Quick notes for Mid June 2015

Updated 6.15.2015
Brief takes on recently open tabs in my browser.

There's a reason it's EAT LESS and move more.

The New York Times notes that if you want to be smaller, you need to eat less. There isn't much in the article that will be new to readers here. It is possible to lose weight by simply moving more, but it's much easier if you also eat a bit less. As bad as many are at being aware of the number of calories they eat, most are worse at estimating how many calories they burn while moving. The numbers just aren't very high. To create a calorie deficit with moving your have to move for much longer and much greater intensity than most people do or would car to do.

That said, it's another article that downplays the importance of exercise. Weight loss is not the only legitimate reason to move more. And moving more (you knew this was coming) does not have to be only deliberate exercise. Simply standing can increase the energy expended, and negate the deleterious effects of sitting all day.

Of course, the reason that exercise is promoted more than eating less is because no one wants to admit that they EAT TOO MUCH. Words like gluttony, sloth and shaming get pitched around, and the truth is obscurred. How many faddish diets try to pretend that "calories don't matter." Yes, calories matter!! If you want to be a smaller sized human you MUST eat less. And the reality is that a smaller body requires a lower metabolism. That's just a fact, it's not a side effect of dieting. Larger people have larger metabolisms because they have larger masses.

Tell me again carbs don't matter…

This article is about losing your menstrual cycle. She starts off with "lowering stress," but the reality is that the primary way that women lose their cycles is by starving themselves. Starvation creates stress, and no amount of yoga or meditation will offset that. Premier athletes often lose their cycles when their body fat drops to a very low level, which is in my view, a type of starvation. Any time you force the body to do without (having no fat, or having no carbs) the body responds.

Anorexics lose their cycles, and regain them only when they begin to eat again and rebuild enough body mass to be healthy. But anorexics DO recover, and so do their metabolisms when they start to eat again. Low carbers who've damaged their thyroid function can recover if they begin to eat more carbs.

Here's an article at Yahoo that lists reasons to eat carbohydrates. Not going to do much more than link to this for now, but all is not well in the low carbosphere.

Maybe it's the emulsifiers?

As a population, the US is fatter because it eats more. But could we be eating more because of changes induced in the gut by industrially synthesized emulsifiers? The extra modifiers is to distinguish these emulsifiers from those that might be used in a consumer's kitchen. Mustard can be an emulsifier, and is unlikely to harm most guts. Could the gluten sensitivity people experience (I am in that group myself) actually be a reaction to polysorbate-80 or carboxymethylcellulose? Both are commonly used in industrially processed food products.

The importance of gut health can't be over emphasized in my opinion, and I base this opinion both on my (still nascent in this topic) research and on my own personal experience. The microbiome appears to be an important factor for the immune system, but all I know is that I was miserable when my bowel was irritated. That is no small part of the reason why I have stuck to my new way of eating. I never want to be that miserable again. And to have the issue completely resolve with a change in diet? I'll take that option over a pill any day. Not every will, and sadly enough, there are ample examples throughout my family.

This doesn't mean what you think it does

Dr Sharma misinterprets a thesis to support his view, but you need to read the comments to learn that. The fact that weight loss isn't linear (because the energy balance equation is NOT LINEAR) doesn't change the energy represented by a pound of adipose (fat). Why not just tell your obese patients the truth? The energy balance DOES hold, but it's not linear?

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