
thousands of years of humans living in a world where adequate food intake was
NOT guaranteed and in fact people frequently were forced to not eat for
prolonged periods of time. So the ability to reduce the body’s need
for energy was a fundamental survival mechanism encoded in all our genes!
For
example if you take a group of people of about the same height, weight, age,
sex and activity level who require 2,000 calories per day to maintain
their current bodyweight and drop their calorie intake to say 1,500 calories
per day all of them will lose weight/fat initially. However
within a 2 – 3 month span all weight/fat loss will cease even if they continue
to eat exactly 1,500 calories per day and maintain the same physical movement
profile because as you lose weight/fat the body ALWAYS responds by lowering
resting metabolic rate. So unless you INCREASE physical
activity ALL DIETS become less effective over time regardless of how “healthy”
they are!
Stay
tuned for part 3 and learn the difference between weight loss and fat loss!
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