The real reason you’re fat

The Daily Mail health section on Tuesdays is a good read. It covers everything from unusual conditions to new views on common conditions. It has first person stories and celebs ‘coming out’ with their condition. Big articles, small snippets etc – it really is a well put together section.

I have been enjoying a small regular article over the past few weeks called “The real reason you’re fat“. This has covered poly cystic ovaries, thyroid conditions and this week it was on “Over-exercising and under eating.”

The thing that has been most interesting about the series has been that none of the reasons ‘why you’re fat’ has had anything to do with eating too much and/or doing too little – the usual nonsense view about excess weight. The common theme throughout all the articles has been hormones – female hormones (estrogen mainly) in the case of poly cystic ovaries, thyroid is a hormone. I could add in an article on steroids – hormones and, of course, the mother of all hormones responsible for weight is insulin. Why on earth do we still think the only thing that affects weight is energy in and out when we have so many examples of the impact of hormones on weight.

Teenagers gain weight not because they eat too much and do too little, but because of the growth hormone. They are simply growing (and therefore eat loads and sleep all the time). Girls put on weight in particular areas during puberty – determined by hormones and both genders can have their weight impacted by hormonal changes during the menopause – women particularly.

The three interesting things about this particular article in the series are:

1) It turns the eat too much/do too little view on its head and says that some people are eating too little and doing too much – love it!

2) It confirms my experience that the most difficult client groups I ever work with are a) fitness fanatics and b) vegetarians. In the case of a) eating for fitness and eating to lose weight are rarely compatible and regarding b) veggies cut out the only two zero carb groups (meat and fish) (although eggs are virtually zero carb) and this makes weight loss much more difficult.

3) The rationale behind this article is also related to hormones. The article says “Eating too little can hinder your attempts to get into shape. Cutting calories too drastically increases the production of the stress hormone cortisol, impacting on insulin, which controls blood sugar levels.” “The body responds by storing excess calories in the abdominal region,” says Louise Sutton, head of sports performance at Leeds Metropolitan University. “Mostly the calories are stored as fat, which is why otherwise thin people who work out a lot can still have a pot belly.”

I don’t fully understand why the body would do this, but it makes sense. If people exercise for more than they have glycogen reserves in the body, the body will set up a reserve energy store room and this seems to be in a spare tyre around the middle – in a central place ready to provide fat for fuel as and when it is needed. My top tip for people who exercise intensively and want to lose weight is stop the intense exercise! The Harcombe Diet is all about natural things – eating as nature intended and also doing as nature intended. Nature designed us to walk long distances and to sprint short distances and anyone cycling 3-5 hours at a time or doing marathons is not doing anything natural in my view!