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: Next time you crave anything, ask yourself “What is it I really need? A glass of water? A walk? A hug?” Buying fresh flowers can be a better answer than a bowl of Rocky Road. Exercise, go to sauna, take a cold shower, invest in a massage device, buy a vail of perfume, enjoy a book… Try periodic fasts. After resuming eating, your taste buds will be satisfied with lesser taste intensity thus reducing the taste influence on the body weight set point.
Reward: it can be not about food
“Something is wanted — either a constitution or a piece of sturgeon under horseradish sauce.” M.E. Saltykov-Schedrin (19th Century)
In the late 50s, the classic experiments by Dr. Olds shook the world. He implanted electrodes into certain regions of rat brains and taught the rats how to press lever to stimulate these regions with weak electric currents. Rats stopped doing anything but pressing the lever till their death from complete starvation. The Positive Reward theory was born. It turned out that anything pleasurable in life did related to these “Centers of Pleasure” — sex, alcohol, drugs of abuse — all that mankind has invented in its hedonic journey, were but attempts to stimulate these brain regions.
We know that eating will produce a pleasant sensation so often we eat even though all we need is comfort. The truth is, exercise, sauna, cold shower, massage, pleasant odors, and mental efforts (workoholism is real!) — all increase Endorphin level while only eating, especially when your body does not need it, will cause extra pounds of fat to collect in your body’s store.
“A mechanism for opiate [e.g. endorphin] mediation of food intake was postulated. It starts with a feeding initiating signal, which produces activation of the receptors, thereby inducing eating. Eating produces a circular reaction starting with hedonic input from the eating [process]. This, in turn, produces reward, which causes further eating, completing the circle” [1].
Fasting can be as rewarding
The tricky thing with endorphins is that there are pairs of releasers resembling a thesaurus’ antonyms: exercise does the same os its antonym sleep, pleasure goes together with pain, local blood flow increase does the same to endorphin release as the local lack of oxygen. The eating-fasting pair also exists. Many people reported elation when they skipped breakfasts. Religeous fasters experience euforia.
“Severe food restriction produces opiate activity, which is reinforcing. Feeding interrupts the opiate activity and, thus, produces withdrawal. Not eating, therefore, is rewarding.” [2].
Sources
- Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 18:369; 1992
- Appetite 19:1-13; 1992
Read also: A theory of acupuncture, spinal cord, and endorphins
Related:
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The best of the few known conventional theories on acupuncture belongs to a team of theoretical biologists working under Dr. Dmitri Chernavski, a professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics, in Moscow. The group approached the problem from the point of view of concept of neurocomputing.
Since mid-century, using a model based on human neural structures, a whole new class of computers, possessing so called ” artificial intelligence”, has been developed – the ones that can learn, recognize objects, and correct their own mistakes. In somewhat of a paradox, the reverse logic has been used now, in order to explain the mechanisms of a live brain using the known electronic models. Thus the theory of self-diagnostic function of an organism was developed. Most of these self-diagnostic (recognizing the “image of a disease”) processes take place in the spinal cord. In the gray matter of the spinal cord, the neurons are organized into what are called “Rexed laminae” and their functions are well-known.
The signals from the inner organs, as well as from the skin and muscles first go through the first lamina, separate from each other. Then the signals move through the second lamina, third one, and so on, while increasingly interacting with each other and, after ten laminae, finally reach the brain in the form of one integrated set of information about the body’s state of being. The computers that recognize objects have basically the same laminar structure and function of signal integration. In both cases, an omitted signal from an internal organ, or one that is not strong enough, will be compensated for by the other one (e.g. from the skin), thus correcting the mistake.
According to Dr. Chernavski, skin stimulation at the point of acupuncture accomplishes the same goal. The process of integration in the Rexed laminae increases the flow of “signals of illness” from an organ, or points out a body’s mistake in recognizing the disorder. It is as if you wanted to send a letter to someone down the stream with little or no water using a miniature ship to carry it. Add some water, and the ship will get there. Neither the way of adding the water nor the water itself has any effect on the content of letter sent.
Once the body has the stronger, clearer information about the injury or disease, the natural healing powers of the body take over. What happens when the disease is recognized, the above theory does not explain, stating that the body has enough resources to battle the disease on its own. Conventional medicine neglects that statement, while holistic medicine is based on it.
Nevertheless, conventional medicine may be missing an opportunity in dismissing this explanation too quickly. Within the limits of the West’s strict paradigm, there has been collected a large number of facts on natural ways of fighting diseases. We offer to discuss one of the most universal mechanisms to restore body’s balance.
