water fast, day 7 of 7 -- over!

Well, this was weird -- breaking the fast was a huge letdown.
I had a little trepidation about breaking it because I didn't really want to -- if I had more time I'd have gone on for a few more days. I'm enjoying the emotional/spiritual element a lot, the feeling of peace and contentment and stability. I don't want to let that go! Alas, duty calls, and starting tomorrow I need to be responsible and engaged with other people. And won't be able to lay down every time the mood strikes me.
Previously my first taste of juice has given me a huge appetite and has been hugely enjoyable! This time the juice tasted ok and I had just one glass of it diluted with water and had no urge for more.
I've been a little nauseous all day and perhaps I've interrupted some healing process. Still nauseous now. I've read that fasts should be broken when you're feeling well rather than poorly.
On the flip side, it's great to stand up without getting low-blood-pressure blurry vision! Even from the one glass of juice I was able to walk home (from a friend's who has a juicer) at a normal pace and without resting. Yesterday I was moving at... shall we say... a dignified saunter.
I hope to do another fast of this type soon, maybe in a few months, as my schedule permits.
I've found a bunch of protocols for breaking a fast but the basic idea seems to be that since the stomach has stopped producing enzymes, start with small amounts of easily digested food and work up from there, giving the stomach time to catch up. This ends up meaning 1 or 2 days of juice, another 1 or 2 days of juice + juicy fruit, a couple days of juicy fruit + raw veg salads, then start adding small amounts of nuts. They say this will lead to regaining the least amount of weight -- a definite goal of mine! I lost a bit over 10 lbs and I'm feeling more like "me" than ever before -- this is a weight I'd be comfortable at.
I've been reading a lot about "raw foodism" and I'm pretty intrigued. I think I'll give it a try for a while to see how it goes. A basic diet of fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, unprocessed. It seems to fit my mental/emotional state right now.
Hope all is well with everyone out there!
Cheers :)

water fast, day 5 of 7

The end of the fast is in sight! Just another couple of days.
Breaking the fast is almost a fast in itself (a few days of fresh juice and juicy fruit) so I'm starting to plan for that.

Start: 155. Now: 146.2. Loss: 8.8 lbs.
Physically, some tummy rumbling today, odd since the gut should be clear by now. Feeling lazy but when I do decide to get moving I find that energy appears. Period seems to be heavier and longer than usual – womb cleaning itself out too? Stomach feels smaller – feel full after a few sips of water. Had some stevia-flavored sparkling water, that I would usually down a liter with no problem, and I’ve sipped on perhaps a third of it – will leave the rest for later. Though I know much of the weight loss is temporary I'm enjoying being thinner for a few days!

Mentally I feel incredibly clear and aware. I find I'm avoiding stimulation in general, especially ads and shopping that encourage people to consume (food or purchases). I'm even taking a break from some of my more high-energy friends -- don't want to deal with their drama right now.

Emotionally I've been feeling centered and extremely calm; neither joyous nor irritated but with a deep sense of contentment. Issues that I usually avoid or find difficult to deal with are less scary and seem to resolve themselves, perhaps thanks to an increased sense of clarity.

Extending the fasting period… day 3 of 7

So I’ve been chillin’ at about 155 for six or eight months now. My goal is still between 145-150, but these last 10 lbs have been a chore. To recap my eating habits, I’m vegetarian, no processed sugar or flour, and I eat for a 5-hr window in the afternoon or evening. I run 3-4 times per week.
The leap from a 19-hr fast to a 40-hr fast hasn’t been too hard, as I’m fasting one day per week now (10pm Friday to 3pm Sunday, for example, fasting all day Saturday).

So now I’m making the leap from one day per week to a one week fast!

