Exercise makes you feel hungry. If you feed after an exercise you will eat enough to balance out the calories that you burnt. There is a thing called homeostasis. It tends to keep the body composition stable. The homeostasis is based on a n...umber hormones that work together to keep body composition in balance. We will look at the homeostasis mechanisms in the diet myth article.
So yes you will need to couple the exercise with a diet to reduce weight, otherwise you will always compensate in your diet.
If you are required to diet anyway, then what is the point of doing exercise. Exercise helps in the following ways for priming the body to lose fat instead of muscles.
1) While you are dieting to lose weight, you will lose muscle as well. Muscles are a very important part of our body, losing them is not good. Exercise tells the body that those muscles are required and it should keep them around. Exercise helps keep the muscle loss to a minimum.
2) Exercise can also help by keeping the metabolic rate higher, and there by increasing fat burn rate. You don't need to burn much fat during the exercise, although exercise will do so, but increasing metabolic rate helps burn fat all day long.
3) Exercise also helps in hormonal balance. There are several hormones that help burn fat, the most important of them is the testosterone, the hormone that also builds muscle. Women also have small amounts of testosterone, and exercise will also help them burn fat.
4) Exercise also helps in reducing glycogen storage in muscles. This helps in reducing insulin resistance. Allowing the insulin levels to go lower faster and helps in increasing fat loss.
Not all exercises are created equal. Some exercises aid fat loss more than others. Weight training and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) helps more than aerobic exercises.
1) Multi-functional Weight training and HIIT, help exercise all muscles of the body, preserving them. Aerobic exercises like running generally, exercise only a few muscles.
2) Wight training is the best for building muscles for increasing the metabolic rate. HIIT follows closely. Aerobic exercises do not help build muscles.
3) HIIT is known to be the most effective in increasing testosterone. Weight training follows very closely. Aerobic exercises generally do not help in this regard.
4) Glycogen stores are for emergency energy requirement. Oxygen is used for burning fat to supply energy in the normal case. Glycogen is used when the muscles require to generate energy faster than blood can supply oxygen. In this case glycogen is burnt anaerobically to produce energy. This is by definition an anaerobic activity, and aerobic exercises cannot help here. HIIT is the best in this regard as it tends to maximize the Oxygen requirement, because of exceeding it.
Believe it or not, exercise does have negative consequences if not done properly.
Exercise causes wear and tear of muscles ligaments, etc. There must be enough spacing in the exercise to recuperate. Do not over do exercise. There are terms for too much exercise, chronic cardio for people who do too much aerobic exercise, and overtraining for people who do HIIT and Weight Training. Weight Training/HIIT generally requires a minimum of 48 hours break.
Aerobic exercises should also involve breaks depending on the length and effort in the exercise. Take at least a week off after a half marathon, and don't do full marathons more than once a month. Generally you do not want to run more than half an hour everyday, and not more than 3, 1 hour runs a week.
The most important indicator for chronic cardio and over training is lack of appetite and all day feeling of tiredness.
Avoid weight machines that provide balancing automatically. This causes the balancing muscles to be underdeveloped compared to the main muscles, and can cause accidents if you try to use your full muscle power in real life situation. It is best to use a bar-bell and dumb bell. To get the most benefit of weight training, use compound lifts instead of isolation movements. Isolation movements require machines and exercise very few muscles, which is inefficient.
To sum it up.
Exercise in isolation does not help in weight loss. Dieting in isolation can help in weight loss. Weight training and HIIT are the best ways to increase your fat loss, and resist muscle loss. Be careful how you exercise.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Myth: For weight loss Calorie reduction is what matters. All diets will result in same losses, provided same calorie reduction is done.
Fact: Not all diets are created equal for losing weight.
Fact: Not everybody reacts to diets the same way. Some people have trouble gaining weight, others have trouble losing weight. On an average men find it easier to lose fat than women. Post menopausal women find it much harder to lose weight than other women. Older people find it tougher to lose weight compared to younger people. These all conditions are due to hormone status, and shows that calories are not the most important thing for fat loss. The 4 hormones which cause the above differences are Insulin, testosterone, estrogen, and human growth hormone.
Insulin is the most important hormone affecting weight gain and loss. Others are much less important.
Insulin is a storage hormone. While it is high the body is in storage mode. It will store all nutrients that are available. Glucose and fat are stored in the fat cells. It will not attempt to use the fat stored in the fat cells. The body will get all its energy from glucose.
Insulin's basic function is not getting rid of glucose, but humans, who are the only species to eat a whole lot of easily digestible carbohydrates, have evolved to use the insulin for this purpose. Glucose in blood is very bad. The tolerable limit is like a teaspoon in the whole blood of the body. People generally do eat a lot more than this amount. The body needs to get rid of the excess as fast as possible. This is where insulin helps. It instructs the body to use glucose only (fat metabolism is stopped). It instructs the body to store the glucose where ever possible. The glucose is stored as glycogen in muscles and liver. When glycogen stores are nearly full, glucose is converted in to saturated fats and stored in fat cells.
People with insulin resistance (ie lack of good sugar control, or (pre)diabetes) have constantly high insulin, as the body is not not responding to insulin properly and takes a lot more time to control glucose. The much longer high insulin period means that they have trouble losing fat. People with diabetes have different problem, they are so insulin resistant that even their fat cells don't respond to insulin. In this case fat cells will not take in anymore glucose/fat but will release fat. These people lose weight, because they cannot store anything anymore, including important nutrients, like proteins, calcium, etc.
