IT DOESN’T WORK!

That is the long and short of it. This, of course, might be a surprise to an entire industry that relies on selling exercise for weight loss. I am going to explain this in two ways: 1) the actual role of exercise; and, 2) the research that backs up what I am saying here.

Role of Exercise

In the overall view of health, exercise (i.e., physical activity) is certainly an important component of fitness. In the jargon of researchers, however, exercise is a dependent variable. In a simplistic way, this just means that the results of exercise depend on other variables (e.g., diet, health status, age, gender, weight, fat composition, lean body mass, genetics, basal metabolic rate, etc.).

The best way to understand my comments may be to take a look at one of the biggest myths regarding exercise and weight loss. It goes like this: You can lose weight by exercising to burn more calories than you take in from your diet. This concept treats the body like a furnace: calories in, calories out. Accordingly, if you drink a 300-calorie beer, all you have to do to cancel out its effects on your weight is to do some kind of exercise that burns up 300 or more calories.

No, no, and NO! The concept would be fine if you were a furnace. However, you have a complicated array of biochemical processes. There is no way that the calories burned by exercise can ever get to the calories from something that you just ate or drank.

The role of exercise, therefore, is to get you to a level of fitness for whatever exercise you do. And the consequence of being in better shape from exercise is to increase your basal metabolic rate – i.e., the need for more food. In other words, exercise creates demand for more calories, so you have to eat more to give your body what it needs to stay in shape by exercise. See how these two variables depend on one other?

By the way, the converse is also true. If you eat less, as during a restricted-calorie diet, you will slow your metabolism and reduce your ability to exercise. This is why calorie-restriction diets can never work for healthy weight loss.

The Research

Before I delve into this section, I want to point out that all of the best research on weight management over the past 200 years is explained in the best book that I ever read on the topic: “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” by Gary Taubes. It is heavy duty book, not a froo-froo diet book. You can probably get it at a good price at Amazon.

On page 298 of Taubes’ book, he cites the history of concepts known as “multiple metabolic control mechanisms” and the “set point hypothesis” for understanding why neither calorie-restricted diets nor exercise would lead to long-term weight loss. These ideas started in the mid-1960s at Harvard University and the University of Geneva. This thinking actually originated in the 19th century, based on research with laboratory animals.

The bottom line is that exercise causes the body to compensate by demanding more food, which shows up as hunger. The good news is that, since long-term weight loss does not depend on exercise, the opposite is also true. You do not get fat from lack of exercise.

Wow!

Gazillions of nutritionists, trainers, doctors, fitness gurus, etc., might be outraged at what I am saying here. My recommendation is that they dig into the research for themselves. They will discover the same that I have discovered: Weight loss myths and dogma undermine serious and thoughtful exchange of ideas about how to lose fat. There is good reason why exercising for weight loss is a hard way to get results. It doesn’t work!

All the best for fat loss,

Dr. D

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Weight is a function of gravity. Yup, scientists know this and most other people do not. What this means is that you can be weightless in the absence of gravity.

However, no matter where you are in the universe, your body will have some fat. If you have a 30% body fat composition on Earth, you will have the same percentage on the moon. Okay, this may be a fun way to look at this topic. However, when it comes to weight loss vs fat loss, pay close attention.

The following article does a great job explaining what is important, what you body optimum should be, and how to get your own body fat measured:

The Importance of Losing Fat vs Losing Weight:

Did you know… That two people can have the same height and weight, but very different percentages of body fat?

Did you know… That as we age, we tend to gain fat around our organs (“visceral fat”) that can’t be detected by measuring “skin folds” or even with a scale?

Did you know… That chances are that if you are losing weight, you will lose muscle as well as fat?

READ MORE HERE…

All About Fat

The bottom line is that your health and fitness depend on keeping your body fat composition in an ideal range. Beware of any weight loss strategy that does not specifically address body fat loss.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

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The whole business of calories for weight management is so misused that I am astounded. As a scientist, I understand the concept of calories as a measure of energy. Energy in this case specifically refers to heat.

Consider this regarding calories: they are not useful for metabolism. Once food or anything else is converted to heat, it is no longer useful metabolically. In fact, calories are only directly measurable as units of heat. For example, the calories that are stored in the chemical bonds of glucose are measurable when released in a device called a calorimeter (see figure).

