So Why DO We Get Fat?

In order to stay lean, it‘s important to understand why we get fat in the first place. When we eat less and move more, we often just end up feeling hungry and tired - and don‘t always lose as much fat as we‘d like! Here‘s an insider‘s guide to weight gain.

Fat gain is driven by dysregulation of our fat cells. The modern ‘Standard American-style Diet‘ is high in refined carbohydrates and sugars that digest rapidly and dump a large amount of sugar in our bloodstream.

High sugar levels are toxic so the body needs to clear this load quickly. This requires insulin - a hormone that encourages muscle tissue to take up glucose and supports glucose storage in fat cells.

As time goes by our muscle cells become less receptive to insulin (leaving increasing amounts of glucose to be stored) but fat cells stay sensitive - resulting in more fat gain.

Interested to know more about insulin? Read more in Weight Management Part 1: Understanding why most diet's fail

Rather than eating less, we should pay more attention to WHAT we eat. Simply eating less and exercising more creates a situation of ‘practical starvation‘ and doesn‘t change the reason we became overweight in the first place.

In order to break the cycle, cut the carbohydrates and avoid sugar/refined carbohydrates like cakes, cookies, breads and pasta most of the time.

How to stay slim

• Eat more vegetables, good fats and quality protein
• Reduce or completely eliminate sugar and ‘white carbohydrates‘
• Choose higher intensity exercise such as weight training, kettlebell lifting and interval training (low intensity aerobic activity like cycling and jogging only results in a kilogram or so of fat loss per year)
• Take a multi-nutrient formula such as Good Green Vitality to top up your vitamin and mineral intake (poor nutrient intake is one of the other reasons we crave more food when dieting)
• Reduce stress and get lots of sleep (stress hormones like Cortisol encourage fat gain and poor sleep drives us to crave increased sugar!)

Foods to Eat, Foods to Avoid

Want to read more from Cliff Harvey? 99 Things You Need To Know To Lose Fat...