So what do we learn here. Any diet that keeps the insulin low will be superior to a diet which does not do so. This is the reason why low carb diets work really well for weight loss. This does not mean that you can eat as much as you want and will still lose weight. It just means that given a calorie reduction the body will respond to low carb diets more easily.
Actually low carb diets in the initial few months will help people lose weight without calorie counting. The homeostasis system will prevent people from over eating.
There is even more benefits of going very low carb diets in the initial few months. This relies on the fact that we need glucose to store fat. The glucose molecule is cleaved into two glycerol molecules and fat is attached to each Carbon atom and converted into triglyceride. This triglyceride gets stored into fat cells. If there is not enough glucose this activity does not happen. There is another mechanism to store fat, in low glucose conditions, but that requires consistent very long low carb period. So for the initial few months the fat is free (only when doing very low carb <50gm/day, or coupled with very high physical activity). Not all people react well to very low carb diets. Diabetics may still need to use very low carb diets (be very careful, with blood sugar levels), even though they may not feel the best on it.
Eating less will help you lose weight, but the issue with eating less is that you are getting less nutrients also. If you stay too long without enough nutrients you will get nutritional deficiencies. So you want to eat highly nutritious foods during dieting. Contrary to popular belief grains are not very nutritious. You can compare them to any kind of vegetables/fruits/meat to see the difference. In addition high phytic content grains like wheat also prevent proper absorption of certain nutrients like Zinc, magnesium. It is important to up the vegetable/meat content of the diet during dieting. Vegetables are also much lower carb than grains and legumes.
Protein is a highly thermogenic nutrient. When diet contains a lot more protein then most of it gets converted to glucose. This conversion is highly thermogenic. It increases metabolic rate of the body. A higher metabolic rate increases the speed at which body burns fat. It also provides raw material, and helps prevent muscle loss. It is also very helpful in keeping a person satiated.
Fat is a good energy filler, as it does not affect insulin. It is good to increase fat percentage in the diet to help keep carbs in the diet low. Medium chain fatty acids are known to not get stored in the body, as they directly convert to ketones. Coconut oil is made up of mostly MCFA. This property is useful for keeping satiated without storing fat. Pastured Butter/Ghee provide important fat soluble nutrients, contrary to conventional advice that butter/ghee are bad for health.
Going low on calories can be detrimental, if done for long. As the body gets into starvation mode and reduces metabolic rate. This normally happens after 3 days, and then again at around 2 weeks of time. It is best to eat more once a week to keep this effect from kicking in. The duration is same even if we are fasting. This might sound counter intuitive but fasting increased human growth hormone, while eating less calories does not do so. The HGH production delays the reduction in metabolic rate.
It is not necessary to be all the time low carb. It depends on insulin resistance. If your insulin resistance is low, then you will get benefit of low carb even if you are low carb only some of the time, ie your insulin goes below the threshold required to metabolize fat some of the time. The benefits are increased if you go low carb in the evening, as the duration of low carb extends during the sleep. Fasting will also help as fasting is also a period of low insulin.
To Recap.
1) All people react differently to diets.
2) Hormonal status affects weight loss, particularly insulin production and resistance.
3) Low carb is better than high carb for fat loss.
4) Very low carb is better, for some people, and required for others.
5) Protein is important.
6) Think about nutrients during weight loss. You might go low on them.
7) Evenings are the best time to go low carb, if not doing it consistently.
8) Fasting is great, but start slowly and carefully.
9) Do not eat consistently the same amount everyday. Have cheat days ie high calorie days.
Fact: Not everybody reacts to diets the same way. Some people have trouble gaining weight, others have trouble losing weight. On an average men find it easier to lose fat than women. Post menopausal women find it much harder to lose weight than other women. Older people find it tougher to lose weight compared to younger people. These all conditions are due to hormone status, and shows that calories are not the most important thing for fat loss. The 4 hormones which cause the above differences are Insulin, testosterone, estrogen, and human growth hormone.
Insulin is the most important hormone affecting weight gain and loss. Others are much less important.
Insulin is a storage hormone. While it is high the body is in storage mode. It will store all nutrients that are available. Glucose and fat are stored in the fat cells. It will not attempt to use the fat stored in the fat cells. The body will get all its energy from glucose.
Insulin's basic function is not getting rid of glucose, but humans, who are the only species to eat a whole lot of easily digestible carbohydrates, have evolved to use the insulin for this purpose. Glucose in blood is very bad. The tolerable limit is like a teaspoon in the whole blood of the body. People generally do eat a lot more than this amount. The body needs to get rid of the excess as fast as possible. This is where insulin helps. It instructs the body to use glucose only (fat metabolism is stopped). It instructs the body to store the glucose where ever possible. The glucose is stored as glycogen in muscles and liver. When glycogen stores are nearly full, glucose is converted in to saturated fats and stored in fat cells.
People with insulin resistance (ie lack of good sugar control, or (pre)diabetes) have constantly high insulin, as the body is not not responding to insulin properly and takes a lot more time to control glucose. The much longer high insulin period means that they have trouble losing fat. People with diabetes have different problem, they are so insulin resistant that even their fat cells don't respond to insulin. In this case fat cells will not take in anymore glucose/fat but will release fat. These people lose weight, because they cannot store anything anymore, including important nutrients, like proteins, calcium, etc.
So what do we learn here. Any diet that keeps the insulin low will be superior to a diet which does not do so. This is the reason why low carb diets work really well for weight loss. This does not mean that you can eat as much as you want and will still lose weight. It just means that given a calorie reduction the body will respond to low carb diets more easily.
