Why Biggest Losers Regain Their Weight

The Truth About Fat
Image courtesy of Michelle Meiklejohn
FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

My sons have become obsessed with “Biggest Loser”. They love the drama. They love the characters. I really think they are oblivious to the contestants’ weight. To them the weigh-ins are just numbers and it’s all a game. I realised this only after I had the “do you really think that we should be using other people’s weight issues as our entertainment?” chat. Perhaps it was a bit too deep for a 9 year old and a 6 year old. They do tend to take things a little more on face value than we do, don’t they?

Anyway, having sat through a couple of episodes myself, it’s heart wrenching to think that many of these people will put back on much of the weight they’ve taken off. But why is this? Why is it that people who have put themselves through so much, who clearly don’t want to be fat, simply find it too hard to “be like the rest of us”?

SBS aired a doco last night (13/05/2013) “The Truth About Fat”. I highly recommend you take a look. It’s available free to view until 27th May 2013. Some really interesting stuff. Be warned… there are a few needles and blood and guts bits. Just close your eyes if you can’t cope, as it is definitely worth a look. It may well turn your thoughts on obesity upside down, or it may confirm what you have had a nagging suspicion about all along.

 

Why has obesity reached epidemic proportions?

The program looks at research explaining what obesity might be all about. Traditionally, the thought has been that to be in a healthy weight range, you exercise more, or eat less. “Eat less, exercise more, or get fat” as my brother says to his son. And, this of course is 100% true. At the end of the day, being fat or thin is still pretty much about the energy equation. Take in more energy that your body is able to use up, and there is only one place for that energy to go. It turns to fat and is stored in adipose tissue in your body.

In today’s modern world, we eat more food than we need. It’s estimated we eat an average of 200 calories more than we need to every day. Doesn’t take long for that to add up, and for our collective weight to creep up over time. We have an abundance of food, rich in calories, and for some people, it is extremely difficult to resist. Being in a health weight range is just a matter of willpower isn’t it? Well, yes, to some extent it is, but there’s way more to it than that. A large  number of people find it almost impossible to exercise their willpower over the forces that compel them to eat. So what’s going on?

Our bodies evolved in a world where calories were scarce, and the opportunity to feast was uncommon. The developed world however is awash with food, and 25% of people in the developed world are clinically obese. What is it that shapes our decisions about food – what we eat, how much we eat, when we eat, and when we stop eating?

 

Hormones

The simple answer is hormones. Ghrelin and PYY. Ghrelin is also known as the hunger hormone. It stimulates appetite, therefore increases food intake, and promotes fat storage. It is produced and released mainly by the stomach, and also in small amounts by the small intestine, the pancreas and the brain.

Peptide YY (or PYY), on the other hand, gives you a feeling of fullness, and signals when to stop eating. It is released into the small intestine after eating, circulates in the blood and binds to receptors in the brain, which results in a decreased appetite and a feeling of fullness. PYY release starts before food reaches the small intestine, and the amount increases as food hits the small intestine, hence the time lag between eating and feeling full. SLOW DOWN YOUR EATING!

The Truth About Fat showed that whilst ghrelin levels in obese people stayed pretty constant – ie they didn’t rise dramatically if they fasted, their levels of PYY were low. It’s thought that the lower levels of PYY prevent obese people from ever really feeling full. The research quoted obese people “I never really feel hungry, but once I start eating, I can’t stop”.

So, one thought is that hormones in obese people are simply different to people who are not overweight. Which makes sense of course, but what is it that causes some people’s hormones to go haywire?

 

Research with twins shows stress may be a factor

One line of research has looked at identical twins, who are different weights. Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by our environment-not just our physical environment, but also life events that can have an effect on us. The fact that these identical twins can have the same genes but one is fat and one is thin, suggests that the fat gene can be turned on or off. Epigenetics can explain this.

There seems to be a  common thread amongst pairs of adult twins with discordant weight. People have pinpointed the time that changes in the fat twin’s body weight started to take place, and compared this to what was going on in their life. Interestingly, results point to times of stress being a factor in the switching on of the fat gene. My thoughts for some time have been that stress plays a huge role in being overweight. My first word of advice to anyone looking at losing weight is to look at their stress levels and attack that first. Once that’s under control, weight is likely to fall off with little effort.

The fact that what could seem to be very small events in your life might change your physical shape in the future, is both exciting and frightening, and at the same time tragic. Talking to people who really struggle with their weight, and seeing their frustration at how their life is limited by their obesity is a very sobering experience. How great that we are unlocking the key to turning their lives around.

