Will Cutting 3500 Calories A Week Cause You To Lose One Pound A Week?

Let’s start with some history. Max Wishnofsky M.D., conducted the original fat burn research in 1958. He published the 3500 calorie deficit formula which continues to be cited in thousands of educational websites, studies, and scientific articles.

Dr. Kevin Hall challenged the formula and released a manuscript in 2007. He has redefined the 3500 calories to burn a pound idea. His paper is impressive with enough scientific data and formulas to stump even the brainiest nerd. We will not be jumping into math class right now but sticking with the discovery.

Losing fat is a challenge. We have been under the impression that simply subtracting 3500 calories per week, we would be able to lose one pound of flab. This is based on the old simplistic theory where 3500 calories represent only fat and do not take into consideration lean mass (muscle).

New research takes all tissue into account understanding muscle is also lost during the calorie-burning process. The amount of muscle lost depends on the initial body fat level and caloric deficit. That means weight and fat loss calculations will differ from person to person. For example, a lean person will tend to lose more muscle and retain fat while an overweight person will lose more body fat and retain lean mass.

This is why an overweight person can better tolerate lower calorie diets and the opposite applies to a lean person. However, restrictive diets are not recommended for either since they’re linked to eroding muscle tissue.

The original 3500 calories to burn a pound theory needed to take into consideration fat and muscle metabolize (use) energy at different rates. A pound of muscle is not 3500 calories but approximately 600 calories. If you applied a 3500 weekly caloric deficit and lost 100% muscle hypothetically that would equate to 6lbs. This would be ludicrous and the takeaway to remember is lean mass loss equals greater weight loss. Losing lean mass is what we’re trying to avoid.

If you created a 3500 caloric deficit and lost 100% body fat then you would lose one pound of fat. Again, this is impossible because both lean and fat tissue is lost during the weight loss process.

Other factors implemented in the new formula applications are caloric deficit adjustments as body weight decreases and energy levels decline. In addition, studies recommend stimulating more fat loss to lean mass through progressive resistance training and higher protein intake.

Does this mean throwing the old 3500 calories to burn a pound formula out the window? No. Lots of great research went into creating a basic way to figure out daily caloric requirements. Using the 500 to 1000 calorie per day deficit does provide a generic guideline for losing 1 to 2 pounds per week.

This post appeared on verywell.com and tries to clarify a few points about an old theory. Cutting calories will cause you to lose a few pounds, but this theory is from 1958 and back in those days we didn’t have the number of processed foods on the market as we have today. Because 60 years has changed our diets completely and the fact that obesity today is the number cause of most of our health problems whereas 60 years ago obesity was only about 1% of our population, the idea that simply reducing calorie intake by 500 calories a day will cause you to lose fat, is ridiculous.

Today, the average American consumes 3500 calories a day. In 1958 the average American consumed about 2000 calories a day. Today, if you want to lose fat, you have to quit eating processed foods and start eating whole foods, and fresh foods, and quit drinking bottled and canned drinks that add calories to your diet.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Americans Are Still Consuming Too Much Salt

Most Americans say, “What’s the big deal, I barely use the salt shaker.” Read on and you’ll learn why salt may be causing your health problems. Americans’ love of salt has continued unabated in the 21st century, putting people at risk for high blood pressure, the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke, U.S. health officials said Thursday. In 2010, more than 90 percent of U.S. teenagers and adults consumed more than the recommended levels of salt — about the same number as in 2003, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. “Salt intake in the U.S. has changed very little in the last decade,” said CDC medical officer and report co-author Dr. Niu Tian. And despite a slight drop in salt consumption among kids younger than 13, the researchers found that 80 percent to 90 percent of kids still consume more than the amount recommended by the Institute of Medicine.

