Weight Loss 2.0? Or still losing like cavemen?
Even Boris Johnson admits THIS is a serious issue.
And by THIS in the title I mean obesity and all the “bonuses” that come with it — metabolic disease, hormones go out of balance, a person is more likely to get cancer, lots of gut issues and mental issues, self-esteem issues and suffering that comes with it.
And by cavemen I literally mean “losing like cavemen”.
When would cavemen lose weight during evolution?
When there was no food available, or food was very scarce and that meant for our body and our brain — if you don’t find anything nutritious to eat real soon, there’s a possibility you’re gonna die. Food meant survival. Weight loss meant death. Literally.
Maybe that’s why they call it a diet?
We need to understand that weight loss is never a priority for the body — survival is.
You might say, “But that’s not an issue anymore, is it? Why our body and our brain aren’t changing?”
821 million people around the world are hungry. Now.
“Around the world, 821 million people do not have enough of the food they need to live an active, healthy life. One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night, including 20 million people currently at risk of famine in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria.
People suffering from chronic hunger are plagued with recurring illnesses, developmental disabilities and low productivity. They are often forced to use all their limited physical and financial resources just to put food on the table.”
Heck, your grandma might have lived through hungry times!
So don’t expect our evolution to turn off our hungry genes any time soon!
Now back to cavemen weight loss.
The only time cavemen would lose weight was when he/she might have been about to die.
What else would be happening to cavemen at that time?
They’d be stressed. Sleepless. Socially aggressive — resources are scarce, not the time to bond, make friends and share. Probably running around as much as they could in search for food. Definitely not getting all the essential nutrients. Storing more and losing as little as possible — to survive for longer. Becoming resistant to weight loss, one might say — all with a purpose to survive longer, preserving energy reserves (fat) as long as possible.
Makes sense so far?
Let’s turn to the ways an average human-being (“supported” by solid advice from health authorities) attempts weight loss today.
He/she would try to restrict foods, especially energy (and very often nutrient) rich foods, going on some cabbage/frutarian diet, or counting every carb, eating just chicken breasts and broccoli. We’d start running around (aka doing endless cardio and/or lifting things) as much as possible. We’d start sleeping less squeezing in additional cardio and errands. We’d be stressed out of our minds. Not so social and friendly — more like hangry.
So tell me, besides you knowing it’s a temporal weight loss thing you are doing, how exactly is it different, signal wise, for our body and our brain, different from starvation that can lead to dying?
Are you still surprised our body and brain fight our efforts at every possible opportunity?
Weight loss or survival?
That is the question.
Are we now doomed to get fatter and fatter in some parts of the world? In our obesogenic environment? Waiting till something in our world changes?
Actually, there’s a better way! That I’ve been using personally to lose the last 5kgs I didn’t want to have, helping countless clients around the world over the last decade to lose all the unhealthy and unwanted weight they didn’t need anymore.
Welcome to Weight Loss 2.0!
A better way. A smarter way.
STRESS
Let’s help our body to de-stress as much as possible, lowering stress hormones like cortisol, through sleep, 8–9 hours a day on the same schedule. (HERE you can read more about weight loss friendly sleep in my previous blog about smart weight loss).
Do connect with people more — friends and family — people who will genuinely support your journey. Talk about your journey, share struggles, ask for support. Do NOT suffer it out silently, judging yourself, talking negatively to/about yourself. Join online/offline communities for more support.
Do hug people — physical contact does wonders for our stress levels (oxytocin and all that bonding hormones stuff).
Do go for massages — physical contact and physical recovery, stress-lowering instant effect.
Do invest more time and/or money into recovery and relaxation — yoga, pleasant stretches, warm baths, aroma therapy at home, relaxing hobbies like drawing or listening to/playing music, spa days, foam rolling and other fascia-release tools.
EXERCISE
Special note about exercise.
Exercise can create more stress. But it doesn’t have to.
Gentle but frequent movement over obsessive workouts.
Walk more, walk everywhere you go. Did you know that walking can be relaxing? Like walking in a park? Or with friends? Did you know you can lose weight by only walking? That walking is the most natural health-promoting kind of “exercise” available to almost anyone anywhere?
I even manage to learn tons while walking! — Audio books and audio courses, nutrition and self-development podcasts.
I even manage to do quite a lot of work! Taking calls, organizing walking meeting, coming up/thinking through work ideas and solutions. *Walking, neuroscience shows, actually boosts our creative problem-solving!
