Has dieting made food your forbidden fruit?

Can mindful eating give you permanent weight loss? Healthy lifestyle changes should be a pleasure. But dieting has a nasty side effect many of us experience but overlook for the sake of weight loss. We stop enjoying the act of eating.

Is this because the food isn't tasty? Well, maybe, if you're doing packaged diet meals. If you don't know how to cook, or prepare foods improperly, you can be losing out on flavor. Many dieters forgo flavor and skip tasty low calorie seasonings and condiments. Satisfying foods - foods with lots of flavor - mean we eat less. Paired with mindful eating, foods high in appeal lead to less calorie intake and weight loss.

Actually, your food may actually be tastier on a diet. But two things can stand in your way of actually enjoying eating. Click here to read more and watch the videos.

Weight Training After Midnight & You Were Right. Dieting Does Make You Fat.

Now That's Hot!

















Quick personal update: I pulled a fast one on the weather. I got up at 1 am this morning when the house was a cool 66 degrees and did 5 sets of 8-12 reps of biceps, triceps, and shoulders. Then I did some leg isometrics, all while watching television. Then I had a snack of 3 ounces of smoked salmon and some whole wheat crackers. By 4 am I was back to sleep until 8:30 am. Hot weather will not stop this weight training train. Full steam ahead. (Colitis pain is almost gone too. Yeah!)

Weight this morning 121.5 pounds, body fat 23.2 percent.

I've decide to push any attempts at fat loss to a future *cooler* time and just concentrate on muscle gain for now. You'd think Summer would be a perfect time to eat light and less, the traditional approach to losing weight, but eating too light or light enough to lose body fat won't necessarily help me build muscle. Yes, lots of people swear you can do both at the same time, but I'm dubious that their way is the optimal way to build the most muscle possible. I'm not a big guy with a butt load of testosterone floating around, and I'm old too so my GH levels probably aren't optimal. Let's face it, my fat loss goals are for cosmetic reasons only.

The more research I read leads me to believe it's at cross purposes to approach losing body fat through diet alone (no matter what your macro-nutrient ratios). Virtually anyone can exercise and accomplish muscle maintenance or even muscle gain.
Bottom line, when you have lots of muscle mass your metabolism is faster and it takes less calorie cutting to burn fat. This is particularly true when a small calorie deficit is combined with aerobics AND weight training.

My personal experience (yes it's anecdotal evidence) has always been that I have to do quite a bit of aerobics to burn off body fat, at least an hour a day along with weight lifting. This is certainly partly due to me refusal to go on low calorie diets. And that level of aerobics ain't going to happen until the heat breaks. I'm not even getting much swimming in because it's TOO HOT!

A big fat lie - the nutrition expert who says diets actually cause weight gain
Geoffrey Cannon tells Sophie Morris why he declared war on the slimming industry

Tuesday, 8 July 2008

The weight-loss industry is swelling as quickly as our waistlines at the moment, which seems something of a paradox. If body conscious consumers are so happy to buy dieting products, why are we facing an obesity crisis? The truth is, no calorie-controlled diet works. If they did, dieting professionals could kiss goodbye to repeat business. Even worse: restricting what you eat will make you fat. Worse still: yo-yo dieting can cause depression, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Frequent dieters are 60 per cent more likely to die from heart disease than people who don't starve themselves.

The weight-loss successes trumpeted on the front of slimming magazines contradict this. They tell the stories of women (it usually is women) who have lost a lot of weight by following a diet which restricts calorie intake. As the pictures show, these women have clearly not been made fat by following such regimes. This, though, is only part of the complex dieting jigsaw, as Geoffrey Cannon explains in his book

Dieting Makes You Fat. Yes, if you consume less energy than your body burns off in a day, your weight will drop. But Cannon, a public health advisor and nutrition expert, looks longer term, and says that nearly all dieters are forced to turn to drugs, surgery, further dieting or exercise to maintain that initial weight loss.

If the title of the book rings a bell, it is possible you read Cannon's earlier book of the same name, which he wrote 25 years ago. Conclusive new scientific evidence to support the claims in the first book, a global public health crisis caused by obesity and its attendant illnesses, and a booming diet industry prompted Cannon to completely rewrite this text.

Dieting Makes You Fat was ground-breaking a quarter of a century ago, but its message is perhaps even more urgent today. As people are getting fatter (a government report from 2007 predicted that by 2050 most British adults will be obese), the market for weight-loss products is growing. The dieting industry in the US is worth $46bn a year; in Europe it is worth €93bn. Clearly, our appetite for losing weight is not matched by our capacity to actually shed fat.