When 1 gram of glucose is burned in a calorimeter, 4,000 calories are released. (Oh, by the way, reference to the potential energy of food is technically as ‘Calories’ – with a capital ‘C’ – one of which represents 1,000 lower-case ‘c’ calories. In other words, 1 Calorie equals 1,000 calories [also called a kilocalories or kcal for short].)

A calorie is the amount of heat that is required to raise 1 cc of water by 1 degree Celsius, at room temperature and at sea level. So 1 gram of glucose can yield enough heat to raise 4,000 cc (i.e., 4 liters) of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Now Here is the Kicker…

You will never, ever get all the energy out of a gram of glucose. The 4 Calories per gram statistic that has become dogma is only retrievable in a calorimeter. The efficiency of your fuel-harvesting metabolism is probably between 10 and 20%, and certainly never greater than 30%, of that potential. At least a dozen factors determine what the efficiency will be for you for any particular food at any particular time.

A Ridiculous Comparison

Consider this: in a calorimeter a gram of starch will yield the exact same number of calories as a gram of cellulose, which is indigestible fiber. As you and I both know, starch is a source of metabolic energy (i.e., food) for people. In contrast, cellulose is not.

I know that lots of folks want to focus on the concept of ‘available calories’ – whatever that means. So we can say that cellulose offers zero available calories. We can also say that starch offers available calories. We just have no idea how many. It is going to be in the neighborhood of 400 to 800 calories (or 0.4 to 0.8 Calories).

What’s Really Important

Instead of comparing the metabolism of food with a furnace or calorimeter, it is much more meaningful to talk about what happens to different foods when they are digested, how they get into different kinds of cells (e.g., fat vs. muscle), and what happens to them once they are there.

By the way, once you understand those factors, you will be very clear on why calories have nothing to do with obesity. I hope you chew on that comment for a while (pardon the pun), because this is the kind of thinking that will guide you to success in any weight loss or muscle-building program that truly works for a lifetime.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

The metabolism of fat – how we use it and store it – is truly fascinating. One of the mythologies of modern dietary recommendations is that eating fat will make you fat. This could not be further from the truth. Indeed, I have pointed this out recently to readers of my HCG weight loss diet blog. In thi post I explain what I like to have for breakfast, as shown in the photo to the right.

See the whole post here:

Eating After HCG – My Favorite Breakfast.

The reason that I bring this up here is that this is the kind of food that, if you had been eating it right along, would have prevented you from getting any extra belly fat in the first place. Weight loss and fat loss would be a thing of the past, because weight gain and fat gain would be nonexistent. The obesity epidemic certainly wouldn’t have happened. See what I mean when you read what I wrote there.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Sometimes I could just pull my hair out…

…if I hadn’t already lost too much! Mindless dogma rules in the world of weight loss, specifically fat loss. The following drivel is an example from the blog article titled Guaranteed Fat Loss Workouts.

It starts out:

The Battle of the Bulge is created by a sedentary lifestyle and eating foods high in calories and beverages. It takes months or years to accumulate, and unless you opt for liposuction or another invasive type of surgery, the only way to undo the weight is diet modification and exercise. Fortunately, there is some guaranteed fat loss workouts, even the best hope to use food as May on the road to a body slimmer, trimmer and more fit.

Follow that link above for the rest of the story. Meanwhile, unless you know exactly what the scientific research literature says on this topic, you may not see the obvious holes even in the introductory paragraph above.

Here is one: The Battle of the Bulge is created by a sedentary lifestyle and eating foods high in calories… [bolded for my emphasis]

First off, a sedentary lifestyle does not cause weight gain. Secondly, eating foods high in calories does not cause weight gain. This is the kind of sloppy thinking and dogma-parroting that divert important attention from finding the real causes of weight gain and obesity. No matter what exercises are advocated in this article, I guarantee you that fat loss will be hard to accomplish by using them.

Just a little rant here. What I will guarantee is that nothing I say on this blog is unsupported by good scientific research. That is the whole point of BellyFatScience.com.

All the best in natural health,Dr. D

See my blog post at SupplementDocPros.com about how product labels are misleading.

