Have you ever struggeled to control your weight? Most of us have. This article gives a fresh insite in to what works, what doesn’t, why, and most importantly, what you should do first to manage that weight you don’t want or need.
Don’t Make Weight Management So Complicated!
Hundreds–if not thousands–of articles, books, and evenmedical texts have been written on the subject.
In addition, a similar amount of diet products ranging fromfood to pills to “who knows what” have been put on themarket.
Frankly, dear reader, in the mind of the author.. IT’sOVERKILL TO THE EXTREME.
Why? Because weight control is very simple and boils downto one simple formula:
Calories/Energy/Food In (F) = Calories/Energy/Food Burned(FB) + Calories/Energy/Food Excreted (FE) + Food Stored (FS)
Abbreviated, we’d see it like this: F = FB + FE + FS
It just doesn’t go anywhere else.. you take the calories inand you either burn them, store them, or flush them. Nothingelse happens.
When you take more in than you burn or flush, you storethem.. and when you store them.. they store as Fat.
Doesn’t that seem simple? In essence it is.. and now herecomes the big “IF”
That’s true IF calories or F in is in the right form to beburned!
You see, there are many variables.. and that’s why all theother books and articles on the subject!
Let’s look at this another way.. like a car. Energy isenergy, Fuel is fuel, and in this case, we are going to takeit in as gasoline.
If we keep adding gasoline to a standing car, we start tostore it in the gas tank… until it’s full. If we keepadding gas (F), the tank over flows (FE). But if we startthe engine, we start to burn some of if (FB). If we aresitting there with the car at idle, we burn very little, butif we start in motion, the faster we go (assume levelsurface), the more we use. And if we have varying amounts ofweight in the car, for any given speed, we vary the amountof the burn. If we change the spark plugs or injectors anddo a tune up; maintain tire inflation correctly, for anygiven speed, we also vary the rate of the fuel burn.
And if we put a good, optimized mixture of fuel in, asopposed to a cheap bottoms grade gasoline, we burn it at avarying rate.. and in fact, some of it, while technically”gasoline” or “F” is fuel being added we don’t burn it atall.. it just goes to gas tank storage.
Are you beginning to see the picture? Simple formula, butso many variables.
And no two cars.. or no two bodies we have … reactexactly the same way.
That’s why we have so many other books, articles, etc.
We all have many variables that are individual and specificto each one of us.
Let’s consider what some of them are.. and what we cancontrol:
F That’s food and fuel. All has some caloric value, butnot all is “burnable” at the same rate, nor has the samevalue. You see, the fuel we burn has essential constituentsof carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other elements.That which has calories alone has been referred to as emptycalories, a term I’m sure most readers have heard of. Thekey in weight management is to not only limit the calories,but to take in the calories that are carriers or compoundsof the carbs, the vitamins, the minerals and other essentialnutrients. In theory, one could consume 5000 calories a dayand virtually starve to death! And at the same time, theywould look fat because they are not burning them; they can’texcrete them all, and so they store them. Yes, the body canburn and use fat, but in turn it produces chemicals withinitself that become toxic and one enters what is generallyknown as a state of ketosis.
Most diets concentrate all on providing one with the rightsource of F intake. The commercial diet products simplifythe process, whether in some liquid form, such as a”shake”, or in a pre packaged meal. Others such as weightwatchers teach you how to mix and blend your food.
This is all good… as far as it goes… but only dealswith the left side of the equation. But it’s a start. Whatyou need to know is that you only have a small part of theequation you need to work with.
Now let’s move over to the right side.
The most important factor here is the FB, or food burned.
Like the car, there again are many variables. The first isthe level of activity or speed. Like the car at idle.. thebody at idle uses very very very little energy. If you areidle most of the time, you simply are going to store more ofthe F you take in than you are going to burn!
And here’s a catch 22 and “good news and bad news”.. Justlike the car can burn at different rates whether in motionor at idle depending on circumstances.. your body compositionhas something to say about the FB rate. The more fat youhave as opposed to the more muscle mass you have.. the lessyou burn. Fat consumes F slowly.. in fact, it adds toitself; Muscle consumes F more readily.
And the less you move, the more muscle resorts or morphs tofat; the more you move (and do so in the right way), themore fat burns and converts over to muscle.
But what about the “carubretion” of the body? That has todo with our individual metabolism.
Some of us burn much more quickly than others due to theunique chemistry we all possess.. and this is an area thatmost of us can not control. Hormones, genes, and a whole lotof other items that only some very specialized medicaldoctors think they understand.. can effect our metabolicrate. It’s not something the unlearned want to mess with it,because as you increase your metabolic rate, you can dothings like raising blood pressure or decease the rate ofnutrient absorption. But for now, you need to understandthat the metabolic rate plays a key role.
One of the by products of energy burn is heat. Makessense..just like burning any other fuel. If your metabolismis relatively “high”, chances are your body will feel warm agood part of the time. And conversely.
Lastly, depending upon your viewpoint, you might believethat God has created rather unique beings in all of us, andgiven us a unique gene pattern. Yes, there are some whichare not quite “right” as in the cases of birth defects, andthe writer can’t explain that But for most of us, we have arather well balanced machine with a pre written inherentbasic control software program that results in a weight “setpoint”. Our food cravings are set to a certain level, ourmetabolism is.
If we adhere to the basic pattern we are programmed for,which is to say a balance of F + FB, our FS will seek itsown balance. If you are eating and exercising moderately,accept your weight, for any modification will only result intemporary change conditions as long as you are doing thebehavior modification. After that, the equation rebalancesitself.
Having outlined these principles, we hope you now have agrasp of the big picture.
If you have a weight management problem, now that youunderstand the variables, our advice is that you do NOT tryto make any changes on your own by reading the latest bookor trying the latest diet fad. You are probably onlychanging one variable, and unless you know of a way topermanently change the behavior, your results will betemporary at best.
During that change, you might also change the metabolic ratepattern you were programmed with.. so.. our final advice:Seek medical consultation to get your individual bodydiagnosis before ever starting the “Do It Yourself” majorchange. Hope this helps.