Why did we not take Cannon's advice the first time round? "When people are sceptical of dieting regimes. they will say that diets don't work," he explains. "But they always stop short of saying that dieting makes you fat, which is a concept with explosive implications." He points to scientific studies which illustrate how the dieting trap leads to weight gain. A 2007 UCLA review concluded: "We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more... most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all."

Further evidence came from an experiment in a closed-off ecosystem in Arizona in the early Nineties. Eight scientists had agreed to live inside the man-made biosphere for two years. Once inside, they discovered they were unable to grow enough food, but agreed to diet for the two years and continue with the experiment. They all dropped about 9kg, before their weights stabilised. Within six months of leaving the biosphere, they had piled the weight back on, and – crucially – almost of all of it was fat, not the lean tissue they had started out with. Not only does dieting make you fat, it makes you flabby, too.

"Throughout history humans have evolved and adapted to survive famine and starvations," explains Cannon. "The people who survived were the people who were best able to, those who had their larders inside themselves, in the form of body fat. A dieting regime will fail, because you're training your body to survive famine and starvation better."

Cannon takes pains to dilute the science in Dieting Makes You Fat and includes just one table in the whole book, which looks at the difference between the energy our bodies burn at different weights and with different body compositions – whether lean (physically fit, but not necessarily light) or fat (not necessarily heavy, but with a high proportion of body fat to lean tissue). A lean woman who weighs 70kg (154lb) burns 600 calories more at rest per day than a 70kg woman who has lots of body fat.

What, then, is the answer to losing weight, if diets are out? Cannon says there are a lot of people out there who need to lose a lot of weight, without subscribing to the misconception that a thin person is a healthy person, and that fat people are unhealthy. Dieting Makes You Fat proposes seven golden rules for losing weight, the most salient being to take lots of exercise and eat plenty of fresh, whole foods. He writes from experience, having jumped on the dieting wagon at a young age himself.

When he realised that the diets he tried were ineffective, he set about proving why.
You do need to wait six or seven months to see positive results, admits Cannon, but follow his rules and you will dig your body out of the dieting trap.
'Dieting Makes You Fat' by Geoffrey Cannon is published by Virgin Books, £16.99 in hardback

Related Links:

Isometrics IS the Fastest Way to a Firm Physique!

Isometrics for Mass! How to get bigger by not moving a muscle by Christian Thibaudeau

Hold It Right There!

Can you get stronger by not moving a muscle? According to the scientific literature, yes, you sure can! Isometric or "static" training has been shown to stimulate strength gains in numerous studies. In the real world, I've been using it with success for years in my own training and with my athletes.

But can isometric training increase muscle mass as well as strength? There's very little info out there on this topic. In fact, the literature seems to be telling us that isometrics can lead to strength gains without influencing muscle mass. So, understandably, this form of training never made it into the bodybuilding world. That's too bad because it can be an effective tool for muscle gains!

Isometric Action Training: A New Dimension

An isometric muscle action refers to exerting muscle strength/muscle tension without producing an actual movement or a change in muscle length. Read more.

Dieting Truths - Traditional Diets Don't Work

Most people who decide to lead a healthier lifestyle go on traditional diets. The truth is, however, that 95% of those who go on such diets fail; what's worse, they often end up in worse shape than when they started.

Diets are both ineffective and potentially harmful; long-term health-oriented programs should replace them.

Low calorie diets, result in muscle loss, in preference to fat so that the most useful tissue is preserved for times of starvation. Fat produces 9 cal's of energy per gram compared with only 4 cal per gram produced by your muscle tissue.

However, muscle determines the overall metabolic rate of the body, so if muscle is lost, the metabolic rate will be reduced. This means that when the dieter returns to a normal pattern of eating again, the lower metabolic rate will result in rapid weight gain.

The other problem with having a low level of lean muscle tissue is the feeling of fatigue, when doing simple exercise tasks. The muscles and the liver both store energy supplies, in the form of glycogen.

This situation has developed simply because many people are looking for an easy way to lose weight that delivers quick results. No such approach exists, yet the slimming industry continues to misguide people into believing that fast weight loss can be achieved with minimum effort.

Achieving target weight requires lifestyle changes. These changes include regular exercise, a sensible approach to healthy eating and the right mental attitude.