This isn’t my first ‘long’ fast but it’s been a couple of years, so I wasn’t sure how the experience would go. I’ve been feeling generally good except for a bit spacey and physically tired. Any “hunger” I’ve had has just been the habit of eating at a certain time and I’m not getting any detox headaches or bad breath. (I’d like to think that’s because of a generally good diet?) I was noticing that the skin on my abdomen is much warmer than the rest of my body; something going on I guess. During my last long fast I remember continually checking up on myself, how I was feeling, what symptoms were showing. This time around it’s much easier mentally, knowing what to expect. I have to travel tonight unfortunately but after tomorrow I’ll be able to relax at home with no major outside demands on my time or energy.
My goal is to water fast for 7 days and to at least get into under-150 territory so my body can see what it feels like. However much I lose, I expect to gain about half of it back within a week or so as my glycogen stores recover. I’m not fussed about exact pounds lost or number of days fasted though – I’ll see how it goes and break it earlier if that seems to be in order.
Other goals: reach that state of goofy, beaming well-being that longer fasts bring! And hopefully some of my nagging injuries will heal up; I’ve got a wrist thing and an ankle thing right now.
And in strict honesty I’m not drinking only water. I’ve had herbal tea (decaf) and a couple sticks of sugarless gum. Not ideal, but the small cheats are helping me through! (Plus, without gum my ears pop on airplanes.)
Best wishes to everyone out there who's sharing this journey!
Cheers

mmmm... potable water!

I just spent two months backpacking in a developing country. I took my first real break from my strict eating patterns in the 18 months since I've started no sugar/no flour and fast-5. My eating window expanded to about 8 hours, I ate white rice (or I'd have starved!), sugar (three or four times), and refined wheat (two times).

Results:

I blessedly was able to maintain my weight without too much fuss! :) At 153 now. In the past when I've traveled like this, budget backpacker style, I've always lost weight from the usual rigors and stresses of the road. This time I'm happy with just not gaining, especially since I didn't think about my food much. I used to feel "thin" at this weight but my body has settled in and I feel normal; I'm hoping that this is just a long plateau and my body will be ready to go down another 5 lbs soon.

I discovered I'm actually allergic to wheat. Perhaps because I hadn't eaten it in so long I was quite sensitive, and both times within half an hour of eating it I felt my throat swell and increased mucous, leading to a really annoying post-nasal drip for a few days. Both occasions were at people's homes where I didn't feel comfortable enough to refuse kindly offered home-made food. Really reinforced that 'no wheat' is the best policy for me, and whenever I can I'll avoid it completely.

Regarding sugar, the first time I had a local sugar-sweetened drink I was ready to climb the walls, fidgety and chatty and unable to stop my foot from tapping. The next time the effect was less. I get habituated waaaay too quickly.

Foodwise, the most exciting thing about returning to the US is being able to consume uncooked veggies (mmmmm salad!), unskinned fruit (mmmmm apples!), and tap water.

Blessings on good municipal sewage systems. :)

Steady as she goes

Maintaining at 155. Would like to drop 5 lbs more but haven't figured out how yet... My body is still reconfiguring itself, though the weight is staying stable.

30 lbs down! (again!) and new goal

I've re-achieved my 30 LB milestone! I'm happy to be headed in the right direction again. Daily weigh-ins are really useful to me -- so much so that I brought a digital scale with me on this business trip. It holds me accountable. Oddly, I feel "thinner" this time than last time I hit this weight 3 months ago.
As strange as this feels to write, I'm really pretty happy with my weight. I'm going to lose another 5-ish lbs and then maintain in the 145-150 lb range. I can't wait to see "149" on the scale -- for the first time in my adult life!
Hope everyone out there is doing well!

Back on the path

After realizing that I'd back-slid (is that a word?) and gained back about 5 lbs, I got back into this and started controlling my portions better. A week of reasonable eating and I'm back just under 155 lbs. The constant discipline must be good for my immortal soul, as my mother would say, but it's more than a bit challenging. Every single day, finding the motivation to put away the snacks is hard. Relaxing those rules, as I did for weeks, was "easier" mentally but made me unhappy and I felt bad physically. So the effort really is worth the reward.
I read a study claiming that a 4-year old's ability to delay gratification is an excellent predictor of future educational, professional and social success. I need to learn some things from those kids! :)

Up again

I'm back up to 157, same weight as 3 months ago.
Not happy!!

Emotional eating, processed foods

I've been keeping to my window for the last month or so but eating like there's no tomorrow. And -- no surprise -- always feeling uncomfortably full. Having a hard time limiting my eating though. It's all emotional. I'm on a long business trip with no scale and I'm looking forward to being home and able to weigh in again. It keeps me honest.

Changing the subject -- How is it that processed food tastes horrible at first, but better and better the more you eat it? I've had this experience with diet coke. I don't drink soda now but, during the long process of weaning myself off it, I remember drinking it after a week or two without it and noticing how horrible and chemical it tasted. Then, by the time I'd finished the bottle, I'd want another one.

