By Nick Nilsson
Author of Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss
Can you be overweight and malnourished at the same time?
It sounds completely counterintuitive...yet the answer to that question is YES. Absolutely you can.
In fact, in my opinion, malnourishment is one of the major reasons many people ARE overweight and could be why YOU are carrying more bodyfat than you'd like or you have stubborn fat you can't get rid of.
And to clarify, when I say "malnourished," I'm not actually talking about a lack of calories. In today's society, that's the easy part. Calories are cheap and plentiful.
When I say "malnourished," I'm referring to micronutrients like minerals, vitamins and enzymes, etc. ...the small stuff that is required to make the metabolic processes of the body actually work.
THAT is what most people are lacking in and what most people simply don't get enough of in their food.
So going back to the main point of being overfat and malnourished, there are two main mechanisms by which this works:
First, when you don't get the nutrients your body needs to sustain your metabolic processes, this sends a hunger signal to your brain to eat more food.
Shich you then satisfy by eating more nutrient-poor food...which then repeats the signal that your body is lacking nutrients...so you eat more food...and so on.
It's one of the reasons you have cravings...it's your body crying out for nutrients, not deep-fried chocolate-covered pickles.
It's a vicious circle whereby you're eating plenty of food, but getting very few nutrients out of the food, which causes you to feel you need to eat more food.
So in that case (though I hesitate to say it), being overweight is not actually your fault. And I hesitate because I don't want to take the idea of personal responsibility off the table. If you put something in your mouth, you should take ownership of that because you can always make better choices.
What is NOT your fault is the nutrient-deficient state of most of the food that we put in our bodies...even the healthy stuff like fruits and veggies.
Even if you're eating plenty of healthy foods, if the nutrients just aren't in there, you obviously can't get them out.
Second, when you're in a nutrient deficient state, your body sees that as a famine situation.
Our bodies are very simple in that respect... if you're not getting enough calories and nutrients for a prolonged period time your body thinks "famine" and the metabolic rate gets slowed down. Fat-burning grinds to a halt as your body fights to hang onto all the resources it has in order to survive.
This is the situation we're unknowingly putting ourselves into when we don't cover our nutritional bases. We may be getting plenty of calories, but when the micronutrients that are critical to the functioning of the body don't get replaced, things start to break down.
You get diseases and conditions associated with nutrient deficiencies that are generally misdiagnosed and then treated with medications. After all, who would suspect malnutrition in a person who is overweight?
And yes, these medications are NOT designed to address the fundamental problem which is lack of nutrients...they're designed to target symptoms. It's like constantly refilling a tire with a slow leak while never actually patching the hole.
So now that you know the reasons by which malnutrition can play a role in being overweight or carrying stubborn fat, what can you do about it?
Eating more healthy foods is a HUGE step in the right direction, especially focusing on organic foods and unprocessed foods.
That old rule-of-thumb of shopping on the outside walls of the grocery store is true...it's where all the meats, eggs, produce and generally unprocessed foods are and you're much better off filling the majority of your basket with them.
Next, stop drinking your calories...ESPECIALLY soda.
The next time you look at a can of soda and are tempted to drink it, I want you to think of this...Coca Cola is used by their own maintenance people to clean the engine blocks of their trucks. This should not be put into your body. Diet soda is usually even worse...it's basically just carbonated chemical soup.
These are empty calories that not only provide nothing in the way of nutrition and can actively work against you by leaching nutrients out of your body when the chemicals get processed inside you.
Finally, let's look at "greens" supplements.
And I know the moment I mention the word "supplements," quite often the walls go up and the "I get all the nutrients I need from my food" reflex kicks in.
If you don't want to take supplements, more power to you. I don't think supplements are necessary either IF you're getting all the nutrients your body needs from the foods you eat.
Speaking for myself, I know I don't get all the nutrients I need from the foods I eat...and it's just not about staving off deficiency...it's also about peak performance. You can't expect your body to perform at optimal levels and to burn fat and build muscle if the nutrients aren't there to run your metabolic processes.
I've been taking greens supplements literally for the past 20 years and it's a practice I encourage. I will never say you HAVE to use supplements to get results or be healthy...just that they DO have the potential to help.
The product that I use and recommend most highly is called Athletic Greens, and you can get it here.
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