Why Dieting can make you FATTER The conventional approach to dieting is a disaster. The first mistake is to call a program a "weight loss program". There are many weight reduction programs, which if followed can produce rapid weight loss.

However, this weight loss is neither sustainable nor healthy as it involves dehydration and loss of muscle tissue. Read more.

All About Carbohydrate and Calorie Cycling & A Few Abs Articles To Boot

In researching different nutrition and diet approaches I collect a lot of articles on paper and links to online articles. I thought I’d share a few on carbohydrate and calorie cycling for anyone interested in the hows and whys to this dietary approach. I also included articles on eating for abs as it is Summer time and we all want great abs, right?

Carb Cycling – What You Need To Know

What I am about to present is not a new paradigm, or revolutionary approach to diet. Nor is it the end-all, be-all to dieting; there are many viable approaches.

This diet is, on the other hand, an easy (relatively speaking) approach to diet that is physiologically and psychologically rewarding. Moreover, it is rather malleable and also forgiving, yet effective. For these reasons, I am astounded that it has not caught on to a greater extent (in some form or another), and played a bigger role in the dieting revolution.

This is the first installment of a multi-part article. Here, we will briefly discuss my background (as it relates to this diet), its genesis (in the form I present), the basic tenets of the diet, as well as the basic diet structure. We will also discuss, briefly, its psychological benefits, as well as its physiological strengths and underpinnings.

Psychology and physiology, as you will see (and as Par Deus has propounded) are inextricably intertwined, in the world of diet and food. Or, "food and mood," as Par is so fond of saying. Read more.

The Carb Cycling Codex - Gain muscle and lose fat optimally! by Christian Thibaudeau

Life is funny sometimes. Over the course of my T-Nation career I went from a fat but strong guy to a lean and muscular one, despite having the worst "fat loss genetics" in the world. In the past, I made most of my transformations via a low-carb dietary approach, and as a result I became somewhat carb-phobic and truly believed that ingesting carbs would turn me into a fat slob.

What's humorous is that, as a strength coach, I have access to the top sports nutritionists in the world. I've read everything by everyone. Drs. Berardi and Lowery's work weren't able to convince me of reintroducing carbs to my diet. Even the work of bodybuilding coach Chris Aceto (who uses relatively high carbs even during the pre-contest period) didn't help. When it came to carbs, I lost all rational thought capacity!

But as of now, carbs are back in my own diet and the diets of my athletes and bodybuilders. What happened? A 135 pound girl made me change my outlook on building muscle and losing fat. She succeeded where all the best experts failed! Read more.


Carbohydrate Cycling

Carbohydrate cycling is a 6 day program that will allow your body to burn bodyfat while still retaining muscle mass. It's a technique that is described in detail in the book SLICED by Bill Reynolds and Negrita Jayde, however I will summarize it here.
Over the last 10 years I've competed, I've used this technique each time and without fail I've been able to achieve exceptional definition while retaining the muscle mass that I gained during my bulking phase.

If you're using this program takes time to cut down for a bodybuilding competition, remember to give yourself enough time to get the results you want. Depending on your bodyfat percentage you may need 12-24 weeks to get to competition quality definition.
Read more.

ZigZag Dieting: if you can keep your body guessing and your appetite in check, you’ll continue to lose lard. This special six step carb cycling plan will do just that for you, sparing your muscle while burning your fat in just six weeks.

If you've been on a diet before, you're all too aware of the standard outcome: You cut back on your food and you lose weight ... at least initially. But then your progress slows to a crawl, before stopping altogether. At this point, no matter how strict you are with your calories, no matter how much you work out, the pudge won't budge.

What gives? Your body's natural instinct to preserve itself at all costs kicks in. Sensing a calorie deficit, your body shifts into starvation mode, shutting down all fat burning as it hoards calorie stores.

Even if you're successful at losing a few pounds, your body often reacts by adjusting your energy expenditure in order to revert to your previous weight, known as your "setpoint." A 1995 study out of the Laboratory of Human Behavior and Metabolism at Rockefeller University in New York measured both obese and non-obese people who either increased or decreased their body weight 10 percent to 20 percent. In both cases, metabolism shifted--at a lower weight, the subjects began burning less energy throughout the day, while at a higher weight they burned more, an effort by their bodies to return to that setpoint.

