Why Do I Always Put on Weight in the Winter?

If you think you’re imagining an increase in your appetite as winter draws near, you’re not.

Some scientists believe, based on research from a study from 1991 out of the University of Georgia, that we are hardwired to our instincts dating back to our cave-dwelling days and these instincts are responsible for an average increase of 200 calories a day in the winter. Colder weather means a food scarcity.

The other culprit is light. The lack of daylight hours in the winter sends signals to the brain for us to stockpile on food and eat faster than normal.

But some scientists disagree with this theory and place the blame on the holidays and people spending more time indoors and less time exercising. During the winter months, our cravings for comfort foods escalate as does our caloric intake. The stronger the memories attached to your favourite foods, the higher the possibility that you’ll eat more of these foods. With every mouthful, these memories are enhanced. Eating already increases our production of the feel-good hormone, dopamine, and when it’s a favorite food, this sensation is even greater.

Unfortunately, most of our comfort foods are high in carbs and high in fat, which leads to more calories and an increased chance of weight gain. So, you can limit yourself by paying close attention to your portion control. Also, including a protein component to every meal you eat will fill you up faster and keep you full for longer.

For those people who are strict about their fitness regime, having a winter plan is always a part of their strategy. Planning ahead is always a good game plan, especially when the winter months are ahead of us. Don’t give in to colder climates and use that as an excuse not to exercise. Devise a plan that will keep you motivated and exercised all winter long.

Soda Pop and Video Games Adding to Childhood Obesity

If you’re a teenager and trying to lose weight, where do you go for advice?

Reportedly, 75% of obese teenagers are trying to lose weight, but when their methods were analyzed by researchers, it was found that certain habits and behaviors are holding them back.

These findings come from a study out of Philadelphia, where 14% of high-school students are overweight. This analysis from the Philadelphia Youth Risk Behavioral Survey, looked at about 44,000 high-schoolers to determine what kind of efforts are being made to help with weight loss and what kind of behaviors are lingering that prevent them reaching their goals.

Such behaviors as smoking, regular exercise, video game playing and the consumption of junk food were all taken into account.

Sadly, the obese weight group of female teenagers were also more likely to be smokers and even though most of these females were committed to 60 minutes of aerobic activity a day, their subsequent consumption of soda pop was standing in their way of success.

You need to exercise for 30 minutes of cardio to burn one soda pop.

Their male counterparts were less likely to exercise on a daily basis, giving up aerobic activity for video games – an average of three hours a day is spent on playing video games.

“From a health education standpoint, finding out that three-quarters of students who are obese want to lose weight is exactly what we want,” said lead researcher Clare Lenhart. “But the behavior they’re engaging in is puzzling; it’s counterproductive to what they’re trying to do.”

The researchers believe there is a lack of education amongst these teens and there needs to be a better system for raising awareness to help break bad habits causing weight gain.

“For example, among the girls who are exercising, they may not realize that one soda could undo that 30-minute walk they just took.”

Health-care providers can also do a better job at evaluating teen health with more accurate follow-up questions about their activity levels and nutritional habits.

“If a child is going to their pediatrician, and he asks them if they’re losing weight, an appropriate follow-up question might be, ‘How are you doing that?’” said Lenhart. “It could help guide those teens to more productive weight loss activities.”

Source:

Temple University. “Overweight teens want to lose weight, going about it the wrong way.”ScienceDaily, 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.

Cut Out Mid-Morning Snacking

There is so much confusing information out there about how to lose weight, it’s enough to drive you nuts.

How many times have you heard that grazing throughout the day, dividing your calories into smaller meals, is the ideal way to stay full, curb cravings and lose weight?

Well, new evidence is saying that if you are a woman aged 50 to 75 and are trying to lose weight, you need to omit that mid-morning snack from your diets.

