Spotted this yesterday and thought it worth posting. If you read around the topic of obesity there are various hormones that get mentioned - leptin, insulin, Peptide YY and others. Ghrelin is another one that pops up occasionally: a hunger stimulating hormone.
Ghrelin Levels Increase After Pictures Showing Food
With a background of regular meals, these researchers showed various photos to the subjects: food and "neutral" images. The findings suggest that sight of food elevates ghrelin levels.
Interesting but obvious too? Seeing food makes you hungry.
I wonder if all this has something to do with the obesity epidemic too. Images of food are everywhere. Appetites through the roof. People are eating more and getting fatter.
Be careful what you spend your time looking at.
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Appetite. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Appetite. Tampilkan semua postingan
Senin, 28 Mei 2012
Minggu, 26 Desember 2010
Eat Less, Move More: Solutions to problems.
The fact is, in order to lose weight and be healthy, we need to Eat Less, Move More. The problem is that most people (apart from bodybuilders) just can't/won't do it consciously. In Determinants of the Variability in Human Body-fat Percentage, I listed a number of reasons why people eat what (and as much as) they do. Here are some solutions to the problems that cause over-eating and under-moving.
1) Parents: If you've been raised to be a plate-clearer, use a small plate which makes a small amount of food look like more.
2) Genetics: Eat foods that satisfy your appetite for as long as possible. You have to find out what they are by experimentation, as everybody is different.
3) Peer pressure from parents, siblings, friends, business partners & significant others: Thank them but politely decline. If they persist, reduce the level of politeness until they get the message.
4) Religion/tradition: Start a new tradition of not stuffing yourself silly at religious festivals. Then spread the word!
5) Culture: Try new foods. They won't kill you and they may actually taste good. Learn to cook. Herbs and spices or a splash of Worcestershire/Sweet Chilli Sauce can make horribly-bland foods (e.g. boiled/steamed rice) eatable.
6) Time: Be prepared. Pack a lunch-box with sufficient provisions to get you through the working day/night. Microwave cooking/heating saves a lot of time. It only destroys nutrients if you add a lot of water to the food before cooking (which is not necessary) and then throw the water away after cooking, or overcook foods. All cooking methods that raise the temperature of food to >70°C denature proteins. Denaturing proteins only changes their 3-D structure, which actually makes them easier to digest.
7) Habit: Habits can be changed.
8) Media: When an advert for something moreish is broadcast, flip channels for 30 seconds or if that's not possible, look away and hum a tune to mask the sound. Make sure that there's no food in sight while watching TV to prevent mindless nibbling. Keep a bottle of low-calorie drink nearby to sip on regularly. EDIT: I now watch TV on my computer with Ad-blocking, which eliminates all TV adverts.
9) Physiological & psychological reasons: Maintain a stable blood glucose level by not eating foods that are made mostly out of grain dust (a.k.a. flour) and/or sugar and/or other refined carbohydrates. If you're very active and you need to eat a lot of carbohydrate, choose grains that still look like grains (e.g. rolled oats, rice, quinoa etc), fruits, shoots, roots and tubers. Either get sufficient sun exposure or supplement with ~5,000iu/day Vitamin D3 to reduce the risk of low mood due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. The long-chain omega-3 fats in oily fish help to stabilise mood. Magnesium helps to reduce anxiety (also muscle cramps).
10) Allergies & intolerances: Avoid foods that are very moreish.
11) Geography: Eat locally-grown foods from Farmers' Markets, where possible.
12) Season: Eat foods that are in season, where possible.
13) Boredom: Keep busy. Do something!
14) Exercise: This has always been a problem for me. Exercise used to make me hungry, resulting in me eating more calories than I burned exercising. Solution: If I dress warmly enough, that stops me from getting the munchies due to feeling too cold.
15) Beliefs: I'm not going to try to change your beliefs.
16) Senses: Avoid supermarket aisles that contain junk foods. What your eye can't see and your nose can't smell, your heart won't grieve over.
17) Hunger: Don't let yourself become really hungry as that encourages over-eating when you do finally eat. Don't go food shopping when you're hungry, as that encourages the buying of junk foods.
18) Comfort: Don't buy larger clothes/loosen your belt. If your clothes are getting tighter, let that suppress your appetite. If your clothes are getting looser, buy smaller clothes and/or tighten your belt. Never loosen it.
