In my last post, I touched on some factors other than diet and exercise that can impact your weight loss efforts.
Today I want to discuss three random studies. None of them have anything to do (at least not directly) with each other, and none of them represent “the” solution to weight loss. I highlight them rather to reinforce the point that, if you are paying attention to the ever expanding (no pun intended) science of obesity and weight loss, you should understand that eating more and moving less are only one part of the story.
Here then are brief descriptions of three studies that each, in their own way, challenge the notion that the only thing that matters for weight loss is calories in versus calories out:
Back in 2008, a psychologist at Harvard conducted a fascinating experiment. She interviewed hotel chambermaids in the Boston area. As you might expect, this was a population of predominantly immigrant women with low educational and socioeconomic status (which are themselves independent risk factors for obesity). She noted something interesting: despite the fact that these women worked long hours doing strenuous physical labor, most of them reported getting no exercise at all. It simply didn’t register to these folks that walking up and down flights of stairs, scrubbing bathroom floors, and carrying heavy items all day long was “exercise,” since all of this physical activity occurred outside of a gym, a fitness class, etc. (I have touched in a prior blog post about the benefits of consistent low-tech physical activity).
She then took these women and divided them into two equal groups. The first group she did nothing with, except to continue to monitor them. The second group she met with periodically and educated on the fact that, by virtue of their jobs, they were already getting much more physical activity than the average person. No other changes were made. Nobody in either group started eating differently or exercising more. The only obvious difference between the groups was that one was made aware of the fact that they were already exercising, while one was allowed to remain ignorant of this fact.
The result was that the group that began to believe they were exercising started to lose weight.
Does this mean that if you have a lot of weight to lose you can simply “psych” yourself into being lean? Of course not. But it certainly suggests that our mental state can be one factor, among many, that determines the trajectory of our health.
You can read more about this fascinating study by clicking here.
I will talk more about circadian biology and light in a future post, as this is a fascinating and emerging area of science. For now I will reference one very small study that touches on this topic. A researcher at the State University of New York at Binghamton (my undergrad alma matter) had healthy volunteers sit under infrared light (via an infrared sauna) several times per week for several months. No changes were made to diet nor to exercise. The volunteers lost an average of 4% of their body fat during the study.
In a now famous study, scientists located a group of adult human twins in which one twin was normal weight and the other was obese. This was important, because it meant that, as much as possible, these were genetically similar people whose body sizes had diverged during the course of their lives.
They then took stool samples from the twins, and transplanted these samples into the gastrointestinal tracts of genetically identical mice. They proceeded to feed the mice the same diets and give them exactly the same environments.
So in sum they now had genetically identical mice living identical lifestyles and eating the same amount of food. The only difference between the mice was that one group had the bacteria of lean humans living inside their GI tracts, and the other had the bacteria of overweight humans living inside their GI tracts.
What happened? The mice followed the path of their human donors. In other words, the mice who had received “lean poop” stayed lean, while the mice who had received “obese poop” grew obese.
While mice are not humans and vice versa, this study is part of a large and emerging body of evidence that links the microbes inside of our bodies to the propensity to gain or lose weight.
None of these studies are the complete picture on weight, and it’s important to remember that every patient is unique. What works for one might not work for another, and vice versa. Weight loss is a tough thing to achieve, and it requires time, patience, and a willingness to try different methods.
And it remains absolutely true that changing your diet (and to a lesser extent, becoming more physically fit) are the cornerstone interventions for weight loss.
But the point I’m making here is that if the only methods you try are a change in diet and exercise, you may be missing a lot of opportunities to help support your journey toward success.
