Science, Health, & Good Stuff to Know

SaraGrace82

I would like to have a section where we can talk about interesting articles or ideas that we come across. I feel like there is so so much information out there about weight loss and health, surely some of it could be helpful to us. If nothing else, we can have something to debate and talk about.

Feel free to post any thing interesting you come across. Or if you have a particularly pressing questions go ahead and post them and we'll look up some info. :-)

SaraGrace82

I just read this article in the New York Times "Does exercise make you overeat?"

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/does-exercise-make-you-overeat/#

The jist of the articles is that some people see decreased activity in their "food-reward system" section of the brain after strenuous exercise (about 60 minutes cycling). So they would respond less intensely to say a picture of a sundae after exercising than the would after being stationary for 60 minutes. (Note: Participants in the first experiment were fairly fit and at a normal weight.)

A different test took overweight people and gave them a five days a week exercise regiment. "Twelve weeks later, 20 of the group had lost considerable weight, about 11 pounds on average. But 14 had not, dropping only a pound or two, if any. Those 14, dubbed nonresponders, also had displayed the highest brain responses to food cues following exercise when the study began. After three months, they retained that undesirable lead. Their food-reward networks lit up riotously after exercise at the sight of food, and in fact showed more enthusiasm now than at the start of the study."

Conclusions: Food response related to exercise seems to vary widely. "For exercise noticeably to dampen your desire for food, in other words, you may need to sweat for an hour. It may also help if you’re already lean and in shape. But Dr. Hagobian is optimistic that research might help almost everyone to better deploy exercise against appetite control. “There may be doses or types of exercise that are more effective for some people than for others.” Eventually, brain research may help to point people to the exercise program best suited to them."

SaraGrace82

I am really intrigued by the idea that specific kinds of exercise might be better for each persons specific food reward response.

Maybe for some folks this is why eating after working out seems really difficult? (For those who are trying to eat exercise calories.)

Where do you think you fall on this scale? Does exercise equal more food desire or less?

sonyachan

Usually more, but not immediately after. When I was running longer miles I was ravenous!

PJYoung2012

There's a website i love called organicauthority.com. It's packed with all sorts of really interesting articles about all sorts of things relating to healthy living. It's well worth a look :-).

susieq101178

I'm usually starving after my workouts, but it usually takes about 15-20 minutes to kick in.

AmandaK3

That's really interesting.

If it's really hign intensity, then I don't feel hungry but man do I ever crave ice cold skim milk. It's usually the first thing I reach for when I get home. It's the only thing that will refresh me, and I don't drink a lot, maybe a cup, cup and a half but nothing else will do. Other then that I have no increase in my appetite after a workout.

I try and eat a good snack about 30 mins before I work out. Most of the time it's greek yogurt with fruit, or a banana. I would out in the early evening right after work, so my energy is a little down if I don't have something to kick start myself. Maybe that is why? Are other people snacking before a workout?

SaraGrace82

So over the last few weeks, I have found that if I work out for 45+ minutes I am less hungry afterwards. BUT if I work out at an hour + for a few days in a row I start feeling like no amount of food will make me satisfied. Strange.

SaraGrace82

This is another article I wanted to discuss. There were a series of them that came out sometime last year. They had a huge influence on how I approach dieting.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/10/31/141794801/losing-weight-a-battle-against-fat-and-biology

The gist of the article is that people who lose weight have slower metabolisms and stronger food cravings (from starvation signals the brain sends out). But here is the scary part: "For example, if you weigh 230 pounds and lose 30 pounds, you cannot eat as much as an individual who has always weighed 200 pounds. You basically have a "caloric handicap," says Ryan. And depending on how much weight people lose, they may face a 300-, 400- or even 500-calorie a day handicap, meaning you have to consume that many fewer calories a day in order to maintain your weight loss."

So what are we to do?!?

Here is my theory. There are two major possibilities for why this happens. Option 1: The way we are dieting is causing the problem (losing too fast or not building enough muscle or not getting enough exercise). Option 2: It's biology and nothing can really be done.

I chose option 1! Which has lead me to my current approach to weight loss. I try to exercise a lot but also to lose slowly. I want major muscle mass gains as I go. So that means eating back most of my exercise calories. All of this is in hopes of sending calming, look you're not starving signals to my brain. I have no idea if it will work but I do know I tired the lose fast approach before. It worked awesome...until it didn't. Until I took my eyes off it for a few months. Then I gained the weight back plus some. (Obviously this is just my story and my approach. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do things and I believe that everyone is different.)

