If You Want To Gain Weight Go On A Diet

Did you know that people who never go on a diet end up weighing less than those who diet regularly? When I see someone struggling with weight loss what I see is a person who listened. They listened too well to what they were told. They cut their calories, ate low-fat, and put in a lot of hard exercise. The problem is the very second you stop you gain all of the weight back, plus a little more. For every diet a person goes on the “plus a little mores” begin to add up. To make it worse they tell you that it’s your fault. If only you wanted it more you’d try harder. I’m here to tell you that is complete bullshit.

Here’s the thing. While you’re cutting your calories and exercising around the clock your body senses the food shortage. Your body doesn’t want you to die so it begins burning fewer calories. To help keep you from starving your body produces fewer hormones to tell you you’re full and it increases the hormones that tell you you’re hungry. Most people blame themselves because society has taught them that, little do they realize that there’s a hormonal component internally that’s trying to get them to eat.

The Women’s Health Initiative Study is one of the largest and longest studies to look at the health of women. Looking at the weight loss aspect they had the women cut their calories by 361 per day and increased exercise by 14%. At the end of 7.5 years they did not lose any more weight than if they had doing nothing. Do you see that dip in weight in the first year? That’s the dip that they use when telling you that you have to cut your calories. Initially it does work but overall the diet industry doesn’t make money if they help you long term.

It’s a great business model. How often to you hear people say that they have to go back to (insert popular diet program/service)? It works just enough to make people think that it works. Their hormones take over and they stop doing it. They gain the weight back and then they go back to the same service that “helped” them before.

Do Calories Matter?

Yes and No. First we have to recognize that how our body metabolizes chocolate cake – vs – broccoli – vs – steak is different. You’re going to get different nutrients and a different insulin response from each. (Insulin is released by the pancreas to store glucose (sugar) in the muscles and liver.) Insulin is a storage hormone and when it’s always abundant your body isn’t going to burn body fat. What does a typical low-fat, low-calorie diet look like? It’s a lot of carbohydrates…ie…sugar.

Fat has 9 calories per gram whereas carbohydrates and protein only have 3 calories per gram. By default a low calorie diet is going to cut out a lot of fat. Here’s the thing though, fat doesn’t produce an insulin response. This is largely why people have such great weight loss success with the paleo and keto diets. The people in the know who follow these diets pay very little attention to calories. They eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full, as it should be.

Where it gets fuzzy. There are people with weight loss goals who will say that keto didn’t work for them. Looking closer at the “keto” they tried to adopt there are usually some errors. One, they eat all the fat, fat on everything, fat around the clock. While fat doesn’t produce an insulin response how can the body burn stored body fat when there is an abundance of fat in the diet? There’s a balance point that people have to find for themselves.

Then there are the mug cakes and sweet treats. It doesn’t matter what sweetener you use, how natural it is, or how great you want it to be. All sweet tastes produce an insulin response. Period. The insulin response begins the moment something sweet touches your tongue so I don’t care how perfect you think it is it’s stalling your weight loss goals.

The study above was conducted on people with Type 2 Diabetes over the course of 6 months. At month 1, 3, and 6 they increased the insulin dose while also cutting the number of calories. Over the course of 6 months they gained roughly 9 Kilos (19.8 pounds).

If you’ve been cutting your calories by eating more insulin producing (low calorie) foods this table sums up where you may be having issues in your weight loss journey.

How Are Paleo, Primal, & Keto Different Than Traditional Diets?

Traditional diets are focused on calories, willpower, and fighting natural hunger signals. Paleo, Primal, and Keto (ancestral diets) are focused on intuitive eating. That is, eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. The only trick is that you have to eat real food. Our food industry that puts health claims on the front of their packages. “Low-Fat, Sugar-Free, 100 Calories…etc” When you flip these boxes over and read the ingredients there isn’t much real food. They engineer things to taste like they normally would but they’ve had to chemically alter it so that the recipe comes out right. It’s Frankenfood and we wonder why everyone is sick….

