... Then Just Stay Fat. (13 page)

T
hink about it... in the mouth
goes some chemical energy in the shape of chicken nuggets or blueberries or an apple fritter and our bodies manage to extract energy from it
—
by breaking it down and breaking it down... moving it around, shuttling it off for use or storage, and out goes the waste. Did you ever look at a chicken nugget and think, “
H
hmmm
, these molecules will turn into finger nails and unwanted facial hair”?
 
Bu
t they do, among other things.

So each of us needs a certain amount of energy found in those molecular bonds in the chicken nuggets to stay alive (basal metabolic rate), move around (physical activity) and digest more chicken nuggets (thermic effect
of food).
 
If we swallow
the exact amount of energy needed to do those three things, then we are in "energy balance"
—
we use up exactly what we take in and nothing gets shuttled off for storage.
 
If we
eat
less than is required, we have to take stuff out of storage to make up the difference.
 
And of course, if we poke down more than is needed, the excess is sent off to storage so that we have something to make up the difference during ti
mes when we don't have enough.

Easy, right?

Here comes the fun part. Of the three ways we use energy (calories), we really only have some control over one of them.
 
Our basal metabolic rate just pretty much is what it is, and it uses up 60-70 percent of our energy.
 
The thermic effect of food sucks up 7-10 percent.
 
That leaves physical activity only using 20-30 percent
—
and that's the only one we can really do anything about.
 
Think about it. If you need 2,000 calories
/
day to maintain status quo, only 600 are going to phy
sical activity!
 
Feel helpless?

Hang on... you'll feel e
ven worse in a second...

Let's keep with the 2000-calorie/day person, and let's say he unknowingly
swallows
an extra 100 calories/day completely by accident.
 
We aren't talking whole pizzas here, just a banana or an apple that wasn't needed that day.
 
If he does that every day, it adds up 3,100 calories in a month.
 
Three thousand five hundred calories is a pound of fat.
 
So in a yea
r he's good
for an additional 10
-plus
pounds
!
 
In two years, he'll store up 20
-plus
pounds.
 
That's how easy it is to gain weight...
100 extra calories at a time.

Disgusted yet?
 
Don't be... because h
ere
comes
a big dose of TRUTH.

If you find yourself in the "Oops, I accidentally gained 20 pounds" category, you need to know that 85 percent of weight loss comes from what you are
shoveling in, or not
, your pie hole.
 
Weight “maintenance” is more about the exercise and general health benefits (because there's more to health than a number on a scale).
 
To prov
e it, let's do some more
math
.

Let's say you want to lose 20 pounds and you'd like to be reasonable about it
—
maybe 1-2 pounds per week.
 
To lose one pound in a week, you need a calorie deficit of 3,500, or 500 per day.
 
You have a choice here. You can burn the extra 500 via more physical activity (because that's the one category we can
a
ffect
) or you can cut back o
n what's going down the gullet
.
 
If you chose to add physical activity to hit 500/day, you'd need to walk for about 2.5 hours or do a vigorous exercise class for an hour every day...
EVERY DAY.
 
Most people can't or won't do that.
 
That le
aves hitting the 500 via food.

If you want to lose 2 pounds per week, you need to set up a 1,000 calories/day deficit!
 
Some people can manage to hit that via physical activity, but most can't or won't
.
 
Food intake is the only way.

The best way to set up those calorie deficits and make sure you are hitting them is through food logging.
 
Write down everything you eat and look up the calorie content. Keep a running tally and come in at or under your daily target before you go to bed.
 
The first few days you'll probably hit your target at around 2 p.m. and freak out because you have no food left for the day.
 
Don't feel bad; it's part of the
educational process.
 
Add to the food logging some reasonable exercise, which can add a few hundred calories to the deficit
,
plus a gazil
lion other health benefits,
an
d the scale will start moving.

You don't need crazy pills or strange diets or
strange looking instability shoes.
 
You just need to consciously monitor what's going in your mouth.
 
And I say consciously because you can't be trusted to do this by the seat of your pants
—
that's how you got where you are and it didn't work
,
now did it?
 
You also have to be extra vigilant these days given how EASY it is to acquire calories. I mean, face it, it's not like you're picking the last few berries off a bush or
scratching
at the last strings of meat on a bone are you?
 
No, none of us are.
 
You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting a 1,000-calorie meal for $5.
 
That's why you've got to consciously track the intake, a
nd that means writing it down.

I swear, if you set up a calorie deficit and stick to it
,
the scale will move!
 
It's a la
w of physics.
 
