Archive for the ‘- Calorie restriction’ Category
Message: Thou Shalt Not Overeat
Fighting stalled weight loss, or a weight-loss plateau, is not an easy business; nor is it easy to advise on troubleshooting because there are many reasons for this plateau.
What is overeating?
It depends. For one person, overeating means that she eats in excess of her energy expenditure, which may be due to the sedentary needs. For another person, it’s because of sluggish metabolism. For yet another, it can be a plain old cheating on his diet.
In this article, I’ll talk about the weight-loss plateau and one of its aspects that is rarely discussed: taste and calories.
There are two issues in the weight-loss plateau problem that concerns low-carb dieters. First, what is this plateau – ; is it anything real or all in our heads? Second, is low-carb stalled weight loss different from any other diet stalling?
A Look at the General Problem of Plateaus
A weight-loss plateau is when you were losing weight and then stopped losing, without changing your diet, exercise or other lifestyle factors. You eat the same diet and exercise as much as before, but your bathroom scales are frozen at some mysterious point, sometimes referred to as the body-weight set point.(Just think of your refrigerator: it’s the point you set to maintain the temperature you want. Though different in details, basically the same parts make up the human body’s “thermostat” or “fatostat,” for that matter.)
Body-weight set point is nature’s idea of what amount of fat you need. If we deviate from nature’s, it forces us to eat more – ; even when our fat stores are huge. Luckily, a low-carb diet allows your body to recognise your stored fat as legitimate fuel and uses it instead of storing it (as it does on any other diet.) However, there is another danger that is often overlooked by low-carb dieters:
The Sweeter, the Heavier
It seems that our body-weight set points are not carved in stone. Clinical studies revealed links between taste and the amount of food we eat.
Tastier foods make the set point of body weight shift up proportionally, that is: the tastier the food, the greater the set point. Researchers even showed that foods with negative taste qualities, (in the study, researchers added quinine) do the opposite: the more bitter the food, the lower the set point.
Artificial Sweetners Are Not the Answer
Sweet taste – ; even from artificial sweeteners – ; causes an increase in calories coming from fat and protein. Why does this happening?
Sweet taste, even coming with artificial sweetener, raises glucose concentration in the blood before the food has a chance to be digested. Your body knows that eventually, it will have all the carbs you’ve swallowed and it doesn’t wait until it that happens. Instead, it releases some glucose from the carbohydrate depots and hopes to get it all back. When the sweet food is real, the carbohydrates eventually get into the blood. If they’re not? Well, nature never counted on us inventing artificial sweeteners. Being fooled, your body reacts rather vindictively: it forces you to want more sweet food plus eat more next time, no matter what food you agree to have.
So, you’d be better off without artificial sweeteners. There are other tasty foods you can have on a low-carb diet.
Some Clinical Data on Fats:
* Preference for high-fat foods appears to be a universal human trait.
* How much fat we eat appears to be determined simply by the amount of fat available.
* Fats are especially provocative in the obese, who tend to overeat fatty foods more than the lean.
Clinical Data on Other Tasty Foods:
* Good tasting foods increased so-called diet-induced thermogenesis (heat production after meals) and reduced food efficiency (how many calories are used and how many pass through the intestines).
* Good tasting foods increase energy expenditure. It seems like a paradox, but when you eat what you really enjoy, you body gets less of this particular food’s calories.
Message: With seemingly endless amount of diets in the world, it all boils down to only three principal types of them: limiting calories, fats, or carbohydrates. Which one is best for you?
- Limiting calories is a very beneficial approach, health benefits-wise. It also requires self-discipline, so the best results are achieved with programs offering planning, support, and psychological services, online or offline.
- Limiting fats works well for physically very active people, not obese, and spending high amounts energy including calories from food carbohydrates.
- For obese people and those with insulin resistance, the best way of eating is limiting carbohydrate total intake and/or the kind of carbs in their foods (complex versus simple, fast absorbing versus slowly absorbing).
Reading:
Thirty Percent Less Calories = Thirty Percent Better Memory
Dietary Restriction and Life Span
Can Adults Benefit from Calorie Restriction?
Beware of Western Diet!
Two energy sources: carbohydrates vs fatty acids
Carbohydrate-Biased Control of Energy Metabolism: The Darker Side of the Selfish Brain.
