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Having an understanding of the actual mechanisms behind fat loss will better prepare you to tackle your own weight loss journey, so let's dive in.
But this simply isn’t true. I realized this when I interviewed Dr. Cate Shanahan on my podcast. Dr. Shanahan explained during our podcast—and also in her book Deep Nutrition and her equally excellent new book The Fatburn Fix—that if you banish just one notorious biological variable that’s present in most people’s lives, then you can induce fat cells to actually die. But before we get to this notorious variable, you also need to understand where fat goes when you burn it.
This means that the quickest way to lose weight starts with putting less into your body from carbon sources derived from food than that same carbon you've exhaled by breathing. Also, by performing one hour of moderate exercise each day, your metabolic rate is increased by around sevenfold, and the NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) from daily activities such as standing, taking the stairs, fidgeting, etc. dwarfs and is more meaningful for fat loss than what you burn during exercise! In other words… moving more and eating less are the key foundational principles of fat loss, yet I'm constantly shocked by the number of so-called “active individuals” who rarely exceed 10,000 steps in a day, while simultaneously consuming an extra 1000 calories a day from a handful of almonds and trail mix here and there, sugar in their twice-a-day latte, mindfully eating “guilt-free superfoods” that are laden with excess calories, and a heaping scoop of nut butter as a late-night snack. Sounds simple enough, but it's important to note here that “eating less” needs to be exercised with caution, which brings me to the next myth.
“Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity. Only as a last resort, if the body has no other option, it may also burn a bit of body fat. Why does the body hang on to body fat and burn muscle? To answer that question, let’s look at it another way.
What does metabolism want more of when it thinks you are starving? Stored energy. What is a great source of stored energy? Body fat. So when your metabolism thinks you are starving, does it want to get rid of or hold on to body fat? It wants to hold on. Next, what does your metabolism want less of when we are starving? It wants less tissue (which burns a lot of calories). What type of tissue burns a lot of calories? Muscle tissue. So when your metabolism thinks you are starving, it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Burning all this muscle means that starving yourself leads to more body fat—not less—over the long term. As soon as you stop starving yourself, you have all the calories you used to have, but need less of them, thanks to all that missing muscle and a slowed-down metabolism. The result? Your body stores more fat.
After our metabolism is starved, its number one priority is restoring all the body fat it lost and protecting us from starving in the future. Researchers call this “fat super accumulation.” From researcher E.A. Young at the University of Texas: “These and other studies…strongly suggest that fat super accumulation…after energy restriction is a major factor contributing to relapsing obesity, so often observed in humans.”
The most disturbing aspect of fat super accumulation is that all we have to do is go back to eating a normal amount. So if eating less isn’t the solution to that spare tire around your middle, what can you do to permanently rid yourself of extra weight?”
Myth #1: No matter what you do, how much you exercise, or how clean your diet is, you’ll always be stuck with the same number of fat cells you built earlier in life.
This commonly-accepted dogma dictates that if you’ve ever had excess weight anywhere on your body, those fat cells never disappear, but instead simply shrink, waiting in the wings for you to eat an extra scoop of coconut milk ice cream so they can blow back up again.But this simply isn’t true. I realized this when I interviewed Dr. Cate Shanahan on my podcast. Dr. Shanahan explained during our podcast—and also in her book Deep Nutrition and her equally excellent new book The Fatburn Fix—that if you banish just one notorious biological variable that’s present in most people’s lives, then you can induce fat cells to actually die. But before we get to this notorious variable, you also need to understand where fat goes when you burn it.
Myth #2: Fat is converted to energy or heat.
This actually violates the law of mass conservation, which states that “…the mass of an object or collection of objects never changes, no matter how the constituent parts rearrange themselves.” While we're on the subject of what fat does not turn into, fat also isn’t excreted as feces or converted into muscle. Instead, you actually breathe away fat as this research shows (and as I explain in detail in my book Boundless). That’s right: your lungs are the primary excretory organs for weight loss via the exhalation of carbon, which is replaced by the carbon in your food.This means that the quickest way to lose weight starts with putting less into your body from carbon sources derived from food than that same carbon you've exhaled by breathing. Also, by performing one hour of moderate exercise each day, your metabolic rate is increased by around sevenfold, and the NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) from daily activities such as standing, taking the stairs, fidgeting, etc. dwarfs and is more meaningful for fat loss than what you burn during exercise! In other words… moving more and eating less are the key foundational principles of fat loss, yet I'm constantly shocked by the number of so-called “active individuals” who rarely exceed 10,000 steps in a day, while simultaneously consuming an extra 1000 calories a day from a handful of almonds and trail mix here and there, sugar in their twice-a-day latte, mindfully eating “guilt-free superfoods” that are laden with excess calories, and a heaping scoop of nut butter as a late-night snack. Sounds simple enough, but it's important to note here that “eating less” needs to be exercised with caution, which brings me to the next myth.
Myth #3: Eating fewer calories is the best way to lose fat.
The following explanation of this comes straight from Jonathan Bailor's book, The Calorie Myth: How to Eat More, Exercise Less, Lose Weight and Live Better, which I highly recommend you check out.“Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity. Only as a last resort, if the body has no other option, it may also burn a bit of body fat. Why does the body hang on to body fat and burn muscle? To answer that question, let’s look at it another way.
What does metabolism want more of when it thinks you are starving? Stored energy. What is a great source of stored energy? Body fat. So when your metabolism thinks you are starving, does it want to get rid of or hold on to body fat? It wants to hold on. Next, what does your metabolism want less of when we are starving? It wants less tissue (which burns a lot of calories). What type of tissue burns a lot of calories? Muscle tissue. So when your metabolism thinks you are starving, it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Burning all this muscle means that starving yourself leads to more body fat—not less—over the long term. As soon as you stop starving yourself, you have all the calories you used to have, but need less of them, thanks to all that missing muscle and a slowed-down metabolism. The result? Your body stores more fat.
After our metabolism is starved, its number one priority is restoring all the body fat it lost and protecting us from starving in the future. Researchers call this “fat super accumulation.” From researcher E.A. Young at the University of Texas: “These and other studies…strongly suggest that fat super accumulation…after energy restriction is a major factor contributing to relapsing obesity, so often observed in humans.”
The most disturbing aspect of fat super accumulation is that all we have to do is go back to eating a normal amount. So if eating less isn’t the solution to that spare tire around your middle, what can you do to permanently rid yourself of extra weight?”
