Fat Chance

That’s from Chapter 2: “A Calories Is a Calorie—or Is It?”

As per the introduction to this Note, all the major U.S. governmental health agencies (from the CDC to the USDA) tell us that the root of our obesity epidemic (and the associated diseases that are killing us like diabetes and heart disease) is the idea that we have an “energy imbalance”—we eat more than we burn; therefore, from this perspective, the solution is simple: all we need to do is eat less and move more and voila! We’d be healthy.

There’s only one little problem with that hypothesis: It’s not true. (Laughing.)

As part of that conventional approach, the dogma is that “a calorie is a calorie.” As part of *that* perspective, conventional thinkers don’t recognize that different calories effect our bodies in different ways. And, as a result of that perspective, they don’t think that sugars are toxic—at the worst, they’re “empty calories.”

But… Lustig is one of the researchers who has been working hard to establish the fact that a calorie is NOT a calorie.

As a leading endocrinologist, he’s been studying how different foods effect the HORMONES within our bodies and tells us that THAT’s where we should be looking for the solution to our problems.

And, guess which foods wreak the most havoc? Yep. Sugars.

P.S. Lustig mentions “good” fats and “bad” fats. The primary bad fats? Trans fats and Omega-6 veggie oils like soybean oil, safflower oil and canola oil (go look at your salad dressings and then throw them out if they have those oils—and most do).

The good fats? We talk about this a lot in Mark Hyman’s Eat Fat, Get Thin. Short story: Olives, olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, fats from whole nuts and seeds. And, these days we’re big fans of algae oil and perilla oil (the primary cooking oil in Asia) at the Johnson house.

Note: If a calorie was a calorie, all fat calories should effect your body in the same way.

But (echo) they don’t.

P.P.S. Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel refer to Lustig’s research in their book The Telomere Effect when they tell us: “When we want to spot the parties responsible for metabolic disease, we point a finger at the highly processed, sugary foods and sweetened drinks. (We’re looking at you, packaged cakes, candies, cookies, and sodas.) These are the foods and drinks most associated with compulsive eating. They light up the reward system in your brain. They are almost immediately absorbed into the blood, and they trick the brain into thinking we are starving and need more food. While we used to think all nutrients had similar effects on weight and metabolism—a ‘calorie is a calorie’—this is wrong. Simply reducing sugars, even if you eat the same number of calories, can lead to metabolic improvements. Simple carbs wreak more havoc on metabolism and control over appetite than other types of foods.”

Now it’s time to look at some key hormones.

Welcome to Chapter 4: “Gluttony and Sloth—Behaviors Driven by Hormones” in which we get a quick science lesson on two of the most important hormones that drive our metabolic health show AND drive our behaviors around eating and moving.

First, we have insulin. As Lustig says: “Insulin makes fat—the more insulin, the more fat.” Get your insulin under control and you Optimize your metabolic health (and weight).

Pop quiz: What drives insulin through the roof more than anything else? Yep. Sugar.

Another hormone that’s actively involved in our “gluttony and sloth” is leptin.

Lustig tells us that “Leptin is a protein made and released by fat cells. It circulates in the bloodstream, goes to the hypothalamus, and signals the hypothalamus that you’ve got enough energy stored up in your fat. The discovery of leptin closed the loop, providing a servomechanism (like your home’s thermostat) in which the body’s fat cells told the hypothalamus whether the animal was in energy surplus (obesity) or dearth (starvation).”

Here’s the problem though: “High insulin blocks the leptin signal, mimicking ‘brain starvation’ … so that we feel hungry even when we have eaten.”

Plus: “Their [obese people’s] hypothalami can’t see their leptin, so their brains think they’re starving and will therefore try to increase energy storage (gluttony) and conserve energy usage (sloth).”

His point with all that?

Once we get our hormones out of whack, it’s REALLY hard to control our behaviors because, although we’re eating a ton (of carbage that jacks up our insulin), our brain basically thinks we’re starving (because it can’t see the leptin) and therefore tells us we need to eat more (enter gluttony) and move less to conserve energy (enter sloth).

So, his advice? Remember that a calories is NOT a calorie. Pick calories that play nice with your hormones. Get them balanced again and you’ll a) want to eat less and b) want to move more.

Vices of gluttony and sloth solved at a biochemical level.

As Lustig tells us: “Not all pounds are created equal.”

