Page Two

Weigh Carefully These Questions

✔ DO YOU NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT?

✔ DO YOU WANT TO LOSE IT?

✔ WILL YOU SHUN JUNK FOOD?

✔ WILL YOU COUNT CALORIES?

✔ WILL YOU EXERCISE REGULARLY?

✔ WILL YOUR METABOLISM HELP?

✔ ARE YOUR GLANDS TO BLAME?

✔ ARE YOUR FAT CELLS TOO BIG?

✔ ARE THEY TOO NUMEROUS?

✔ ARE YOUR GENES AT FAULT?

✔ IS YOUR GOAL REALISTIC?

✔ WILL THE WEIGHT LOST STAY LOST?

THE BOTTOM LINE: HOW STRONG ARE YOUR WILLPOWER AND YOUR STAYING POWER?

Is Losing Weight a Losing Battle?

WINNING THIS FIGHT IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS THIN PEOPLE THINK!

THIS is a war waged on many fronts. Fasting sheds the unwanted pounds in a hurry. Liquid diets melt them off at a goodly clip. Runners jog them off. Walkers do it at a slower pace. Calorie-counters keep tabs on their food intake. Some resort to more drastic measures. Jaws have been wired shut to thwart weak wills when faced with food. Operations have bypassed certain areas of the digestive tract, have stapled stomachs, and have performed procedures that suck out globs of fat from fat deposits. With all these options, victory must be imminent.

But not so fast! Fat cells once defeated come storming back. Pounds lost return, often with reinforcements. The battle rages back and forth, as temporary successes are followed by disheartening failures. The struggle drags on, discouragement sets in, and weary dieters are ready to capitulate. They shouldn’t. The way is long and the road is rough, but victory lies ahead for the hardy ones who persevere. So gird up the loins of your mind and remember, the harder the fight, the sweeter the victory. At the outset of your battle against fat, you must also brace up your mind to maintain a sense of self-respect and self-worth. You may have to endure the social slights and slurs of a society obsessed with thinness.

You must resist unthinking hostesses who urge you to eat what you shouldn’t. You must survive the prejudices of cruel critics who brand you as gluttonous.a The former would defeat you with kindness; the latter, prejudge you on outward appearances.

You must ignore the simplistic proclamations of the uninformed: “If you didn’t overeat, you wouldn’t be overweight!” They make it sound simple, but it is very complex. It is true that if you do not eat more calories than you burn up, you will not gain weight. In many cases, however, not all calories eaten are burned up. For various reasons, many of them are stored as fat in fat cells. So for the overweight, it can at times be a lonely battle, except for supportive friends aware of the odds against which they struggle. And those odds may be formidable indeed.

Preliminary to plunging into the complexities of the struggle, however, there is this question to be weighed: Do you need to lose weight? In some countries thinness has become a fetish. Some become thin to the point of being undernourished, or even go to the extreme of anorexia nervosa or bulimia. Rather than weight alone being the basis for judgment, the percentage of fat in the body is considered by scientists to be a better guide. They define overweight as obesity when in men 20 to 25 percent of body weight is fat and in women when 25 to 30 percent is fat.

Certainly, specific weights given in tables based on height and weight alone are inadequate. As one researcher says: “What the tables don’t tell you, though, is that two people of the same weight and height can differ greatly in their degree of obesity and overall physical condition. Lean tissue and muscle weigh more per volume than fat, so weight alone is not a very good measure of health or fitness.” A more reliable guide​—though still imperfect—​are those tables that consider age, sex, and body type, and give a range of acceptable weights, such as the one on page 7.

Many persons assume that fat cells (called adipocytes) are very lazy things, just lying around in the body taking up space​—far too much space! Fat tissue (called adipose tissue) is more than a storage depot for triglycerides (fats). About 95 percent of adipose tissue is nonliving fat, but the remaining 5 percent is divided between structural material, blood and blood vessels, and living cells active in the body’s metabolism. These cells can be very greedy, grabbing on to and converting to fat the dietary nutrients from blood circulating through the capillaries that intersperse adipose tissue. Certain hormones promote either the synthesis of fat or its release as fatty acids into the blood to meet the body’s energy needs. Instead of being lazy, to the despair of some people, their fat cells work overtime!

