Hormones and Weight Loss
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
14 Responses to “Hormones and Weight Loss”
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July 23rd, 2010 at 2:28 pm
so it helps nothing, if I try to control my insulin level with low GI foods, my leprin level with carb loading, my grow hormon level and insulin sensitivity with fasting?
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Yeah, I commented on this other blog about that, and this was their reply:
“While it is true you can lose weight by cutting calories, you can lose it faster and easier by cutting carbs and not changing calories at all. In fact, some of my clients even increase calories and they lose weight. The key is decreasing insulin and glycerol, both necessary substances for fat storage. Insulin is THE fat storage hormone – without it no fat-storage. Ask any diabetic. You release insulin when you eat carbs. You can eat tubs of fat but if you don’t release enough insulin you won’t store it. Carbs also supply the glycerol molecule needed for fat to get stored into a fat cell. No carbs means no glycerol and thus no fat storage.”
And that’s from the owner of the blog. I think people are still confused everywhere
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Wood: It doesnt “help” any of those thing if your actual GOAL is to lose weight. It affects those things, but if you are trying to lose weight, then the real mechanism is simply eating less and creating a deficit.
Insulin levels, GH, hunger hormones, none of that truly means anything when the end result is lower body fat. Like John said, knowing those specific mechanisms will not unlock a secret to losing weight. Knowing and Doing do not equate
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Kia-That just illustrates the whole problem with diets. Low carb, carb cycling, carb backloading, vegan vegeterian ovo-lacto, ketogenic, anabolic, zone, south beach.
They all have science claiming as to why they work, and many of them contradict other diets.
They all have one thing in common though=EAT LESS.
If you were to apply one dietary principle beyond that, it would likely be eat healthier-fruit, vegetables, lean protein, whole grains etc etc
Some of the diets, Lyle Mcdonalds Girth Control, or CarbNite, or Anabolic diet; through very specific eating protocols they can deliver decreased bodyfat percentage.
The whole problem though is their specificity. Trying to calculate carb intake with lean mass and protein intake with fast digesting carbs and specific meal times…….its too specific. The average person doesnt have time to do all that, nor is it remotely practical to fit into a laymans 40+ workweek
Hence why Intermittent Fasting works-It makes you eat less, and if you can eat healthier, all the better
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Yeah Alex, I agree. IF is a life saver. I really feel as if my entire mindset has changed in the last couple of weeks due to it. I never thought that it could be this simple. Made me realize I never enjoyed food because I was always feeling so guilty whenever I wanted something. Now, that is not the case. I’ve already lost 3lbs and it has only been 10 days of being aware of what I eat, and 1 fasting day. I was just really eating too much. But the lady that responded and made the comment I posted earlier just really thought it was different for everybody. But so did I at one point, so everyone has to find their breaking point where you are just devouring information and eventually find the truth.
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Hey John, I really agree with you on this one. It’s really stupid to think that by manipulating hormones you can suddenly flick on or off a switch that’ll magically make you leaner! It’s all about the amount you eat.
I’d like to ask you a question regarding Brad Pilon’s recent tweet. He’s been averaging about 60-70g of protein daily, I hear. I normally eat that way too and have a lot of carbs for my meals (about 60%). Is it possible to achieve a ripped and lean state by purely counting calories? I’m skinny fat and would like to change my look. Any advice on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:45 am
I realized i was a bit unclear in y previous post. I guess this would put my “fears” under not so much protein guilt, but carb guilt. I’ve heard so much about blood sugar spikes, glycemic loads and bodybuilders branding carbs as the bad guys. I’m not asking about whether you can build muscle on a low protein diet (I believe that you can and I know you guys believe that to be true, too), but I guess I’m asking if you can be ripped and shredded and can gain as much muscle by eating predominantly carbs but consuming calories at a similar rate as an imaginary clone of yours who’s on a lower carb diet. Thanks, and I apologize if I sound obsessive-compulsive here. I’m just a perfectionist and hope to get my facts completely right.
Thanks.
July 24th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Clement,
Look at Jason’s pics from a few posts ago…he got ripped eating a high carb diet.
JB
July 24th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Thanks, John. I do have one more question and I’m really very curious about this. I’m sure that you’ve seen all the New Moon hype about Taylor Lautner. Is it possible that he really force-fed himself to leanness and insane muscle gain? He’s only a teenager and I don’t think he’s using drugs, but I’d like to hear your opinion on it. I still see a lot of muscle gaining programmes like Jay Ferruggia’s Muscle Gaining Secrets. In them, the guy is always asked to eat a whole load of food and ends up having gained muscle and leaned out. Do you think there might be something there? Jay seems like a really down-to-earth, straight up and honest guy and he’s delivered results. I’m sure you have, too. Which is why I want to ask you: is it possible that both your methods do work and that “bulking” can gain you lean muscle too?
July 24th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Jason’s stuff is good, he can get people results for sure.
What you need to be clear on is what you think ‘bulk’ means or is.
JB
July 25th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Well, I guess it would constitute eating at a weekly surplus if calories of about an average of “bodyweight X 18″ and aiming to pack on massive amounts of lean muscle with minimal fat gain. So, I guess it does not constitute your conventional bodybuilding definition of the word. The problem with me is I’m skinny fat. I don’t know how to cure this cursed condition.
July 25th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
The point is that knowing anything more about these hormones isn’t going to help you lose weight…
If anyone doubts this, and thinks it would be ‘helpful’ to spend hours on Google trying to learn physiology, just Google Image ‘physiology department’. Or ‘biochemistry department’. You get this idea.
If knowing this information would help you get ripped/lose weight/whatever, everyone in the pics would be ripped.
They are not.
July 26th, 2010 at 6:30 am
Clement, skinny fat is a subjective term that means a lot to different people as far as size, but it is still just being overweight. As suggested aready, just maintain a calorie level below your calorie intake.
July 28th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Below my caloric intake? Alright, I’ll do that. The traditional advice has been to “bulk” and then “cut”. But since I do trust John and you guys, I’ll go on a deficit. Thanks!