Diet and Exercise Evolution: Adaptation (part I) — Theory

Adaptation is the most important weight loss concept you can
learn. The human body adapts to the pressures it is put under
with the goal of prolonging life. Your body wants to survive as
long as possible, and it will adjust its internal workings
quickly if it is presented with changes. So, everything that
happens to you – especially things that happen regularly, like
eating habits, sleep cycles and general activity – will have
two effects on your body. 1) An immediate effect
in the short term, then 2) for the long term, your body will
adapt to it to better perform the next time. It is this
adaptation that most people forget about.

Mind-Body Split Your mind perceives changes to your
environment through your eyes and other senses, that’s how you
understand the world around you. But your organs and cells
can only perceive changes in the demands made on them and the
kinds of nutrients they get in your blood. Whether the
stimulus comes from the world (a virus enters your body) or from
you (you decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator), the
cells in your body will react so that the next time that
event happens, the cells can handle the situation better. In the
case of the virus, your body creates antibodies. In the case of
taking the stairs, your body ups the endurance of your leg
muscles.

Your thoughts have little effect on what happens in your body at
the level of your organs, and even less at the level of your
cells. You are always in mental control of your muscles except
for built-in reactions, and you can consciously take control of
your breathing. However, none of your other systems can be
consciously controlled. That’s why you can’t will
yourself thin. So, never mistake by doing something that you
“intend” to lose weight, but instead think of how your body will
adapt to your performing the action.

The Factory You can think of your body as a factory: The
boss (your brain) can see where the finished product is going,
and how much profit to make. But the workers can’t see all the
accounting papers or the costs of materials or even the
customers. The workers (your cells) only see that they’re being
asked to work on a certain task, at a certain rate of pay, for a
certain number of hours, and so on. That’s what makes a
difference to them. The factors that directly affect them and
their job are the only things that will affect how they do their
job.

If the boss of this company needs more production or more
profits, he can’t just tell the workers to work harder.
That never works! He could raise their pay, or give them
more breaks, or just put some music over the intercom. There are
many ways to communicate to your workers, but you have to send
the message that has the right effect. What about giving the
workers fewer breaks so that they’ll have a better output?
They’re not wasting time, after all! But we all know that
workers need breaks or else they slow down, get tired, get
angry, and maybe quit from the stress. The same applies to
lowering wages. The bad boss thinks that he can make more money
if he pays his workers less. As the boss of the cells in your
body, you shouldn’t just eat less, because that’s like
lowering the salary of your working cells. You have to get
your cells to adapt in the direction you want, and the tactics
to do that may not be obvious. You have to do the cellular
equivalent of improving morale and increasing worker
satisfaction.

Training Weight training uses the principle of
adaptation. By lifting a heavy weight, your body needs to expend
some calories by burning blood-sugar and also uses up some
nutrients. But that’s trivial. More importantly, the main effect
of weight training is that in the days afterward, the muscle
will slightly increase in size and strength. Why does this
happen? Adaptation. Because the message you’re giving
your worker muscle cells is that their job is to lift a massive
weight, and your survival may depend on it. Your muscle worker
thinks: “I could just barely do that today, so tomorrow I’ll
need to be a bit bigger, just in case it happens again.” The
muscle is adapting to the stimulus of a heavy load by making it
a little easier for you to lift that load in the future.

Survive! To your body, everything is a matter of
survival, and the most important element that your cells try
to maintain is your energy. If you don’t have the energy
to chase down your food, you will starve, and if you don’t have
the energy to run away from a predator, you will be their food.
If you burn though energy too quickly, there won’t be enough
left over to live on. That’s why your body loves to keep fat:
it’s good for survival if the food runs out.

The key to understanding adaptation is to think of yourself
living in the African savanna, and what your activities would
mean if they were applied only to your survival. When you run,
your cells think, “We must be running to catch food, or to
escape death!” That’s all that cells know: survival.

To the bodybuilder, the question becomes, “Will lifting a heavy
weight make me stronger?” The answer is No! The immediate effect
is that it will make you weaker. If you lift 100 lbs 10
times, does that mean that you can then lift 120 lbs right away?
No, you’re weaker and tired from your previous work. But your
body will think that it needs to lift 100 lbs 10 times in order
to survive, so it will adapt to make that a little easier
for you next time. Taking a week off and allowing time for your
muscle to grow a little bit will mean that you are stronger. So,
the next week you lift 120 lbs, and your body needs to adapt
AGAIN, thinking that you now need to lift 120 lbs to survive.
This makes you stronger week by week. “Will lifting a light
weight 50 times make me stronger?” No! Your muscle will be
exhausted, but you’re asking for it to be able to last
longer, not grow stronger. How will your body last longer?
By adapting your energy stores (fat) to release more slowly
and gradually. This is great for your endurance, but BAD
NEWS if you want to look “ripped” with little body fat.

But adaptation does not only apply in this case. Your body
adapts to everything. Everything you do and eat. So, you
have to ask yourself, “Am I sending my cells the right message
in the things I do and the food I eat?”

Look for the sequel to this article, Adaptation II, for tons of
examples and practical advice based on the principle of
Adaptation.

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