>"if bodyfat can simply be melted away"
Hard to believe this kind of fantasy is still being promoted.
Burn more calories than you take in. That's it, that's the secret to losing body fat. It's simple thermodynamics.
Hard to believe this kind of fantasy is still being promoted.
Burn more calories than you take in. That's it, that's the secret to losing body fat. It's simple thermodynamics.
1) The method used to measure calories (combustion) is not a proper representation of how calories are metabolized in the human body. We don't have a fire burning inside us.
2) There are different metabolic cycles which determine whether body fat is utilized for energy or whether energy from food is stored as fat.
A good reference for this is "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes.
And for 2) this is really not true at all. Yes, you might store fat temporarily etc., but if you are eating a caloric balance, guess what: that fat has to be used at some point.
Taubes is not wrong, but he really overemphasizes a lot of things. People who are obese are not eating just a little over caloric balance but eating the wrong things. They are eating massively over caloric balance. Cutting sugar out might be a good way to get them to comply to a diet that requires them to eat fewer calories, but ultimately for the obese it's really just the calories that are an issue. Imo this warrants more research into the psychological aspects of obesity (the food dopamine reward system etc.)
Obviously, people who are obese and stable in both weight and fat/lean distribution are eating in caloric balance.
You seem to be confusing "obese" with "rapid fat gain", which are two different things.
If you are eating 2000 calories a day and consistently maintaining weight, and inflammation causes you to store some more of your energy intake as fat at some point, you will also burn that fat off at some point. There's no reason to think that small temporary metabolic shifts within a calorically consistent environment cause long term fat gain.
I agree that the psychology around eating should be studied more.
1) You'll be losing muscle before you lose fat
2) You'll be lethargic which can result in no weigth loss because your calorie expenditure will match your (reduced) intake
Overcoming these two issues is what most slimming/fitness regiments are about.
Here are just 3 studies, but there are many many more.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24065788
2. You would only really be lethargic for a small amount of time as your body adjusts to blood sugar levels. It's important to note that people who are losing weight are not low on energy because they are lacking calories. They have a ton of calories, they just aren't very good at using the fat to maintain blood sugar (yet). This should be roughly a 1-4 week transition, and again exercise will help a lot with it.
I wish it was that simple. From the studies I've read and personal experience, the human body stops using fat as its source of energy once it goes below certain percentage (the lower the percentage, the harder it is to make it use fat). It's pure muscle catabolism and low levels of energy from there on, unless you use tricks like intermittent fasting and macro cycling (and resistance training).
The deal is whenever you lose weight you lose muscle and fat. All you can do is shift the ratio. Resistance exercise helps shift that ratio. Proper diet (ie: enough protein) helps shift that ratio.
2) is one of the reasons that coffee exists on this earth :-)
Lost 50 kg doing CICO. To keep your muscle, watch your macros and exercise.
Losing weight is actually pretty simple. But I won't argue that it is hard.
It depends on the genetics, but yes, if you're really overweight, losing lots of weight is generally pretty simple. At some point, though, you'll hit a roadblock and that's when those nuances can become important.