2575: Why Can't I Lose Those Last Few Pounds? by Nancy Clark on How to Lose Fat & Weight Loss Advice

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[00:01:47] Why Can't I Lose Those Last Few Pounds? by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com. And I'm your

[00:01:54] host and personal narrator, Dr. Neil. Hey there, welcome back to Optimal Health Daily or welcome

[00:02:00] for the first time if you're new here. This is the podcast where I read to you from some of the

[00:02:04] most popular health and fitness blogs online. And with that, let's keep this intro nice and short

[00:02:10] so we can get right to today's article as we optimize your life. Why can't I lose those last

[00:02:20] few pounds? by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com. I can't lose weight like I used to. I must be

[00:02:29] eating too many carbs. Do you think a keto diet is a good way to drop a few pounds? Judging by the

[00:02:35] phone calls I get from potential clients, an increasing number of athletes of all ages are

[00:02:40] complaining, why can't I do something as simple as shed a few pounds? They're frustrated and at a loss

[00:02:48] about what to do to lose undesired body fat. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American

[00:02:53] College of Sports Medicine, Kevin Hall, PhD, explained that fat loss is far from simple.

[00:03:01] Dr. Hall works at the National Institutes of Health. His laboratory investigates how metabolism

[00:03:06] and the brain respond to a variety of changes in diet and exercise. His research has helped

[00:03:12] identify the complex mechanisms that regulate weight. Weight loss is not simple. You've likely

[00:03:19] heard, a pound of fat equates to 3,500 stored calories. To lose one pound of body fat a week,

[00:03:27] you can simply knock off 500 calories a day or burn off 500 calories more than usual

[00:03:34] or some combination of the two. Hall explained the simple approach to lose weight just doesn't

[00:03:41] hold true. Chronic dieters would have shriveled up and disappeared by now. Not the case! Weight

[00:03:48] loss is not simple math because our bodies adapt to famines by conserving energy. When food is scarce,

[00:03:55] be it a famine or a diet, the body conserves energy, meaning metabolism slows, spontaneous

[00:04:02] movement lessens, and simultaneously appetite increases. Hence, eating less, meaning dieting,

[00:04:10] takes persistent effort. The greater the energy deficit and the greater the weight loss,

[00:04:16] the greater the increase in appetite. Losing weight becomes more and more challenging.

[00:04:22] Hence, most athletes and people end up unwilling or unable to sustain a diet with a calorie

[00:04:28] reduction of 25%. For a typical female athlete who maintains weight with about 2,400 calories per day,

[00:04:36] a 25% reduction would be an 1,800-calorie-reducing diet. Based on my experience,

[00:04:43] athletes inevitably self-imposed a 1,200 to 1,500-calorie-reducing plan. No wonder their

[00:04:49] diets fail! The stricter the diet, the hungrier the dieter and the bigger the backlash.

[00:04:55] The dieter ends up devouring way too much ice cream, too many cookies, too many chips, and so on.

[00:05:02] The bottom line? Learn how to eat competently by working with a registered dietitian who specializes

[00:05:08] in sports nutrition. Is keto the answer? So often I hear frustrated athletes ask,

[00:05:16] what if I just do keto or paleo or fill in any other trendy diet for a bit and then go back to

[00:05:23] eating normally? Ha! When dieters have managed to successfully lose weight, they can't go back to

[00:05:29] eating like they used to eat. These dieters need fewer calories to support their lighter bodies.

[00:05:36] For each kilogram or 2.2 pounds of weight lost, a dieter requires about 25 fewer calories less

[00:05:44] per day. Hence, dieters who lose 10 kilograms or about 22 pounds need about 250 fewer calories

[00:05:52] per day to maintain their new reduced weight. Unfortunately, appetite-regulating hormones

[00:05:59] nudge them to want to eat more than that. This gets to be a tiring fight and most folks lose

[00:06:05] the battle of the bulge. The bottom line? Living in food and exercise jail to attain or maintain

[00:06:12] a desired physique requires a lot of energy. If life stresses are draining your energy,

[00:06:19] you might be trying to lose weight at the wrong time in your life. Are carbs the problem? What

[00:06:25] if you could lose weight by cutting carbohydrates but not calories? Diet gurus have promised this

[00:06:31] for years as do today's keto supporters. Anti-carbers claim high-carb diets lead to