This new study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, took 123 women aged 50 to 75 who were overweight or obese and tracked their eating habits and subsequent weight loss. Their diets ranged from 1,200 to 2,000 calories a day and low in fat – less than 30%. Each woman engaged in 45 minutes of cardio exercise a day for five days a week.

The results showed that those women who consumed a mid-morning snack were lose an average of 7% of body weight compared to those women who did not consume a mid-morning snack who lost 11% of their body weight.

“We think this finding may not relate necessarily to the time of day one snacks, but rather to the short interval between breakfast and lunch,” says study researcher Anne McTiernan, MD, PhD. “Mid-morning snacking, therefore, might be a reflection of recreational or mindless eating habits rather than eating to satisfy true hunger.”

The study reports that once snacking becomes a regular part of your dieting regime, it’s easier to give into temptation and snack too often.

“Since women on a weight loss program only have a limited number of calories to spend each day, it is important for them to incorporate nutrient-dense foods that are no more than 200 calories per serving,” McTiernan says.

Having a high-protein breakfast will keep you feeling fuller for longer and you will probably forget all about your mid-morning snack. Another way to help you succeed in your weight loss goals is to measure out your snacks, so you won’t be tempted to eat more than you should. Grabbing nuts from a full bag or grapes from a full bunch will only lead to eating more calories.

Explaining Post-Diet Weight Gain

The biggest complaint amongst dieters who follow a calorie-restricted diet is that as soon as they stop the diet, they gain back most of the weight lost.

Within the first year, as many as 80% of dieters gain back the weight lost while on a diet.

To understand better why this is such a common occurrence amongst dieters, scientists out of the University of Melbourne studied appetite hormones to see if they were altered during the dieting process.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the results of this study showed that these hormones indeed were affected for about a year after a calorie-restricted diet. After dieting, the hormones were supercharged and working over time to regain the weight lost. The effect of these altered hormones is increased hunger and a larger-than-normal appetite.

“Maintaining weight loss may be more difficult than losing weight,” says lead researcher Joseph Proietto, PhD, a professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne’s Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, in Victoria, Australia. “This may be due to biological changes rather than [a] voluntary return to old habits.”

To test this theory, the scientists placed 50 overweight and obese men and women on a 10-week, calorie-restricted diet and then tested their hormone levels over a one-year period.

These blood tests showed that appetite hormones leptin, ghrelin and insulin were altered as a result of weight loss. Subjects also noted an increase in hunger throughout the morning, even after eating breakfast.

Even though the average weight lost was 30 pounds over the 10 weeks, the dieters gained back about 12 pounds over the course of the year. This was in spite of eating a well-balanced diet and exercising on a regular basis. The dieters again noted an increase in hunger pangs and blood tests showed that hormone levels were still unstable.

While these results may shock a few people, the scientists explain that this is a typical response of the body and one that has been hard-wired into our genetics as a survival technique.

“Multiple mechanisms have been developed over eons of evolution to get you to regain weight once you lose it, to tell your brain you’re hungry and to ensure that you don’t stop eating. If you don’t have those drives, you wouldn’t be alive.

Now that we live in a world where calories are so easily consumed and physical exercise—the best way to burn off those calories—is largely unnecessary for day-to-day survival, these biological drives are backfiring and contributing to obesity.” – Dr Charles Burant, Director of the University of Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center.

It’s not all a total loss though. Despite these increases in hunger pangs and cravings, dieters can still be successful if they arm themselves with a strong willpower and persevere to resist these cravings.

“That’s not to say that weight regain is inevitable, or that these drives can’t be overcome through willpower. Although the hormone changes noted in the study are very real physical effects, personality and psychological factors may play a role in an individual’s ability to manage chronic hunger. This may explain why some people maintain weight loss for longer than others,” he says. “Maintenance of weight loss requires continued vigilance and conscious effort to resist hunger.” – Joseph Proietto, PhD, University of Melbourne.

Researchers are using this information to develop new ways to help restore hormonal levels after dieting.

Columbia University has used leptin with great success in helping dieters to keep the weight they lost off.