Just a quick note on what has become a pleasant surprise for me and for whomever has cellulite. The scientific background is looking pretty solid. So for now I just want to give you some information about what it entails.

U.S. Patents

Take a look at this amazing list of patents on cellulite: Cellulite Remedies Patents. (You will have to use your ‘back’ button to return to this page after visiting the USPTO site.)

The topic material may seem a little complicated. Nevertheless, you can see that there is quite a bit of merit to the science behind cellulite remedies. I will be reviewing and commenting on these and other patents in the coming weeks.

PubMed Medical Database

Scientific research seems to be lagging behind the patent office. Nevertheless, you can see what some scientists have been learning by taking a look at the document (pdf file) on all 30 of the research articles that I found on cellulite remedies at PubMed. The search was on the term ‘cellulite’. I am looking forward to analyzing these research studies to let you know what they really say among all the scientific jargon.

Stay tuned!

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Cellulite remedies is such a gigantic topic in the public realm that it is difficult to find what, if any, science there might be behind this topic. Nevertheless, European researchers have been studying cellulite for many years, in hopes of developing treatments that give reliable results.

Research does, indeed, offer hope. As an example of what scientists in France have found so far, the following article appeared in 2008: “Use of the microdialysis technique to assess responsiveness of femoral adipose tissue after 12 sessions of mechanical massage technique.” Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, vol. 22 (no. 12), pp. 1465-1470 (2008). By C. Monteaux and M. Lafontan, LPG Systems Scientific Research, Sophia Antipolis, France. The original abstract for this article is available to the public at PubMed.

Although this study was conducted by a commercial enterprise, it is published in a real scientific journal. The main conclusion of the study is, “These results suggest an increase in the lipolytic responsiveness of femoral adipose tissue in women with cellulite having undergone 12 sessions of mechanical massage.” When translated into everyday English, this means that 12 massage sessions increased the breakdown of fat on women’s thighs. The not so obvious catch in this study is that the stimulus used for inducing fat breakdown in the first place was an injection of a substance called isoproterenol. This is an ingredient that is used in mesotherapy to treat cellulite. This study does not show that massage alone does anything for reducing cellulite.

The nice thing about this study is that is rests on mesotherapy research, which is pretty good. Now we know that mesotherapy can be improved by massage treatments. The take-home lesson, however, is that you have to get treatment from someone who is professionally trained to administer mesotherapy. This is a topic unto itself, which I will review soon. In fact, I am considering developing a separate page at this blog that will be devoted to cellulite. It would be of great benefit for you to know how you can weave through all the hullaballoo on this topic to find out what the best scientifically-supported strategies are. Yup, that’s exactly what I will do. It should take me a couple of weeks to gather some good information for you and get this going. Stay tuned!

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

This topic is becoming a not-so-well-kept secret: Excess fat around your belly is a hormone factory that includes estrogen. Yes, this means that the more fat you are carry around, the more estrogen dominant you will become.

Estrogen Dominance in Men – Yup, in Men!

Forget all the fancy commercials about drugs for erectile dysfunction, all the poppycock about penis enlargement, and any other simple-minded approach to making ‘manly’ things work right. The underlying issue is estrogen dominance. And if you are too fat, then you are making yourself worse.

A Couple of Solutions

Of course, everything that you can do to get rid of belly fat is going to be helpful. That is the man theme of this blog. However, you may still reach a plateau and get stuck before you reach your ideal fat composition. I’m going to give you two crucial and overlooked solutions that men either don’t know about or refuse to act on.

Number 1. The first solution is to address your estrogen dominance with a key hormone supplement. (I know, that sounds weird for men). You can do this directly by a daily intake of 10 mg of progesterone, which is the key hormone for opposing estrogen. Women have known about this for decades. This is a significant part of Hormone Replacement Therapy. However, progesterone is a hormone that we men must have in balance, too. The main difference is that men require about half as much as women, so progesterone supplements have been designed for men.

I have been supplementing with progesterone for a few months now, and I already feel the influence on my sleep, energy level, and even my workout results. Several companies make excellent products. The best ones, based on what I see as sound biochemical reasons, are in creams that are delivered in pump dispensers. You can certainly find one at your local nutrition store. Or you can see the products that I have selected as the best at my store site, Doctors Nutrition Center. (Just look at the list of products under Men’s Hormone Balance.)

