What is the top New Year’s resolution? Lose weight.

Every year, people with good intentions set out to lose weight, only to have even more weight to lose the next year later. (Resolutions seem like such a good idea when you’ve got a party horn in your hand and a gold cardboard top hat on your head, swimming in a champagne-induced fog.)

One problem is that people try to lose weight quickly. Unfortunately, even if they manage to drop a few pounds fast, they bounce right back… and often, keep on gaining.

By slowing down the weight loss process and teaching life-long healthy habits, PN’s very own Lean Eating program is designed to avoid the cycle of perpetual weight loss.

Now, research confirms our methods. (But we knew that already.) Only slow and steady progress leads to lasting change. Why?

Appetite hormones: Why self control is not the problem

Myth: weight loss is all about self control.

People berate themselves or are judged by others for carrying a few extra pounds. To be fat means you’re weak-willed, spineless, and/or impulsive.

Fact: Powerful hormones control our perception of appetite and hunger, as well as our eating behaviour.

While you still have the option of self-control, your body definitely has a strong voice in the matter. And “willpower” breaks down easily under stress; when blood sugar is low; and/or in environments that don’t support weight loss (like an office where everyone has a candy dish and it seems like someone has a birthday cake every day).

Here are some of the more well-known hormones that influence appetite, hunger, and satiety.

For more about leptin and ghrelin take a look at another research review of mine on leptin and ghrelin.

The ideal hormone combo to suppress appetite and help you lose weight would be:

• more CCK, GLP-1, PYY, and leptin
• less ghrelin

What happens to hormones over the long haul?

The study I’m reviewing this week looks at what happens to appetite hormones after 10 weeks of dieting up to 1 year later. Yup, your lemon-cayenne diet from last year may be making you feel more hungry this year.

Sumithran P, Prendergast LA, Delbridge E, Purcell K, Shulkes A, Kriketos A, Proietto J. Long-term persistence of hormonal adaptations to weight loss. N Engl J Med. 2011 Oct 27;365(17):1597-604.

Methods

This year-long study involved 50 people with BMI between 27 and 40 (classified as overweight and obese), who went on a crazy low-calorie diet for 10 weeks (though the researchers called it a very-low energy diet).

What’s a crazy low calorie diet? Oh, say 500-550 kcal for people that had an average weight of 95 kg (209 lb), which is one-third of their basal metabolic rate. To live without moving at all, these volunteers would need about 1700 kcal on average. No question they were really hungry and needed a hell of a lot of will power to stay on this diet.

The problem with calorie math

This intake of 500-550 kcal means that each day these volunteers are eating at least 1200 kcal less than they need.

Since fat has 3600 kcal/pound, you could use basic (and flawed) calorie counting to figure they should lose a pound (0.45 kg) of fat every three days. At the end of 10 weeks (70 days) they should lose just over 23 pounds (10.6 kg), or 11% body weight in fat.

The problem with thinking of yourself as just fat that’s burned like a candle is that you overlook things like hormones that through evolution respond to starvation by storing calories more efficiently.

A few hundred years ago, it was a good thing that your body responded to starvation by storing as much fat as possible. Thrifty hormones saved lives. Now when starvation is self-induced in a sea of food it causes problems.

Results

During the first 10 weeks of the study, when the volunteers were eating a very low calorie diet, they lost 9.4 kg (20.7 lb) of fat and 4.1 kg (9 lb) of lean body mass, but that didn’t last over the next year.

As the year went on after the diet, they slowly gained half the weight they lost. At first glance, that doesn’t sound too bad. They lost a fair bit of weight in a short period, and then a year later, they were still ahead of the game.

Hormonal effects: short term

The problem is what happens to these volunteers’ hormones — the hormones like leptin, ghrelin, peptide YY, etc. — that regulate appetite, hunger, and satiety.

After 10 weeks of starvation the volunteers had less leptin, peptide YY, and cholecystrokinin, as well as more ghrelin and gastric inhibitory polypeptide. The result: The volunteers felt more hungry. Cue the need for even more will power to keep the weight off. Sound familiar?

Hormonal effects: long term

We knew that crash dieting messes up appetite regulatory hormones for a short period, but until now, nobody had looked at the long-term effects of very low calories on these hormones.

Why didn’t anyone look at what happened a year or more later?

Well, it’s hard to get people signed up for a year-long anything, let alone having them go on a starvation diet for over two months first. Plus, it’s a bit of a surprise that a short term diet would do much a year later. These scientists must have had to convince a lot of people that this study was worth doing.

One year after dieting the volunteers still had less leptin, peptide YY, and cholecystokinin; and more ghrelin, gastric inhibitory polypeptide and pancreatic polypeptide.

What happened to hunger? Still higher after a year. Think about that. A full year after dieting, the volunteers still felt more hungry. No surprise that most dieters regain weight lost and more… eventually.

Conclusion

If you try to lose weight quickly, you’ll end up trying to lose it every year instead of taking a year to lose the weight once.

It’s clear that very low calorie dieting has long term impact on hunger and appetite hormones lasting at least a year. Now imagine what multiple crash diets might do.

By the way, stringent and chronic restriction also affects hormones that control gastric motility (the speed at which food is processed) and neurotransmitters (brain chemicals).

Thus, if you regularly “diet”, not only do you end up always hungry, you have indigestion and “brain hamsters” like anxiety or depression, and you rarely feel psychologically satisfied by eating — you always want more, or have strong cravings. Show me a “professional dieter” and I’ll show you someone who feels generally lousy physically, mentally, and emotionally. Hormonal disruption is strong stuff.

Could yo-yo dieting lead to cumulative changes in appetite regulation hormones? Very likely. Several years of yo-yo dieting later, you may feel much more hungry than when you started. Good luck with willpower then.

Bottom line

Lose weight quickly while nearly starving, only to gain most of it back (or more) and feel hungrier than when you started. Or lose weight slowly, for good, and feel better than ever… eventually.

What would you choose? If you want door #2… well… have we got a program for you.

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We’re bombarded with images of unattainable, unrealistic, and unhealthy beauty. Start with an average model, who has a BMI of 16.5. Add lots of computer software and hours of editing. You end up with a distorted, imaginary, arguably non-human view of what purports to be a “normal” and beautiful body.

For some perspective, at my height of 5’8″ (173 cm), I would have to weigh 107.5 lb to have a BMI of 16.5. Since my normal weight is about 140 lb, I would have to lose all my body fat plus nearly 10 pounds of lean body tissue.

Then of course, I’d be airbrushed into oblivion. (To get an idea what is possible with digital enhancement, take a look at a weight loss session done with Adobe Photoshop software).

But here’s the paradox. Bizarrely, impossibly thin images are all around us. Yet more people are overweight and obese than ever before. Seems odd. You’d think that having more pressure would push people into the direction of losing weight, but the opposite is happening instead. Why?

Being a biologist I like to think that biology matters and can explain things more than, say, squishy things like feelings and perceptions. So I might have argued that weight loss was simply energy in (food) versus energy out (movement).

Looks like us geeks might have been a little simplistic.

In this week’s research review, we see that for people struggling with their weight, how they see their body is just as important as — if not more important than — the biology of their body.

Body image: evaluation and investment

We all went through an awkward stage as a teenagers. Heck, you may still be in an awkward stage 30 years later.

Looking in the mirror or fretting over a picture. Is that what I really look like?! The horror! If I could just lose/gain x pounds, lift this, and tuck that, THEN I would be happy. You know the drill.

Body image is how we perceive our physical appearance — good or bad — as well as how important your body perceptions are to you.  Body image is separated into two parts (aka attitudinal dimensions):

1. Evaluative body image: How you think and feel you look, as well as how happy you are with your body. This is your cognitive appraisal and associated emotions (aka what you think or feel). It doesn’t necessarily mean this is reality.

2. Body image investment: How important body image is to you and how much body image affects your daily life. Being preoccupied with the way your body looks (body concern) is a hallmark of dysfunctional body image investment. Another part of body image investment is social physique anxiety, which makes you anxious in social settings and during interactions with others because you feel that others are judging your body.

So, you might not like your body much (evaluation) but not really care an awful lot (investment). This might mean you treat your body like an ugly but necessary inconvenience, like having to clean out the cat’s litter box. Gross, but what are ya gonna do, you think.

Or, you might think you look great (evaluation) and find that greatness really, really important as well (investment), which might mean that you spend a lot of time being afraid of losing that hot bod.

Of course, many of us have the worst of both worlds. We don’t like our bodies, and because we’re so invested in body image, our perceived-grotesque physiques make us want to hide under a rock.

Whether evaluation and/or investment, we tend to think of “body image” as something that happens inside our head. But could it affect our actual bodies?

What role does body image play in weight loss?

In this week’s review, I look at whether improving body image may help women lose weight over a year-long behaviour change program.

Carraça EV, Silva MN, Markland D, Vieira PN, Minderico CS, Sardinha LB, Teixeira PJ. Body image change and improved eating self-regulation in a weight management intervention in women. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2011 Jul 18;8:75.

Methods

A group of obese women went through a year-long weight loss program that focused on behaviour changes.