Actually low carb diets in the initial few months will help people lose weight without calorie counting. The homeostasis system will prevent people from over eating.
There is even more benefits of going very low carb diets in the initial few months. This relies on the fact that we need glucose to store fat. The glucose molecule is cleaved into two glycerol molecules and fat is attached to each Carbon atom and converted into triglyceride. This triglyceride gets stored into fat cells. If there is not enough glucose this activity does not happen. There is another mechanism to store fat, in low glucose conditions, but that requires consistent very long low carb period. So for the initial few months the fat is free (only when doing very low carb <50gm/day, or coupled with very high physical activity). Not all people react well to very low carb diets. Diabetics may still need to use very low carb diets (be very careful, with blood sugar levels), even though they may not feel the best on it.
Eating less will help you lose weight, but the issue with eating less is that you are getting less nutrients also. If you stay too long without enough nutrients you will get nutritional deficiencies. So you want to eat highly nutritious foods during dieting. Contrary to popular belief grains are not very nutritious. You can compare them to any kind of vegetables/fruits/meat to see the difference. In addition high phytic content grains like wheat also prevent proper absorption of certain nutrients like Zinc, magnesium. It is important to up the vegetable/meat content of the diet during dieting. Vegetables are also much lower carb than grains and legumes.
Protein is a highly thermogenic nutrient. When diet contains a lot more protein then most of it gets converted to glucose. This conversion is highly thermogenic. It increases metabolic rate of the body. A higher metabolic rate increases the speed at which body burns fat. It also provides raw material, and helps prevent muscle loss. It is also very helpful in keeping a person satiated.
Fat is a good energy filler, as it does not affect insulin. It is good to increase fat percentage in the diet to help keep carbs in the diet low. Medium chain fatty acids are known to not get stored in the body, as they directly convert to ketones. Coconut oil is made up of mostly MCFA. This property is useful for keeping satiated without storing fat. Pastured Butter/Ghee provide important fat soluble nutrients, contrary to conventional advice that butter/ghee are bad for health.
Going low on calories can be detrimental, if done for long. As the body gets into starvation mode and reduces metabolic rate. This normally happens after 3 days, and then again at around 2 weeks of time. It is best to eat more once a week to keep this effect from kicking in. The duration is same even if we are fasting. This might sound counter intuitive but fasting increased human growth hormone, while eating less calories does not do so. The HGH production delays the reduction in metabolic rate.
It is not necessary to be all the time low carb. It depends on insulin resistance. If your insulin resistance is low, then you will get benefit of low carb even if you are low carb only some of the time, ie your insulin goes below the threshold required to metabolize fat some of the time. The benefits are increased if you go low carb in the evening, as the duration of low carb extends during the sleep. Fasting will also help as fasting is also a period of low insulin.
To Recap.
1) All people react differently to diets.
2) Hormonal status affects weight loss, particularly insulin production and resistance.
3) Low carb is better than high carb for fat loss.
4) Very low carb is better, for some people, and required for others.
5) Protein is important.
6) Think about nutrients during weight loss. You might go low on them.
7) Evenings are the best time to go low carb, if not doing it consistently.
8) Fasting is great, but start slowly and carefully.
9) Do not eat consistently the same amount everyday. Have cheat days ie high calorie days.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Myth: Cholesterol in diet causes heart disease.
Fact: Dietary cholesterol has no linkage to the cholesterol in Blood.
Cholesterol in blood closely tracks the carbohydrates in the diet, but not the cholesterol.
Fact: Cholesterol has little to do with heart disease.
Carbohydrates in diet that cannot be used directly for storage as glycogen or as fuel immediately, is converted to saturated fatty acids. These fat particles are then joined together with a glycerol phosphate molecule to create a triglyceride molecule.
The triglyceride molecules are shipped to the fat cells (adipose tissue) in VLDL particles. VLDL particles become LDL particles after delivering the triglycerides. Such LDL particles are small and dense. On a low carb high saturated fat diet the LDL particles become large and fluffy.
The Cholesterol particles are created on demand by the liver depending on the amount of triglycerides produced. The liver will use the cholesterol obtained from diet and will create the balance.
Any extra cholesterol from the diet will be broken down into its constituents and will be used for fuel, as these are basically fat and protein.
The best way to reduce LDL cholesterol is to reduce carbohydrates in the diet or fast. Both will have the same result of reducing carbs in the diet. It doesn't matter whether you are eating cholesterol or not.
Cholesterol does not have any bearing on heart disease. It is just an indication of your diet. There is the case of small dense LDL cholesterol, which does have a bearing on heart disease. But it does not cause heart disease, but it can make it worse.
The LDL particle's membrane is made up of Omega6 poly unsaturated fatty acids, which have a tendency to go rancid. The small sized LDL particles can get trapped into the arteries if it is not in a good condition. The trapped LDL particles stay too long and get rancid. This causes the white blood cells to come to eat them which get stuck with them. Eventually this starts the plaque. Incidently the plaque need not be made up of calcium. That is another issue.
The arteries get bad due to several reasons. A couple of them are that there is not enough copper or if you get a bacterial infection. The bacterial infections is enough to cause the plaque by itself.
Calcium deposition generally happens if Vitamin K2 is missing or in inadequate quantity.
Strokes happen if you get blood clots in the arteries, and they get stuck in a place where the artery has heavy plaque. The reason why blood clots in arteries is O6:O3 imbalance. That is one of the reasons why high omega6 oils must be avoided. This includes all vegetable oils except coconut oil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and possibly mustard oil.