The point is — walking more reduces stress, when more workouts like “I’m being chased by tigers all the freaking time” add a lot of stress that in the long-term “promotes” efficient fat accumulation, not fat usage and burning.
Recover, relax and stay active.
The beauty of walking — it can fit into the busiest lifestyle!
My example: I walk every morning for about 40 minutes, either on the way somewhere or just because it’s morning, it’s time to start my day with movement. I walk in the middle of any day for about 40 minutes, running errands. I walk every night for about 40 minutes (after all my meals) to help digestion and fat utilization, and to enjoy life! (I often invite friends or family to join me, helping me to bond, to build relationships and decrease the levels of stress even more)
“CABBAGE” DIETS
(And also one-type of food kind of salad/frutarian/only meat diets)
Let’s address food choices and nutrient-richness of our diets.
Cavemen had no choice but to eat for calories first, whatever they could find, no matter what nutrients were in that food — the most important thing was energy richness (You might find that fact, the search for energy rich foods, familiar, going on all-out binges after yet another vicious diet cycle)
We, most of us not among those 821 million still having difficulty covering the calorie part, we have the opportunity to choose the most nutritious foods to fill those calories we decide to “assign” as our daily budget. But sadly, we rarely do, opting in for some version of a cabbage diet instead (meaning nutritionally-dumb energy-poor easy-to-do diet).
When I or my clients start our weight loss program, I make sure that the calories we do get — they contain the most amount of essential nutrients we are aware of at the moment in our nutrition science community. I create a balanced diet that floods the person’s body with nutrition.
Look at a sample food plan of a weight loss diet day I’ve created for myself, aligned with my food preferences — still 500+ calories in deficit, and covering almost all the essential nutrients 100%+
How would your “cabbage” diet do here you think?
*(I can easily check it for you — get in touch! angela@createyourself.today)
And I don’t just create this kind of menu plans (based on person’s goals, health, food preferences and sensitivities, availability of foods)
In addition, I always create a personalized supplement plan as well!
For example, did you know, that we need vitamin B2 or Riboflavin to burn fat for energy? Did you know that while losing weight we might need twice as much or more? But are you eating liver, lots of mussels, 4–5 glasses of whole milk, half a kilo of red or dark turkey meat to cover this while losing weight hopefully through burning fat? I doubt it. And I don’t think it’s a great strategy to eat that, expecting to lose a lot.
That’s where a supplement might be quite handy, don’t you think?
When losing weight I personally take a naturally-sourced multivitamin, additional B-vitamins complex, additional vitamin C, B6+Gymnema Extract+Chromium+2-HTP complex, L-carnitine, matcha tea powder, 30g of 100% chocolate. To give my body’s “fat-burning” abilities a boost and manage my appetite better.
“L-carnitine is THE nutrient, the “ferry” so to speak, that shuttles fatty acids from the blood into the mitochondria, the energy producing “furnaces” in the cells, so that the fatty acids can be used as energy. If you want to use fat as a fuel as efficiently and effectively as possible, you need l-carnitine.”
Another interesting fat fact. L-carnitine, an amino acid derivative, is needed to burn fat for energy (Found in red meat, poultry fish. Red meat is the best source) A caveman wouldn’t normally get a lot of that while starving. We can! We can give our body everything it needs to burn fat as effectively as possible. But we rarely do. Because real science doesn’t spread as fast and easy as Boris Johnson’s COVID-19 weight loss story, unfortunately.
And there are many more nutrients that help our metabolism to run efficiently while we are busy losing weight. The more we support these essential metabolic processes with smart, nutritionally-adequate diet and lifestyle choices — the easier and faster we get to our ideal body weight and better metabolic health, and the easier it’ll be to maintain it. Because technically, we weren’t really starving like cavemen would, and it’s not gonna trigger the same “urge-to-binge-on-the-most-energy-dense-foods-widely-available-at-a-click-of-a-botton” response.
And of course there’s this fact about the need to change our behavior and the environment to make better-for-us choices easier and long-term in our obesogenic environment.
And there are books written on that too, that you might not be aware of. (“Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think”, “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness”)
And here I wrote about some of my environment/behavior hacks that help me to make weight loss effortless.
My call to action today is — Please let’s stop unnecessary suffering and address obesity issue in a better way. Not like cavemen.
My call to action today is — Please let’s stop unnecessary suffering and address obesity issue in a better way. Not like cavemen.
Why make it more difficult when it can be easier?
Tune in FOOD SCHOOL Smarter Stronger Leaner podcast — on a mission to inspire a world where food makes us better!
🙂THANK YOU FOR READING!
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