Losing weight and having a low body fat percentage seem to be universally associated with health. That is what is portrayed in the media, where the phrases "lose fat" and "get healthy" are often used in the same breath. However, as I have pointed out before, being lean and being healthy are not one and the same.
Today, I would like to go one step further and say that trying to lose weight is often unhealthy. I came to this conclusion after reading a few books on the subject, including Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon and 12 Paleo Myths by Matt Stone. What follows is an excerpt from the introduction to a book I am writing tentatively named The Unintentional Weight Loss Solution: Be Healthy to Lose Weight Don't Lose Weight to Be Healthy. As its name suggests, the book focuses on healthy lifestyle habits rather than dieting for long-term change in body composition.
Today, I would like to go one step further and say that trying to lose weight is often unhealthy. I came to this conclusion after reading a few books on the subject, including Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon and 12 Paleo Myths by Matt Stone. What follows is an excerpt from the introduction to a book I am writing tentatively named The Unintentional Weight Loss Solution: Be Healthy to Lose Weight Don't Lose Weight to Be Healthy. As its name suggests, the book focuses on healthy lifestyle habits rather than dieting for long-term change in body composition.
Why do people gain weight?
Weight is gained when we consume more calories than we burn. We’ve heard this a million times right? It is the first law of thermodynamics, and universally accepted as the truth. Some of you may know it as the energy balance equation, as calories are our source of energy. In any case, this calories in and calories out equation explains why we gain weight.
Why do people fail to lose weight, or if they do succeed why do they gain it back plus even more?
Unfortunately, the energy balance equation is not understood very well. Most people think that they need to restrict their calorie intake and exercise a lot in order to control the result of the equation. That line of thinking certainly is logical; if you want to control the right side of the equation you need to control the left side of it too right?
The answer in this case is a resounding no. The body is not a helpless thing to be controlled by diets and exercise programs. By using a combination of complex methods, the body actually controls how many calories we burn and in some ways how many calories we take in.
Sometimes the body can be very subtle. If we are well fed (sufficient calorie and nutrient intake), then the body won’t make us crave foods or feel like we are ravenous. However, if we restrict our food in an effort to lose weight, then our body will make us crave calorie-dense foods in an effort to get enough calories and nutrients. The body will also make us feel tired and lethargic so we won’t move and expend energy.
If we fight the tiredness and cravings with willpower and decide that we know better than our body, then the body will resort to less subtle tactics and actually burn less calories in an effort to preserve energy. One common way the body does this is by skipping its usual temperature regulating duties. This is why many dieters feel cold; their body has decided that it needs to conserve energy so it doesn’t burn the calories needed to raise body temperature.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint right? Back when food wasn’t so abundant, the body wanted to make sure that it was going to get fed. So when our ancestors weren’t getting enough food, the body wanted to make sure that they really felt the desire to find and eat those calories! In other words, by trying to overrule the body’s internal energy management system you are making your body think that food is not abundant. As a result of this, the body uses many different tactics to preserve energy and coerce you to take in more calories, thinking that your survival is in danger.
So when people try and control the calories consumed and calories burned, they don’t realize that they are in effect fighting their body’s natural calorie regulating system. Rather than working with the body’s internal systems, most people try and fight them.
The answer in this case is a resounding no. The body is not a helpless thing to be controlled by diets and exercise programs. By using a combination of complex methods, the body actually controls how many calories we burn and in some ways how many calories we take in.
Sometimes the body can be very subtle. If we are well fed (sufficient calorie and nutrient intake), then the body won’t make us crave foods or feel like we are ravenous. However, if we restrict our food in an effort to lose weight, then our body will make us crave calorie-dense foods in an effort to get enough calories and nutrients. The body will also make us feel tired and lethargic so we won’t move and expend energy.
If we fight the tiredness and cravings with willpower and decide that we know better than our body, then the body will resort to less subtle tactics and actually burn less calories in an effort to preserve energy. One common way the body does this is by skipping its usual temperature regulating duties. This is why many dieters feel cold; their body has decided that it needs to conserve energy so it doesn’t burn the calories needed to raise body temperature.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint right? Back when food wasn’t so abundant, the body wanted to make sure that it was going to get fed. So when our ancestors weren’t getting enough food, the body wanted to make sure that they really felt the desire to find and eat those calories! In other words, by trying to overrule the body’s internal energy management system you are making your body think that food is not abundant. As a result of this, the body uses many different tactics to preserve energy and coerce you to take in more calories, thinking that your survival is in danger.