Cholesterol levels can become high in blood if Liver is not controlling the level of cholesterol in blood. This can be duet to several reasons. There is familial hypercholestramia, which is a genetic condition. Then there is liver cancer. It could possibly happen due to liver cirrhosis, which is just a fancy name for scarred liver. The liver gets scarred due to too much sugar or alcohol.
I hope this article helps people understand what would help in case of Heart Disease. At least low fat diets will make the problem worse.
Cholesterol in blood closely tracks the carbohydrates in the diet, but not the cholesterol.
Fact: Cholesterol has little to do with heart disease.
Carbohydrates in diet that cannot be used directly for storage as glycogen or as fuel immediately, is converted to saturated fatty acids. These fat particles are then joined together with a glycerol phosphate molecule to create a triglyceride molecule.
The triglyceride molecules are shipped to the fat cells (adipose tissue) in VLDL particles. VLDL particles become LDL particles after delivering the triglycerides. Such LDL particles are small and dense. On a low carb high saturated fat diet the LDL particles become large and fluffy.
The Cholesterol particles are created on demand by the liver depending on the amount of triglycerides produced. The liver will use the cholesterol obtained from diet and will create the balance.
Any extra cholesterol from the diet will be broken down into its constituents and will be used for fuel, as these are basically fat and protein.
The best way to reduce LDL cholesterol is to reduce carbohydrates in the diet or fast. Both will have the same result of reducing carbs in the diet. It doesn't matter whether you are eating cholesterol or not.
Cholesterol does not have any bearing on heart disease. It is just an indication of your diet. There is the case of small dense LDL cholesterol, which does have a bearing on heart disease. But it does not cause heart disease, but it can make it worse.
The LDL particle's membrane is made up of Omega6 poly unsaturated fatty acids, which have a tendency to go rancid. The small sized LDL particles can get trapped into the arteries if it is not in a good condition. The trapped LDL particles stay too long and get rancid. This causes the white blood cells to come to eat them which get stuck with them. Eventually this starts the plaque. Incidently the plaque need not be made up of calcium. That is another issue.
The arteries get bad due to several reasons. A couple of them are that there is not enough copper or if you get a bacterial infection. The bacterial infections is enough to cause the plaque by itself.
Calcium deposition generally happens if Vitamin K2 is missing or in inadequate quantity.
Strokes happen if you get blood clots in the arteries, and they get stuck in a place where the artery has heavy plaque. The reason why blood clots in arteries is O6:O3 imbalance. That is one of the reasons why high omega6 oils must be avoided. This includes all vegetable oils except coconut oil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and possibly mustard oil.
Cholesterol levels can become high in blood if Liver is not controlling the level of cholesterol in blood. This can be duet to several reasons. There is familial hypercholestramia, which is a genetic condition. Then there is liver cancer. It could possibly happen due to liver cirrhosis, which is just a fancy name for scarred liver. The liver gets scarred due to too much sugar or alcohol.
I hope this article helps people understand what would help in case of Heart Disease. At least low fat diets will make the problem worse.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Myth: Skipping breakfast is a bad thing.
So how many people believe that skipping breakfast is a very bad thing.
Does it cause stomach ulcers as some people believe?
Also you must have heard that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper.
So is there any truth in it?
Not much really.
The result comes from badly designed epidemiological aka observational studies. A rhetorical question: Are there any well designed observational studies?
Most people skipping breakfast eat some junk on the go. This skews up the result so much that you see bad results, even though the results are due to the junk food rather than skipping breakfast.
There is some truth to eating breakfast like a king quote. The benefit comes from the eating supper like a pauper, not from the eating breakfast like a king.
Some people also think that skipping breakfast will cause stomach ulcers. This is also hogwash, now we know that ulcers are produced due to Halicobacter Pylori bacteria. The bacteria lives on Hydrogen released from digestion in the small intestines. Most of the hydrogen is produced while metabolizing fructose. So ulcers are due to consuming sugary foods. That is also associated with eating junk on the go.
What you should eat depends on insulin resistance. If you have a good working insulin system, you will not have any trouble as most kids can put away junk like anything and still look healthy.
It normally takes a long time (around 20years) for the metabolic system to get disrupted. This is why people start to get fat between 20-25years of age. Although now children are getting a damaged metabolism from their parents, who do not supply enough nutrients to the growing child by not breast feeding, and giving the harmful packaged baby food. I regret doing it for my son, but I was unaware. I can only hope to make others aware.
If your metabolic system is sane and you don't have insulin resistance you will not feel hungry all the time, and you don't require snacking. Notice how children will say most of the time that they are not hungry and then we force them to eat.
If you have fixed your metabolic system you can eat when you want. It doesn't matter.
Now that I have fixed my metabolic system and the insulin resistance, I regularly skip breakfast. In fact most of the days I am eating only two meals, lunch and dinner. It is also a wonderful way to keep calorie consumption down. I like to eat big meals. Now by skipping breakfast I can do that two times a day, and still not gain weight ;-).
Does it cause stomach ulcers as some people believe?
Also you must have heard that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper.
So is there any truth in it?
Not much really.
The result comes from badly designed epidemiological aka observational studies. A rhetorical question: Are there any well designed observational studies?
Most people skipping breakfast eat some junk on the go. This skews up the result so much that you see bad results, even though the results are due to the junk food rather than skipping breakfast.
There is some truth to eating breakfast like a king quote. The benefit comes from the eating supper like a pauper, not from the eating breakfast like a king.