19) Shame/Self-loathing: If that suppresses your appetite, make the most of it.
20) Current fatness: N/A.
21) Willpower: Hopefully, the above solutions will help you to resist temptation.
I hope that you all had a good Christmas/whatever.
Continued on Move More: Solutions to problems.
1) Parents: If you've been raised to be a plate-clearer, use a small plate which makes a small amount of food look like more.
2) Genetics: Eat foods that satisfy your appetite for as long as possible. You have to find out what they are by experimentation, as everybody is different.
3) Peer pressure from parents, siblings, friends, business partners & significant others: Thank them but politely decline. If they persist, reduce the level of politeness until they get the message.
4) Religion/tradition: Start a new tradition of not stuffing yourself silly at religious festivals. Then spread the word!
5) Culture: Try new foods. They won't kill you and they may actually taste good. Learn to cook. Herbs and spices or a splash of Worcestershire/Sweet Chilli Sauce can make horribly-bland foods (e.g. boiled/steamed rice) eatable.
6) Time: Be prepared. Pack a lunch-box with sufficient provisions to get you through the working day/night. Microwave cooking/heating saves a lot of time. It only destroys nutrients if you add a lot of water to the food before cooking (which is not necessary) and then throw the water away after cooking, or overcook foods. All cooking methods that raise the temperature of food to >70°C denature proteins. Denaturing proteins only changes their 3-D structure, which actually makes them easier to digest.
7) Habit: Habits can be changed.
8) Media: When an advert for something moreish is broadcast, flip channels for 30 seconds or if that's not possible, look away and hum a tune to mask the sound. Make sure that there's no food in sight while watching TV to prevent mindless nibbling. Keep a bottle of low-calorie drink nearby to sip on regularly. EDIT: I now watch TV on my computer with Ad-blocking, which eliminates all TV adverts.
9) Physiological & psychological reasons: Maintain a stable blood glucose level by not eating foods that are made mostly out of grain dust (a.k.a. flour) and/or sugar and/or other refined carbohydrates. If you're very active and you need to eat a lot of carbohydrate, choose grains that still look like grains (e.g. rolled oats, rice, quinoa etc), fruits, shoots, roots and tubers. Either get sufficient sun exposure or supplement with ~5,000iu/day Vitamin D3 to reduce the risk of low mood due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. The long-chain omega-3 fats in oily fish help to stabilise mood. Magnesium helps to reduce anxiety (also muscle cramps).
10) Allergies & intolerances: Avoid foods that are very moreish.
11) Geography: Eat locally-grown foods from Farmers' Markets, where possible.
12) Season: Eat foods that are in season, where possible.
13) Boredom: Keep busy. Do something!
14) Exercise: This has always been a problem for me. Exercise used to make me hungry, resulting in me eating more calories than I burned exercising. Solution: If I dress warmly enough, that stops me from getting the munchies due to feeling too cold.
15) Beliefs: I'm not going to try to change your beliefs.
16) Senses: Avoid supermarket aisles that contain junk foods. What your eye can't see and your nose can't smell, your heart won't grieve over.
17) Hunger: Don't let yourself become really hungry as that encourages over-eating when you do finally eat. Don't go food shopping when you're hungry, as that encourages the buying of junk foods.
18) Comfort: Don't buy larger clothes/loosen your belt. If your clothes are getting tighter, let that suppress your appetite. If your clothes are getting looser, buy smaller clothes and/or tighten your belt. Never loosen it.
19) Shame/Self-loathing: If that suppresses your appetite, make the most of it.
20) Current fatness: N/A.
21) Willpower: Hopefully, the above solutions will help you to resist temptation.
I hope that you all had a good Christmas/whatever.
Continued on Move More: Solutions to problems.
Sabtu, 20 Maret 2010
Determinants of the Variability in Human Body-fat Percentage.
There are extremely skinny people, very skinny people, skinny people, average people, fat people, very fat people and extremely fat people. However, all healthy newborns have roughly the same body-fat percentage.
As we grow, we gain weight. That's normal. However, the percentage of our bodies that's body-fat can and does change. I'm not going to start another pointless "is a calorie a calorie?" debate as whether it is (as I believe) or it isn't (as others believe), isn't particularly relevant.
What makes some people gain more body-fat mass & less muscle mass than others?