So when people try and control the calories consumed and calories burned, they don’t realize that they are in effect fighting their body’s natural calorie regulating system. Rather than working with the body’s internal systems, most people try and fight them.
Why do people want to lose weight in the first place?
People want to lose weight for a variety of reasons, and some of the more common reasons are as follows. Some people feel that a reduced weight will allow them to participate in a broader range of activities or participate with less pain. Some people think that losing weight will make them more attractive or happier. And some people have heard that being heavy is a health risk, so they want to lose weight in order to improve their health.
Is it really healthier to be lighter?
Though it is widely accepted in mainstream culture that being heavy means being unhealthy, that is not supported by scientific study. Let’s take a look at the evidence and see if we can reach an accurate conclusion.
A good place to start is the largest epidemiological study ever conducted. The study took place in Norway, and included 1.7 million people! The highest life expectancy in the study was found to be among those who are overweight by American standards, and the lowest life expectancy was found to be among those who are considered underweight. The study also found that those who were in the normal weight range had a lower life expectancy than those who were at certain levels of obesity.
The Norway study is not alone in its finding that overweight people live longer than those who are underweight or of normal weight. That is the conclusion of a 2006 study of nearly 170,000 Chinese adults, a 2007 study of 20,000 German construction workers, a 1996 study of 12,000 Finnish women, and a 2005 meta-analysis which looked at 26 studies.
In fact, a 2005 article in the Scientific American investigating research done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that “even severe obesity failed to show up as a significant mortality risk.” The actual report in the Journal of the American Medical Association went even further, suggesting that being overweight may be protective.
Obesity is also blamed as the culprit behind many diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and various cancers. Though there is an association between obesity and these diseases, that does not mean that obesity has caused them. Many factors may be contributing to these associations, including the stress from being stigmatized that many obese people face, the hesitation to seek out medical care that many obese people have, and perhaps most importantly, differences in lifestyle. This is not to say that obesity plays absolutely no role in disease, but the evidence indicates that it may be protective in some cases and mildly disease promoting in others.
Going back to the point about lifestyle being a confounding factor for obesity causing disease, there was an interesting study that looked at just that. The 1999 Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study found that obese men who performed just as well on a treadmill fitness test as lean men had equal death rates. Additionally, the high performing obese men had death rates that were half the rates of low performing lean men.
This study along with other research suggests that lifestyle factors are much more important to living long, healthy lives than what a person weighs. That is one of the main ideologies behind this book, and the reason why I believe it is much more important to focus on developing healthy habits than moving an arbitrary number on a scale.
A good place to start is the largest epidemiological study ever conducted. The study took place in Norway, and included 1.7 million people! The highest life expectancy in the study was found to be among those who are overweight by American standards, and the lowest life expectancy was found to be among those who are considered underweight. The study also found that those who were in the normal weight range had a lower life expectancy than those who were at certain levels of obesity.
The Norway study is not alone in its finding that overweight people live longer than those who are underweight or of normal weight. That is the conclusion of a 2006 study of nearly 170,000 Chinese adults, a 2007 study of 20,000 German construction workers, a 1996 study of 12,000 Finnish women, and a 2005 meta-analysis which looked at 26 studies.
In fact, a 2005 article in the Scientific American investigating research done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that “even severe obesity failed to show up as a significant mortality risk.” The actual report in the Journal of the American Medical Association went even further, suggesting that being overweight may be protective.
Obesity is also blamed as the culprit behind many diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and various cancers. Though there is an association between obesity and these diseases, that does not mean that obesity has caused them. Many factors may be contributing to these associations, including the stress from being stigmatized that many obese people face, the hesitation to seek out medical care that many obese people have, and perhaps most importantly, differences in lifestyle. This is not to say that obesity plays absolutely no role in disease, but the evidence indicates that it may be protective in some cases and mildly disease promoting in others.