Some people also think that skipping breakfast will cause stomach ulcers. This is also hogwash, now we know that ulcers are produced due to Halicobacter Pylori bacteria. The bacteria lives on Hydrogen released from digestion in the small intestines. Most of the hydrogen is produced while metabolizing fructose. So ulcers are due to consuming sugary foods. That is also associated with eating junk on the go.
What you should eat depends on insulin resistance. If you have a good working insulin system, you will not have any trouble as most kids can put away junk like anything and still look healthy.
It normally takes a long time (around 20years) for the metabolic system to get disrupted. This is why people start to get fat between 20-25years of age. Although now children are getting a damaged metabolism from their parents, who do not supply enough nutrients to the growing child by not breast feeding, and giving the harmful packaged baby food. I regret doing it for my son, but I was unaware. I can only hope to make others aware.
If your metabolic system is sane and you don't have insulin resistance you will not feel hungry all the time, and you don't require snacking. Notice how children will say most of the time that they are not hungry and then we force them to eat.
If you have fixed your metabolic system you can eat when you want. It doesn't matter.
Now that I have fixed my metabolic system and the insulin resistance, I regularly skip breakfast. In fact most of the days I am eating only two meals, lunch and dinner. It is also a wonderful way to keep calorie consumption down. I like to eat big meals. Now by skipping breakfast I can do that two times a day, and still not gain weight ;-).
Friday, October 1, 2010
While writing the comments on Facebook, I wrote about the circle of life.
It got me thinking about how we are damaging the circle of life.
Humans are using up a lot of resources. We eat some and we waste a lot.
Also we send human wastes into garbage dump, and then throw it into rivers.
The minerals in our wastes must be returned to the lands where we grew up the food. Otherwise we have taken out the minerals, transported it to elsewhere and thrown it down the river. The land has grown poorer, and the sea has gotten too much of some minerals that it doesn't want.
The problem with this is that we have too many algal growth in the seas, and too little nutrients in the soil.
Then we add artificial fertilizers. Substituiting some minerals that we know about. What about the minerals that we don't know about?
We might think that the food industry is not causing any environment problems, but it is probably causing more problems than the fuel industry.
It got me thinking about how we are damaging the circle of life.
Humans are using up a lot of resources. We eat some and we waste a lot.
Also we send human wastes into garbage dump, and then throw it into rivers.
The minerals in our wastes must be returned to the lands where we grew up the food. Otherwise we have taken out the minerals, transported it to elsewhere and thrown it down the river. The land has grown poorer, and the sea has gotten too much of some minerals that it doesn't want.
The problem with this is that we have too many algal growth in the seas, and too little nutrients in the soil.
Then we add artificial fertilizers. Substituiting some minerals that we know about. What about the minerals that we don't know about?
We might think that the food industry is not causing any environment problems, but it is probably causing more problems than the fuel industry.
I had the following exchange recently on Facebook.
Anand Srivastava It is interesting that the spike in obesity happened exactly when the food pyramid was created. Check out the graph. Do you need any more evidence that the food pyramid is evil?
Somebody: Couldn't it be a coincidence? Correlation does not imply causality and all that.
Someone said to me that America is the only place where the poor are obese :)
Anand Srivastava You can find those in India too. They are not that common though. They are mostly found in the food industry ;-). Sugar is cheap these days. Refined oil is cheaper (compared to the natural fats).
Anand Srivastava It is not really a coincidence. If you look at how our body deals with different food items, you will understand it. Read about Glucose effects on insulin. Insulin effects on fat storage. InFibers effect on the intestine. Wheat Germ Aggluti...nin's effect on Intestines. How gluten/casein causes auto-immune diseases. How Fructose causes high Hba1c, and insulin resistance. Inflammation/anti-inflammation signalling of Omega6 and Omega3 fats.
When you have gone through all these, things will begin to fall in place and you will understand that it is actually the food pyramid (ie the low fat high carb regime) that is causing the obesity, the heart disease, the cancer, the diabetes, etc.
Anand Srivastava Correlation does not imply causality is a good thing to remember when you read newspaper headlines on food studies results. They are normally mistaking correlation with causation.
The studies are mostly designed carefully and interpreted appropriately (or sometimes grossly incorrectly) to bring about a specific outcome, namely getting a new grant. This normally involves following the party line, ie fat is bad.
Somebody: Good stuff, Anand. The best advice is still to eat a balanced diet - it has worked for 5,000 years. No more analysis or proof needed :)
Anand Srivastava That depends on the definition of a balanced diet. What we want is a diet that had worked for a 100,000 years not the last 5000years.
Homo-Sapiens evolved 200,000years ago. Agriculture has been around only 10,000years ago. Our body has not a...dapted sufficiently for the agricultural products ie grains or legumes, and also milk which we adapted for lactose digestion around 8000years ago.
The other theory is that plants also need to protect their children, just like animals. They use a number of mechanisms. Nuts use a very hard shell. Fruits use a softer covering and a smaller harder seed to avoid getting broken, and enough toughness to pass through the digestive systems.
What have grains got? We might think they use nothing, but they use poisons, called lectins. WGA is a lectin which causes damage to the intestines so that rest of the grains can pass by. That mechanism was meant for herbivores. We grind them anyway, so no grains can pass by. But nevertheless it does damage the intestine, the result is celiac. Coeliac is known to be a gluten insensitivity issue, but is actually caused by WGA.
They do feed grains to cows in the USA, to fatten them up before slaughter. Funnily nobody puts two and two together, to understand that grains cause humans to get fat as well. Humans are probably better adapted to grains than cows.
Anand Srivastava From my reading of the issues, a good balanced diet would be
Meat/fish
Tubers, eg potatoes, onions.
