“Eat Less and Exercise More” is Bad Advice

So let's talk about this study that came out not too long ago, the Biggest Loser study, because it was front page article in the New York Times. It was one of the most read articles in the New York Times. And it was based on this sort of study of about, I think, six or eight, maybe 10 people who went through the Biggest Loser program, followed them before and after, measured their metabolism, measured their resting metabolic rate, measured their body composition, all these things that we think matters. And they concluded that when they lost weight, they slowed their metabolism down. And then when they gained weight, they actually were at a slower metabolism even than when they started. So they were kind of in worse shape. And it was sort of a depressing study because everybody got the message that it's hopeless, that if you just are doing the most aggressive weight loss program, you lose £100, you're destined to gain it back, there's no way out. And that your body is going to always go back to that set point of being fat. And I, you know, I have a lot of problems now. I'd like to hear your view on that study and then I'll tell you mine.

The studies showed absolutely, Mark, it is hopeless. It's hopeless to expect to exercise your way to thinness and it's hopeless to try and starve yourself to thinness. It is not sustainable. And when you look at Gary Taube's work, the guy who wrote Good Calories, Bad Calories, they've tried this like with people in prison and people in locked metabolic wards who are paid for studies, they go crazy when you put them on low calorie, low fat diets.

They get angry. They get me. They dream about food. They are cranky, right?

Yeah. And this is not normal for us. So you have this situation on TV where people are getting injured. Here's what's happening. When you're fat, your body is storing energy instead of burning it, which means there's an energy deficit in the brain. And the brain is going to tell you store energy, there's a famine happening. Even if you're eating enough for there to not be a famine, because it keeps going into fat instead of going into, into the brain, into the cells, into energy in the body. So it's an energy partitioning problem. Instead of using it, you're saving it, which creates a shortage, which makes you feel hungry, makes you have these cravings, it makes you do this over and over. It's really a vicious cycle. And I really appreciated the study about the Biggest Loser because you could interpret it as being helpless you could also.

Say, well, improve the concept of eat less, exercise more.

It was the final nail in the coffin of the 1970s. I don't even want to call it wisdom. 1970s witch doctory around weight loss that led countless people to start doing marathons, even though it tends to cause inflammation around the heart. I mean, I'm a fan of whatever exercise people want to do. But you know what happened to the guy who ran the first marathon, right?

Gym fix. Yeah.

No, the first marathon was in Greece.

Oh, that.

And the guy ran from Athens to Sparta. I don't know the name of the two cities, but he ran 26.2 miles. And then he dropped Dean and he dropped dead of a heart attack. But he warned, the enemy is coming and all this stuff. So to get healthy, to do an extended endurance event when you are carrying 50 extra pounds of weight, which is what a lot of people do.

Not a good plan.

It is actually masochism.

Yeah, that study really upset me too, because there was a couple of flawed concepts in there. One was that it's not normal for you to slow your metabolism when you lose weight. Well, it kind of is, because if you're £300, you need to burn more calories to keep everything running than if you're £200. So of course that'll happen. But when they went off the diet, they didn't tell them what to do. They didn't say, eat high fat. They said, eat low fat.

Right, Just eat less.

They said, eat less. And you can't do that unless you're exercising nine hours a day. You can't do that. And so people gain weight back and they slow their metabolism. So their entire biology was shifted into more fat storage because they were eating a higher carb, lower fat diet, which drove the weight gain. And we know that's how this works. It's called the insulin carbohydrate theory of weight loss or the hormonal hypothesis. And it's so clear that this is powerful. Before I started recommending higher fat diets, I never saw people get off 50 units of insulin and reverse their diabetes. I never saw people lose £100 and keep it off. People would struggle, and I was trying to get them to do the right thing, but I was for years following a lower fat set of recommendations, and maybe not even low fat, but lower fat. And when I switched to higher fat, I just saw remarkable things.