“There are many organizations that are focused on reducing dietary salt intake,” said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “More effective efforts are needed if the prevalence of excess dietary salt intake is to be reduced,” Fonarow said. The CDC has suggested coupling salt-reduction efforts with the war on obesity as a way to fight both problems at the same time. New school food guidelines might also be warranted, the report suggested. Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, said reducing dietary salt is essential for both adults and children.

“What is so distressing is that this report indicates that eight out of 10 kids aged 1 to 3 years old, and nine out of 10 over 4 years old, are eating too much salt and are at risk for high blood pressure,” she said. Remember that these are the ones who don’t normally see a doctor for high blood pressure so it can get out of control before you know about it. Most of this salt comes from processed foods and restaurant meals, not the salt shaker on the table, Heller said. And in the case of school kids, it could be coming from the cafeteria. That means it’s likely that much of the food these children eat is fast food, junk food, and processed food, she said. “This translates into a high-salt, high-fat, and high-sugar diet that can lead to a number of serious health problems down the road,” she said. In addition, both fast and processed food alters taste expectations, leading to constant parental complaints that their kids won’t eat anything but chicken nuggets and hot dogs, Heller said. It’s the parents and caregivers who are in charge of the menus, Heller said. “This begs the question: Why are you giving a 2-year-old these foods?” she said. Salt hides in many foods, Heller said. “Salt is used for texture, flavor enhancement, and as a preservative, and does not necessarily taste salty,” she said.

Okay, you heard from the pros about the health problem that salt will cause, but did you know that it causes water retention and will keep you from losing weight? And what are the foods that cause the most problems? It’s manufactured or processed foods and the food we get in restaurants.

Some health advocates believe the solution to the salt problem lies in getting food companies and restaurants to reduce the salt in their foods. In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began working with the food industry to voluntarily reduce salt in processed foods. But two years later, little has been accomplished, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Unfortunately, the food industry has failed to significantly bring down sodium levels despite 40 years of governmental admonitions,” Julie Greenstein, the center’s deputy director of health promotion policy, said in a statement. “It’s time for the FDA to step in and require reasonable reductions.” The problem is that there’s scant evidence for determining exactly how much salt is too much and how little is too little, according to a recent Institute of Medicine report.

“[For now], the simple answer is to cook more at home and eat more whole and less processed foods,” Heller said. Checking food labels for sodium content is also vital, experts say. For the report, the CDC relied on data from a national survey involving almost 35,000 people, conducted between 2003 and 2010. The survey found that most Americans still consume an average of 3,400 milligrams — about 1.5 teaspoons — of salt a day, according to the IOM. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend people 14 to 50 years old limit their daily salt intake to 2,300 mg. But that’s still too much for about half of Americans, according to the guidelines. People over 50, and people with high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease should restrict salt intake to 1,500 mg a day.

To sum up, I believe processed foods can be the cause of obesity in America. Fast Food is processed food and to go one step further, chain restaurants are preparing their entries in a central location and then distributing them to their locations frozen. Prepared foods in the grocery store are done the same way.

When most of us decide to lose weight it’s because we want to be healthier. Lower our blood pressure, lower our cholesterol, and avoid diabetes. Young people don’t see the doctor as often as the over-50 crowd, but if you have a weight problem you should see a doctor or maybe a weight clinic. I’d avoid anyone selling pills or diet food. If your going to spend money see your doctor first.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Yoga For Weight Loss

If you that Yoga was just about meditation and sitting on the floor with your legs crossed, today’s Yoga is a little more challenging. Today’s Yoga will get you in shape and help you lose weight. Read what this author says and remember everyone can do Yoga. You can start off on a very easy level and work up to more difficult poses. Yoga will change your life and it doesn’t have to cost money.

While walking around your city, you’ve probably seen a variety of yoga studios—everything ranging from Bikram to Anusara, Jivamukti, and Vinyasa yoga. Bikram is known for hot rooms and sweat-dripping bodies, while vinyasa is all about the flow of movements.

