EE 048: “Fishing with Dr. Sam”…a Metaphor for Fat Loss

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with the so-called “weight loss experts”.  Calling them used car salesmen would be an insult to used car salesmen.

If I hear one more say “Eat Less, Move More” I’m going to scream!

That is not how weight loss works, fat loss in particular. 

Now I could let my inner Geek Girl take to the keyboard and go through all the biochemical pathways and hormonal intricacies…and believe me I’d love it, along with maybe 3 of my readers.  But the rest of your eyes would glaze over because it is some pretty detailed stuff with many arrows, numbers, commas and letters…the stuff of Math nightmares and Biochem dreams!

Thankfully you don’t need to know every intricate detail for it to work within you.  It’s at work right now…and you don’t have to give it a second thought.  Could you imagine trying to keep track of all that AND everything else you need to do in a given day!?!  Talk about overwhelm!!  Be thankful it’s part of your design and just grab the gist of it from me here.

I’m going to “bottom line” it for you.

Bottom Line #1…fat loss begins and ends with insulin for the vast majority of us.

Insulin?  Isn’t that the stuff diabetics inject to keep the blood sugars in check?

Yes, yes it is.  And it is the main player in all our metabolic physiology, not just that of the diagnosed diabetic.  Insulin controls what your body does with what you eat and drink.

Insulin tells cells to use food and drink for fuel now or to store it for later.  Unfortunately for far too many, “later” never comes.

There is one big reason why…we eat too many carbohydrates and we eat them too often. Carbs turn into sugar, no matter their source.  Your body doesn’t care whether the source of glucose is kale or cookies.  It is unable to tell after the tongue…it all registers the same.

It can’t just go,

“Oh…wait a minute girls,

this glucose molecule is from kale…

let it be used for good!  All hail the kale!

Oh…hey…now wait a minute here…

this gal tried to sneak by me…

THIS glucose molecule is from a cookie! 

Naughty monkey…off to the muffin top with you!” 

It just doesn’t work that way. 

Any reasonable person would wonder how many carbs they can eat before the carbs become fat.  That is a tricky question and one I never give a blanket answer for.  In my opinion, and those of many scientists and metabolism experts, the best number is zero.  That is zero of the processed carbs…the most fattening of them all.

Insulin is released from the pancreas in response to carbohydrates and to a lesser extent protein.  It’s actually released when we think about eating…to “prime the pump” so to speak.  Now, when carbs are present in our food, the body goes to work on them first.  Through an intricate cascade of activity what was once a carbohydrate, simple or complex, is broken down into individual sugar molecules.  Mainly glucose and fructose.  There are a few other “-oses” depending on the carb source, but glucose is by far the most widely discussed.

Insulin’s job is to drive glucose into cells to fuel its energy needs.  For simplification purposes, let’s just say that insulin will rise to the level necessary to drive whatever glucose is present into the cells.  It tackles this first.

There’s only so much need for glucose at any given time.  Once the immediate need is met, the excess is stored in muscle tissue and the liver as glycogen (short-term storage locker).  The body can store a limited amount of glycogen, around 2000 calories, give or take.  There are some exceptions to this rule, but once the glycogen threshold is met, the remaining glucose becomes fatty acids in the liver through de novo lipogenesis.  Which is literally creating new fat from glucose.  The newly formed fatty acid is the body’s long-term locker.

You read that right.

Yes…glucose in excess of need for immediate fuel and short-term storage becomes fat, the body’s long-term storage.

The more carbohydrates eaten, the more excess glucose available after meeting short-term storage needs.  So on to the long-term locker we go!  At least this is how it happens in the metabolically healthy individual.  That is someone whose cells respond to insulin.

I’ll rephrase that because it is the bottom line of all bottom lines for this discussion.

When your cells are responsive to insulin, you’ll utilize glucose (from carbs) in the following sequence.  First as immediate fuel, then you’ll replenish short-term storage (muscle and liver glycogen), and the rest becomes the stuff of which body fat is made…fatty acids.

It works this way until it doesn’t.  I’ll get to that in a moment.

Excess fatty acids (from eating fats and the new ones made from eating excess carbs) are available to be burned as fuel.  But since the cells are working with the glucose first, because it’s the easiest fuel to use, the fatty acids get bound together to create triglycerides.  Triglycerides rise when someone eats excess carbohydrates.  This is why we gain body fat.  Period.  Bottom line of all bottom lines.

When we have an abundance of fat on our body, it causes us to become insatiable and inactive because biochemistry has been altered by the excess body fat.  Body fat doesn’t just sit there and do nothing all day.  It is a signal jammer.  In essence turning us into a glutton AND a sloth.  Biochemically that is.

I want you to really hear this….it is not your fault. 

Even the most disciplined among us cannot overcome the power of biochemistry.

Oh we can strong arm our will through a 10 day “cleanse”, or a 28 day “challenge”…but after that all bets are off.  Biochemistry wins every battle. 

I’m going to let you in on the reality…you cannot “Eat Less (&/OR) Move More” your way out of this situation.

There is something awry in your biochemistry.  Until and unless that is fixed, you’ll continue to be frustrated by every single program you buy or diet you try.

Good news…when you do the right things you can get your biochemistry back in sync.  Bad news…YOU have to do the right things to get it there.  This is not a “set it and forget it” kind of deal.

There’s no pill, potion, patch or prayer that can do it for you.

It’s not as simple as following a 10 day plan, doing “a cleanse”, or praying to Aphrodite.  It takes some work.  And it takes some effort to find out what is going to be your best strategy.

And that’s what you learn as my client.

You learn exactly how to find your unique strategy.

Instead of giving you a fish, or even teaching you to fish, you learn how to know exactly when and where to catch the most sought-after fish (fat loss).  And when that stops working (because the body accommodates to your approach) you learn how to modify your strategy.  (Side note…you do not have to like fish to work with me.  It is just a fitting metaphor.)

I bring together three major principles in body REcomposition, which is really the end game we’re going for here. Body REcomposition is decreasing the amount of body fat on you without compromising your muscle and lean tissue. So you are in essence changing what you’re made of.  This is the key.

Even better good news…my strategy does not take hours in the gym every week.  Nor do you have to eat like a bird.  You get to eat real food that is real tasty. If you’re not a chef, that’s fine…there are simple recipes to shed the fat.  Now if you are a foodie like me, you can have an absolute ball in the kitchen and get trim in the process.

The possibilities are limitless!