Paleo, Primal, and Keto are all focused on real food, ancestral food. Processed food is one of the things that’s omitted. Do they make paleo, primal, and keto packaged foods? Yes. The difference is that when you turn them over and read the ingredients they are all things that you could buy for your kitchen. The ancestral diet is the diet of our ancestors. Imagine yourself living as a hunter-gatherer. What would you eat? You’d eat plants, meat, nuts, seeds, fish, eggs, and fruit.

I think this is why they attack the Paleo Diet in the media. Think of how much gets left behind in a traditional supermarket when people only eat real food. I mean, seriously. The vegans eliminate meat but they consume many highly processed grain and vegetable oil products, the very foundation of the processed food the ancestral diet omits.

What is the difference between Paleo, Primal, and Keto? Paleo is the list I mentioned above. Primal is the list I mentioned above but dairy is also included. Keto is a low carbohydrate version of Paleo. I’ll have to write a blog post about Keto because there’s a lot of keto-nonsense out there. If you want to know how to get started on your paleo journey read my post Paleo For Beginners. Curious about why grains are omitted read Paleo For Beginners Part 2 and 12 Reasons To Go Grain Free.

Chronic Cardio And Weight Gain

Since we have this belief that it’s all about the calories people are out there working to “earn their food”. We’ve become so disconnected from our original human nature that we genuinely believe that we have to earn the food we eat. Do you think hunter gatherers made sure they got their heart rate up for 60 minutes a day before chowing down on bison? As a hunter gatherer it simply didn’t make sense to exercise hard on a daily basis because they didn’t have mini-marts on every corner. What did they do? They walked a lot, lifted heavy things on occasion, and when it was necessary they sprinted.

Our current beliefs about exercise and fitness don’t look much like the ancestral approach. Did you know that exercise is only 10% of the equation when it comes to weight loss? Sleep is also 10%. If you want to make an impact on your physique food is responsible for 80% of your weight loss goals.

Burning Fat: It’s All About The Heart Rate

The body needs oxygen to burn fat and when people exercise at high heart rates oxygen becomes scarce. When oxygen is scarce the body has to rely on glucose to fuel your body. The thing is, when your exercise session is over the body will trigger cravings for carbohydrates to replenish what you’ve burned during your high heart rate, chronic cardio session. When blood glucose falls it activates the fight or flight response in the body. Your body perceives your drop in blood sugar as an emergency which is why it triggers you to eat.

The problem is that unless you are in a laboratory under close supervision it will nearly be impossible to only eat enough glucose to refill your liver and muscles and then stop. Any excess carbohydrates you eat beyond filling your liver and muscles will get stored as body fat.

I can personally vouch that this is 100% true. Back in my 20’s I belonged to a gym where I went to an hour long step class 5 nights a week. Over the course of a year I gained 30 pounds at the gym. When my 1990’s baggy jeans became snug I quit the gym telling myself I was too buff. Without a gym membership I returned to my previous weight. Looking back, I wasn’t buff; I was pudgy. Since my body was dependent on carbohydrates for energy I ate around the clock. I’d eat in the car on my way to work, again at 10:30, 12, 2:30, on my way to the gym, after the gym, and then dinner. The guys I worked with in the lab wanted to know if I could sleep all night without having to eat. It was serious.

How Can I Help?

You simply want to feel your best and age gracefully but what you’re doing isn’t working. You’ve tried countless diets but you can’t get the lasting results you want. They tell you that it’s your fault. “If only you wanted it more you’d try harder.” You know that couldn’t be further from the truth; you want and deserve to feel your best everyday.

I’m here to help you sort fact from fiction and find a lifestyle that will work for you. Every person is unique and what works for one person may or may not work for another. You’re a whole person who deserves a whole person approach.

Get started on a new path today with my paleo for beginners guide.

[mailerlite_form form_id=9]

Join my private Facebook group to stay in the loop.

 

Originally posted on March 30, 2019 @ 10:06

Know someone who needs to read this? Share it!