You may be thinking, Well aren’t all weight loss programs behaviour changes? Yes, but this one focused on self-regulation of eating (with an approach known as self-determination theory) rather than calorie counting or specific meal plans.

Our own Lean Eating program at PN focuses on eating self-regulation, which bothers some people who may be expecting a auto-pilot type of approach. What — I don’t get a list of meals? Or a meal plan to follow? You mean I have to pay attention to how my body feels and I have to make decisions!?

Now, I get that it’s often easier to let other people make decisions for you. However, the advantage of self-regulated eating is that mindful, voluntary and self-directed eating is more sustainable long-term, while fostering independence. You learn the skills you need to eat better… for life… without someone else looking over your shoulder.

Scary at first, but a lot more sustainable and useful. (Trust us. We’ve helped thousands of clients.)

Self-regulation

Several factors guide self-regulation of eating:

• confidence that you can do it (eating self-efficacy);
• consciously controlled eating that isn’t too rigid (highly flexible cognitive restraint );
• less emotional eating; less eating triggered by specific situations; and less eating because of habits (reduced disinhibition including emotional, situational and habitual cues); and
• less perceived hunger.

The women also increased their level of physical activity, but as with the eating, there were no specific prescriptions for what to do each day.

Body image sessions

Half the women also went to body image enhancement sessions to improve their body acceptance and satisfaction (evaluative body image) and decrease their over-preoccupation with appearance (investment in body image).

Exercises to improve body acceptance and evaluation included:

• looking at a mirror and systematically looking at body parts;
• making realistic goals and expectations for their bodies; and
• creating a realistic ideal body based on their parents’ weight history and their body type.

Exercises to improve investment in appearance included:

• understanding body image;
• finding the cause of the disorder (what situations — social and personal — triggered dysfunction?);
• keeping a diary to record negative self-talk and the feelings it causes;
• helping the women to cope with prejudice;
• helping the women let go of the belief they need to look different in order to be happy.

How do you measure body image?

You might be wondering how you measure body image and the different parts that make it up. There are a series of questionnaires and scales to indicate someone’s body image.

For evaluative body image, one of the more interesting and easy scales to use and understand is the figure rating scale (Figure 1). This provides a series of body outlines numbered 1 (very thin) to 9 (very heavy).

Participants pick the number they think fits their actual body size, and then they pick the number that represents their ideal body size. The bigger the difference (self-ideal discrepancy) the more body image issues a participant has.

Keep in mind this is perceived body size, not real body size. People may actually be their ideal body size but not think so. If you think you’re a 9 on the scale but you’re really a 1, you’ve definitely got a problem.

Body image investment is assessed using questionnaires that ask things like:

• How often do you feel fat when taking a bath?
• How often has your body shape/size kept you from concentrating?
• How nervous do you feel about your body in social settings?

Figure 1: Figure Rating Scale. From Bhuiyan et al, 2003.

Results

Improved body image

The body image sessions worked. The women in these sessions improved both evaluative body image and body image investment.

Improved eating self-regulation & weight loss

Improving body image also improved eating self-regulation. With better eating, there was better weight loss.

The body image group lost 7.3% of their body weight, while the control group lost only 1.7% of their body weight.

It makes sense that better eating means more weight loss, but seems odd that a better body image would help weight loss. Wouldn’t you think that people should lose weight first… and then feel better about their bodies?

Not in this case. The group that got care, counselling, and compassion kicked ass. Goes against the drill sergeant/tough love approach, doesn’t it?

Using a mathematical model (partial least squares) the researchers found that changes in body image investment was a little more important for weight loss than body image evaluation. In other words, to lose weight, it’s more important to let go of rigid investment in body size and shape than it is to always feel great about yourself.

(After all, remember our hypothetical people who feel good about their body, but are afraid of losing it? They’re much more likely to rigidly control their eating and exercise, which sets them up for problems like diet rebounds, exercise compulsions, and binge eating later on. Plus, if you’re not as invested in your body image, you realize that small things like day-to-day weight fluctuations aren’t that big a deal.)

Conclusion

You’d think people would be motivated to change if they were unhappy with their body. In fact, the opposite is true: Greater body image dissatisfaction actually hinders weight loss.

You may need a certain amount of dissatisfaction with your current body if you want to change it, but more isn’t better. Pointing out that someone is overweight or obese, or beating up on yourself, doesn’t make you more motivated. Nor does it help you get leaner.

We know this to be true. In Lean Eating, we use an “awesomeness-based coaching” approach. We don’t spend time pointing out your “flaws” or “problem areas” (imaginary or otherwise). We find what’s already awesome about you, right now, no matter what your body looks like… and help you do and feel more of that.

(And just a warning: We have a Five-Pushup Rule in Lean Eating: Self-criticism gets you five pushups. We know that negative self-talk doesn’t do you any good. So we pushup that nasty stuff right outta you.)

This study shows that improving body image helps with weight loss. And it seems that spending less time worrying about how your body looks and how other people may scrutinize your body is a bigger part of the puzzle than how unhappy you are about your body.

Want to lose weight?

• Stop obsessing about your body. If possible, try to get “outside yourself” — into a bigger world full of activities, experiences, social causes, and other things more interesting than whether you can see your abs.
• Pursue self-acceptance, self-care and self-compassion… not self-criticism.
• Pay more attention to what you eat — eat slowly and mindfully.
• Move your body more.

Simple, but not necessarily easy.

Bottom line

Whether you’re coaching a client or are interesting in losing weight yourself, improving body image can help you lose weight.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, accepting your body as it is and spending less time thinking about your body can improve your weight loss. You still have to eat a little less and move around a little more… but at the very least, you’ll also like yourself at the end of the day.

References

Bhuiyan AR, Gustat J, Srinivasan SR, Berenson GS. Differences in body shape representations among young adults from a biracial (Black-White), semirural community: the Bogalusa Heart Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2003 Oct 15;158(8):792-7.

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The book is called “Experiments with Intermittent Fasting.”  The best part?  It’s totally free.

[Honestly, once you see it, you’re gonna think we’re crazy for just giving it away. It’s really that good].

So, if you haven’t yet heard of IF, it’s time to take notice.  This style of eating is getting extremely popular and is worth considering in certain situations.

And if you have heard of IF – and are wondering if it’s for you – we’ll help answer that question in this book.  We’ll also share our experiences with half a dozen different IF protocols. And we’ll provide key takeaways for everyone interested in looking better, feeling better, and performing at their highest potential.

Experiments with Intermittent Fasting (Free)

Free E-Book: Experiments with Intermittent Fasting

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Sometimes solutions to problems are simple.

In debt? Spend less.

Hate your job? Quit.

Have no free time? Stop watching 3 hours of TV a night.

Oh, I guess I should mention: Simple doesn’t mean easy.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Lean Eating PN seminar at Bang Fitness in Toronto. The facilitator, Coach Krista Scott-Dixon, asked Lean Eaters attending about their most significant “a-ha” moments and challenges. Most folks were struggling with two simple — but difficult — lessons:

• eating slowly; and
• eating until 80% full.

On the other hand, I’m sure the Scrawny to Brawny group would say the most difficult thing is to eat as much food as they can nearly all the time.

Two relatively easy concepts: how fast you eat; how much you eat.

Two difficult things to do: change your eating speed; change how much you’re used to eating.

Today’s review will look at bpm — no, not beats per minute, bites per minute.

Eat slower, eat less

Many studies show that people who eat faster are heavier than people who eat slowly [1-5]. People who trained themselves to eat more slowly ate less, and lost weight [6,7].

Most research is on weight loss, since it’s a much bigger health issue than weight gain, but those of you interested in weight gain (like all you Scrawny to Brawnies) can also use eating speed to your advantage. By purposely eating faster you’ll eat more, helping you gain weight.

(Also: eat while distracted, Brawnies; that too will help you eat more.)

How can you tell if you’re eating faster or slower than you normally would? And how much faster or slower do you need to eat to make a difference?

Monitoring eating speed

A while back I reviewed an article showing that eating slowly decreased caloric intake while leaving people feeling more satisfied.

That study used a scale with a real time graph as biofeedback telling people to slow down. People tried to eat slowly enough to keep the weight of the food on their plates the same as the ideal weight, according to the graph.

Okay, so eating with your plate on a scale while watching a monitor graphing every change in weight is one way to eat faster or slower, but it seems a little involved.

This week’s review looks at the effectiveness of another method for changing eating speed: monitoring bite rates.

Scisco JL, Muth ER, Dong Y, Hoover AW. Slowing bite-rate reduces energy intake: an application of the bite counter device. J Am Diet Assoc. 2011 Aug;111(8):1231-5.

One way to eat slower is to take more time between bites (slowing bite rate).

For example, if you normally take 4 bites in a minute, then you would aim for 2 bites in a minute, with longer breaks between bites. (Obviously, each bite has to stay the same size.)

This study examined whether university students (average age of 19.7) could be trained to take fewer bites per minute , and whether that decreased how much food they ate at a sitting.

