A healthy metabolism is what prevents overeating. For people who have satiety issues, tracking of macronutrients, and in some cases also calories, prevents overeating. Nothing else does. Eating slowly or over chewing your food will only help digestive issues and wasting of time. Eat naturally, at your normal pace. Obesity is not a disease of chewing methods.
2. Weight Watchers (WW) is a good weight loss program.
Weight Watchers will not help you regulate your blood glucose so it is not an appropriate treatment for overweight/obesity, unless the person is unable to follow any dietary protocol that eliminates certain foods. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who simply cannot do that and that's why caloric restriction reigns supreme, as the primary dietary protocol, regardless of its efficacy.
WW is a calorie centric diet plan that has been around for many years. It is popular, like all other calorie centric plans, because there are no forbidden foods. There is only a reduction of food intake (calories) through a "point system". Though this point system is loosely based on macros it is mostly based on calories and the current Dietary Guidelines. This means you are still eating the foods that disrupt blood glucose, just not as much. Reduction of cookies will not get you to thin. Only the elimination of cookies, along with an overall lifestyle change, will.
WW's main attraction and selling point is an elaborate “hand holding” system, used for “accountability” and “support”, which is extremely popular with women, who are their main targeted customer base. This is accomplished through "sob sessions" at their weekly meetings and "weigh ins". You can already see how this will be an epic fail. No one who is serious about weight loss requires any of this. This is only to appease serial dieters and people on the "encouragement" merry go round.
Plans like WW are futile for the overweight/obese, as the overweight/obese are much more sensitive to the quality of food, rather than it's quantity. It’s the quality that profoundly affects blood glucose regulation in the long term. The obese also need clear instructions on what to and what not to eat. You won’t get that in struggle sessions, once a week, with other fat people.
Not all is lost though. WW boasts some success stories, but unfortunately the results are not sustainable and once a WW member, it’s guaranteed you will be a member for life. So, WW is only a program that would help those who are obesity resistant “watch their weight”. It is useless for the overweight/obese, so it is not a recommended protocol on this blog. You don't want to "watch your weight", because you will only be watching it grow. You want to lose body fat because that's the only sign that your metabolism is improving.
3. There is no difference as to where fat is stored for the healthy versus the sick.
False. When females are metabolically healthy they put on fat in specific areas and this is regulated by female hormones. Hormonal health determines where fat deposition goes. Thighs, buttocks and hips are the common areas for healthy subcutaneous fat deposition, in females. So, not all fat storage is the same. Obesity is harmful, fat storage is not. We evolved to store fat, not to be obese.
In metabolic syndrome, this fat deposition changes and is diverted to unhealthy areas like the back, arms and stomach. We were never designed to carry fat stores on our limbs because it reduces mobility and this impairs our ability to hunt, gather and relocate. Fat around the middle is particularly harmful in both males and females.
Males tend to put all of their fat around the middle, as they have a hormonal profile adverse to fat storage. They have very limited areas to store fat in. Men’s bodies were primed for muscle and leanness. Males can be at single digit fat percentages and be completely healthy. Females cannot. So, when you see a man with large hips, buttocks and boobs, it's because he is estrogen dominant. His body developed this abnormal obesogenic hormonal profile in order to acquire areas to store fat.
4. Body fat is completely determined by diet.
In a way it is, but not solely. If you want to have less body fat, you need to target one very important metabolic factor - long term energy output from fat storage. This can only occur when blood glucose is properly regulated so that the body does not have a high insulin demand and expression.
The body does not tap into its fat stores with ease. It holds out on doing this for as long as it possibly can. It values its fat stores more than anything else. This is why it breaks down muscle, even though it has plenty of fat to use. This is because fat is the body's largest endocrine organ and main regulator of metabolism and hormonal balance. Fat stores are what tells the body whether it's in starvation or not and it responds accordingly to the information it's receiving from its fat mass.
So, how in the world are you going to force the body to output long term energy from the fat stores it's trying to spare? It can only do this if two conditions are precisely right.
- Diet Condition - A diet that helps regulate blood glucose properly. This type of diet prioritizes protein, moderates dietary fat and keeps carbohydrates low. This is an anti-obesogenic diet that forces the body to use its fat stores, while keeping metabolism high through protein metabolism and the sparing of lean muscle mass, rather than fat mass.
- Exercise Condition - Exercising is vital for helping to regulate blood glucose through the energy flux. Steady state, exercises of long duration are what balances the fat masses leptin/adiponectin ratio, ceramide flux, mitochondrial energy flux and mobilization of fatty acids. It's the main signal, to the body, that it must build more lean muscle, more mitochondria and burn body fat.
These are the two conditions needed, simultaneously, to force the body to output long term energy from fat storage.
5. If you can't lose weight on a carnivore diet, it's because you are not fasting.
Wrong. Fasting enhances your dietary regimen by balancing the body's anabolic/catabolic cycle, but it is not required on such a low carbohydrate diet like carnivore. Simply not snacking between meal times is suffice for weight loss and maintenance.
So, the most likely culprit of weight gain, while on this type of diet, can be attributed to one of several common mistakes made:
- Mistake #1 - Too many rib eyes. Protein comes with fat. We think of meat as protein, but it actually has a very high fat content. Even meat marked as "lean" or "extra lean" has a surprisingly high amount of fat. The only true leans meats are wild game. For this reason, you want to make sure you aren't eating meats daily that have incredible amounts of fat in them, like rib eyes or duck liver. Choose leaner cuts, for the majority of your meals, and fattier cuts for occasional meals only.
- Mistake #2 - Processed meats. Carnivore should be done with whole, fresh meat. Not with salami, hot dogs, ham, beef jerky or any other "cured" meats. Those meats are highly processed and packed with fillers, which are usually in the form of concentrated carbohydrates. They do not contain adequate protein. Those items are cold cuts for hors d'oeuvres at a party. Your diet should not be a continuous, never ending party platter. Eat real food and stop spending such large amounts of money on novelties. You get more bang for your buck at the butcher's counter. Not only can you stretch your money further by buying skirt steak, rather than sliced deli turkey, but you will also get better nutrition and a better chance at losing body fat.
- Mistake #3 - Too many animals products that aren't meat. You can not follow a dairy centric diet and expect to be lean. Gorging on plates of cheese, instead of having a real meal, is not going to cut it. Yes, drinking milk instead of orange juice, will keep you lean, but drinking milk instead of eating steak, will keep you fat. Dairy is mostly fat, not protein, so you want to eat it in moderation, during meal times only and as part of your main meal, not instead of your meal.
- Mistake #4 - Adding too much fat to it. It is not necessary to dump a stick of butter over a rib eye. Rib eyes are already fatty enough.
6. You can become a "pro" at fasting.
Yes. Once you lose leptin expression you can fast forever, just like a pro. The only side effect is that you will remain fat forever, just like a pro.
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