The Science of Weight Change

Introduction

I always considered my father to be a keen admirer of the British aristocracy, such was the frequency with which we attended stately homes over our school holidays. As I grew older I realised it was not the homes he enjoyed, but the mazes their gardens always housed. Despite the array of palaces, castles, abbeys, and manors we attended each and every visit would follow a similar pattern, as my father would ignore all other attractions to lead my siblings and me into the middle of whatever bushy warren was on offer. Only then to silently and suddenly run off, leaving us to find our way out. Something we surprisingly managed every time. These are fond memories. We would always laugh joyously on discovering our freedom and finding our father on his way back to the car. And how he laughed with us, sometimes to the point of tears.

However, these welcome events were not just distractions during those long school vacations, they actually played an important part in my development. Such that I am now blessed with an inherent ability to retrace my steps, in low light and any weather. I introduce this potentially true story to make a point. If we allow ourselves to consider the central point of the maze as our current situation of unwelcome weight, we must look to see how we got here if we are to find our way out. In this chapter I help you do exactly that, by discussing the influences that made you gain weight in the first place, I include tests to help you work out who you can blame and add a dash of science so that you can become slightly confused about the whole thing.

The science

At some point in my teens, I was sent to live in France for a week, as the guest of an overly emotional family, in the mistaken belief that it would encourage me to learn the language. As a part of this exchange, I attended the local school with one of their irritable children and got to experience the French version of physics. Despite being conducted in a language I was yet to grasp; I remember that that lesson made as much sense to me as the ones I had attended on the same subject at home.

The only good I could see for physics lessons, even in my native tongue, was that they gave those who thought in a different way to the rest of us, sometime in the school curriculum that they could enjoy. It seemed a good separator of personalities. Rare was it that the school football captain, or head cheerleader, were keen on the most mathematical of natural sciences. Rather, it became a haven in which the quieter children could come to life, demonstrating an energy and enthusiasm they dare not display throughout the rest of the school day.

I particularly remember that physics textbooks, in whichever country I read them, were an enigma. Packed full of equations that did little more than create an unreadable matrix from which I could decipher little. Others, however, took these codes and from them developed an understanding of the world and its beginnings. Or so they told me.

My experiences of the subject in both countries had led me to believe nothing more than it takes a genius to make something simple so complicated that few people can understand it. For example, when considering weight gain, the obvious conclusion, before it gets clouded and confused by letters of the Greek alphabet, is that we all are here and reading this book because we put more in than we took out. A ppositive approach with banks, a negative one with bodies. A handful of foreign letters does not help us understand why we did this.

After all, equations are exact. They are neat and precise; people, like me, are not. You may think a mound of chocolate ice cream added to any children’s party would result in increasing disorder, but amongst the mayhem there would be some who don’t like cold food and others who only eat pink flavours. We may think that we can predict the actions of a population but within that lies the confusing and conflicting actions of many an individual. We are not numbers; we are free men or women.

Take the much-maligned calorie, as an example. A victim of its own success, it is now only used to advertise its absence or to apologise for its presence. It has been dragged into a mess not of its own making. A useful tool that gained little attention in the decades or centuries since its invention, it has now taken centre stage. And it seems as if none of us can survive without an encyclopaedic knowledge of every single calorie in every piece of food that passes our lips, along with the mathematical faculties to calculate the number of these units we burn up in every second of activity we are forced to endure.

An overriding focus on the measure has blinded many to what food is about. Focusing solely on these alarming numbers over taste, nutrition or pleasure. Some would argue that calories are the only important thing and a calorie, they try to tell us, is a calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie. But this ignores that the fact that we are not completely efficient catches and consumers of energy and our ability to do so differs between people and by food.

Any lucky parent, blessed with the job of changing their dependent’s nappy after trying sweetcorn for the first time, may feel some disappointment. After all the effort of introducing their loved one to this food favourite, they find out that although it was welcomed at one end, it is commonly rejected/ejected at the other. The scattering of undigested kernels ably highlighting our inability to consume all of that inside us. We are not furnaces or bombs. Plenty of the food we take in is left behind and the ever-strong toilet paper industry is testament to that.