In the past it was thought that once established in the body, fat cells did not increase in number, only in size. Later research has proved otherwise. As one scientific source says: “Enlargement of the storage capacity of adipose tissue is accomplished first by enlargement of the adipocyte contents of storage fat, triglyceride, and later on, when available adipocytes are filled to full capacity, by the formation of new fat cells.” When nearly empty, the adipocytes are very small, but as they add fat, they can increase their diameters tenfold, which means an increase in volume by a factor of about one thousand.

There are certain fat depots in the body where fat tends to collect. In men the waistline is one. In women it is the hips and thighs. Such persons may shed fat, but these locations are the last to release theirs. Researchers have discovered that fat cells have on their surfaces small molecules called alpha and beta receptors. Alpha receptors stimulate fat accumulation; beta receptors promote fat breakdown. Those favoring fat accumulation predominate on the fat cells of the hips and thighs of women and on the abdomen of men. One woman lost 15 percent of her body fat but virtually none from her hips and thighs. A man cut his weight drastically but kept his paunch.

Counting calories is not the simple solution to losing weight that many think. Calories are not equal. Eat 100 calories in carbohydrates and you may store 77 of them as body fat​—23 are burned in digesting the carbohydrates. But consume 100 calories in a pat of butter and 97 are stored as fat​—only three are consumed for digesting. The reason: Dietary fat is already chemically close to body fat, so it is stored as such much more easily. Counting calories is only part of the story. The source of those calories also counts. Calorie for calorie, fat foods are more fattening and less nourishing than carbohydrates. In one study, men overfed on a high-carbohydrate diet for seven months gained 30 pounds, but men overfed on a high-fat diet gained 30 pounds in three months.

Liquid diets shed weight more rapidly, which frequently causes complications. During the 1970’s liquid-protein diets were promoted, and by the end of 1977 approximately 60 deaths were attributed to them. Ventricular arrhythmias, that is, rapid and irregular beating of the heart’s ventricle chambers, were believed to be the immediate cause of many of these deaths. Current liquid diets have been improved by the addition of not only protein but also carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Even so, such low-energy diets with their fast weight losses still have their drawbacks.

The drastic calorie reduction of diets producing fast weight losses slows body metabolism​—the decline begins within 24 hours, and in two weeks the metabolic slowdown can be as much as 20 percent. One doctor questioned about low-calorie liquid diets commented on this: “Your metabolism will slow to a crawl on so few calories, and you’ll find yourself irritable and fatigued. Also, up to 70% of your long-term weight loss will be muscle, not fat.” Dieters are wanting to lose fat, not muscle. Muscle tissue is the body’s best calorie burner. Losing it slows your basal metabolic rate​—the measure of energy used to maintain routine bodily functions, such as breathing and cell repair. This accounts for approximately 60 to 75 percent of energy consumed by the body.

This metabolic decline is why dieters often stop losing weight after a few weeks of severe dieting. One woman, who since she was 16 had kept her weight down by dieting, gained 25 pounds with the birth of her first child but quickly lost it, then gained 50 pounds after the birth of her second child and could not lose it. She reports: “At one point I went to a weight-loss clinic where I was cut to 500 calories a day. I lost ten pounds the first month, two the second month and nothing the next two months despite faithfully following the program. When my calorie intake was raised to 800 per day, I steadily gained 2 pounds per week till I had gained back the 12 I had so painfully lost. So discouraging!”

In addition to a slowed-down metabolism, an enzyme, lipoprotein lipase, that regulates fat storage, may become more active in storing fat after crash dieting. For both these reasons, some people regain lost weight when normal eating is resumed. In fact, the majority regain the weight they lost​—95 percent for the very obese and 66 percent overall. The weight regained, however, is mostly fat, not lost muscle, which means a reduced metabolism that encourages more fat storage.

One researcher noticed that those who had lost weight on previous diets and regained it had greater trouble losing it again on later diets. “Could dieting inhibit later weight loss?” he wondered. Tests were conducted on obese rats. On their first diet, it took 21 days to lose the excess weight and, after going off the diet, 45 days to regain it. On a second diet, it took 46 days to lose it and only 14 days to regain it​—twice as long to lose it and three times as fast to put it back on!

Does it work the same with people? On low-calorie diets, 111 patients lost an average of 3.1 pounds [1.4 kg] a week, but on the same diet a second time lost only 2.1 pounds [1 kg] per week. Follow-up tests with two other groups of people verified those results.