If your goal is to get lean and lose body fat, you might be wondering whether, or how, yoga fits into your program. There is a multitude of benefits to practicing yoga, but does yoga help with weight loss?

Yoga Only Burns 3-6 Calories Per Minute

In order to lose body fat, you have to create a deficit of calories. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight, and one pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories.

Yoga classes often endure for about 60-90 minutes. According to research done by the American Council on Exercise, the average individual burns about 3-6 calories per minute practicing yoga, which equates to a total of only 180-360 calories burned during that class. In contrast, a kettlebell workout burns about 13-17 calories per minute, which equals about 800+ calories burned in an hour. That’s a significant difference in calorie expenditure.

While it depends on the type and intensity of the class– certain styles of yoga are much more rigorous such as power yoga, hot yoga, and vinyasa, whereas yin yoga, restorative, and hatha yoga are more gentle and slower-paced. Regardless of the intensity of the yoga class, circuit training is still superior in terms of overall metabolic boost and calorie burn.

But even with the calorie difference, yoga has other benefits that can help the weight-loss individual.

…But Yoga Can Still Be Effective For Weight Loss. Here’s Why

From 2000-2002, medical researcher and yogi Alan Kristal, in association with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, conducted a study on the effects of yoga on weight loss. The study surveyed 15,500 middle-aged men and women about their physical activity and weight over time, controlling for factors such as diet, health, and other forms of exercise that could cause changes in weight. The study found that both over-weight and normal-weight adults who regularly practiced yoga for at least 4 years were less likely to gain weight than those who did not practice yoga. In fact, those who were overweight and practiced yoga actually lost an average of 5lbs during the four-year period, whereas the overweight non-practitioners gained about 14lbs.

If calorie expenditure didn’t account for weight maintenance or loss, what did? The researchers found a strong association between regular yoga practice and mindful eating, which they did not find in other activities such as walking or running.

How Can Yoga Help You Lose Weight?

Reasons that yoga might help the weight loss process include:

Effective stress management, reducing the likelihood of stress eating
Increased body awareness, specifically relating to hunger and satiety
Mindfulness and mindful eating

Although practicing yoga doesn’t burn the most calories, it might still have a place in your workout routine. An effective fat loss program that encourages the maintenance of lean muscle and maximizes calorie burn should be founded on a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular activity. However, yoga could be used as active recovery and flexibility training between more intense workouts. The benefits of stress reduction and mindfulness associated with yoga could lead to improved sleep, better-eating habits, and increased self-awareness, which could mean more weight loss and improved maintenance of weight loss results over time. Regardless of the exercise, you’re doing, however, good nutrition is essential. If you’re not paying attention to your diet, you won’t see the results you want. Exercise right, eat clean, and you’ll be able to realize your goals.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Calculate Your Real Age

How old are you? Before you jump to the quick answer­—i.e. the one you’ve celebrated every year with a progressively increasing number of candles and cake—know that you have another, even more critical age: your fitness age. How old is your body? Is your body aging slower or faster than you? When someone dies at the age of 80, for instance, are they dying from old age? I don’t think so. It’s probably because of the way they take care of their body.

My kids are 40 something now but 40 years ago, back in the 70s, I told them that they needed to take care of their bodies because with the advancement of medicine they need to be prepared to live until 110 or more. It wouldn’t be much fun if you couldn’t walk anymore or if you were in the doctor’s office every few weeks.

The fitness age was first created by researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, your fitness age takes your respiratory health into account and is made up of different components including your heart rate, waist circumference, exercise routine, and more. Go ahead and calculate it here. worldfitnesslevel.org

Okay, so why should you even care about the number on your screen? Because it may predict how long you’ll live, the researchers found, to an even better extent than your actual age can. The lower your fitness age is from your actual age, the higher your chances of living a long life. Plus, if you’re not getting the number you want when you plug in your stats, up your exercise—your fitness age can decrease over time.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

What You Eat Can Determine How Long You'll Live

That’s a powerful statement, isn’t it? But it’s the truth. One study done a few years ago tells about “the more calories you eat the shorter your life”. Other studies say “the more red meat you eat the shorter your life. There’s a lot of truth in all these theories. Is there any truth that a vegetarian diet can help you live longer? I don’t know, but vegetarian diets are generally diets with all-natural foods, nothing processed. Some will have fish and dairy and other diets will not. Depending on your beliefs, a vegetarian diet can vary.