Greens
Coconuts
...other vegetables.
Where proportion of plant matter is higher than meat/fish, by weight rather than calories.
No milk, no grains, no legumes.
Somebody: And if you have an ethical concern about eating meat/fish?
Anand Srivastava That will be a tough one.
If they are religious in nature, then nothing can be done about it.
But if the concerns are really ethical, then you might want to read The Vegetarian Myth.
The book is written by a former Vegan, who was an ethical vegan, and now is an ethical meat eater ;-). The best part of the book is when she meets a chinese master.
He asks her what she eats.
She says that she does not eat anything from animals.
He says, bigger fish eat smaller fish.
She says she is not a fish.
He says, we all are.
It is very arrogant to disown our place in the circle of life. Our nature is to eat animals and plants, we are omnivores. And in turn we will be eaten by the animals and plants when we die. It is also illogical to not consider plants as living things.
Search and read about the Temple of Eden. It was a very fertile plain which was destroyed by agriculture. It is possibly the location where agriculture was born. It is also the place referred by Bible as the Eden. Humans had to leave the place because it became barren, hence the allegory.
Agriculture destroys more land than feeding animals on grass, and eating them. The current high population is not supportable by the Earth.
Anand Srivastava If concern is religious then drinking milk cannot be avoided. There is a reason that raw milk, curd, and ghee are considered Amrit. They are that much important for a vegetarian. They are the only source of animal fats, fat soluble vitamins... (A and K2), zinc, and Vitamin B12.
White Rice and Dal (the split lentils, after removing the covering) are much less problematic compared to other grains and legumes. You would want to ferment them to increase the mineral availability and killing the remaining lectins, before cooking and eating them.
It is no wonder that Indians developed the Idly, Dosa, Vada etc. They are the healthiest way of eating grains and legumes. Swiss make their bread after fermenting for several days and then leaving the cooked bread to become stale before eating them. Such bread does not cause problem to coeliacs, even though it has gluten in it.
You have to go traditional, leaning towards the South Indian food rather than North Indian. North Indian food requires a lot more nutrition, which is no longer there due to the intensive farming methods. Also try to eat more tubers, like potatoes and sweet potatoes. They should be more of a staple, than Idly, dosa.
Anand Srivastava I guess this applies to cultural vegetarians as well. It is difficult for vegetarians to eat meat when they have never eaten it.
There is a reason why we are the only cultural vegetarians in the world. Vegetarianism requires all year Sunligh...t, and milk consumption, in addition to an advanced society, where thinkers go beyond what is considered in the realm of possibilities. You could not be a vegetarian in say Tibbet. No wonder The Dalai Lama eats meat. He could not survive without it. He has tried vegetarianism before without success. He loses his health and has to return to meat.
Anand Srivastava It is interesting that the spike in obesity happened exactly when the food pyramid was created. Check out the graph. Do you need any more evidence that the food pyramid is evil?
Somebody: Couldn't it be a coincidence? Correlation does not imply causality and all that.
Someone said to me that America is the only place where the poor are obese :)
Anand Srivastava You can find those in India too. They are not that common though. They are mostly found in the food industry ;-). Sugar is cheap these days. Refined oil is cheaper (compared to the natural fats).
Anand Srivastava It is not really a coincidence. If you look at how our body deals with different food items, you will understand it. Read about Glucose effects on insulin. Insulin effects on fat storage. InFibers effect on the intestine. Wheat Germ Aggluti...nin's effect on Intestines. How gluten/casein causes auto-immune diseases. How Fructose causes high Hba1c, and insulin resistance. Inflammation/anti-inflammation signalling of Omega6 and Omega3 fats.
When you have gone through all these, things will begin to fall in place and you will understand that it is actually the food pyramid (ie the low fat high carb regime) that is causing the obesity, the heart disease, the cancer, the diabetes, etc.
Anand Srivastava Correlation does not imply causality is a good thing to remember when you read newspaper headlines on food studies results. They are normally mistaking correlation with causation.
The studies are mostly designed carefully and interpreted appropriately (or sometimes grossly incorrectly) to bring about a specific outcome, namely getting a new grant. This normally involves following the party line, ie fat is bad.
Somebody: Good stuff, Anand. The best advice is still to eat a balanced diet - it has worked for 5,000 years. No more analysis or proof needed :)
Anand Srivastava That depends on the definition of a balanced diet. What we want is a diet that had worked for a 100,000 years not the last 5000years.
Homo-Sapiens evolved 200,000years ago. Agriculture has been around only 10,000years ago. Our body has not a...dapted sufficiently for the agricultural products ie grains or legumes, and also milk which we adapted for lactose digestion around 8000years ago.
The other theory is that plants also need to protect their children, just like animals. They use a number of mechanisms. Nuts use a very hard shell. Fruits use a softer covering and a smaller harder seed to avoid getting broken, and enough toughness to pass through the digestive systems.
What have grains got? We might think they use nothing, but they use poisons, called lectins. WGA is a lectin which causes damage to the intestines so that rest of the grains can pass by. That mechanism was meant for herbivores. We grind them anyway, so no grains can pass by. But nevertheless it does damage the intestine, the result is celiac. Coeliac is known to be a gluten insensitivity issue, but is actually caused by WGA.
They do feed grains to cows in the USA, to fatten them up before slaughter. Funnily nobody puts two and two together, to understand that grains cause humans to get fat as well. Humans are probably better adapted to grains than cows.
Anand Srivastava From my reading of the issues, a good balanced diet would be
Meat/fish
Tubers, eg potatoes, onions.
