The picture says it all. We are going to talk about chains, not of steel, but of the basic energy units that keeps your body going and make you fat.  I hope it is a new beginning, a bridge to a new way of thinking. Once you understand how the body processes food, it’ll take away mystery and magic.

The reality is actually far more simple than all of the crazy schemes you’ve followed in the past; the beauty is every one of them can be easily explained – with no contradictions.

The beginning of the story actually starts at the end. It is an interesting circle. You are here primarily because you have fat to lose.  That fat is stored, in the form of Triacylglycerols (fancy term don’t worry about it) in the adipose cells.  These “fat cells” are a place so this high-energy can be stored for “later use.” As we learned last week, our problem is that later never comes before we return to the gas station. You know the rest of the story.

Other animals, and even plants, store slightly different forms of energy for the exact same reason; it’s stored for later use. This is energy to sustain life when fuel (food/light) is not around to keep the animal/plant functioning. We’ll learn of some other special types of storage in addition to fats, glycogen and starch, and how it fits into the  puzzle.  When we are done, you will see ALL food with a new view – from ingestion to use or from ingestion to storage. I want you to FORGET about the association of carbohydrates, protein and fat with particular foods (e.g potatoes = carbs) – most (real) food has all three sources of macronutrients.

The Evolutionary Shuffle

So here is the picture that should be etched in your head:  Stumble around, find food, eat as much as you can, starve for a while living off of reserves, and find food again.  That is how it worked for nearly 7 million years. Even in the last 10,000 years, when Humans became far more useful with respect to their hunting and gathering, we still mostly starved.  If we go back to the first recorded agriculture (5000-6000 years ago) we are still talking a mere blip on the evolutionary scale.  Genetically speaking, we are still programmed to stumble, eat, starve and eat again.

Genetically speaking, we haven’t changed that much in the last 5000-6000 years.  To put that into evolutionary perspective if all hominid development of 7 million years was represented by a mile, our dominion over agriculture was the last 4 feet – barely a step.  You are  genetically programmed to store energy for times of famine. So are your skinny friends.

The problem? Famine never comes.

So when we eat animal or plant fat, we take that stored energy and either convert it to useful energy or extract the energy from it and store it ourselves. The same goes for carbohydrates. We use the energy directly or just convert the excess to fat for later.  Proteins, we’ll see, are  just a little different. We can break them down and use the nutrients (amino acids) to build other proteins (e.g. insulin, enzymes, antibodies, or hair) or we can burn them and use the energy or store it in fat for later use.

In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t say MUSCLE in that list, because we’re over focused on the muscle/protein connection – both on intake and body nutrient use. It keeps you from really digesting these concepts. Put it away for now.

Each of these macromolecules: Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats contain smaller “packages” of energy, but are stored like the links on the chain.  As we dive into the each of the individual chains, you will see the similarities, and differences, but right now the BIGGEST obstacle to understanding this is to stop associating proteins, carbohydrates, and fats with specific foods.  These are not food group labels like meat, dairy, or vegetables. These are basic collections of molecules of similar chemistry and function and the vast majority of unrefined food has all three.

To define a particular food by what macronutrient it has “most of” or to reject it because it’s a macronutrient that you believe you should consume less/more of is THE problem.  It starts a chain of events and you end up inextricably linked to the latest fad diet. They make money; you stay fat.  These macronutrient-based diet schemes all invoke an enormous amount of generality and in doing so, well, the results speak for themselves the world is getting fatter despite record spending on diet/fitness.

We have excess energy not bad genes. Can anyone argue with this logic? can you possibly get fat if you don’t eat?

Think Different

So, in memory of Steve Jobs, I want you to THINK DIFFERENT beginning today. Steve taught us in his amazing 2005 Stanford commencement speech, “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”  You CAN understand this in a way that you will no longer be trapped by dogma. I’ll take the time to explain the difference between protein and meat or potatoes and carbohydrate, if you’ll keep an open attitude.

Why am I splitting hairs on this? Because you can’t recognize or even taste a protein and yet, you’re probably convinced you need more. It’s not limited to protein, Harvard professors (1), even an outrageous story on NPR YESTERDAY, can’t seem to differentiate between a potato and a french fry and therefore group them together with the resulting blame for childhood obesity going to the poor potato. A food that has been around in some form for millions of years is now THE problem de jour. It doesn’t stop there as the USDA is probably the worst place for information.

When you get to the end of the news report note that the kid get’s it right: who wants to eat a dry potato just for the fun of it? The answer: your starving ancestors did. They were hungry and you’re fat. But until you get past that it has nothing to do with carbs, glycemic index or fat, you’ll stay stuck in the yo-yo cycle. That continues to fuel another jiggleflex sale, a deal a plate, or a bypass surgery. Everybody wins, right?

I will stop ranting now.

Today, make a step in the right direction. Forget food for a moment. We are going to dive into the three macronutrients. We are going to understand the difference between starch and cellulose – why cows can eat grass and termites can eat wood. Does your current idea of food explain where the cows get protein or how termites digest and get energy from undigestable fiber  Probably not, but once you truly understand carbohydrates, proteins and fats, you can rebuild from the ground up and construct a different, a RADICALLY DIFFERENT, basis for what and why you put stuff in your mouth.

I’ll even leave room for creme brûlée.

After we are finished, what I hope you’ll never do again is to try to pick your food groups based on macronutrients: carbohydrates, proteins or fats.  I hope you realize that rice, for example, has enough available protein (and a full complement of amino acids) to sustain you (2). I want you to understand why birds and wild cats aren’t fat and how an elephant can grow so much muscle mass without a single protein shake.

You see, we once understood how to survive and, ironically, didn’t even think about it. We stumbled through the world and ate what we could find. Today, with all of our macronutrient diet schemes, eat for blood type, 21 days to fight belly fat, or super secret supplement goop, we’ve lost the way. It’s unbeliveable that we have never know MORE about food and yet it’s never been more difficult to understand what to do.

Steve Jobs took everything we knew about computers, music, and computer programs and turned it into an incredible assembly of tools that…just worked.  I am suggesting that we do the same with nutrition.  I say for the group following this blog – stop debating and let’s just break this down and see what makes sense.

I’m willing to go against the mass market. I believe people are intelligent enough to figure this out. I know that I was wrong for most of my adult life – even with advanced education and a deep interest/motivation to understand it (I was FAT).  The difference, perhaps, is that when I found the contradictions – michael phelps eats 12,000 cal/day and termites eat wood – I took the time to reflect on the world and set aside my bias.

But like ts eliot observed: I’ve arrived where I started, and know the place for the very first time. I think you will too.

We’ll start with carbohydrates on the next post. See you there!

 

1) Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men,  Mozaffarian D et al. N Engl J Med 2011;364:2392-2404.

2) Nitrogen retention of young men fed rice with or without supplementary chicken, Lee CJ, et al., Am J Clin Nutr. 1971 Mar;24(3):318-23.

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Thanks!

Ray