These metabolic shifts, meant to preserve you in times of starvation, were great in prehistoric days, when men didn't know when or from where their next mastodon steak was coming and paid no mind to crafting a six-pack. But if you covet beach-worthy muscle, these annoying physiologic mechanisms will quash your efforts every time--unless you learn to make them work for you. That's where calorie cycling comes into play. Read more.

Take burning fat to a whole new level - Part 1 Researched and Composed by Jacob Wilson

Note: this writer uses the word “lose” in place of “loose” so keep that in mind.. Otherwise his material is well presented and accurate. I’ve seen diet bloggers make the same error. The meanings are similar.

Loose – adjective
1. free or released from fastening or attachment: a loose end.
2. free from anything that binds or restrains; unfettered: loose cats prowling around in alleyways at night.

Lose - verb, lost, los·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1. to come to be without (something in one's possession or care), through accident, theft, etc., so that there is little or no prospect of recovery: I'm sure I've merely misplaced my hat, not lost it.
2. to fail inadvertently to retain (something) in such a way that it cannot be immediately recovered: I just lost a dime under this sofa.
3. to suffer the deprivation of: to lose one's job; to lose one's life.
4. to be bereaved of by death: to lose a sister.

Control, complete mastery over your own body. How do you achieve such a state? Do you listen to your body? Are you in tune with it? You must be if you ever hope to achieve this position of dominance. That is what this article is about. It is the first of several diets I will discuss that are based on literally manipulating your body, its functions and the rate at which it burns fat.

Insulin

This is an extremely vast subject. So vast in fact that I am going to cover it in greater detail in future issues of the magazine. I will only discuss a small portion of its properties in this paragraph.

Insulin is a hormone, produced in our pancreas, that regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats in our body. You need to understand that it has a very high upside and also a very low downside!

Its upside is that it literally shuttles vital nutrients such as carbs, creatine and amino acids right smack into our muscles. The more nutrients your muscles receive, the more anabolic a response you will get from resistance training. Insulin also suppresses the hormone known as cortisol, which is responsible for muscle wasting. It literally steals protein from them! It suppresses this and in turn helps to put us back into a state of anabolism. When it comes to having muscle building properties this hormone is a Giant!

In fact I would rate the anabolic effects of insulin as second only to testosterone! And there are many experts who have dubbed it number one in this category.

Unfortunately it has an extremely low downside! Insulin is also responsible for increased uptake of nutrients in our fat cells. This means we are highly likely to store fat when a huge burst of this hormone is released. To put it bluntly, burning fat is impossible in the presence of a huge burst of insulin.

How can we control insulin levels and benefit from them at the same time? Read more.

Cycling Calories - How Does It Work? By John Davenport

One of the main reasons why 95% of diets fail is that your metabolism slows down during the diet until it burns less and less fat. That is also why people lose a lot of weight when they start dieting but see their weight loss rate slow down with time. What happens is that your metabolism doesn't know your dieting, it thinks your starving. And so it slows down so your burn less calories. It's a biological process which exists in all the animals in nature and in us humans as well.

Cycling calories is a weight loss method which attempts to 'trick' our metabolism into thinking that we're not dieting. That way the metabolism doesn't slow down and we continue to lose weight at a rapid pace. Read more.

Calorie Cycling - And Why It Works By Rachel Jenkins

Thanks to the weight loss industry, many people think that weight loss is a complex, overwhelming process.

It's not their fault - companies have spent millions of dollars trying to confuse dieters, so that they helplessly spend their money, hand-over-fist, in order to find the latest and greatest "cure".

But people who are able to get "out of the box" and learn about simple and proven weight loss methods tend to have the huge advantage. This is because once they realize that food and the patterns in which they eat is more powerful than any kind of weight loss pill or surgery... they have complete mastery over their body.
Once these people have a grasp of how to eat, they never again have to worry about gaining weight back or becoming fat ever again.

Because it's very, very easy!

All people have to do in order to lose weight is to shift their calories. That's it!
With typical low-calorie or low-carbohydrate diets, people eventually end up plateauing. Their bodies adjust to the diet, and weight loss halts. Read more.


Uncovering The Truth About Abs by Anthony Lee

Excerpt: Well-defined abdominal muscles, whether achieved through pure dedication, superior genetics, or both, are as coveted as they are elusive. The following are approaches that I've tried through trial and error to reveal the elusive six-pack. Try them out!