Where nutrients end up depends on the relative insulin sensitivity of the target tissues.
Fat cells are usually always sensitive to insulin unless they are so full of fat that they cannot accommodate any more, in which case either pre-fat cells get turned into new empty fat cells, or if there are no pre-fat cells left, the result is type 2 diabetes.
Muscle cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin. Inactivity lowers insulin sensitivity and intense exercise increases it. Body-builders do a lot of intense exercise so as to maximise muscle cell insulin sensitivity in order to get the maximum amount of nutrients into muscle cells rather than fat cells.
Liver cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin depending on how full of glycogen they are and how much visceral fat (fat around the internal organs) there is.
What makes our weight go up?
1) Eating
2) Drinking
3) Putting on clothes
4) Oxygen breathed in
What makes our weight go down?
1) Defaecating
2) Urinating
3) Taking off clothes
4) Carbon dioxide & water vapour breathed out
5) Energy losses due to movement & heat losses due to conduction, convection, radiation & evaporation
6) Miscellaneous (loss of various bodily fluids, loss of skin cells/hairs/nails, ketones in urine/sweat/breath)
Some factors are controllable/reversible and some aren't. Over a period of 24 hours, our weight goes up and down by a few pounds due to the above factors. Whether our average weight over a 24 hour period changes over the course of days, weeks, months & years depends on the balance between the things that make it go up and the things that make it go down.
Why do we eat & drink what (and as much as) we do?
1) Parents
When we are young, what & how much we eat is determined by our parents (also schools). They dictate the foods and the portion sizes. Poor parents (also schools) often buy the cheapest possible foods. Poor parents encourage "plate-clearing" as they cannot afford waste.
2) Genetics
Some of our ancestors lived in hot countries and some lived in cold countries. Some habitually ate meats and some habitually ate shoots or roots or fruits or grains. This has an effect on our bodies. My ancestors came mostly from Northern Europe which may explain why I achieve better appetite control on a meat-based diet rather than a grain-based diet. The ability to digest lactose (milk sugar) is determined by the habitual milk-drinking in adulthood of our ancestors. Only 4.7% of white English people are lactose-intolerant compared to ~98% of Africans, who would have drunk warm raw milk that had lactase in it.
3) Peer pressure from parents, siblings, friends, business partners & significant others
"Go on! One (more) *insert name of junk food/drink here* won't hurt!"
4) Religion/tradition
It's become commonplace for English people to stuff themselves silly at Christmas, eat lots of chocolate eggs at Easter, pancakes etc.
5) Culture
Certain foods that are very nutritious are either culturally-unacceptable or have fallen out of favour e.g. rabbit/horse/cat/dog-meats & offal (brains, stomachs, lungs, pancreases, hearts, kidneys, bladders, necks, feet).
6) Time
Increasingly busy lives make some people buy pre-prepared meals/snacks which are usually refined carbohydrate-based e.g sandwiches, Subway/Maccy D/BK/KFC. Some workers only have access to vending machine foods & drinks or canteen food which may be of dubious quality. Others blow-out on business lunches.
7) Habit
How many people eat by the clock rather than when they are hungry? School children & many workers have no choice and have to eat at set meal times.
8) Media
There are lots of cookery programmes with celebrity chefs endorsing some diet or other and TV adverts for all sorts of manufactured foods but not many adverts for meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese etc (whatever happened to "Beefy & Lamby" & "Go to work on an egg"?). There's always some "expert" telling us what to eat & what not to eat. A lot of mindless eating occurs while watching TV.
9) Physiological & psychological reasons
When we're feeling ill, sad or depressed or have unstable blood glucose levels, we may fancy foods which are high in sugar and fat (mmm, chocolate!). People who are very sedentary and/or lacking sufficient Vitamin D may have unstable blood glucose & insulin levels resulting in extreme lethargy after meals followed by ravenous hunger. People with Anorexia Nervosa often starve themselves or purge after meals.
10) Allergies & intolerances
People avoid foods that make them feel ill.
11) Geography
If we live in a country that grows a lot of a certain foodstuff e.g. rice, wheat, beetroot etc, we are encouraged to eat a lot of that particular foodstuff. When we feel hot, our appetites decrease and when we feel cold, our appetites increase. This is why we don't get fat when we put more clothes on to make ourselves feel warmer.