Number 2. Human Growth Hormone. Forget about what you read regarding professional athletes and the misuse of HGH. The most important thing to know is that this is the master hormone. Your your testosterone and other steroid hormones will go back into balance when your HGH levels increase to youthful levels.

If you are so fortunate as to have an anti-aging doctor who gives you HGH injections, then have at it. For the rest of us, HGH levels respond to certain amino acid supplements, foods, sleep patterns, and types of exercise workouts. I’ve  addressed some of these in the final installment of my report, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” If you haven’t got your copy yet, do so by subscribing my Belly Fat Science News.

You can also get some good perspective on natural ways to stimulate HGH at my anti-aging page at HerbScientist.com. It is a great place to get started.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Let’s delve into the world of a chemist (me) for a moment and see what we can find that will help you get rid of some fat. Today the topic is plastics, or more specifically, plasticizers. This topic started for me in 1974, while I was still a graduate student. At the time our lab had been buying solvents in plastic bottles because they were so much cheaper than in glass bottles. However, some of the chemical analyses that I was doing at that time were giving me odd results. After a lot of thought about what the problem might be, I got lucky when I noticed that the plastic solvent bottles smelled like … plastic! In hopes of finding out the nature of the odor, I distilled a gallon of methanol from one of the bottles, then noticed a syrupy sludge that was left over. It smelled strongly of plastic. After a quick chemical analysis, I identified the main substance as a compound called dimethyl phthalate. I then learned that this is one of the plasticizing agents that go into making plastic bottles. At the time I thought nothing of it, except from then on I distilled my solvents to rid them of this contaminant.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and plasticizers are now big news. Phthalates, along with a compound called bisphenol A (BPA), have attracted a lot of attention because they leach into plastic containers and cause toxicity in the foods and drinks that contain them.

We are talking about thousands of products. Water bottles are only the most obvious of the plastic containers. Plastic is also found in plastic food containers, in canned foods and drinks that are lined with plastic, in boxes of processed foods, in plastic dishes, and in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups, to name a few. Plastic seems to be almost everywhere.

Plasticizers, Estrogen Dominance, and Fat

The reason that these kinds of molecules are toxic is that they have an estrogenic effect. This just means that they add to the estrogen load even though they are not natural estrogens. So bear with me while a make this point. Natural estrogens, such as estradiol, are steroids. Natural estrogens are not at all similar to BPA and phthalates.

Somehow the human body accepts plasticizers as if they were estrogens, although not perfectly. If you wonder about the effects of non-natural estrogens (called “xenoestrogens”), you are not alone. They are now being blamed for causing estrogen dominance, even in infants, and all of the consequences that come with it. The FDA is doing its usual dance, since plastics are part of a big industry. in 2008 a scientific panel evaluated several research studies on plasticizers and concluded that they do, indeed, pose a significant health risk. At  first the FDA ignored the recommendations to remove plasticizers from contact with foods and drinks, and even claimed that they, “…needed more studies,” to confirm the danger. The danger was so clear already, though, that the FDA finally relented, at least partially. BPA is supposed to be removed at least from containers for baby foods and drinks. Canada and other countries have already seen the light and banned BPA from food and drink containers, so the U.S. is a little slow on this issue.

As you may know by now, estrogen dominance leads to fat gain, and fat gain accelerates estrogen dominance. This is really a dangerous spiral, and it is made worse by plasticizers in your diet. One of the two absolutely best things that you can do to negate the fat-building effects of xenoestrogenic plasticizers is to avoid them. Never cook with plastic,  never cook or reheat food in plastic containers in the microwave oven, never drink water out of plastic bottles … you get the picture. Although this doesn’t sound easy, it can be done if you have enough incentive to get rid of excess fat.

The second, and probably more important, thing to do is make sure you are getting enough progesterone into your system to counterbalance estrogen dominance. This is not necessarily a simple thing to do, so I will be posting much more on this topic very soon. Even if you have no exposure to xenoestrogens, which is unlikely anywhere in the U.S. today, you are most likely deficient in progesterone anyway.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D