Carbohydrates & Cutting:

There is much controversy and disagreement about the role of carbohydrates in a "cutting" diet, which is meant to decrease body fat and increase muscle definition.
Opponents of low-carbohydrate consumption cite inadequate energy, decreased mental focus, and ambiguous long-term effects as reasons to avoid reducing carbohydrates.
Proponents of low-carbohydrate diets cite numerous real-life cases to bolster their arguments. I am a firm believer in cycling carbohydrates, which involves varying intake each day in order to stimulate metabolism while supplying adequate levels of energy. Read more.


How I Got “Ripped” Abs For The Very First Time by Tom Venuto

Excerpt: Oh, I had muscle. I started gaining muscle from the moment I picked up a barbell. I got strong too. I was benching 315 at age 18. But even after four years of successful strength training, I still hadn’t figured out this getting ripped thing. Muscle isn’t very attractive if it’s covered up with a layer of fat. That’s where the phrase “bulky” really comes from – fat on top of muscle. It can look worse than just fat.

That’s when I started to figure it out. If you’re expecting me to say that running is the secret, no, that’s NOT it per se. I was thinking bigger picture. In fact, I noticed that my legs had lost some muscle size, so I knew that over-doing the runs would be counter productive, ultimately, and I don’t run that much anymore these days. But that’s how I did it the first time and I had never experienced fat loss like that before. The fat was falling off and I had barely changed my diet.

My “aha moment” was when I realized the pivotal piece in the puzzle was calories. It wasn’t the type of exercise, it wasn’t the specific foods and it wasn’t supplements. Today I realize that it’s the calorie deficit that matters the most, not whether you eat less or burn more per se, but in my case creating a large deficit by burning the calories was the absolute key for me. Read more.

In The News - Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

I'm still on vacation so I don't really feel like writing a proper blog post. I am making notes for my coming post on my "reverse" carbohydrate and calorie cycling experiment in which I, in fact, eat, drink, and be lazily merry...until Monday.

Here's some great articles and news stories to check out:

Eat...

Weight Loss Tips - Eat More Often to Lose Weight

I’m sure you have heard it before, but one of the best ways to control your caloric intake and lose weight is to eat more often throughout the day. Ideally, you should eat 5 to 6 times per day, with 2 ½ to 3 ½ hours between each meal or snack. There are several reasons why this works.

* Eating more frequently gets your metabolism going and keeps it working at an elevated level continuously throughout the day.

* It will amp up your energy and keep your insulin level constant.

* Because you are eating more frequently, you should eat a smaller portion at each meal or snack. Use some common sense here and remember the key word is SMALL! If you are eating your normal portions, this won’t work! This isn’t as hard as it sounds, because you just won’t be as hungry since you just ate 2 or 3 hours ago.

* Since you are not as hungry, it is much easier to pick a lean and healthy snack. When you let yourself get very hungry, you are much more likely to grab whatever is in sight. This is also when you start to crave all of those things that are so high in fat and calories, and you will probably eat more of it.

* Even though you will ideally be eating LESS food that you are now, you will feel like you are eating MORE. Your mind and body will equate eating more frequently with more food, and therefore feeling more satisfied.

* Knowing that you will be eating more often, you should plan ahead for your meals and snacks. This, too, will help to insure that you pick foods that are good for you and fit into a lean and healthy diet. Read more.

Burn Fat with the Thermic Effect of Food

When it comes to losing fat and building muscle, eating less food is not the answer to getting lean and cut. Others will try to tell you that losing excess fat is simply a matter of using more calories than you eat. What they don’t tell you is that eating less will slow your metabolism.

Part of the secret to eating the right amounts of food while keeping your fat levels in check is to use the thermic effect of food to your advantage.

The thermic effect (also referred to as specific dynamic action) is the incremental energy requirement above your resting metabolic rate used due to the cost of digestion, absorption, and disposal of ingested food.

Translation: Some of the foods you eat speed up your metabolism more than other foods.

You’ll find it much easier to reduce your fat levels if you consume plenty of foods with a higher thermic effect. Proteins tend to have a much higher thermic effect than other types of foods. Read more.

How to Make Your Body Burn More Calories

You can make weight loss quicker and easier by increasing your metabolic rate and burning more calories – here’s how:

5) Eat Little and Often

There is some evidence to suggest that eating small, regular meals will keep your metabolism going faster than larger, less frequent meals. There are two reasons why meal frequency may affect your metabolism. Firstly, levels of thyroid hormones begin to drop within hours of eating a meal, and metabolism slows. Secondly, it may be that the thermogenic effect of eating several small meals is slightly higher than eating the same amount of calories all at once.