What do you guys think of this research? How do you approach your weight loss?

ellie78

So they are talking about they typically named "starvation mode", yes? The idea that your metabolism slows down because you aren't eating enough to maintain your weight and activities. There's not a lot of information in this article, but I do believe this is a real problem that too many of us are dealing with. Going to come back with more of a response after my run.....

ellie78

Let me start by saying that I do not deny that there are real medical conditions and issues that effect weight loss. I do however think that as a society we like to make excuses for ourselves and try to find quick and easy explanations for why we are the way we are. I get a bit annoyed with articles like this that make these types of "shocking" statements about some medical issue like it automatically applies to everyone with very little explanation behind it. (sorry, rant )

Okay, so this hormone leptin. I did some reading on this to sum up what i found further research has found that what is actually causing the leptin issue is that obese people have developed leptin resistance, similar to a diabetic being insulin resistant, and once that resistance is developed it cannot be recovered. I don't think its fair to make a statement like this article does as certainly not everyone carrying around a few extra pounds is going to have developed this leptin resistance. This is a recently discovered hormone and research is still out on it.

So if I leave out the leptin and read between the lines some, it seems to me what this is basically saying is that we need to lose weight in a healthy and maintainable way. I do think that there is an issue with people putting themselves on diets that are not healthy or maintainable which does cause our metabolism to slow down, leptin or no. The eat less, exercise more mentality truly is starving a lot of us because we are living at a calorie intake that is well below what our body needs to function on a day to day basis. For that reason I find it a bit sad that the final recommendation is exercise more. All that will do is further deprive your body and keep you in the starvation mode if you don't eat enough. And stating that there is a calorie handicap could further encourage someone to eat even less, also encouraging your body to stay in starvation mode. I just don't feel like this article had enough information in it.

SaraGrace82

I don't know if they are really talking about starvation mode... Seems like the heart of the matter is the persistent need for fewer calories after weight loss. Though I agree that it isn't clear at all if they have compared ways to lose weight. The fact that it suggests doing exercise might mean they are operating under the assumption that you did not exercise to lose in the first place.

I was poking around at leptin resistance research. I think you are correct to argue that not everyone who is overweight would necessarily have developed leptin resistance. It seems like even for people that have developed it that lower leptin levels can eventually lead to a correction in the leptin resistance. So that is good news for the people who have it. (Got that from this article http://www.vrp.com/weight-management/leptin-and-weight-loss-the-hormonal-key-to-fat-reduction-and-heart-health) The source is a little suspect but it seems to jive with what I know about other hormones. (I worked in an endocrine research lab as an undergrad. So limited expertise at best.) And it certainly has some serious references in there.

--The suggestion of getting more sleep is interesting. I wonder if anyone has notice better weight loss when they get more sleep?

This article also indicates that melatonin supplements might help... though I have to say that I have had mixed results with them. I think at some point melatonin supplements had so interfered with my natural sleep cycle that I could get to sleep (within a normal time frame) without them... I wonder if regular exercise increases melatonin production naturally?

sonyachan

I bet the people they were studying had lost weight quickly on very low calorie diets (i.e. 1200 calories). So of course their metabolisms are screwed. I would like to see a study comparing people on the typical eat less, exercise more diet and those on the eat more, exercise less (with strength training) diet. I hypothesize (feeling very scientific here) that the latter group would not have leptin resistance or a caloric handicap.

ellie78

By saying starvation mode I was just referring to their reference that the reaction is based on your body thinking its starving so slowing down your metabolism, just using as a general term that seems it can have many causes and solutions

There is a thread floating around on here with a really informative article on sleep and weight loss (among other articles also in the thread). I want to say its called the "No BS Fat Loss Thread". At any rate, they did basically find just that, that not enough sleep does in fact hinder weight loss. I'll have to post the link to it if I see it floating around again, seems like I see it every few days.

I don't know about melatonin, I hear a lot of mixed reviews on that as well although I've never taken it myself. Personally, I do feel exercise helps me sleep better, though.

Sonya, I think you are probably right. A focus on slower and healthier long term losses via a higher calorie diet probably would not result in the issues the mention.

ellie78

Interesting article on obesity in American on MSNBC this morning. Just thought I would share the link. Wish I had HBO so I could watch the documentary they refer to....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47337275/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/#.T6pdEe2jA4Y

SaraGrace82

So I have been reading The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer by Gretchen Reynolds.

It is really interesting. In particular, it has me thinking a lot about the things we do for health and exercise that are simply hold over ideas and unsupported theories.

One really interesting thing she discusses is the idea that we need to drink 8 glasses of water a day... Apparently science says not necessary.

Here is an interview with the author.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/09/152336802/stand-up-walk-around-even-just-for-20-minutes

shorty313

The bit about standing sure was interesting

ellie78

That's an interesting article! Have you heard of the treadmill desks? I had a friend talking about that a few months ago as he read something about the negative benefits of sitting all day and was trying to get one at work (IT guy of course, they get all the good toys )

I agree we are way too stuck on the unproven theories and holdover ideas! I'm a big fan of the listen to your body attitude, if you are hungry eat, if you are thirsty drink, if you are tired rest, etc. Why do we keep forcing ourselves to do things that don't feel natural or right? Baffles me....

lilpe5512

This was a great read. I've always wondered what was the best thing to have after exercising and the article states that chocolate milk is the best.

"Use chocolate milk to replenish sugars after an intense workout. Reynolds calls it an "ideal recovery beverage" because it has the right ratio of carbs and proteins to aid your body's recovery process".