“When diabetics don’t have enough insulin in their bodies, we give them back insulin in order to maintain their blood glucose,” Dr. Burant says. Researchers should be finding a way to do the same for people who have lost weight, he adds, “whether it’s with a drug, a dietary supplement, or certain nutrients—something that will stimulate the release of these hormones.”

Another Clue to How Obesity Works

With obesity gaining momentum, scientists are getting closer to understanding how the disease progresses, providing clues for future treatments.

In one study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers examined the hormone leptin and how a resistance to it can develop. Leptin is a key hormone in the cause of obesity.

Lead author Professor Tony Tiganis, of the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute and Monash University’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said our bodies produce leptin in response to increasing fat deposits.

“Acting on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, leptin instructs the body to increase energy expenditure and decrease food intake, and so helps us maintain a healthy body weight,” said Professor Tiganis.

“The body’s response to leptin is diminished in overweight and obese individuals, giving rise to the concept of ‘leptin-resistance’. We’ve discovered more about how ‘leptin-resistance’ develops, providing new directions for research into possible treatments.”

Previous studies have revealed two proteins that inhibit leptin in the brain and Professor Tiganis’ team have discovered a third.

Tests performed on mice revealed this third protein as more abundant with weight-gain, exacerbating leptin-resistance and hastening progression to morbid obesity. The study showed that the three negative regulators of leptin take effect at different stages, shedding light on how obesity progresses.

“Drugs targeting one of the negative regulators are already in clinical trials for Type 2 Diabetes; however, our research shows that in terms of increasing leptin-sensitivity in obesity, targeting only one of these won’t be enough. All three regulators might need to be switched off,” said Professor Tiganis.

When two of the negative regulators were removed from the test mice, weight gain from a high fat diet was largely prevented.

“We now have to determine what happens when all three negative regulators are neutralised. Do we prevent high fat diet-induced obesity?”

Professor Tiganis said the more that is known about obesity, the better-equipped scientists are to develop drugs to support good diet and exercise choices.

“Humans have a deep-seated attraction to overeating and nutrient-rich food, inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Now that food is more readily available and our lifestyles are less active, our evolutionary drive to overeat is becoming problematic.”

“Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not going to be sufficient to reverse the obesity trend. There is a pressing need to develop novel drugs that complement diet and exercise to both prevent and treat this disease,” said Professor Tiganis.

Source:

Monash University. “Another clue to how obesity works.” ScienceDaily, 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.

If It Doesn’t Come from Mother Nature, Don’t Eat It!

Eating healthy whole foods is always better than stocking up on low-fat, sugar-free synthetic, processed foods like low-calorie potato chips and other snacks.

These enticing products could be the very reason why you’re not losing weight. A recent study published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience looked at low-fat foods made with synthetic fat substitutes to see if they had any effect on long-term weight loss and subsequent weight gain.

“Our research showed that fat substitutes can interfere with the body’s ability to regulate food intake, which can lead to inefficient use of calories and weight gain,” said Susan E. Swithers, PhD, the lead researcher and a Purdue psychology professor.

The scientists ran tests on rats that were fed either regular high-fat Pringles or low-fat Pringles with the fat substitute called olestra that has no calories and is indigestible by the body.

The group of rats that ate the low-fat Pringles with olestra consumed more food, gained more weight and accumulated more fatty tissue than the group that only ate the regular high-fat Pringles. This weight gain did not change even after the chips with olestra were removed from the rats’ diet.

“Based on this data, a diet that is low in fat and calories might be a better strategy for weight loss than using fat substitutes,” Swithers said. However, she warned that it can be difficult to extrapolate laboratory findings about rats to people, even though their biological responses to food are similar. The study was conducted by Swithers along with Purdue psychology professor Terry L. Davidson, PhD, and former Purdue undergraduate student Sean Ogden.