Many of the experts call obesity a disease, say it is in the genes, is inherited, and that the body has a set point for weight that may destine you to fatness. But not all scientists agree on the theories on obesity. The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences says that overweight itself, whatever its original cause, may be responsible for the changes in body chemistry: “The obese state, once established, may be stabilized by secondary metabolic changes that the obesity itself generates.”

Annals also questions the set point theory: “This Annal provides little evidence in support of either hypothesis.” Glandular problems are cited as causes of overweight, especially the thyroid, which has a major role in controlling metabolism. The point is raised by some, however, that its failure might be caused by overeating. Dr. Riggle of Texas comments on this: “The thyroid governs metabolism, as well as the pituitary. But we have to remember that people who get into poor nutritional habits cause these glands not to get the nutrients they need to manufacture their products. So the glandular problems can start with the dietary indiscretions.”

Overeating is the simple reason for obesity that so many people, including researchers on obesity, associate with it: “For most obese people, however, the accumulation of excess weight and adipose tissue most likely signifies a prolonged, and often, insidious process: excessive consumption of calories, during a sufficient number of days, above and beyond those used for muscular or metabolic work.” (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1987, page 343) The health hazards they thereby lay themselves open to are sobering indeed:

“Obesity is associated with a number of health hazards. It may impair both cardiac and pulmonary function, modify endocrine function, and cause emotional problems. Hypertension, impaired glucose tolerance, and hypercholesterolemia are more common in overweight individuals than in individuals of normal weight. Thus, it is not surprising that obesity may contribute to morbidity [disease] and mortality in individuals with hypertension, stroke, type II or non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, some types of cancer, and gallbladder disease. Over the long term, obesity is also considered an independent risk factor for atherosclerotic heart disease.”​—Journal of the American Medical Association, November 4, 1988, page 2547.

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? And not just because of the big words. Obviously, losing weight is a battle that needs winning. Are there ways that will help you gain the victory?

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 4]

INSTEAD OF BEING LAZY, FAT CELLS IN OVERWEIGHT PERSONS WORK OVERTIME

[Blurb on page 5]

COULD DIETING INHIBIT LATER WEIGHT LOSS?

[Blurb on page 6]

THE HEALTH HAZARDS ARE SOBERING INDEED

[Chart on page 7]

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT TABLES

Height Weight

MEN

5 2 128-134 131-141 138-150

5 3 130-136 133-143 140-153

5 4 132-138 135-145 142-156

5 5 134-140 137-148 144-160

5 6 136-142 139-151 146-164

5 7 138-145 142-154 149-168

5 8 140-148 145-157 152-172

5 9 142-151 148-160 155-176

5 10 144-154 151-163 158-180

5 11 146-157 154-166 161-184

6 0 149-160 157-170 164-188

6 1 152-164 160-174 168-192

6 2 155-168 164-178 172-197

6 3 158-172 167-182 176-202

6 4 162-176 171-187 181-207

WOMEN

4 10 102-111 109-121 118-131

4 11 103-113 111-123 120-134

5 0 104-115 113-126 122-137

5 1 106-118 115-129 125-140

5 2 108-121 118-132 128-143

5 3 111-124 121-135 131-147

5 4 114-127 124-138 134-151

5 5 117-130 127-141 137-155

5 6 120-133 130-144 140-159

5 7 123-136 133-147 143-163

5 8 126-139 136-150 146-167

5 9 129-142 139-153 149-170

5 10 132-145 142-156 152-173

5 11 135-148 145-159 155-176

6 0 138-151 148-162 158-179

[Credit Line]

Reprinted with permission from Society of Actuaries and Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors of America

Four Ways to Win

As an international magazine, Awake! deals with problems that prevail in various parts of the world. In dealing with health and medical matters, we do not endorse or recommend specific therapies.

THE RIGHT FOOD, AT THE RIGHT TIME, IN THE RIGHT AMOUNT, WITH THE RIGHT EXERCISE

DO NOT hate your fat cells. They are wonderful. They are designed for an important function. They make fat from sugar and fatty acids. If they need more room for storage space, they expand. If they need still more, they make new cells and fill them with fat. They are marvels at storing energy in the form of fat. It’s their specialty. In one pound they can store 3,500 calories, though the liver can pack only 250 calories in a pound of its energy-storage medium, glycogen.

