What to do during this Holiday Season?

How can we manage to engage in a way of eating that will help lose weight, or keep us from gaining weight?  I, personally, have never found  a workable solution to this problem, but here's some advice that we may, ... or may not, ...  find helpful.

This Holiday Season,
 Stop the Wrist Slaps and Write-Offs

                    By Yoni Freedhoff, M.D.    December  2012.

I've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of people go through the holiday season hoping to manage their weight. I've seen large gains, small gains, the status quo, and even some losses. But one thing's for sure: As far as long-term likelihood of success goes, extremes are bad omens.

In categorizing holiday strategies, there are really only two possible extreme holiday behaviors—the wrist-slappers and the write-offers.

The wrist-slappers are the folks who feel that their own weight management supersedes humanity's cultural and time-immemorial use of food in celebration. Consequently, they spend the bulk of their holidays slapping their wrists rather than enjoying indulgent fare.The write-offers are the folks who decide that celebratory eating trumps thoughtfulness and that holidays represent the carte blanche of caloric indulgence.

The wrist-slappers will often lose weight over the holiday season, while the write-offers often gain substantially. But in the end, both tend to fail at long-term weight management.

Wrist-slappers fail in the long run, because the human condition prevents people from perpetually denying themselves the ability to derive pleasure from food, and without a middle ground, these all-or-nothing people regularly go from strict periods of "nothing" right back to "all." These are the folks who rapidly lose huge amounts of weight and then, often just as rapidly, gain it back again.

Write-offers fail in the long run because the human condition is such that regularly giving oneself inches generally leads to regularly giving oneself miles. What might begin as holiday write-offs more often than not will devolve into vacation write-offs, illness write-offs, times-of-higher-stress write-offs, weekend write-offs, and eventually just all-the-time write-offs.

Given the calories in our indulgent holiday fare, given the role of food in celebration and social gathering, and given the human condition, my experience has taught me that gaining 1 or 2 pounds over last two weeks of the year is par for a thoughtfully navigated course and nothing to be too worried about.

This holiday season, instead of wrist slaps or write offs, why not live a life of thoughtful reduction? No blind restrictions, but also no blind consumptions. Ask yourself whether or not something's worth its calories and how much you need of it to be happily satisfied. Remember, too, that what's worth it on Christmas Eve, might not be worth it on just plain Tuesday, and that the healthiest life you can enjoy over the holidays, when seen through the lens of our shared human condition, ought to include some thoughtful indulgence.

 Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, where he's the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute—dedicated to non-surgical weight management since 2004. Dr. Freedhoff's book "Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work" will be published by Simon & Schuster's Free Press in April 2013.

I recently posted an article: Do Calories matter ... discussing this issue with regard to Low-Carb eating.  Here is a Paleo expert's recently stated viewpoint on whether or not Calories matter.

Low Carb and Paleo: My Thoughts Part 1
                    By Rob Wolf

Slowly I realized, both by experimentation and by really looking at the literature: CALORIES MATTERED MORE THAN CARBS FOR BODY-COMP.

I have to say this was a pretty big shake-up for me. I’d assumed one could eat as much fat as one desired and STILL get leaner. As I mentioned above, when I first started eating Low Carb, or more specifically, cyclic low carb (CLC) I was leaner than ever in my life. I know based on blood work and fat deposition that I had insulin resistance while vegan, and CLC helped with this immensely, but it was my new-found energy and activity level that drove my leanness, not an inability to store fat in the absence of significant insulin.

I think this is one of the most damaging messages that comes out of the Low Carb camp to this day, I was duped by this, so I’m not going to do what a lot of other recovered Low Carb writers do and make folks out to be idiots for still believing this…but, it is time to face facts. In every damn study it is clear that for fat loss we’d like adequate protein, and a calorie restriction scenario. Low Carb is fantastic for this in that one typically feels satisfied on high protein, moderate fat, loads of veggies. If one is insulin resistant, this approach can be nothing short of miraculous. HOWEVER! If one manages to cram enough cheese, olive oil and grass-fed butter down the pie-hole, this is in fact, a “mass gain” diet.