Methods

There were 30 students in total (23 females and 7 males); 10 of whom were obese (BMI≥25).

The test food was frozen mini-waffles. These were likely chosen because they’re quick to prepare, uniform, easy to divide into bite-size pieces (they even have a grid), and something university students tend to eat.

Each mini-waffle was cut with 72 bite size pieces per serving. Participants had only a fork as a utensil, so each bite would be exactly the same size.

(Sadly, another reason frozen waffles were chosen were because most Americans tend to eat bread-like foods — maybe bite-rate isn’t the biggest issue, but malnourishment.)

On the first visit the students sat down in front of the plate of pre-cut waffles placed on a table with a hidden scale. They were told to eat one bite at a time, but given no information about how fast or slowly they were eating. Meanwhile, scientists recorded subjects eating, measuring bite rates, via a live video feed.

As soon as the students had had enough waffles, they told the scientist they were finished and completed a questionnaire on how full or hungry they felt.

The next two visits were basically the same, but participants watched a monitor that graphed how many bites they were taking.  The students were asked, randomly, either to watch the monitor with no specific goal, or to eat at half the speed as their previous visit.

Thus there were three test groups:

1. Baseline visit: eat waffles one bite at a time, with no feedback or specific goal
2. Feedback visit: eat waffles one bite at a time, while watching a monitor graphing bites
3. Slow bite rate visit: same monitor feedback condition, but with a target rate on the monitor (50% of the baseline)

Results

Purposely eating waffles more slowly (slow bite rate visit) meant eating fewer waffles (about 70 calories less — see Figure 1) than just watching feedback of how many bites per minute.

Knowing without purpose = no change

Just knowing eating speed without a clear goal of slowing down didn’t change total calories eaten very much. (See Figure 1 below.) It’s like having your driving speed measured without any idea of what the speed limit is.

Total calories eaten during the Feedback visit and Slow-Bite rate visit

You’d think eating while watching a monitor of your eating speed might change your eating, but it didn’t. No change in number of bites, total time of eating or bite rates.

Knowing with purpose = change

However, the group instructed to slow their bite rate down took fewer bites (Figure 2a), took longer to eat the meal (Figure 2b), and of course had a slower bite rate (Figure 2c)

Figure 2a: Total number of bites, by group

Figure 2b: Total meal time, by group

Figure 2c: Bite rate, by group

One more interesting thing came up. Students who ate more than 400 kcal at the first visit had the biggest decrease in calories eaten (164 kcal) at the slow bite rate visit, while students that ate fewer than 400 kcal had no change in calories eaten when they slowed down (Figure 3).

Figure 3: High consumers vs. low consumers, by group

This suggests that purposely trying to eat more slowly may have the biggest impact on people who normally over-eat significantly because they rush.

Eating faster or slower had no impact on ratings of hunger or fullness, nor did bigger people eat more.

Conclusion

Tracking how many bites you take in a minute will not decrease how many calories you eat unless you are purposely trying to slow down.

This study used 50% slower or less bites per minute, which worked out to about 15 minutes to eat around 400 kcal.

For some reason eating slower only works on people who eat more calories at a sitting. Maybe the people who normally eat less are able to feel full faster than those who eat more. We won’t know the exact reason until we do more studies.

On the other hand, if you want to eat more, try to double how many bites you take in a minute. (Or more. What the heck.)

There’s even a device that will track how many bites you’ve taken. You wear it on your wrist, and it detects when the wrist rolls — as an pattern of a bite. Maybe special forks will come out next.

Bottom-line

Eating slower is a simple way to reduce how many calories you eat in a meal. But you may struggle with slow eating if you don’t have a clear way to track it.

To slow yourself down, track how many bites you take in a minute. Next time you eat, try to cut that bite rate in half. At the very least, concentrating on how many bites you’re taking in a minute will make you more conscious of your eating.

For anyone who wants to gain weight try the opposite: Eat fast and be distracted when you eat.

References

1. Green GW, Andrade A, Melanson K,  Hoerr SL and. Kattleman K. Eating rate and body mass index in college students. J Am Diet Assoc, 108 (1995), pA-26.
2. Otsuka R, et al. Eating fast leads to obesity: findings based on self-administered questionnaires among middle-aged Japanese men and women. J Epidemiol. 2006 May;16(3):117-24.
3. Sasaki S, et al. Self-reported rate of eating correlates with body mass index in 18-y-old Japanese women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2003 Nov;27(11):1405-10
4. Takayama S, et al. Rate of eating and body weight in patients with type 2 diabetes or hyperlipidaemia. J Int Med Res. 2002 Jul-Aug;30(4):442-4.
5. Maruyama K, et al. The joint impact on being overweight of self reported behaviours of eating quickly and eating until full: cross sectional survey. BMJ. 2008 Oct 21;337:a2002. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2002
6. Andrade AM, et al. Eating slowly led to decreases in energy intake within meals in healthy women. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008 Jul;108(7):1186-91.
7. Spiegel TA, Wadden TA, Foster GD. Objective measurement of eating rate during behavioural treatment of obesity. Behavior Therapy. 1991. 22(1):61-67.

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Want to get leaner?

Many people think, “Sure, but that means I have to eat grilled chicken breast and broccoli every day while spending hours at the gym and living like a hermit. Bo-ring!”

I often get the impression that people think being lean, fit and following a healthy lifestyle means they’ll be chained to their kitchen and gym. That they can’t go out, spend time with their friends, or — most importantly — have any fun.

Well, first, take a look at Gourmet Nutrition to find more food options than chicken and broccoli. And check out our Lean Eating Coaching Program, which will teach you how to lose weight without putting your life on hold.

But even cooler than great food and learning how to become a ninja (well, almost), new research suggests that having a more stimulating environment (aka fun and games) may help you lose weight. The key is a very special type of fat called “brown fat.”

Between fat and flesh: Brown fat

Unlike white fat, which stores energy, brown fat burns energy like muscle. In the last few years researchers (including me) have figured out that brown fat is a lot more like muscle then we’d ever imagined… and it may increase your metabolism.

For years, everybody thought only babies had brown fat (see the slightly creepy Figure 1). Scientists assumed that as we got older we gradually lost all our brown fat, so by the time you get zits and stick up Justin Bieber posters, your brown fat is gone.

But in 2009, three separate groups published three separate papers at the same time in the New England Journal of Medicine proving adults have brown fat. Whoops!

Figure 1 – Regions of brown fat in infants

Why did it take three groups publishing three articles at the same time in the same journal? It took that much convincing, because in the modern medical universe, this was equivalent to Galileo to saying the earth revolved around the sun.

I actually reviewed one of the three breakthrough articles in a Research Review.

Since then, lots of researchers have tried to learn more about brown fat by asking questions like:

• Where is it?
• Who has it?
• How can we get more?

Brown vs. white fat

Brown fat is similar to white fat in its composition — both have triglycerides. Where the fats differ is their function and behaviour.

It’s a bit of an over-simplification to think of brown fat as good fat and white fat as bad fat, since having too much or too little of anything is a bad thing. Instead of thinking of good and bad, let’s think of heating (brown fat) and storage (white fat).

Brown fat uses fat to make heat. White fat uses fat for storage, insulation and cushioning.

Brown fat is similar to muscle because it breaks down fat and makes energy, but instead of using the energy to move (like in a muscle contraction), brown fat converts energy into heat.

Where is brown fat?

As you can see in Figure 1, most brown fat is between the shoulder blades, along the front of the neck and down the front of the chest to the belly button, with a bit around the kidneys.

Since the main function of brown fat is to keep us warm, it makes sense that it’s near the heart and kidneys, where a lot of blood passes to pick up heat. Think of your furnace and the vents leading away from it.

Another cluster of brown fat has been found intermixed with white fat in visceral fat. Yes, that visceral fat, the fat associated with all kinds of metabolic problems, can have metabolically active brown fat that actually protects us from metabolic disease (such as diabetes, heart disease, etc).

As an interesting aside, most methods of measuring body fat like hydrostatic weighing, DEXA and bioelectrical impedance can’t differentiate between brown and white fat. Skinfolds only measure white fat, since brown fat in humans is not in subcutaneous fat (fat under the skin). As you can see from Figure 1 above, brown fat tends to cluster deep in the body.

What activates brown fat?

Cold

In his book The 4 Hour Body, Tim Ferriss describes an apparently wacky regimen of self-cooling with cold baths and ice packs on his neck. Actually, he may have been on to something. Putting people (or animals) in a cold environment, as mild as 16°C (61°F), increases brown fat activity, metabolism and overall energy expenditure.

Sympathetic (β-adrenergic) stimulation

This is the fight or flight response that kicks in when you feel threatened. It’s part of the autonomic nervous system. It can also be artificially prompted by stimulants such as caffeine. However, before you start guzzling at the coffee pot, just be aware that nobody’s yet linked triple espressos to brown fat production.

…and play?

This week’s article looks at how an enriched environment — aka giving mice fun stuff to do — increases metabolism. Does play actually change the nature of fat? It sounds too good to be true.