Greens
Coconuts
...other vegetables.
Where proportion of plant matter is higher than meat/fish, by weight rather than calories.
No milk, no grains, no legumes.
Somebody: And if you have an ethical concern about eating meat/fish?
Anand Srivastava That will be a tough one.
If they are religious in nature, then nothing can be done about it.
But if the concerns are really ethical, then you might want to read The Vegetarian Myth.
The book is written by a former Vegan, who was an ethical vegan, and now is an ethical meat eater ;-). The best part of the book is when she meets a chinese master.
He asks her what she eats.
She says that she does not eat anything from animals.
He says, bigger fish eat smaller fish.
She says she is not a fish.
He says, we all are.
It is very arrogant to disown our place in the circle of life. Our nature is to eat animals and plants, we are omnivores. And in turn we will be eaten by the animals and plants when we die. It is also illogical to not consider plants as living things.
Search and read about the Temple of Eden. It was a very fertile plain which was destroyed by agriculture. It is possibly the location where agriculture was born. It is also the place referred by Bible as the Eden. Humans had to leave the place because it became barren, hence the allegory.
Agriculture destroys more land than feeding animals on grass, and eating them. The current high population is not supportable by the Earth.
Anand Srivastava If concern is religious then drinking milk cannot be avoided. There is a reason that raw milk, curd, and ghee are considered Amrit. They are that much important for a vegetarian. They are the only source of animal fats, fat soluble vitamins... (A and K2), zinc, and Vitamin B12.
White Rice and Dal (the split lentils, after removing the covering) are much less problematic compared to other grains and legumes. You would want to ferment them to increase the mineral availability and killing the remaining lectins, before cooking and eating them.
It is no wonder that Indians developed the Idly, Dosa, Vada etc. They are the healthiest way of eating grains and legumes. Swiss make their bread after fermenting for several days and then leaving the cooked bread to become stale before eating them. Such bread does not cause problem to coeliacs, even though it has gluten in it.
You have to go traditional, leaning towards the South Indian food rather than North Indian. North Indian food requires a lot more nutrition, which is no longer there due to the intensive farming methods. Also try to eat more tubers, like potatoes and sweet potatoes. They should be more of a staple, than Idly, dosa.
Anand Srivastava I guess this applies to cultural vegetarians as well. It is difficult for vegetarians to eat meat when they have never eaten it.
There is a reason why we are the only cultural vegetarians in the world. Vegetarianism requires all year Sunligh...t, and milk consumption, in addition to an advanced society, where thinkers go beyond what is considered in the realm of possibilities. You could not be a vegetarian in say Tibbet. No wonder The Dalai Lama eats meat. He could not survive without it. He has tried vegetarianism before without success. He loses his health and has to return to meat.
Friday, January 22, 2010
General Obesity cause and solution
There are two major hormones that affect weight gain and loss, Leptin and Insulin.
Leptin governs appetite, insulin controls glucose (and by effect fat metabolism).
The brain uses leptin to determine how much fat we have. If it thinks that there is too much it will suppress appetite, increase body temperature, make us fidgety, and all sorts of things to burn off the excess fat. If it thinks there is too little then we will feel hungry.
We get fat because of two problems, either leptin is not being secreted (rare condition), or leptin is not being received by the brain (leptin resistance common problem).
Hypothalamus (in the brain) may not receive leptin if there is something wrong with it.
There are two known ways in which this happens, leptin receptors becoming bad because some sugars get attached to them or there is inflammation.
Glucose normally does not attach easily, but other sugars like fructose (in sugar or fruits), galactose (milk) attach readily to these receptors. Artificial sweeteners are also not safe. It is better to cure the sweet tooth than trying to seek replacements.
Omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) is used to provide inflammatory signaling in the body. Omega3’s provide anti-inflammatory signaling. When the two are equal in concentration then our body works best. If there is too much difference, then we get problems. Its not easy to get Omega 3. We are getting huge amounts of Omega 6 from our vegetable refined oils. Just look at their PUFA ratios, eg suffola contains 54% Omega 6 and 7% Omega 3.
The bad ratio can cause a lot of problems, including inflammation of hypothalamus.
If you have got leptin resistance, then you will get fat, and the fat gets deposited around the liver and other organs.
The fat deposition interferes with Livers well being. Liver being the main organ that controls metabolism, we get what is called metabolic syndrome. This causes the beginning of Insulin resistance.
Insulin’s main job is to tell all cells to store glucose and other nutrients. When glucose is high, insulin is secreted to reduce the glucose levels. It also tells the cells to stop using fat, so that glucose level can be reduced more efficiently. Our body does not like glucose levels to be high at all. The total glucose in the blood should be less than 5 gms.
Glucose is not a problem for people who don’t have insulin resistance. You can know this if you get your PP blood sugar (2 hours after eating rice) and it is around 80. Don’t do this test after eating some slow digesting carbs like whole wheat. You will not get the best results.
To lose fat you want to keep your insulin down for a long time, so that the body can use fat.
The solution is to eat less number of times (not more than 3 times, no snacking in between). Also eat less amount of carbs, and eat simple starches, like potatoes and rice, rather than complex ones which will keep the insulin high for a longer time.
In addition you can skip meals ie fasting. It is also very good to skip carbs in a meal entirely if you can eat only meat at a meal.
In a nutshell.
1) Get rid of all high omega 6 sources, like refined oil, large quantities of nuts (cashews and almonds are OK).
2) Use low Omega 6 sources like Desi Ghee (vegetable ghee like Dalda are poisons), Coconut oil, Olive Oil.
