I’m working on an article about how to be healthy, but I’ll post a quick article on how to be thin since that’s what people care about anyway. To answer the question of how to get thin, I think it is helpful to ask how we get fat. That’s fairly easy. When we have blood sugar spikes due to carbohydrate consumption our pancreas releases insulin. Insulin receptors in our cells respond to the insulin in our blood and turn the blood sugar into fat in our cells. As long are our insulin levels are elevated the fat is more or less trapped in our cells. While there is some truth to the popular idea that excess calorie consumption leads to weight gain any skinny 22 year old man eating 3,500 plus calories a day while doing nothing but playing video games can tell you that is a gross over simplification (so can women as they get older for the opposite reason). Weight loss and weight gain is about hormones.

We can see that getting thin is simply a matter of allowing the fat in our cells to be used for fuel. So we need to lower our insulin levels and lower our dietary carbohydrate intake, which simplifies to lowering our dietary carbohydrate intake.

We have to get calories somewhere or we’ll starve. We can eat protein, carbohydrates, or fat. Excess protein hurts our kidneys. Protein consumption should be somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 grams per lb of body weight; the more active you are the more you need. That leaves us with carbs and fat. I’ve already said that we need to lower our carbs so we’re left with fat. For me this is good news, because I like fat. Not the modern fats (trans and grain fats) of course, but butter, cream, animal fats, nuts, coconut, and the like.

The beauty of fat is that it makes you full so you can eat less without feeling deprived. Carbs are the opposite. They make you hungry. I knew from fasting that if you didn’t eat you stopped being hungry after the second or third day. Then I noticed after going low carb for a week that I stopped being hungry after the second or third day. Turns out it is insulin, released as a result of eating carbs, which makes us hungry. Want to eat less without feeling like you are starving yourself? Eat more fat and less carbs.

Quick note on diet soda – in studies people who drink diet soda gain more weight than people who drink high sugar soda. I don’t know why except maybe it is because our bodies release insulin when we taste sweet, even if there is no sugar there. Don’t drink soda.

Also don’t fall for the real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup trick. Sugar is 50% fructose and high fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose. There is no real difference as far as your body is concerned.
I suppose I should say something about exercise. As far as weight loss goes, I figure it’s 80% diet and 20% activity. A person has to walk up something like 30 flights of stairs to burn a piece of toast. I’m sorry friend, but you are not going to get there by exercising. It may make you feel good to see those calories adding up on the treadmill, but the calories you see include calories you would have burned just sitting there. You really aren’t burning that much. What you’re doing is making yourself really hungry. You can get thin by eating well with little to no exercise, but I doubt you can eat badly and exercise enough to get thin. If you want to go the exercise route, lift weights. A pound of muscle burns somewhere around 40 calories a day, just existing.

Now practically speaking most of us are going to cheat. Make it count. If you eat something sweet make sure it is awesome. Don’t buy cheap chocolate or ice cream. Don’t eat crappy bread. Get some good sourdough and put a ton of butter on it. If you make mashed potatoes, put a ton of butter and cream in it (fat lowers the glycemic index of foods by the way). Drink beer or wine instead of soda–same nutritional hit, but much more enjoyable. But if you are serious about losing weight you really shouldn’t have this stuff in your house. Be happy with your bacon and butter and cream and coconut oil and steak and avocados and vinaigrettes…