Why Optimizing Energy Production Is More Effective Than Dieting

article by Shannon Dahlia, FDN-P

What if I told you that unexplained weight gain, weight loss resistance, chronic illness and all other forms of dysfunction are a result of a lack of energy in the body?  Would that cause you to think differently about how you approach your health this year?  Before you jump on another diet trend in hopes of addressing your chronic symptoms, it may help to understand what’s going on below the surface.

Your mitochondria are the tiny factories inside every cell of your body that convert fuel (from food) into energy.  This energy, called ATP, is what powers every single function in your body.  Note that your body doesn’t burn calories; it creates and utilizes ATP.  Even at rest, you need a consistent supply of ATP to keep things running smoothly.  In fact, your mitochondria need to produce a whopping 50-60% of your bodyweight in pounds of ATP every day in order to support healthy function! 

It can be argued that all chronic illness, no matter the presentation, is caused simply by a lack of adequate ATP. If there isn’t enough energy available to fuel all systems of the body, some of those systems will begin breaking down. The body is extremely smart; it knows how to function healthfully. If it isn’t doing so, then it’s simply because it doesn’t have the energy to support healthy function throughout and it has to begin prioritizing where it spends the limited energy it has.  This means some areas of the body will have to suffer in order to continue supporting other areas.  Perhaps hormonal dysfunction and infertility will occur in order to ration energy for the continued healthy function of the liver and the kidneys, for example. In this case, you can medicate with exogenous hormones to make up for you body’s hormonal deficiency, but this overrides your body’s decision to prioritize other areas. It forces the body to continue utilizing the energy necessary to support healthy hormone function, so it will then have to pull energy from somewhere else. This is why later down the line, new symptoms in other areas may begin to appear.  The cause of the dysfunction, which is a lack of energy, hasn’t been addressed.

Where you begin to experience symptoms is dictated by your genetic predisposition.  Perhaps you have inherited a tendency to develop diabetes, metabolic dysfunction or obesity, while others are more likely to develop neurodegenerative disorders. Maybe you were born with a predisposition for certain cancers while others have a tendency to present with autoimmunity or hormonal dysreglation.  Regardless of the presentation of chronic illness, the underlying cause is always the same: mitochondrial dysfunction and/or poor energy production.

The mitochondria convert glucose (from carbohydrates) into ATP in a complex process that requires a variety of nutrients.  Oxygen, B vitamins, minerals, amino acids, lipids and essential fatty acids are all required, and if just one of these nutrients aren’t available, the entire process stops. If the process can’t be completed, then instead of going on to form ATP, glucose builds up in the blood stream (raising blood sugar levels and increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes) and is stored in the fat cells. The inability to convert glucose into ATP is what causes the body to store it.  This is why the calories in versus calories out theory of weight loss is so misleading.  It implies that simply eating less and moving more is what’s needed to trigger weight loss, but if energy production is inefficient, this can actually make matters worse.  This also explains why so often, people who experience obesity and weight loss resistance also suffer with fatigue.  They don’t have an energy excess as the calories in/ calories out theory surmises; they have an energy deficiency.  Remember that calories aren’t energy in the body; ATP is.

The first step in supporting healthy mitochondrial function and energy production is to be sure you’re regularly providing them with the nutrients they need to complete the ATP creation process.  As mentioned previously, these include oxygen, B vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids.

You may think that since you’re breathing all day and night, oxygen is automatically available. Not so. The way the majority of adults breathe actually diminishes the amount of oxygen available to the cells throughout the body.  Just because you’re getting oxygen into your lungs does’t mean it’s efficiently reaching the cells throughout the body where the mitochondria need it.  If you’re sitting or standing with poor posture (think rounded or slumped shoulders), you’re unable to properly contract your diaphragm, which sits at the base of your ribcage.  This forces you to take shallow breaths from your upper chest, rather than deep, ribcage expanding breaths that utilize the diaphragm.  The first problem with this, is that it triggers a chronic, mild stress response. Shallow breaths from the upper chest look a lot like a startled gasp to the brain, which indicates there’s a threat in the environment. The low level chronic stress this triggers constricts blood vessels, which diminishes your ability to carry healthy levels of oxygen to all the cells throughout the body.

Another issue with this shallow breathing is that it leads to over breathing; a state in which too much oxygen builds up in the system in relation to carbon dioxide.  Carbon dioxide is often thought of as an unnecessary byproduct of breathing that needs to be excreted. And yes, too much carbon dioxide is dangerous, but a certain amount is necessary. It actually dilates the blood vessels and helps oxygen reach the cells of the body. By simply sitting taller and breathing more deeply and slowly, you’ll be letting the brain know the body is in a safe state.  This calms the nervous system and allows enough carbon dioxide to build up to expand the blood vessels and carry oxygenated blood to the mitochondria throughout the body.

When we’re talking about energy production, of course we can’t forget glucose, which comes from carbohydrates in the diet.  This is your body’s preferred fuel for creating energy.  Just one glucose molecule creates 30 to 32 molecules of ATP.  Of course, in the absence of glucose (during fasting, on low carb or ketogenic diets, for example), ATP can still be produced by breaking down protein and/ or fat, but the process is much less efficient and results in higher amounts of inflammation.  It’s meant to be a back up plan during times of famine for short periods, not as a method for healthy energy production at all times.

All plants create glucose as result of photosynthesis.  This means that all plants are good sources of carbohydrate for energy production. Fruits and vegetables (and even herbs) are the most nutrient dense forms of carbohydrates, and this is important, as the process for creating ATP requires various vitamins and minerals. When you’re consuming carbs from foods that don’t contain the nutrients needed for converting the glucose contained within them into ATP, then those foods are actually depleting you of nutrients.  This is because your body has to pull nutrients from what it already has stored in order to create energy out of that food.  When your diet consists of large quantities of highly processed carbohydrate dense, nutrient deficient foods, your body will continue to become more and more depleted of the nutrients needed for creating ATP. You’ll eventually begin storing more and more of your carbohydrate intake in the body’s fat cells while remaining low in health sustaining energy.

