Weight Loss - Protein, Fat & Carbs
- By Chris Hardwicke
- •
- 01 Jul, 2018
- •
How protein, fat and carbs affect weight loss.
Read this closely, there will be a test: “A fat calorie is not the same as a calorie from protein or carbohydrate in the number of calories it contains.” True or false? Let me rephrase, “One calorie of fat is not the same as one calorie of protein or carbohydrate in the number of calories it contains (one).” What a load of gibberish!
The definitive low fat guide, “Eat More, Weigh Less,” written by the definitive low fat doctor, Dean Ornish, sold millions of copies with that statement as the guiding principle and not one person saw that the emperor had no clothes. The book is so full of that kind of B.S. that it makes me laugh when I read it. Yet millions of doctors dispensed his low fat diet based on this book and an equally fraudulent set of clinical trials. For 30 years we have been told that fat makes you fat, carbohydrates are for energy, and protein builds muscle.
The truth of the matter is that a calorie of fat does not have any more potential to make you fat than a calorie from protein; it is simply a more dense food. We do need some protein to build muscles, but all of you get way more than you need for muscle building! Only starving, third world diets run the risk of not enough protein for muscle building.
All food is converted to energy, not just carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are MORE EASILY converted to energy, which is good when you have exhausted your stored muscle fuel (glycogen). This fuel exhaustion takes at least an hour and 20 minutes of hard cardio (65% of max heart rate or better), and some individuals can train up the muscle storage (carbo loading) to go two hours before exhaustion. Otherwise, you do not need carbs before or during your workout. Period.
But what if you are stuffing in these carbohydrates and do not need the energy? Over the years, the pancreas can become overwhelmed and cannot secrete sufficient insulin to process these carbs and keep your blood sugar (glucose) in control. Far from giving you energy, these carbohydrates precipitate a blood sugar low that leaves us tired, irritable, and brain fogged between meals (10 to 11 a.m. and 2, 3 or 4 p.m.).
If you are storing fat heavily around your middle, you have likely exhausted your pancreas. This condition has been given many names such as “carbohydrate intolerance,” “reactive hypoglycemia,” and “metabolic syndrome.” Unless you inherited the weak pancreas (diabetes anywhere in your family tree, frequently undiagnosed) this took many years of eating large portions of processed carbs: white rice, bread and all baked goods, cereals, crackers, cookies, pastas. Sugar and beer also need to be included here. It turns out that these carbohydrates are the most easily converted-to-fat foods on earth IF THE PANCREAS IS BEGINNING TO FAIL.
That’s a big “IF” because it creates confusion amongst dieters when they meet someone who has a fully functioning pancreas and can tolerate these same carbohydrates without weight gain. There are other causes of obesity but the EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY IN AMERICA TODAY WAS AND IS CREATED BY THESE CARBOHYDRATES. It is widely believed that over half of all Americans have this carbohydrate intolerance.
Let’s look at our ADAPTATION to these carbs. Grains were domesticated in the Nile region of Egypt about 10,000 years ago. Sound like a long time? It isn’t. For instance, we have been meat eaters for an estimated two million years. The most common food allergy in the world is still an allergy to grains.
Celiac sprue or gluten intolerance is an allergy to the gluten in grains. But far worse than this was the invention of the steel milling of grains about 150 years ago. This process first removed the bran layer, which naturally slowed the entry of the starch into the blood (gastric emptying). The healthiest part, or germ (think wheat germ), was then removed to prevent spoiling. The remaining part was pure starch and this was ground into dust. This starch dust has the fastest gastric emptying time of any food in the world.
Fifty grams of white bread will raise the blood sugar approximately TWICE as fast and high as fifty grams of table sugar. Talk about no ADAPTATION!! This product has wreaked havoc on civilization. Many of us feel certain that it is the root cause of many modern diseases, especially diabetes. We slowly began to get fatter but we still needed one more piece for the epidemic to begin.
The low fat era began in earnest with the food pyramid in 1980, which recommended little fat and 7 to 11 servings of carbs per day. Despite what you think, Americans took this advice. Though our exercise habits did not change, as the same 60 % of us remained sedentary, our eating habits did. In the decade between 1980 and 1990 we lowered our fat intake from 41% to 36.6% of the diet. (The slim French are still holding at 44%).
We ate 50 calories per day less in 1990 than 1980. (For you calorie theorists out there, 50 cal per day would cause a 5 pound per year weight loss.) Result: We got fatter faster than any nation in the history of the civilized world. There has been only one year since the 90’s that obesity figures did not increase. This was 1993 during the height of the low carb craze. Time magazine ran a cover story titled “low carb nation” which estimated that 26 million Americans were on a low carb diet. This was due to bestselling weight loss (WL) books like ‘The Zone,’ ‘Sugarbusters,’ and a re-issue the of The Atkins Diet, called the New Atkins Diet Revolution. There were at least 20 other WL books on the shelves during that time which also found these carbohydrates to be the culprits in the battle of the bulge.
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!