Low Carb is fantastic for the insulin resistant individual, as it addresses both glycemic load and satiety. But if one manages to bypass normal satiety mechanisms, or if one can find some combinations of highly palatable, but low-carb foods, it’s still a ticket to Fat Camp.

The insistence on the part of the Low Carb community in adhering to the “no insulin, no fat gain” dogma ends up discrediting the real therapeutic benefit of Low Carb and hurts us all. The insulin resistant, crack-addicted individual really benefits from Low Carb, I cannot say that sufficiently, and the ease with which people lose weight (fat) on these programs is remarkable, but insulin control takes a backseat to calorie reduction via highly satiating foods. This whole situation further damages the ability to push ketosis as a therapeutic treatment for everything from cancer to neurodegenerative disease. It’s a tool folks, not an end-all-be-all.”

  ROBB WOLF is a former research biochemist and is regarded as one of the world's leading experts in Paleolithic nutrition.  He authored the best-selling book: The Paleo Solution (2010). Other books by him are: Practical Paleo (2012); Paleo Slow Cooking (2012); Paleo Comfort Foods (2011); Everyday Paleo (2011).

Wolf is a former California State Powerlifting Champion (565Lb Squat, 345lb Bench, 565lb Dead Lift) and a 6-0 amateur kickboxer. He coaches athletes at the highest levels of competition and consults with Olympians and world champions in MMA, motocross, rowing and triathlon.

I count calories. I read food labels, and I weigh and measure my food. My calorie counting method is to record all of food in a computer food journal, which provides me with nutritional values for that food, and does the daily calorie math for me. The food journal that I use, DietPower, has an enormous food dictionary, and it also allows me to input food information from the labels of the food I actually use.

However, all of this carefully calculated calorie number is only an estimate.

We cannot be exactly certain of the amount of calories contained in the food we eat. This is partially because of labeling inaccuracies, partially because of measuring inaccuracies, and partially because of other things affecting calories, such as the the fact that even two pieces of the same fruit which are exactly the same size, can have small calorie differences due to the fruit’s ripeness etc.

Calories In:
      The amount of calories going into a body are estimates, 
                                 
Calories Out: 
       How many calories a body burns once those foods are inside that body is also an estimate.

It is an undisputed fact that different bodies burn different amounts of calories. All of the charts and graphs and formulas for BMR and RMR, are merely based on AVERAGES. Different people, even those who are the same sex, the same age and the same size, with similar activity levels, will burn calories at a lower level or a higher level than the BMR and RMR average calculations which these formulas provide.

We cannot exactly KNOW how many calories we are taking in, or how many calories our bodies are using. However, even though this information is inaccurate, It provides us with useful Guidelines, which makes it well worth the effort. Calorie Counting has helped me achieve a large weight-loss, and it is helping me to maintain that weight-loss.

Many long-term, Low-Carb people seem to be coming around to an understanding that Calorie Intake matters. Although the Low-carb position continues to be “that it’s not a simple matter of calories in, calories out”, many long-term low-carb “experts” are now speaking out in support of the fact that calories do matter -- in that calories have a strong influence within a carbohydrate restricted context, and that low-carb eating is not a license for eating large and unlimited amounts of food.

This is based on the position that although “a calorie is a calorie” going into the body, calories are handled differently within a body, “downstream”, and while the basic process is the same for everyone, not all bodies handle the same number of calories in exactly the same way.

Regina Wilshire of Weight of the Evidence Blog, who defines herself as “Low-Carb Health Examiner”, states this position in the following way.

“while those who initially follow a low-carb diet do not need to count calories, calories do count - in context. The context is physiology, the chemistry within our metabolism which is driven by our endocrine system. It isn't simply a math problem to calculate input of calories and output of energy expenditure - it requires actual nutrients within the context of those calories because a calorie is not a calorie in our body - a sugar calorie acts differently in our body than a fat calorie. Context.”

I recently ran across a video about calories by Barry Groves, Oxford, United Kingdom, who holds himself out as a Nutritional author, lecturer and journalist; with a doctorate in nutrional science.

