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Obesity isn’t about calories eaten vs calories burned
A very good read that IME applies to horses as well as to people. It’s not an imbalance of calories in vs. calories expended (I.e. exercise). It’s about what is eaten rather than how much:
“Diets that can successfully resolve obesity are not those that induce us to eat less, per energy-balance thinking, but those that reduce circulating levels of insulin, accomplished most effectively by replacing dietary carbohydrates — sugars, starchy vegetables and grains, and the like — with fat.”
The removal of grain has let my horses self regulate and they all look fit and healthy on the same diet despite varying workloads.
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4 Replies
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Thanks @Kathy for this. Gary Taubes wrote the book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and is well worth the time to read. 26 hours on audio! His discovery that weight regulation is a hormonal issue and not a calorie issue is a thesis of mine here at The Horse’s Advocate. I am SO GLAD you found this article and shared it with us.
It is the inaccessibility to the body fat stores caused by the conversion of excess glucose (starch) into free fatty acids (FFA) being driven into fat cells PLUS the blocking effect of insulin to remove this FFA from the fat cells that leads to obesity. In other words, if you received into your bank account $1000 every day you would have $365,000 after a year. However, because you have not been given access to this account you will need to continue to go to work to pay the bills. Obesity is the inability to access the fat bank account due to insulin blocking the fat account (doing the exact job it is supposed to do based on the high sugar intake).
Decreasing the sugar intake by eliminating grain and reducing the intake of hay / pasture gives access to the higher energy of fat from body stores and the fat from cellulose. This reduces the “food aggression” we see so many horses experience as well as calms the horse’s behavior. They are no longer starving at the cell level.
I talk about this on my podcasts as well as the monthly Rounds – all available to you here.
I am so happy that you are also digging in to discover things like this article and appreciate you posting it. GOLD STAR for you!! Doc T
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Thanks for sharing, Kathy. Isn’t it interesting that the only animals that have an obesity problem are our domesticated ones!
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That’s a good point!
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Interesting article. Thanks for sharing it @Kathy.
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