Why Weight Loss LOST!

The year was 1967, we were living in the Former Yugoslavia and my loving mother decided to visit her father whom she had never met due to his immigrating to the US three months before her birth. Her visit was both deeply touching and memorable culminating in our entire family immigrating to the US two years later and we never looked back.

During her visit she was astonished just how overweight Americans were compared to citizens in our homeland and couldn’t stop talking about it. She had never witnessed the large food portions being consumed and kept insisting that Americans had solved the food hunger conundrum. Apparently, no one was starving in the US.

Shortly upon our arrival we all witnessed the same thing, food was everywhere; there were fast food joints on every corner and restaurants galore in all directions. It seemed as if home cooking was a lost art and today’s realities are that most young adults simply never learned to cook. Hmmmmm?

But being a physics geek I think life in general is just applied physics and physics tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to the overconsumption of food, most of which is very unhealthy, gave rise to exploding weight gains by the citizens as well as numerous companies trying to help consumers with ‘healthier’ meal choices (Jenny Craig, Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, etc.). Add to that the rise of quick-fix supplement providers, many of which may even be dangerous (e.g.: Herbalife, GNC, Vital Nutrients, others) not to mention the expansion of gyms and health clubs across the country it seemed that Americans had created an antidote for the obsession with their weight. But unfortunately, that turned out to be just an illusion.

Sadly, the reality is very different and it was becoming a much bigger concern to nutritionists and dieticians even back then who kept trying to alarm us that our lifestyles were simply not sustainable but nobody listened except for my loving mother who kept cooking for her family while she was fully employed. Happy to report she passed her culinary skills to me and I will forever be grateful! I happened to think that those who are lucky to know how to cook are much healthier eaters than those who don’t.

And this unhealthy situation gave rise to the Diet Cartel, which has gone into overdrive by promoting various means and methods that only focus on counting calories as a way of losing weight. Yes, the Age of Weight Loss had arrived while the Age of Obesity kept growing bigger and bigger, pun intended! As a dedicated practitioner of First Principles Thinking this did not make sense to me; how can a result be a polar opposite of the method being implemented? This just did not compute so I starting digging deeper to better understand the why.

Firstly, let’s put things in their proper context. Calorie counting was invented by Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters, a little known LA-based physician and an author, in 1918!!!!! I would have assumed that something invented over a century ago would still be in vogue today because of the promising results and successful outcomes but that has not been the case. If anything, it showed me the exact opposite; a century-old methodology with disastrous results and we now have the metadata to prove it. However, as the old adage goes – Hope Springs Eternal, and the Diet Cartel ran with it by parading paid celebrities and professional models promoting their collective ‘weight-loss’ everywhere; TV, magazine covers, signs and of course, the digital world as well. And the end result from these empty promises is (drum roll, plz) - the US holds the top spot in the Global Obesity rankings accounting for 13% amongst developed countries. Yep, we indeed achieved global leadership in over-eating by counting calories. In a recently posted video Valerie Bertinelli, was deeply regretful for promoting Jenny Craig’s diet culture and was honest about her struggles with weight. As they say in Italy – BRAVISSIMO Signorina Bertinelli!

Add to that the countless diets-du-jour and new weight loss programs (Med, Kato, DASH, Flexiterrian, Paleo, Noom, others) each exulting their virtues and promising double digit weight loss in a flash and the consumer conundrum expands exponentially. And all due respect to many-a-well meaning industry experts, ask 10 nutritionists/dieticians on what constitutes good nutrition and you will get 11 different answers. It seems as if everyone has a slightly different take on it. We think it’s time to simplify things.

If you dig deeper into the world of nutrition, as we did, you will discover that the foundation for optimal nutrition is NUTRIENTS and NOT calories. There are over 35 essential (macro and micro) nutrients that we need to consume daily for optimal health benefits - 7 macro nutrients (Protein, Fiber, Fat, Carbs, etc.), 13 vitamins (A, Complex B, C, etc.) and 15 minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, etc.) as specified by the Nutrition Board, each with their respective recommended Daily Value (DV%). The trouble is each comes with their respective quantities; some are measured in grams, while others in milligrams, even micrograms. Please note a microgram is one-millionth of a gram, much smaller than a grain of salt, sugar or sand. And how does one know how to measure such tiny amounts and why? Well, the devil they say is in the details. For instance, we only need 900 micrograms daily of copper, an essential nutrient, but how do we measure that in our food. The data is out there (CDC, USDA) but it takes extensive research and due diligence to compile and compute its results. However, things, they are a changing for the better, we hope.

This is why we applaud the latest research efforts form Tufts University and their deep dive into calculating nutritional value for packaged and (ultra) processed foods with promising results. This is a great step in the right direction and one we hope many will follow. As we are fond of saying around here it is high time we start Counting Nutrients NOT calories. To clarify, calories measure the quantity and portion size of our food while nutrients measure the quality of our foods. And if we focus on nutrients quality calories will follow because there is no such thing as an empty nutrient.

My loving 92yr old mother would be very proud that her oldest son is doing his best to ensure no future visitor to the US is shocked by our exploding waistlines. We are on a mission to Disrupt Our Unhealthy Lifestyles, which we see as an existential threat by creating a new health paradigm and we hope you approve and join us. The best way to fix our irrevocably broken physical and mental health care systems, perhaps the only way, is to never, EVER need it! Thank you!