Cao L, et al. White to brown fat phenotypic switch induced by genetic and environmental activation of a hypothalamic-adipocyte axis. Cell Metab. 2011 Sep 7;14(3):324-38.

Methods

Disclaimer: This study was done on mice, which is the best model we have right now for these type of studies. But we have to be careful about how we interpret the results. (Just like you shouldn’t run out and drink a venti Americano while rolling naked in the snow just yet, you probably shouldn’t immediately invest in a giant running wheel to improve your brown fat.)

Lab mice generally have a dull life.

They have a couple of siblings, as much water and mouse chow as they want, and maybe a toy like a ping pong ball, but things are pretty much the same, day in and out. They don’t even have Mouse TV where they could entertain themselves with shows like The Big Cheese or Trapped!

These mice were the tiresome, tedious controls. (Sorry about your luck, mice.)

Enriched environment

Researchers decided to create a party for one group of mice, by constructing an enriched environment.

The mice in the enriched environment lived in a bigger cage with running wheels, tunnels, igloos, hut, retreats, wood toys and a maze, but with the same number of mice (5/cage) as the control group.

Other groups included a third group that had a regular cage with a running wheel and nothing else different from the controls; and a fourth group that had an enriched environment but no running wheel.

So, to recap, we have:

• Group 1 Control: Boredom central, 5 mice per cage
• Group 2 Super-enriched environment: Party time, 5 mice per toy-filled cage
• Group 3 Running wheel only, 5 mice per cage
• Group 4 Enriched environment only (no running wheel), 5 mice per cage

Results

After four weeks in the enriched environment, the Group 2 mice were slightly lighter, but had nearly 50% less visceral fat compared to the Group 1 mice in the controlled environment. Wow!

Well, maybe the enriched environment group was too busy to eat and they just were taking in fewer calories. Nope. The enriched Group 2 ate more than the control group (about 2 grams less a day).

Compared to Group 3 with a running wheel, the Group 2 enriched environment mice still had less white fat, as measured by 3 abdominal regions (epididymal, inguinal and retroperitoneal fat), but with no difference in body weight.

Since both groups had a running wheel, could it be that the mice in the enriched environment liked running more than the running wheel group? Nope. The enriched group ran less (0.86 km/day) than the running wheel group (2 km/day).

When comparing Groups 2-4 (enriched, running wheel only, enriched but no wheel) to the control Group 1, all had less abdominal white fat. Both enriched groups had more brown fat in the retroperitoneal region (fat right behind the kidneys).

The stimulation of the enriched environment increases a specific brain protein (brain derived neurotropic factor; BDNF) that increased brown fat by activating the sympathetic nervous system.

Summary

An enriched environment with less routine and more mental stimulation improves metabolism through a pathway called the hypothalamic-sympathoneural-adipocyte axis.

Translation: An enriched environment increases a specific protein in the brain (BDNF) that activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) that increases brown fat in visceral fat. The increase in brown fat means a higher metabolism with less visceral white fat.

More stimulation, more BDNF, more brown fat, faster metabolism leads to less white fat.

Getting leaner and revving your metabolism could be as simple as having fun. Play yourself ripped. Cool.

After discovering that having a more stimulating environment helped fight obesity through increasing brown fat and metabolism, what did the researchers conclude?

That people should have more stimulating environments, or play more, to fight obesity? Nope. They figured that hopefully someday a drug could be found to activate the same pathway that an enriched environment does. Doh!

Well, you could wait around for a drug to activate your hypothalamic-sympathoneural-adipocyte axis pathway or you can try to live a more stimulating (not stressful) life.

Bottom line

A more stimulating environment — fun stuff to do — increases metabolism of mice and may do the same for people.

Right now scientists can’t say that a more stimulating environment will increase metabolism in people since they don’t have evidence from human studies, but this is a good “self-experiment”.

Try something different, exercise your brain, go somewhere new… hell, run through a maze on occasion. What’s the worst that could happen?

References

1. Virtanen KA, Lidell ME, Orava J, Heglind M, Westergren R, Niemi T, Taittonen M, Laine J, Savisto NJ, Enerbäck S, Nuutila P. Functional brown adipose tissue in healthy adults. N Engl J Med. 2009 Apr 9;360(15):1518-25. Erratum in: N Engl J Med. 2009 Sep 10;361(11):1123.
2. Cypess AM, Lehman S, Williams G, Tal I, Rodman D, Goldfine AB, Kuo FC, Palmer EL, Tseng YH, Doria A, Kolodny GM, Kahn CR. Identification and importance of brown adipose tissue in adult humans. N Engl J Med. 2009 Apr 9;360(15):1509-17.
3. van Marken Lichtenbelt WD, Vanhommerig JW, Smulders NM, Drossaerts JM,Kemerink GJ, Bouvy ND, Schrauwen P, Teule GJ. Cold-activated brown adipose tissue in healthy men. N Engl J Med. 2009 Apr 9;360(15):1500-8. Erratum in: N Engl J Med. 2009 Apr 30;360(18):1917.

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Protein powder is a staple for anyone trying to put on muscle. I know that some of you Scrawny to Brawny guys have giant paint-can-sized tubs of protein powder as furniture in your apartments. (Good for you! Keep eating!)

If you walk into most supplement stores you’ll find more brands, flavours and types of protein than you can imagine.  Of course, most people go with a powder that they can tolerate the taste of, since many brands taste remarkably bad (may we recommend a SuperShake instead?) However, which kind is best?

What is protein powder?

For starters, protein powder is simply processed, dried protein that’s convenient and portable. (For more on this, see All About Protein Powders.)  These powders can be extracted from all sorts of different foods, including:

• dairy (whey and casein)
• egg (whole egg or egg white)
• soy
• hemp
• pea
• even beef
• etc.

In 2004, dairy-based proteins were the major source of protein in sports supplements — about three-quarters. Soy proteins made up most of the rest.[1]  In recent years, plant based protein powders have become more common.  However, dairy proteins like whey and casein still make up most of the protein supplements on the market.

Whey protein powder — the most common form of dairy-based protein powders — is the liquid by-product of making cheese. Casein, on the other hand, is from the solid part of skim milk when treated with acid (like lemon juice). Casein is what you get when milk curdles —  it’s the curd part.

Dairy proteins (as well as egg protein) are considered complete proteins, since they have all essential amino acids in sufficient amounts. A few plant proteins, like hemp, are also complete, but have a lower total amount of protein.

Whey versus casein

Whey and casein have been a staple for bodybuilders for years. Each protein has unique characteristics. But which is better?  Well, just like comparing an economy car and a sports car, deciding which protein is better depends on the purpose of the protein.

In terms of similarities, both are complete proteins and both have identical Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Scores (PCDAAs; 1.00) [2].  So, to determine which is better, we have to dig deeper.

In terms  of differences, whey protein has more leucine, while casein is higher in glutamine (Figure 1). Whey is also absorbed much more quickly than casein.

Figure 1 - Concentrations of isoleucine, leucine, valine, glutamine and arginine in isolated soy protein (ISP), whey protein (WP) and casein. Values are grams per 100 grams of protein. Adapted from (2).

Leucine and glutamine in muscle protein synthesis

Leucine, uniquely, activates skeletal muscle protein synthesis through a series of molecular biology interactions similar to dominos, called the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Since leucine is a key amino acid for activating protein synthesis, and since whey has more leucine, it’s a good choice for building muscle mass.

Glutamine is also important in muscle protein synthesis. After exercise, glutamine is depleted in blood plasma and muscle. More muscle glutamine is directly correlated to higher muscle protein synthesis. Glutamine supplementation leads to more growth hormone, which has anabolic affects on muscle.

Absorption rates

The other difference between whey protein and casein protein is how fast the protein is absorbed, and for how long.

Researchers measure blood amino acids to figure out rate of protein absorption. Drinking whey protein causes increases in blood amino acids levels in under an hour, with peak levels at just under 90 minutes. Casein takes longer to increase blood amino acids, but lasts longer, with elevated levels lasting over 300 minutes [3].

Table 1 – Whey vs glutamine: Summary

Obviously, comparing whey and casein is complicated. You have different amino acids, different absorption and possibly different effects on the immune system.

How can you tell what really matters? One method is to keep all other conditions constant, then change one thing.

In this experiment, researchers used the same protein (constant), but adjusted how long it took for subjects to consume it (change one thing). Or as I like to call it, the chugging versus sipping experiment.

Today’s research question: Does rate of ingestion — and thus rate of absorption — change the effects of protein supplementation?

West DW, Burd NA, Coffey VG, Baker SK, Burke LM, Hawley JA, Moore DR, Stellingwerff T, Phillips SM.  Rapid aminoacidemia enhances myofibrillar protein synthesis and anabolic intramuscular signaling responses after resistance exercise. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Sep;94(3):795-803. Epub 2011 Jul 27.

Methods

Eight moderately active young men drank 25 grams of whey protein following leg extension strength testing (10 rep max) on two occasions.

• Trial 1: The men chugged the entire 25 grams at once
• Trial 2: The men drank 2.5 grams 10 times over 200 minutes (every 20 minutes they took a shot of whey), which mimics the slow but long absorption of casein.