Great story about depression, emotional eating and processed foods here at Slate.com. All three go together, at least for me.

"I started wondering if maybe those Snackwell cookies would taste better with a glass of milk. It didn't matter really. I wasn't going to have any more. Definitely not. I found myself in front of the fridge pouring a glass of milk. I lifted a cookie from the box and dipped it into the glass of milk. The chocolate coating resisted absorption. I bit into it and dipped again. This time the milk infused the dry innards and, yes, it was decidedly palatable. Each cookie tasted a little less terrible than the one before. I carried the box of cookies and the carton of milk back into the living room."

"You can’t love something that owns you."

Full article here.

“Food has now become a burden to us,” he said. “A lot of people don’t look forward to life anymore. They just look forward to food. People tell me, ‘But I love food.’ And I tell them, ‘You can’t love something that owns you.’ ”

Bigger Breakfast, Bigger Daily Calorie Count

I knew it!!!!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/health/research/01diet.html?_r=1

NYTimes story

VITAL SIGNS
Diet: Bigger Breakfast, Bigger Daily Calorie Count
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: January 31, 2011
Dieters are sometimes told to have a substantial breakfast, because it reduces the amount of food consumed during rest of the day. Not so, a new study reports.
German researchers studied the food intake of 280 obese adults and 100 of normal weight. The subjects kept records of everything they ate over two weeks, and were carefully instructed about the importance of writing down what they ate as soon as they ate it.
For both groups, a large breakfast simply added to the number of daily calories they consumed. Whether they ate a large breakfast, a small one or none at all, their nonbreakfast calorie intake remained the same.
The study, published in Nutrition Journal, found that the foods most often responsible for the variations in daily calories were among the morning’s favorites: bread, eggs, yogurt, cheese, sausages, marmalade and butter.
This may mean that exactly the opposite of the commonly offered advice is correct: A smaller breakfast means fewer daily calories consumed, not more.
“Whenever someone comes to me for dietary advice and says, ‘I never eat breakfast,’ I say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” said the senior author, Dr. Volker Schusdziarra, a professor of internal medicine at the Technical University of Munich. “Eating breakfast is just added calories. You’ll never compensate for them at subsequent meals.”

Why the scales can lie

I found this article here on an Atkins forum. There is no specific research cited but... it seems reasonable. :) It does describe my own uneven weight loss pattern. How about others? Opinions?



WHY THE SCALES CAN LIE:

We've been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don t understand what s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

A biologist at Berkeley shared something very revealing on the low-carb BBS system about 4 years ago that helps us all through the erratic weight fluctuations you invariably encounter:

"Fat cells are resilient, stubborn little creatures that do not want to give up their actual cell volume. Over a period of weeks, maybe months of "proper dieting", each of your fat cells may have actually lost a good percentage of the actual fat contained in those cells. But the fat cells themselves, stubborn little guys, replace that lost fat with water to retain their size. That is, instead of shrinking to match the reduced amount of fat in the cell, they stay the same size! Result - you weigh the same, look the same, maybe even gained some scale weight, even though you have actually lost some serious fat."

This is what we have been telling folks. You lose inches but not pounds because your body plumps the fat cells. I tell them it is a complicated biochemical process that your body replaces the fat molecules with water and fluids until you exceed your bodies predetermined fluid level. Then your body will release a chemical that releases all this stored water and you get a sudden overnight loss of several pounds. Then the cycle starts over again with inches gone and the scales lag behind.

The good news is that this water replacement is temporary. It's a defensive measure to keep your body from changing too rapidly. It allows the fat cell to counter the rapid change in cell composition, allowing for a slow, gradual reduction in cell size. The problem is, most people are frustrated with their apparent lack of success, assume they have lost nothing, and stop dieting. However, if you give those fat cells some time, like 4-6 months, and ignore the scale weight fluctuations, your real weight/shape will slowly begin to show.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That s why, when it comes to eating, it s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it s associated water. It s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It s the actual weight of everything you ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale s sneakiest attribute. It doesn t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn t necessarily mean that you ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you re just sitting around. That s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn t differentiate between the two. It can t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn t appeal to you, don t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It s a matter of mind over scale.