I say kudos to the scientists and their expertise. Not only have they managed to secure their position in the diet industry, they have also made it so complicated that we need such an industry in the first place. If we all understood calories and nutrients and found them easy to balance, we wouldn’t need the multitude of companies and authors trying to make the whole thing easier for us. We are slaves to their knowledge and acumen.

But it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Weight gain is a simple combination of time, eating too much and not getting enough exercise and throughout the rest of this chapter I will explain how these factors worked together to lead you into the position of perusing the diet and health section of your local bookstore or online retailer.

Dr Idiot says

The supposed experts will tell us that there are no such things as negative calories. There are no foods that take more energy to eat than you get from eating. I beg to differ. I once took some left-over chicken from my parents’ fridge and spent the next three days ejecting every calorie that had been anywhere near my digestive system immediately preceding and proceeding every tangy bite. I think many of these experts would know a lot more if they spent less time at their blackboards and more time eating with my family.

Time

The first words I spoke, according to the normally unreliable source of my parents, were ‘my ice cream’. I am not sure if this story has been embellished over the years, but it was certainly true that food was a central part of my childhood. Whereas other parents complained about the struggles they faced in getting their fussy toddlers to eat beyond the inflexible diets they had established, mine were trying to stop me eating everything I came across.

They tell me that in my very early years, at a time before I found the words to express myself, the fixing of a bib around my neck would elicit a giggle of delight. A round of clapping would follow as milk, baby food, rice or any early offerings were delivered towards my expectant mouth. With the smile remaining until the last morsel had been finished. At which point the disappointment of another meal ending promoted the kind of blood curdling scream that every parent dreads.

I would not suggest that I was a particularly advanced child, average seems kind, but I was a younger user of cutlery than most and could name every sweet in the pick and mix counter of our local shop before I could remember my name. This, I have always felt, demonstrates that all children are capable of learning, the challenge is finding a subject they are interested in.

However, my relationship with food was not consistent across the ages and within time it moved from treasured friend to tormentor. I remember this change becoming particularly noticeable during my thirties. I am not going to pretend I was ever waif like, but up until some point in my fourth decade, it seemed as if I could eat a lot and see little resulting change. I recall during those late teens and even into my twenties, how my friends and I would live off big breakfasts, between meal snacks, sugar filled soda, takeaways, ready meals, copious drinking and late dinners with little influence on our waistlines, chest size or hip circumference.

Then, rather sadly, my thirties arrived. It was almost as if overnight my body went from being able to handle all the rubbish I was throwing into it without change, to suddenly paying the price for the years of abuse. How depressing it is to recall nights working my way through whole ice cream tubs and entire biscuit packs at a time at which a cursory glance at a piece of toast resulted in a tightening of the trousers. Whereas once food was relished and welcome, it now was tempter or temptress, to be resisted. I had reached a point at which I needed a constant reminder that the extra slice of bacon, the afternoon cookie, evening glass of wine, or chocolate chunk was now efficiently translated by my body to all the extra bits I could really do without.

The only positive thing to come from the memory of having lived through the change from blast furnace to storage unit, is that when I see teens and twenties guzzling and devouring anything edible that passes within arm’s reach. I can alleviate my jealously slightly, by reminding myself that it will catch up with them up at some point. That they too will suffer the agony that time bestows on us all.

Although it should be remembered that time is not independent. It may not get affected by much, save our perception of it, but it does not change alone. People, places, planets all change with time. Friendships come and go and careers progress, regress or stagnate. Lives and circumstances evolve and though we may not be able to slow time or change its unrelenting progression, we may be able to control some of these other factors or use them to our advantage.

For example, my parents often describe the time before I arrived as the happiest of their lives. My Mum also complaining that my arrival coincided with the start of her enduring weight gain. I defend myself slightly, by pointing out that giving birth may be the most rapid and extreme weight loss people encounter, particularly when it is to as hefty an offspring as I was. Still, I recognise that procreation is no long-term weight loss plan with many new parents reporting consistent and continuing weight gain after the joy of life has been bestowed upon them.

