By Dr Michael Barnish, Head of Genetics & Nutrition, REVIV Global | UPDATED: 08:28, 08 May 2020
Before I begin my tips are based around one fundamental rule. One that is poorly understood both within the medical and non-medical communities and is the reason why obesity is the huge pandemic it is today around the world.
The rule is:
You and your brain often have different ideas of what your ideal weight should be.
The brain dictates what the ideal weight is from reading and monitoring the external environment closely.
If there is a lack of nutrients or food, then it will promote the storage of fat (fuel) to help the body make it through a potential famine. If there is plentiful nutrition and no famine, then the brain will dictate less fat (fuel) storage.
Tip 1:
Boost your Omega 3 levels. It seems simple, but if you want to shed the pounds quickly you need to correct omega 3 deficiencies.
Most people in the Western world are living with low omega 3 levels and high omega 6 levels. We need both, but when omega 6 outnumbers omega 3, then the brain picks this signal up, convincing the body to store more fat (fuel).
Further explanation:
Omega 6’s fatty acids are natural and found in nuts and seeds. Vegetable oils are generally the problem though, processed from a high concentration of seeds and found in abundance in most pre-prepared supermarket and processed foods.
They are added to the food to make processed food taste like food. In my opinion processed foods are not real food. Omega 3 is found in fish, meat and eggs and green leafy vegetables.
Don’t be fooled though. Farmed fish and industrially farmed meats and hens are not fed on the greens they are supposed to be and therefore do not have as high omega 3 levels as expected.
Always determine that the source of the food is naturally pasture/grass fed, organic where possible and, in the case of fish, wild caught and not farmed.
Tip 2:
Avoid food treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics are life savers, when used under the guidance of a doctor, but what about all the antibiotics fed to the food we commonly eat.
It was discovered decades ago that antibiotics helped to fatten up animals, probably as they kill the gut bacteria and the so there’s more food for the animal as not as many bacteria are helping to consuming it. Well this can happen to us too and antibiotics can be passed via the food chain.
Further Explanation:
Industrial farming uses antibiotics to fatten up their animals and to also make sure nasty infections are kept at bay in small confines of living for the animals and fish.
Not only will the antibiotic exposure pass into us when we eat these treated animals, the effect will then occur in us, slightly watered down and strong correlations in studies are identifying this.
It certainly is helping the obesity pandemic. A correlation between industrialised antibiotic use in farming and the onset of the global obesity pandemic can be observed.
Tip 3:
Know yourself. One of the best ways to understand your metabolic relationship with the food that you eat is to undergo a genetic analysis.
These are now cheaper and can be done just from a swab test. Although genetics is only one part of the weight loss picture, it is a foundation stone.
Whether carbohydrates and fats make you gain weight, do you have slow signalling from your stomach to your brain can all be determined and help build out a clear strategy.