by Renee Cloe,
ACE Certified Personal Trainer

Obesity research roundup

The National Affairs blog does a wonderful job of listing current sociological research publications. His recent one on weight has some fascinating abstracts... I'm reposting the whole post below.
A few caught my particular attention:

Yes, processed food makes you fat: Does consumption of processed foods explain disparities in the body weight of individuals? The case of Guatemala

Yes, you really can self-medicate (de-stress) with sugar: HPA axis dampening by limited sucrose intake: Reward frequency vs. caloric consumption

The SAD (standard American diet) may make us stupid as well as fat: Western diet consumption and cognitive impairment: Links to hippocampal dysfunction and obesity

Being around fat peers increases likelihood of weight gain; thin peers decrease that likelihood: Peer Effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Non-calorie sweeteners are bad -- they confuse the body: Intake of High-intensity Sweeteners alters the Ability of Sweet Taste to Signal Caloric Consequences: Implications for the Learned Control of Energy and Body Weight Regulation

Original post at http://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/pre-existing-condition

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Pre-existing Condition

Eating for Pleasure or Profit: The Effect of Incentives on Children's Enjoyment of Vegetables

Lucy Cooke et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract:
Parents commonly use rewards to encourage children to eat healthfully, but this practice remains controversial because rewards are suspected of undermining children's intrinsic motivation. A cluster-randomized trial examined children's acceptance of a disliked vegetable over 12 daily taste exposures. These exposures were paired with a tangible reward, a social reward, or no reward, and the findings were compared with the results from a no-treatment control condition. Liking and intake of the vegetable were assessed in a free-choice consumption task at preintervention, postintervention, 1 month after intervention, and 3 months after intervention. Liking increased more in the three intervention conditions than in the control condition, and there were no significant differences between the intervention conditions. These effects were maintained at follow-up. Children in both reward conditions increased consumption, and these effects were maintained for 3 months; however, the effects of exposure with no reward became nonsignificant by 3 months. These results indicate that external rewards do not necessarily produce negative effects and may be useful in promoting healthful eating.

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How Does the Business Cycle Affect Eating Habits?

Dhaval Dave & Inas Rashad Kelly
NBER Working Paper, December 2010

Abstract:
As economic expansions raise employment and wages, associated shifts in income and time constraints would be expected to also impact individuals' health. This study utilizes information from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (1990-2007) to explore the relationship between the risk of unemployment and the consumption of various healthy and unhealthy foods. Estimates, based on fixed effects methodologies, indicate that a higher risk of unemployment is associated with reduced consumption of fruits and vegetables and increased consumption of "unhealthy" foods such as snacks and fast food. In addition to estimation of the average population effect, heterogeneous responses are also identified through detailed sample stratifications and by isolating the effect for those predicted to be at highest risk of unemployment based on their socio-economic characteristics. Among individuals predicted to be at highest risk of being unemployed, a one percentage point increase in the resident state's unemployment rate is associated with a 2-8% reduction in the consumption of fruits and vegetables. The impact is somewhat higher among married individuals and older adults. Supplementary analyses also explore specific mediating pathways, and point to reduced family income and adverse mental health as significant channels underlying the procyclical nature of healthy food consumption.

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Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?

Michael Anderson & David Matsa
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2011, Pages 152-188

Abstract:
While many researchers and policymakers infer from correlations between eating out and body weight that restaurants are a leading cause of obesity, a basic identification problem challenges these conclusions. We exploit the placement of Interstate Highways in rural areas to obtain exogenous variation in the effective price of restaurants and examine the impact on body mass. We find no causal link between restaurant consumption and obesity. Analysis of food-intake micro-data suggests that consumers offset calories from restaurant meals by eating less at other times. We conclude that regulation targeting restaurants is unlikely to reduce obesity but could decrease consumer welfare.

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Peer Effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Olga Yakusheva, Kandice Kapinos & Marianne Weiss
Economics & Human Biology, forthcoming

Abstract:
This study investigates the importance of peer effects in explaining weight gain among freshman college students. We exploit a natural experiment that takes place on most college campuses in the US - randomized roommate assignments. While previous studies suggest that having an obese spouse, friend, or sibling increases one's likelihood of becoming obese, these social interactions are clearly non-random. We collect data from female students living on campus at a private Midwestern university at the beginning and end of their first year of college. Our findings suggest that the amount of weight gained during the freshman year is strongly and negatively correlated to the roommate's initial weight. Further, our analysis of behaviors suggests that female students adopt some of their roommates' weight-loss behaviors which cause them to gain less weight than they otherwise would have. In particular, we find evidence that this effect may be through influences in eating, exercise, and use of weight loss supplements.

