Strange Things That Make Us Gain Weight: Lack Of Sun

Many people who are trying to lose weight focus on the two traditional factors that we think of as determining weight: the amount of calories we eat, and the amount of calories we burn. Of course, these are important things to consider, but they’re only part of the story when it comes to how and why the body stores energy as fat.

Elements of our inner world, such as our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, interact with elements of our environment to influence our metabolism in surprising ways. In this illuminating new video from IPEtv, Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, takes a look at a lesser-known piece of the weight puzzle: our relationship with the sun.

In many modern societies, we’ve come to regard the sun with suspicion, limiting our exposure whenever possible – but compelling new scientific research suggests that if we hide in the shadows for too long, our body won’t be able to produce the nutrients it needs to burn calories efficiently. Tune in to learn why it’s time to give this old friend another chance!

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Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings, friends. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Let’s talk about some strange things that can make us gain weight. And one of them is lack of vitamin D.

So first, in the big picture, we live in a world where weight is a concern for lots of people. And few of us realize how complex a topic it is. We think weight is all about calories in, calories out. And that’s just one millionth of the story.

So, more importantly, far too many people have been shamed by the world for what they way or how they look. So we’re going to approach this topic of weight from a perspective of not making anybody wrong for what they weigh, but from really looking at an honest and nonjudgmental perspective at the hidden complexities of the phenomenon of weight and the inability to lose it.

And, indeed, there are strange things that cause us to gain weight. One of them that the research is telling us is lack of vitamin D. Now, you’ve got to realize when you hear lack of vitamin D, what I really want you to hear is lack of sun.

So you may very well need more sun so you can be at your natural weight.

That’s become the amount of vitamin D you get from your diet tends to be very minimal. So vitamin D production in food is infinitesimally small. We produce the majority of our vitamin D from exposure to the sun. Now, check it out. According to an Italian study at the University of Milan – I’ve been there – vitamin D deficiency is associated with a higher risk of obesity and obesity-related complications. Studies have suggested that above 40% to 75% of North American adults are indeed vitamin D deficient.

Now, a new study published online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that healthy or what we call replete levels of vitamin D may be associated with weight loss, particularly in a certain segment of postmenopausal overweight women.

So really what we’re saying here is this: you’ve got to get sun. And even though we don’t have the exact mechanisms down, we don’t fully understand this connection between vitamin D and weight, what we do know is that once again, we’re learning that the sun is your best friend ever.

So it’s all bringing us back to the natural, to the real.

Get more sun. Drink real water. Eat real food. Expose your skin to the light so you can make vitamin D because all of it, the whole package, who we truly are as human beings, helps determine what is our natural weight.

Another way of saying this is, the sun talks to your body. It literally tells your body, through specific ultraviolet wavelengths that are coming in, it tells your body, “Produce this fascinating substance” that can only exist between a dance between your skin and the sun. This is amazing! The sun is talking to you. And it’s regulating your weight.

Make sure you listen, because that, my friends, is the magic of the world.