1. Caloric restriction is a "planned famine".
Yes. Caloric restriction is a planned famine. It is considered "planned" because it is at the total control of the individual. After all, the individual is just looking to be slim, not starve to death. This makes it seem as though the person has everything under control and can certainly pull the lever of this "famine", up and down at their discretion, to obtain the results they want. Ah, if it were only that simple.... I wouldn't be here and there wouldn't be one obese person left on earth.
The body does not know it's going to starve to death, until it actually starves. Caloric restriction never gets to the point of death, unless the person is a monk going on a hunger strike. As long as enough food is coming in to continue living, well then, the body continues living. Rather than dying, what the body does instead, is modify its energy requirements and body fat sparing/storing mechanisms to fit the calories that are coming in. That's how it adapts to short term nutrient availability. It then keeps this short-term nutrient availability in long term memory, and this is why people who have starved, have a greater risk of obesity in the future. This is also why chronic caloric restriction, ends in greater weight gain over time.
Calories aren't the only information that the body uses to determine its nutrient availability. It uses other nutrient information, particularly blood glucose, especially for long term weight management, but calories are the first and most elementary data that the body uses to determine all short-term access to nutrients.
2. Metabolic syndrome is "genetic".
Metabolic syndrome is an umbrella term used to describe a group of symptoms which consistently occur together and are metabolic in nature. All of these symptoms are caused by some form of insulin resistance, of multiple tissues and organs, to varying degrees. There is also an abnormality in insulin expression as the fat mass remains highly insulin sensitive. It is the first sign of a metabolic adaptation towards starvation.
I've talked about this many times before and described it as simple but as detailed as possible. It is a very counter intuitive way of looking at what overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome/diabetes truly are but it's vital to understand as you can't treat what you don't understand.
Obesity/diabetes are not "diseases" per say. They are metabolic adaptations that put you at a greater risk of developing certain pathologies. They are starvation adaptions because they cause the same metabolic process seen in actual starvation - the up-regulation of fat sparing/storing and catabolism of lean muscle mass in order to keep blood glucose high. This process is the same with overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome/diabetes.
But it is not "genetic". It is a natural and normal process that metabolism goes through in order to prevent starvation. One of the main things that the body uses as information on whether it's starving or not is blood glucose disparities. It is this disruption in blood glucose, caused by diet and/or other factors, that sets the stage for this adaptation to occur. So, in essence, metabolic syndrome is primarily caused by poor lifestyle choices.
Now this doesn't mean that you aren't genetically predisposed to this adaptation. It appears that we inherit some of the genetic characteristics of our parent's fat cells. Each parent contributes to the way fat cells develop in the body. So even though fat cells behave in a very individualized manner, with each person, you do inherit some of their behaviors from your parents. That's sort of genetics.
Epigenetics is what truly plays the major role in how fat cells ultimately behave. I have spoken before how people who were once fat have a very high predisposition of becoming fat again, more so than their thin counterparts who were never fat. So, one instance of being overweight/obese, sets the stage for future overweight/obesity as fat cells "learn" and have very long memories.
It also does not take long for the foundation towards diabetes to be set. One instance of hypoglycemia, due to disruptions in insulin/glucose ratios from diet, is enough to begin the adaptation that will eventually become diabetes. This is why diabetes is a condition that takes decades to develop as metabolic abnormalities are time dependent conditions.
3. I started walking every morning and lost 25 lbs. in a couple of weeks. I haven't even changed my diet.
Exercise lowers circulating insulin because glucose is cleared from the body without its need. Insulin retains water so when it lowers it behaves like a diuretic. Depending on how overweight/obese you are, you can be retaining a very large amount of water so 25 lbs. is not surprising. There are people who have lost much more than that in water only. Fat cells are mostly water.
Fat loss and gain occurs in the long term and exercise is not enough. A dietary protocol must be in place to compliment your exercise routine as overweight/obesity is not a diet or exercise condition, but rather a lifestyle adaptation.