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Western diet consumption and cognitive impairment: Links to hippocampal dysfunction and obesity

Scott Kanoski & Terry Davidson
Physiology & Behavior, forthcoming

Abstract:
Intake of saturated fats and simple carbohydrates, two of the primary components of a modern Western diet, is linked with the development of obesity and Alzheimer's Disease. The present paper summarizes research showing that Western diet intake is associated with cognitive impairment, with a specific emphasis on learning and memory functions that are dependent on the integrity of the hippocampus. The paper then considers evidence that saturated fat and simple carbohydrate intake is correlated with neurobiological changes in the hippocampus that may be related to the ability of these dietary components to impair cognitive function. Finally, a model is described proposing that Western diet consumption contributes to the development of excessive food intake and obesity, in part, by interfering with a type of hippocampal-dependent memory inhibition that is critical in the ability of animals to refrain from responding to environmental cues associated with food, and ultimately from consuming energy intake in excess of that driven solely by caloric need.

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Intake of High-intensity Sweeteners alters the Ability of Sweet Taste to Signal Caloric Consequences: Implications for the Learned Control of Energy and Body Weight Regulation

Terry Davidson, Ashley Martin, Kiely Clark & Susan Swithers
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:
Recent results from both human epidemiological and experimental studies with animals suggest that intake of non-caloric sweeteners may promote, rather than protect against, weight gain and other disturbances of energy regulation. However, without a viable mechanism to explain how consumption of non-caloric sweeteners can increase energy intake and body weight, the persuasiveness of such results has been limited. Using a rat model, the present research showed that intake of non-caloric sweeteners reduces the effectiveness of learned associations between sweet tastes and postingestive caloric outcomes (Experiment 1) and that interfering with this association may impair the ability of rats to regulate their intake of sweet, but not nonsweet, high-fat and high-calorie food (Experiment 2). The results support the hypothesis that consuming noncaloric sweeteners may promote excessive intake and body weight gain by weakening a predictive relationship between sweet taste and the caloric consequences of eating.

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The Dieter's Paradox

Alexander Chernev
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:
Despite the vast public policy efforts to promote the consumption of healthy foods and the public's growing concern with weight management, the proportion of overweight individuals continues to increase. An important factor contributing to this obesity trend is the misguided belief about the relationship between a meal's healthiness and its impact on weight gain, whereby people erroneously believe that eating healthy foods in addition to unhealthy ones can decrease a meal's calorie count. This research documents this misperception, showing that it is stronger among individuals most concerned with managing their weight - a striking result given that these individuals are more motivated to monitor their calorie intake. This finding has important public policy implications, suggesting that in addition to encouraging the adoption of a healthier lifestyle among overweight individuals, promoting the consumption of healthy foods might end up facilitating calorie overconsumption, leading to weight gain rather than weight loss.

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Does consumption of processed foods explain disparities in the body weight of individuals? The case of Guatemala

Abay Asfaw
Health Economics, February 2011, Pages 184-195

Abstract:
Overweight/obesity, caused by the ‘nutrition transition', is identified as one of the leading risk factors for non-communicable mortality. The nutrition transition in developing countries is associated with a major shift from the consumption of staple crops and whole grains to highly and partially processed foods. This study examines the contribution of processed foods consumption to the prevalence of overweight/obesity in Guatemala using generalized methods of moments (GMM) regression. The results show that all other things remaining constant, a 10% point increase in the share of partially processed foods from the total household food expenditure increases the BMI of family members (aged 10 years and above) by 3.95%. The impact of highly processed foods is much stronger. A 10% point increase in the share of highly processed food items increases the BMI of individuals by 4.25%, ceteris paribus. The results are robust when body weight is measured by overweight/obesity indicators. These findings suggest that increasing shares of partially and highly processed foods from the total consumption expenditure could be one of the major risk factors for the high prevalence of overweight/obesity in the country.