Dr. Groves is a well-known low-carb guy, and the author of books: Natural Health & Weight Loss (2007) and Trick or Treat (2008), and he blogs at Second Opinion. I’ve purchased and read both his books, as well as his blog, and found them interesting and informative with regard to providing support for the Theory that a low-carb diet should be high-fat, and not high protein.

I find this video posted below, “Why You Can’t Count Calories”, to be an interesting analysis of the calorie counting process.
A Note of Caution about inaccurate statements within this video about Protein calories and Protein requirements. People have a maximum and a minimum requirement for Protein. The official protein requirement is between 0.8 and 1.2 grams per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of Ideal Body Weight.  Very few people have a 300 lb ideal body weight ... but if someone does, their protein requirement would be around 110 to 135 grams of protein daily.  A generally accepted explanation regarding excess protein (and fat) is set forth below.

"So, what happens if you consume too many calories and/or too much protein? Basically, when energy sources are high, both glucogenic and ketogenic amino acids are converted to fatty acids through the intermediate acetyl CoA. Other amino acids that are degraded to intermediates in the Krebs Cycle are siphoned off into the production of urea, a nitrogenous carboxyl compound that is filtered through the kidneys and secreted in the urine.

Put another way, you now have fatty acids that can store as body fat.

It is for this reason one should not consider a low-carb diet as an all-you-can-eat buffet, just hold the carbs. Whether you're new to carbohydrate restriction, or a long-term veteran, you need to know how much protein you need at minimum, and also understand where the maximum is for weight loss and weight maintenance." ....... Regina Wilshire, Weight of the Evidence Blog.

Why is it so difficult to keep weight off?
Apparently, evolution has given us
the mechanisms to gain weight
but not to lose it.

BEFORE indulging over the Holidays, think about what Dr. Ayra Sharma, professor of medicine and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, Canada has to say about this issue.

How The Hedonic System Ratchets Up Your Weight

“Bill Colmers, the neuroscientist, presented an overview of how the brain affects eating behaviour and regulates body weight.

I was particularly impressed by how Colmers described the respective roles of the hedonic and homeostatic systems in human evolution.

While the hedonic (pleasure seeking) system evolved to help our hunter-gatherer ancestors seek out and take advantage of any highly palatable energy dense foods they happened to come upon, the homeostatic system evolved to protect from wasting away those extra calories that they did ingest.

Thus, according to Colmers, the hedonic system’s job was to make it hard to resist, in fact, make our ancestors to often go to considerable lengths to searching out those rare palatable energy dense foods and then to eat as much of them as possible, whether they were actually hungry or not. They could of course always store those extra calories as fat tissue for later use - a tremendous survival advantage.

In contrast, the job of the homeostatic system was to ‘defend’ those stored calories - in fact, it is designed to regard any accumulation of fat stores as the ‘new normal’ and from then on make sure that this increased level of fatness was maintained (or regained) ever after.

Indeed, the homeostatic system is ‘designed’ to readjust its set point of body weight - after all it has to do this starting from birth as body weight continues to increase as the baby grows into a toddler that grows into a kid and ultimately into an adult.

Unfortunately, the mechanisms that allow the set point to reset to ‘defend’ a progressively higher body weight - generally works in only one direction - after all that is all that is required by nature, where people do not naturally ’shrink’.

Colmers used the analogy of a ratchet to describe how the homeostatic system is designed to defend ever increasing body weights without having the ability to reset itself to a lower body weight even if the person now wants to lose weight.

Once set to a higher weight (e.g. resulting from ‘overindulgence’ driven by the hedonic system or other factors that may promote weight gain), the homeostatic system uses a wide range of mechanisms affecting hunger, satiety, appetite, metabolic rate, etc. to ‘defend’ this weight from then on.

A very helpful analogy I thought, nicely explaining why evolution has given us the mechanisms to gain weight but not to lose it.”

Dr. Arya Sharma, professor of medicine and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, Canada.

 Previously, I posted an article detailing this ratcheting analogy, for more see:  Set Point