4. You would think that if overweight/obesity was caused by a chronic caloric surplus, then dieting/starving cycles would balance out in the end and chronic dieters (mostly women) would be able to keep slim or at the very least maintain their weight, but not get fatter. After all, they are still intaking fewer calories that they would otherwise, throughout their life span, because of all the dieting/starving cycles.
Women are more prone to dieting/starving because they struggle with their weight much more so than men do, yet they aren't getting any slimmer. They actually get fatter over time.
Women go through periods of dieting/starvation chronically, throughout their life, so you would think that this would balance out their periods of "bad eating". Calories in/calories out (CICO) proponents always say that a chronic caloric surplus will result in overweight/obesity, but these women are not in a chronic anything. They aren't in a chronic surplus because they return to dieting/starving, and they aren't in a chronic deficit either because they return right back to their supposed surplus when they dump their diets.
You would think that in a lifespan, these periods of eating/not eating would balance themselves out and no weight gain or loss would be evident in the end. But it doesn't work that way. The scale keeps rising instead, as if the body is completely ignoring the periods of caloric deficits and only responding to the periods of surplus.
In reality, the body isn't ignoring the periods of deficits. It's simply using them to double down on the surplus and get fatter, not slimmer.
This all takes us back to reality. A caloric surplus or deficit effects overall body weight, in the short term for the already healthy, but it does nothing for the overweight/obese except help them get fatter. Overweight/obesity is a long-term condition that does not respond to short term treatments. Overweight/obesity is time dependent and results from a metabolic adaptation that takes years to develop.
Calories are always a short-term condition because they always go up and down periodically and the body has evolved to know this. That's why it doesn't use calories as a significant marker to manage its weight in the long term. Food availability has always been erratic in nature. Long term weight management takes much more useful information than calories.
For better weight management and warding off of starvation, it is much more useful for the body to know what type of food is available in its environment than how much. The best way to determine this is through blood glucose. That way the body can better plan for when there isn't much food. You know what would be very useful for the body to have in preparation for when there is no food? Body fat.
That is why the most obesogenic diet on the planet would be a high energy (carbs and fat = great for storage), nutrient poor (low protein = signals starvation), calorically restricted diet (caloric deficits = more starvation). Basically, the Standard American Diet.
5. I am trying to keep with my diet, as I am diabetic, but every time I get around family or friends, I tend to back track. They don't follow the same diet as me. I wish they did because it would help me stay on plan.
No one around you has to follow the same diet as you in order for you to stick with your diet. What you do has nothing to do with what they do and vice versa.
Respectfully, if you don't have the maturity level to do what you have to in order to obtain your goals, then maybe you should seek some alternative approach like the advice on the American Diabetes Association's home page. Their favorite message is that "diabetics can eat and live like everyone else".
6. My coach does not like for me to mention "macros", "insulin resistance" or "hormones". I am trying desperately to understand my obesity and how it works but my coach says all of these terms are "just excuses that keep you from your goal".
Excuses come in dozens and people use them all the time to simply not do what they have to. But aside from that, many coaches do not like these terms because they simply don't understand them, and they certainly do not want to be caught in a situation where they will have to explain them. That will only make their clients see how ignorant they are about what obesity actually is.
To the coach, calories are the simplest denominator and that's what they will use and stick to. It is simple for them to explain, to make a protocol out of and for the client to understand and follow. Anything else is seen as a diversion from that goal. But what happens when everything is followed, and the goal is still not obtained? That's when the questions begin, and the coach will have no answers except to put the blame on you.
If your car doesn't run and the only thing, I focus on is whether there's gas in it or not, then the only thing I can blame for it not running is you. You didn't fuel it. After all, I don't want to get bogged down with knowing there's a transmission, a motor and a million other systems in that car besides the fuel tank and gauge. Worse, I especially don't want to get bogged down explaining it all to you. You will eventually go elsewhere, while I still took your money for the initial bad advice. I have said it before, and I'll say it again - You can't treat what you don't understand. Treatments are ineffective when they are incomplete.
If you have a trainer, coach, dietitian, anyone who you are following, and they deflect, avoid or deny certain terms, then that person is full of BS because they are attempting to treat what they don't understand.
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