Do you ever wonder why we are getting fatter and fatter in the US and other Western countries even though the grocery stores are selling more Low Fat and No Fat foods than ever before? How could this possibly be? Wasn’t a Low Fat Diet supposed to make us all thin and happy?
Well that is what was supposed to happen but it didn’t. Instead, since the mid 1980’s when the Low Fat craze took off, we have doubled the number of overweight and obese people in our populations. While there are several circumstances, one of the most important is the fact that fat doesn’t make us fat, carbohydrates do.
Thousands of people have literally lost millions of pounds over the last 10 years by eating a diet high in protein and fats while limiting carbohydrates. Especially foods that are high in sugar and starch content.
As it turns out, we now know that sugar is converted in our bodies to fat. When we eat more sugar than we can use, insulin helps to turn sugar into certain fatty acids which are then transported through the walls of the fat cells. It is just like filling up a balloon. When we eat sugar the insulin converts some of the sugar molecules into fatty acids and then shoves them into the cells. Once inside the fat cells, these fatty acids combine with others as a way to store energy for future use.
You see, our bodies do need a certain amount of fat stored for times when food may be scarce. This was definitely true thousands of years ago when our ancestors didn’t usually know where their next meal was coming from. Our bodies developed this ability to store fat when times were good, when there was a lot of food to eat, so it could then be used up later when there was not too much food around. Like in winter.
Reduce Carbohydrates To Lose Weight
The problem now is that we don’t have a lack of food. Most people in the Western countries have more than enough food to eat, in fact they have too much. This is especially true about sugar and starchy carbohydrates. Our ancestors ate a lot of meat, nuts, berries, and vegetables along with some fruit. But this is not how the modern diet is made up. Today we eat a lot of processed foods which have sugar added along with starchy foods such as process wheat, potatoes, and corn. These starchy foods are easily broken down into sugars in our digestive tract and then absorbed into the blood stream.
When your body sense these high levels of sugar in the blood it says something like, “Great, extra sugar, we better store this for later when we might go hungry.” So the high levels of sugar are converted into fat storage. This is predominately around the waist of most men and on the lower region of most women.
But currently most people never have a day when they are hungry. Our farmers have done such a good job of growing food that we never get a chance to use the fat up. We just keep eating more sugar and starch and getting fatter and fatter.
Eat A Diet Low In Sugar and Starches
If you want to cut down on this stored fat in your body then you need to limit the sugar and starch you eat. Cut out all sweeteners and processed grains along with potatoes. Eat more meat, poultry, fish, and green vegetables. These are very low in carbohydrate amounts and so they allow your body to use up the fat stores instead of building them bigger.
I came across a really great visual way to understand this process today. It is at Blisstree.com and was written by Briana Rognlin. If this idea is confusing then click here and take a look at why we keep getting fatter.