Big butt fat? Science says that’s much better than big belly fat. (lol)

It’s the VISCERAL fat that’ll kill us. “When it comes right down to it, it’s all about your middle. This whole obesity/health/longevity question centers on your abdominal, visceral, or ‘big belly’ fat—at least statistically.”

And: “The simplest and cheapest surrogate for determining your health status is your waist circumference, which correlates with morbidity and risk for death better than any other health parameter. This is arguably the most important piece of information in your entire health profile because it tells you about your visceral fat. A high waist circumference translates into the ‘apple’ shape that tips physicians off to risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.”

The best way to get a sense of your waist circumference? Your belt size. Lustig tells us that more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women is a likely indicator of visceral fat.

Private question time: What’s YOUR belt size?

That’s from a chapter called “Fructose—The ‘Toxin.’”

Ever wonder why diets that are so different on the surface can all get such great results?

Well, Lustig walks us through why diets like Atkins, Ornish, Paleo, and the traditional Japanese diet all work. Some are low carb and high fat. Others are high carb and low fat.

It’s simple. They all reduce sugar.

Well, technically, later in the book he tells us all those diets that work also all have fiber: “Let’s look at all these diets. Some rely on fat for energy, others rely on carbohydrates for energy, and some use both. Yet they all work to control weight and improve metabolic health, and have been shown to reduce heart disease. What do they all share? Two things. They are all low in sugar, and they are all high in fiber (and therefore high in micronutrients). We’ve arrived. That’s the point—that’s what matters. You now hold the keys to the kingdom. Naturally occurring fructose comes from sugarcane, fruits, some vegetables, and honey. The first three have way more fiber than fructose, and the last is protected by bees. Nature made sugar hard to get. Man made it is easy to get. And that’s the nugget of truth that the food industry and the U.S. government won’t admit; because if they did, they’d have to scale back. And they either can’t or don’t want to. That’s why the rates of obesity and chronic metabolic disease have skyrocketed wherever the industrial global diet has been introduced.”

Fiber is half the solution. Exercise is the other. We’ll take a quick look at that in a moment.

But, first: Do you (and your kids) drink fruits juices? If so, stop. They’re as bad as sodas. (And I hope you’ve already stopped consuming those as they’re pure added sugar which is no bueno.)

“The health-conscious among you may opt for juice over soda. For those of you who can afford it, you skip the Sunny Delight in favor of ‘natural 100 percent fruit juices’ made by Odwalla or other organic companies. They tout multiple health benefits and claim that, because they are devoid of sweeteners, they are in fact good for you. Wrong. The fruit is good for you, because it also contains fiber. In fact, calorie for calorie, 100 percent orange juice is worse for you than soda, because the orange juice contains 1.8 grams of fructose per ounce, while the soda contains 1.7 grams of fructose per ounce.”

In other words: DROP the orange juice from the breakfast menu and the Odwalla from the “healthy” snack menu. And, at the risk of bursting one too many bubbles, skip the fruit smoothies as well. “The problem is that the shearing action of the blender blades completely destroys the insoluble fiber of the fruit. … The sugar in the fruit will be absorbed as fast as if the juice were strained with no fiber at all.”

That’s from a chapter all about the extraordinary benefits of exercise.

One thing to remember: It’s all about CONSISTENCY! Lustig tells us: “Studies demonstrate that all the levels of PPAR-gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1a; the protein in muscle cells that turns on all the good muscle metabolic effects and tells the mitochondria to divide) decline within a day of cessation of exercise, and insulin sensitivity returns to baseline within fifteen days. So, those of you weekend warriors who think you’re doing yourself some good—it may not be as good as you think. If you’re going to use exercise as your protection against chronic diseases, you’ll have to be consistent about it.”

In Designed to Move, we talked about the negative metabolic effects of sitting for longer than half an hour! Moral of the story: Get up. Move. All day. And exercise daily. Repeat.

Those are the last words of the book from a section in which Lustig walks us through the public policy challenges of shifting our consumption of sugar.

Although sugar has become a more and more obvious toxin in our modern lives, it’s going to be tough to shift our consumption patterns and slow down the growing global pandemic. Too many powerful lobbies have too much control to make the shift easy.

Which is where we come in. Let’s vote with every dollar we don’t spend on the junk food and add our vibrant, energized voice to the movement!