Why you can’t lose weight counting calories

Week in and week out, patients come to me in frustration, “Doctor, I’m doing everything right … why can’t I lose weight?”  The answer to this question has more to do with individual body chemistry than what particular diet works best.  In fact, there isn’t one diet perfect for every person.  Our individual heritage and genetic makeup predispose us to what foods are best for our body’s needs.

In the Maximized Living Core Nutrition Plan, we advise 3 things that need to be changed in everyone’s diet regardless of your heritage or genetic composition. These three essential changes are:

1. the type of fats you are eating (as well as ingesting more of them),
2. switching from commercially-raised to naturally-raised animal products, and,
3. eliminating processed carbohydrates.

The details of these changes are covered extensively in the Maximized Living Seminar.

As these three changes transcend all cultures, the exact amount of fat, protein and carbohydrates someone can process largely depends on where your ancestors are from.  For example, northern descents seem to favour diets high in protein and good fats, whereas individuals from warmer equatorial regions seem to thrive on higher amounts of unprocessed carbohydrates, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

This explains why some people lose weight on a vegetarian diet, some on the Atkins Diet, some on the South Beach Diet, others with Weight Watchers, etc., and why others are left wondering why the diet they chose didn’t work for them.  Chances are that diet wasn’t metabolically correct for their body chemistry.

However, it is HORMONES (not calories, grams of fat, or even your genetics), that are the MOST essential parameters that dictate what diet is best for you. While we have been taught for years to count calories and grams of fat, hormones are most often overlooked.  The one most note-worthy for weight loss is leptin.  Leptin is a hormone in your body that tells your brain when to stop eating, when to burn fat.  Leptin also regulates the function of other hormones, including sex and stress hormones. 

 Your brain will not get the message to burn fat for energy.  Instead, you will continue to be a sugar burner – and never a fat burner.  As a result, you will not use your fat stores for energy (nor lose fat), and you will have constant and uncontrollable cravings for sugar.  You will break down muscle tissue which your body converts to sugar for energy, causing a decrease in muscle mass, metabolism, and a constant downward spiral.

In the Maximized Living Seminar, we cover Leptin and other hormones related to weight managmenet and fitness, answering questions left unanswered for so many years.

*The next Maximized Living Seminar is coming to London, ON on Saturday, April 1, 2017. Learn more.