Obesity Background Education

Metabolism is a measurement in energy called Kcals and is a biomedical process of breaking down food to release the energy needed for bodily function. In the human body, energy expenditure is broken down into resting energy expenditure (60%), thermic effect of feeding (10%), and non-resting energy expenditure, aka physical activity (30%).

The maintenance of a reduced body weight involves making compensatory changes in energy expenditure and this opposes the body’s natural desire to maintain a specific body weight during times of famine. This natural evolutionary safeguard is what accounts for the poor long-term efficacy of FAD diets and treatments in obesity. It is speculated that after a period of obesity is established, the body permanently alters the level at which body weight is maintained. The complex pathways involved in changing that altered state is what often makes many weight loss programs suboptimal due to an oversight for the need to re-establish a new set point for optimal body weight.

When weight loss occurs, the resting metabolic rate will also decrease as an evolutionary attempt to return the body to its set weight point. When the body loses weight there is an increase in hunger and the body reduces the metabolic rate in an attempt to store more calories into fat energy storage to increase the weight to the previous set point. Exercise is necessary to maintain an increased energy expenditure to decrease the body’s attempt to return to the original weight until a new weight set point is established.

The types of foods we ingest play an effect on how the body choses to store energy while it is attempting to return to the previous set point during weight loss. Insulin plays a role in permitting glucose to enter cells in the body to be used as energy or stored as fat storage. Carbohydrates are rapidly converted into glucose which raise insulin levels. Proteins do not raise blood sugar but are broken down into amino acids and if consumed in amounts can converted into glucose raising insulin levels. Surprisingly, some proteins can stimulate blood sugar as much as carbohydrate containing foods. Fats, however, are directly absorbed as fats and have minimal effects on insulin. The ingestion of healthy fats can limit the energy storage effects of insulin and maintain the body using more efficient fuel sources.