The mechanics behind this finding is that the brain is simply tricked into believing that is eating a fatty or sweet substances based on how the food tastes, which in turn, signifies a large number of calories. The body reacts by producing more saliva, more appetite hormones and changing metabolic behavior. Fat substitutes like olestra contributes to this effect on the body.

Other studies have proven that similar food substitutes like saccharin and artificial sweeteners can increase weight gain and body fat and change metabolic reactions to food.

It is no coincidence then that the increased consumption of these artificial substitutes over the past 30 years parallels the rise in obesity in the US. Your best course of action is always to buy healthy, wholesome foods and avoid artificial food.

If it doesn’t come from Mother Nature, should we be eating it?

“Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet,” Swithers said. “Eating food which is naturally low in fat and calories may be a better route than relying on fat substitutes or artificial sweeteners.”

Eat Potatoes if You Want to Look Like a Potato

It’s no secret that potatoes are high in starch and calories, yet new research has taken this popular spud and put it under the microscope to see just how much damage it can do to your waistline.

This recent study out of Harvard University was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and looked at 120,877 men and women and their lifestyle choices when it came to exercise and diet.

This was a long-term study with measurements every four years for 20 years in total.

While exercise can help with weight loss, it is only part of the puzzle. If you don’t support your fitness regime with a healthy, balanced diet, then you will still gain weight and this is what the study set out to prove.

The average weight gain over 20 years was 17 pounds. Researchers broke down this weight gain into food and exercise and attributed 4 pounds of that weight gain to diet and 2 pounds weight loss to exercise. These figures show the accumulative effect of eating potatoes and other high-calorie foods regularly for four years:

• Potato chips – 1.69 lb
• Potatoes – 1.28 lb – of any kind such as baked, fried, mashed or boiled
• Sugary beverages – 1.00 lb
• Unprocessed red meats – 0.95 lb
• Processed (deli) meats – 0.95 lb

Other lifestyle choices that affect weight gain in this study include:

• Daily intake of alcohol – 1 drink = 0.41 lb weight gain
• Daily TV watching – 1 hour = 0.31 lb in weight gain
• Quitting smoking =  5 lb in weight gain
• Sleep – those who got less than 6 hours sleep a night experience more weight gain

Why are potatoes the worst offender? Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, lead author of the study says:

“Maybe because they’re generally eaten in large quantities,  or possibly because, as some previous research has shown, they are the type of food that causes big spikes in blood sugar and insulin, which tends to make people hungrier and overeat at their next meal. Other starches and refined carbohydrates like white bread, white rice, low-fiber breakfast cereal, candy and desserts may affect the body the same way.”

In contrast, healthy foods can help you lose weight. Foods to include in your diet on a daily basis include:

• Yogurt = 0.82 lb loss in weight
• Nuts – 0.57 lb loss in weight
• Fruits – 0.49 lb loss in weight
• Whole grains – 0.37 lb loss in weight
• Vegetables − 0.22 lb loss in weight

Learn to develop new habits and plan ahead, so you are always prepared and not rushing to the vending machine to curb those hunger pangs. Always make food choices healthy, fresh and wholesome.

Eating a diet that is higher in protein and lower in carbohydrates is the best way to go when it comes to eating healthy. One of the easiest ways to ingest high quality protein is with whey protein.

TV Advertising Equates to Bigger Waistlines

Logic tells us that watching too much TV makes us fat because of the lack of activity and the temptation to snack.

But now, experts are saying that too much time in front of the TV, especially for kids, leads to obesity because of all the advertising for junk food during our viewing hours.

Interesting theory.

“We created a perfect storm between media use, junk and fast food advertising, and physical inactivity,” says Dr. Victor Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and member of the AAP’s Council. “We created a situation where we now have more overweight and obese adults in the U.S, than underweight and normal weight adults; it’s become an urgent public health problem.”

Now with so much advertising online too, it’s not just TV that is to blame. Spending too much time in front of the computer exposes you to countless images of branding and advertisements that encourage unhealthy living and eating the wrong kinds of food.