Provided your small meals don’t degenerate into quick-fix, high fat, high sugar snacks, eating little and often can also help to control hunger and make you less likely binge. Read more.

Drink...


Red Wine's Resveratrol May Help Battle Obesity

ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — Resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, reduces the number of fat cells and may one day be used to treat or prevent obesity, according to a new study.

Past research found that resveratrol protected laboratory mice that were fed a high-calorie diet from the health problems of obesity, by mimicking the effects of calorie restriction. Researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany wanted to know if resveratrol could mimic the effects of calorie restriction in human fat cells by changing their size or function. The German team used a strain of human fat cell precursors, called preadipocytes. In the body, these cells develop into mature fat cells, according to the study's lead author, Pamela Fischer-Posovszky, PhD, a pediatric endocrinology research fellow in the university's Diabetes and Obesity Unit.

In the cell-based study, they found that resveratrol inhibited the pre-fat cells from increasing and prevented them from converting into mature fat cells. Also, resveratrol hindered fat storage. Most interesting, according to Fischer-Posovszky, was that resveratrol reduced production of certain cytokines (interleukins 6 and 8), substances that may be linked to the development of obesity-related disorders, such as diabetes and clogged coronary arteries. Also, resveratrol stimulated formation of a protein known to decrease the risk of heart attack. Obesity decreases this substance, called adiponectin.

The new finding is consistent with the theory that the resveratrol in red wine explains the French paradox, the observation that French people eat a relatively high-fat diet but have a low death rate from heart disease.

"Resveratrol has anti-obesity properties by exerting its effects directly on the fat cells," Fischer-Posovszky said. "Thus, resveratrol might help to prevent development of obesity or might be suited to treating obesity." Read More.

Coffee Drinkers Might Live Longer
June 17, 2008 02:22 PM ET | Deborah Kotz |

I'm sure the folks at Starbucks are rejoicing at yesterday's headlines announcing that "coffee drinkers might live longer." Women who drank more than six cups of coffee a day were found to have a 17 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses over 24 years of follow-up compared with those who drank less than one cup a month. My editor had a big smile on her face when she heard this news and happily told me that she downs eight cups of freshly brewed coffee every morning before she comes to work. Though I hate to burst her bubble, I have to point out that women who drank four to five cups per day actually had better protection: a 26 percent lower risk of dying. Read more.

Bottoms Up: What Your Favorite Beverage Can Do for You

by B. Radley, Jan 28, 2008
Here's what your favorite beverage can do for you.

"Beer, if drank in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health." - Thomas Jefferson

Studies show that moderate drinkers are generally healthier than those who do not drink and those who drink excessively. Research indicates that moderate alcohol consumers have fewer heart attacks and strokes and have less incidence of conditions such as high blood pressure, peripheral artery disease, cognitive disorders such Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, kidney stones, digestive ailments, stress and depression, hepatitis A, pancreatic cancer, gallstones, liver disease, etc. The list goes on.

Here's what your favorite beverage can do for you. Remember, moderation is the key. Read more.

Be Merry...

Study: Diabetics have elevated risk of depression

BLOOMBERG NEWS 12:02 AM EDT, June 18, 2008

People with diabetes are more likely to become depressed as they face a lifetime of keeping their disease in check, researchers said.

About 21 million Americans have diabetes, which requires patients to adhere to a strict diet and exercise routine and to monitor their blood sugar levels regularly, often by pricking their finger. People being treated for Type 2 diabetes, the most common form, were 52 percent more likely to develop depression than those without the disease, according to a paper published in tomorrow's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study adds to a growing body of research showing a link between depression and diabetes, researchers said. Doctors may want to consider screening those with diabetes for depression because it may affect how well patients follow recommendations and their risk of developing complications of the disease, researchers said.

"Clearly this link between diabetes and depression exists. People need to be aware of these associations," said John Buse, the American Diabetes Association's president of medicine and science, in a telephone interview today. "It's a very tough business to take care of diabetes." Read more.

The Cortisol Connection

There is a natural, stress-related hormone called cortisol that may contribute to weight issues, particularly abdominal fat. High amounts of cortisol are released into the blood stream when you are under stress. Receptors for cortisol are located in your abdomen, which triggers fat storage there. In 2000, researchers found that women with a high waist-to-hip ratio -- both overweight and slim -- secreted more cortisol under stress and reported more stress in their daily lives than women with lower waist-to-hip ratios.

