Why diets don't work: Starved brain cells eat themselves!

Being healthy is a good thing! With good physical tone you feel better—more energised, sharper of mind. You sleep better. You’re less prone to sickness and disease. You look better. We all want to be healthier! But… how do you shed that unwanted roll of belly or ass fat? AND if you do manage to get rid of it, how do you banish it for good?

There is one super simple equation that elegantly answers that question:

Calories consumed / calories burned.

If the left side of the equation is a bigger number and you’re not doing any resistance training to build muscle, your extra calories are deposited as fat. If the right side is larger, then you’re burning your fat reserves and slimming.

So it’s easy right? Eat less! Well… perhaps not.

Generally your body tells you how much to eat, which keeps the calorie equation in balance, but, we treat calorie consumption as a pleasure, an addiction, sometimes even a fetish, and that complicates our response to hunger signals. Go into any book store (if there are any left in this digital age) and you’ll find a whole section of books telling you why you should and how you should diet. Don’t waste your time reading them. A report in the journal Cell Metabolism helps to explain why it's so hard to stick to a diet.

When we restrict our calorie intake, hunger-inducing neurons in the brain cannibalise bits of themselves, turning up a hunger signal to prompt eating.

The cellular process uncovered in neurons of the brain's hypothalamus is known as autophagy (literally self-eating). Lipids within the agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons are mobilised following autophagy, generating free fatty acids. Those fatty acids boost levels of AgRP, itself a hunger signal. When autophagy is blocked in AgRP neurons, AgRP levels fail to rise in response to starvation.

Ok, let’s translate that.

Dieting is a form of self-denial. Humans are very good at postponing rewards, starving ourselves all day and then binging on ice cream because we earned it. But we are terrible at self-denial, starving without the ice cream reward. And it’s not because of our lack of will power either. Our brains are against us.

It is possible to change your diet to a healthier, less calorie-laden one, but that requires a lifestyle change which makes the task many times harder. Especially if you share the food you eat with others who are disinclined to go on that self-denial journey with you.

But don’t despair. There is a right side to that equation too: calories burned.

Take up running. It’s cheap (a pair of running shoes, no gym fees required). Or cycling, or swimming. Anything that takes your heart rate up into fat burn territory for half an hour or more a day. Ok, this takes some discipline too, but, you’re not practising self-denial, you’re forming a new habit. And after a few weeks it gets a lot easier, especially as your weight starts to fall and your body shape and aerobic capacity improves.

This isn’t a super-fast diet plan, you may take a year or longer to get the body shape you want. This is the long game. And that’s why it works.

If you want to build muscle mass to really get into the sculpting thing, you’ll need to add resistance training, of course, but building your basic aerobic capacity through exercise is the solution that works to getting better health, better tone. Calorie restriction is your brain picking a fight with your brain—you know you can’t win that one!

Of course there are better eating habits too. More fruit and vegetables. Fewer processed foods. Less sugar. But, one thing at a time. Every journey starts with a first step. That first step is easier in running shoes.

Read more:

Autophagy in Hypothalamic AgRP Neurons Regulates Food Intake and Energy Balance. Susmita Kaushik, Jose Antonio Rodriguez-Navarro, Esperanza Arias, Roberta Kiffin, Srabani Sahu, Gary J. Schwartz, Ana Maria Cuervo, Rajat Singh. Cell Metabolism, Volume 14, Issue 2, 173-183, 3 August 2011 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2011.06.008