12) Season
This isn't so relevant, now that most foods are transported around the world and sold in supermarkets, but locally-grown seasonal foods bought from farmers' markets are tasty & nutritious.
13) Boredom
The saying "the Devil makes work for idle hands" applies to our brains & stomachs as well.
14) Exercise
Some people's appetites decrease when they exercise and some increase. I used to fall into the latter category. Over-training at high-intensity on insufficient carbohydrate intake can drain muscle glycogen to the point where muscles rapidly suck glucose from the blood causing low blood glucose. Apart from faints, shakes & sweats, this hugely increases appetite as the brain is crying out for something to raise blood glucose a.s.a.p.
15) Beliefs
Lacto-ovo-vegetarians, pescatarians, vegetarians, vegans etc will not eat certain foods for ethical/moral reasons.
16) Senses
The sight & smell of food & the sound of food cooking can increase our appetites. TV adverts and supermarkets use this to increase sales.
17) Hunger
The emptier the stomach is, the more ghrelin it secretes, which increases our appetites.
18) Comfort
If clothing becomes uncomfortably tight around the waist, that can suppress our appetites. Keep your belt on the same hole, to discourage over-eating.
19) Self Shaming
If we catch sight of our bodies in a mirror and don't like what we see, that can suppress our appetites. People who have Anorexia Nervosa see their bodies as fat/obese when they are actually skinny/emaciated.
20) Societal Shaming
In Japan, it's frowned upon to be too fat. Ditto in "Rich" areas of some countries. Fat-shaming can suppress appetite.
21) Current fatness
As we get fatter, fat cells secrete more leptin, which suppresses our appetites. Very fat people's fat cells secrete so much leptin that the brain can become insensitive to it, resulting in poor appetite suppression.
22) Willpower
Some people find it harder than others to resist the enticements listed above to eat/drink more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor junk.
If I've left anything off this list, feel free to comment. Our bodies are pretty complicated and contain many regulatory feedback loops, so we humans have managed to survive famines & disasters over the aeons by our ability to store an excess of proteins, carbohydrates & fats as muscle & body-fat (also food in food-stores) and are now at the top of the food chain (except in lion, tiger, wolf, hyena, bear & shark territory!). Our biggest threat today is excessively-cheap & over-promoted manufactured foods which are calorie-dense & moreish and lifestyles that encourage us to over-eat, under-move and under-sun our skins. When people get too fat, their blood glucose control becomes impaired, which encourages even more over-eating and under-moving, thus creating a vicious circle.
I.M.O, manufactured foods should be taxed and the revenue used to subsidise natural foods. One problem with such a plan is that the Government doesn't always use revenue for the purpose intended e.g. Road Tax. Another problem is in defining manufactured foods e.g. does churning milk to make butter count as manufacturing? Ditto pressing olives to make EVOO? I personally think not, but it's a grey area.
I also think that there should be a ban on the advertising of manufactured foods, as adverts encourage us to buy & consume foods we don't need. Marketing is more persuasive than you think.
See also Eat Less, Move More: Solutions to problems.
As we grow, we gain weight. That's normal. However, the percentage of our bodies that's body-fat can and does change. I'm not going to start another pointless "is a calorie a calorie?" debate as whether it is (as I believe) or it isn't (as others believe), isn't particularly relevant.
What makes some people gain more body-fat mass & less muscle mass than others?
Where nutrients end up depends on the relative insulin sensitivity of the target tissues.
Fat cells are usually always sensitive to insulin unless they are so full of fat that they cannot accommodate any more, in which case either pre-fat cells get turned into new empty fat cells, or if there are no pre-fat cells left, the result is type 2 diabetes.
Muscle cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin. Inactivity lowers insulin sensitivity and intense exercise increases it. Body-builders do a lot of intense exercise so as to maximise muscle cell insulin sensitivity in order to get the maximum amount of nutrients into muscle cells rather than fat cells.
Liver cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin depending on how full of glycogen they are and how much visceral fat (fat around the internal organs) there is.
What makes our weight go up?
1) Eating
2) Drinking
3) Putting on clothes
4) Oxygen breathed in
What makes our weight go down?