My parents are not alone in suggesting that diet and activity level take a backseat to newfound responsibilities following the arrival of their cherished and celebrated children. Despite not being a parent myself and having no experience in this area, I would say that that is narrow minded thinking. It is wrong to see your growing family as a barrier to such things and far better to see them as an opportunity. See below for my baby-bell workout that allows you to incorporate family members into your exercise regime, rather than blame them for dropping it.

Dr Idiot Gets Physical

Below are a series of exercises I designed, that help you keep fit despite the additional parental responsibility that may hinder your time in the gym or out running. This is not only a great way to get fit but also a good way to bond with your baby. So put on a fresh nappy, some hard wearing clothes and start exercising.

Russian Baby Swing

Stand up straight, with feet a bit wider than hip-distance apart, grab your baby with both hands (your hands not their hands), keeping your palms face down and your arms in front of your body. Maintain a slight bend to your knee and drive your hips forward while swinging your baby. Keep your glutes and core engaged at all times.

Baby Goblet Squat

Stand up straight, holding your baby in front of your chest with both hands, keeping your elbows close to your body. Start squatting by driving your heels into the ground and pushing your hips back until your thighs are parallel to the ground or just below.

Baby Lunge Press

Stand up straight while holding your baby in front of your chest with both arms, bent and palms facing each other. Lunge forward with one leg while raising your baby overhead.

Baby Russian Twist

Sit with your legs bent and feet flat on the floor, about hip-distance apart. Hold your baby with both hands at your chest, and then lean back to a 45-degree angle. Here’s the fun part: Rotate your torso from left to right by twisting at the waist and swinging your baby across your body.

Single-Arm Baby Snatch

Start with your baby between your feet with your knees bent. Then, explode up onto your toes, pulling your baby until it reaches your chest with your elbow tucked in. From there, bring your baby overhead. Then bring it back down close to the ground.

Three’s a crowd? Not in my book!

Are you a parent to twins? If so use both to get an even better workout. Here are a couple of exercises you can do if you have been blessed with double joy:

Twin Baby Row

Place your twins in front of your feet and bend your knees slightly. Next, bend over to grab both babies and pull them towards your stomach, keeping your elbows close to your body and your back straight.

Twin Baby Military Press

Grab your twins and clean them to the “rack” position. Then, press your babies up while leaning forward at the waist so the babies are positioned behind your head. Bring them back down to your shoulders and continue pressing.

Eating too much

I endured a rather challenging search for employment after leaving school. My lack of skills not being in demand. The majority of the many CVs and letters I sent out failed to elicit as much as a ‘thanks but no thanks’ reply, with most of my applications remaining unanswered, despite the modest level of job for which I was applying. My Dad would always remind me that I only needed one chance and the pain of the search would be forgotten. On this rare occasion he was right. After some anxious months of looking, a letter fell at our door asking me to come to interview, for a position I had almost forgotten I had applied for. The job itself was unclear but the company was attractive, as it had openly declared that they were ‘willing to take a chance on people’. As it turned out this was mostly through a drive to forego qualifications for the opportunity of a low wage bill, but also, as I once heard two senior managers discuss, they were trying to fill positions for tasks ‘an untrained chimp could do’.

The interview itself was unremarkable and contained the standard questions one would expect in such circumstances. It stands out in my memory not because of what I was asked but more due to the answers I gave. Or more precisely one answer to one question in particular. When asked to describe my strengths and weaknesses, after some consideration, I replied ‘eating’ for both. I then followed this up, in detailing where I saw myself in five years’ time, by providing ‘hospital’ as the considered response. Surprisingly the interviewers laughed and with a wink suggested that I would fit in well in their office. They had mistaken my interview impudence and brazen honesty for humour and rashly offered me a position.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until my workshy temperament and untrainable disposition stood out as unusual and I was let go. But they had been right in that in the short time I was there, the double edge sword I had laid before them in interview was common to most, it not all, of those within their employment. Food was both ally and antagonist to many of those I met in my short time in there. This does not mean that the company had collected an unusual assortment of specimens, on this matter at least. Far from it. For most of us, both inside and outside the office, the paradoxical nature of our drive to consume means that it is the reason we are here but may also prove to be the cause of our demise.

