How to Lose Weight

For decades the scientific community has insisted that the best way to lose weight is through diet and exercise. As a result, no shortage of expert advice on these topics has abounded in the form of books, videos, podcasts, exercise equipment, and fad diets. 

What if the failure has nothing to do with the individuals trying to lose weight? What if the advice that the scientific establishment has provided for decades has been misguided, not though any kind of malice, but through a genuine misunderstanding of the basics of human biology? Everyone knows diet and exercise work, but until recently no one has asked why they work? Furthermore, no one has asked why they worked so well a few decades ago but have become less and less effective over time. 

Diet and exercise are the keys to healthy weight and body composition, but why does that work? Furthermore, why do both seem to become less effective and more difficult to adhere to as we age? Is our every failure to lose weight really the result of a lack of motivation and commitment or is there something more fundamental that isn’t being addressed? As the U.S. adult obesity rate has continued to climb to an all time high of nearly 43%, the answers to these questions have become more pressing than ever before. Fortunately, some almost accidental breakthroughs in our understanding of energy balance have started to provide some answers.

For a long time, doctors have insisted that energy balance was a matter of calories in versus calories out. In fact, the NIH still touts this overly simplistic view of weight control. The equation is simple, eat less than you burn in a day and you will lose weight. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie, right? Wrong. Not only is the “a calorie is a calorie” argument wrong, we have had the knowledge to understand why it is wrong since the modern era of physiological science came along.

In the case of the carbohydrate, the answer isn’t simple either. We need carbohydrates to function properly and eating the right amount of them is necessary for good health. In fact, building muscle is impossible without eating enough of the right kinds of carbohydrate. Like anything, however, the devil is in the details and how much of what type of carbohydrate we consume is critical to whether we gain or lose weight, particularly fat.