Weight Loss - Adaptation
- By Chris Hardwicke
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- 01 Jul, 2018
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Successful Adaptation is why humans are still here and many other species are not.
Successful Adaptation is why humans are still here and many other species are not. Species survive because they can adapt to changing conditions otherwise they become extinct, hence the saying “survival of the fittest.”
“Survival of the well adapted” would be more precise. Humans can survive for over 40 days on water alone. This adaptation evolved due to inconsistent food supply. Famine has been a fact of human existence for millions of years and we are well adapted to famine.
You can imagine that when we try to lose weight our adaptation to famine comes into play. What you probably do not know is that the entire weight loss experience, diet and exercise, is TOTALLY guided by this adaptation, and ignorance of this principle is the number one reason why people fail when trying to lose weight.
I refer to our collective adaptation to famine as the “starvation response” and following are the main components:
Lowered Metabolism:
As our food supply lessens our body begins the adaptation process by lowering our metabolism. Over time we will need less food to survive. While this is a miracle in itself, it becomes a curse for those trying to lose weight.
If you began your weight loss program needing 2000 calories per day to maintain your weight and you cut calories to 1000 per day, the process begins. Eventually you will stop losing weight and the body can live on 1000 calories per day. Dieters refer to this as a “plateau.” I refer to it as being fully adapted to your diet. To stimulate further weight loss, we must cut more calories.
Increased Hunger:
The second component of the starvation response is increased hunger. In 1846 a group of immigrants, known as the Donner party, were migrating west and became trapped in a snowstorm and as they ran out of food they resorted to cannibalism. This was only 160 years ago.
Humans will kill each other for food. When we are hungry, food takes precedent over all other needs, even shelter. This is tough enough when no food is present, but try doing it when your cabinets are full!
I loathe to hear weight loss “experts” speak who have never had to lose weight. They tend to make you feel weak for breaking your diet. Possibly when hungry enough we should consider eating them!
More Efficient Storage:
Again, we can easily see how valuable this adaptation to famine becomes when food is in short supply. Our ability to store more easily becomes evident when we give up our diet and begin to eat more food.
In our earlier scenario, we went from 2000 to 1000 calories per day. If we fully adapted (weight loss had stopped) to 1000 calories per day, we will now re-gain weight while eating only 1500 calores per day. If we return to 2000 we will gain back more weight than we lost. How many of you have had that experience? When I give weight loss lectures, it is at this point that heads are nodding and some tears are evident.
Lose Less Weight On Your Next Diet:
As we become better adapted to famine we will lose less weight and lose it more slowly with each successive weight loss attempt. In a kind of “fool me once” scenario, we learn that our first weight loss attempt was the easiest.
In our example we cut from 2000 to 1000 calories per day and hit a plateau (fully adapted). Then we ate more (1500) and re-gained some weight. When we went back to 2000 we eventually regained more weight than we lost. As we make another attempt at a 1000 calorie diet we lose weight more slowly and we fully adapt (weight loss stops) much sooner. While veteran dieters are all too familiar with the starvation response effects, it should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of us.
We are fight or flight, hunting and gathering animals. In our DNA are all the tools for energy creation. Through the Kreb’s cycle, we can convert ALL food to energy. We can live in excess of 40 days on water alone. We can walk 300 miles without anything other than water. Though it is occasionally not evident, we are the most highly evolved animals on Earth.
To better understand how we create more energy, we would do well to visualize a spiral. If we follow the line of the spiral we see that it moves up and then levels out, reaching an ever-increasing height. The same is true when we create energy. Our energy levels cannot simply rise straight up. We must also level out to create energy (rest).
If you have been sedentary for a long time and one day you decide to go jogging for a couple of miles, you will be tired for several days after. You will need to rest. Tiredness is the downside of the spiral. From just that one run, you have created more energy that is yours to use AFTER recovery. This increased energy is the upswing of the spiral. If you continue to run and rest, the spiral will go up and level out with the net result being a gain in energy. Our heart becomes bigger and our lungs more toned, the relevant jogging muscles are stronger and more efficient.