Going back to the point about lifestyle being a confounding factor for obesity causing disease, there was an interesting study that looked at just that. The 1999 Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study found that obese men who performed just as well on a treadmill fitness test as lean men had equal death rates. Additionally, the high performing obese men had death rates that were half the rates of low performing lean men.
This study along with other research suggests that lifestyle factors are much more important to living long, healthy lives than what a person weighs. That is one of the main ideologies behind this book, and the reason why I believe it is much more important to focus on developing healthy habits than moving an arbitrary number on a scale.
Are there any reasons to reconsider attempting weight loss?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is that dieting can be very harmful and result in all sorts of unwanted health problems. On a physiological level, dieting is linked to increased risk of diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and decreased immune function. A damaged metabolism is also common, due to a drop in leptin that is also common with dieting. This decrease in metabolic rate is responsible for symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to chronic fatigue and decreased sex drive.
On a psychological level, trying to lose weight often results in disordered eating. This can mean something familiar to the mainstream health world such as anorexia, but it can also be less obvious such as meticulous calorie counting or irrational fear of carbohydrates. Dieting seems to mess with people’s minds, and if we are being honest with ourselves, restricting food intake is really no fun at all.
Ironically, intentional weight loss usually results in gaining all of the weight back and sometimes even more. In fact, one of the best predictors of future weight gain is losing weight while on a diet.
A 2007 meta-analysis done by UCLA found that at least 1/3 to 2/3 of all dieters regain more weight than they lost within four or five years. One study examined in that meta-analysis found that among patients who were followed for fewer than two years, 23 percent gained back more weight than they had lost. But when the patients were followed for least two years, 83 percent gained back more weight than they had lost. Another study examined in the meta-analysis found that 50 percent of dieters gained more than 11 pounds in addition to regaining their weight lost five years after the diet.
On a psychological level, trying to lose weight often results in disordered eating. This can mean something familiar to the mainstream health world such as anorexia, but it can also be less obvious such as meticulous calorie counting or irrational fear of carbohydrates. Dieting seems to mess with people’s minds, and if we are being honest with ourselves, restricting food intake is really no fun at all.
Ironically, intentional weight loss usually results in gaining all of the weight back and sometimes even more. In fact, one of the best predictors of future weight gain is losing weight while on a diet.
A 2007 meta-analysis done by UCLA found that at least 1/3 to 2/3 of all dieters regain more weight than they lost within four or five years. One study examined in that meta-analysis found that among patients who were followed for fewer than two years, 23 percent gained back more weight than they had lost. But when the patients were followed for least two years, 83 percent gained back more weight than they had lost. Another study examined in the meta-analysis found that 50 percent of dieters gained more than 11 pounds in addition to regaining their weight lost five years after the diet.
So should I try and lose weight or not?
That is not for anyone to decide but you. I haven’t lived a day in your shoes, so I don’t feel comfortable announcing that you should just accept your current weight and be done with it. In an ideal world everyone would feel comfortable in their own bodies, but unfortunately in the world we live in today that is very difficult to do. And maybe your disease risk could be minimized with a bit less visceral adipose tissue, or your joints would feel better if you weighed a bit less. I just don’t know your individual situation, so it doesn’t feel right to make a blanket statement about weight loss. Fortunately, there is a solution for everyone.
That solution is to practice the healthy lifestyle habits which make up the rest of this book. These habits include eating mindfully and intuitively, eating “real” food, finding a type of movement that is enjoyable, prioritizing sleep, and managing stress. These lifestyle habits are the big wins in health, and that is shown in the supporting literature. If one was to lose weight in a healthful way, it would be as a result of long-term healthy living rather than going on a quick diet.
Sources:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/dieting-does-not-work-ucla-researchers-7832.aspx
12 Paleo Myths, Matt Stone
Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
That solution is to practice the healthy lifestyle habits which make up the rest of this book. These habits include eating mindfully and intuitively, eating “real” food, finding a type of movement that is enjoyable, prioritizing sleep, and managing stress. These lifestyle habits are the big wins in health, and that is shown in the supporting literature. If one was to lose weight in a healthful way, it would be as a result of long-term healthy living rather than going on a quick diet.
Sources:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/dieting-does-not-work-ucla-researchers-7832.aspx
12 Paleo Myths, Matt Stone
Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon