The Science of Weight, Fat Loss

1. The Science of Weight, Fat Loss We no longer require proof that the majority of America is either overweight or obese, most of us are. Our nation is more than a billion pounds over the ideal fat threshold and that number is climbing to uncharted astronomical proportions daily. Pandora's Box has been opened concerning the most pressing health epidemic in our history; what we don't realize is that we have propped it open and are about to rip the lid off. Fat loss is a highly complex issue that is more than pushing yourself away from the table, eating healthy, or regular exercise. Not one person on this planet gains or loses fat in the exact same way or rate. Each person has a different and highly individualistic fingerprint or fat loss metabolism that is based on their current health, age, genetics, hormones, stress, readiness level, and environment. As a fat loss expert and personal trainer in Denver, CO, I have helped hundreds of people achieve the solution to the elusive goal of weight loss and permanently keeping it off. The secret is science, and it is so simple that all you have to do is change what you have been taught to believe. However, you must reeducate yourself on what works in reality, not myth. Before I show you how the science of fat loss works, I want to you to think about a few key principles and thoughts that I consider to be bedrock doctrine. First, there is no magic pill, not one. Repeat that to yourself and invest in something with a return. Really look at the word diet, it spells die with a tombstone at the end. I have never known a successful one that lasts very long. You measure real progress by showing up, not your current weight on the scale. Though, a measuring stick is necessary for continued improvement and using the appropriate compass keeps you pointing true. You must be conscious of everything that goes into your mouth; is it for fat loss or against it? 90% of all food that comes with a nutrition label is no longer food for weight loss. You read correctly. Weight loss food and frankenfood that has been engineered with a flavor attractant are like oil and water, they don't work well together. They can coexist with one another but there relationship is based upon tension and repulsion, counterproductive to your fat loss goals. The reason why most people can never keep the weight off is that we are hardwired to eat things that taste better, regardless of the gradual toxicity that leads to obesity related diseases. If you understand that you are no longer eating real food, you have half of the formula. Once you know what food is keeping you fat, don't bring it in the house any longer or visit that aisle in the grocery store. For you to have any chance of success, start with a very large plastic bag and clean out your pantry and your refrigerator. You have to change the pattern of what you eat or you will always get the same result. Lastly, and this is important, eating "healthy" does not mean or translate into weight loss. Let's begin there. The above principles are all addressed in the nutrition plan that I recommend to most of our clients. This plan is oriented toward fat loss through complete lifestyle change. We don't focus on counting calories, although fat loss is always about calories in calories out, always. I teach portion management of the right kinds of food, and awareness of every eating environment. Satiation or fullness at every meal is vitally important and taste should be its equal. You must learn to enhance the flavor of your food through spice. Think of weight loss food as the right kind of drug or the wrong kind of drug. If you are obese or overweight, more than likely, it is the wrong kind. If your physician prescribes a drug for a medical condition, it may or may not work. Food works in much the same way. It either works for you or it doesn't. Once you become overweight or obese the impairment and function of your body is compromised. Take a look at your BMI score in a different way. If your BMI score considers you overweight, you are approaching disease state. If your BMI considers you obese, then you have arrived. Food is a chemical combination that that will affect your metabolism, hormones, and the way you store fat in a dramatic way on your journey to disease state. The more impaired your body becomes through fat gain, the more poisonous processed chemical laden food becomes. Let's undo what you have learned about eating "healthy."

2. When I ask most people to name a healthy juice they can include in their weight loss nutrition plan, I hear orange juice as the most quoted product. Orange juice has more than 60 phytonutrients and many of them are identified as flavonoids, which research has shown to be natural antioxidants that help support a healthy cardiovascular system and immune system. Of course it also packs 100% of our daily vitamin C needs as well as many other vitamins and minerals. However, an 8 oz glass of orange juice takes about 4 oranges to make when a portion size is 1 orange. Have you ever seen anyone pour just 2 oz of orange juice? It never happens. The real problem with orange juice is the sugar content of four portions, about 24 grams or half a soft drink. The take-home is this; Regardless of the phytonutrients, flavonoids, antioxidants, or vitamins & minerals in a glass of orange juice, if you're trying to lose fat, orange juice is not the best choice. Once the fiber has been removed it becomes a sugar bomb and is no longer healthy. We can thank marketing for this long held belief. So how do you do it? Change your belief system. First I help clients replace sugars (candy, cookies, wine, alcohol, processed foods, etc.) in their diet with low glycemic foods (lean meats, green vegetables, and healthy oils). Essentially, they begin eating whole unprocessed foods. It is not a low carbohydrate diet; it is a low starch and no sugar nutrition plan. We help them choose thermic foods that require more calories to digest. A lean cut of meat will use approximately 30% of the total calories to digest it. Anything processed is around 5%. The difference is that processed food is easily broken down and speeds more blood sugar to your fat cells for storage. Think of thermic food as time released food that slows the release of blood sugar and in turn the release of insulin. It's about making better food choices or substitutions that lower the level of blood sugar (glucose) circulating in your blood stream. This decreases the release of insulin, a fat/muscle storage hormone secreted by your pancreas. In turn, this helps balance your hunger and helps make you feel satiated longer. Because of the macronutrient manipulation, you ingest fewer calories that make you feel fuller and take longer to digest. Consequently, those calories will not be stored as fat. Again, insulin is a fat storage hormone. Think of insulin as a key that opens a door. It literally opens the door for your muscle/fat cells to absorb the required glucose. When there is a rapid increase in blood glucose (morning muffin) there is also a corresponding release of insulin from your pancreas. When the level of blood glucose exceeds the demand (muscle cell full of glucose), insulin facilitates entry into the fat cells, where the glucose is stored as FAT! Less insulin release means less fat storage in your adipose tissue (fat cells). When there is excess glucose in the blood (morning muffin), your body is not burning fat at all. Instead, the body is in fat storage mode. This is not what you want. Starchy foods and sugar (white flour, white rice, white sugar, and alcohol) should be eliminated from your diet if fat loss is the goal. If you don't do this, even if you're working out three to four times per week, your body will continue to utilize the glucose in your blood, glycogen (stored carbohydrate) in your muscles and liver before it ever taps your fat cells for energy. When you eat starchy carbohydrates, your glucose levels are high and your insulin levels are high. High insulin levels keep your adipose cells from releasing its energy to be used by the body, and the fat just stays put. To reiterate, you want your body to start utilizing your fat stores. So you must eat foods that are low glycemic or eat foods that don't get broken down quickly and absorbed into the lower intestine and liver at a high rate. A morning muffin on a scale of 1-10 will be absorbed into the blood stream very quickly (about an 8); a steak or piece of chicken breast will be a 3-4. This means that your insulin levels don't sky rocket and glucagon (balance hormone of insulin that assists in breaking down fat) is released, which tells your body to start utilizing fat as an energy source. It is literally a fat burning hormone. If insulin levels are high, glucagon is not secreted, meaning you are not burning fat.

