My Weight Loss Blog

It has happened to me many times. I lose a nice amount of kilograms and then 2 years later it’s all back! It’s got to be the most frustrating thing ever. You know you worked hard to lose that weight. Most dieters will recognize this problem. What is interesting is that new research shows our brain plays a crucial part in keeping the excess weight away from our body.

Here is part of the article:

In the battle against fat, the heroes achieve what most of us only long for — lasting weight loss. They’re so unusual, they’ve become the subjects of ongoing research by scientists trying to finger just what it is that makes them stand out from the rest of dieting humanity.
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The project is called the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) and was created in 1993 by researchers at Brown University and the University of Colorado in the face of the well-known and defeating statistic: Ninety-five percent of dieters gain their weight back.

Registrants — some 4,500 — must have dropped at least 30 pounds and kept them off for a year or more, though the average member has lost twice that much and maintained it for about five years.

In one of the latest studies, Inga Treitler, Ph.D., a cultural anthropologist, and a fellow researcher intensely interviewed and observed 10 of the registrants, focusing not on what they ate or did for exercise but on how they lived — the books they read, the photos they kept, their pets, careers, friends and hobbies — before and after the weight loss. The question, again, was basic: What had enabled them to triumph where so many others falter?

Click here for the FULL ARTICLE.

A newly published study in the respectable Nature Medicine looked at the effects of stress on weight gain in mice.
It says that a chemical messenger called neuropeptide Y is turned on by stress. This “messenger” can be found in human fat. It increases appetite, causing you to eat more, resulting in an increase in weight. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Neuropeptide Y appears to be a very important factor in weight gain, as researches were able to disable it and noticed a dramatic decrease in fat generation even under stress. We are all under stress at times, it’s definitely good to try to “cheer up” – not just for psychological reasons as the article notes.

Does emotional stress make you fatter or thinner? Both. It appears that short-term, acute stresses may help you lose weight, whereas chronic stresses cause you to put on pounds, especially around your belly, where it’s most harmful.

A new study published this week in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine looked at the effects of stress on weight gain in mice. Investigators reported that chronic emotional stress turns on a peptide (chemical messenger) called neuropeptide Y, which is found in body fat. This hormone increases appetite, especially for carbohydrate-rich foods. It also causes your body to convert these calories into belly fat, a double whammy.

What’s especially interesting is that chronic stress alone didn’t have much effect on weight gain in only two weeks, nor did a high-fat, high-sugar diet. However, combining both together was especially toxic and markedly increased abdominal fat deposits in only two weeks.

CLICK HERE for the full article.