It’s not hard to understand why people gain weight, right? If you burn more calories than you burn, you consume pounds. Want to be slim? Eat less and move more. That’s what we’ve heard for years, but researchers have recently offered a new perspective that brings that idea to life. Does overeating actually not cause weight gain?
Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, co-authored an article published this month. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition It challenges general wisdom about what is behind the obesity epidemic in this country.
According to an article co-authored by a team of 17 internationally recognized scientists, clinical researchers, and public health experts, it is what The biggest impact on your weight is not how much you eat, but how much you eat.
Over 40% of Americans are obese (defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above). Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and even certain types of cancer. That’s why it’s so important to find the root cause of weight gain and help people understand how to manage their weight more effectively.
Need to rethink traditional weight loss advice?
The weight loss advice that most of us have heard over the years follows the “energy balance model.” This is the idea of calorie-in-calorie that overeating and lack of proper physical activity increase people’s weight.
However, Ludwig proposes a new perspective, the “Carbohydrate-Insulin Model”. It describes obesity as a metabolic disorder caused by eating too much of the wrong type of food, rather than eating too much of itself. “Conceptualizing obesity as a disorder of energy balance paraphrases the principles of physics without considering the biological mechanisms underlying weight gain,” he says.
The USDA’s dietary guidelines from 2020 to 2025 state that “adults” to fine-tune numbers downwards. [need] To reduce the number of calories obtained from food and drink and increase the amount consumed through physical activity, “Ludwig scrutinizes our daily diet and determines the amount of processed carbohydrates we eat and drink. By reducing it, you can get better service.
Can I lose weight by eating as much as I like?
Highly glycemic foods, especially processed carbohydrates such as pastries, pizzas, packaged pasta (excluding whole grains), breakfast cereals, white bread and white rice, trigger hormonal reactions and radically alter metabolism. way to think. And the real cause behind weight gain and obesity is this change in metabolic rate.
So what does this mean for someone trying to drop a few pounds? “Reducing the consumption of rapidly digestible carbohydrates that flooded our food supply in the era of low-fat diets reduces the underlying urge to store body fat,” says Ludwig. “As a result, people may lose weight with less hunger and struggle.”
In other words, if you’re eating the right kind of food, you don’t have to worry about overeating. Want to fit your pre-pandemic skinny jeans without being robbed and moody? Skip all packaged “low calorie” foods and anything made with white flour or refined sugar. Instead, get whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. That way, you’ll be happy to help yourself for a few seconds, a third, or even a quarter.
Besides, we say Bonapetti!