1) Defaecating
2) Urinating
3) Taking off clothes
4) Carbon dioxide & water vapour breathed out
5) Energy losses due to movement & heat losses due to conduction, convection, radiation & evaporation
6) Miscellaneous (loss of various bodily fluids, loss of skin cells/hairs/nails, ketones in urine/sweat/breath)
Some factors are controllable/reversible and some aren't. Over a period of 24 hours, our weight goes up and down by a few pounds due to the above factors. Whether our average weight over a 24 hour period changes over the course of days, weeks, months & years depends on the balance between the things that make it go up and the things that make it go down.
Why do we eat & drink what (and as much as) we do?
1) Parents
When we are young, what & how much we eat is determined by our parents (also schools). They dictate the foods and the portion sizes. Poor parents (also schools) often buy the cheapest possible foods. Poor parents encourage "plate-clearing" as they cannot afford waste.
2) Genetics
Some of our ancestors lived in hot countries and some lived in cold countries. Some habitually ate meats and some habitually ate shoots or roots or fruits or grains. This has an effect on our bodies. My ancestors came mostly from Northern Europe which may explain why I achieve better appetite control on a meat-based diet rather than a grain-based diet. The ability to digest lactose (milk sugar) is determined by the habitual milk-drinking in adulthood of our ancestors. Only 4.7% of white English people are lactose-intolerant compared to ~98% of Africans, who would have drunk warm raw milk that had lactase in it.
3) Peer pressure from parents, siblings, friends, business partners & significant others
"Go on! One (more) *insert name of junk food/drink here* won't hurt!"
4) Religion/tradition
It's become commonplace for English people to stuff themselves silly at Christmas, eat lots of chocolate eggs at Easter, pancakes etc.
5) Culture
Certain foods that are very nutritious are either culturally-unacceptable or have fallen out of favour e.g. rabbit/horse/cat/dog-meats & offal (brains, stomachs, lungs, pancreases, hearts, kidneys, bladders, necks, feet).
6) Time
Increasingly busy lives make some people buy pre-prepared meals/snacks which are usually refined carbohydrate-based e.g sandwiches, Subway/Maccy D/BK/KFC. Some workers only have access to vending machine foods & drinks or canteen food which may be of dubious quality. Others blow-out on business lunches.
7) Habit
How many people eat by the clock rather than when they are hungry? School children & many workers have no choice and have to eat at set meal times.
8) Media
There are lots of cookery programmes with celebrity chefs endorsing some diet or other and TV adverts for all sorts of manufactured foods but not many adverts for meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese etc (whatever happened to "Beefy & Lamby" & "Go to work on an egg"?). There's always some "expert" telling us what to eat & what not to eat. A lot of mindless eating occurs while watching TV.
9) Physiological & psychological reasons
When we're feeling ill, sad or depressed or have unstable blood glucose levels, we may fancy foods which are high in sugar and fat (mmm, chocolate!). People who are very sedentary and/or lacking sufficient Vitamin D may have unstable blood glucose & insulin levels resulting in extreme lethargy after meals followed by ravenous hunger. People with Anorexia Nervosa often starve themselves or purge after meals.
10) Allergies & intolerances
People avoid foods that make them feel ill.
11) Geography
If we live in a country that grows a lot of a certain foodstuff e.g. rice, wheat, beetroot etc, we are encouraged to eat a lot of that particular foodstuff. When we feel hot, our appetites decrease and when we feel cold, our appetites increase. This is why we don't get fat when we put more clothes on to make ourselves feel warmer.
12) Season
This isn't so relevant, now that most foods are transported around the world and sold in supermarkets, but locally-grown seasonal foods bought from farmers' markets are tasty & nutritious.
13) Boredom
The saying "the Devil makes work for idle hands" applies to our brains & stomachs as well.
14) Exercise
Some people's appetites decrease when they exercise and some increase. I used to fall into the latter category. Over-training at high-intensity on insufficient carbohydrate intake can drain muscle glycogen to the point where muscles rapidly suck glucose from the blood causing low blood glucose. Apart from faints, shakes & sweats, this hugely increases appetite as the brain is crying out for something to raise blood glucose a.s.a.p.
15) Beliefs
Lacto-ovo-vegetarians, pescatarians, vegetarians, vegans etc will not eat certain foods for ethical/moral reasons.
16) Senses
The sight & smell of food & the sound of food cooking can increase our appetites. TV adverts and supermarkets use this to increase sales.
17) Hunger
The emptier the stomach is, the more ghrelin it secretes, which increases our appetites.
