Calories: The Unasked Question of How to Lose Weight

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Health Viewpoints

If you want to know how to lose weight, then you’ll need to ask another important question. Why did you gain weight in the first place? For such a foundational question, we spend very little time pondering the answer. Why? Because we think we already know it. For decades, we’ve been taught it’s simply a matter of calories in versus calories out—when really—it’s our hormones.

Hormones Affect Weight Loss More Than Calories

• The answer to how to lose weight lies with our hormones.
• “Calories in, calories out” is a false way of thinking about weight loss.
• Different foods of the same caloric value elicit completely different hormonal responses, which affects whether we gain or lose weight.
• Calorie counting doesn’t work.
• The Obesity Code explains how to implement a healthier lifestyle and why people gain weight in the first place.

We say eating too much and exercising too little causes obesity. These truths are considered so self-evident, we don’t even question them. So, it may be surprising to learn the human body doesn’t care in any way about calories. There are no metabolic pathways in the human (or any living thing) that respond to calories. Instead, our bodies gain or lose fat based on hormonal signals. Everything in our body is governed by our hormones, and our body fatness is no exception.