Six common beliefs addressed, Part 198

1. I was told that high insulin simply causes you to store "excess calories coming in".

Um, why would "high insulin" cause this to occur? If "excess calories" are coming in, wouldn't they be stored whether the insulin is high or low? After all, if all weight loss and gain is mitigated through calories, what does insulin have to do with it? So if I had "low insulin" I could eat whatever amount of calories I want and they wouldn't be stored?

Anyway, enough trying to make sense of nonsense. Insulin is an anabolic hormone, meaning that it "builds". It helps do this by transporting nutrients and energy into cells. In metabolism, generally speaking, insulin causes all calories to be allocated in some way or another, whether for storage or energy. The "whether for storage or energy" is what's important and this differs depending on your metabolic state. Your metabolic state is determined through your blood glucose homeostasis.

In a healthy person (leptin sensitive), most excess calories are not "stored". They are burned for energy through an increase in the metabolic rate. This energy is used for physical activity, the building of muscle, etc. In a person with metabolic syndrome/obesity most calories are stored with no increase in metabolic rate. When metabolic rate does increase, it is only for the building of new body fat. The calories do not have to be in "excess" for this to occur. Their body simply uses most of its calories for the growth of more body fat, excess or not.

The obese person is just like a body builder except that they build fat, not muscle. A body builder uses most of their calories to build more muscle. This is why they eat at a caloric surplus to increase gains. The overweight/obese use most of their calories to build more fat. They do so even at a caloric deficit.

So, we can say that all weight loss and gain is mitigated through insulin's response to disruptions in blood glucose, irrespective of calories.

2. My coach told me that my high insulin is caused by being overweight, not by diet. 

That is half right. Being overweight/obese puts a high insulin demand on the body. Meaning that the more body fat you have, the higher your insulin will generally be as it's the dam that keeps fat locked inside of the cell. But you were lean once.

Your diet is what initially caused your insulin to become chronically high by losing its pulsatile function due to a disruption in proper blood glucose regulation. If you continue this type of diet, you will not see any change in your insulin level or function. This will only be compounded by packing on more body fat. So you have to follow an appropriate diet to address the issue and not just stay stagnant under the excuse that the issue exists because you're overweight/obese.

3. Snacking causes me to loose weight. When I stop, weight starts creeping up. 

This is caused by leptin. People who have intact leptin sensitivity tend to lose weight with frequent meals. Nutrient availability is a signal to the body that there is plenty of fuel coming in, so it is safe to burn what's stored. This can occur to anyone, but the only way to make sure it doesn't back fire on you over time, is by choosing protein based snacks, without a sweet taste.

Adequate exercise is also key as it is exercise that signals to the body that fuel must be burned. You can only acquire proper leptin expression with consistent exercise. People who consistently exercise have the best leptin to adiponectin ratios.

This "snacking effect" is not the case for everyone. Many overweight/obese people do not find any benefits in snacking, but rather they find it to be detrimental to their goals. They are simply not leptin sensitive and their body stores their snacks rather than use them as a signal to burn more fuel. For this reason, we do not generally advise snacking, on this blog, since the vast majority of overweight/obese people are not leptin sensitive. But if you happen to be leptin sensitive, then you can take advantage of the effects of snacking.

4. I have never been the type of person who cares for sweet foods. I rather eat a pickle than a cookie but yet I am still obese.

First, I want to say something before addressing this statement.

A lot of people who say they don't care for "sweet" foods are referring to cakes, pies, cookies and candy. But these same people are big consumers of sweet sauces, spices and beverages, so I always take these claims with a grain of salt.

Desserts are not the only sweet foods that exist. In fact, most of the "sweet", found in the typical American's diet, is not coming from the dessert they always pass on. It's coming from foods that you would deem to be savory but aren't because they have been prepared to not be. So yes, that sweet pumpkin casserole is still a dessert, even if you serve it as a side dish. So are the sweet chili meatballs, barbecue, maple bacon, apple sausages, etc.

Having said that, sweets aren’t the only foods that are fattening. Not all junk is sweet. Sweet foods are just particularly fattening because of their "sweet taste" and it's effects on the hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal (HPA) axis, but sour and savory foods can be fattening as well, when they aren’t eaten correctly, like when you replace protein with a pickle.

5. Eating higher protein foods help me gain muscle and ward off obesity.

Eating higher protein foods is ideal because it helps curb obesity, but is not a cure. First, you can only make muscle through exercise. Protein alone won’t cut it. Protein helps raise insulin to build this muscle, but the insulin of the obese likes building fat instead. Protein foods at least won't give insulin much to store, so it’s protective in that sense, but it's not pixie dust.

I've seen a lot of coaches and trainers get caught up in "protein power", but the maximum benefits of this are seen in the obesity resistant who are also active. Like I’ve said before, the metabolism of the obese does not function as it should. This is why you shouldn’t put much credence on weight loss methods pushed by athletes or personal trainers. You have to use methods that target how obesity works.

6. My personal trainer told me that I shouldn't focus on hormones and just on my goals. 

Micromanaging hormones can keep you from your goals because you become bogged down with mostly useless information, that you can't do a thing about, and get caught up in quack experiments. Like I've said before, knowledge without action is useless. But knowing how obesity works and what is occurring in your body can help you fine tune your diet and activity routine in order to better obtain your goals. It can also prevent you from wasting time with protocols that will only work for the short term and/or possibly make things worse in the long term.

That is why this is not a "weight loss" blog. I am not a coach, program director or trainer. I don't offer any one type of treatment or protocol to "cure" your obesity as obesity has no known cure. The only thing I offer my readers is a better understanding of what's occurring in their body and the best ways to gain some leverage against it. I also help my readers become aware of quack and failed treatments, so they don't go down that much traveled road by other obese people, who are still obese to this day.