Fat cells receive and obey signals. They cushion vital organs. They release their energy upon demand, supplying it as fuel for the body’s working cells. At times they receive emergency signals and spring into action. When sent life-threatening messages, they take lifesaving measures. They start hoarding their fat, holding it in reserve for the impending crisis.

It is now clear that fat plays an important, though incompletely understood role, in the body’s immune system. Fat cells can receive a false message and misinterpret it as a crisis; a crash diet may send fat cells the same message as would famine or starvation. Instead of fat breaking down, it is actually conserved, curtailing the release of calories to a trickle. But the fat cells have no way of knowing the difference. They react as they were designed to react. They hoard their energy for what they foresee as a future and more crucial need than the present. Parents magazine for March 1987 offers a possible explanation: “The more often you diet​—the more frequently your body senses you’re gearing up for a famine—​the more resistant the fat cells become to releasing their precious commodity.”

The body intervenes to cope with the current crisis by turning muscle into glucose​—the brain must have its glucose or the whole organism will close shop! But you do not want to lose muscle; you want to lose fat. Crash diets are not the winning way. Then what is? The winning ways, plural, are: the right food, at the right time, in the right amount, with the right kind of exercise​—and the right mental attitude. The dieter himself must be in the driver’s seat. Whether you reach your goal or not is up to you.

The Right Food

Foods high in calories and low in nutrients are not the right foods for weight reduction. Fats and simple sugars are loaded with calories but empty of nourishment. The right foods for both weight control and nourishment are the more complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables; the preferable meats are fish and fowl.

“Another basic approach to weight loss,” we are told by The Encyclopedia of Common Diseases, “should be to eliminate everything from your diet that is not a whole, nutritious, non-processed, natural food. In addition to food energy . . . your body constantly needs protein, fats, minerals and vitamins in optimum amounts to participate in body processes and to repair and renew body cells. When you eat whole foods [nonprocessed food complexes], you can be pretty confident that you’re getting necessary nutrients and not ‘empty’ calories.”

The Right Time

The right time is not while watching television. The incessant nibbling goes on for hours, perhaps consisting of greasy potato chips or French fries, cookies or desserts loaded with sugar, with uncounted empty calories mounting into the hundreds​—so hard to stop the snacking since fats and salt add flavor to food and sugar delights our sweet tooth!

Some nutritionists are now “coming around to the conviction that the body has less tendency to accumulate fat deposits if meals are eaten more frequently and served in smaller portions​—without a reduction in the daily food intake. They have also found that the meal which is most important and should therefore make the largest caloric contribution to a person’s day is breakfast.”

The Right Amount

Eat a variety and eat enough. You have learned what will happen if you panic the fat cells by stingy eating! On a weight-loss experiment, rats were given only one meal a day. During the study, their enzymes responsible for depositing fat increased tenfold. The report said: “It was as if their bodies were saying, ‘The minute more food comes along, I’m ready to lay down extra fat just in case this stress happens to me again!’”

So “if you have to diet, don’t make the mistake of fasting or eating just one meal a day (essentially a 23-hour fast).” Be content to lose slowly, a pound or even a half pound a week. You took a long time to put the fat on; give your body time to take it off. So eat enough to keep your fat cells relaxed and even willing to contribute a few of their own calories to the cause. But don’t get gluttonous. Enough is enough!

And with the passage of time, less is enough. As we get older, muscle cells decline and fat cells take their place. Since the lean body mass requires the largest portion of energy, with its decline energy needs decline and metabolism slows down. If food intake does not decline accordingly, fat accumulates. And if older people exercise less​—as they usually do—​still more food goes to fat. But one researcher says, “You can exercise the intramuscular fat away.” And remember, a good dietary effort can be nullified by binging from time to time.

The Right Exercise

Scientist Covert Bailey says in his book Fit or Fat?: “The ultimate cure for obesity is exercise! . . . It is a simple fact that those who exercise aerobically on a regular schedule do not get fat. If I were offering a pill to decrease the tendency of the body to make fat, fat people would be lining up to buy it. I am offering such a pill; it takes just 12 minutes a day to swallow it!” Most data, however, shows that at least 20 minutes is required before aerobic benefits occur.

