***Calories In/Calories Out is Only Part of the Story

One Harvard study has shown that 9 out of 10 Americans are fat and over a third of them are considered obese. Why is that? Do these people like being overweight and unhealthy?
One of the main problems is that for decades we’ve all been lied to. We’ve been told that we are fat because we eat too much and don’t exercise enough. But if this were true then wouldn’t diets work?

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center tested calorie restricted diets over a 2 year period and found that 97% of dieters gained the weight back and most of these individuals lost a third of their lean body mass which includes bone density and muscle. With a decrease in muscle mass, metabolism decreases which causes even more fat to be deposited and more weight to be gained.

Another neat study that proves that weight gain is more than a matter of calories in and calories out is the study done by the University of San Antonio where they took away drinking water from people and replaced it with zero calorie diet soda. You would think if you replaced 0 calorie water with 0 calorie soda, that no weight changes would be observed. But oddly enough, this study found 75% of participants gained fat!

So, if it’s not calories in and calories out, then what is causing the fat and weight gain???

First off, let me be clear about something… Calories consumed and exercise certainly are components of weight gain/loss and fat gain/loss, but they are not the only components. Similarly, the following explanation is not the ONLY factor either, but it is a significant one.

Immune hyperactivity is largely responsible for much of the weight gain that you and I can experience.

What is Immune Hyperactivity?

When your body is exposed to stressors like toxins, lack of sleep, injury, poor nutrition, physical/mental/emotional stress, etc. it inflames your body and sets it on fire. This inflammation causes your body to release a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol causes your body to store fat, burn muscle protein and remove nutrients (weaken) from your bones. At the same time, Cortisol blocks the anterior pituitary from releasing Human Growth Hormone (HGH). If Cortisol is the villain in this story then HGH is certainly the hero. HGH burns fat, builds muscle, and strengthens bones, which is particularly important for women.

HGH is so awesome that it can actually be purchased in Anti-Aging Clinics in the United States. And since HGH is rumored to be so powerful and beneficial, that baseball All Star Alex Rodrigues (along with a handful of other players), risked their major league careers by paying for these Anti-Aging Clinic injections of Human Growth Hormone. It’s really too bad that these players didn’t do their research beforehand and instead went for multi-thousand dollar quick fix. Because, had they done their research they would have known that naturally produced HGH is better received (no side effects) and is more beneficial than anything injected into the body with a syringe.

So the point of this article is that when considering a program for weight loss you need to keep in mind that 97% of diets fail and that as important as calories in and calories out are, it is equally important to keep your immune system cool, your cortisol levels down and your HGH levels up.

I’ll discuss the strategies for this in forthcoming articles.