By Greg Midzak
Raver Intern

Have you ever wondered what the science is behind the “calories in calories out” hypothesis? Conventional Wisdom says that Americans eat “too many calories, too much fat, too much salt, and not enough fiber.” With more than 63 percent of America over-weight, and 31 percent clinically obese, you’d think it’s true. But is it really calories, and fat? I don’t see how I can be told that in order to not gain weight, I need to stick to a strict set of caloric intake. Here is the logic behind it (we’re going to use 2700 calories, since that is an average between men and women): 2700 calories = 1,000,000 calories a year. This is 10 million calories in ten years. That’s the same as 12 tons of food. If you wanted to maintain your weight within 10lbs for that decade, you need a percent of error of only about .4 percent. That means that you have to accurately count your caloric intake to within 11 calories a day. By this logic, if you weren’t able to maintain that accuracy, within 10 years you would be obese. Now, does this really happen? If this theory of calories in, calories out was right, why aren’t we all obese? If this “science” is so concrete that it is stressed over and over, why doesn’t it seem to work for everyone? Why does everyone blame obesity on overeating, and fat? The reason so many people are over-weight, is because weight gain and loss is determined by hormones. One hormone in particular, is insulin. Insulin regulation in our bodies is heavily influenced by carbohydrate (sugar) consumption.

Since 1977 our country has followed governmental guidelines for nutrition. This dogma (which was recommended even after many scientists and researchers pleaded against) was for America to lower its fat intake to below 30 percent, and increase its carbohydrate intake to over 45 percent.  Can you guess when the obesity epidemic started? Let me explain what carbohydrate (sugar) consumption does to your body. First, you need to understand that all carbohydrates break down into sugar. No matter how high or low of a glycemic index the food item has. As soon as you put that whole-grain piece of bread in your mouth, it breaks down into sugar. Our bodies aren’t designed to take in lots of sugar. So in order to cope with large quantities of sugar, our body produces insulin. Insulin has many roles in our body. One role is to knock down sugar in our blood after eating. When you eat that piece of bread, it is quickly broken down, and the resulting sugar floods into your blood. Our bodies keep a 4 gram homeostatic amount of glucose in our blood at all times. If we eat a baked potato, we ingest about 50 grams of glucose (potato starch is made of pure glucose), which is more than ten times the amount regularly circulating in our blood. So in order to deal with this excess amount of glucose, our bodies produce insulin to drive the glucose into storage. This is where the problem is. When our bodies are forced to utilize sugar as energy, we have to constantly replenish our energy. This falls into why you get ravishingly hungry when you skip your lunch, and you start feeling groggy. This is what happens to everyone that lives this lifestyle. Over time the constant need for insulin to knock down sugar causes tissues in our body to become resistant to its affects. This is called Insulin Resistance, and can later turn into diabetes.  This is the reason why you see so many over-weight people. You are witnessing the progression of insulin resistance. When this starts to happen, your body will start storing more and more sugar into its adipose (fatty) tissue. This isn’t regular fat that your body can utilize easily for energy. This fat will be harder and harder to remove if you continue to eat a diet of carbohydrates. There was a laboratory test done on Zuker rats. The experiment showed that after becoming obese on a carbohydrate diet, then put on a calorie restricted diet (they basically starved the poor little fellas), the rats would die obese. Their bodies would not let go of the adipose tissue. This is because once they were given less nutrients their bodies slowed their metabolism down. Less energy in (calories) means that you will have less energy out. This is also the case for so many over-weight people that have gone on diets. The person didn’t fail, the diet failed them.

This is where my “diet” comes into play. If you put the human species on a timeline, you will see that we have been around for just about 2 million years. We’ve only been eating grains for about 10,000 years. Before grains we ate meat, fat, wild berries (the fruit that is available today is nowhere near what it once was), nuts and root vegetables. As soon as we utilized agriculture as a means of survival, diseases and cancers started being observed in human remains. Fat and protein are what our bodies are engineered to utilize for fuel. We have a hormone called “Ghrelin” that is used to tell us when we’re hungry or full. This comes into play with people over eating. Have you ever wondered why it seems you can continue to eat all day long and continue to stay hungry? They tell you that it’s because you’re keeping your metabolism running. This is true to a point. Really, carbohydrates don’t react with ghrelin to suppress your hunger. Although protein and fat will make you satiated (full).

You could try to eat 10,000 calories in fat and meat, but I guarantee you that you couldn’t do it. You could maybe do 4000 to 5000 calories if you’re lucky. The added bonus to this is that you will not gain an ounce. You don’t even have to be a super active person. If you were to try cutting carbohydrates from your diet, and replacing them with fat, I can guarantee you that you will no longer feel hungry every hour, you’ll have more energy, and you will not gain weight; and if you are looking to lose weight, you will. An added bonus would be saving money. Last summer, I spent close to $1000 just on food. My grocery list consisted of snacks and snacks, and more snacks, on top of the regular list. I hate being hungry! This summer, I spent half of that. I no longer needed snacks to keep me happy throughout the day.

You may argue that our bodies need glucose for ATP synthesis. This isn’t entirely true. The Kreb Cycle explains that carbohydrates, fat, and protein are broken down into ATP. When Hans Kreb was formulating the hypothesis for the Kreb Cycle, he initially believed that carbohydrates were the main source of energy for our muscles. He proved himself wrong; “…All three major constituents of food supply carbon atoms… for combustion.”