Have you ever wondered what the science is behind the “calories in calories out” hypothesis? Conventional Wisdom says that Americans eat “too many calories, too much fat, too much salt, and not enough fiber.” With more than 63 percent of America over-weight, and 31 percent clinically obese, you’d think it’s true. But is it really calories, and fat? I don’t see how I can be told that in order to not gain weight, I need to stick to a strict set of caloric intake. Here is the logic behind it (we’re going to use 2700 calories, since that is an average between men and women): 2700 calories = 1,000,000 calories a year. This is 10 million calories in ten years. That’s the same as 12 tons of food. If you wanted to maintain your weight within 10lbs for that decade, you need a percent of error of only about .4 percent. That means that you have to accurately count your caloric intake to within 11 calories a day. By this logic, if you weren’t able to maintain that accuracy, within 10 years you would be obese. Now, does this really happen? If this theory of calories in, calories out was right, why aren’t we all obese? If this “science” is so concrete that it is stressed over and over, why doesn’t it seem to work for everyone? Why does everyone blame obesity on overeating, and fat? The reason so many people are over-weight, is because weight gain and loss is determined by hormones. One hormone in particular, is insulin. Insulin regulation in our bodies is heavily influenced by carbohydrate (sugar) consumption.

Since 1977 our country has followed governmental guidelines for nutrition. This dogma (which was recommended even after many scientists and researchers pleaded against) was for America to lower its fat intake to below 30 percent, and increase its carbohydrate intake to over 45 percent.  Can you guess when the obesity epidemic started? Let me explain what carbohydrate (sugar) consumption does to your body. First, you need to understand that all carbohydrates break down into sugar. No matter how high or low of a glycemic index the food item has. As soon as you put that whole-grain piece of bread in your mouth, it breaks down into sugar. Our bodies aren’t designed to take in lots of sugar. So in order to cope with large quantities of sugar, our body produces insulin. Insulin has many roles in our body. One role is to knock down sugar in our blood after eating. When you eat that piece of bread, it is quickly broken down, and the resulting sugar floods into your blood. Our bodies keep a 4 gram homeostatic amount of glucose in our blood at all times. If we eat a baked potato, we ingest about 50 grams of glucose (potato starch is made of pure glucose), which is more than ten times the amount regularly circulating in our blood. So in order to deal with this excess amount of glucose, our bodies produce insulin to drive the glucose into storage. This is where the problem is. When our bodies are forced to utilize sugar as energy, we have to constantly replenish our energy. This falls into why you get ravishingly hungry when you skip your lunch, and you start feeling groggy. This is what happens to everyone that lives this lifestyle. Over time the constant need for insulin to knock down sugar causes tissues in our body to become resistant to its affects. This is called Insulin Resistance, and can later turn into diabetes.  This is the reason why you see so many over-weight people. You are witnessing the progression of insulin resistance. When this starts to happen, your body will start storing more and more sugar into its adipose (fatty) tissue. This isn’t regular fat that your body can utilize easily for energy. This fat will be harder and harder to remove if you continue to eat a diet of carbohydrates. There was a laboratory test done on Zuker rats. The experiment showed that after becoming obese on a carbohydrate diet, then put on a calorie restricted diet (they basically starved the poor little fellas), the rats would die obese. Their bodies would not let go of the adipose tissue. This is because once they were given less nutrients their bodies slowed their metabolism down. Less energy in (calories) means that you will have less energy out. This is also the case for so many over-weight people that have gone on diets. The person didn’t fail, the diet failed them.

This is where my “diet” comes into play. If you put the human species on a timeline, you will see that we have been around for just about 2 million years. We’ve only been eating grains for about 10,000 years. Before grains we ate meat, fat, wild berries (the fruit that is available today is nowhere near what it once was), nuts and root vegetables. As soon as we utilized agriculture as a means of survival, diseases and cancers started being observed in human remains. Fat and protein are what our bodies are engineered to utilize for fuel. We have a hormone called “Ghrelin” that is used to tell us when we’re hungry or full. This comes into play with people over eating. Have you ever wondered why it seems you can continue to eat all day long and continue to stay hungry? They tell you that it’s because you’re keeping your metabolism running. This is true to a point. Really, carbohydrates don’t react with ghrelin to suppress your hunger. Although protein and fat will make you satiated (full).

You could try to eat 10,000 calories in fat and meat, but I guarantee you that you couldn’t do it. You could maybe do 4000 to 5000 calories if you’re lucky. The added bonus to this is that you will not gain an ounce. You don’t even have to be a super active person. If you were to try cutting carbohydrates from your diet, and replacing them with fat, I can guarantee you that you will no longer feel hungry every hour, you’ll have more energy, and you will not gain weight; and if you are looking to lose weight, you will. An added bonus would be saving money. Last summer, I spent close to $1000 just on food. My grocery list consisted of snacks and snacks, and more snacks, on top of the regular list. I hate being hungry! This summer, I spent half of that. I no longer needed snacks to keep me happy throughout the day.

