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eat less, weigh more…for 118,801 folks, at least


Half of going SANE is about eating more, smarter (the other half is exercising less, smarter).

This seems odd since we’ve all been told the more we eat the more we weigh. However, a quick stroll through the studies shows “more food = more fat” is a myth.

For example, Harvard researchers looked at a massive sample of 67,272 women and divided them into fifths according to the quantity of calories they ate. The general trend was the less ladies ate, the more they weighed.

The researchers then divided the women into fifths according to the quality of calories they ate. The lower the quality of their calories the more they weighed.

The cause of weight gain is too little quality, not too much quantity. And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the studies showing yo-yo dieting—the inevitable result of trying to eat less—increasing our risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, immune system failure, eating disorders, impaired cognitive function, chronic fatigue, and depression. The results are in…studies show blindly eating less doesn’t make us thin. It makes us stocky, sick, and sad.

More surprising science.

The Harvard folks then took 51,529 men and divided them into fifths according to the quantity of calories they ate. The more folks ate the less they weighed.

Practical and permanent fat loss isn’t about cutting calories. It’s about intelligently increasing the quantity of high quality calories we eat. In the same Harvard study researchers divided the 51,529 guys into fifths according to the quality of calories they ate. The higher the quality of their calories the less they weighed.

The calorie quantity theory is fiction and fails because cutting calorie quantity fights against our basic biology. Our bodies don’t like starving. Crazy…I know. Studies show the only way to drop fat forever is to work with our bodies rather than to fight them. We do that by eating more–higher quality–calories. We eat more, smarter. And that works because a calorie isn’t a calorie…but more on that later.

Sampling of sources

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