It is known that a number of physical actions in excess of average intensity, including pain, stress, bleeding, acupuncture, sex, laughing, drugs and even highly palatable foods can trigger the release of endorphins (Fig. 5). Pain reduction , in it’s turn, is the most common result associated with the release of endorphins. It has been concluded recently, that any intense skin stimulation will cause a significant release of endorphins.
Another effect is the curious state the body falls into after the endorphin concentration has gone up: a number of other physiological regulators are released into the bloodstream such as growth hormone and insulin. Each one of those regulators changes a number of different body functions. As a result, it is not surprising that many serious diseases are linked to the abnormalities in the endorphin system including may kinds of addiction, schizophrenia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease as well as PMS and weight problems. We believe that there may be some linkage between abnormalities in the endorphin system and various conditions such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and may kinds of addiction.
Thus, skin stimulation, even not necessarily as accurate as in acupuncture, but intensive enough, does two things:
1. Provides additional information on the nature of the disorder to the body’s self-diagnostic system
2. Helps to create a new physiological state which is more adequate and favorable to the healing process
Read also Brain rewards, endorphins
The best of the few known conventional theories on acupuncture belongs to a team of theoretical biologists working under Dr. Dmitri Chernavski, an academician of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics, in Moscow. The group approached the problem from the point of view of concept of neurocomputing.
Since mid-century, using a model based on human neural structures, a whole new class of computers, possessing so called ” artificial intelligence”, has been developed – the ones that can learn, recognize objects, and correct their own mistakes. In somewhat of a paradox, the reverse logic has been used now, in order to explain the mechanisms of a live brain using the known electronic models. Thus the theory of self-diagnostic function of an organism was developed. Most of these self-diagnostic (recognizing the “image of a disease”) processes take place in the spinal cord. In the gray matter of the spinal cord, the neurons are organized into what are called “Rexed laminae” and their functions are well-known.
The signals from the inner organs, as well as from the skin and muscles first go through the first lamina, separate from each other. Then the signals move through the second lamina, third one, and so on, while increasingly interacting with each other and, after ten laminae, finally reach the brain in the form of one integrated set of information about the body’s state of being. The computers that recognize objects have basically the same laminar structure and function of signal integration. In both cases, an omitted signal from an internal organ, or one that is not strong enough, will be compensated for by the other one (e.g. from the skin), thus correcting the mistake.
According to Dr. Chernavski, skin stimulation at the point of acupuncture accomplishes the same goal. The process of integration in the Rexed laminae increases the flow of “signals of illness” from an organ, or points out a body’s mistake in recognizing the disorder. It is as if you wanted to send a letter to someone down the stream with little or no water using a miniature ship to carry it. Add some water, and the ship will get there. Neither the way of adding the water nor the water itself has any effect on the content of letter sent.
Once the body has the stronger, clearer information about the injury or disease, the natural healing powers of the body take over. What happens when the disease is recognized, the above theory does not explain, stating that the body has enough resources to battle the disease on its own. Conventional medicine neglects that statement, while holistic medicine is based on it.
Nevertheless, conventional medicine may be missing an opportunity in dismissing this explanation too quickly. Within the limits of the West’s strict paradigm, there has been collected a large number of facts on natural ways of fighting diseases. We offer to discuss one of the most universal mechanisms to restore body’s balance.
It is known that a number of physical actions in excess of average intensity, including pain, stress, bleeding, acupuncture, sex, laughing, drugs and even highly palatable foods can trigger the release of endorphins (Fig. 5). Pain reduction , in it’s turn, is the most common result associated with the release of endorphins. It has been concluded recently, that any intense skin stimulation will cause a significant release of endorphins.
Another effect is the curious state the body falls into after the endorphin concentration has gone up: a number of other physiological regulators are released into the bloodstream such as growth hormone and insulin. Each one of those regulators changes a number of different body functions. As a result, it is not surprising that many serious diseases are linked to the abnormalities in the endorphin system including may kinds of addiction, schizophrenia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease as well as PMS and weight problems. We believe that there may be some linkage between abnormalities in the endorphin system and various conditions such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and may kinds of addiction.
Thus, skin stimulation, even not necessarily as accurate as in acupuncture, but intensive enough, does two things:
1. Provides additional information on the nature of the disorder to the body’s self-diagnostic system
2. Helps to create a new physiological state which is more adequate and favorable to the healing process
From the book Reflexo-therapy From Kuznetsov’s Applicator to Shakti Mat