Blood amino acid concentration and blood leucine was measured from blood samples. Muscle protein synthesis (fractional synthesis rate; FSR) was measured through a biochemical technique called isotope labeling.

Researchers also measured amounts of specific proteins involved in regulating muscle protein synthesis from muscle biopsies. A biopsy needle the size of the barrel of a pen is used to sample muscle from the outer quadriceps (vastus lateralis).

Results

Either chugging or shooting a total of 25 grams of whey protein both increased essential amino acids and leucine in the blood (Figure 2a & b).

Chugging (bolus) caused a higher peak level of essential amino acids and leucine compared to serial shooting (pulse) but after 5 hours it seems everything evens out. As Figure 2 below shows, chugging and shooting had the same effect on overall levels, based on area under the curve (AUC), which is a way of looking at levels over a period of time rather than just the peak.

Figure 2 - Average blood concentrations of a) essential amino acids and b) leucine after drinking whey protein all at once (BOLUS; 25 grams) or over 200 minutes (PULSE; 2.5 grams X 10 drinks every 20 minutes). From West DW et al. 2011 (Figure 2).

As interesting as blood leucine levels are, we really want to know what happens to protein synthesis in the muscle (aka myofibrillar protein synthesis). Figure 3 below shows the graph of protein synthesis. You can see that the drinking all the whey protein at once (bolus) increased protein synthesis more than spreading out the same amount of whey over 3 hours (pulse).

Figure 3 - Average myofibrillar protein synthesis rate (myofibrillar FSR) after fasting (fasted), BOLUS (1X 25 grams) or PULSE (2.5 grams X 10 drinks every 20 minutes) after exercise. From West DW et al. 2011 (Figure 4).

Conclusion

High peak levels of blood leucine and amino acids cause more muscle protein synthesis than blunted but longer elevated levels of blood leucine and amino acids.  So what does that mean for you?

If muscle building is your primary goal, try drinking a fast-digesting protein drink (with at least 25 grams of protein) within 15 minutes of exercising. If you really want to experiment you could drink a second fast-digesting protein drink 2 or 3 hours after the first. It could be that a second drink after blood amino acids are back to normal would cause more muscle protein synthesis by causing a second peak in blood leucine.

[Of course, this study doesn't directly suggest that casein or any other slow protein has no value.  After all, casein wasn't even used in this study.  Rather, the researchers tried to mimic casein's effects by slowing down the absorption of the whey protein.  In fact, slow digestion may be an asset during other times of the day.  However, after exercise, slow proteins might not be best.]

Now, if you can’t digest dairy, opt for lean proteins from whole foods, like eggs, seafood, or lean meats, and keep your post-workout fat intake low and carb intake high to speed absorption. Have some lean protein an hour or two before training as well, so that there are amino acids already starting to float around. If possible, eat your biggest protein meal of the day as soon as possible after heavy training.  Even throw in some BCAA (branched chain amino acids) during training.

Bottom line

Drinking 25 grams of fast-digesting whey protein, all at once and immediately after exercise, increases muscle protein synthesis more than drinking 25 grams of whey protein over 3 hours after exercise.

References

1. NBJ’s Sports Nutrition and Weight Loss Report 2007-2008. Nutrition Business Journal. Boulder CO. New Hope Natural Media, January 2008.
2. Paul GL. The rationale for consuming protein blends in sports nutrition. J Am Coll Nutr. 2009 Aug;28 Suppl:464S-472S. Review.
3. Boirie Y, Dangin M, Gachon P, Vasson MP, Maubois JL, Beaufrère B. Slow and fast dietary proteins differently modulate postprandial protein accretion. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Dec 23;94(26):14930-5.

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Ask your doctor what activity improves your health — whether that’s losing weight, fixing your cholesterol profile, or lowering blood pressure — and s/he’ll probably suggest some cardio.

Few health care providers assume that weight training will help, and figure that a good 30 minute jog 5 days a week is much better for your health.

This is particularly true with high blood pressure. In fact, many docs assume that lifting weights is dangerous for blood pressure. But today’s review suggests that weight training can actually help treat hypertension.

What is blood pressure?

Blood pressure is much like the water pressure in the pipes you have at home. It’s a measure of two things:

• the size/diameter of the “pipes”
• how much fluid is being pushed through those pipes.

High water pressure is good. But high blood pressure means vascular damage. It’s linked to stroke, heart disease and early death.

Measuring blood pressure

When you go to your doctor they’ll measure your blood pressure and give you two numbers — for example, “110/80″.

• The first and higher number is the systolic pressure — when your heart is contracting pushing blood out of your heart.
• The second and lower number is the diastolic pressure — when the heart is relaxed and blood is filling the heart.

All these numbers are in millimetres of mercury (mm Hg), the same way we measure other types of pressure like barometric pressure.

Normal and various levels of high blood pressure (hypertension) are shown in table 1.

Even if only one number is high, that can be a problem. For example, if your systolic is 130 (high) and your diastolic is 79 (low), that’s considered prehypertensive.

Table 1: Classification of blood pressure

For more on blood pressure, see All About High Blood Pressure .

Can weight lifting help?

It seems counter-intuitive that lifting weights could improve blood pressure, because blood pressure goes up during the actual weight lifting. This week’s review examines whether a weight training exercise plan can, in fact, help.

Moraes MR, Bacurau RF, Simões HG, Campbell CS, Pudo MA, Wasinski F, Pesquero JB, Würtele M, Araujo RC. Effect of 12 weeks of resistance exercise on post-exercise hypotension in stage 1 hypertensive individuals. J Hum Hypertens. 2011 Jul 7. doi: 10.1038/jhh.2011.67. [Epub ahead of print]

Methods

Participants

This study involved fifteen middle-aged (46 ±8 years old) men with high blood pressure, who exercised less than 2 hours a week. Any man taking medication for blood pressure stopped taking their medication 6 weeks before the start of the study.

Blood pressure

“High blood pressure” was defined as 140-159 mm Hg systolic and 90-99 mm Hg diastolic, or stage 1 hypertension, according to the American Heart Association (take a look at table 1). Anybody with serious medical issues was excluded.

Exercise

The exercise program was done three times a week with at least one day of rest in between (ex. Monday, Wednesday and Friday). It was based on 1 repetition maximums (1RM) from earlier testing and the volunteers did 3 sets of 12 reps at 60% of their 1 RM of the following exercises:

• leg press
• leg curl
• chest press
• lat pulldown
• shoulder press
• biceps curl
• triceps extension

Rest between sets was 1 minute and the exercises were not done in a circuit. All three sets were completed for one exercise before moving on.

Note that the study results only apply to this type of weight training.  The program’s main muscular adaptation were increasing muscular endurance with some hypertrophy (3 sets of 12 reps). Until more studies are done with different types of weight training programs, we can’t say if whether other types of programs — such as a low-rep/high-weight strength program — would also be useful.

Results

Body composition

After twelve weeks of working out, on average the men had no significant difference in body mass (88±16 kg to 87±15kg), but more fat-free mass (muscle is included) from 61 ± 9kg to 64 ± 10kg and less fat 27±9 to 23±8 kg (Figure 1). This worked out to a 4% decrease in body fat (30 to 26% body fat) with no difference on the scale.

Figure 1: Fat-free (lean) mass and fat mass pre- and post-training

On average, the men ended up with:

• 3 kg (6.6 lb) more lean mass (likely muscle, water and glycogen)
• 4 kg (8.8 lb) less fat
• 4% less body fat
• 1 kg (2.2 lb) in total body weight

Not bad — with no change in diet these guys lost about a third of a kilogram of fat a week (0.55 lb).

Did I mention the scale is a bad way to measure changes in body composition?

Blood pressure

More lean mass and less fat is nice, but not the point of the study. The question was: Does weight training improve blood pressure in middle aged men with high blood pressure?

The answer to that is yes, weight training improves blood pressure.

Both systolic and diastolic went down after 12 weeks on the program, 16 and 12 mm Hg, respectively (Figure 2). The decrease was enough to shift the group average from being stage 1 hypertension (150/93) to pre-hypertension (134/81).

Figure 2 - Change in blood pressure with 12 weeks of weight training

Conclusion

Twelve weeks of weight training, 3 times a week decreases blood pressure in middle aged men (46 years old) with high blood pressure.

The average systolic reduction was 16 mm Hg, which is about as good or better as any other lifestyle change (see Table 2).

Since a 20 mm Hg increase in systolic blood pressure doubles the risk of ischemic heart disease and stroke, then decreasing systolic blood pressure by almost 20 mm Hg (16 mm Hg) with weight training, you can decrease your risk by half.

Table 2: Lifestyle modifications to prevent and manage hypertension [1]

Generally, if a patient’s blood pressure is more than 20 mm Hg higher than the normal range (i.e., over 140 mm Hg) they’re given two drugs or a combination drug (here’s a rundown). So, these men have two options:

• Option A: work out for a little over 2 hours/week with a bunch of positive side effects like having more muscle and less fat, getting stronger, stress relief (which also lowers blood pressure) and looking better naked.
• Option B: take costly medication with potential negative side effects like coughing, dizziness, changes in flavour of foods, and constipation.

