This post is based on the lecture by Dr.Lustig. For the short version of that lecture, please see the video at the end of the post.
“If you eat it, you’d better burn it”. The tired mantra of dieticians. I myself had major issues with weight in the past as well as long years of failed attempts to offset my eating habits with exercise. What changed things was this lecture by Dr.Lustig about sugar and fructose - the delicious poisons we all eat sometimes even without realizing it. According to Dr.Lustig, fructose and sugar are essentially the same thing, so I will use the terms interchangeably.
Why is sugar a problem? As Dr.Lustig notices, we don’t choose to be obese. Very often, however, we just find ourselves incapable of not eating. Fructose and sugar cause addiction on a biochemical level similar to alcohol addiction, hence we crave food that contains them. I myself have a sweet tooth, and I know how bad the cravings can get if you have a habit of indulging yourself regularly.
Honey is one thing you should probably eat. It is full of vitamins and nutrients. Just like fruits. Don't avoid natural fructose.
If that’s not enough, fructose also causes us to eat more as it suppresses leptin, the hormone responsible for telling our brain we are full, and ghrelin, the hormone that suppresses hunger. In other words, if you drank a can of coke, you would not feel any fuller despite the fact you just consumed at least 150 calories of carbohydrates.
Additionally, fructose and sugar are simply not a good source of nutrition. Your body craves "energy", not food. However, the way fructose is metabolized makes it very difficult for your body to turn sugar/fructose calories into readily usable energy. Eventually, you don't only feel hungry (because the feeling of hunger is a brain signal that your body needs refueling), but your body has no choice but to store that energy in a form of fat.
Finally, fructose is responsible for a range of diseases also associated with excessive alcohol consumption. This is due to the fact that on a biochemical level, fructose acts similarly to alcohol with only one difference – it doesn't make you high. This is, apparently, a good excuse for governments and food organizations to avoid regulating its use (after all, fructose is what makes food “taste good” and ultimately sells it).
General advice by Dr.Lustig
Exercise
Not because it burns calories (from my experience, 2 KitKats would take me 30 minutes of fairly intense weightlifting to burn that many calories, so it is not a very efficient way of going about it), but because it reduces insulin levels preventing future calories from being stored as fat. It also reduces stress that is strongly associated with indulgence and, hence, excessive eating, and it also increases the metabolic rate which helps you burn more calories on a daily basis.
Diet
Consume more fiber to improve insulin levels and speed up the feeling of satiation. And, as you may have guessed it already, stop eating the foods that contain fructose or sugar. Check the labels of what you buy. Sugar and its cheaper sweeter little brother fructose are in everything these days – from beer, juice and soda to pastry and processed foods. We are eating a lot more sugar than we think we do.
My personal advice
Mental fight
Since sugar causes addiction, the first thing you want to do is to prepare yourself mentally for a lot of uncomfortable feelings.
Food and diet
Eat a lot of fiber (vegetables) and protein (meat). The former makes you feel full very quickly during the meal and the latter will help you stay full a lot longer. Feeling sated greatly reduces cravings for something else to eat. That doesn't mean it will be easy, but it really helps. Stop drinking anything but water, tea or coffee (without sugar, of course) and eliminate as many products that contain fructose as possible (ideally, start cooking by yourself). Remember, consuming sweetened products doesn’t quell your cravings. It makes them stronger.
Keep your diet in check but don’t go crazy. Figure out your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and get a calorie calculator in the first couple of months. Religiously log everything you eat by weighing it and calculating the number of calories. No approximations there. Believe me, if you had a good eye for how much you eat, you wouldn’t be reading this. Go for 300-500 hundred calorie deficit per day (meaning, your current BMR adjusted for activity minus 300-500 calories). More than that, and you're risking to go into starvation mode that will make you feel bad and lower your metabolic rate so that you can't actually burn calories effectively.
Exercise
Depending on your health, it can be something as simple as walking or jogging. Weightlifting is not very effective for weight loss, but it does burn some calories and intensive workouts can also increase your metabolism. The new muscle you’ll put on will also increase your metabolism long term. If you choose this route, light weights with a lot of high speed repetitions and very short rest breaks in-between are more effective for weight loss than heavy weightlifting.
If you want to make the best time/result investment possible and your health allows it, go for Tabata exercise routines (also known as Hiit – High Intensity Interval Training). There are numerous videos of Tabata routines on Youtube. 20-30 minutes of Tabata 2-3 times a week is all you need if done properly. Tabata is tough, but the benefits are great.
Of course, this is all from personal experience and is not professional advice in any form. If you want to learn about fructose (including a few possible conspiracies related to it), do watch the lecture below or Google its title for the full version. If you have kids, you owe it to them to know this!
Thank you for reading. Please consider following my blog for more education-related stories and stories educational in nature, reviews of education-related research and, from time to time, my photos of and ramblings about Japan. I love discussions, questions, and challenge to my views.
