The Diet Dilemma (Excerpt from Your Body, Your Responsibility)

Chapter 3

The bodies of people who have a weight problem function differently. Their bodies are more adept at storing energy than they are at using it. Ideally, you want your body to be an energy-using machine instead of an energy-storing machine. The function of your body dictates which scenario is more dominant. Anyone who is overweight has to make the assumption that their bodies are not capable of using calories efficiently. This stems from the dysfunctions that a person has in his or her body. Spines that are not in position, hips that don’t function properly, and knees that do not work right all contribute to these dysfunctions. No one is aware of these dysfunctions, not even the doctors you regularly go to, unless you are hurt. You then become a part of the insurance/medical nightmare that we all dread. All of this can be pre- vented by learning how to properly position your body, how to perform functional stretching to gain mobility, and how to use resistance training to strengthen your body. We will address all of this later in this book.

The area that is focused on by virtually everyone interested in losing weight is diet. Most people think that a diet is the only thing they need to do to successfully lose weight. The basic problem with this line of thinking is that you have to qualify what exactly you are trying to lose. Your body mass is made of muscle, bone, fat, and primarily water. To lose ten pounds of water or muscle means your body weight went down by ten pounds, but you didn’t lose an ounce of fat. Everyone who is dieting is interested in losing body fat.

The bottom line with dieting is that body fat has to be used up by the body. Body fat has to be converted into energy for the muscles of the body to use. You cannot diet away body fat, you
can only use it up. Dieting alone will only make you lose muscle, a little fat, and some water. It all amounts to weight. So, if weight is all you are looking at, then that is all you are going to see. This is why there are so many diet books being published each year. Everyone is looking for the magic diet. There is no such thing.

Unfortunately, due to the sedentary nature of everyone’s life, our real calorie requirements for each day are far less than any of us realize. The caloric intake for most adults to achieve maintenance is set between seventeen hundred and two thousand calories per day. A more realistic number would be about eight hundred to twelve hundred per day. The more sedentary an individual is, the fewer calories they need to take in each day.

Excess intake of calories is only part of the problem with being overweight. The fact that the food you eat has no place to go is the other part of the problem. Muscle is the destination for your food. The more functional muscle you have on your body, the more calories you need each day to maintain and support that muscle. In order for muscle to be functional, muscles need to be exercised and demanded from on a regular basis. This is the area in which every adult and child who has a weight problem falls short. Activities that you do every day, such as working and chasing the kids, are not performed at an intensity level that would make your body respond by keeping and building muscle. If these activities were performed at the required intensity to cause muscle response, you would only be able to perform them for about a maximum of two hours. We know this isn’t the case.

An important point to understand is that the human body is stingy with energy. What we mean by this is that once the body takes in energy in the form of food and drink, it either uses the energy for the muscles of the body or it stores the excess energy in the form of body fat. Due to the sedentary lifestyle of most people, everyone ends up eating more than what their body really can use.

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