All I can offer is sheer speculation. I am in the process of losing weight myself, but weight was never a problem till I reached 50 or so and I began a more sedentary lifestyle.
What I have become aware of is the failure of our bodies to adjust to contemporary foods. Today's flour is NOT the same flour that our farmers grew 40 years ago. Today's corn is modified. Many of our fruits are developed for ease of transportation. Even the so called "organic" foods we pay premiums for are frequently foods that were not available to our grandfathers.
If we begin with the basics, it seems to me that excess food or food substances that cannot be used immediately by the body, is stored as fat and excess weight. So one method to rid the body of excess food is to consume it.....meaning we have to metabolize it faster than we ingest it. At this point, I walk to increase my metabolism. I have also begun doing more and more farm type chores (cutting and splitting firewood for example). If I were not able to do that, I would use a stationary bike or a treadmill, and use it frequently during the day.
I have also become VERY selective with the foods I eat. To begin with I want nothing but heritage foods. That means I do not eat a butterball turkey. If I have turkey meat it will be from a bronze specie that our ancestors would have hunted. I raised a large breasted turkey a couple of years ago and it was pitiful. It could barely walk and it died of natural causes in less than one year. This bird had been so genetically modified that it is a natural failure. Without men to grow and support them that specie would be extinct in one generation. Such meat is incapable of sustaining it's own life.....how can it possibly assist in sustaining mine?
Another thought about food is the incredible invasion of corn into our diet. Chickens are fed corn, cattle are "finished" (fattened) with corn, hogs are fed a corn diet to finish them, anything that once had sugar is now sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, corn starch is used to thicken everything.
When we bought our small acreage a few years ago, we put some Dexter cows on it. Dexter's are a heritage breed that originated in Ireland. the property was a massive mixture of different varieties of grass. Timothy, Bermuda, Johnson, etc all formed part of the pasture. there were several weeds there as well, including queens anns lace, wild rose, blackberrys, etc. I noticed the cows ate one thing one day and another thing another day.....They would even eat the rose stems. This indicates to me that the cows like the same sorts of varieties that I do in my meals. When we raised hogs last year, we discovered the same thing....they are voracious eaters and will eat anything. When they are given ONE food source, like corn, they bulk up, but the pork is no longer "natural" or what the hog or cow would have eaten, if given a choice.
I recall reading somewhere that the predecessor to wheat was found in the pyramids in Egypt. When it was sprouted, and used to create an alternative to wheat, that people who were allergic to wheat were able to eat bread from it without the allergic reaction.
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Kamut brand grain is an ancient relative of modern durum wheat and originated in the Fertile Crescent of the Old World thousands of years ago. After a long period of oblivion, this grain was rediscovered and has now found an important place in contemporary diets. Superior in both taste and nutrition, it can be substituted for common wheat with great success. Kamut brand wheat has a rich, buttery flavor, with normally 20-40% more protein, a higher profile of amino acids, lipids, vitamins and minerals, and is easily digestible. A hard amber spring variety with a huge humpbacked kernel, it grows best in most regions where durum is traditionally cultivated. This grain is unscathed by modern plant breeding programs which have sacrificed flavor and nutrition for higher yields dependent upon large amounts of synthetic agricultural inputs.
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It is more expensive to eat fresh heritage. Tomatoes, green beans, fruit, meats....all are seasonal and contemporary varieties produce more per acre than heritage, so finding and eating heritage is difficult and costly. If you have a patch of ground and a freezer, though, you can get exercise and heritage foods fairly cheaply. Heritage seeds are readily available. You can also get meat and eggs from local farmers. going together with a friend or neighbor to buy a steer that is grass fed and having Walke Brothers in Claremore or Bob McKinney in Yale to process it will give you a years worth of beef or pork for under $3.00 a pound.
But for a basic diet, minimize your carbs/grains. Eat heritage whenever possible, and restrict your grains to barley, oats, or rye.....they seem to have been less modified than wheat and corn. Do not eat prepackaged, pre-processed foods or foods that have prepackaged or preprocessed ingredients. Eat smaller quantities of meats and fresh heritage veggies. Freeze or can your own preserved veggies. Pickles are good for you.....vinegar is a heritage food. Increase your metabolism through exercise. DO NOT DIET prior to beginning an exercise program. If you have a stingy metabolism, when you diet or begin to cut calories, your body thinks a famine is coming and begins storing fat faster than before...your metabolism shuts down even more. Start your exercise program, then convert to frequent meals and snacks of heritage foods, and gradually reduce the quantities you eat, until you are at a healthy intake of nutrition and volume. Drink lots of water (preferably Reverse Osmosis water to eliminate the chlorine and fluoride and other poisons in the city water).
Given time I think you would not only lose weight, but will live a healthier lifestyle.
Again, this is my opinion and should be considered nothing but that........but it makes sense, to me, that foods our ancestors ate will do us more good and cause less physical reaction than stuff that our bodies cannot recognize as food because of modern modifications, even if it carries the same name as what our ancestors ate.
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