You may argue that our bodies need glucose for ATP synthesis. This isn’t entirely true. The Kreb Cycle explains that carbohydrates, fat, and protein are broken down into ATP. When Hans Kreb was formulating the hypothesis for the Kreb Cycle, he initially believed that carbohydrates were the main source of energy for our muscles. He proved himself wrong; “…All three major constituents of food supply carbon atoms… for combustion.”

Last year I wrote an article in the Raver giving suggestions about how to avoid gaining the excess body fat that some freshmen gain during their first year of college (The Freshman Fifteen). I am writing this article to apologize for making those weight loss suggestions. I made those suggestions based on conventional knowledge of, not on the actual science behind the regulation of weight. I hope this article will debunk the reasons why we gain body fat and in return allow whomever it may concern to make healthy dietary choices. In this article I will explain that obesity is a form malnutrition caused by abnormally high levels of insulin which in return starves the body at a cellular level.

In last year’s article I implied that one gains excess fat tissue (adipose tissue) by overeating and not exercising enough (gluttony and sloth). This is not the case and the scientific world seems to be absent of any long term clinical trials suggesting that gluttony and sloth will cause one to gain weight. I am sure that at this time you are referring back to your thermodynamics textbooks to make sure that you have the First Law of Thermodynamics memorized correctly, and most likely you do. It states: The change in energy in a system is equal to the energy in minus the energy out. Your body is as a system of energy and is no exception to this law, but simply claiming that overeating and under-exercising are causes of obesity is a misinterpretation of this law. Either way let us test the hypothesis that excess fat tissue is gained by gluttony and sloth (technically known as the positive caloric balance hypothesis).

The first question to ask with any hypothesis is: Can this hypothesis explain the observations in which it encounters? Let us derive our own observations with the following questions:

Do you know someone who is constantly trying to lose weight by cutting back on the calories and exercising, yet is still “overweight?”

Do you know someone who is “not overweight” who never stops eating and who does not exercise often?

Chances are you answered yes to both of them. If you answer yes to the first one, the only option according to the positive caloric balance hypothesis is that overweight people are lying about how much they are eating and exercising and that they have no self control. This is clearly not the case. If you answered yes to the second question, according to the positive caloric balance hypothesis is that all skinny people who “over eat” are lying about how much they eat and are closet athletes. This hypothesis also fails explain why obesity is has the highest association with poverty stricken areas (for example: all Indian reservations) in which the people of these are eating less and working more than us skinny rich people.

The previous observations are not and cannot be explained using the positive caloric balance hypothesis. Nor does this hypothesis explain why obesity and malnutrition exist together in the same societies. So why do we gain excess adipose tissue? Let me explain using very basic metabolic science.

Technically the only valid statement when can get when we apply the first law of thermodynamics to the body is that obesity is caused by excess fat accumulation in the body. So logically the next question would be: What controls the accumulation of fat in adipose tissue in the body? The answer is hormones. (i.e. women tend to gain fat around their hips, men in their bellies; women gain fat during puberty, men lose fat during puberty, etc.). The hormone that has the largest control over excess body accumulation is insulin. Insulin stops our body from converting triglycerides (stored in adipose tissue) to fatty acids which our body uses as energy when we are done eating. Insulin is naturally secreted by the body before and during meals to trigger hunger and insulin levels slowly decrease as time passes allowing us to retrieve fatty acids from our fat tissue and thus allowing us to live without constantly eating. So the next question would be: What causes our levels of insulin to rise above what our body naturally secretes? The answer is carbohydrates cause increased levels of insulin.

So why do we gain weight in the form of fat? Let me explain. Our body constantly needs energy, even when we are not eating, and the end user of this energy is our individual cells. If we have a healthy metabolism, our body will convert triglycerides in our adipose tissue into fatty acid and these fatty acids will then be broken down into energy for our cells. If we do not have a healthy metabolism when our cells call for energy they cannot get as much as they need because our insulin levels our abnormally high. Our body compensates by inducing hunger to get more energy (by secreting more insulin) and we eat more. When we are hungry we eat and if we eat more foods that induce high insulin levels (carbohydrates), this becomes a viscous cycle and we get hungry again because our cells still cannot get the energy that they want. If our cells do not have the energy they need we also get tired. Gluttony and sloth are underlying side effects of weight gain. In other words, we overeat and under exercise because we are getting fat, not the other way around.

I hope that this article gives you some insight on a scientific basis on the regulation of weight. In short, carbohydrates cause heightened levels of insulin and insulin prohibits our body from converting triglycerides into fatty acids to be used as energy. This prohibition causes one to become come hungry and over eat while limiting the amount of energy our bodies can use. Again I apologize for not basing last year’s article on science. I urge you not rely on conventional knowledge from our nutrition textbooks and the US dietary guidelines, but to rely on science and the accurate interpretation of observations relating to the regulation of weight. I also urge you to read the Raver’s nutritional column as it critical analyzes the nutritional topics from a scientific standpoint. So if you are looking to lose/avoid those freshman fifteen, next time you are hungry do not eat that that low fat cereal with skim milk (mostly carbohydrates) instead bite into some bacon and eggs with some heavy whipping cream. I am sure you will enjoy them and the lifelong health benefits that come with them.