This whole idea that “you are what you eat” does have merit. You can pretty much blame all your health problems on your lifestyle. What you eat and drink, where you live, what you do all day, the sum total would be your lifestyle. The things you have control over and the decisions you make and how you live your life, that’s your lifestyle.

Fortunately, we can make changes to our lifestyle at any time during our life and good changes will increase our lives. Google is doing research right now to increase life expectancy to 500 years. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I do believe a man can live to 180  years or even a little more. With the new medicine of today and things in medicine that will be coming in the next 20 years, today’s school children can live up to 120 or 130. Preschoolers can live to 150.

Small changes in older people can increase their life span by months and even years, but if those good habits like diet and exercise can be instilled in a child then I believe that the new-borns of today could possibly live to 180.

So what can we do now? Our future lies within our children. The pre-schoolers of today need to be taught what is a proper diet for their body. Why sugars and other food additives are harmful and why a person has to exercise? These are key to raising a generation of kids with low amounts of body fat. And why is low body fat important? After a person reaches an above-normal percentage of body fat, the body doesn’t perform the way it should. First of all, you’ll start to slow down, and you get tired faster. It takes longer to digest your food. This means more of your food will turn into fat and you create a new cycle. Now because more of your food is turning into fat, then your percentage of body fat is increasing without the scale moving. You see as you gain body fat and your slowing down you're burning fewer calories and you’re losing muscle mass. Muscle mass weighs more than fat so these changes in your body take place without moving the scale. In most cases, you’re not aware that this is occurring. When it’s harder to pick up things or walk a flight of stairs you don’t realize that you’re losing muscle, you just figure you’re getting out-of-shape.

As an adult, many things can’t be changed anymore. Where you live is generally where your family lives and the work you do is based on your education and job experience, so those things you probably can’t do much about. The food you eat and drink and the exercise you’re getting are the variables that you can change. You can become a healthier “you” at any age.

I believe the key is to get back to eating all-natural foods, nothing processed. Eat meat like fish and poultry and fresh fruits and vegetables. Drink more water. Don’t buy drinks, make tea or coffee and drink these plain, with no additives like milk or sugar. If the taste is too strong add more water. A small glass of red wine with dinner is good for you. Bread, cakes, cookies or any pastries are all processed foods and will keep you from losing weight. Fruits and nuts make good snacks. If you are eating the right foods you don’t have to cut back. There’s no starving, you can eat all you want of good food. Remember though, all food has calories and if you’re trying to lose weight fruit and nuts should be eaten in moderation.

As far as exercise, you don’t have to kill yourself at the gym. Walking is great exercise and 10,000 steps a day is the recommended amount to lose weight. Don’t let that number scare you. You have all day to get up to 10,000. You won’t start out doing 10,000, you’ll have to work up to it.  Keep track with a pedometer, they count the steps for you. There are dozens on the market, some do more things, some less. I like the ones that track your heart rate too. If you are under a doctor’s care, check with him or her. If not do your research, I know many people who have a drawer full of these gadgets and don’t wear any of them.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Weight Loss and Body Mass Index

 I write about the body mass index a lot and anyone on a diet should understand this. Your Doctor and any weight counselor you talk to will always refer to your BMI, so you need to know at least the basics.

Your BMI is based on your height and weight. It’s one way to see if you’re at a healthy weight.

