Body fat is an endocrine organ. This means that it secretes hormones that interact with other organs to regulate your metabolism. Body fat cells can expand 1000x their original size. When we gain fat, we don’t gain new cells, the ones we have just expand. We have three types of storage fats. First, we have subcutaneous fat, which is right beneath the skin. Then we have visceral fat which is the number one fat that is associated with obesity and diabetes. This is the type of fat the surrounds organs, and is quite dangerous. Lastly, we have intramuscular fat, which is the fat in our muscles that is used as energy for our muscles. These types of fat also fall under the umbrella category of white adipose tissue. Our fat cells also store fat soluble toxicants from the environment. Also, Fat cells secrete inflammatory compounds, such as inflammatory cytokines. When we lose fat via fat loss strategies, 70% of it actually exits through our breath.

Psychology of Obesity

I want to preface by saying it’s not your fault that your obese. Food manufactures work very hard to make you addicted to their product. A term that they through around in the industry is a heavy user. This refers to a smaller amount of people that use a ton of their product, rather than a lot of people using a little of their product. This is why a lot of marketing is aimed at kids so they can start early. Also, they use a tool called a gas chromatograph, which mimics flavor sensations you find in real food. This is why you can have something that tastes like a strawberry with out actually having any strawberries. They create flavor sensations and hyper craveable that makes it very hard for the brain to resist. Of course, we have to take responsibility for the condition. Being responsible is the ability to respond. Even know it’s not our fault, we have the power to change.

The Bodies Set Point

The set point refers to the bodies internal thermostat that manages weight. Your body manages hunger hormones via the hypothalamus in the brain. If you are over weight, and go on a low calorie diet to lose weight, something interesting will happen. You may loose weight in the short term, but because your body is designed to survive, what will happen is the metabolism will slow down and turn more and more calories in to fat because it thinks it’s starving, and it is. Eventually, when you go back to what you used to eat, you will probably be heavier than before you started the diet. This is the body trying to reach its set point, and going beyond that to make sure that you don’t starve again.

What Causes Obesity?

You can over eat your way fat, under move your way fat, over stress your way fat, or under sleep your way fat. Today, I’m mainly going to focus on nutrition. There are two main things we need to avoid for obesity, and health in general.

Vegetable oil-

This is the number one culprit we need to avoid nutritionally when it comes to are over all wellness. Vegetable oil is really a marketing term, none of them are actually oils from a vegetable. The oils are corn, canola, cottonseed, soybean, safflower, and sunflower. Also, grape seed and oat bran oil are sometimes used. These are actually seed oils. Eating the foods themselves is fine, but when we make a highly industrialized seed oil from them, it’s another story. These oils contain a substantial amount of polyunsaturated fat, which makes it very susceptible to oxidation in the following steps. Vegetable oil requires 40-100 steps just in order to process it. This is considered ultra processed food. Olive oil just requires that you crush the olives in contrast. Some of the steps include bleaching, deodorizing, hexane, degumming, and high heat. The process creates many toxins in the oil such as acrolein, acrylamide, and aldehydes. Acrolein is the same toxin found in cigarettes, but it’s in higher amounts in vegetable oil. These oils are considered more toxic than sugar because you can metabolize sugar rather quickly, but these oils make up your cell membranes and can stick around for months. Consuming these oils creates many free radicals, most notably one called peroxynitrite. This is the most powerful free radical that exists. Most of us are carrying around 30% polyunsaturated fat on our bodies when it should be about 5% because of these oils. When this happens, you will have a lot of oxidation (aging) in your body and have depleted antioxidants. When your body fat gets burned with all this extra polyunsaturated fat, it damages the mitochondria. One study showed that just inhaling these oils in restaurant workers is enough to damage DNA. Another thing that happens is an imbalance of omega 3-6 ratio. Seed oils are very high in omega 6 fatty acid, which is pro-inflammatory. We need some omega 6, but most of us have too much. Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory. The ideal ratio of omega 3-6 is a 1-1, all the way to a 1-4 ratio. Today, some people have a 1-20 ratio, or even higher. This is creating a massive amount of inflammation, setting the stage for chronic disease.

Sugar-

The consumption of sugar has sky rocketed in the recent decades. Today, the average American consumes about 150 pounds of added sugar each year. This is not including sugar that’s naturally occurring in food. Sugar has many deleterious effects on the body. How does sugar make you fat? It’s all about the hormonal impact that food has on our body. Insulin is our bodies major fat storing hormone. Fat does not raise insulin, protein does a little, but carbs do a lot. When you consume sugar, your insulin spikes, causing fat storage. Also, the more natural carbs can cause them as well if over done. These should be avoided if you already have obesity. The glycemic index is the degree that a particular food spikes your blood sugar. All carbs turn in to sugar in the bloodstream. The higher the number on the glycemic index, the more your blood sugar spikes. This is also a general thing because everyone responds differently to different foods. An example is a slice of whole wheat bread is very high because they contain fast absorbing carbs like amylopectin A. Sugar also causes advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which is when sugar binds to protein and damages it. Lastly, sugar disrupts the microbiome because it feeds opportunist bacteria, which have the potential o cause disease if the environmental terrain gets disrupted in your body.

Foods to Add

When it comes to fat loss, you want to focus on foods for satiety. Satiety is the ability to feel full, and not feel the need to eat all the time. Three things work to help keep you satiated. These are protein, fiber, and water. Foods high in these help you satiated because they expand the intestines. Foods that are high in these include low glycemic fruit, vegetables, and meat. Also, we want to focus on nutrient dense whole food. This is because chronic nutrient deficiency leads to chronic over eating. Are bodies are giving us the signal that we need to get certain nutrients, but when you eat a donut, your eating empty calories. The result is you will feel the urge to eat more shortly after because you did not get what your body actually needed. Whole foods include vegetables, meat, nuts, seeds, fruit, and grains. These are foods that our ancestors would recognize and eat. This study shows how study participants experienced significantly more satiety when consuming vegetables and fruit.