It’s a pretty clear choice, I’d say.

Bottom line

Weight training alone can decrease blood pressure in middle aged men with high blood pressure enough to decrease risk of heat disease (ischemic) and stroke by nearly half.

If you’re concerned about your blood pressure, consider a good fitness program — including weight training — before trying medication.

References

1. Chobanian AV, Bakris GL, Black HR, Cushman WC, Green LA, Izzo JL Jr, Jones DW, Materson BJ, Oparil S, Wright JT Jr, Roccella EJ; Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure. Seventh report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National High Blood Pressure Education Program Coordinating Committee. Hypertension. 2003 Dec;42(6):1206-52. Epub 2003 Dec 1.

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Some tragedy has befallen you. It could be a speeding ticket or the loss of a loved one. You reach for comfort food. Whether it’s fried chicken, donuts, or a tub of ice cream, comfort foods are usually high in fat, and they make you feel better.

Do you really feel better? Why?

Our “second brain”

Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that handles the “back-end”, non-thinky, “body maintenance” tasks, like breathing, digestion, regulating your heart rate, and so forth.

• The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is our “fight/flight” (or “feed and breed”) department. It responds to immediate threats and cues from our environment.
• The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is our “rest and digest” department. It keeps the system steady, orderly, and tidy.

If our body were a car, the SNS would be the gas pedal, and the PNS would be the brake.

About 60 years ago scientists discovered a third part of the autonomic nervous system: the enteric nervous system (ENS).

With 100 million neurons, the ENS has more nerve cells than your spinal cord. It’s even called the second brain because it’s so big and complicated, and because its role is so important.

Where could such a complicated neural organ be?

Look down. It’s right there behind your bellybutton. More accurately, it’s in the layers of tissue that make up your GI tract. (Gives new meaning to the term “navel-gazing”, doesn’t it?)

Yup, your stomach actually does have a mind of its own. Originally scientists thought all these nerves were sending information from the brain to your gut, but 90% of the neurons of the primary visceral nerve connecting your gut are sending info to the brain from the gut.

Gut-brain communication & emotion

Cool factoid! Our GI tract controls and regulates much of our immune system health. More banally, the gut sends info about sensations like pain, discomfort, nausea, hunger and fullness.

Scientists now think that these gut sensations get perceived as (or, in fact, are an essential part of the experience of) emotional pain, depression, fatigue, anxiety, disgust, cravings, pleasure, and a sense of well being. In other words, we really do have “gut feelings”.

Gut nerves are involved in experiencing emotion. For instance:

• You get “butterflies” in your stomach when you’re stressed or worried.
• You feel nauseous or have to run to the bathroom before you have to give a speech.
• You get a “gut feeling” about situations or people.

Indeed, anti-depressant medications may actually be working more on the gut more than the brain.

Most anti-depressants block serotonin-reuptake to increase serotonin, but since 95% of the body’s serotonin is in the gut, it’s possible that their main effect is on the GI tract. (This also explains why depression and anti-depressant medications affect appetite, or perhaps why people describe depression as feeling “empty”.)

Disease and the brain-gut interaction

Many chronic health problems, such as anorexia nervosa, obesity, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)  may involve breakdown of the brain-gut interaction. IBS patients had greater activation in specific brain regions, higher emotional arousal and more cortical modulation when their GI tract was distended.

And researchers are now observing connections between gut health and mental illnesses or altered cognition. For instance, children with autism also often suffer from food intolerances, especially gluten. Food intolerances also appear more often in schizophrenics. Intriguing links indeed!

One factor in obesity may be decreased gut signalling to the brain. Insulin, ghrelin, and leptin are proteins secreted by the gut that can stimulate the central dopamine  system.

Since obesity is linked to decreased sensitivity from the reward of food, it could be the gut is making less dopamine triggering proteins. Problem is, we don’t yet know which happened first: the obesity, or the decreased satisfaction from eating.

Research question

This week’s review explores how the gut-brain connection relates to emotions and comfort food.

Can what you eat make you feel better… even if you can’t taste it?

Van Oudenhove L, McKie S, Lassman D, Uddin B, Paine P, Coen S, Gregory L, Tack J, Aziz Q. Fatty acid-induced gut-brain signaling attenuates neural and behavioral effects of sad emotion in humans. J Clin Invest. 2011 Jul 25. pii: 46380. doi: 10.1172/JCI46380. [Epub ahead of print]

Methods

Twelve volunteers with normal BMIs got four separate MRIs after not eating for 12 hours. Here’s the setup:

1. Before each MRI, researchers asked participants how hungry and/or full they felt.
2. A feeding tube was inserted into the volunteers’ stomachs.
3. Participants were put into the MRI, and the scanner started.
4. Participants either listened to sad music and looked at sad faces, or listened to neutral music and looked at neutral faces, for 33 minutes.

Three minutes after starting the music, researchers fed either fat (in the form of dodecanoic acid) or very dilute salt water (0.9% saline) through the feeding tube for 2 minutes, for a total of 250 mL (about a cup).

Then at 15 minutes and 30 minutes after the feeding, volunteers were asked how hungry or sad they felt on a scale from 1 to 9 (1 being not hungry/full at all). Sadness was also measured on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 being very happy and 1 being very sad.

Each volunteer ended up getting 4 scans in total:

1. Neutral emotions, no fat
2. Neutral emotions, with fat
3. Sad emotions, no fat
4. Sad emotions, with fat

Fat type

One really interesting, and probably important, point is that the type of fat may be relevant. Researchers used a very specific type of fat, dodecanoic acid, that is saturated and found in coconut oil, palm oil and some milks.

Recent research is suggesting that naturally occurring saturated fats have positive effects on mood and cognition. It could be that cutting out saturated fat too aggressively might actually affect our mood — and that a little bit of healthy saturated fat could keep us feeling groovy.

Results

Overall, when people were sad they were also hungrier. It didn’t matter if they were getting fat or salty water pumped into their stomachs.

Gee, this might explain people’s compulsion to reach for a tub of ice cream or fried chicken when they’re sad. They’re just hungry.

Or it there more to it?

Emotions and fat

There are a few key findings here.

1. You feel emotions as hunger. People’s perceptions of hunger and fullness changed with their emotions. Sad people were hungrier.
2. Fat somehow makes you feel less hungry when you’re sad. When people were sad and were given fat, they were less hungry than sad people who got salty water.
3. This occurs even if people can’t taste the fat. Remember: volunteers were fed via feeding tube. So any change in hunger wasn’t happening because of the taste of fat. Something is happening in the GI tract to make this work.
4. This only works if people are sad. When people weren’t sad, getting fat or salt water didn’t change how hungry they were. This means that it’s not just the fat calories or fat itself that matter — it’s the combination of sadness and fat intake.
5. If you’re sad, getting fat makes you less hungry, but when you’re not sad, getting salt water makes you less hungry. Weird.

MRI: Your brain on fat

Researchers used the MRI to look at changes in blood flow as the subjects experienced emotions and either fat or saline intake.

The researchers figured that based on the effects of fatty acids on gut-brain communication, certain areas of the brain might get more or less blood as a reaction to fat and emotion. Indeed, several areas had changes in blood flow with the combination of sadness + fat:

• medulla/pons;
• midbrain;
• hypothalamus;
• thalamus;
• right hippocampus;
• mid-cingulated cortex; and
• posterior cingulated cortex.

Don’t worry about the specific brain parts. There won’t be a test. The important point is that these changes in blood flow with emotion and fat intake were measurable.

Conclusion

For me there are two take home messages from this study:

1. Food and emotions play off one another.
2. Your body is smarter than you think.

The study was designed to figure out if fat could change people’s mood. But what they really wanted to know if whether fat could make people feel less sad.

We don’t know yet whether other fats (e.g. other types of saturated fats, or non-saturated fats such as oils) would have the same effect.

I’m always suspicious of things that try to trick your body, such as low-fat foods. Indeed, research suggests that people feel less satisfied with fake versions of the real thing, and end up eating more anyway.

Based on this study and others, not only do you need to fool your tongue into thinking it’s getting fat, but also your small intestine. Hmm… not sure how that market research will play out.

Bottom line

You feel emotions as hunger (or fullness). When you feel sad, you’ll feel hungrier.

Eating fat will make you feel less hungry and even less sad.

Before you think this is an excuse to chow down on tubs of chocolate ice cream when you’re feeling sad, it’s not. First, there are many healthy sources of saturated fat, including:

• raw coconut
• avocado
• eggs
• grass-fed/pastured meats and high-fat dairy

Look for naturally occurring saturated fats without sugar added.

Second, this knowledge is empowerment, so you don’t reach for comfort food, but rather deal with the underlying sadness (or any other emotion).

Examine how you feel emotions in your body. Next time you have a craving, ask yourself what emotion you might be experiencing.

Be proactive: Learn to identify what you’re feeling first, before you reach for that soothing fat. And remember, exercise is also a great anti-depressant!