It takes little aptitude to eat. All that’s really required is opportunity. Unlike the majority of employable skills, such as resource management and spreadsheet design - things the company eventually decided they valued above inadvertently humorous interview answers – very few of us do not possess the ability, nor the drive, to put something into our mouths. Eating is innate, it is driven by our bodies. We wake up hungry. We feel peckish at mid-morning. We struggle to hold out from snacking till we dine at a reasonable hour. Our body tells us when it needs food and then it tells us when it needs no more. Unfortunately, the way those two feelings conspire to keep us fed, may sometimes prove more hindrance than help.

I will venture to provide an example from the Diot family archives, citing an occasion on which we, as a unit, ventured out to celebrate a significant birthday of my father. This celebration, as with all Diot events, centred around food. The location for this which was a newly opened ‘all you can eat’ steakhouse that my father had seen advertised in the local paper and which he had excitedly booked some months prior to the big day.

Sadly, on arriving at the establishment, the thrill of limitless meat dissipated as soon as we were shown to our table and the waiting staff presented the options available to us. It appeared that the advertisement, or my father’s reading of it, had been misleading. In so far as we weren’t allowed to eat all the meat we could manage, but we did have a free reign on the starters, sides and desserts. Vast swathes of soup, potato done numerous ways, rice and pasta options sitting in a long line of chafing dishes along the wall closest to the kitchen. Staff hurrying to and fro, regularly refilling each receptacle as customers walked back to their tables balancing plates piled high enough to fill the hole left by the disappointingly small protein portions.

As soon as we had determined the business model for the establishment, we vowed never to return, but as we were there, we felt we should have our feast of the cheap carbohydrate fillers, in a bid to get our money’s worth. My father, who was footing the bill for his own birthday meal, had banned all of us from taking in any food that day, preceding the restaurant visit, in expectation of a mighty feast. A common occurrence when dining out with the Diots. By the time we arrived we were in the grip of overwhelming feelings of hunger, that once released, led to an uncontrolled fit of gorging. Like a swarm of piranhas that have picked up the scent of blood, we soon cleared even the most well-stocked of serving platters.

We were frenzied in our eating. All of us in the grips of an overriding appetite. Starters, followed by sides, followed by meat, followed by doing it all over again. Until we completed the feast with cake, jelly and ice cream. Even helping ourselves to the mints that we found sitting by the till as we walked past it. On and on we went, demonstrating remarkable endurance and drive to devour everything the place could offer. Things became so extreme that at one point the manager felt obliged to come to our table to tell us we had eaten enough. My mum, ever one to welcome a fight, pointed to the ‘all you can eat’ invitation on their menus, fliers and walls and insisted we could carry on as long as we wanted. Which we subsequently did, hungered further by a sense of injustice. Until finally, replete and happy, we left the restaurant that was now empty and silent save for the light sobs of a ruined owner.

I clearly remember that it was on the 10-minute drive home that the happy feelings of satiety gradually subsided to be replaced by some discomfort. My siblings and parents, obviously beginning to feel the same way, shuffled uncomfortably in their seats. On arriving home, we all waddled into the house, collapsing in any free space on furniture or floor that we could find. It was five minutes after this that the moans started, followed closely by some extreme sweating, rather incongruous in the chill of our winter home. Before long we were in the throes of a collective agony, writhing in unison. To this day, my brother claims he had started to hallucinate. The walls of the lounge bursting out at him and the ceiling washing up and down in waves.

Initial thoughts were that we had picked-up some kind of infection and the recently visited eatery seemed to be the likely source. We tried to identify a culprit, by comparing dishes we had eaten in the hopes of finding one common to us all, but it was difficult to reduce this expansive list to a single item. All of us had tried pretty much everything on offer. Once the group vomiting started, my parents, breaking with tradition, did the sensible thing and called the out-of-hours doctor, who came promptly round fearing a food poisoning outbreak. After an extended prodding and poking of their family of patients, the medic claimed, with some confidence, that our sudden deterioration was indeed down to our recent meal, but it wasn’t something we’d eaten, it was everything. We had all simply consumed too much.