3. Glucagon secretion is stimulated by the intake of protein and suppressed by the intake of starchy carbohydrates, especially processed carbohydrates. After blood glucose spikes, it deceases dramatically below where your blood glucose levels were before you ate the morning muffin. When this happens, your body essentially crashes or is in a state of low blood sugar and releases a cascade of counter regulatory hormones throughout your body (cortisol, adrenaline, growth hormone, and glucagon). This resulting cascade results in hyperphagia (strong hunger drive). This feeling of hyperphagia will last for several hours or all day if you didn't eat breakfast or lunch. So what do you do after starving yourself? You overeat something, because you're hungry, and you make a poor food choice. From that poor choice (i.e. drive through meal), there is a spike in glucose. Glucagon (fat burning hormone) is suppressed, and you stop burning fat entirely. Upon satisfying your insane hunger, your body will crash in the next couple of hours. This process becomes cyclical. You eat more, starve, eat more, starve, and eat more. Think of this process as a see saw slamming up and down; it is wear and tear (oxidative stress) on the cells in your body and insulin secretion sky rockets, which can lead to insulin resistance (muscle cell has down regulated and will not allow the current level of insulin to activate cell receptors that allow nutrients in). When this happens your body will only store fat, because it can't get into the muscle cell (insulin resistance). When you reach this stage of insulin resistance, you are not burning fat and the weight and fat keeps piling on. Heart disease, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancer, atherosclerosis, high triglyceride levels (fat in the blood), high blood pressure, high LDL (lipo density lipoprotein) cholesterol (which is the bad cholesterol), low HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol which helps transport of LDL out of your body ) are sure to follow if your nutrition is left unchecked. The fundamentals of weight loss are simple. Follow a medium to high protein, low starch, medium to high fibrous carbohydrate, no sugar nutrition plan. Eliminate all white flour, white rice, white sugar, and alcohol. Once your diet is in balanced we focus on burning calories and encourage low glycemic starchy carbohydrates (i.e. sweet potatoes, Dreamfields pasta) within an hour of post workout. This is called the golden hour and instead of storing fat, the food you eat after the workout is stored as muscle glycogen (stored carbohydrate) and used to repair your muscles. This is good, because you are not storing fat and instead replenishing your muscles to recover quickly. Another time is right when you get up in the morning (within a half hour). If workouts are added, your body will maximixe a process called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL). This process hydrolyzes (releases what resides inside the fat cell, which are three fatty acids and a glycerol molecule) triglycerides. Think of HSL as a key that opens the door from the inside of the fat cell. If insulin levels are low, glucagon levels rise which signals HSL to unlock the fat cell and release its energy (fat) to the body. Now your body is prepared to release energy (because you're working out and eating correctly) from stored fat instead of using the glucose in your blood from that morning muffin or stored carbohydrates (glycogen) in the muscles and liver. So, fat burning is a two step process. The first part is -- fat mobilization. Fat mobilization is regulated by levels of HSL or Hormone Sensitive Lipase (remember, the key that opens the door from inside the fat cell and instructs it to releases its stores). If we increase HSL we create more fat mobilization. How do we increase HSL? Produce higher catecholamine levels through exercise. But HSL will not increase if insulin levels are high. If insulin levels are high glucagon levels are low, which equals low fat mobilization. The second part is transport and oxidation. When Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL) is increased, free fatty acids and glycerol are released from your fat tissue. These FFAs (fat) and glycerol molecules can now be used as an energy source and burned off. However, The FFAs must be transported to the mitochondria of the cell (think of the mitochondria as the engine of the cell) before it can be burned off (oxidation). That transport is regulated by the carnitine shuttle system. When carnitine levels are increased fat transport is increased. Think of increased carnitine levels by comparing a 1000 people entering single file into a stadium turnstile or 1000 people entering through a 40 foot gate. Faster or improved access to the cell mitochondria means accelerated fat burn off (oxidation). We increase carnitine levels (faster access) by decreasing muscle and liver glycogen. This is accomplished through high intensity interval training and metabolic work that sends your metabolism through the roof. Combine the benefits of correct exercise and insulin management and you create a highly effective system of fat mobilization, transport, and oxidation. This all adds up to accelerate fat loss.

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