References

1. Mayer EA. Gut feelings: the emerging biology of gut-brain communication. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2011 Jul 13;12(8):453-66.
2. Gershon MD. Developmental determinants of the independence and complexity of the enteric nervous system.Trends Neurosci. 2010 Oct;33(10):446-56.
3. Näslund E, Hellström PM. Appetite signaling: from gut peptides and enteric nerves to brain. Physiol Behav. 2007 Sep 10;92(1-2):256-62.
4. Gibson EL. Emotional influences on food choice: sensory, physiological and psychological pathways. Physiol Behav. 2006 Aug 30;89(1):53-61.

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My nearly two-year-old daughter is asking for her “deeacheh.” Again. She’s licked the spoon clean from her daily dose of berry-flavoured DHA (a type of omega-3 fatty acid).

Mommy. De-ach-eh.

Giving her omega-3 fatty acids to help her brain development seemed like a good idea until she started outsmarting me.

Last night she figured out that screaming directly into her baby monitor makes mommy run in really fast to see what’s going on.

I open the door to see her looking over at me with a very satisfied look on her face. She’s standing over the monitor that is on a nightstand, behind a Kleenex box and across the room from where I last left her. Success!

I’m just waiting for a “10-4 mommy” over the monitor just before some kind of Great Escape.

Why fat is important

In the decade of big hair and bigger shoulder pads the 80s were also big on low-fat or even better no-fat. Fat was bad and hair spray was essential.

Now we know better: Some fats are essential, and hair spray has its problems.

Fat actually does things in your body. Important things that let you live. Some major functions of fat include:

• providing energy
• carrying fat soluble nutrients like vitamin E
• helping with hormone synthesis and signalling
• making up your cells’ membranes
• making up your brain and much of your nervous sytem

Fat types

There are three major types of fat that occur in nature:

• saturated
• monounsaturated
• polyunsaturated

A fourth type of fat, trans fat, appears naturally in small amounts. Any industrially created versions should be avoided.

All naturally occurring fats are important. For more on fats, check out:

• All About Bad Fats
• All About Healthy Fats
• The F-Word

Fatty acids

Dietary fats and oils are made up of fatty acid molecules. Three fatty acids plus a glycerol molecule makes a fat molecule (aka triglyceride).

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) include omega-3 fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids and omega-9 fatty acids.

Out of polyunsaturated fats comes a further subgroup: essential fatty acids. Essential fatty acids are two specific types of omega-3 and -6 fatty acids: alpha-linoleic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid, respectively. They are essential because your body needs them, and can’t make them from other fats.

Omega-3s

Omega-3 fatty acids seem to be the most important of the fatty acids, but this is probably because most of us don’t eat enough omega-3 fatty acids in our daily diets.

Omega-3 fatty acids do many good things in our bodies, including:

• reducing inflammation
• reducing cardiovascular disease
• improving insulin sensitivity (great news for type II diabetics)
• improving cognitive (brain) development

EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) seem to be the most biologically important omega-3 fatty acids. ALA can be converted into EPA, and EPA can then be converted into DHA, but it seems your body can’t make a lot of DHA.

Fish oil

Where does fish oil fit in? As the name suggests, it’s oil from fish, in the same way that olive oil is oil from olives. Generally, fish oil you get from the store comes from oily fish like anchovies, mackerel or sardines. Fish oil is special — it’s a good source of EPA and DHA.

For more on this, see:

• All About Fish Oil
• Research Review: How Do Omega-3 Fatty Acids Work?

Omega-3s and protein synthesis

Protein synthesis is the process of (re)building new proteins from amino acid “building blocks”. Protein synthesis is an important part of building lean mass — for instance, in bone and muscle tissue.

This week I’m reviewing two studies done by the same researchers looking at omega-3 fatty acids. Can o-3 supplementation help us build bigger muscles by affecting protein synthesis?

Smith GI, Atherton P, Reeds DN, Mohammed BS, Rankin D, Rennie MJ, Mittendorfer B. Dietary omega-3 fatty acid supplementation increases the rate of muscle protein synthesis in older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Feb;93(2):402-12. Epub 2010 Dec 15.

Smith GI, Atherton P, Reeds DN, Mohammed BS, Rankin D, Rennie MJ, Mittendorfer B. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids augment the muscle protein anabolic response to hyperinsulinaemia-hyperaminoacidaemia in healthy young and middle-aged men and women. Clin Sci (Lond). 2011 Sep 1;121(6):267-78.

Methods

In these two studies, researchers studied the effects of omega-3 supplementation on protein synthesis in people ranging from 40s to 70s.

Measuring protein synthesis

How the heck do you measure muscle protein synthesis?

By intravenously giving a specific amino acid (phenylalanine) with one slightly heavier hydrogen that lets you track the amino acid you’ve added. Think of it as a little flag on your amino acid. By tracking how quickly the flagged phenylalanine (and its byproducts) move throughout the body, you can estimate the rate of protein synthesis.

Insulin and other unlabelled amino acids were also infused to make sure that insulin and amino acids weren’t limiting protein synthesis.

Omega-3 supplementation

Total omega-3 supplementation was 4 g of Lovaza/day, which contains 1.86 g EPA and 1.50g of DHA for 8 weeks. By the way, Lovaza is produced by a pharmaceutical company, and requires a prescription.

The two studies are pretty much the same with two important differences:

• age of the volunteers; and
• using corn oil (an omega-6) as a placebo.

In the first study, the average age of the volunteers was 71, and half the volunteers got corn oil (omega-6) supplements instead of omega-3s. In the second study, subjects were on average 40 years old, and got no placebo.

Results

In the first study using older volunteers, omega-3 supplementation increased protein synthesis rates more than corn oil (when given insulin and amino acids).

Great, but does this only happen in older adults who have more inflammation and are anabolic resistant (in other words, who don’t respond as strongly to anabolic stimuli like more dietary protein)? And could the results really mean that corn oil depresses protein synthesis (instead of meaning that omega-3s improve it)?

In the second study with younger volunteers (40 years old) and no placebo, the results were the same – increased protein synthesis.

Conclusion

Omega 3 fatty acids, at 4 g/day, improved muscle protein synthesis in older and younger volunteers after 8 weeks of supplementation while insulin and amino acids were given intravenously.

After the original study was done, everybody concluded that somehow the affect of omega-3 fatty acids on protein synthesis in older adults had to be indirect.

Older adults tend to have more inflammation and are less sensitive to amino acids so it made sense that omega-3 fatty acids would reduce inflammation and increase sensitivity to amino acids, and that would increase protein synthesis. But the second study challenged that idea.

Since younger adults shouldn’t have that much inflammation, and they shouldn’t be resistant to amino acids, then supplementing with omega-3 fatty acids shouldn’t increase protein synthesis, based on the conclusions from the first study, but it does.

A more practical question is: Does increased protein synthesis in these studies mean more slabs of muscle?

Hard to say, since there was no exercise in these studies, so this is without any exercise effect. And without infusion of insulin and amino acids there was no effect of omega-3s.

It’s going to take few more years to figure out whether omega-3 fatty acids really can help you gain muscle, but with so many other known benefits, omega-3s are worth taking anyway.

Bottom line

Take omega-3 fatty acids. They decrease inflammation, prevent cardiovascular disease, improve brain function and immune health, and now they might even help you gain muscle by increasing muscle protein synthesis.

And for all the Scrawny to Brawnies out there: Listen to Coach Paul and Coach Chuck when they tell to take your fish oil.

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I usually ask about their workouts and diets. They’re exercising regularly, and eating healthy.

Then I ask about how much they sleep they get, and if they are feeling stressed.

Turns out they sleep fewer than 4 hours a day and have stress oozing from their eyeballs. I suggest they sleep more, take yoga, and meditate. They snort with laughter.

Stress makes you a warrior! Sleep means quitting your job and becoming a hippie! I can’t sleep eight whole hours! I have Things To Do! I have to have a 50-child, 3-story-cake, 2-clown, 1-pony, birthday party for my 1 year old. What kind of parent would I be if I didn’t?

Sleep hygiene

I’ve been lucky enough to sleep well, but my family is littered with insomniacs. Some have underlying physiological issues, while most just have terrible sleep hygiene.

Sleep hygiene is a set of habits you have around sleep. You can’t just sit in bed watching your favorite program while drinking a big cup of coffee one minute and expect to nod off the next… or even in the next hour. You need to set up an environment to facilitate sleeping. You need to chase sleep.

Here is a list of good sleep hygiene practices.

1. Don’t consume caffeine, cigarettes, and other stimulants (such as decongestants) late in the day. Many folks find that any caffeine after noon is a problem.
2. Don’t drink alcohol in the evening. It sedates you at first, but then screws up your sleep rhythm, leading to worse sleep.
3. Keep a regular sleep schedule. Go to bed and get up at roughly the same time.
4. Exercise regularly, but not too close to bedtime. Save the tough, adrenaline-pumping workouts for earlier in the day.
5. If you do nap, don’t do it for too long or too late in the afternoon.
6. Actively address relaxation — don’t just expect it to happen. Build relaxation practices into your day.

