The devil is in the dose.

If you browse around the cyber-inter-web-o-sphere and look around for ‘healthy nutrition’ information you’ll likely find a big list of  “items to avoid”.

Here are some of the common ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Saturated Fat

Trans Fat

Sugar

Artificial Sweeteners

Genetically Modified Anything (which is ridiculous considering about 80% of the modern food supply has some level of modification…these people are living in a fantasy world)

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Non Local Foods (the 100 mile diet people think it’s possible to eat just from their local area…with no conception of how impossible this is from an economic standpoint)

Red Meat

Butter

Refined White Flour (or anything that is made with white flour)

I’m guessing you recognize most of the items on this list and have heard or read somewhere why each one is “bad for you”.

So whats left to eat?

Some veggies, maybe a bit of fruit…perhaps an egg white…

But even too many of one type of veggie could cause a problem if nothing more than some serious gastro intestinal discomfort.

The point is that none of these things are bad at a manageable dose.

The issue with most foods is never the food itself, it’s always the dose.

A teaspoon of sugar in your coffee just makes it a really tasty coffee.

Consuming pounds of sugar on a weekly basis in the form of sweet snacks, dressings, baked goods etc…now you’re asking for diabetes.

Just remember that the devil is always in the dose never in the food itself.

John

For Most of us a lack of Thyroid Hormone is NOT the cause of weight gain.

Sticking with the hormone theme we’re going to discuss thyroid hormone today based on a request from Lillea.

I’ll try to knock this out in a way that makes sense without leading to more questions but rather leading to at least some sort of understanding.

Thyroid hormones T3 and T4 are released from your thyroid gland (located in your neck) and they affect all cells of your body. They basically tell the cell what pace to work at (this is a very unscientific term but you get the point)

Too much thyroid hormone and your cells start working overtime, this can lead to a whole host of problems including irritability, restlessness, anxiety, hair loss, muscle aches, intolerance to heat, weakness, tremors, hypoglycemia, and many other symptoms, one of them being weight loss.

But any weight loss effect you might get from being hyperthyroid isn’t worth living with the other effects.

In short, it would really suck!

The most common cause is an autoimmune disease known as “graves disease”, a less common cause is an inflammation of the thyroid gland (there are also other even more rare causes that aren’t worth discussing here)

Hypothyroid is the reverse (having low thyroid output) which may also be caused by an inflammation of the thyroid.

Some of the symptoms are fatigue, depression, cold intolerance, muscle cramps, poor muscle tone, osteoporosis, weight gain, water retention.

In summary, hypothyroidism would also suck!

The point being that hormonal manipulation to cause weight loss (in this case thyroid hormone) is likely not a viable option considering all of the other issue it could present.

If you feel like you have a weight problem because of an underactive thyroid this can easily be tested for, and you would likely have many other symptoms as well.

With that said, underactive thyroid is rare and in most people’s cases they’re perfectly healthy and simply eat a bit too much.

So if you REALLY think you have a thyroid problem I suggest doing some simple google type internet research first and then booking an appointment with your physician to get yourself tested if you seem to have the signs and symptoms of thyroid deficiency.

BUT if you make it all the way to getting tested don’t be surprised if your levels are perfectly normal and that most of your signs and symptoms weren’t due to thyroid deficiency but rather an inactive lifestyle.

John

Imagine Your Body is a Race Car and You're the Driver

Certain hormones have become buzz words in the diet and fitness media and I get a lot of questions about them. People want to know more about each hormone that they’ve heard of like, insulin, glucagon, growth hormone, leptin, ghrelin etc.

But my question back would be…what for?

Having a technical explanation of the workings of a particular hormone (which btw is impossible without taking a physiology degree to understand it) isn’t going to make you any better at losing weight or controlling the look and feel of your body.

Imagine your body is like a car, how you drive it, where you take it and how you treat it, and what you put into it is going to determine how successful you will be at weight loss…getting a mechanic to explain the inner workings of the engine and the transmission isn’t really going to change your ability to drive.

What you need is a driving coach, not a mechanic. (which is the difference between having a weight loss coach and asking some scientist to explain a hormonal pathway)

So this is my answer to every question about every hormone.

For starters we should just define what a hormone is.

In the simplest terms and hormone is just a chemical messenger that is usually (but not always) released in one part of the body and travels to another part of the body to tell a system/orgran/group of cells to change/augment it’s function.

The original location of the hormone and it’s destination is different and varies from one hormone to the next.

For example insulin is secreted by the pancreas and exerts an effect at the liver and muscle and fat tissues all over your body to uptake nutrients.

Leptin is produced by adipose tissue (fat cells) and goes to a spot in your brain (hypothalamus) and has some effect on appetite which isn’t fully understood.

Growth hormone is secreted from a gland in your brain and has effects on all tissues of the body, promoting lipolysis, muscle growth and cellular repair just to name a few.

Each of these and hundreds more hormones are doing their thing all day long regardless if you’ve read about them or not.

The point is that knowing anything more about these hormones isn’t going to help you lose weight…but finding a way to eat less calories will!

I think too many people are getting caught up worrying about what his under the hood of the car when all they really need to do is spend more time practicing driving.

John

The Claim: Low insulin levels are correlated with a shift to a high percentage of fat burning

Answer: FACT

Although insulin level is correlated to fat loss, it’s not the only hormone responsible for controlling fat storage and burning.

Growth hormone is also essential to cause fat to be released from stores and burned.

In other words, the COMBINATION of low insulin and high growth hormone is the key to releasing and burning fat. Low insulin alone cannot do this by itself.

But none of this is anything you have to worry about because growth hormone will naturally be high when insulin is low (assuming you’re a healthy adult without any diagnosed insulin or growth hormone disorder)

So although this is technically a fact, it’s irrelevant and useless information and focusing on manipulating insulin through weird diets like low carb has caused more harm than good for most people.

John

The Claim: Adding an extra pound of muscle to your body causes you to burn about 50 more calories per day

Answer: FACTOID

Muscle tissue only burns about 5 calories per day. This is a well established scientific fact that you can easily verify with a quick browse through the scientific literature. The most metabolically active tissues are your internal organs (heart, liver, kidneys, brain etc).

There is a persistent factoid that 1 pound of muscle burns all kinds of extra calories and a common number cited is around 50 calories per pound of muscle. I’m not sure where this number comes from because there isn’t any scientific evidence to back this up.

If weight loss is your goal then adding muscle isn’t going to help. You gotta eat less calories.

John