This current research indicates that the assumption that fat people are lacking will power is not entirely correct. Simplistically, you can say that people who are fat lack the willpower to overcome their compulsion to eat, however, when your biology is working against you, the amount of willpower needed to overcome your eating habit is far greater than the willpower needed by thin people to eat well. So thin people of the world, no need to feel so superior. Hormonal imbalance and gene expression are not an excuse for being fat, they are a reason.

 

Gastric bypass surgery alters brain function

Another area examined by the program was surgery, specifically gastric bypass. Whilst a gastric by-pass does involve a drastic reduction in the size of a person’s stomach, it would seem that this surgery also works by changing the level of hormones responsible for obesity. People report not feeling hungry, but most importantly, feeling full when they eat. Patients themselves have reported that more changes have taken place in their head than their stomach.

MRIs looking at brain activity in obese people who are shown yummy fatty foods show lots of activity in the brain in the areas associated with addiction, emotional response and reward, compared to that of a thin person, who has little brain activity in those areas, shown the same photos. After gastric bypass surgery, obese people have been shown the same photos they were shown prior to their surgery, and their brain activity is greatly reduced to around the same level as a thin person. The bypass surgery seems to have pressed a reset button in their brain, returning the “fat genes” back to normal.

Gastric by-pass surgery of course has very real risks, and it is a last resort suitable for some people, but we are not far off less radical procedures to cure obesity.

 

Are we missing something here?

On the surface, it all seems very logical. We get fat because we eat too much and do too little exercise. Due to our biology coupled with certain environmental factors and life events, the pull of food is far greater for some people than it is for others. Medical intervention will fix this. Great. So, we may soon have a cure for obesity.

But given it would seem obesity can be caused by an oversupply of food coupled with stressors which switch on our fat gene, could it be that we are barking up the wrong tree. Would prevention not be better than cure? Is our consumer driven society not just stoking the obesity fire, and if we in the developed world shared the food around a bit and chilled out,  would we not all be a bit better off?

 

 

 

Have we got the science on why we’re getting fatter wrong?

By Lennert Veerman

An article published recently in the BMJ argues that we have been pursuing the wrong hypothesis on the causes of obesity. Along with substandard science, this wrongheadedness has apparently exacerbated the obesity crisis.

Author Gary Taubes asserts that obesity is probably not caused by a positive energy balance (more energy is consumed than spent). A promising rival hypothesis has been forgotten without having been properly investigated.

According to that hypothesis, obesity is a hormonal, regulatory disorder. Energy imbalance is only a consequence of that underlying hormonal factor. The problem is not that we’re eating too much, it’s what we’re eating. And the probable culprit is carbohydrates. But this is yet to be definitively proven.

Enter the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI), a US-based not-for-profit organisation co-founded by Taubes that will fund the rigorous experiments needed to “find out, once and for all, what we need to eat to be healthy”.

NuSI will also “re-introduce a culture of rigorous experimental science to the field of nutrition.” A condition for meaningful progress in this field is apparently “a refusal to accept substandard science as sufficient to establish reliable knowledge, let alone for public health guidelines.”

So, out with the research done to date, and away with current guidelines, right?

 

Who speaks and for whom?

Actually, not so fast. Let’s first examine who wants us to forget everything we know and postpone all action on obesity. Taubes is a journalist and author, not a scientist. And his organisation, NuSI, is financed by the “Giving Library”, which “offers philanthropists an innovative way to enhance their strategic charitable giving”. It also gives would-be donors a “forum for anonymous communication”.

The NuSI board of advisors “all share a passion and belief: to date nutrition science has been inadequate in drawing conclusions and making sound recommendations.” The board of directors are people with backgrounds in consultancies, corporate health care and private investment management.

Anonymous donors, claims of a scientific establishment suppressing ideas, claims that the science isn’t settled and no action should be taken, that more research by “independent, sceptical researchers” is needed, the involvement of big corporate actors in a field where research findings can have consequences for a multibillion-dollar industry – where have we seen all that before?

It smacks of denialism. But Taubes states that NuSI doesn’t accept support from the food industry, there are no food industry representatives on any NuSI board and taking aim at carbohydrates probably doesn’t make you friends in large sections of that industry. Perhaps this is just the way you raise funds for research in contemporary America.

But is it true that all the research in the field to date has uncritically accepted energy imbalance as the cause of obesity? And that no-one has yet looked at hormones as a cause of obesity? The short answer is no. While Taubes presents his ideas as revolutionary, they are actually fit quite comfortably in a long tradition of low-carb dieting. And it’s not true that such diets have never been scientifically tested.