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Assessment of Community Food Resources: A Latino Neighborhood Study in Upstate New York

Maria Lopez-Class & Akiko Hosler
Journal of Poverty, October 2010, Pages 369-381

Abstract:
This study aims to assess availability, affordability, and accessibility of food items in a low-income Latino neighborhood within a small city using an on-site food store survey. Store locations were identified by on-site Global Positioning System. Results showed the Latino neighborhood had limited availability and above-average cost of high-fiber bread. Fresh vegetables were more expensive compared to the non-Latino neighborhood, and more stores in the Latino neighborhood participated in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Food Program. The lack of supermarkets, fewer stores with disability access, and the lack of public transportation left Latino residents without a vehicle or with physical disabilities with few food shopping options.

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The Effects of Hurricane Katrina on Food Access Disparities in New Orleans

Donald Rose et al.
American Journal of Public Health, forthcoming

Abstract:
Disparities in neighborhood food access are well documented, but little research exists on how shocks influence such disparities. We examined neighborhood food access in New Orleans at 3 time points: before Hurricane Katrina (2004-2005), in 2007, and in 2009. We combined existing directories with on-the-ground verification and geographic information system mapping to assess supermarket counts in the entire city. Existing disparities for African American neighborhoods worsened after the storm. Although improvements have been made, by 2009 disparities were no better than prestorm levels.

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Alternative Thinking about Starting Points of Obesity: Development of Child Taste Preferences

Bettina Cornwell & Anna McAlister
Appetite, forthcoming

Abstract:
Food marketers are at the epicenter of criticism for the unfolding obesity epidemic as societies consider banning advertising to children and taxing "junk" foods. While marketing's role in obesity is not well understood, there is clear evidence that children are regularly targeted with calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food. Much of the past research seeks to understand how marketing influences brand preference and child requests. The authors argue that understanding palate development offers new insights for discussion. Two studies consider whether a sugar/fat/salt (SFS) palate is linked to children's knowledge of food brands, experience with products, and advertising. In study 1, the authors develop a survey measure of taste preferences and find that a child's SFS palate (as reported by parents) relates significantly to children's self-reported food choices. Study 2 examines how knowledge of certain branded food and drinks is related to palate. Findings show that children with detailed mental representations of fast-food and soda brands - developed via advertising and experience - have higher scores on the SFS palate scale.

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Stress augments food ‘wanting' and energy intake in visceral overweight subjects in the absence of hunger

Sofie Lemmens et al.
Physiology & Behavior, forthcoming

Abstract:
Stress may induce eating in the absence of hunger, possibly involving changes in food reward, i.e. ‘liking' and ‘wanting'. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of acute psychological stress on food reward, and on energy intake, in visceral overweight (VO) vs. normal weight (NW) subjects. Subjects (27 NW, age = 26 ± 9 yrs, BMI = 22 ± 2 kg/m2; 15 VO, age = 36 ± 12 yrs, BMI = 28 ± 1 kg/m2) came to the university twice, fasted, for either a rest or stress condition (randomized cross-over design). Per test-session ‘liking' and ‘wanting' for 72 items divided in six categories (bread, filling, drinks, dessert, snacks, and stationery (control)) were measured twice, each time followed by a wanted meal. Appetite profile (visual analogue scales, VAS), heart rate, mood state and level of anxiety (POMS/STAI questionnaires) were measured. High hunger and low satiety (64 ± 19, 22 ± 20 mmVAS) confirmed the fasted state. Elevated heart rate, anger and confusion scores (p ≤ 0.03) confirmed the stress vs. rest condition. Consumption of the first meal decreased hunger, increased satiety, and decreased ranking of ‘liking' of bread vs. increased ranking of ‘liking' of the control (p < p =" 0.01).">

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Staying on and getting back on the wagon: Age-related improvement in self-regulation during a low-calorie diet

Marie Hennecke & Alexandra Freund
Psychology and Aging, December 2010, Pages 876-885

Abstract:
In the present study, we investigated whether self-regulation improves across adulthood, especially regarding the mastery of setbacks and failure in an important health-related behavior, namely, staying on a low-calorie diet when overweight. Overweight women (N = 126; 19-77 years of age, M = 47.2) filled out weekly questionnaires on the outcomes of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive self-regulation during a dieting program; outcomes included deviations from the diet, weight loss, affect, and rumination. Confirming hypotheses, multilevel analyses revealed that - even after controlling for prior dieting attempts - age was associated with better self-reported self-regulation (i.e., fewer deviations from the diet, lower disinhibition and rumination after failure, and higher affective well-being) but not with more weight loss. Results suggest that self-regulation improves with age and shows positive effects on subjective indicators of successfully coping with setbacks but does not directly influence the target-outcome weight loss.