It has been proven before that sitting in front of the TV or computer lowers your metabolic rate and disables the body’s natural fat-burning mechanism, so instead of burning fat, it accumulates fat at an accelerated rate.

In a statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Communications and Media, experts advise parents to be more mindful of the time their kids spend in front of a TV and online.

This statement comes on the heels of scientific evidence proving that behaviors are directly affected after hours of TV viewing and web surfing. Studies show that the more time a child spends in front of the TV, the more their diets will suffer. There is a relationship between eating high-fat, high-carb junk food and soda pop and the amount of TV one watches. TV is influential and so is the web.

One study out of the UK, studied children over several decades right into their thirties. It showed that kids aged five who watch more than an hour of TV a day have a 7% higher risk of growing up to be an obese adult. Another study out of Japan found even more alarming results that kids aged three who watched a lot of TV were dealing with weight issues by the time they reached their sixth birthday.

The solution is to limit the time your kids spend watching TV and online to less than two hours a day and to monitor their usage. Spending more time with your kids while they are watching TV is one way to counteract all the advertising messages they see and educate them. Investing in a PVR may be one solution, where you can fast forward through the commercials and reduce the number of hours of exposure.

“Media such as television is the most important and under-appreciated influence on children’s development and behavior,” says Strasburger. “Media affect virtually every concern that parents and pediatricians have about their kids, whether it’s obesity, sex, drugs or school performance. When kids spend up to seven hours a day watching television or on the computer, it’s time to acknowledge that influence and spend money on researching how we can maximize the good effects of media and minimize its bad effects.”

Healthy living starts with a healthy diet and high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets are the way to go. High protein meals help control blood glucose levels and keep you feeling fuller for longer so the temptation to snack between meals is reduced.

Originally published @ FITLODE.COM

Why Do Obese People Put on Weight Easily?

It’s amazing how little we know about obesity and its true effect on the body. Every day new discoveries are being made surrounding this issue.

In a recent study out of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, scientists discovered that in obese individuals, digestion is impaired even in a dieting state.

In this study, 12 obese and 12 lean subjects were monitored at 30-minute intervals between fasting and eating a soup high in fact or protein.

“Obese subjects in the study showed enhanced responses to both soups. The obese were more receptive to fatty meals, meaning the stomach is more tolerant to fatty meals, as well as more responsive to protein meals. Since the function of the stomach is to pump whatever is in the stomach to the small intestine, being more responsive means that the stomach may empty the protein meals more quickly in obese subjects than in lean subjects.”

Quicker absorption means two things – increased weight gain and increased hunger.

When a lean individual eats a high fat meal, the reaction is a feeling of sickness and nausea – this is a reaction of the stomach, which slows down activity, pumping the nutrients through the body at a slower rate; thereby reducing hunger and prolonging satiety levels. In obese individuals, the stomach is accustomed to high fat meals and it reacts by speeding up activity and absorption rates.

“Typically, after a meal in lean subjects, the cardiac sympathetic activity increases and the cardiac vagal activity decreases. In the obese subjects, however, these normal post‐meal changes in the cardiac autonomic functions were completely absent, which suggests an impaired autonomic response to food ingestion. The autonomic nervous system sends meal‐related gastrointestinal information, such as mechanical distention [bloating or a feeling of fullness] and chemical stimulation via nutrients to the brain. If the response of the autonomic system to food ingestion is impaired or altered, the brain may not be fully informed of the food ingestion, which may lead to over‐eating.”

The scientists went on to prove that there exists a correlation between the hormone obestatin – an appetite hormone – and an individual’s BMI or percentage of body fat. Obestatin works with ghrelin, another appetite hormone, and suppresses the appetite and is responsible for regulating the appetite in conjunction to the metabolism and inflammation response of eating.

“Our promising results indicate that obestatin is certainly worth pursuing in a larger cohort study as an indicator of the efficacy of bariatric surgery, especially within the first year.”