To support his argument, Taubes cites a study that compared the Atkins diet to other diets, and found it achieved greater weight loss. That could mean carbohydrates are causing weight gain, but it could also result from the fact that carbs are the biggest part of our diets and restricting their consumption leads to overall reductions in caloric intake.

Whatever the case, it’s customary to do the research first and claim that you have found the cause of obesity (if indeed you have) second, rather than the other way around as Taubes seems to be doing. But again, this may be the way to raise funds for research in America.

 

Missing the bigger picture

Someone reading Taubes’ article might be forgiven for believing that the current thinking about solutions stops at the individual level and is all about diets and exercise. Not once does Taubes mention the “obesogenic environment”, which many obesity researchers consider to be the cause of the obesity epidemic.

Where many researchers focus on our changing living environment, Taubes puts the focus squarely on hormonal factors. But these probably haven’t changed while obesity rates soared. And he asks if we can all please wait for the results of this revolutionary research before taking any action.

That’s not helpful. We have a problem now, and contrary to Taubes’ claims, we do know something about its causes.

If Taubes believes increased consumption of carbohydrates is the cause of the obesity epidemic, he might have pointed to a trial that shows that replacing sugar-containing drinks with non-caloric drinks reduces weight gain and fat accumulation in children. Also, why not support calls for limits on advertising and availability of sugar-sweetened beverages, and for increased taxation to reduce consumption?

Taubes exaggerates the uncertainties in current nutrition science. There’s support for a causal role of carbohydrate-rich diets in the obesity epidemic but, as he notes, such diets also tend to be rich in calories. He is yet to conclusively prove it’s the carbs specifically that are to blame.

So rather than wait years for the results of NuSI-funded research, we should change our food supply to discourage excess sugar intake. A tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would be a good start, as would restrictions on advertising to children.

Lennert Veerman receives funding from NHMRC and ARC.

The Conversation

 

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Low Fat Christmas Recipes

I thought I might get into the Christmas spirit and share a few healthy Christmas recipes with you, so I turned to that trusty source, “the internet”, and duly typed in “healthy Christmas recipes”. The entire front page of the search results was devoted to low fat Christmas recipes, which got me thinking.

Why do we still equate healthy food with low fat food? Hello people out there in Google land, fat is good for you. Yes, you heard me right. Fat is good for you. The right sort of fat of course. Generally, animal fats should be eaten sparingly, except for fish and fats found in unfarmed kangaroo, and to an extent free range beef (which is pretty much all beef farmed in Australia) which are high in omega 3 and omega 6 fats. Good fats are also found in vegetable oils such as flaxseed oil, olive oil, hemp oil, nuts and seeds, avocado, to name a few. A great book on fats is Fats That Heal, Fat’s That Kill by Udo Erasmus. There is a bit of biochemistry for you to digest, but on the whole, a pretty easy read and very informative.

Anyway, my point is, as a population, we need to stop thinking that all fat is bad for you, and that if a food is low fat, it must be good for you. There are so many other factors to take into consideration. Mostly, low fat foods are high in carbohydrates, which is not necessarily always a bad thing – look at carrots, capsicum and peaches, just to pick three foods at random.

Processed foods which have a low fat label, are generally high on processed carobhydrates. Something needs to give the food the yummy flavour which brings us back to the packet, clammering for more!

The other thing I noticed when I looked at a few of the recipes was that yes, some of them were not only low in fat but also low in calories per serve. But who can eat just one tiny midgy little shortbread, so small that it only yields 31.5 calories per biscuit? Not me, that’s for sure.

My plan for eating healthily at Christmas time is simple.

Eat what I like on Christmas day.

Eat too much of all the wrong things.

Eat chocolate money and ham on toast for breakfast.

Piles of Christmas pudding with brandy butter and my mum’s excellent coffee icecream, all the turkey I can look at.

It’s just one day of the year, and honestly, if you’re worried about putting on weight, or in fact taking it off, one day of the year is not going to make or break you. But that’s the key. If you’re going to overindulge, it needs to be just one day. And that’s where many people fall down. I’ve been fasting 1-2 days a week for the last 4 weeks now, so I know I can do it. And yes, I do get hungry. If you’re planning on it, be aware it’s not for the faint hearted. (Quite literally – don’t even consider fasting if you have any type of medical condition, or if you are pregnant).

If you know that you find it almost impossible not to eat when you start feeling really hungry, you’re better off just to eat small portions of your favourite food, and don’t risk getting to the end of Boxing Day and reaching for the leftovers in a half crazed manner.