Unable to prescribe a cure for gluttony, the doctor resorted to offering some sensible advice, telling us all to listen to our bodies in the future, as they will tell us when we have eaten enough. With that, they left. Suitably chastened, we waited to hear their car leave before loudly rejecting the trained medic’s recommendation. We had, we all agreed, listened to our bodies and it was them that had got us into this predicament.

Even now I reflect on this and wonder if my body has ever imparted helpful or healthful advice on how I should treat it. Normally the opposite is true. I only have to start taking a few steps and my body will tell me to stop running. It practically shouts sit down and relax at most times of the day. In addition, it asks for food whenever it can. I imagine yours is little different. Our bodies don’t know. Many an eater has stopped their intake at the point of comfortable fullness only to find themselves sometime later painfully stuffed. The moderate discomfort of the recently finished meal intensifying in the time following completion, until we are suffering the pain and bloating of overindulgence. It turns out that our stomach screams when it is hungry but whispers when it is full.

This means that we can’t rely on our bodies to control our consumption. Quite the opposite. They are designed to keep us eating, through agonising feelings of hunger and more tolerable feelings of fullness. One so difficult to ignore, the second so easy to overcome. The body makes little sense when you listen, for it is not a body intended for the times we find ourselves in. After all, they were designed when later was not always an option. They were built to allow us to take advantage of the current situation, not knowing how tomorrow would turn out. They were fine-tuned to feast and famine, at a time before buffets were commonplace. Our predecessors did not gather at the edge of the savannas to see cattle, fowl and fish seated in a row ready for selection, conveniently placed next to an outcrop of vegetable sides. Indeed, such a past may have meant our stomach would have taken a more central role in controlling our appetite, telling us to take enough for now and to come back for more later, as it will always be here.

I may go as far as to say that had there been enough high fat, salt and sugar options to commit our forerunners to a life even shorter than those they endured at the time, we may now be predisposed to avoid such foods. We may see the mistake in our ways now, but for our bodies these learnings prove to be a couple of million years too late.

Dr Idiot’s Idiets ideas

If our bodies are not designed for the time in which we are living, why not act like it is the time for which they were intended. Live like a caveperson. Don’t cook anything, eat all your meat raw, sleep on the floor, shun modern technologies and medicines and you just might be lucky enough to live into your thirties, as a small number of them were. T Rex steak anyone?

Not getting enough exercise

My first experience of structured exercise, as I am sure with many of you reading this, came by way of physical education lessons in the early years of junior school. For many pupils, in many schools, the Phys Ed class is a welcome break from the suffocating pursuits of grades and targets. Gone is the working in silence and heads down concentration and in its place a chance to run around and play. Sadly, this was not the case in my school.

The character of a sadistic PE teacher has been well painted in better books than this, so I will not expend unnecessary energy describing Mr Redcap here. Suffice to say he was the only member of the PE department and it became clear early in my school life that his approach to ‘teaching’ was centred around one lesson plan, that would be rolled out for every session. This is before the advent of teacher training, school inspections and a national curriculum for Physical Education, but on reflection it still seems strange that someone close to him never pointed out that playing a game called ‘Murder Ball’ was not the most appropriate activity when in charge of a class of six-year-olds. The name was one thing, the game itself was little better.

The object of Murder Ball depended on who you were: Mr Redcap or a pupil. If you were the adult, supposedly experienced, member of teaching staff it was to kick a football with the express aim of hitting a child. If you were one of the children, it was to not get hit. Although balls in those days were heavier and fuller bodied than the ones you find today, Mr Redcap declined to use even those, preferring instead the vintage leather variety that carried a great deal more mass. Although he never admitted as much, such balls could do a lot more damage. The game would commence with Mr Redcap standing at one end of the sports hall, that doubled as assembly room and theatre, with the ball at his feet whilst the class, in an extreme state of anxiety looked for somewhere to hide. The piano in the corner being the favoured location that children would run for as soon as they were let into the ‘classroom’.

