Archive for the ‘Nutrition for Weight Loss’ Category
The August 2009 Issue of Circulation (the Journal of the American Heart Association) contains the AHA’s Scientific Statement on Sugars Intake. It finds that Americans consume an average of 22 teaspoons of added sugar, over 350 additional calories, every day. This is almost 3 times the recommended amount of calories from sugar (as advised by the 2005 US Dietary Guidelines), and provides no nutritional benefit. In the past 25 years, the intake of sugar increased by more than 70 extra calories every day. If these extra calories are not offset (and there is a substantial amount of evidence that they are not), the extra calories could cause a gain of approximately 7 pounds per year. The AHA’s position (echoing many underlying research authors) is that the increasing trend in consumption of added sugars, particularly colas/ sodas, correlates to the increasing trend of cardio-vascular health risks and obesity. It is possible to improve this condition by being more mindful of what is eaten.
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.
During our reading of the South Beach Diet for our review, we came across a statement by Dr. Agatson that “the major problem that I have with the Atkins diet is the liberal intake of saturated fats.” (p. 23). In Fact, the South Beach Diet goes out of its way to stress that it recommends the use of the right fats in its plan. The common perception of fat is frequently that of something to avoid, and that perception spawned many diets that were based upon the idea of limiting consumed fat. But, like most ideas to lose weight that concentrate on just one aspect of the problem, classifying all fats to be universally bad is just too simple of a solution. In fact, recent research tends to suggest that all fat is not the same, and that some kinds of fat may, in fact, be very beneficial to overall health. In this article, we explore some of the science of saturated and unsaturated fats in diets, how consumed fat may affect losing weight. In this first part, we offer a background of how the brain controls appetite based on information from hormones and fatty acids in the bloodstream.
This is the continuation of our exploration of how the fats that we eat affect our brain’s ability to control our appetite, which is particularly important when a person is trying to lose weight fast. Have you missed the first part of this article? In this second part, we explore some recent research that suggests that saturated fat (as opposed to unsaturated fat) interferes with the signals that allow the brain to control appetite. This potentially impacts how people following a low-carb diet like the South Beach Diet plan their meals.
It is widely accepted that weight loss and appetite control are related. Generally, a person will lose weight if they burn more calories than they eat. However, restricting calories (the typical method of dieting,) isn’t an easy method to lose weight for most people because it results in feeling hungry – and being hungry makes it easy to stray from the diet by responding to your body’s needs. A recent study concluded that eating a cup of raisins, ideally coupled with an increase in physical activity, resulted in several important health benefits, among them helping to control appetite by altering hormones that are responsible for feelings of hunger. As a result of this physiological change, the results suggest that eating raisins may be an “effective intervention to promote weight control.”