Underweight: Your BMI is less than 18.5

Healthy weight: Your BMI is 18.5 to 24.9

Overweight: Your BMI is 25 to 29.9

Obese: Your BMI is 30 or higher

The above shows examples of body mass indexes. The figure at which your height corresponds with your weight is your body mass index. To find yours use WebMD’s BMI calculator.

Using a calculator is the easy way, but you can do the calculation yourself.

We will use my weight and height to illustrate:

I’m 160 pounds, so 160 x .45= 72kg    (I’m changing my weight and height into metric) so I weight 72kg.

I’m 6 foot tall and we want to change that into meters, so you change that to inches x .025 = 1.8 x 1.8 = 3.24

Then divide 72 / 3.24= 22.22 and that’s my BMI.  Like I said it’s easier to use the calculator on the website but if you have a pocket calculator it took me 2 minutes.

Most people don’t realize how much overweight they really are and calculating your BMI will give you a reality check. This is serious stuff, the more body fat you have the shorter your life and the more susceptible you are to diseases and viruses.

Why you might ask. Body mass is a measurement of muscle mass compared to body fat. And the theory that they use to obtain this percentage is done by using averages. Doctors are assuming that the weight of your bones and organs are average for your height and weight. 

We change those numbers into metric because scientists that invented the system were British. So it's more accurate if we do the calculations in metric. We calculated my BMI at 22.22% which means that I have 22.22% body fat compared to 77.78% muscle mass. 

As you can probably tell already this way of calculating will only work for average people who have a normal amount of muscle.

Doctors use this method because it's fast and easy when you use a BMI calculator. But there's another way. Health Clubs, and nutrition specialists use a different method. You can buy online a caliper that cost less that $10. I found one on Amazon; a caliper, tape measure, and a chart for less then $10. If you have a gym membership they might do it for nothing.

So why is the number so important. You doctor keeps that number in your records and updates it every year. Most doctors today report everything to your insurance company.  You might check with the doctor so you know what is reported and what is not. But the treatment your doctor recommends will depend on what the insurance company will pay for. Maybe it's your insurance that actually calls the shots and recommends the treatment. The BMI information the insurance company has will affect the type of treatment you receive and what the insurance will  pay for. The bottom line is to know your BMI and then talk to the doctor about lower that number. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

We Are Responsible For Our Weight Gain

The following is part of an article I read in the WELL BLOG in the NY Times. It’s totally factual and is well worth reading. This will explain what people go through when trying to lose weight. Some people just can’t do it and some can. I say if you want it don’t give up.

NY Times article:

I have always felt perplexed about my inability to keep weight off. I know the medical benefits of weight loss, and I don’t drink sugary sodas or eat fast food. I exercise regularly — a few years ago, I even completed a marathon. Yet during the 23 years since graduating from college, I’ve lost 10 or 20 pounds at a time, maintained it for a little while, and then gained it all back and more, to the point where I am now easily 60 pounds overweight.

I wasn’t overweight as a child, but I can’t remember a time when my mother, whose weight probably fluctuated between 150 and 250 pounds, wasn’t either on a diet or, in her words, cheating on her diet. Sometimes we ate healthful, balanced meals; on other days dinner consisted of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. As a high-school cross-country runner, I never worried about weight, but in college, when my regular training runs were squeezed out by studying and socializing, the numbers on the scale slowly began to move up. As adults, my three sisters and I all struggle with weight, as do many members of my extended family. My mother died of esophageal cancer six years ago. It was her great regret that in the days before she died, the closest medical school turned down her offer to donate her body because she was obese.

It’s possible that the biological cards were stacked against me from the start. Researchers know that obesity tends to run in families, and recent science suggests that even the desire to eat higher-calorie foods may be influenced by heredity. But untangling how much is genetic and how much is learned through family eating habits is difficult. What is clear is that some people appear to be prone to accumulating extra fat while others seem to be protected against it.

