My Reply to, "Aurorasa Sima's article, The Neuroscience of Weight Loss Stop the Madness

There is a great deal of truth to your article, certainly the concept of addiction is at play here for most people, however, you've really missed the driver of obesity. I've studied this epidemic for the last 20 years and if you take a deep dive, you'll discover the root of obesity mostly has to do with the nature of our food supply. By the way, obesity has nothing to do with exercise, that's a myth. Do the caloric math and you'll see why what I'm sharing is accurate. The truth is that most people around the world have no idea what they should be eating, however, if you study pockets of society, the answer becomes very glaring.

Let's start with this first and most important fact, 100 years ago, the average person consumed 2 lbs of sugar a year (raw), today the average person consumes over 150 lbs of sugar a year (raw, but mostly processed). North Americans as most people around the world, don't understand the difference between good and bad fat (look to the Mediterranean and French diets) The Canadian government in it's effort to provide Canadians with better food missed the class on good fat, so they've reduced the good fat in many products. Butter isn't evil, Julia Child's knew what she was talking about. 30 years ago a news station went into a movie theater to analyze the number of calories and fat in concession food. They measured the fat in a large bag of popcorn and determined that it had 60g of fat, which they suggested was the average amount of fat for a male, I guess nutritionists determined that it should be 40g of fat for females.

This was the beginning of the deep dive down the nutrition rabbit hole. By the way, the popcorn was cooked in Coconut Oil which along with Peanut oil was considered evil, yet here we are today finally recognizing that this oil is a super food. After the fat wagon, we jumped into the Non-Fat stage of our diet, however, consumers weren't smart enough to understand that just because you reduce your fat intake, that doesn't mean you can consume countless calories, which is what people started doing.

All of this was driven by the food industry which in my estimation is incredibly ignorant about food in general. After we rode the fat train for a while, we determined that sugar was bad for us, so we went from fat free to sugar free, using artificial sweeteners, thank you cancer. One day a reporter went into a Chili's restaurant and decided to analyze a meal, the found that there was over 7,000 grams of sodium in the one meal, this is when we jumped on the low sodium train.

Now, if you were paying attention to food labels, which most people can't or don't know how to read, you would have discovered something that was interesting. Whenever you removed, salt, fat and sugar from food, the two that were left would have been increased, in other words, if you reduce fat, the manufacturer would increase sugar and salt. Why? Science has determined that we have a predisposition to sugar, fat and salt. Typically if you remove two or even all three, the food has a bland taste, however, if you stay away from all three long enough, you'll find the food tastes quite good.

There is more than adequate proof that when you shop in a grocery store, the outside of the shopping lanes is where we have the healthier food. Worst thing any country can do is adopt processed food and embrace fast food. Look to the Chinese for this revelation and their increase in heart disease. Type 2 diabetes can be cured by diet, seen it done hundreds of times. What people need to learn is how to read food labels, you'll discover that there's sugar in just about every food product, it's quite alarming. I focus on consuming less than 100 grams of carbs a day, that's the equivalent of three slices of bread. If you counted your sugar calories, you'd be amazed at how much you consume. By just reducing your carbs and eating good fatty food, you'll lose a ton of weight in no time, without any exercise.

Now, let's talk about exercise, it's intention is to keep your organs healthy and your bones strong, not to lose weight.

So, why are people so confused, the media has been lying to us for a very long time, they have no clue as to what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. Interesting that the chefs of the world have come back to eating fresh natural ingredients. The organic craze is another misunderstood aspect of food consumption. Yes if it's truly organic (it's really not well defined) that doesn't mean you can consume as much as you like, you still have to count calories and you'd be amazed at how much sugar can be found in organic food.

Now, when you consume fat and sugar, the body can only process one for energy, the other gets stored as fat. The advantage of fat as your bodies fuel is that not only does it nourish your body, it feeds your brain and it helps you control your calorie intake, because you feel fuller, quicker. The focus shouldn't be on losing weight, it should be on understanding how much fuel your body requires to burn the fat, it's about the intake of healthy nourishment. The loss of weight is a bi-product of the food you ingest. Look at what's happening in the world of dog food. I've had two dogs and only fed them incredibly healthy dog food which contained good protein, berries and today, the removal of gluten.

The death blow that's been delivered to the US is in the form of Soda, or if your Canadian, pop. Ever wonder why Coke and Pepsi are moving back to cane sugar, it's not an accident, time is catching up with them. When I lived in Vegas several years ago and went to the movie theater in the Casino at Red Rock, I ordered a bag of popcorn and a medium diet coke (only time I drink soda) for me and my youngest to share, the cup that was pulled out was 48 ounces. I then asked for the small drink, that was 32 ounces and then had to ask what a large cup held, 64 ounces.

I could go on for ever, but won't. My point is simple, we are ignorant and have been ignorant about nutrition. Even if you speak to a nutritionist, they really don't get it either. In the US, the largest crop that's produced is corn, why. Corn is in everything we eat, dextrose or anything ending in "ose," is bad for you. Corn is being feed to chickens, cows, pigs and farm raised fish, this of course is another serious issue, isn't it interesting now that grass fed beef has become popular, a complete turnaround to days gone by.

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