Nature Wants Us to Be Fat Quotes

“Our body’s preference for glycogen as fuel also helps explain why sleeping eight hours or more is so helpful, and why exercising in the morning (prior to eating breakfast) is more effective at causing weight loss than exercising at night. When we sleep, we burn most of our glycogen stores, so that when we wake up, we are in fat-burning mode. When we exercise at night, we are primarily burning the glycogen we have accumulated over the day.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“What is the best type of exercise to improve mitochondrial function? Many studies have examined this. First, it needs to be an endurance type of exercise, such as walking, exercising on a treadmill, swimming, or cycling, as opposed to a non-endurance activity like weight lifting.* Second, it is most effective if you are either fasting or do not eat any carbohydrates before the exercise. Third, the exercise has to be sustained for at least one hour, and be done at least three or four times a week. This is because it takes some time to activate the process of mitochondrial growth, and exercising less than thirty minutes at a time rarely achieves this.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Dark chocolate (chocolate with 70 percent or higher cocoa content) is recommended. One ounce (30 grams) provides between 30 mg and 40 mg of epicatechin, which is the active ingredient in chocolate that has protective effects against metabolic syndrome.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Takeaway: The more fructose we eat, the more sensitive we become to its effects. In other words, the more you like sugar, the more sugar likes you. Fortunately, you can “reboot” your system with short-term carbohydrate restriction.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Takeaway: Liquid sugar is a bigger culprit than solid sugar, and guzzling down a soft drink is the most powerful way to activate the survival switch. Avoid all sugary soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit juice, and sugary teas and coffee. If you must indulge, drink slowly and be sure to pair with food.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Takeaway: Consider vegetables fructose free. Eat fresh fruits, but limit the total fructose of the fruit you consume in a given meal or snack to 8 grams. Dried fruits, processed foods containing fruits, fruit-based jams and jellies, and juices can contain a lot of fructose. While an apple a day keeps the doctor away, five apples a day and the doctor you’ll pay.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Gram for gram, glutamate is more powerful than sugar or salt in causing obesity.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“From a nutrition standpoint, the observation that a high-salt diet can cause obesity may seem surprising. Salt has no calories. However, in our study, the reason a high-salt diet caused obesity was not the salt itself, but rather the high salt concentration in the blood that activated the polyol system. That system converted much of the glucose the mice ate to fructose, which was then metabolized, activating the survival switch.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“The difference in the ability of carbohydrates to raise blood glucose is reflected in a measurement called the glycemic index. A food’s glycemic index is a numeric value representing its ability to increase blood glucose two hours after a meal.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Honey was especially valued by the Egyptians. It was used as salve for wounds, for mummification, and especially in foods and drinks such as honey cakes and honey-based beer. It was valued like gold and silver, and was often collected as a type of tax or taken as a spoil of war. Thutmose III, for example, collected over 470 jars of honey when he invaded Canaan (today’s Israel and Palestine), the “land of milk and honey.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Recall that when we eat, the calories in our food are either turned into usable energy or stored for later use. The usable form of energy is called ATP, short for adenosine triphosphate. Most of our ATP is made in energy factories known as mitochondria. Energy can also be stored as fat or glycogen (the storage form of carbohydrates), both of which can be converted to ATP if food is not available.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“the body. Table sugar, or sucrose, is a “double sugar,” formed from a fructose and a glucose molecule bonded together. This means that, when you eat table sugar, the bonds that hold fructose and glucose together must first be separated by an enzyme in the small intestine, allowing both single molecules to be absorbed separately. Fructose and glucose can also be mixed together, unbonded, to form a liquid known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Fructose, the main sugar we’ll be discussing here, is a type of carbohydrate. It is chemically similar to another commonly discussed sugar, glucose; both are “simple sugars,” as they exist as single molecules. Fructose is commonly referred to as fruit sugar because it is the major sugar in fruit and honey and is the reason these foods taste sweet. Glucose, although it is also found in grains, beans, and vegetables, is sometimes referred to as blood sugar, as it is the major sugar found in our blood. It is also the main fuel used by the body.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“When it hibernates, a complete reversal occurs. The animal stops eating and lives off its fat, depending on it to provide the energy and water it needs. It initially stays insulin resistant so that the brain receives sufficient glucose. And when glucose stores eventually run low, leading blood levels to fall, it uses breakdown products from fat called ketones to fuel the brain.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“In nature, metabolic syndrome is an insurance plan. For humans today, metabolic syndrome is a disorder, a harbinger presaging the development of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. What was meant to aid survival is now causing disease. Metabolic syndrome represents both nature’s success and its failure.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“The brain has a preferred fuel, glucose. Normally, glucose is carried in the blood (where it is often referred to as “blood sugar”), from which it is taken up into muscle, the liver, and the brain as a fuel. For glucose to enter muscle and the liver, the hormone insulin is required, whereas it can enter most regions of the brain even when insulin is absent. The clever way animals respond to food shortage is by making insulin less effective at moving glucose into muscle and the liver. With less glucose going into these tissues, levels in the blood rise, thereby ensuring sufficient glucose for the brain. This phenomenon is called insulin resistance.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“For example, long-distance migrating birds commonly eat more prior to their big flights. These birds become quite fat, which provides the energy they need to make the journey. The European garden warbler will risk crossing the Sahara Desert to its winter habitat in tropical Africa once it has enough fat stores. But the record breaker for distance is the bar-tailed godwit, a seashore bird that uses its long beak to probe sand or mud for insects and crustaceans and builds up fat stores in both its body and liver in late fall before migration. One godwit was documented to have flown seven thousand miles in an eight-day nonstop flight from Alaska to New Zealand.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“Most of the time, however, the male penguin has enough fat, and by the time the chick is born, the mother has returned, often with food that she can regurgitate up for the baby. Then the male can leave to feed and regain his weight.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It

“One of the central discoveries is that obesity is not the cause of these other conditions; rather, obesity and its associated diseases are all driven by the same underlying biological process, the survival switch.”
― Richard J. Johnson, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent-and Reverse-It