The Wellness Prescription

From the desk of Christopher Knott M.S.

Why do you so often hear about people who lose weight on a diet only to go off the diet and gain back even more weight from where they started? The simple answer lies in understanding a few misconceptions.

First, Americans typically get a wrong label attached saying we are all overeaters. When you look at the typical American diet, this is simply not true. Let me paint you a picture of the typical American diet:

Most Americans wake up, skip breakfast, go to work for a while, then are starved going into lunchtime. Then they overeat lunch, crash about 2-3 p.m. as they can’t properly digest that amount of food, work late, come home, then overeat dinner which is the first meal they can really spend some time preparing. After dinner, they sit in front of the t.v., work on the computer a little, then go to bed to start the cycle all over again the next day.

Yes, it is true that when it comes to the actual meals we eat, we are overeaters. But if you look at the total amount of calories between the two large meals per day the average American eats, it is not enough total calories to sustain a healthy metabolic rate. On top of that, there is so much time between meals, especially from dinner time until lunch the next day, that your body is in a fasting state. So how does your body respond to this?

Because of efficiency, your body learns to get rid of muscle (where most your metabolism lies) and put on fat for storage. Your metabolic rate drops to accommodate the lack of total daily calories and continual fasting periods.

Then when you decide to go on that diet, you exchange those Whoppers for chicken and salads and cut your caloric intake even more. On top of that, most people begin to exercise which burns additional calories. Because of this shift into a caloric deficit, you WILL lose weight for the first few weeks and maybe even a few months if you are lucky. But soon, your metabolism will continue to drop even further to account for this additional caloric deficit. And if you thought your metabolism was slow before, now it is completely in the basement. The moment you can’t keep up your diet and exercise, or when you go back to eating even a normal sized meal (or Thanksgiving dinner), your body soaks up those extra calories like a sponge. That is why you end up worse off than where you began.

Now add this dilemma with nutrient deficiencies, toxicity, poor carbohydrate and protein metabolism, dehydration, adrenal stress, insulin issues, and all the diet and exercise fads, you have a real tough time getting a good solution.

If this sounds like you and you want to hear a concrete, straight forward, easy to understand solution to all this, shoot me an e-mail and I will be more than happy to set up a free consultation with you.

There is a big difference between all the fads out there that are more geared to taking your money away compared to common sense, scientifically established processes geared to actually honor you as a person and look to your success and well being. Hopefully, your daily lifestyle decisions are also working together to honor yourself as well.

To a great day and a better tomorrow,

Christopher Knott M.S. Dunamis Fitness/The Wellness Prescription CKnott@coloradospringswellnessprescription.net