Age gracefully
Intermittent fasting is popular today. One of the aspects of this calorie restriction techniques is periodic ketosis, which is proved to be neuroprotective. Another aspect is periodic interruption of glycolysis, which is also good for the brain. However, the Hellers were first to empirically formulate the idea and make it very dieter-friendly: Rachael F. Heller, Richard F. Heller. The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet: The Lifelong Solution to Yo-Yo Dieting. Signet (1993)
<– Carbohydrate Addict Diet Food Pyramid
This diet is for you if you have:
• forceful hunger
• craving for carbohydrate-rich foods
• need for starches
• desire for snack foods, junk food, or sweets?
Do you have problems:
• staying away from food between meals
• staying away from snacks at night
• stopping a meal containing starches and sweets
• eating tasty food while not being hungry
• staying alert after a large meal
• staying alert early afternoon
• keeping your weight off after losing weight due to dieting
Do you tend to overeat these foods:
• Breads
• Bagels
• Cakes
• Cereal
• Chocolate
• Cookies
• Crackers
• fruit
• juice
• ice cream
• potatoes
• pasta
• rice
• popcorn
• sodas?
Do you indulge in:
• sugar substitutes
• alcohol
• monosodium glutamate?
If you answered “yes” to at least one of the questions in each category, the CAD might be right for you.
The diet prescribes two meals, called Complementary Meals, which limit carbohydrate generally same way most low carb diets do. Most people choose breakfast and lunch for their complementary meals. The diet allows one Reward Meal not limiting carbohydrate content but limiting this meal’s duration to strictly one hour. It is believed that with this meal planning you body is tricked into releasing less insulin. Thus, it better controls blood sugar levels and therefore stores less fat.
The diet starts with the Entry Plan. You eat two complementary meals and a reward meal, no snacks, for a week, then you weigh. Your plan for the next week will depend on your weight loss and your weight loss goal. For instance, if you loss was around 2 pounds, you go to the Plan A, which is essentially same plan, but you are allowed to have a low carb snack.
If after following the Entry Plan for a week you lost 0.5 lb. To 2 lb., you go to the Plan B, which is in fact staying on the Entry Plan for one more week.
If you didn’t lose any weight on Entry Plan, you go to the Plan C and this is an interesting part. All you do differently comparing with the Entry Plan, is eating two big salads made of leafy green vegetables before both of your two daily complementary meals.
There’s also the Plan D, for the most stubborn body weight, where you add one more salad, before your Reward Meal. This planning goes on every new week.
From the book:
Reprinted with permission
How can calorie restriction improve brain function
Researchers at the Internal Medicine & Gerontology and INSERM, Toulouse, France pointed to an array of ways that hopefully can lead to real managing of age-related diseases of the brain. They all concern calorie restriction. Thus, according to the review published by the Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, calorie restriction (CR) can protect the brain by the following mechanisms:
1. It’s a new way to improve brain health via induction of neurogenesis
2. It affects the risk for neurodegenerative disorders by increasing resistance to oxidative, metabolic or excitotoxic injuries
3. It results particularly in the upregulation of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in hippocampal and cortical neurons of rats and mice, which may protect neurons against excitotoxic, oxidative and metabolic insults
4. It may prevent beta-amyloid neuropathology
5. It promote neuronal plasticity
The authors conclude: “It is now well established that caloric restriction could be used to promote successful brain aging. Data from randomized controlled trials in humans are limited. No positive effect on cognitive impairment was found probably due to methodological limitations. The long-term effects of caloric restriction in adults must be clarified before engaging in such preventive strategy. Additional animal studies must be conducted in the future to test the effects of ‘multidomain’ interventions (caloric restriction plus regular exercise) on age-related cognitive decline”
Source:
S. Gillette-Guyonneta, and B. VellasaCaloric restriction and brain function. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care 2008, 11:686–692
Researchers at the Internal Medicine & Gerontology and INSERM, Toulouse, France pointed to an array of ways that hopefully can lead to a real management of age-related diseases of the brain. They all concern calorie restriction. Thus, according to the review published by the Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, calorie restriction (CR) can protect the brain by the following mechanisms:
1. It’s a new way to improve brain health via induction of neurogenesis
2. It affects the risk for neurodegenerative disorders by increasing resistance to oxidative, metabolic or excitotoxic injuries