18) Comfort
If clothing becomes uncomfortably tight around the waist, that can suppress our appetites. Keep your belt on the same hole, to discourage over-eating.
19) Self Shaming
If we catch sight of our bodies in a mirror and don't like what we see, that can suppress our appetites. People who have Anorexia Nervosa see their bodies as fat/obese when they are actually skinny/emaciated.
20) Societal Shaming
In Japan, it's frowned upon to be too fat. Ditto in "Rich" areas of some countries. Fat-shaming can suppress appetite.
21) Current fatness
As we get fatter, fat cells secrete more leptin, which suppresses our appetites. Very fat people's fat cells secrete so much leptin that the brain can become insensitive to it, resulting in poor appetite suppression.
22) Willpower
Some people find it harder than others to resist the enticements listed above to eat/drink more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor junk.
If I've left anything off this list, feel free to comment. Our bodies are pretty complicated and contain many regulatory feedback loops, so we humans have managed to survive famines & disasters over the aeons by our ability to store an excess of proteins, carbohydrates & fats as muscle & body-fat (also food in food-stores) and are now at the top of the food chain (except in lion, tiger, wolf, hyena, bear & shark territory!). Our biggest threat today is excessively-cheap & over-promoted manufactured foods which are calorie-dense & moreish and lifestyles that encourage us to over-eat, under-move and under-sun our skins. When people get too fat, their blood glucose control becomes impaired, which encourages even more over-eating and under-moving, thus creating a vicious circle.
I.M.O, manufactured foods should be taxed and the revenue used to subsidise natural foods. One problem with such a plan is that the Government doesn't always use revenue for the purpose intended e.g. Road Tax. Another problem is in defining manufactured foods e.g. does churning milk to make butter count as manufacturing? Ditto pressing olives to make EVOO? I personally think not, but it's a grey area.
I also think that there should be a ban on the advertising of manufactured foods, as adverts encourage us to buy & consume foods we don't need. Marketing is more persuasive than you think.
See also Eat Less, Move More: Solutions to problems.
Sabtu, 23 Januari 2010
Ghrelin, the other "in"
Having just written about Leptin, it's Ghrelin's turn now. When your stomach is empty, serum ghrelin level is high and when your stomach is full, serum ghrelin level is low. Interestingly, high serum ghrelin has a beneficial effect on the hippocampus (responsible for learning stuff) so do your studying when you're hungry!
As a full stomach reduces serum ghrelin and thus reduces appetite, anything that keeps the stomach full for longer reduces appetite for longer. This is where enterogastrones come in. The most useful one in terms of appetite control is cholecystokinin, the secretion of which is stimulated by proteins & fats. This is one reason why diets high in proteins & fats keep you full for longer. Another useful filler is fibre/fiber, of course. As shown on the BBC programme "The Truth about Food", blending a meal with water or some other low-calorie liquid like soup also slows stomach emptying.
Finally, sleep deprivation raises ghrelin so I must try harder to spend less time on my computer and get some shut-eye.
As a full stomach reduces serum ghrelin and thus reduces appetite, anything that keeps the stomach full for longer reduces appetite for longer. This is where enterogastrones come in. The most useful one in terms of appetite control is cholecystokinin, the secretion of which is stimulated by proteins & fats. This is one reason why diets high in proteins & fats keep you full for longer. Another useful filler is fibre/fiber, of course. As shown on the BBC programme "The Truth about Food", blending a meal with water or some other low-calorie liquid like soup also slows stomach emptying.
Finally, sleep deprivation raises ghrelin so I must try harder to spend less time on my computer and get some shut-eye.
Selasa, 30 Desember 2008
A blast from the past.
Look who's turned up on the BBC food boards after a 4-5 years absence. A big "Welcome back" to Zoë Harcombe, who has the site 'Why do you overeat? When all you want is to be slim' and The Harcombe Diet.
We agree on most things. The problem with counting Calories is that, if you reach your Calorie limit by 6pm, what do you do? Spend the rest of the evening hungry and go to bed with a rumbling tummy & hunger pangs? Or just have one teensy-weensy bite to eat, which turns into a "nom-a-thon"? I know what I would do, as I can resist anything.......except temptation!
