You are Genetically Programmed to Eat More - Back in the early days of human development, our ancestors expended up to 1500 calories or more per day in search of food. Often, the energy they spent in their daily quest exceeded the calories they found. Deficit eating was the rule of the day. Needless to say, there were no overweight or obese people. On those rare occasions when our ancestors happened upon a large supply of food, they gorged themselves until they couldn’t eat another bite. They did this for two reasons. First, they were ravenous with hunger. But more important, they instinctively knew they had to store as many calories as possible to get them through the lean days and weeks ahead.
When the body misses a meal, it actually holds on to its fat reserves and burns calories at a slower than normal rate. This is why dieting isn’t a very successful way to lose weight because eating less causes the body to hoard its fat.
Why am I telling you all this? I want you to understand that the primary reason we are so overweight today is not our supposed lack of willpower or self discipline. Instead, it is genetic programming that has evolved the human body into a fat storage machine designed for survival. Let me explain.
Calories are a measure of the energy contained in our food. Our bodies are able to process only about 600 to 900 calories per meal. Anything above this amount is immediately converted into fat and stored in case we aren’t able to eat again anytime soon. When times are lean, our bodies naturally slow the rate at which those stored fat calories are burned, rationing them until we need a sudden burst of energy, say for running after (or away from) a wild animal.
This mechanism served humankind remarkably well during the prehistoric days of hunting and gathering, but today it’s an enemy within us when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight. In the industrialized parts of the world, every meal is a feast without the threat of famine. The result is that we store more and more energy in the form of body fat around our hips, thighs, bellies, necks, and jowls that we will never burn off unless we choose to be physically active.
In contrast to third world populations, people in developed countries are dying from the results of too much food. Overconsumption of calories is causing a variety of degenerative diseases that are cutting years off our lives and making middle and old age uncomfortable, if not downright miserable.
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