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Effect of street connectivity and density on adult BMI: results from the Twin Cities Walking Study

Kelsey McDonald, Michael Oakes & Ann Forsyth
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, forthcoming

Background: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the US population has risen dramatically in recent years. To try to explain this, some studies have examined the association between the built environment and obesity (measured using the body mass index (BMI)). Most of these studies have not sought to identify causal effects, but rather correlations.

Methods: Data from the Twin Cities Walking Study were used to examine the effect of population density and block size on BMI. Although the Twin Cities Walking Study is a cross-sectional observational study, the matched-sampling design is novel in that it maximises environmental variance while minimising person variance to enhance exchangeability of subjects and more closely mimic an experimental study.

Results: Contrary to expectations, the hypothesised most walkable neighbourhood (high density, small block stratum) had the greatest mean and median BMI. After adjusting for demographic covariates, physical activity and clustering due to neighbourhood, no conclusive effect of population density by block size on BMI was found (β=-1.024, 95% CI -2.408 to 0.359).

Conclusion: There is no evidence of an effect of population density by block size on BMI.

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Caloric Restriction Experience Reprograms Stress and Orexigenic Pathways and Promotes Binge Eating

Diana Pankevich et al.
Journal of Neuroscience, 1 December 2010, Pages 16399-16407

Abstract:
Long-term weight management by dieting has a high failure rate. Pharmacological targets have focused on appetite reduction, although less is understood as to the potential contributions of the stress state during dieting in long-term behavioral modification. In a mouse model of moderate caloric restriction in which a 10-15% weight loss similar to human dieting is produced, we examined physiological and behavioral stress measures. After 3 weeks of restriction, mice showed significant increases in immobile time in a tail suspension test and stress-induced corticosterone levels. Increased stress was associated with brain region-specific alterations of corticotropin-releasing factor expression and promoter methylation, changes that were not normalized with refeeding. Similar outcomes were produced by high-fat diet withdrawal, an additional component of human dieting. In examination of long-term behavioral consequences, previously restricted mice showed a significant increase in binge eating of a palatable high-fat food during stress exposure. Orexigenic hormones, melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) and orexin, were significantly elevated in response to the high-fat diet only in previously restricted mice. Furthermore, administration of the MCH receptor-1 antagonist GSK-856464 [4-(4-ethyl-5-methylsulfanyl-1,2,4-triazol-3-yl)pyridine] significantly reduced total caloric intake in these mice during high-fat access. These results reveal reprogramming of key central pathways involved in regulating stress responsivity and orexigenic drives by moderate caloric restriction experience. In humans, such changes would be expected to reduce treatment success by promoting behaviors resulting in weight regain, and suggest that management of stress during dieting may be beneficial in long-term maintenance.

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HPA axis dampening by limited sucrose intake: Reward frequency vs. caloric consumption

Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, Michelle Ostrander & James Herman
Physiology & Behavior, forthcoming

Abstract:
Individuals often cope with stress by consuming calorically-dense, highly-palatable "comfort" foods. The present work explores the stress-relieving properties of palatable foods in a rat model of limited sucrose intake. In this model, adult male rats with free access to chow and water are given additional access to a small amount of sucrose drink (or water as a control). A history of such limited sucrose intake reduces the collective (HPA axis, sympathetic, and behavioral-anxiety) stress response. Moreover, the stress-dampening by sucrose appears to be mediated primarily by its rewarding properties, since beneficial effects are reproduced by the noncaloric sweetener saccharin but not oral intragastric gavage of sucrose. The present work uses an alternate strategy to address the hypothesis that the rewarding properties of sucrose mediate its stress-dampening. This work varies the duration, frequency, and/or volume of sucrose and assesses the ability to attenuate HPA axis stress responses. The data indicate that HPA-dampening is optimal with a greater duration and/or frequency of sucrose, whereas increasing the volume of sucrose consumed is without effect. This finding suggests that the primary factor mediating stress-dampening is the number/rate of reward (i.e., sucrose) exposures, rather than the total sucrose calories consumed. Collectively, these data support the hypothesis that stress relief by limited palatable food intake is mediated primarily by its hedonic/rewarding properties. Moreover, the results support the contention that naturally rewarding behaviors are a physiological means to produce stress relief.

