We are living in an age where the amount of food we consume in its original state has greatly diminished. Instead, our cupboards and pantries are filled with “food products”. These food products consist of overly processed carbohydrates from corn and wheat that come in cardboard boxes and have a list of ingredients as long as my arm. Chances are you won’t be able to pronounce many of the ingredients because they consist of chemicals created in a lab designed for mass production and an unlimited shelf life. I don’t know about you, but I am not too jazzed about the idea of having my food fueled by ethanol and my fiber coming from cotton seeds. These are now the norms and not the exceptions. So if the idea of using these inexpensive, low calorie, highly processed foods to aid in your fat loss goals sounds appealing, you might want to reconsider.

You may not realize it but the corn and wheat that we consume is not the same corn and wheat that our grandparents ate 50 years ago. The seeds used to grow our corn and wheat have been modified and hybridized to such an extent that the nutrients in commercial corn and wheat are practically non-existent. Our bodies have not evolved to digest and metabolize these foods. When they enter our digestive system our bodies identify them as foreign material and are unable to use them effectively, because there is little to extract from them.

Any meal or snack that is high in processed carbohydrates will cause a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for the rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the levels of blood glucose. The problem is that insulin is primarily a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of fat in case of a future famine. So the insulin that is stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the storage of body fat. When we eat too many processed carbohydrates, we are essentially sending a hormone message via insulin to the body that says “store fat”. And it gets worse from there. Not only do increased insulin levels tell your body to store fat, but they also tell it not to release any stored fat making it impossible for you to use your own stored fat for energy. Double whammy.

We have established that hormones play a crucial role in determining how energy is used and how fat is stored. And we have identified the #1 offender that makes fat loss so difficult, even when our calorie consumption is low. Next week I will address foods that will reverse this process and get you on the right path to fat loss.