Additionally, excess cortisol may actually cause your metabolism to slow down. This could mean that even if you don't consume more calories than usual, you could gain weight. But since stress stimulates the appetite, it is likely that you take in more calories than usual when under stress, which only compounds the problem. Together, eating more calories and having a slower metabolism than usual is a "double-whammy" in the stress/weight connection; not only do you tend to take in more calories than usual, but you don't burn them efficiently, either. Read more.

The Importance of Mind-Set: Stress and the Scale From Jennifer R. Scott

Stress and Your Stomach

Did you know stress may have a direct connection to your weight? In recent years, research has shown that how you deal with everyday stress can affect your waistline in particular.

This can be a huge threat to your health because abdominal fat is more dangerous -- and increases disease risk more -- than fat located in any other part of the body. Excessive abdominal fat is linked directly to serious health conditions like hypertension and diabetes.

Women in particular have been found to accumulate more fat around their waists while they're under stress. In fact, a Yale University study showed that even otherwise-slim women who are under high stress levels are prone to put on weight on around their abdominal area.

The Cortisol Connection

What's the connection? When we are stressed out, our bodies release a hormone called cortisol.

Cortisol has been proven to encourage fat storage in the abdominal area.

The worst part is if you don't learn to alleviate stress, cortisol levels stay high even when the original source of stress has subsided. Read more.

Help For Your Adrenal Stress Handlers! by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum M.D.

The stress of modern life, as well as infections, poor sleep and poor nutrition all take a toll on our stress handler gland (the Adrenal Gland). Inadequate adrenal function results not only in fatigue, anxiety and crashing with stress, but also in symptoms of low blood sugar (irritable when hungry). Adrenal support is easy and can leave you feeling much healthier, stronger and in control of your life.

In addition to adrenal exhaustion, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome(CFS) and Fibromyalgia (FMS) are associated with low adrenal function caused by suppression of the control centers in the brain. An excellent recent research review by my friend and colleague Kent Holtorf MD again documents both the need for adrenal support in CFS/FMS and its effectiveness and safety. Read more.

In The News

Exercise can't compensate for sitting

COLUMBIA, Mo. (UPI) -- Even exercising for an hour a day isn't sufficient to reverse the effects of sitting the rest of the day, U.S. researchers found.

University of Missouri-Columbia researchers Marc Hamilton and Theodore Zderic found evidence that sitting had negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism and that physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes.

Hamilton said that there is a misconception that actively exercising is the only way to make a healthy difference in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle but his studies found that standing and other non-exercise activities burn many calories in most adults even if they don't otherwise exercise.

"The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for 'fat burning' are shut off within hours of not standing," Hamilton said in a statement. "Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, and it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout the day."

Common non-exercise physical activities include: household chores, shopping, fidgeting and standing while watching a ball game, watching TV or talking on the telephone.

The findings are published in Diabetes and are to be presented at the Second International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health in the Netherlands.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International

Slim pickings for the women who are starving to look good
More magazine's latest offering serves up a depressing hotch-potch of information about dieting, resulting from interviews with 2,000 women across the UK. The headlines go like this: over a lifetime women spend, on average, more than £150,000 on diet products including books and dvds, gym membership, specialist foods and supplements. In spite of this, average weight loss is three pounds in any one year – most of which is put back on – so every pound lost costs £807.

The average length of time a woman tries to diet before a big event is four weeks, and young women now have a much more "short, sharp burst" attitude to weight loss than their mothers and grandmothers ever did.

Research says that women (the average age of the sample was 23) tend not to believe female celebrities whose bleating explanation for sudden dramatic weight loss is often either, "I just can't to keep weight on, no matter how much I eat..." or "It just dropped off after I had the baby...it must be down to breastfeeding."

Apparently 67 per cent of those surveyed thought the likes of Lily Allen, Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham and her Spice Girls colleague Geri Halliwell actually achieve their wafer-thinness by opting for the "No Food Diet".

And thinking seems to go that if these suspected drastically slim pickings are okay for the celebs, that's where ordinary young women follow. Maybe this accounts in part for the fact that, although women in general have got bigger since the Second World War, the shops are selling clothes in ever-tinier sizes. We have a generation of younger women now who either gorge themselves or starve to be fashionable and emulate their icons.

Ninety per cent of women have gone at least one day without eating to lose weight, 30 per cent have starved themselves for two or more days, and seven per cent have fasted for four days.

