Many people in Australia are finding that as they are becoming older, their weight is increasing. As a naturopath who specializes in weight loss, I see people on a regular basis, who would like to lose weight. Sometimes people feel that they began to gain weight with a change in lifestyle, job, or with the onset of an illness. For many it seems just a hard fact of life that their body is changing and they are unhappy about it. However most people seem unable to bring about any significant lasting change to their weight gain.

I like to explain to my clients that losing weight is just as much about gaining the right knowledge and understanding as it is to applying it. It never ceases to amaze me how little people seem to know about the subject that is so important to them. They mostly seem to believe that they need to exercise more and eat healthy food. I usually kindly smile and then begin to share with them my knowledge and experience with weight loss.

Weight loss, I explain is something that needs to be done correctly if you are wanting to achieve a good outcome and a lasting one. The first thing I like to do is explain that losing weight needs to be about losing fat as much as possible and preserving muscle. This is because it is the fat, which is both unattractive and bad for your health, especially fat around your waist. Muscle on the other hand is largely responsible for maintaining your metabolism, so it may be thought of as something you cannot afford to lose as losing muscle will lead to a slowing down of one’s metabolism and eventual weight gain as fat.

The next point I like to make is that exercise in the context of what most people are doing, say 4 sessions of 45 minutes per week is not an effective way to lose weight. Medical studies have shown and my clinical experience has confirmed that this level of exercise is mostly effective for maintaining your weight or resisting weight gain. This is a crucial point in understanding how to lose weight. The role of exercise is paramount in the task of keeping weight off in the long term but not in losing it in the first place.

Diet on the other hand can be very effective at reducing weight or fat levels in the body depending on the type of diet used. Regardless of what the diet is called, I believe that diets are effective in losing weight either by manipulating the intake of total calories or by manipulating foods which influence the hormonal system (especially insulin and cortisol levels).

Mostly over the last thirty years, we have focused on the former approach of decreasing the intake of food to decrease caloric intake, especially by reducing the amount of fat in the diet. However this approach is clearly not working as Australians are becoming increasingly obese. This approach often leads to a higher proportion of weight lost as muscle rather than fat and consequently a slowing down of metabolism. This results in a plateau effect followed by weight gain as fat in a rebound fashion leaving the person heavier or with greater body fat than beforehand. On the other hand, a diet which manipulates the intake of carbohydrates (generally below 30 grams of carbohydrates per day) has been shown through medical studies to be far superior in terms of it’s effectiveness to burn fat from the body as well as having a preserving effect on metabolism by sparing muscle.

Low carbohydrate diets have also been referred to as ketogenic diets as they create fat burning resulting in the production of ketones. These diets have helped probably millions of people around the world to lose large amounts of body fat, reshaping bodies and improving health as a result. Some people who have tried this type of diet have failed due to many reasons. In my opinion, this type of diet if done correctly is highly effective at burning fat and I have helped thousands of clients to achieve fat loss that they had never even thought possible. Most of my clients do very little or no exercise until they reach their target weight. It is at this point that it is important to increase exercise levels to maintain weight as one comes off the diet and commences to eat healthy whole foods for the rest of one’s life. Exercise during diet has been shown in one study to only make a slight difference to the amount of weight lost.

Whilst there has been some controversy over the safety of the long-term use of low carbohydrate diets, I believe that if the diet is administered and supported by a suitably qualified naturopath or other suitably qualified health professional, it can be very safely applied. In addition, the diet is only required for a relatively short period of time in most cases as it is so effective at burning fat stores. In my experience, the diet is not only safe if carried out with professional support, but is likely to be more successful. I have found that by providing general as well as specific naturopathic supplementation, the effectiveness of the diet is greatly improved. There are certain nutrients, which are not well supplied by the diet, which affects some individuals more than others. These nutrients should be administered during the diet to prevent the problems associated with nutritional deficiencies. In addition, many people fail due to health issues. Individuals are frequently affected by stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, fatigue, hormonal imbalances or other ill health, which seriously affects their ability to comply with any diet or efficiently burn fat. Providing these people with specific naturopathic correction makes a huge difference to their ability to stick to the diet as well as their ability to burn fat.

In summary, weight loss

• Should be about fat loss, not muscle loss
• Is achieved through dietary manipulation
• Is then maintained by exercise and healthy eating
• Is best achieved by a professionally supervised carbohydrate modified diet with appropriate prescribed supplementation
• Is best achieved by addressing the whole person’s health

Written by Robert Mascali, N.D. Bach. Health Science, D.N. D.H.M. Director of Chermside Natural Therapies.