I’ve found that I can strength train closer to bedtime without affecting my sleep, but after any type of metabolic training (circuit, soccer, basketball, intervals, or general aerobics) I need to give myself 4-6 hours to unwind.

Other practices I recommend:

1. Turn of your computer, TV, cell phones, and any other devices with a screen at least an hour before bed.
2. Don’t watch TV in bed. (FYI: TV kills your love life too.)
3. Get up at the same time every day (including weekends).
4. Take a warm bath before you go to bed.
5. Keep your home a degree or two cooler at night.
6. Keep your room really dark, or use a sleep mask to block out any light.

You think these recommendations are too restrictive and crazy? With a few exceptions (such as regular bathing), nearly all of these habits happened normally as a part of life up until about 100 years ago.

Dark. Check.

No TV. Check.

No Starbucks or Diet Coke. Check.

Go to sleep and get up at the same time. Check (sunset and sunrise).

Cooler home at night. Check. (Fire goes out.)

For more on sleep, check out All About Sleep.

Research question

Good sleep hygiene, obviously, includes reducing stress and screen time (i.e. computers, TV, etc.).

Stress and screen time are closely linked with sleep. After all, most people will say they don’t sleep well because they’re stressed, and/or because they’re doing other things before bed — usually playing on Facebook or video games, checking their work email, or watching telly. Too much stress and screen time usually leads to poor sleep.

This week’s review asks: Can you “sleep yourself skinny”? How do stress and screen time affect weight loss?

Elder CR, Gullion CM, Funk KL, Debar LL, Lindberg NM, Stevens VJ. Impact of sleep, screen time, depression and stress on weight change in the intensive weight loss phase of the LIFE study. Int J Obes (Lond). 2011 Mar 29.

Methods

Over 470 (n=472) obese volunteers with body mass indices (BMI) between 30-50 were in this study. Everybody was given a list of 8 targets for the 6 month “weight loss intervention”.

These targets were:

1. Eat about 500 fewer calories per day than you currently are eating.
2. Eat a healthy, low fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
3. Exercise at a moderate intensity most days.
4. Increase your activity until you’re exercising 30-60 min most days and at least 180 min/week.
5. Record everything you eat and drink every day.
6. Record your minutes of exercise every day.
7. Set short-term goals and create action plans to reach your goals.
8. Attend all group sessions.

The participants met weekly for 90 minutes in groups for 20-25. Group leaders did exercise and nutrition demonstrations, and taught skills such as problem solving, social support, relapse prevention planning, calorie awareness, and goal-setting.

This is one of a few studies I’ve seen that tries to get the volunteers involved in the process by using goal setting, action plans, and daily self records. Being involved in the process usually leads to better long term results. At some point these volunteers will be on their own. If they don’t have skills to deal with that, they will find it tough to succeed.

Results

I’m not a fan of only measuring weight loss (instead of fat loss) in exercise and diet studies because as many of you know, your scale lies. Some days it tells you you’ve gained 5 pounds after being 100% compliant, while other days you’ve lost 5 pounds after eating bonbons and lying on the couch.

Only once in my life have I dropped a significant amount of weight, and that was nearly all muscle. I actually ended up with a higher percent body fat, even though I was lighter. Not so good. Usually I can drop 5% of body fat with no change in weight or even a slight increase.

The scale measures so much more than fat. It measures water, glycogen, muscle and even yesterday’s supper that hasn’t quite made it through you. Gee, most of those things go up and down way faster than fat.

Why do researchers use scales for these weight loss studies if weight isn’t a good way of measuring fat loss?

There are a few reasons. Some are practical, and some come down to what is accepted.

To measure body fat with accuracy you need time and someone well-trained. Actually, you need time, someone well-trained, and expensive equipment. Cheaper methods of assessing body fat, like skin folds, can be embarrassing for volunteers, which usually means fewer volunteers.

In comparison, to measure body weight, you need a scale.

Last — and this may sound a bit cynical — weight has been used for a long time to measure the effectiveness of diet and exercise programs, so researchers know that they’ll be able to publish studies using weight as the only measure. Why bother spending more money and time at the risk of getting fewer volunteers?

In this study, participants lost 6.3 kg (13.9 lb) of weight. (But had they measured body fat, researchers would likely have seen more actual fat pounds lost and muscle pounds gained.) That works out to about 0.26 kg or 0.58 lb per week.

Not very impressive. Using the PN weight loss calculator (using the average start weight of 104.1 kg, 24 weeks and selecting female) you’d expect to lose 14 kg. That’s more than double the weight participants lost in this study.

Sleep, stress and screen time: Factors in weight loss

Most weight loss plans focus on two things: exercise and nutrition. This study focused on sleep, stress and screen time.

Sleep

Setting the bar pretty low, the researchers decided that losing 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in 6 months was “weight loss success”. (We can do a lot better than that here at PN. Check out what the men and women in Lean Eating have been able to do!)

Based on that measure of “success”, the amount of sleep someone got was a pretty good predictor of weight loss. Using statistical analysis (logistic regression using quadratic trend) there was a significant correlation (p=0.035).

What does that mean? There seems to be an optimal amount of sleep (between 6 to 8 hours a day) that is related to weight loss success.

But there are two things you should keep in mind: First, this is only a relationship — not a cause — and second, sleeping more isn’t necessarily better.

We do know that sleep and weight loss are related. However, this study only looked at correlation, not causation. It could be that people who sleep more than 6 hours but less than 8 hours are physiologically more capable of losing weight. We can’t say that sleep is causing the weight loss, just that the two are related.

Before you decide to take a long nap to help you lose those last stubborn 10 pounds, more doesn’t necessarily mean better. Getting more than 8 hours of sleep a day actually reduces weight loss success. However, again, this may be correlated to other factors, such as depression (which can lead to overeating), general inactivity, etc.

Stress

All the volunteers answered a questionnaire (Perceived Stress Scale; PSS) to figure out their stress levels. The higher the score, the more stressed each volunteer felt they were, with 40 being the highest score.

After some statistical analysis the researchers found that a higher score in PSS predicted less weight loss. More starting stress predicted less weight loss, but just like the hours of sleep, we can’t say that more stress directly causes less weight loss. It could be that stressed people just happened to be genetically predisposed to being stressed and struggle with weight loss. Or perhaps people who are stressed are more likely to get takeout food as they burn the midnight oil at the office. This study just shows us a relationship; not the exact mechanism.

Screen time

I figured hours of screen time (TV and computer screens) was going to be a big factor in predicting weight loss, but this study showed no correlation. (However, other studies have found a strong connection between time spent sitting and fat loss — overall daily movement is still a significant factor.)

The researchers even looked at hours of screen time during work days compared to days off, to see if maybe one correlated to weight loss. Really, if you work all day in front of a computer and then spend all your off hours physically active, then screen time isn’t necessarily going to correlate to weight loss.

I was surprised that most people reported workday screen hours of only 1-5 hours per day. In an office job (aka sitting in front of a computer most of the day) I’d think you’d get to 7 hours of screen time at work, plus an hour or two at home.

Since the population was on average 55 years old, with 25% of the participants over 65 years old, it may be that either they have jobs that don’t require being in front of a computer or they’re retired. Either way this age group may not get enough screen time to affect weight loss, but that’s another study.

Weight loss: changes in stress

Losing weight had the added bonus of reducing stress scores — or is it that reducing stress caused more weight loss?

After 6 months on the program, the volunteers retook the PSS test. Researchers found that weight change and changes in stress scores were correlated (again no proof that one caused the other). More stress usually meant less weight lost. Volunteers who gained weight also had higher stress scores after the study. Weird thing, was volunteers who lost more than 20 kg had no change in stress scores.

Conclusion

There is an optimal amount of sleep related to weight loss and in this study it falls between 6-8 hours of sleep. Keep in mind that as you age you generally need less sleep and the average age for these volunteers was 55 years old. If you’re younger or working out, you’ll need more.

Less stress is also related to more weight loss. Decreased stress is related to decreased weight in this study. People who reduced stress while losing weight had better weight loss. Gee, reducing stress may be as important as reducing calories.

While this study didn’t prove that optimal sleep and no stress cause more weight loss, it’s something you can optimize. You can improve sleep hygiene, meditate and prioritize sleep and relaxation.

After all, think about it: Is more stress actually good for you? Is less sleep good for you? Is more screen time good for you? I think most of us would agree that the answer to all of those questions is no.

What’s the worst that can happen if you add a little more sleep? You miss watching a few hours of TV or lose the sleep deprivation competition at work.

Here’s a fun little talk from Adrianna Huffington about sleep. While the talk is for a female audience, I think it applies to everyone.

Maybe sleeping more will help you do more.

Bottom line

People who don’t sleep much, and people who are stressed out, lose less weight.

For good health and to help weight loss, get 6-8 hours of sleep — more if you’re working out (7-9 hours).

Actively pursue relaxation — make relaxation techniques part of your day. And quit watching the darn TeeVee before your eyes go square.

References

1. Vgontzas AN, Kales A. Sleep and its disorders. Annu Rev Med. 1999;50:387-400. Review.

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