By KEVIN LEWIS | 09:00:00 AM

Happily ever after?

Once upon a time, a beautiful young woman was unhappy. She was... shall we say... big boned, or rounded at the corners. She looked high and low for a way to lose the weight. She exercised, she ate low fat, she tried to eat low calorie but hated being hungry, she ate high fat (Shangri La diet), she obsessed, she became envious of her thin sister and friends, she became accustomed to avoiding mirrors and ducking out of photos.
And then, one day, she realized she had passed from "normal" to "overweight" on the BMI charts. She did not like this. She redoubled her efforts, she researched, she read online. She found Dr. Herring and Gary Taubes and Dr. Lustig. She experimented with her diet. She changed her eating patterns completely, adopted a new a lifestyle! She eliminated sugar and flour, and her pooch started to flatten. She started Fast-5, and her arms gained definition. Her face thinned, her eyes brightened, her smile widened, her hipbones peeked out from their chubby obscurity.
And she and her lifestyle lived happily ever after.
Not.
It's never over!
Unfortunately or fortunately, I'm not sure which, staying on this program requires constant attention. It certainly gets easier with time but it's never over. I suppose it's like a relationship -- you settle into a routine but it still takes energy. And we all know that Hollywood endings don't exist.
This musing is brought on by a two-month plateau. I think it's just a normal plateau, prolonged because I switched from an evening to a morning window for 10 days (external circumstances) and the switch back and forth made my appetite skyrocket. I'm four pounds up from my low, which was about three weeks ago. I'm working on getting back on track but it feels a little like starting over from scratch. On the plus side, I'm still 154 lbs instead of 183 lbs, as I was this time last year. That really is something to be happy about!
Sigh. Back to work.

Resolution - How to eat

I've completely changed WHAT and WHEN I eat over the past year. Now I'm starting to think about HOW.
This NYTimes Well article about "distracted eating" made me realize that, when I eat alone, I always read a book or news or listen to NPR or watch Netflix. I never sit down, with no distractions, to enjoy my food.
According to the article: "Not only were distracted eaters worse at remembering what they had eaten, but they felt significantly less full just after lunch, even after the researchers controlled for height and weight. And at the taste-test session a half-hour later, they ate about twice as many cookies as those who had lunch without playing games."
Also, I eat very quickly, probably because I barely chew. I'm always the first one done at the table.
Today I ate dinner alone at home. I tried sitting down with no distractions, no book, no phone, no computer, to enjoy a nice leisurely meal.
Wow, boring.
Every two or three bites I would reach for my smartphone or remember something I wanted to jot down. I wasn't able to sit and eat a whole meal. My compromise was to stop eating when I turned on the computer, then take breaks (and turn the screen off) every now and then to eat.

So, that's my New Year's resolution: learn to eat without distractions, and chew my food well. Even though it's a bit of a mental challenge right now, it feels right. Slowly but surely I can do this.

Do whatever you want to be good at

A wise person once told me...

"Do whatever you want to be good at. This is doubly true if you're bad at it now."

True for everything from handstands to eating right to maintaining relationships.
Just do it! Practice makes perfect.
Whenever I have an idea about something I'd like to do, I tend to research and analyze and discuss and research some more. It's good to be informed, but the best thing would be do TRY TO DO IT. And when I fail, TRY AGAIN.
Do you want to be good at handstands? Go hold one against the wall, now. Want to be good at eating right? Plan your menu for tomorrow, and stick to it. Want to be in a loving relationship? Show your partner some love, now. And do everything again tomorrow.
I have trouble with this because, well, if I'm bad at something, that thing is usually hard for me. And I'm lazy. I don't want to do hard things. But they get easier as you do them; it's never as hard as the first time.

I was thinking about this because I'm really nitpicky about waiting till 5pm exactly to eat. It's a small and arbitrary thing, but sticking to it gives me a real satisfaction. It might not be worth anything in the real world, but gosh darn it, I'm good at it! And I'll keep doing it. :)