Whole grains are very glucose dense, but they don’t contain nearly the same amount of micronutrients that fruits, vegetables and herbs do. Once the body reaches its threshold for needed ATP, further production of ATP halts and any more glucose that is left over gets stored in the fat cells and/or builds up in the blood stream.  Because grains (and of course, highly processed carbohydrate rich packaged foods and sweets) are so dense with glucose, you’re much more likely to exceed your ATP (and glucose) threshold when those foods are consistently included in your diet.

Unless you’re especially active, consuming a wide variety of colorful plants (two to three at each of your three to four meals) will ensure you’re getting enough carbohydrates and micronutrients to support healthy energy production consistently.  If you’re an athlete or otherwise very active, adding in more carbohydrate dense foods in the form of starchy vegetables, legumes, or grains may be needed to support the increased energy demand.

While plant foods are foundational for supporting many of the nutrients needed for adequate ATP production, animal foods are very supportive, too.  Certain nutrients and amino acids needed for the process are contained mostly in animal foods. For example, B12 is necessary in one of the steps for creating ATP, and if it isn’t present, the entire process stops.  This vitamin is abundant in eggs, dairy, salmon, pork, chicken, oysters, and other animal foods. If you’re following a plant based diet, including nutritional yeast can help boost your intake of B12, and mushrooms contain some, as well, but additional supplementation may be needed.

ATP production also requires certain amino acids (which come from protein) that are abundant in animal foods and are less available from plants foods.  While all amino acids can be attained from plants as long as a wide variety is being consumed, it’s worth noting that plant protein is more difficult for the body to break down and utilize than sources from animal foods.  This just means that humans need to consume about twice the amount of protein from plants as they do from animals to get the same amount of usable protein.  Because plants are also carbohydrate dense, this may tip you past your glucose/ ATP threshold (and lead to excess fat storage) in order to meet your protein needs from plants alone.  Of course, all of this depends on your individual protein requirement and energy expenditure.  Just be aware that if you’re following a vegetarian or vegan diet, it may be necessary to supplement with certain nutrients that may be lacking in the diet so ATP production can be fully supported and deficiencies don’t develop over time.

Lipids, or fatty acids, are the final piece of the nutrition puzzle necessary for healthy ATP production. The outer membrane of your mitochondria is made up of lipids, which come from dietary fats. This lipid layer creates a permeable “skin” that allows substances to easily enter and exit.  Dietary fats that support healthy cell membranes are minimally processed, cold pressed olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds and even animal based fats from naturally raised animals. 

Fats that damage cell membranes are trans fats and other forms of highly processed unsaturated fats, like vegetable oil, canola oil, and nut and seed oils. These oils are damaged during processing and create oxidative stress, or inflammation. Inflammation, regardless of the source, triggers the mitochondria to turn off ATP production and go into what’s known as the cell danger response, which is a defensive mode.  It’s important to remember that when the mitochondria go into cell danger response, they can’t create energy.  This is a common driver of weight loss resistance and even many chronic disease states.

To support healthy cell membrane function, focus on getting fats from whole food sources and cold pressed olive or avocado oils, and organic, pasture raised animal products, like eggs from pastured chickens, dairy (if tolerated) from organic, pasture raised cows, wild salmon, and other animal products from healthy animals.  Avoid consuming large quantities of fat from animals raised in conventional feed lots, as these animals don’t often get much (if any) sun exposure or exercise, are fed unnatural diets high in grains, and live in a stressful environment.  This creates inflammation in the animal that then gets passed to you if you consume their fat.  Additionally, avoid overconsumption of highly processed packaged foods which almost always contain those cell damaging highly processed industrial oils and trans fats.

When it comes to supporting healthy energy production and in turn, healthy body weight and functioning throughout the entire body, the simplest dietary rule is to consume foods (plants, animals, nuts and seeds) that were raised or grown in the sun. Remember that the sole source of energy that fuels everything on Earth is the sun.  By consuming foods that got their own energy from the sun, it’s as if we are indirectly getting its energy in that way.

Speaking of the sun, one last important ingredient for healthy ATP production is sun exposure.  Natural light frequencies emitted by the sun vary throughout the day, and exposure to these variations support healthy circadian rhythm in your body.  This rhythm is vital for signaling to your brain when it’s time to increase energy production and when it should be focusing on regeneration and cell repair.

The heat felt on your skin from the sun also triggers what’s called “heat hormesis” which mildly stimulates the mitochondria and enhances ATP production.  Remaining inside throughout the day under a static light frequency from artificial light robs your body of the various natural light cues it needs to regulate energy production.  Add a diet rich in highly processed foods that are high in glucose and low in nutrients needed to turn it into ATP, and you have a recipe for poor energy production, weight gain and chronic illness.

January is always the time of year people most commonly try new diets and exercise routines to improve weight and diminish other uncomfortable symptoms.  Now that you understand the importance of energy production and how it happens in the body, I’d like to invite you to switch your focus away from calories in your food and toward optimizing ATP production in your body.  At every meal, include a variety of plant foods, some animal proteins and whole food fats, all from sources grown and raised in their natural environments and that have been minimally processed.  Step outside several times each day to expose your eyes and your skin to the sun’s rays so that your body knows what time it is and your mitochondria are stimulated to increase energy production at the right times.  Gradually, as energy production improves in your body, you’ll begin to see that excess fat storage diminishes, sleep improves, and fatigue and other chronic symptoms begin to disappear.