Mr Redcap would then take a short but effective run up and kick the ball, launching it at high speed towards the throng of panicked children. Once released, it was hard to predict where the ball would end up due to the array of equipment stored within the hall. Many of my classmates have described it as like being stuck inside a pinball machine, when reflecting on these lessons either with each other or to their therapists. Once struck by the ball, one remained struck and the real hope, having accepted that Mr Redcap would spare no one, was that the ball would hit you in one of your least delicate areas. Many children adopting a similar crouched position to that recommended for a nuclear strike and sacrificing a relatively padded behind by pointing it in the direction of the attack.

Once the ball, having ricocheted around the room and off a few class members, came to rest, the teacher (I use the term loosely) would slowly walk towards it as those still standing scrambled for new hiding positions as far away from the point of aggression as possible. Those who had been hit in the previous strike would mostly remain supine, in a state of shock, agony or unconsciousness. As a young adult I once attended the showing of a World War II classic movie, that my father had been keen to watch. In one of the more celebrated shots of the film, the camera panned across the now deserted battlefield, as bodies of the dead lay strewn across it, a haunting soundtrack playing in the background gradually faded to silent as the mass of the fallen became obvious. It was a heart wrenching commentary on the loss of life and futility of war and one that took me straight back to my school days. The vision of the twisted motionless bodies of children in their PE kit scattered around the sports hall tormented me for some time after the movie had finished.

The game was completed once every child had been struck. Mr Redcap then checking his watch to see if we had time for a second round. If not and we had resisted the attack for long enough to prevent a second wave, he would take a seat in the corner of the room and read the paper, leaving us to gather our senses and struggle to our feet. Those able to walk unaided helped the wounded off the floor as we all limped our way to the next lesson.

Physical activity, I was learning, was painful and it was not something I became encouraged to do. I do not feel I am alone in this. Sit down with anyone and mention exercise and they will mostly think of enforced cross country at school or pounding the streets in a t shirt that rubs, shorts that chafe, and knees and ankles that creak and groan under the pressure of repeated weight bearing activity. Ponder for a minute, there must be a reason you never see joggers smiling.

Exercise does not feel good for you, a point perfectly made by the ‘no pain, no gain’ adage that does little to encourage people like me to get off my sofa and lace up a pair of trainers. The feelings of exercise, the racing pulse, the hot flushed face, sweaty body and aching muscles are exactly the kind of thing that would have us calling for a doctor if they came on overnight. The physical sensations of a hard-core circuits session and a heavy flu often manifesting in similar ways.

But then I don’t blame exercise for this, I blame the press it has been given. Not just by those that wish to decry it, but also by some of those trying to promote it. How many apps, adverts or online trainers have you seen that focus on working hard, reaching your targets, or improving your metrics? How easy it is to find videos of sweaty faced, panting, taut figures shouting at their audience to ‘push out one more’ or ‘raise the intensity’? This is fine if you like running marathons and power lifting your own bodyweight. By all means keep doing it. But if you don’t, then try not to think about exercise as a taxing chore. Try to think about it as something that might be enjoyable. After all, there are plenty of options out there.

Many a moody disco attending teenager, or reluctant wedding party husband, have enjoyed throwing a few shapes, once their inhibitions have dissipated or the drinks have taken effect. Similarly, how many miles can shoppers cover looking for that perfect outfit? Or how much effort can be expended throwing a Frisbee around a park on a sunny afternoon? Despite our preconceptions, exercise can be fun. You don’t need a tailored, targeted, training plan to be active, you just have to get up, get out and enjoy yourself. Go for a walk, if you don’t mind carrying poo in a plastic bag take a dog with you; do some gardening; ride a bike, or a skateboard, or a horse, or a camel, or whatever people ride where you live; go for a swim. It doesn’t matter what it is, just do something that that gets you moving but that makes you feel happy as well. And most of all, don’t sweat about it too much.