Healthy Weight Range

Healthy range

A rough guide is a body mass index (BMI) of 20 to 25. This is a crude tool but it is easy to measure and study. Don’t focus on the numbers too much. You can have a BMI of 20 and be unhealthy or a BMI of 35 and be very healthy.
A better tool is measuring your waist circumference.
Or better yet, don’t measure anything and be guided by how comfortable you feel in your body, how your clothes fit, how long you can exercise, how much energy you have, and if any chronic diseases are getting better like chronic pain.

Why does it matter

We know being above a BMI of 25 is linked to over 200 medical conditions.

Heart attacks / Strokes
Diabetes
Depression
Cancer
Sleep apnoea
Knee osteoarthritis

We know the higher your BMI, generally the greater your risk of dying overall

BMI > 30 = 3 years of life lost roughly
BMI > 35 = 6 years of life lost roughly
BMI > 40 = Almost 10 years of life lost roughly

Why do we eat?

Energy
Pleasure
Nutrients

Diets

Almost every diet plan will work for weight loss. At least in the short term.

However
- They may lack the right balance of nutrients.
- Are often unpleasant or at least not pleasurable.
- May not be able to be sustainable long-term.

Myths

There are lots of common weight loss concepts that are just incorrect

Diet and Exercise
- People seem to believe that exercising furiously every day and restricting their calorie intake by only eating plain salads will help with long-term sustainable weight loss. It can but it usually doesn’t because it’s not sustainable.
Eat fewer calories
- Can work, but often doesn’t, not sustainable, not enjoyable
Exercise
- Moving your body is important for overall health.
- It probably only accounts for 5 to 10% of difficulty losing weight, the other 90% is what you eat.
- If you love exercising - do it.
- If you hate exercising and do it begrudgingly to “burn calories“ then go eat a burger - just don’t eat the burger.
All calories are the same
- Not true.
- Liquid calories are the worst, specifically sugary drinks
- If you have the same calories in a glass of apple juice versus the same amount in fresh apples, the fresh apples are much better for you because of the extra fibre.
- Fibre has health benefits but slows and impedes the absorption of sugars
Breakfast is the most important meal
- Not true
- This is a marketing campaign from the 1800s in the battle between bacon and eggs versus cereal for breakfast.
- There are merits to breakfast, but skipping it is fine
Small meals frequently
- You don’t need to eat 7 times a day
- Snacking in between meals to keep up your blood sugar is unnecessary
- Our bodies make glucose all the time
Low fat
- Eating fat does not make you fat - It generally does the opposite.
- Higher protein and higher fat meals turn off hunger and sate our appetite
Weetbix / Oats / Cereal is healthy
- Most cereals are just different forms of carbohydrates (wheat or oats or corn as a base) which get turned into sugar
- Then they add more sugar in the form of dried fruit, or chocolate, or a sugary coating
- Some more sugar from milk (lactose)
- Add some more sugar (fructose) from a banana
- Honey on top for more sugar
- And a side of white toast, which gets broken down into sugar
- And 4 teaspoons of sugar in your coffee
Fruit is healthy
- Fruit is important, it has many useful ingredients including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre
- But traditionally fruit was eaten seasonally in Summer and Autumn, allowing us to fatten up before a long cold Winter when food is scarce
- Now fruit can be available all year round
Fruit Juice is healthy
- Not true
- Again, useful for vitamin, minerals and antioxidants
- BUT lots of sugar
- The recommended maximum daily intake of added or free sugars is 25 to 35g per day
  - 100mL of Orange Juice is 9g of sugar
  - 100mL of Iced Coffee is 8 to 9g of sugar
  - 100mL of Coca-Cola is 10.6g of sugar
  - So 400mL of any of these drinks already exceeds the recommended maximum amount of sugar per day from all foods
- Aargh I’m angry
Milk is healthy
- Milk is useful for calcium but so are fish, tofu, green leafy vegetables, beans and nuts
- 100mL of milk is 5g of sugar
  - 700mL of milk exceeds the recommended maximum amount of sugar per day from all foods

Insulin

Now the fun stuff.

When we eat carbohydrates, they are broken down into sugars, and our body releases insulin.

The effect of releasing insulin is as follows:

Increased fat storage: Insulin stimulates the uptake of glucose and fatty acids into fat cells, where they are converted into triglycerides for storage.
Increased appetite: Insulin also plays a role in regulating appetite by acting on the hypothalamus in the brain. High levels of insulin can stimulate the production of the hormone leptin, which helps regulate hunger and satiety. However, when insulin levels are chronically elevated, the body may become less responsive to the effects of leptin, leading to increased appetite and overeating.
Decreased energy expenditure: Insulin can also affect energy expenditure by reducing the breakdown of stored fat and promoting the storage of glucose and fatty acids in muscle cells. This can lead to a decrease in the number of calories burned through physical activity, which can contribute to weight gain over time.

TL;DR

Eating lots of carbohydrates
Broken down into sugar
Insulin is released which leads to
- Making new fat and storing it
- Increase appetite
- Slows metabolism
= Weight gain

Food is a commodity

There are entire industries built around growing and selling agriculture including beef, fish, eggs, dairy, corn, wheat, rice, and soy.

This includes massive companies build around restaurants, takeaway food, beverages, snacks, and chocolate.

Most food in a Western diet is not designed for health.

It is designed to be cheap, accessible, addictive, and have a long shelf life. It is energy dense and highly processed.

Processed food

This is part of the core issue when it comes to weight loss and overall health for that matter. Processed food has not enough of three key ingredients and too much of eight harmful ingredients.

Not enough
- Fibre
  - Forms gel on the inside of the intestine
  - A secondary barrier to preventing early absorption of calories in the duodenum
  - Blood glucose won’t spike, insulin won’t spike
  - Calories make it to the gut microbiome
- Omega-3 (wild fish)
- Micronutrients
Too Much
- Branched-chain AA (Leucine, isoleucine, valine)
- Omega-6 (plant oils, polyunsaturates)
- Additives
- Trans-fat
- Nitrates
- Emulsifiers
  - Stops processed food from separating
  - They are detergents, keeping fat and water together
  - Eats away the protective mucin layer of intestines, exposing bacteria to the immune system
  - Associated with food allergy and autoimmune processes
  - Carrageenan in icecream
- Salt
- Sugar