Why We Get Fat summary

We knew enough to be able to stop the spread of obesity as early as the 1960s, but health experts decided to ignore the available findings.

Until the 1950s, hardly a doubt existed that being overweight was caused by a hormonal imbalance. But after World War II, this idea gradually disappeared, only to be replaced by the notion that being overweight was caused by an eating disorder. What was it that brought about this change?

Unhealthy eating habits and a lack of exercise are the two usual suspects when it comes to laying the blame on what makes us fat.

But what is it that turns us into couch potatoes? Have we really fallen under the spell of potato chips? Definitely not. We become lazy because we don’t feel like being active. And we must treat this lethargy just as we treat an excessive appetite – as a symptom of a hormonal imbalance.

Simply put, the hormone known as insulin is our body’s reaction to carbohydrates.

It plays an important role in our metabolism because it is responsible for the recycling of carbohydrates, fats and proteins – i.e. the nutrients that provide our bodies with energy.

When tissues expand, whether it is a tumor forming or a child growing taller, we call this “growth,” and we know the changes are based on complex processes controlled by hormones.

Nobody would ever dream of saying that a child had grown because he or she ate too much. Children grow constantly and need energy to do that. They do not get bigger because they eat, but because their hormonally regulated growth requires a lot of energy and makes them hungry.

Human beings are creatures of habit – especially when it comes to food. The longer certain nutrients have been a part of our diet over the course of evolution, the better our bodies have adapted to them and the healthier they are for us.

Carbohydrates, which make up a significant part of our diet today, are a relatively new addition to the human diet. Human beings have been inhabiting Earth for about 2.5 million years, but people only began eating flour around 12,000 years ago with the spread of agriculture, and the Western world did not even know what potatoes were before the discovery of America. White flour and white sugar only became a significant part of the human diet at the end of the 19^th century.

If we regularly expose our bodies to large amounts of carbohydrates over a long period of time, we may disturb the signaling function of insulin.

What we eat greatly influences the incredibly sensitive mechanism that controls our metabolism. By eating foods rich in carbohydrates, which make up a very large part of our daily caloric intake, this mechanism can be thrown out of balance and result in an oversupply of insulin.

Diets aimed at lowering our daily caloric intake, which are a dime a dozen, can help us get thinner in the short term, but there is always a catch in the long term: namely, we have to continue putting in an effort to maintain our lower weight.

For most of us, this path is doomed to failure. Diets limiting our caloric intake deprive us of the energy and nutrients that keep our bodies fit and help them regenerate. Such diets literally starve our bodies.

Since carbohydrates stimulate insulin production, and insulin has a significant role in the growth of fat deposits, we can indirectly combat fat storage by consuming fewer carbohydrates. But it is also important to factor in how sensitive we are to carbohydrates and insulin.

Our genes decide first of all whether we put on weight and, if so, when and where we put it on. They not only determine how effectively our muscles burn energy but also how quickly we save energy for emergencies.

Doctors and nutritionists generally advise against a diet without carbohydrates. This recommendation is based on three basic assumptions: first, that it is impossible to lose weight without burning more energy than you take in; second, that carbohydrates are modifiable for a healthy diet; and, third, that when you replace carbohydrates with fats, you get fat and thus become more susceptible to heart diseases.

However, these assumptions are flawed. These experts disregard the fact that meat is rich in essential vitamins. Furthermore, you can replace carbohydrates with vegetables, which, unlike sugar, also contain a lot of vitamins and minerals. While an unlimited consumption of meat, eggs and green vegetables secures a good nutrient supply, a reduced-calorie diet forces us to forego important nutrients.

The short answer to the question about what we can do against getting fat is this: keep away from foods rich in carbohydrates!

In the long term, diets aimed at losing weight are only successful when they constantly stop fat deposits from forming and stimulate fat tissue to release excess energy.