3) Use high Omega 6 but with nearly equal amount of Omega 3 oils like mustard oil or Canola oil. Avoid cooking with these ;-), as PUFA are unstable.
4) Supplement Omega 3 to fix the imbalance by eating some fish (oil). Flax seeds are not very useful, but possible for vegetarians.
5) Get rid of concentrated sources of fructose like commercial drinks including fruit juices, coke etc.
6) Reduce consumption of sweet fruits like Apple, Pineapple, Melons, etc. They are bad in excess.
7) Eat at most 3 times a day, no snacks in between.
8) Skip meals, when not feeling hungry or deliberately if you can handle it.
9) Eat more fat and less carbs at each meal.
10) If non-vegetarian sometimes skip carbs completely, by eating only a meat diet.
11) It is useful to eat more protein when wanting to lose fat, as protein helps by satiating and forcing the body to use fat.
Weight training can be used to increase metabolic rate by building muscle mass and increase insulin sensitivity by burning excess glycogen. Both will help in reducing fat. Sprints and high intensity training also help the same way. Treadmills don’t help and are bad for the knees. The best way to exercise does not require machines. A Bar and weights are all that you need. Squat and Deadlift are the best exercises.
Calorie in Calorie out is good in theory, but in practice it does not work. Our body’s energy requirement is not constant. It increases and decreases with food availability. The trick is not to give it less food, but to fix the system which manages fat.
Leptin governs appetite, insulin controls glucose (and by effect fat metabolism).
The brain uses leptin to determine how much fat we have. If it thinks that there is too much it will suppress appetite, increase body temperature, make us fidgety, and all sorts of things to burn off the excess fat. If it thinks there is too little then we will feel hungry.
We get fat because of two problems, either leptin is not being secreted (rare condition), or leptin is not being received by the brain (leptin resistance common problem).
Hypothalamus (in the brain) may not receive leptin if there is something wrong with it.
There are two known ways in which this happens, leptin receptors becoming bad because some sugars get attached to them or there is inflammation.
Glucose normally does not attach easily, but other sugars like fructose (in sugar or fruits), galactose (milk) attach readily to these receptors. Artificial sweeteners are also not safe. It is better to cure the sweet tooth than trying to seek replacements.
Omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) is used to provide inflammatory signaling in the body. Omega3’s provide anti-inflammatory signaling. When the two are equal in concentration then our body works best. If there is too much difference, then we get problems. Its not easy to get Omega 3. We are getting huge amounts of Omega 6 from our vegetable refined oils. Just look at their PUFA ratios, eg suffola contains 54% Omega 6 and 7% Omega 3.
The bad ratio can cause a lot of problems, including inflammation of hypothalamus.
If you have got leptin resistance, then you will get fat, and the fat gets deposited around the liver and other organs.
The fat deposition interferes with Livers well being. Liver being the main organ that controls metabolism, we get what is called metabolic syndrome. This causes the beginning of Insulin resistance.
Insulin’s main job is to tell all cells to store glucose and other nutrients. When glucose is high, insulin is secreted to reduce the glucose levels. It also tells the cells to stop using fat, so that glucose level can be reduced more efficiently. Our body does not like glucose levels to be high at all. The total glucose in the blood should be less than 5 gms.
Glucose is not a problem for people who don’t have insulin resistance. You can know this if you get your PP blood sugar (2 hours after eating rice) and it is around 80. Don’t do this test after eating some slow digesting carbs like whole wheat. You will not get the best results.
To lose fat you want to keep your insulin down for a long time, so that the body can use fat.
The solution is to eat less number of times (not more than 3 times, no snacking in between). Also eat less amount of carbs, and eat simple starches, like potatoes and rice, rather than complex ones which will keep the insulin high for a longer time.
In addition you can skip meals ie fasting. It is also very good to skip carbs in a meal entirely if you can eat only meat at a meal.
In a nutshell.
1) Get rid of all high omega 6 sources, like refined oil, large quantities of nuts (cashews and almonds are OK).
2) Use low Omega 6 sources like Desi Ghee (vegetable ghee like Dalda are poisons), Coconut oil, Olive Oil.
3) Use high Omega 6 but with nearly equal amount of Omega 3 oils like mustard oil or Canola oil. Avoid cooking with these ;-), as PUFA are unstable.
4) Supplement Omega 3 to fix the imbalance by eating some fish (oil). Flax seeds are not very useful, but possible for vegetarians.
5) Get rid of concentrated sources of fructose like commercial drinks including fruit juices, coke etc.
6) Reduce consumption of sweet fruits like Apple, Pineapple, Melons, etc. They are bad in excess.
7) Eat at most 3 times a day, no snacks in between.
8) Skip meals, when not feeling hungry or deliberately if you can handle it.
9) Eat more fat and less carbs at each meal.
10) If non-vegetarian sometimes skip carbs completely, by eating only a meat diet.
11) It is useful to eat more protein when wanting to lose fat, as protein helps by satiating and forcing the body to use fat.
Weight training can be used to increase metabolic rate by building muscle mass and increase insulin sensitivity by burning excess glycogen. Both will help in reducing fat. Sprints and high intensity training also help the same way. Treadmills don’t help and are bad for the knees. The best way to exercise does not require machines. A Bar and weights are all that you need. Squat and Deadlift are the best exercises.
Calorie in Calorie out is good in theory, but in practice it does not work. Our body’s energy requirement is not constant. It increases and decreases with food availability. The trick is not to give it less food, but to fix the system which manages fat.
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