If you’re trying to lose weight, there are two things you need to do – start exercising and revamp your diet. Cut out all the high fat, junk food and get back to eating healthy, wholesome foods.

Originally published @ FITLODE.COM

Tips to Surviving Thanksgiving Weight Gain

This is the time of year when anxiety starts to build over Thanksgiving dinner and our waistlines begin to quiver with the anticipation. How do you survive the holidays and stick to your weight loss goals?

If you haven’t heard the statistics, the average American will consume 3,500 calories in just one Thanksgiving dinner. If you’re one of those people who has to make many stops to different households for dinner, hopefully by the second or third one, you will have had your fill and you won’t be tempted to eat so much. The most important thing to remember is portion control. Keep it to a minimum and you should successfully avoid the bulge.

The number one rule is not to stress out about it. Try not to let your weight gain anxieties spoil the festivities. This is a special time of year and you have a right to enjoy it as much as the next person.

While setting up a list of rules may add to your anxiety, having a few guidelines should take the pressure off. Having an effective game plan in place will allow you more time to focus on family and friends and less on the delicious temptations in front of you.

Let’s start with a review of how many calories your typical Thanksgiving dinner contains:

• 6 oz turkey breast meat = 321 calories
• ½ cup gravy = 75 calories
• 1 cup stuffing = 400 calories
• 2 dinner rolls with butter = 260 calories
• 1 cup mashed potatoes = 237 calories
• 1 cup glazed carrots = 90 calories
• ¾ cup cranberry sauce = 314 calories
• 1 glass of red wine = 150 calories
• 1 slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream = 331 calories
• 1 cup coffee with cream and sugar = 40 calories

Tips to Surviving Thanksgiving Weight Gain

1.  Eat a hearty breakfast so that you won’t be tempted by cravings and the sights and smells of all those delicious treats.

2.  The most important tip is portion control. Allow yourself one plate of food and no more. If your host uses overly large plates, adjust your portion to match a medium-sized plate. Divide your plate into three areas and aim for a ratio of half veggies, a quarter protein and a quarter carbohydrates. And remember, one plate doesn’t mean one heaping plate.

3.  Know what foods to avoid:

Avoid appetizers, finger foods and other pre-dinner treats, unless it is just veggies with no dip – then go ahead and eat as many celery sticks as you like.

Salad is good but not if it’s already dressed with high-fat creamy dressings. Coleslaw is one salad that makes the grade on most Thanksgiving menus, but it comes loaded with fat and sugar.

Soup is always a great way to start a meal, but if it’s cream-based, best to either only sample it or skip on it altogether.

Some people are just crazy about dressing, but it is probably the most fattening thing on the menu. If you absolutely love dressing, allow yourself a small spoonful.

Make a choice between the dinner rolls and the stuffing, but don’t give in to both.

Gravy or cranberry sauce? Make a decision to have one or the other but not both.

Only eat white meat, as it has fewer calories.

Limit yourself to a couple of healthy sides – like steamed vegetables.

Eat the sweet potatoes instead of the white potatoes, unless of course, they come glazed in brown sugar. Then you can go either way!

4. Drink water with your meal for several reasons: to help fill you up; to help reduce that bloated feeling afterward; to avoid drinking too much alcohol.

5. Offer to make some of your own dishes like dessert so you have more control over how many calories you eat. Or better still, host the dinner party and then you have complete control.

6. Avoid sitting at the table after dinner because you’ll be more tempted to keep eating and snacking. Go for a walk after dinner.

7. When dinner is over, it’s over. Avoid snacking on after-dinner chocolates, sweets or cheese. If it didn’t make it onto your one plate of food, it should not enter your mouth!

Hopefully some of these tips will help with the anxiety and you can enjoy Thanksgiving without the inevitable weight gain. Think of it as practice for that upcoming Christmas dinner and remember – don’t be a turkey!

Originally published @ FITLODE.COM