My theory on weight gain is based on the fact that foods produced in autumn, in particular carbs, cause brain and body processes that encourage fat storage in order to protect you from the food shortages and cold of winter.
In modern society we’ve essentially elongated and amplified autumn through food preservation techniques and refined versions of sugars and starches that contain no meaningful nutrition, yet invoke powerful primal fat storage instincts and body processes.
I’m not into making excuses about anything, but when it comes to chronic weight gain the world is in dire straits. We are designed by nature to be absolutely perfect, but something has gone drastically wrong considering so many of us are being broken. We’ve taken nature out of the equation with our current artificial eco-system and the entire world is paying the price with all sorts of health concerns as a result. I personally, think the game is rigged and the cards are stacked against us for various reasons outlined below. I was caught in this game but I won my battle. We’re in a war and I want to go back onto the battle field and pull my fellow comrades out of the trenches and get them to safety.
Here are 6 reasons why it’s not your fault if you can’t shed the weight and why there’s a constant ongoing struggle:
- Getting fat is a survival talent: As stated, modern society has created an infinite autumn, so the feast famine cycle doesn’t occur naturally anymore and so weight gain is continuous and chronic. Mother nature used to moderate our carb intake by the season but now that she’s out of the equation, there’s no moderation. The feast is never-ending and the only way to simulate the famine is through diet. Of course restrictive diets can cause a rebound as the body’s metabolism slows during the diet, and once finished the pounds rebound. This talent is being preyed upon in so many ways now, but it’s no longer advantageous for us to store fat for a winter that won’t ever materialise so we need to use our brains to address the problem.
- There’s been a huge deception: If you google Sugar Scandal you will find many reports of a scandal that happened in the 60s where scientists found in favour of low-fat/higher-carb diets as being healthier than low-carb/high-fat diets for the prevention of coronary heart disease. This ended the then debate and since then low-fat has been advised and we see such foods in every supermarket world-wide. The problem is the body requires good fats to be fully functional and healthy. Sugar taxes are now being implemented globally because high-carb is now seen as less healthy, this is a good thing but we need to look at it holistically as the problem is all sugars, not just the sweet stuff which leads me to point 3.
- Governments don’t understand carbs: Carbs are both sugar and starch. Starch is a non-sweet form of sugar that the body can convert to glucose at unbelievable speed. For example a baked Irish potato has a higher gi than a 250ml glass of Soda! Yes we are being advised to eat low GI foods in their natural form, but the demonizing of soft drinks and sugary products does not address the fundamental issue of too much carbs in our diets. We eat them 3-4+ times a day, not including snacks and this leads to us having a constant stream of glucose and resulting insulin hormone circulating around our bodies putting our cells into storage mode, preventing the utilization of body fat for energy purposes.
- Shops and manufacturers tease our primal instincts: Go into any shop and it’s like running the gauntlet trying to get out without buying a treat. Cakes, crisps, pastries, chocolates, bars, sweets they’re everywhere in our faces. All of these foods mimic approximate the baby milk macro-nutrient ratio, (high fat, high carb, moderate protein) and it’s no co-incidence this ratio is approximated by nature in Autumn time. I call it The Squirrel Formula, as it was more appropriate than calling it the booby trap for obvious reasons LOL. This formula invokes our gorge instincts, which is why foods that implement it taste so gorgeous. It’s called comfort eating because it reminds us of how we felt when we were suckling infants. Taste is one of nature’s sirens, a way of tricking us into eating something for a natural purpose i.e. the continued survival of both. Eat just one chocolate, or one crisp and see how they coax you into eating more. This inner voice is instinct in action.
- Education is still not perfect on the subject: The food pyramid now has veg on the bottom rung, which is great, but it also contains bananas, apples, fruit juice etc. These foods are essentially high gi/gl carbs and those foods should belong on a rung of their own above low gi carbs. Most people do not know that having something like parsnips with potatoes means upping the overall sugar spiking aspect of the meal. Replacing high gi veg with low gi veg such as broccoli would help lessen the gi of the meal. This sort of information needs to be understood by parents and children so that we don’t continue to make the same mistakes. We are intelligent enough to understand these things. Don’t Eat for Winter makes it super simple.
- Our lives are now sedentary. The body burns approx 700-800 calories a day of sugar when resting, the rest of our energy comes from body fat and fat in our diets. Since we are being encouraged to eat so much carbs from the food pyramid, it seems the potential to eat more that 200g of carbs a day is very likely with this approach and so we exceed our sugar supply every single day. Excess of anything leads to problems, in the case of sugar, it leads to obesity and related medical issues such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, CHD, hypertension, kidney issues and a lot more. Exercising can increase our sugar requirement and is very important that we all do some, however the excess is so great in many cases that there’s no way to out-train the excess. We must learn more precisely what our bodies require from this perspective.
The solution of course is to understand the problems first and then address them with a solution. This is what Don’t Eat for Winter and The DEFoW Diet are all about. Providing you with a sensible approach to beating the system. As stated earlier, I won my personal war with weight but there are so many still battling in the trenches. My wish is to help as many people struggling as possible with what I’ve learned and the best way I felt is through this book.
So many people out there pay a lot of money every week to get weighed in to find out if they’ve lost weight, or waste a fortune in january with good intentions regarding an exercise regime. This book may just give you what you need to set your course in the right direction towards becoming the best version of you.
The DEFoW diet is a healthy diet, not something you go on. It’s a change of thinking a way of understanding the problem fundamentally. I eat like a king all the time and I’m never hungry. It advises seasonal eating on a daily basis in order simulate nature as best as possible in a world where all foods are available always. You can get your hands on a copy of Don’t Eat for Winter here.
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