Nearly half of those questioned said they eat only one meal a day, and that they started on this regime at the age of 15. A fifth follow a day of eating by a day of not eating, in order to lose weight or maintain weight loss.

Some of these will be seriously threatening their health, and some will be those who consume hardly any food on a Thursday to mitigate the calories they'll take on board on Friday night from a pizza and eight or 10 glasses of wine.

More's target audience isn't the older woman who knows better than to follow fad diets. The younger women who are probably the core of its readership will read the figures on diet provided by this survey and devour them – they are, after all, calorie-free.

The magazine's editor, Lisa Smosarski, says : "A whole generation of women have a dysfunctional eating pattern of endless mini starvation diets... It's very a very unhealthy, short-term approach to food, and means one day nothing will pass a girl's lips so that she can look 'hot' for a party..." Read More.

The Skinny on Carbohydrates (And don't leave me snotty or know it all comments because you're anti-all-carbs or only eat crescent rolls during a blue moon or pass on the apples and bananas because Jupiter is in the wrong alignment with your treadmill's model number. I don't give a snot).

Melina Jampolis, M.D.

Carbohydrates have been making a comeback lately. In the late '90s, the bun-less double bacon cheeseburger was considered health food, but in the past year or two, with even more research emerging on the importance of whole grains in disease prevention, we have been forced to rethink our boycott of the bread basket. Nevertheless, the average person is still confused about the role of carbohydrates for optimal health and weight loss. When it comes to carbohydrates, it is important to understand that quality and quantity matter.

Carbohydrate Quality: When we think of carbohydrates, we think of bread, pasta, rice, cereal, baked goods and potatoes, but they are also present in fruits, vegetables and dairy. All carbohydrates (except fiber) are eventually broken down into simple sugars, your body's favorite source of fuel. How quickly foods are absorbed and broken down into simple sugars (and therefore raise blood sugar), a value known as the glycemic index (GI), is an important criterion for evaluating carbohydrate quality. Whole, non-processed carbohydrates (vegetables, low-fat dairy) and carbohydrates that are high in fiber (whole grains) tend to be low glycemic while refined, processed and sugary carbohydrates like baked goods, juice, soda, white bread, white rice and white potatoes are generally high glycemic.

Why does the glycemic index of food matter? High-GI foods increase blood sugar very quickly, causing an exaggerated release of insulin. This leads to a subsequent crash in blood sugar, which can leave you feeling tired and hungry - neither of which is good for your waistline or your general well-being. In addition, having too much insulin in your bloodstream regularly can cause dangerous fat to accumulate around your midsection, significantly increasing your risk of heart disease. While studies on GI and weight loss have shown mixed results, in my practice, I find that a low-GI diet helps control hunger and keep energy levels stable throughout the day. And studies suggest it may decrease your risk of heart disease, age-related macular degeneration, breast cancer and diabetes, so even if you don't lose weight, a low-GI diet wins.

Carbohydrate Quantity: When it comes to weight loss, low=carbohydrate diets outperform the rest, in the short term. But most, if not all of the weight loss, is generally regained within a year because it is difficult, if not impossible, to stay on these diets long term. If you tend to carry your weight around your midsection, the so-called apple-shaped body type, studies suggest that you will lose more weight, particularly around your waist, by reducing carbohydrates. But rather than cut them completely, focus on cutting back and eating mainly fruits, vegetables (except potatoes) and whole-grain carbohydrates such as whole grain bread, brown rice, barley and high-fiber cereal. In my book, "The No Time to Lose Diet," I developed a carbohydrate calculator (click here) to help customize the number of starchy carbohydrates you should consume for weight loss. Studies show that eating at least 3 servings of whole grains per day is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes. And for athletes (even weekend warriors), you need carbohydrates to fuel your muscles, otherwise you will run out of steam quickly or worse, burn muscle for fuel.

So as you can see, there is no need to fear the carbohydrate. The right carbs can help you become (or stay) healthier and slimmer.

Dr. Melina B. Jampolis is a board-certified physician nutrition specialist. She is the host of Fit TV's "Diet Doctor" and author of "The No Time to Lose Diet" (Nelson Books, 2007). She is in private practice in San Francisco focusing on nutrition for weight loss and disease prevention.

This article appeared on page P - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Confessions of a Chronic Dieter

I posted my first entry at The Incredible Shrinking Ladies entitled 'Confessions of a Chronic Dieter.' Go check it out.