Advice

After all the facts we've seen so far, it is time to interpret all this knowledge and hand out some advice. (Updated: No more, read below for why).

Losing & gaining weight

This is mostly about fat, as fat is the only way the body can store large amounts of energy. Whenever the glucose levels in the blood get too high, glucose gets siphoned off into the cells, which try to store it as glycogen. Once these cells are full, which happens rather quickly, the glycogen is released and converted by the liver into fatty materials which can be stored. Thus we gain weight.

Losing it is far harder - the reverse conversion is lots more complicated and it appears that many individual bodies take a strong disliking towards this conversion.

As gaining weight requires little work for most people, the rest of this page will focus on losing it.

The net effect

In order to lose weight, we must make sure that the following conditions are met:

Energy intake is decreased and energy is used and not stored
Energy use must not diminished
Stored fuels are able to deliver the missing energy

The body is a simple container - to lose weight, more energy must be expended than is added. If done wrong, eating less (for example by skipping breakfast) will actually gain you weight.

And the rest..

This page used to list some advice based on the 'state of the art' of human metabolism as I understood it in 2002.

Since that time, a lot of metabolic certainties have turned out to be a lot less certain, to the point that I've decided to remove the amateur advice below.

From a recent reading of papers in the field, it appears that the few recommendations that are certain are to lead an active live, not to eat too much and that what you eat be varied. Oh, and skip the transfats. The things we thought were true about saturated and unsaturated fats causing heart disease.. turned out not to be true.

All in all, this is a depressing state of affairs, and I sincerely hope that the world of science will offer us something better in the next few years..