Fat is Stored Energy

Joseph E. Scherger, MD, MPH
Restore Health Disease Reversal
Indian Wells, CA

I would like you to think differently about body fat. The biology of how body fat forms is simple and clearly understood. Carbohydrates are rapid energy foods and consuming more than we use for energy that day triggers insulin to form body fat. Consuming fat from foods like nuts, seeds, eggs and cheese does not make us fat as well described by Dr. Mark Hyman in his book, Eat Fat Get Thin (2016). We form body fat for stored energy to help us survive food scarcity or famines. Our ancestors did that many times.

A “survival reflex” described by Dr. Richard J. Johnson in Nature Wants Us to be Fat (2022) causes us to hold onto body fat and get it back whenever we can. The failure of the Biggest Loser contests is that after losing lots of fat, the contestants regain the fat even when they ate the same diets as stable weight persons. That is the survival reflex in action.

The only way to keep excess body fat away is to live a “fat burning” lifestyle of low carbohydrates and follow time restricted eating of 12-14 hours every day. Scientists have shown that such fasting time is necessary to keep us from reaccumulating unwanted body fat.

To be healthy we need a certain amount of body fat, usually around 30-35 pounds. Women have 10% more body fat than men for reproductive purposes. Healthy men have 10-20% body fat and women have 20-30% body fat. In those ranges we look and feel great.

Using body fat for endurance sports has advantages in that the blood sugar remains steady and cramping rarely occurs. That is called being “keto-adapted” and requires 4-6 weeks of adjustment from the more common use of carbohydrates for energy such as with energy drinks. Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney describe this in their book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance (2012).

Sometimes I comment to an overweight or obese patient that they have a lot of stored energy. They usually smile and that is certainly better than telling someone they are fat. Another accurate comment is having a lot of stored energy allows someone to survive food scarcity or the next famine. Since these tragic events are not likely to happen here anytime soon, burning off excess fat for better health is always a good idea.