‘Down Size Us’
People often say: “I want to change my diet and lose weight. I have to cut calories!”
Sounds plausible. And that is exactly what I thought, too. Cutting calories equals weight loss.
You can imagine that I was quite stunned when I found out that cutting calories doesn't equal losing weight.
Our stomachs have evolved to what they are now for over millions of years. We were eating fresh, raw foods and our stomachs and digestive system developed the ability to perfectly digest these foods and the calories within them. But within just a few decades the kind of food we eat have changed so quickly, making it impossible for evolution to catch up on. Nowadays junk and processed foods are inherent parts of the ‘modern’ diet. Unfortunately our stomachs are struggling to adapt that quickly. They're simply put, confused, and don't know what to store and want to burn off. If our bodies can’t calculate the calories in our meals, our metabolism can’t function properly. And a broken metabolism means a broken weight regulation.
If the calories we take in were the issue we would all be better off, if you consider how calorie conscious we are!
Even big food companies like Coca Cola, Nestle, Kellogg's, Pepsi, and more, thought that calories were the issue and founded the HWCF (Health Weight Commitment Foundation). They agreed to cut the number of calories in their products by 1.5 trillion. And they actually kept their promise. From 2009 to 2019 they ‘reduced 6.4 trillion calories from the U.S. food supply and created a healthier marketplace.’
Well, have obesity and weight problems, along with other diet cause illnesses, since then decreased or increased?
Cutting only Calories itself doesn’t fix the problem as we now know, and calories are also only one building block of the issue. There is a deeper laying hitch that has to do with our behaviour towards food.
That hitch is sugar, salt and fat.
Our bodies and especially our brains have a sometimes-addictive ‘relationship’ to these substances.
Important to know is that this happens in the brain. Not the stomach! Let me quickly describe how…
Again for millions of years we have evolved brain circuses. We call them ‘Go Brain’ and ‘Stop Brain’. There tasks are pretty straight forward. One makes us want to eat and the other one lets us know when we had enough.
Sugar, salt and fat are able to numb or deactivate the ‘Stop Brain’. They are able to this, because how addictive a substance is has something to with how fast it travels from stomach to the brain. Sugar for example reaches our brain and changes the brain chemistry 20-times faster than for example tobacco or cocaine. 20-times faster!
How something tastes doesn’t play a big role in how addicted you get to food. Again your stomach has developed the ability to read the sugar, salt or fat through the neurons in your gut and send a signal to your brain via your vagus nerve. Neural pathways are strengthened, even when we can’t taste the substances. That’s why it’s important not have kids hooked onto these foods too early or often.
‘Think of it like a riverbed. Every time water flows over the riverbed it carves deeper into the riverbed.’ Even seeing only advertising can trigger those strong brain connections then. We are not in control anymore…
We praise ourselves of being so self-conscious and advanced. As society and as individuals, yet we are the overweighted society that ever wandered the earth.
At the and we all have to make our own decisions on how we want to live our lives.
But I know that we all want to live a healthy life in a healthy fit body.
A fit and healthy body often equals a better functioning and happier brain. It’s hard because they are influencing each other and it’s almost like a downwards spiral as soon as your are on there. But you are also the only one to break through your own unhealthy eating habits.
And breaking through starts always with changing one thing:
Eating fresh raw products, which are in season, are well known for having a positive impact on your health. Maybe just start with that and try to cut sugar out for a week.
Start with whatever comes up first in your mind and let me know how you go…
Inspirations:
Book —> ‘Hooked’ by Michael Moss
Book —> 'The plant based athlete’ - Matt Frazier & Robert Cheeke
Podcast —> Huberman Lab #11 – How foods and nutrients control our moods
Movie —> ‘Super Size Me’ - Morgan Spurlock
Article —> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-why-calorie-counts-are-all-wrong/