It will work.
No pills, no gadgets or weird shoes; just plain old pencil and paper and some basic math.
 
And don't cry, "I'm too busy to write all of that down and research it and add it up."
 
Either make the time or use
online calorie tracking programs
or exercise your butt of
f
every day without fail, or learn to like the 20 extra pounds.
 
Those are your choices.
 
And that's the truth.

I realize some may have
been put off
by
that last section.
You may have thought losing weight is more complicated than just calorie-in/calorie-out or we wouldn't have an obesity problem... plus those 10 extra pounds wouldn't be so d
ang hard to get rid of, right?

Let me clarify
—
the solution to weight loss is simple (set up a caloric deficit and let the laws of physics do their job).
 
Execution on that solution can be difficult for many people.
 
It's the difficulty of execution that causes people to throw in the towel, waste money on good-for-nothing products, or
yo-yo throughout their lives.

W
hat makes execution on the simple solution of calorie-in/calorie-out so hard?
 
Well, there are a number of factors, almost all of which are nicely diagrammed out in a
British study
.
 
The researchers grouped contributing factors or "influencers" into categories like physiology, individual psychology, individual activity, food production and so on.
 
The map is quite complicated
—
representative of how complicated hu
man energy balance can become.

For example, science is learning more and more about the interactions, interdependencies and feedback loops of our met
abolic pathways.
 
Maybe you’ve
heard terms like
leptin
, insulin, ghrelin and dopamine, plus countless others.
 
There have also been
studies comparing the brains of drug addicts to morbidly obese
people
and – surprise, surprise
—
they look quite similar.

Another e
xample of the complex
difficulty is the fact that we are all swimming in a sea of VERY easy-to-get calories and an abundance of advertising convincing us to buy and eat high-calorie products.
 
There's a lot of speculation and studies surrounding recent changes in our food supply (like since the 1970s).
 
By the way, have you ever noticed that no one ever binges on broccoli or iceberg lettuce?
 
They binge on doughnuts or French fries or pizza.
 
Now why is that?
 
How about because fat/sugar combinations play into those drug addiction metabolic pathways that have nothing to do with energy balance and everything to do with the relea
se of soothing neurochemicals.

Let us also not forget that our bodies, thanks to evolution, became very good at defending against hunger.
 
Those metabolic chemicals can ramp up in such a way that you swear you'll eat your desk if you don't get some food (any hardcore dieter knows the feeling I'm talking about).
 
Those chemicals also trigger various pathways and swing into action to slow us down a bit so we don't burn so many calories
—
we feel sluggish and want a nap.
 
Our bodies aren't so good at working in the other direction
—
we don't stave off obesity very well at all.
 
Our bodies don't care about aesthetics like what we look like in our jeans or what the scale says. They only care about survival and storing up some energy for a rainy day
(even if we’re ready for a flood)
.
 
And some of us tip our metabolic pathways into what I like to call "the death spiral"
—
where the excess fat spurts out chemicals that cause other chemicals to make
to make chemicals
,
which jacks with all kinds of things like blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, inflammation, which makes us feel like crap,
which makes us more fat, which makes more che
micals... you get the picture.

Now don't go getting all excited thinking I've given you a myriad of reasons to be overweight.
 
That's not the point.
 
Would you give a pass to an alcoholic and just say, “Oh well, he can't help that he's ruining his life and family” and just walk away?
 
I dou
bt it.
 
You'd expect the alcohol-
addicted person to get some help
—
help that resulted in strate
gies to cope with the problem.

The same goes for being overweight.
 
The solution is simple
—
set up a calorie deficit.
 
Execution on that solution require
s some strategizing.

We talked about food logging to set up that caloric deficit.
Left to your own devices, your brain chemistry will fire up all kinds of molecules hell bent on getting you to eat a little something.
 
They'll help convince you that you've had practically
nothing
all day and you DESERVE to have some cake or an Awesome Blossom.
 
Those brain chemicals will whisper that you are doing really well on your diet and one little treat won't hurt.
 
Uh huh... those brain chemicals are the devil whispering in your ear just like a drug addict — and that's where a food log comes into play.
 
You SEE the total number of calories you've eaten and there's no denying it.
 
So when those molecules of Lucifer start churning around, you’d know you better find another way to shut them up... like maybe some exercise?
 
Or go clean something.
 
The brain chemistry usually shuts up after about 15 minutes. (By the way, if you want a good laugh along this topic, check out
David Crowe
in one of his stand-up routines
in which
he impersonates Gollum from “
Lord of the Rings.”
Hilarious.)