I don’t plan to be eating and picking at bits and pieces for the weeks leading up to Christmas (well not much anyway), and I do plan to fast on Boxing Day, and possibly the next day as well-ready for New Year’s Eve. I’ll be more than doubling my daily caloric intake on Christmas day-more than enough to see me through till the end of the week I should think!

I’ll throw in a decent run as well, and voila, there you have it. Reasonably healthy Christmas eating. And I really don’t have to think about it.

 

What are your plans for avoiding excess energy intake over the Christmas period?

Gluten Free Orange and Almond Cake

This beautifully moist orange and almond cake will be a winner…..if you take the time to blend the oranges well. If you don’t, you’ll end up with some very bitter bits of orange peel in your cake.

Using whole oranges, little sugar and almond meal, this is a great lower GI cake. The almond meal helps to lower the GI.

Click here for the  Orange Cake Recipe

Let us know what you think of the finished product!

Running Sugar Free

sugar

Today’s the day we go sugar free.  How sugar free are you going?

I’ve decided on no added sugar in any processed foods, which means being vigilant in checking labels, not eating my favourite treat of tahini and honey on a corn cracker –might have to revert back to vegemite and avocado- and not adding any sugar to cooking, which I very rarely do anyway.  When I do bake, it’s usually muesli muffins, much loved by my family and the “hippy” children up the road, but no-one else. These have honey and fruit juice added, which for the purpose of sugar free eating I’d consider sugars, so they are out for me as well. I’ll still be eating fruit and my home-made muesli which has a small amount of dried fruit in it.

Personally, I think a little bit of sugar is ok. I do use convenience foods such as tinned baked beans, occasionally tomato sauce (what’s a sausage sanga without sauce) and from time to time I add some bottled pasta sauce to a home-made bolognese.

The point of going sugar free was simply to see what all the hype is about.

Will I feel better and will my running improve, if my diet is completely sugar free for 4 weeks? Quite possibly yes.

Although I like to think I don’t eat much junk, on reflection, I probably eat more than I’m admitting to. I know I’m carrying a few kgs at the moment, and I’ll probably lose a bit of weight being sugar free.  I am going to be far more conscious of what I eat (no quick chocolate as an afternoon pick-me-up),  and drink. I’m intolerant of yeast and fermented products so not drinking any alcohol is bound to make me feel extra good.

I don’t drink much as a rule generally-used to be about once/month  I’d have a couple of glasses, but since I’ve discovered the fantastically knowledgeable proprietor of Wine Culture in East Roseville, I’ve been tending to share a bottle with my husband which may or may not be finished over the course of a week. So, no wine at all will make me feel a million times better I’m expecting – but it’s not the sugars, it’s the yeast that I have a problem with.

The point I’m making is it’s pretty hard to take sugar out of your diet without taking out a lot of other stuff that isn’t great for you. Take out sugar containing processed foods, and you’re bound to take out a lot of fats and food additives as well. So is it the reduced sugar, or the reduction in the rest of the junk that will have an effect on my well being?

Calcium Rich Foods For Runners

Calcium is important for many functions in the body, including muscular contraction, maintaining blood pH levels, strong teeth, and of course for helping to maintain bone density.

When thinking calcium, many people automatically think dairy, but there are many more calcium rich foods.

Here are a few ideas for dairy and non-dairy calcium sources.

Calcium rich foods for runners

Is there an end in sight to portion size increases?

Yes and no, but mostly it would seem, no.

According to a 2007 paper published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, portion sizes offered by fast food chains are two to five times larger than when first introduced. When McDonald’s first started in 1955, its only hamburger weighed around 1.6 ounces; now, the largest hamburger patty weighs 8 ounces. Serving size increases in other fast foods can be seen in this graph.

Interestingly, since the movie Supersize Me, some portion sizes at McDonalds have actually decreased. This table shows some selected fast food items and the change in portion size from 1998-2006.

The mayor of New York Cityis planning to ban the sale of oversized soft drinks in restaurants in a bid to make people consume less. If his legislation is passed, restaurants will need to limit the size of soft drinks to 16oz (that’s two standard size soft drink cans by the way). Patrons can buy more than one serving of course, but will be forced to think about whether or not they want that second serve.

 

So…. we may be making some kind of headway in the right direction but we have a long way to go.

 

Reference

Portion Sizes and Obesity: Responses of Fast-Food Companies

Lisa R Young, Marion Nestle Journal of Public Health Policy28, 238-248 (5 July 2007) doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200127 Research