What we don't agree on is that Calories don't count. I say that they do. So does Lyle McDonald and Anthony Colpo. For people who are restrained to a hospital bed, changing the relative proportions of carbohydrate & fat (keeping protein constant) in their diet makes no difference whatsoever to their long-term weight gain/loss (ignoring glycogen + water weight differences). What it does make a difference to is how much these restrained people would beg for food. On a high-carb diet, I was much hungrier than when I was on a low-carb diet. This is why I ate way too much on the former diet (& got fat) and ate much less on the latter diet (& got slim).
It's thought that Insulin is the only hormone responsible for body-fat storage. This isn't correct.
Insulin makes the body store glucose (from dietary carbohydrates) and amino acids (from dietary proteins) and stops the body from burning fats. Therefore, having chronically-high serum insulin levels (hyperinsulinaemia) is not desirable for people wishing to burn body-fat for fuel.
As we all know, dietary carbohydrate raises serum insulin levels by raising blood glucose. See http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm.
However, dietary protein also raises serum insulin levels. See http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm.
Eating most fats with carbohydrates raises serum insulin levels even higher still, although fats lower the glucose response. See http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/133/8/2577.pdf. What do junk foods mostly consist of? High-GI carbohydrates + fats. However, omega-3 fats reduce the hyperinsulinaemia caused by the other fats. See http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/53/suppl_1/S166.pdf.
Eating fat on its own does not raise serum insulin levels. See http://intl.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/75/3/505.pdf. However, it's still possible to gain body-fat by eating too many Calories of dietary fat. Acylation Stimulating Protein (ASP) makes the body store dietary fat as body-fat. See http://www.jlr.org/cgi/reprint/30/11/1727.pdf.
The amount of food that free-living people (i.e. people who are not restrained to a hospital bed) eat depends mostly on their appetites. This is affected by the food that they eat (the low blood glucose that follows hyperinsulinaemia causes severe hunger pangs) and also advertisements. Watch this Google video of Adam Curtis' BBC documentary The Century Of The Self - Part 1 of 4.
I hope that you all had a good Christmas.
We agree on most things. The problem with counting Calories is that, if you reach your Calorie limit by 6pm, what do you do? Spend the rest of the evening hungry and go to bed with a rumbling tummy & hunger pangs? Or just have one teensy-weensy bite to eat, which turns into a "nom-a-thon"? I know what I would do, as I can resist anything.......except temptation!
What we don't agree on is that Calories don't count. I say that they do. So does Lyle McDonald and Anthony Colpo. For people who are restrained to a hospital bed, changing the relative proportions of carbohydrate & fat (keeping protein constant) in their diet makes no difference whatsoever to their long-term weight gain/loss (ignoring glycogen + water weight differences). What it does make a difference to is how much these restrained people would beg for food. On a high-carb diet, I was much hungrier than when I was on a low-carb diet. This is why I ate way too much on the former diet (& got fat) and ate much less on the latter diet (& got slim).
It's thought that Insulin is the only hormone responsible for body-fat storage. This isn't correct.
Insulin makes the body store glucose (from dietary carbohydrates) and amino acids (from dietary proteins) and stops the body from burning fats. Therefore, having chronically-high serum insulin levels (hyperinsulinaemia) is not desirable for people wishing to burn body-fat for fuel.
As we all know, dietary carbohydrate raises serum insulin levels by raising blood glucose. See http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm.
However, dietary protein also raises serum insulin levels. See http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm.
Eating most fats with carbohydrates raises serum insulin levels even higher still, although fats lower the glucose response. See http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/133/8/2577.pdf. What do junk foods mostly consist of? High-GI carbohydrates + fats. However, omega-3 fats reduce the hyperinsulinaemia caused by the other fats. See http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/53/suppl_1/S166.pdf.
Eating fat on its own does not raise serum insulin levels. See http://intl.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/75/3/505.pdf. However, it's still possible to gain body-fat by eating too many Calories of dietary fat. Acylation Stimulating Protein (ASP) makes the body store dietary fat as body-fat. See http://www.jlr.org/cgi/reprint/30/11/1727.pdf.
The amount of food that free-living people (i.e. people who are not restrained to a hospital bed) eat depends mostly on their appetites. This is affected by the food that they eat (the low blood glucose that follows hyperinsulinaemia causes severe hunger pangs) and also advertisements. Watch this Google video of Adam Curtis' BBC documentary The Century Of The Self - Part 1 of 4.
I hope that you all had a good Christmas.
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