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If on a high sugar/high starch diet can you still lose weight on a treadmill?
Question
I am having an issue understanding something and maybe I am over thinking it. So I understand that sugars and starches can make you gain weight due to the fact that the body wants to use it right away for energy. Then it turns into fat if you don’t use that energy. So my question is if you don’t use that energy and it turns into fat would it still be considered as energy later or what is it exactly to the body? The reason I am asking is because I have been to many gyms all over the country and it’s the same thing. The overweight people are running on the treadmill but they never get anywhere. So I always think well if that fat was still energy wouldn’t they still lose some type of weight even if they ate the wrong foods?
Answer
That is a good question. Our bodies have a fantastic ability to store energy for later use. The way they do this is by putting on body fat. Centuries ago we had much less access to food during the winter months due to snow, ice, and annual migrations, making it much harder to find game, birds or fish. The extra weight (as fat) that we had put on during the summer when game was plentiful, would slowly be used up in the “lean” months over the winter.
In modern times, in developed nations, there is no such thing as a period of decreased food supply due to the advent of electricity, which brought us refrigerators, freezers, and supermarkets. Now we can even order foods over the internet! This should have required a massive reduction in energy storage (fat production, due to too much food or too much sugar and starch consumption). Instead, because of government recommendations and other research, those foods which cause weight gain, if you are not on your treadmill immediately after consuming them, have vastly increased!
Sugar consumption has risen from 15 to 20 pounds per person, per year, to its current rate of between 150 and 170 pounds per person per year, and someone else is obviously eating my portion. Starch consumption has gone up even more due to chips, fries, crackers, cakes, cookies etc., being consumed as snack foods. Those people on the treadmills, are doing a small job of using up a bit of the stored fat energy on their bodies, but not fast enough to compensate for the amount of fats they are storing from their consumption of starches, sugars, and sometimes alcohols, which is the group of foods I have trademarked as Sabotage Foods®.
I have seen many overweight people spending hours on treadmills and I always feel sorry for them. They incorrectly believe that, for some reason, their weight must be caused by a lack of exercise. If only they could learn that it is a low fat, high starch, and high sugar diet which is preventing them from losing weight. Alas, the general public, most physicians, and almost all dieticians (RD’s) have still not read the research that proves a low fat diet promotes obesity by prompting people to consume more foods that cause weight gain.
Thanks for your question. I hope I have fully answered it.
David Getoff, CCN, CTN, FAAIM, Price-Pottenger Vice President