BryantheRyan.com Challenging conventional wisdom about nutrition, fitness and overall health

“How do I lose weight?” Focus on food!

*At the end of my last post I said that I would be talking about weight lifting. I am going to switch things up a bit and focus on the importance of nutrition in weight loss instead. I did this because I feel that the number one goal of many people out there is to lose weight. Nutrition is far more important than exercise in regards to weight loss (and overall health in general). So I will begin with nutrition and how it relates to weight loss.

If nutrition is so important in weight loss then why are Tony Little and Denise Austin millionaires? Why are we told that walking 30 minutes a day will help us drop pounds?

It is harder to stop eating food than it is to exercise.

Weight gain was not caused by physical inactivity, it was caused by the food that we ate. Food caused it, food is the solution.

However, eating to lose weight is far from easy.

This is because food that is cheap, convenient and tasty is incredibly bad for our health. Most of these foods contain massive amounts of carbohydrates, sugar and salt.

Why do salty and sweet things taste so good?

As humans have evolved over the past 2 million years we have been exposed to very little salt and sugar. Why?

Have you ever taken a walk in the woods? Nature does not provide animals with large amounts of sugary and salty foods. Rather it provides dwellers with a lot of protein, fat and cholesterol (via other animals, nuts and some leafy vegetables). Considering that the human race has spent 1,990,000 years evolving and surviving off of what the natural world gave us, its no surprise that we easy fall victim to sugar and salt ridden foods.

Major food companies know that we are easily susceptible to sugary and salty foods. A majority of these foods are marketed towards children. For example, breakfast cereals are laced with insane amounts of sugar. Cereals like Trix, Captain Crunch and Cinnamon Toast crunch all have product mascots that are aimed to seduce children into eating their brand of cereal.

If you don't believe me that this kind of food is addictive then buy a box of Oreos (my personal favorite) or a tub of cookies and cream ice cream. Set it in front of you and eat one cookie or take one bite. Only people with the strongest of will power will be able to say no to another. I know I would (and have!) eatin an entire row of Oreos without consciously knowing that I did.

What's wrong with foods that are high in sugar, isn't it the high fat foods I should be worried about?

Sugar is the devil. When we eat sugar the amount of sugar in our blood rises (obviously). When this rise occurs, our bodies release a hormone called insulin*. Insulin digests and processes the sugar in our blood. If our bodies have meet our sugar needs for the day, then that sugar is stored as fat. Considering that we meet all of our daily needs for sugar via carbohydrates (Carbs = Sugar) then any excess sugar we consume is turned into fat.

*If a person is diabetic, their pancreas does not secrete enough insulin to take care of the sugar in the blood. This sugar is left in the blood and can have devastating effects on the entire body. This is why diabetics take medication that acts as insulin. These meds lower the glucose (sugar) levels in their blood.

Sugar = Fat = Weight Gain

* Focus on cutting out processed sugar immediately. Sugar is far worse for our health than dietary fat is.

Because addictive food is easy to find and costs less, we consume far more of it than we know is healthy. We turn to exercise to "make up" for the excess calories we consume. Unfortunately, exercise fails to deliver on its so called promises of weight loss.

In January of 2008 the New York Times published an article entitled Does Exercise Really Keep Us Healthy? Within the article, author Gina Kolata mentions Steven Blair, and exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina, and his view of exercise. He has run marathons and runs every day, yet he admitted that "I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I'm still short, fat and bald." Why is he still short fat and bald? " it is much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise."

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, get ripped abs, or to just stay skinny, the answer lies in what you eat.

I have always been somewhat fit. Like I have mentioned before I used to run 10-15 miles a week, as well as lift weight 2-3 times per week. I did this for two reasons. One, to stay skinny. Two, I really wanted a six pack of abs.

I would do ab circuits every night of the week until my abs felt like they were going to tear away from my stomach. I exhausted my abs almost everyday for over two years. Their was never a work out when I did not do some form of ab exercise. Did I get the washboard stomach of my dreams? To my utter dismay I did not and I could not understand why.

Not until I ate a strict vegan diet and lost 15 pounds did I realize why. When I was running and doing crunches till I cried I was also eating and drinking like crap. The idea of proper nutrition being my key to a Ryan Reynolds ab canyon never occurred to me . After I dropped 15 pounds was I  finally able to see the definition of six abdominal muscles on my stomach (Ryan Reynolds's abs are un-humanly awesome and I will never have abs like him. Click here to see).

In my next article, I will continue to write about the importance of nutrition over exercise but I will bring in some scientific studies to back up my claims.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to follow me on my wild and crazy ride to find the truth about exercise and nutrition, subscribe via the RSS feed button at the top of the screen!

Also, if you would like to personally contact me feel free to email me at bryantheryan@gmail.com