The exercise Bailey has in mind is aerobics​—sustained movement that gets the heart to pump at a fast rate, thereby supplying copious amounts of oxygen to the body for burning fat. Typical exercises in this category are jogging, rope skipping, bicycling, and brisk walking. Before undertaking such an exercise program, however, it is advisable to consult a doctor for direction. Exercise is prescribed by most researchers in weight reduction, as the following statements show.

The slowed metabolic rate “that normally occurs when individuals are on low-energy diets may be prevented or reduced by incorporating physical activity into the program.”​—The Journal of the American Medical Association.

“The consensus among weight-loss specialists is that a regular routine of exercise is one key [a major one] to weight reduction and maintenance. A good cardiovascular workout increases the body’s resting metabolism for as long as fifteen hours afterward, which means more calories will be burned even after you stop.”​—Parents magazine.

“In any effective weight control program, exercise is essential. Regularity of exercise is more important than intensity.”​—Conn’s Current Therapy.

“Exercise changes us. It increases the metabolic rate, increases the amount of muscle, raises the level of calorie-consuming enzymes inside the muscle, and increases the burning of fats. . . . It can also be shown that physically fit people have slightly elevated metabolism. Even when they are at rest fit people burn more calories than fat people do.”​—Fit or Fat?

After warning that excess weight is a killer because of heart disease and high blood pressure, the good news: “One comforting fact: the damaging effect of overweight is reversible when the weight is trimmed,” says The Encyclopedia of Common Diseases.

“The sad thing,” Bailey says, “about the grossly obese people who often claim they would do anything, absolutely anything, to lose weight is that they refuse to do the one thing that will do them some good. They refuse real exercise.”

Little wonder fat is so pervasive when we realize that the body can make fat out of protein, out of carbohydrate, and out of dietary fat. “Almost everything you eat,” Bailey says, “if it can be digested at all, can be converted to fat.” Fast-weight-loss diets change body chemistry so that “you have a fat person’s chemistry. Your tendency to get fat is greater than when you started!”

A certain set of enzymes is needed for the burning of fats. If you do not have these fat-burning enzymes, “you are going to get fat. Enzymes will increase only if you stimulate the DNA by exercise and if you eat enough that there will be amino acids available for biosynthesis,” says Bailey.

At times muscles need sudden bursts of energy, increasing the demand fiftyfold in a split second. To get it, they must have enzymes capable of metabolizing the energy sources. Only in muscle cells are such enzymes to be found​—special enzymes with this capacity to burn calories so fast. Ninety percent of all the calories burned in the body are burned in muscles. These enzymes are found in the mitochondria scattered throughout muscle cells, and during exercise they promote the burning of fats in muscle tissue to supply energy.

Concerning these enzymes, Fit or Fat? says: “It has been shown repeatedly that steady aerobic exercise actually causes an increase in the number and size of mitochondria in each muscle cell. Further biochemical studies have confirmed that, with exercise, there is an increase in metabolizing enzymes inside those mitochondria.” Aerobics makes it happen; without it fat happens.

The December 15, 1988, Boardroom Reports extols the virtues of exercise: “Physical inactivity doubles the risk of heart attack, and researchers classify sedentary people in the same high-risk category for heart attacks as smokers and people with high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels.” It adds that “carrying weights while jogging or walking greatly increases the health benefits of exercise.” The recommendation is to start with half-pound weights, and exaggerate arm movements.

Spot the triggers that start you eating when you shouldn’t. Know the excuses you use to weaken your good resolves. Say no to them immediately! Reject them angrily!

Develop the will to win! Know what you have to do, and do it! Eat the right things in the right amounts and trust your body to put them to the right use. The body is very adaptable. It adapts to the rare atmosphere of mountain heights by making more red blood cells to carry oxygen​—but it takes time. It adapts to exposure to a hot sun by adding more melanin to the skin to protect from ultraviolet rays​—but it takes time. And it will adapt to sustained exercise by making the enzymes needed to burn more fats for energy​—but it takes time.

So be patient. It took time to gain weight; give yourself time to lose it. Move toward your goal step-by-step. Small daily successes in eating and exercising turn what was first a chore into a habit, and soon the flywheel of habit will propel you smoothly along to your image of the new you! Win the war, lose the fat, cherish the victory!

[Pictures on page 9]

Indoor aerobics:

Rope skipping

Stationary bike

[Pictures on page 10]

Outdoor aerobics:

Jogging

Brisk walking