If you want to know anything about dieting, you can't avoid learning about calories. In simple terms, calorie in equals calorie out and the only reason you're fat is your laziness. But, how valid is that concept when it comes to human-digestible food?
In the lab, calorie content of a foodstuff is measured by — burning it and measuring how much it heats the water in the container above it. The body is not a furnace and can't burn food in the same way, which makes measuring calories like that pointless. A more apt description would be that the body melts foodstuffs into a slurry, sifts through it to extract the morsels that can be used wherever is necessary and disposes of the waste.
Where the body can't use all of the morsels but can't get rid of them either, it stores them and that's the adipose fat tissue that's such a huge problem for people worldwide. I had always been baffled by the fact that adipose tissue generates inflammatory signals and causes all sorts of problems, as explained in a 2008 study titled "Caloric Restriction and Aging: Studies in Mice and Monkeys":
In recent times, there has been a considerable revision of the view of adipose tissue as a metabolically inert fat storage depot. It has become clear that adipose tissue is not only metabolically active, but it is also a source of hormones and inflammatory factors that influence metabolic homeostasis and systemic inflammation
My bolded part up there makes negative million sense. Evolutionarily, what is useless is discarded or the organism dies off; according to the dietary theory, body fat is simply energy that hasn't been expended and everyone who is fat is simply lazy or without willpower. Why would a human body poison itself and why would a seeming asset (body fat aka. extra energy) cause such a problem? When I realized the body fat is actually toxic and takes energy to get rid of, it all started making sense.
Entrenched dieting wisdom states that muscles burn energy and body fat is stored energy that the body doesn't want to spend. Therefore, all you have to do is force the body to spend it. How? Move, jump, do crunches etc. and you'll see the body fat melt away. Sounds good, doesn't work unless you improve the diet as well, which indicates the secret of metabolic fitness is actually a powerful diet with incidental exercise, not the other way around.
I wrote about atmospheric pressure, which is the weight of air pressing on everything around us, equaling about 1 kilogram per square centimeter at sea level. My point is that you don't exercise; standing up straight is exercise enough and should build up your muscles. If that's not happening and you actually feel exhausted, that's because your body is starved for energy.
When I stumbled upon the idea of the modern diet being not just toxic but blatanly so, it all started making sense. Chris Knobbe is a professor and lecturer who is vividly interested in saturated fats. According to his lectures, carbs are vilified for no valid reason. Though they do spike insulin, he found tropic archipelago peoples who get most of their calories from potatoes without any ill effects. No diabetes, insulin spikes etc. commonly associated with carbs.
The bonanza in his lectures is when he touches upon saturated fats. In short, the modern diet lacks saturated fats, which are the most beneficial nutrient for the human body. Because they are saturated, they are stable and can survive storage and cooking; unsaturated fats easily break apart and turn toxic, especially the polyunsaturated ones. What I believe happens is that, if the diet is rich in polyunsaturated fats, the body gets the slurry without the morsels and wants to get rid of them but lacks the energy so it just stores them.
Doing exercise in that situation leads to tremendous fatigue; I know because I've tried it. Trying to lose weight through exercise is a literal exercise in futility that makes one feel like garbage, because the body actually has to waste the little energy it has and that would otherwise go towards eliminating toxic fat deposits into prancing around.
When I combine that with what I previously learned about diet, insulin and satiety, namely that fats digest slowly and don't spike blood sugar, that low insulin causes the fat deposits to melt away and that fasting each day but not starving is a proper way to live, I visualize this diet plan:
Once I get loaded up with proper food, rich in saturated fats, I can actually have enough energy to do steady exercise, such as walking and riding a bike, and that would actually help me expel more toxins from the body. I learned that muscles work as a pump for the lymph system whenever they activate, so steady, comfortable exercise is by far the best way to become and stay fit, but only when I start eating properly.
There is no need to obsess over diet. There is already a mighty chemical sensor in your mouth — your tongue. Eat what tastes wholesome, meaning unprocessed (homemade) foods. Do it until you're full, take a nap and then go out to enjoy life. That's all you need.