1. Calorie Deficit for Weight Loss

Calorie deficit works. There’s no doubt about that. Just look at pictures of WWII concentration camp prisoners. The question is how long can you sustain the calories deficit and the weight loss.

The conventional nutrition advice says to cut 500 calories a day to lose 1 pound of body fat a week. This advice sounds so logical and scientifically sound, but why it does not work for so many people. This advice unfortunately does not take into consideration that our body is a brilliant survival machine.

When you cut out 500 calories a day, your body also drops its metabolism by 500 calories as well. Your body does not like to live in a deficit as much as your bank account.

If you normally take home $2,000 a month, then suddenly your boss cut your pay by $500 a month, you’ll probably stop going out for dinner or drinks with friends to shrink your spending to match your new income level.

For most people, when they reach their goal weight, they go back to their old eating habits of 2,000 (for example). But your body is still functioning at a 1,500cal/d rate. So now you have a surplus $500 calories even though you’re eating the same as before.

Minnesota starvation study from WWI studied the effects of starvation on humans. The study included 36 volunteer healthy men, who eats a normal diet of 3,200 calories a day in the first three months of the study, followed by six months of semi-starvation at 1,570 calories a day (divided between breakfast and lunch), then a restricted rehabilitation period of three months eating 2,000 to 3,200 calories a day, and finally an eight-week unrestricted rehabilitation period during which there were no limits on caloric intake.

After the semi-starvation period, the subjects developed disordered eating behaviors, such as obsession with food. They would dream and fantasize about food, read and talk about food and savor the two meals a day they were given. Some subjects hoarded and binge ate, eating up to 7,000-10,000 calories a day during the unrestricted rehabilitation period.

In addition to 25% body weight loss, study subjects also reported fatigue, irritability, depression, and apathy. Sounds like “angry”?

It is now well established that the more people engage in dieting, the more they gain weight in the long term. A novel study on over 2,000 sets of twins from Finland, aged 16 to 25 years old showed that dieting twins, who embarked on just one intentional weight loss episode, were nearly two to three times more likely to become overweight, compared to their non-dieting twin counterpart. Well, so genetic does not matter.

Another study by a team of UCLA researchers reviewed 31 long-term studies on the effectiveness of dieting and they concluded that dieting is a consistent predictor of future weight gain. The study found that up to two-thirds of the people who dieted regained more weight than they lost.

You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back. Yo-yo dieting over time messes up your metabolism, hormones (insulin, ghrelin, leptin, etc), and your self-esteem. Scientists call this phenomenon “dieting-induced weight gain” and it may be a significant contributing factor to the current obesity epidemic.

2. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

Patients often tell me with guilt and shame that “I usually skip breakfast because I’m not hungry.”

Me: Good. You listen to your body.

Technically, you CAN’T skip breakfast because breakfast is the “first meal of the day.” It’s the meal that BREAKS the overnight FAST.

There are no rules when you should eat breakfast, other than when your body is ready to accept food. Sometimes our body wakes up before our digestion wakes.

Forcing food in your body when it’s not hungry is the same as forcing a baby to eat when it’s not hungry.

Trust your instinct and learn to listen to your body again because your body is constantly communicating with you.

3. Intermittent fasting

This is the biggest dieting scam. Human beings have been practicing intermittent fasting since the beginning of time. Before we have electricity that allows us to stay up late, we went to bed when the sun goes down and wakes up when the sun comes up. The long stretch of time we’re sleeping, assuming you’re not up in the middle of the night raiding the kitchen, you’re fasting.

During this fasting period, your body is still using energy and resources to maintain basic body functions and repair and recovery tasks. Because there’s no food going in, especially carbs, the insulin level is able to retrieve back to a normal level. When insulin level is low or normal, the fat store is available for use.

Our body is able to dig into the fat store (deep freezer) for energy during the long period of fasting or starvation. This is the exact reason why we don’t starve to death overnight in our sleep without eating for 8-10 hours.

So instead of relying on a cheap stupid clock to tell you when to eat, just listen to your body’s hunger signal. Eat your first meal “breakfast” when you’re hungry. Eat again every 3-4 hours until bedtime, which should give you 4 times to eat.

If you find yourself hungry shortly after eating the last meal even though you eat until you’re full, you’re most likely not eating enough calories and/or you’re eating too many carbs and not enough protein and fats at the last meal.

4. Carbs are bad

Carbs are not bad. The human body needs a minimum of 100g net carbs (130g total) per day to function properly.

The carbs that give Carbs the bad rep is the sweet poison “sugar.” Sugar and its evil twin “high fructose corn syrup” are as addicting as heroin and cocaine. They are not food. They are chemicals. That’s why you see them liberally added to seemingly “healthy foods” such salad dressing, pasta sauces, canned soups, coffee creamers, dried fruits, beef jerky, granola, cereal, etc. Food manufacturers sprinkle sugar in food to make them more addicting, so people keep buying their products and keep their profit growth.

These quick sugar spikes blood sugar, followed by a sugar crash, which triggers more sugar cravings. Then you load up on sugary food/drinks again. That your blood sugar spike again. Your blood sugar goes up and down all day long just like a roller coaster ride. This blood sugar roller coaster ride induces inflammation and insulin resistance, which are the causes of type 2 diabetes, obesity, polycystic ovarian syndrome, cancers, etc.

Instead, choose carbs that stabilize blood sugar and boost metabolisms, such as both starchy and non-starchy vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans. Healthy carbs still convert into blood sugar, but at a much slower rate because of the high fiber content. The high fiber content not only slows blood sugar conversion but also triggers fullness, so you eat less because you feel fuller sooner.

Also, they are loaded with essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are key ingredients to the thousands of biochemical reactions that keep the body alive, thus, making you feel good and energized.

5. You are what you eat

I get it. The food we eat turns into body tissues and body parts. But remember, eating a cookie today does not make you a bad person. You’re not the food you eat, the number on the stupid scale, dress size, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you live in.