Archive for the ‘Metabolism’ Category
Weight loss, exercise, and diet are all interrelated in a very fundamental way. There as many diets out there as there are calories in an avocado, and every one of them is based on the same basic premise: energy balance.
The fundamental ethos of the energy balance view is that if your energy intake exceeds your energy use, then you will gain weight, and conversely, if your energy use exceeds your energy intake, then you will lose weight. Simple, isn’t it? Perhaps not as simple as it seems, however, since there is a body that disputes this theory of weight loss to some extent, and you can read about that later. However, there is an overwhelming body of evidence to support this equation for the vast majority of people.
It is widely known that western-style diets typically contain a larger proportion of saturated fat. We previously wrote in our article on Low Carb Diets, Weight Loss, and Fat that palmitic acid, which is a fatty acid contained in meat, dairy, and other products, can negatively affect key signals from metabolic hormones. It dulls signals from insulin, and interferes with the brain’s ability to moderate the amount of food consumed. It turns out that not only does certain types of saturated fat affect your sense of satiety as we discussed in that article, but they also seem to keep you fat by slowing down metabolism. A 2005 study titled by Kien et al. “Increasing Dietary Palmitic Acid Decreases Fat Oxidation and Daily Energy Expenditure”, published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finds that western-style diets, which are typically high in palmitic acid and other saturated fats, slow down metabolism. In fact, according to the authors, it is possible to speed up metabolism by switching to foods that contain healthy fats, or minimizing the proportion of saturated fats in one’s diet.
Research seems to highlight the potential of this little-known tissue in the human body as a weight loss dynamo. Brown Adipose Tissue (or Brown Fat) plays a key role in metabolism. A typical person has about ½ oz of it (about 13g), while almost 2 oz (50g) of this tissue could use up to 20% of your calories for the day! Cooler temperatures activate its weight-shedding by causing it to generate body heat, which increases metabolism. But, there is still a lot to learn about Brown Fat and its role of increasing your metabolism and controlling your weight.