3. It results particularly in the upregulation of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in hippocampal and cortical neurons of rats and mice, which may protect neurons against excitotoxic, oxidative and metabolic insults
4. It may prevent beta-amyloid neuropathology
5. It promotes neuronal plasticity
The authors conclude: “It is now well established that caloric restriction could be used to promote successful brain aging. Data from randomized controlled trials in humans are limited. No positive effect on cognitive impairment was found probably due to methodological limitations. The long-term effects of caloric restriction in adults must be clarified before engaging in such preventive strategy. Additional animal studies must be conducted in the future to test the effects of ‘multidomain’ interventions (caloric restriction plus regular exercise) on age-related cognitive decline”
Source:
S. Gillette-Guyonneta, and B. VellasaCaloric restriction and brain function. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care 2008, 11:686–692
Research results showed that when calories are restricted in older animals, an increase in life span is still observed; though not as great as that observed in the animals that were calorie restricted since they were young. The data of this research suggests there may be a level of maturity, or a stage in the aging process, after which caloric restriction no longer increases longevity. (6) Restricted nutrient intake may have beneficial effects on alults’ degenerative disease, autoimmune processes, susceptibility to infection and survival rate after infection. (New Horizons, 2(2):257-63, 1994).
Adult rats fed the calorie restricted yet nutritionally balanced diet ate fewer meals but consumed more food during each meal. They also spent more time eating during each meal. The average body temperature per day was significantly lower in restricted rats. However, they moved around significantly more than the rats that were fed as much as they pleased, so they spent more energy during the day.
Thirty percent less calories equals thirty percent better memory
Calorie restriction benefits for the aging brain health have been proposed and the mechanisms were suggested but a direct evidence showing that it can improve memory function in elderly humans appeared only recently. The study conducted in Munster, Germany, showed that a three months calorie intake reduction by 30% compared with habitual diet or a Mediterranean style diet rich in unsaturated fatty acids (although known to positively influence memory) resulted in a highly significant, 30% improvement in memory scores of 60 something group of relatively healthy people.
A. Witte et al., 2009. Caloric restriction improves memory in elderly humans. PNAS, vol. 106 no. 4 1255–126
Calorie restriction benefits for the aging brain health have been proposed and the mechanisms were suggested but a direct evidence showing that it can improve memory function in elderly humans appeared only recently. The study conducted in Munster, Germany, showed that a three months calorie intake reduction by 30% compared with habitual diet or a Mediterranean style diet rich in unsaturated fatty acids (although known to positively influence memory) resulted in a highly significant, 30% improvement in memory scores of 60 something group of relatively healthy people.
A. Witte et al., 2009. Caloric restriction improves memory in elderly humans. PNAS, vol. 106 no. 4 1255–126
A calorie restriction effect on longevity is a very well documented topic of experimental biology. It is important to know that life span researchers deal mostly with small size any meals since their generations change much faster than in larger size animal species. It is also important that only restriction as serious as 30 to 60 percent of “all you can eat” amount can cause significant improvement in health and longevity.
It was first demonstrated in insects, where it yielded up to a 300% increase in life span; then in young small size mammals such as mice and rats, where results were more modest but still impressive. Later the results on adult animals appeared, yet more modest, but still significant. As to the human outcome, published epidemiological studies have reported evidence of reduced mortality rates in persons who have lost weight, regardless of whether the weight loss was due to decreased calorie intake or increased energy expenditure (1). These data are consistent with experimental results where exercise increased average longevity of female rats, despite increased food intake (2).
This consistency is probably the reason for hopes arising from numerous animal data showing benefits of calorie restriction in animals, including improvement in immune status, anti-cancer defense system and decrease in the occurrence of general disease. The hope, if not for increased longevity, is at least for decreased mortality.
Can we use calorie restriction to improve health and to live longer? A daily calorie
restriction of 30 to 60 percent seems to be too hard a sacrifice. Perhaps this is why new hope arose when preliminary information about developing an anti-aging drug mimicking effects of semi-starvation leaked into mass media.