O.K. that said a person’s metabolism has much to do with their body fat. I believe everyone’s rate of metabolism is different. This means that maybe people need different diets to match their metabolism. Our ancestors all came from different parts of the world and were used to different types of diets. Today most countries are pretty well mixed with people from all around the world. For instance the U.S., people come from all over the world mostly for jobs, and we all try and eat the same basic diet. Maybe that’s a mistake? For example, African-Americans have a high rate of Cancer in this country, higher than other nationalities for some types of Cancer. And the obesity rate is higher. This has been blamed on many things but do doctors know the real cause or are they just treating the symptoms? Are we really better off today living in an inter-racial society? All trying to live as North Americans, eating a North American diet, when half or more of us come from other parts of the world?

Canadian researchers Claude Bouchard and Angelo Tremblay studied 31 pairs of male twins ranging in age from 17 to 29, who were sometimes overfed and sometimes put on diets. (None of the twin pairs were at risk for obesity based on their body mass or their family history.) In one study, 12 sets of twins were put under 24-hour supervision in a college dormitory. Six days a week they ate 1,000 extra calories a day, and one day they were allowed to eat normally. They could read, play video games, play cards and watch television, but the exercise was limited to one 30-minute daily walk. Over the course of the 120-day study, the twins consumed 84,000 extra calories beyond their basic needs.

That experimental binge should have translated into a weight gain of roughly 24 pounds (based on 3,500 calories to a pound). But some gained less than 10 pounds, while others gained as much as 29 pounds. The amount of weight gained and how the fat was distributed around the body closely matched among brothers but varied considerably among the different sets of twins. Some brothers gained three times as much fat around their abdomens as others, for instance. When the researchers conducted similar exercise studies with the twins, they saw the patterns in reverse, with some twin sets losing more pounds than others on the same exercise regimen. The findings, the researchers wrote, suggest a form of “biological determinism” that can make a person susceptible to weight gain or loss.

Researchers studying the genetics of Type 2 diabetes claim people who carried a variant known as FTO faced a much higher risk of obesity — 30 percent higher if they had one copy of the variant; 60 percent if they had two.

This FTO variant is surprisingly common; about 65 percent of people of European or African descent and an estimated 27 to 44 percent of Asians are believed to carry at least one copy of it. Simply, two out of three people with European or African descendants carry a type of gene that gives you a high risk for obesity, and one out of three for Asian.

Scientists don’t understand how the FTO variation influences weight gain, but studies in children suggest the trait plays a role in eating habits. In a study, Scottish schoolchildren were given snacks of orange drinks and muffins and then allowed to graze on a buffet of grapes, celery, potato chips, and chocolate buttons. All the food was carefully monitored so the researchers knew exactly what was consumed. Although all the children ate about the same amount of food, as weighed in grams, children with the FTO variant were more likely to eat foods with higher fat and calorie content. They weren’t gorging themselves, but they consumed, on average, about 100 calories more than children who didn’t carry the gene. Those who had the gene variant had about four pounds more body fat than non-carriers. After testing positive for fat-promoting genes, some people were more likely to eat fatty foods, presumably because they thought being fat was their genetic destiny and saw no sense in fighting it. I don’t think so.

Maybe if you think about prehistoric times, when humans living in colder climates would have a different diet in order to build body fat to keep warm. Man would eat by following his instincts and not consciously. I think that may be why some people are still drawn to fatty foods. Man still has instincts from caveman times. Man still wants to hunt for meat, man still wants to dominate. O.K. not in all cases but I know you can see the animal traits in some men and the nurturing traits in some women.

But all obesity is not caused by genes or heredity. We can fight our instincts by eating mindfully. In other words, we can think about our food and decide what’s best for us to eat. We need nutrition so we have to eat but we don’t need to just grab the first thing we see, or eat what we have a taste for. If we let kids do that, they’d eat nothing but ice cream, candy, and cookies. So I think what we learned is that maybe being overweight is part of heredity but we can still make the right choices. We are in control.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.

 Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.