Why do we get fat

Chapter 22 Getting fatter and losing weight but failing, what should we do?
Yes, some of us may be born fat and there's not much you can do about it.But this genetic predisposition to obesity is caused by the quantity and quality of sugars we eat.As I said, sugar ultimately determines insulin secretion and body fat accumulation.Not all of us get fat when we eat sugar, but those who do, blame sugar for obesity.The more sugar we eat, the leaner we will be.

It is more appropriate to take smoking as a comparison.Not every long-term smoker will get lung cancer, only one in six smoking men and one in nine smoking women will develop lung cancer.But for those patients who have already developed lung cancer, smoking is undoubtedly the most common reason.In a smoke-free world, lung cancer would be a rare disease.By the same token, obesity is a rare condition in a world without excess sugar.

Not all sugary foods cause obesity, this is a key issue, don't get confused.The most fattening foods are those that have the greatest impact on blood sugar and insulin levels.These foods are concentrated sources of sugar, especially those we digest quickly: anything made from refined flour (bread, pasta, pasta), liquid sugar (beer, juice, soda), and Starchy foods (potatoes, rice, cereals).These foods fill the blood circulation with glucose very quickly.Blood sugar spikes rapidly, insulin levels spike, and we get fat.

These foods are also the cheapest providers of calories, and always have been.This can clearly explain why the poorer we are, the more likely we are to gain weight.That's why we can easily find that the obesity and diabetes rates among the extremely poor are comparable to those of Europeans and Americans who eat well and drink well.There is a scientific basis for this.

“In most Third World countries people have a high incidence of sugar intake,” wrote Rolf Richards, a Jamaican diabetes specialist studying in England in 1974. “It is conceivable that a large supply Starchy foods (rather than animal protein) became the main source of calories for these people, leading to accelerated fat formation and obesity epidemic.” These poor people are not obese because they eat too much or move too little, but because The food they depend on for survival is starch.The main part of their diet is starch-rich and cheap refined grain noodles. The imbalance of diet structure is the real reason for obesity!

Green leafy vegetables such as spinach and cabbage are also rich in sugar, but in the form of dietary fiber that is not easily digested by the human body. Compared with starchy foods such as potatoes, rice, and bread, vegetables need more sugar. Time can enter our blood circulation.In this way, when we eat these vegetables, the blood sugar level is relatively low, and it is not so easy to rise when we eat refined grain and flour products.

These veggies also help our insulin work properly, so they rarely cause obesity.However, I do not exclude exceptions, a small number of people are naturally very sensitive to sugar in the diet, then, even green leafy vegetables can trigger a large increase in insulin levels.

Although the sugars in fruits are easier to digest than vegetables, they are also easily diluted by water, and are not as concentrated and concentrated as sugars in starchy foods.Take an apple and potato of the same weight for comparison. Potatoes have a much greater impact on blood sugar and are more likely to cause obesity.But this does not mean that eating a lot of fruit will not make people fat.

The worrying thing about fruit is that it contains a type of sugar called fructose.Fructose, as its name suggests, is abundant in fruits, and it makes fruits taste quite sweet.However, fructose, like starch, is a particularly fattening substance.As nutritionists and public health authorities become increasingly eager to help us curb obesity, they also become increasingly hysterical in recommending that we eat lots of fruits and vegetables.Compared with vegetables, we usually prefer to eat fruits, which are delicious without cooking.After listening to the nutritionist's introduction, we will think in our hearts: Since fruits are rich in nutrition, high in vitamins, and have no cholesterol; and eating a fruit is so easy and sweet, so the fruit must be of no harm to us .But if we're fat-prone, or if we're eating fruit with the intention of losing weight, it's a bad bet.Most fruits will make your obesity problem worse, never better.

For us, the worst food is sugar - sucrose (table sugar), and the terrible fructose syrup.Even errant public health authorities and journalists have lashed out at fructose syrup as the culprit of obesity. Beginning in 1978, fructose syrup was introduced to the United States. It has been the source of sugar in most soft drinks since the mid-20s.As far as the United States is concerned, the per capita consumption of edible sugar has increased rapidly from about 80 kg to 55 kg per year.When we drink juice, soda, and fruit-flavored yogurt, we drink fructose syrup.

Insert a sentence here, how to know how much sugar is in food, and whether it will affect our blood sugar changes?The effect of a food on blood sugar levels is known as its "glycemic index" (GI), and the higher the GI of a food, the faster blood sugar rises.Readers can check the glycemic index of some common foods in the appendix of this book.

The sweetness in sweeteners comes from fructose, which is like the smell of fruit.However, fructose can damage our health.Recently, the American Heart Association and other authorities have finally pointed the finger at fructose and fructose syrup, believing that they are the culprits that cause obesity and even heart disease.The main reason is that these sweeteners are often marketed as "zero calories."However, this is a catch-all, and the sugar complex, which is half fructose and half glucose, may have a significant effect on obesity.

When we digest the sugars in starchy foods, they end up in the bloodstream as glucose.Blood sugar rises, insulin is secreted, and calories are stored as fat.But when we digest fructose, they are almost exclusively metabolized in the liver by the action of enzymes in the human body.Therefore, fructose has no immediate effect on blood sugar and insulin levels, but it has long-term effects.

The human body, especially the liver, is far from evolved to handle the fructose foods in the modern diet well.Although fruit contains fructose, the content is relatively low.For example, 50 grams of blueberries contain only 30 calories (I'm about to say that our goal in growing fruits is to find ways to increase their fructose content). A 350ml can of Pepsi or Coca-Cola has around 80 calories, and a 350ml can of processed apple juice has 85 calories.Our liver converts most of the fructose into fat and sends it to adipose tissue.Fructose is classified by scientists as the most fat-forming sugar.

The more sugar we absorb in our diet, the more our bodies become accustomed to storing it as fat.As British biochemist Peter Mayes puts it, our fructose-based metabolism changes over time.Not only does this lead to the direct accumulation of fat in the liver - fatty liver - but it also obviously causes our muscle cells to become resistant to insulin.This is a vicious domino effect triggered by hepatocyte resistance.

So, even though fructose has no immediate effect on blood sugar and insulin, in the long term—maybe years—it could lead to insulin resistance, making it easier for calories to be converted to fat storage, and eventually, the needle on our fuel gauge will be biased toward fat storage.

If we never eat these harmful sugars, we may never get fat or suffer from diabetes, even if our staple food is still rice, wheat and other sugars.This also explains why many people are not so obese despite relying on sugar-rich staple foods.For example, the Japanese and Chinese rarely eat sugars such as sucrose, fructose, and syrup in their traditional diets, although they rely heavily on rice and noodles as staple foods.

I would like to remind everyone that once you start to gain weight and you know that you should lose weight, being vigilant against sugar must be the first step in the long march.

And alcohol, which is a special case.Most alcohol is metabolized in the liver.For example, about 80% of the calories in a glass of vodka go directly to the liver for metabolism, a small part is converted directly into energy expenditure, and the majority is converted into so-called citrate.The burning of citrate strips fatty acids from glucose, so the effect of alcohol is to increase fat production in the liver.It can be said that this is the cause of alcoholic fatty liver.It also promotes obesity in other parts of the body.About one-third of the calories in a glass of beer come from maltose (a refined sugar), and two-thirds of the calories come from the alcohol itself. Long-term drinking of beer and unrestrained sugar intake, beer belly is nothing but normal.

(End of this chapter)