Dr. Masoro from the Department of Physiology and Aging Research, University of Texas, reviewed 54 scientific articles and concluded: “A spectrum of findings indicates that dietary restriction retards the aging processes of mice and rats. It also maintains many physiological processes in a youthful state and, most strikingly, retards or prevents almost all age-associated disease processes.” (3) However, it’s too soon to use the calorie restriction as a strategy to improve health and prolong life.
“Due to the interrelationships between disease and older age, and the limitations of existing research in this area, most life extension strategies are untested hypotheses. Many strategies merit scientific inquiry, but they cannot be recommended for use. More extensive research is necessary to assess their safety, effectiveness, and socio-economic impact, and to resolve ethical controversies before they can be considered applicable in humans.” (Pharmacotherapy, 16(2):183-200, 1996)
A calorie restriction effect on longevity is a very well documented topic of experimental biology. It is important to know that life span researchers deal mostly with small size any meals since their generations change much faster than in larger size animal species. It is also important that only restriction as serious as 30 to 60 percent of “all you can eat” amount can cause significant improvement in health and longevity.
It was first demonstrated in insects, where it yielded up to a 300% increase in life span; then in young small size mammals such as mice and rats, where results were more modest but still impressive. Later the results on adult animals appeared, yet more modest, but still significant. As to the human outcome, published epidemiological studies have reported evidence of reduced mortality rates in persons who have lost weight, regardless of whether the weight loss was due to decreased calorie intake or increased energy expenditure (1). These data are consistent with experimental results where exercise increased average longevity of female rats, despite increased food intake (2).
This consistency is probably the reason for hopes arising from numerous animal data showing benefits of calorie restriction in animals, including improvement in immune status, anti-cancer defense system and decrease in the occurrence of general disease. The hope, if not for increased longevity, is at least for decreased mortality.
Can we use calorie restriction to improve health and to live longer? A daily calorie restriction of 30 to 60 percent seems to be too hard a sacrifice. Perhaps this is why new hope arose when preliminary information about developing an anti-aging drug mimicking effects of semi-starvation leaked into mass media.
Dr. Masoro from the Department of Physiology and Aging Research, University of Texas, reviewed 54 scientific articles and concluded: “A spectrum of findings indicates that dietary restriction retards the aging processes of mice and rats. It also maintains many physiological processes in a youthful state and, most strikingly, retards or prevents almost all age-associated disease processes.” (3) However, it’s too soon to use the calorie restriction as a strategy to improve health and prolong life.
“Due to the interrelationships between disease and older age, and the limitations of existing research in this area, most life extension strategies are untested hypotheses. Many strategies merit scientific inquiry, but they cannot be recommended for use. More extensive research is necessary to assess their safety, effectiveness, and socio-economic impact, and to resolve ethical controversies before they can be considered applicable in humans.” (Pharmacotherapy, 16(2):183-200, 1996)
Yes, but it seems to be a good stress. The mechanism of action of caloric restriction remains unknown; owever, data suggest that cellular functions are altered in such a way that destructive by-products of metabolism are reduced, and defense or repair systems are enhanced by this nutritional manipulation. (Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 11(4):553-65, 1995)
The amount of oxidative damage increases as an organism ages and is postulated to be a major causal factor of senescence. Restriction of caloric intake lowers levels of oxidative stress and damage, retards age associated changes, and extends the maximum life span in mammals. Animal and human studies suggest potential benefits of dietary restriction, exercise, antioxidants, hormones and deprenyl.
Does deprenyl mimic at least some of calorie restriction effects? Probably, thinks Dr. Masoro. “Dietary restriction protects against oxidative damage and oxidative damage is probably an inevitable component of fuel use.” So does deprenil, though in rather narrow way. Deprenyl (selegiline) is a neuroprotective drug an inhibitor of brain monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B). That means it inhibits a very particular enzyme promoting oxidation of the brain chemical monoamines, which are very important in many vital functions, including cognition.
Dietary restriction was found to retard age associated decline of sensory and movement coordination, and improve performance of aged mice on learning problems. “Studies in aged calorie restricted mice indicated that lowering of protein oxidation by calorie restriction could be reversed within a time frame of three to six weeks. These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of dietary restriction upon brain function and life span may depend upon its ability to acutely reduce steady state levels of oxidative stress.” (Archives of Biochemistry & Biophysics, 333(1):189-97, 1996)
