Why is it that throughout our hectic lives of working hard, keeping the boss off our backs, looking after the kids, having some kind of social life and even maybe getting to the gym every now and again, that we are still gaining weight? Isn’t it just a case of calories in Vs calories out or low fat or low carb or simply low everything….. but you still gain fat.
The reason is not as straight forward as you think…. or maybe it is. As humans we must eat to stay alive. The food that goes into our bodies runs everything from; creating energy to enabling us to see to growing to breathing to thinking and every single metabolic or enzymatic process that the body does a million times a second without you even knowing. The Point is, that this cannot be done without the bare essentials to fuel our body, and if you stop putting those essentials in, the body takes steps to get around this.
So back to why you gain weight when you’re not over eating. When you eat food, particularly carbs, the hormone that regulates this is insulin. This moves it from the blood into cells and liver so you can use it as and when you need it. The problem is when you cut carbs, or food as a whole, your body down regulates insulin receptors. This lowers your insulin sensitivity. Simply put, it means you’re not good at dealing with excess sugar in your blood, and if you’re not good at this, the second you do eat a meal that is a bit high in carbs, you immediately send them to be converted to fat for storage and voila, bigger belly on not enough food.
The take home message is, to be healthy with a low body fat you must eat regularly throughout the day with a mix of carbs, proteins and fats. Excluding any of these macro nutrients will result in a negative effect.
Hope this was helpful, if you have any specific questions please email me via the website or my facebook page and i’ll endeavor to answer it.
Ali ‘Fat Al’ Stewart
Keep on liftin’
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