Why Is It So Hard To Lose Weight?

Debunking the Hunter-Gatherer Theory.

I knew this very exercise-driven ER doc who would always say, “Calories in, Calories out”, as though weight loss was merely an easy mathematical equation.

Obesity is an epidemic worming its nasty way into every culture around the globe.

Public health circles (or squares) have mostly thought, like the exercising ER doc above, that our rotundunus ways are because modern peoples have become gluttonous sloths assuming the shapes of their couches.

Move over Forest Gump; sedentary is - as sedentary does.

Even the World Health Organization says that we are fat because we simply don’t move enough.

Well, elegant research has turned this thinking entirely around on its chubby backside.

The Hadza Peoples of Tanzania

Herman Pontzer, an anthropologist, and his team from Hunter College in NY bless their focused hearts, went to one of the last remaining traditional hunter-gatherer societies, the Hadza peoples of Tanzania.

They used modern technology to figure out exactly how much energy these traditional indigenous folk expended in their demanding lives, where both men and women daily walked about 15-20 miles.

But when figuring out how many calories the Hadza folks were actually burning, surprise, surprise; it turned out to not be very different from many of you and me!

Despite all this continual physical activity, no couches or Lazyboy recliners or hours in front of computers, these active Hadzas burned about the same number of calories, roughly, as we do. What the heck?

This investigation adds to an emergent bulk of evidence saying the same thing: that energy expenditure is consistent across diverse lifestyles and cultures. Meaning that tribal folks seem to burn as many calories as us sedentary contemporaries here in our cubicles. Wow!

Now, under special circumstances, such as an elite athlete training for a strenuous race, when bodies are pushed hard enough, long enough, then energy expenditure can increase, but usually in the short term, not the long term.

But in the long term, bodies are complex and, it seems, set up through evolution to keep calorie and energy expenditure relatively stable.

Until enter, so many endocrine disrupting pollutants that are now making our fat stem cells, that “birth” our fat cells, nastier acting.

Losing Weight in 2023

It is harder to lose weight in 2023 than it was in 1983 because our fat cells are different. They are nastier.

This is the Obesogen Theory by Dr. Bruce Blumberg who I interviewed for Hormone Deception and on my podcast and hung with him at a few conferences. (“Obesogens” Are Making Us Fat! with Dr. Bruce Blumberg (#133))

The message this sends is critical. These researchers say that if we want to end obesity, we must point our attention to our food; what we put into our mouths is what ultimately dictates body size. It’s more the calories we eat than the ones we burn. And, the real culprits are sugars and portion size.

And…. pollution.

Nutrition on Center Stage

I think this is amazing, and research like this puts nutrition at center stage.

And the need for “greener living” especially pre-birth, should be emphasized.

For years in practice, I have also seen frustrated patients who, no matter how little they ate, or how much incredible dietary discipline they demonstrated, still couldn’t lose weight. Often, when we tested and balanced their hormones, identified and removed stressor foods, improved digestion, worked with special oils that turn on fat hormones, or used insulin sensitizers from my new Biotic’s products to new meds, then their jump-started bodies started to lose weight.

Also, many cases of “sub-clinical hypothyroidism” are not being identified or properly treated. Our polluted environment is especially harsh on the thyroid gland (listen to my podcast with the amazing author of The Toxic Cocktail - Dr. Barbara Demeneix – Toxic Cocktail – Your Child’s Thyroid, Brain and IQ (#57)).

Being overweight is a complex thing.

What we eat matters a lot.

How much we eat may matter more.

But still, the body is a complex organism and all things lean on each other.

Each element of our body functions and dysfunctions together.

Identifying what is the real issue that is snagging back your dreams of thinness, goes a bit beyond diet, though, of course, includes and emphasizes diet. And the environment we live in and air we breathe.

Dr. B.

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Reference:

Hunter-gatherer energetics and human obesity. PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e40503. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040503. Epub 2012 Jul 25. PMID: 22848382; PMCID: PMC3405064.