I assume that the majority of you already have been on a diet and experienced the typical three phases. In the first phase you lose weight, in the second phase you stabilize, and in the third phase you gain weight again. When you start again on a diet you find out that the weight-loss is less than before. For example, someone wants to lose ten pounds and first achieves the goal, will find himself 60 pounds over-weight fifteen years later. Day by day doctors complain that patients don’t experience weight-loss even through a strict diet of 800 calories, and in some cases they have gained weight, and experience deficiencies of Vitamins, Minerals, and Trace Minerals. Frustration and deep depression now complicate their life even more. These people have developed a chronic disease, and their quality of life has dramatically decreased. Besides the weekly visits to their family doctors they now need a psychiatrist as well. Now let me explain to you why all of this happens.
Let’s assume that someone is taking 2,500 calories per day and is 15 pounds overweight. Following the typical diet, decreasing the daily calories to 2,000 causes a deficit of 500 calories to arise. The organism, being accustomed to the 2,500 calories, uses formerly stored energy to fill this deficit, which results in weight-loss. After a period of time, which differs individually, one experiences no more weight-loss despite continuing the diet. The reason is the body’s ability to adjust to the circumstances of a reduced food supply; this leads to stabilization, and no more weight loss any occurs. If you now decide again to continue the same diet after a short period of time, your disappointment will be tremendous. Instead of losing weight, one starts to gain weight. Although someone eats less, weight-gain is the paradoxical result. The explanation, however, is easy:
The organism that is a human being is driven by a survival instinct, which comes into effect as soon as a deficit develops. During the first diet, our organism has already adjusted to the lower calorie diet; therefore, the second diet causes this survival instinct to trigger another reduction in energy use to maybe 1,700 calories. for This happens in order to produce depots, or stores of calories, which results in weight-gain. Think of a hungry dog that shows his rib cage. Someone who has experience dieting knows that lost pounds return pretty fast after excessive weekend dining.
The phenomena of low calorie diets have become of cultural significance in our society, strongly supported by medical authorities all over the world. Everybody knows about the Jo-Jo effect of low calorie diets, but specialists won’t admit that for forty-five years they have favored the false attitude. Too many are heavily involved or financially dependent on the food industry. Another important fact to know is the influence of frequency of eating. Against all our knowledge regarding weight management, doctors still suggest five to six meals a day and this is practiced in hospitals all over the world.
The key in modern, successful weight management and weight control is the ‘frequency of eating’, which needs some explanation. Insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas, is the responsible factor. This hormone does not only regulate blood sugar, but moreover dramatically regulates our fat metabolism. Now the interesting part of the story — whenever you eat carbohydrate-rich foods, insulin levels rise. High insulin levels inhibit fat utilization but promote the production of new fat cells. New fat cells then send a message to the brain, which we experience as feeling hungry. The more frequently you eat, the higher the insulin level, and the more fat cells you produce, although fat utilization slows down. Being overweight, for the majority of people, is caused from low calorie diets and constant high insulin levels caused by eating all the time. Numerous studies have proved this effect true.
One study, conducted in Germany with 356 participants, clearly underlined these findings. Both groups were limited to 1,000 calories/day. One group split that amount into five meals, while the control group split the amount into three meals. At the beginning of the study, the body composition (how much muscle and fat mass someone has) of all participants was measured. Everybody had to lose twenty pounds before they were measured again, to find out if they had lost fat or muscle mass. Group one, who has taken five meals per day, had the following result: Weight loss totaled 20 pounds. Body composition of lost pounds: 15.7 pounds muscle mass and 4.3 pounds fat mass. Group two has taken three meals per day; each person lost 20 pounds. Body composition of lost pounds: 14.2 pounds fat mass and 5.8 pounds muscle mass. As you can see, the difference is obvious: Eating three times a day causes fat loss, eating five times a day causes loss of muscle.
Why is it so important to lose fat mass instead of muscle mass? If you want to lose pounds, you might question yourself, “so who cares?” The difference is not only in the volume of these two different tissues, but there is another important factor in weight management called metabolic rate. The metabolic rate is an indicator of the body’s ability to burn fat and depends only on the amount of muscle mass present. The more muscle you have, the higher the metabolic rate, and the more fat you can burn. By losing muscle mass, which always occurs in low calorie diets, one decreases the metabolic rate — a low metabolic rate inhibits burning fat or losing weight. I guess we all are jealous of our sixteen-year-old well-built boys who eat mountains of food every day without gaining weight. They have a high metabolic rate due to their high muscle mass, which guarantees a perfect utilization of the food they eat. Fat makes our physical appearance. To lose fat means losing it at those parts where you don’t like it. Do you now understand the importance of losing fat instead of muscle mass? These are only the very important basics that you need know in order to understand the complicated metabolism of human beings. To complete my explanation, I want you to understand that there are a lot more factors that influence our body composition; Genetic factors, stress, brain metabolism, and hormones are just a few.