[00:06:37] excess insulin secretion, hunger, excessive eating, and fat gain. Low-carb diets are touted to reduce

[00:06:45] insulin, hunger, and promote easy fat loss. Not so simple. Despite popular belief, simply

[00:06:52] knocking off starches like bread, pasta, and grains, and sugary foods does not guarantee fat loss

[00:06:59] unless it creates an energy deficit. That is, eliminating a serving of rice from dinner can

[00:07:05] knock off 200 calories. But does the hungry dieter then indulge in a pint of sugar-free ice cream

[00:07:11] or a keto bomb? The carb-free equals calorie-free attitude easily wipes out the deficit created by

[00:07:18] cutting out carbs. Hall's research does not support the carb-insulin theory that carbs are fattening.

[00:07:26] His research indicates subjects in a metabolic ward who ate as much as they desired of a high-carb,

[00:07:32] high-glycemic diet that spiked blood glucose and led to high levels of insulin did not gain body

[00:07:39] fat. Every single subject eating the high-carb, high-insulin, low-fat diet ate fewer calories

[00:07:45] than when they ate the low-carb, low-insulin keto diet with very low insulin secretion.

[00:07:52] The bottom line? Carbs are not inherently fattening. If carbs were fattening, then most

[00:07:58] populations living in Asian countries who eat bowlfuls of rice would be obese, and that's simply

[00:08:03] not the case. If carbs aren't fattening, what is? The increase in obesity in the US correlates well

[00:08:11] with the increased intake of ultra-processed foods. Hall is pointing his finger at foods such as

[00:08:17] cookies, soda, instant ramen noodles, chicken nuggets, and so on. He has researched the impact

[00:08:24] of two weeks of an ultra-processed convenience food diet versus two weeks of a homemade,

[00:08:31] natural foods diet. The menus were very carefully designed to be equally tasty.

[00:08:36] The subjects reported no differences in pleasantness between them. They ate as much as desired.

[00:08:41] With the ultra-processed diet, the subjects consumed about 500 more calories a day compared

[00:08:47] to the unprocessed diet. They gained weight during those two weeks and lost weight without trying to

[00:08:53] do so with the unprocessed diet. Because both diets offered the same amount of sugar, carbs,

[00:09:00] and fat, those nutrients did not drive the weight change. So what's going on? Hall is currently

[00:09:06] looking at why ultra-processed foods easily led to weight gain. The bottom line? Until we know more,

[00:09:13] your best bet is to limit ultra-processed foods. Fret less about sugar and carbs and more about

[00:09:21] the processing. Somehow, find time to prepare meals. As a parent, think about teaching your

[00:09:27] kids to cook. Hopefully, you'll all enjoy the eat well, stay healthy diet. You just listened to the

[00:09:37] post titled, Why Can't I Lose Those Last Few Pounds? by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com and

[00:09:44] I'll be right back with my commentary. We're driven by the search for better. But when it

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[00:10:54] Need to hire? You need Indeed. Dr. Neal here for my commentary. Going back to the idea that

[00:11:01] carbohydrates are the enemy of weight loss, studies have tried to answer this same question,

[00:11:06] not just Dr. Hall's study as Nancy mentioned in today's post. Recently, a meta-analysis looked at

[00:11:12] 61 published studies on this topic. I love looking at meta-analyses because they are giant studies.

[00:11:19] They analyze already published articles, which makes them a really powerful way to look at

[00:11:25] research trends. So, this meta-analysis tried to answer whether low-carbohydrate diets were better

[00:11:32] for weight loss when compared to more balanced carbohydrate diets. The authors of this meta-analysis

[00:11:39] looked at the short-term effects of following this type of diet as well as long-term effects,

[00:11:44] and they found that in the short term, meaning after following the diets for anywhere from 3 to

[00:11:50] 9 months, both groups lost about the same amount of weight, about 2 pounds. This was also true

[00:11:58] in the long term, meaning when people followed the diet for 1 to 2 years. But in fact, the difference

[00:12:04] in weight lost with the long-term studies was even smaller, less than 2 pounds. So, the bottom line is,

[00:12:12] it's not necessarily carbs that's stopping us from losing weight, but maybe the type of carbohydrate

[00:12:19] and our overall calorie intake. And I know there'll be lots more studies looking at this

[00:12:25] same topic in the future, and I'll definitely share those with you as I see them.

[00:12:30] Alright, that's another edition of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you so much for listening.

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