To return to our car analogy, our engine has become bigger and stronger. When running a couple of miles no longer challenges us we have ADAPTED to our running regimen. At this point, if we do not run faster, farther or longer we will not continue to increase our energy. Our current level of running will MAINTAIN our current level of ADAPTATION (energy level). If we stop running we will gradually go back down the spiral. If we do not allow for full recovery through proper sleep we will also see a drop in performance. Sleep is an important part of the leveling out of the spiral.
In a nutshell, we must work hard enough to go higher “up” the spiral, and then rest, through which we will adapt to higher and higher levels of energy.
You can feed all the fuel you want to a weak engine and it will still not go faster. You can cleanse the fuel lines all you want and you will not increase YOUR performance if your engine is small and weak.
We have total control of our energy level. We are responsible for creating our own energy. If you do not have any, you have created the weak engine I am talking about. It is very easy to look to cleanses and supplements, but a strong engine can run very well for a long time on junk food, much as putting cheap gas in your car often takes 100,000 miles to have a negative effect.
In our car analogy, we fixed everything but the engine and still we had no better performance. A big difference between human engines and car engines is that if you park your car in the garage for a few years, the engine remains just as powerful. The human engine, however, will actually shrink. Your entire system can get clogged by parking it on the couch too long and not taking it out for a good drive once in a while. If you only drive it to work and back it won’t continue to run well for long. You will see what I mean when you finally “floor it” and black smoke pours out of the exhaust! It may even stall! Quick, before it’s too late, let’s make this thing run right, faster, and longer.
Why don’t you have some coffee, sugar, or fruit? That ought to pick you up! How about an energy drink with some wild sounding jungle herbs? Most of us regularly look for energy in a particular food or drink and we are eventually forced to acknowledge that it does not work.
We have an epidemic of blood sugar problems (hypoglycemia) that affect an estimated 60% of this country. In fact, most companies give workers a break at 10 a.m. and often this is not because they are generous, but productivity has markedly slowed. At this point you have only been at work for two, at most three, hours! Certainly you are not already out of energy. Notice that your break room is filled with caffeine, candy, and salty and sweet carbohydrates in hopes of kicking you back into productivity.
Further notice that the great ‘medication stations”—convenience stores— that are filled from one end to the other with these items! I can fix your “Blood Sugar” problem such that you can fully access energy you already have, but that will NOT create more!
Many alternative modalities promise to remove “blocks” to your energy or increase the flow of energy. Often “cleansing” of some type is recommended. Notice that removing blocks and increasing FLOW are NOT the same as creating MORE energy. For a better understanding of energy, I shall use a car for my analogy.
Let’s say that the tube that carries gasoline to the engine (the fuel line) is clogged. The car runs poorly. When you clear the “blockage” you “increase the flow” of fuel to the engine. While this is important and I often recommend energy-flow work, you will NOT have MORE energy, but full access to the energy you already had.
How about if the carburetor is not mixing the air and gasoline correctly? Again the car runs poorly. Many vitamin and supplements companies make “increased-energy” claims based on improving your fuel mix. While supplements and diet can sometimes correct nutritional deficiencies, you will only have better fuel, not more fuel. This is very important as better fuel is necessary for high performance. Many people in third world countries suffer from malnutrition and cannot perform well. However, you and I are likely getting everything we need for our day-to-day performance and even our “weekend warrior” athletics. Body builders, high school, college and professional athletes may well need supplements if their diet is less than perfect but I’m willing to bet that quality fuel is not your problem.
For now, let’s assume that your fuel system is clean enough and you eat a good enough diet. If this is the case, and most often it is, the cause of your lack of energy is that your motor is small and inefficient and that nothing you put in the gas tank can change that!
