Obesity Explained by The Feast-Famine Cycle and Sleep Pattern

Our body is not designed for excessive eating and prolonged sedentary life!

The survival of the early human species was dependent on the constant search for food which necessitates regular physical activity. Unlike today, food supply was never consistent. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had cycles of feast and famine, physical activity and rest. "Thrifty genes" evolved to ensure efficient intake and utilization of fuel (food). This ancient genome has not changed for the past 10,000 years and certainly has not changed over the past 40-100 years when electricity, refrigerator and convenient stores came into existence. Although the absolute caloric intake of the modern man is less compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the modern man has a positive caloric balance due to our increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Our current situation of continuous food abundance and physical inactivity has caused chaos in our evolutionarily programmed biochemical cycles and ultimately resulting in metabolic derangement such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Therefore it is postulated that a certain threshold of physical activity is needed to ensure that that this cycling of metabolic processes continues. Manu V. Chakravarthy and Frank W Booth. Eating, exercise, and "thrifty" genotypes: connecting the dots toward an evolutionary understanding of modern chronic diseases. Journal of Applied Physiology.2004 96;3-10

You have to be "Metabolicaly Flexible" if you want to lose weight and stay healthy. God has gifted us with 4 different metabolic pathways for energy production. Our cells can produce energy from Carbohydrate, Fats, Ketone bodies and Proteins. Unfortunately, our society has been priming our bodies with predominately carbohydrate as the main source of energy. Being metabolically flexible or resilient means our body can switch to other alternative source of energy namely Fats and Ketone bodies. We do not want to cause our body to use proteins from our muscles as the source of energy because that literally means we are 'digesting' ourselves and this happens during severe famine or sickness.

EATING FATS WILL NOT MAKE YOU FAT! EATING EXCESSIVE CARBS WILL MAKE YOU FAT. 

• CARBOHYDRATES INCREASES BLOOD SUGAR LEVEL, RESULTING IN INCREASED INSULIN SECRETION FROM THE PANCREAS. 
• INSULIN WILL THEN INCREASES SECRETION OF LIPOPROTEIN LIPASE WHICH WILL INCREASE ABSORPTION OF FATS FROM YOUR BLOODSTREAM INTO FATS IN YOUR BODY CELLS. 

THEREFORE, EATING CARBOHYDRATES WILL CAUSE CONVERSION OF DIETARY CALORIES INTO FAT!

So a good strategy of loosing weight healthily would be:

1. Re-awaken fat burning (beta-oxidation) capacity
2. Use ketones as fuel
3. Avoid breaking down muscle tissues
4. Reset endocrine system
5. Maintain/regain normal weight
6. Reduce inflammation
7. Become metabolically more resilient

SO HOW DOES SLEEP AFFECT YOUR BODY FATS?

• Sleep deprivation will cause your cortisol hormone to increase. High cortisol level in blood will increase insulin secretion. Insulin will increase conversion of dietary calories into fat.
• People who slept more lost more fat than those who slept less. Yes, we literally burn fat during slept.
• Sleep deprivation cause the body to preserve body fats at the expense of the muscles (60% more muscles were lost by sleeping less).
• Those who slept for fewer hours had produced more of the appetite stimulating hormone ghrelin. They woke up hungrier!
• We may think that we burn more calories by staying awake longer, but that is not true at all! Less sleep causes our body to down-regulate metabolism to preserve energy to cope with the increased energy demand of staying awake.
• Bottom Line: If you want to burn fat, preserve muscle and wake up less hungry when you are dieting, sleep more...8.5 hours a night to be exact.

Click here to read the study