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.
art.in.mind.jpg

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.

Sounds too good to be true? A new desk created at the Mayo Clinic in the US is basically a desk placed on top of a treadmill. An overweight worker would lose over 60 pounds if he or she used the desk-treadmill all day every day for a year. If that isn’t multitasking, what is? The price tag is pretty high, the desk will be sold for about 1600 USD. It’s now up to you to convince your boss of the importance of this new technology. Good luck.

The article:

Could work actually make you fitter? You might think it unlikely as you sit in your office slumped in front of your computer, but a new desk designed at the Mayo Clinic could give you a proper work out.

The U.S. medical practice have built what they called a “vertical workstation” — a desk fitted over a standard treadmill.

They persuaded 15 obese people to work at this treadmill-desk and measured how many calories they burned.

If an overweight office worker used this vertical workstation all day, every day for a year, he or she could lose up to 66 pounds, the researchers report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Click here for full article.

We all know how much television influences people. From the extremely skinny models, to the perfect looking actresses, and the unbelievable weight loss programs. Two contestants of the TV show “The Biggest Loser”, in which participants battle each other to lose as much weight as possible, warn people with weight problems that they shouldn’t try to emulate what happens on the show as it’s an unrealistic way to lose weight. As with everything, a weight loss plan needs to be realistic and offer the possibility to actually reach your goals. Starting with a weight loss schedule that is too hard to achieve will make you feel bad once you realize it’s utopia.

The article:

TWO contestants on The Biggest Loser have warned dieters they are destined to fail if they try to emulate the weight-loss techniques portrayed on the show.

It comes after the top-rating Channel Ten series was slammed by Food & Nutrition Australia (F&NA) last week for promoting an unrealistic weight-loss regime.

NSW contestants Kelly Donaghy Lewis and Mel Russell agree it would be impossible to maintain the diet and exercise program they undertook.

“We’re under extraordinary circumstances in there,” Ms Russell said. “I always tell people you can’t expect to lose the amount of weight we lost on the show. All we did was train 24/7. Who in normal life can fit in four hours of training a day?

Click here for full article.

There is lots of research being down in recent years to what stimulates weight loss, mostly because the weight loss market is huge and worth billions of dollars in Europe and the US. This month’s issue of Journal of the American Dietetic Association will feature an article by researchers about the effect of Soy products on weight loss. To put it short : The researchers were unable to find a link between Soy products and weight loss. There was no difference in weight loss between the group of people that were fed extra soy and the ones that did not.
They did find that a diet rich in soy lowers Insulin levels and fights bad cholesterol.

The article:

Eating soy-rich foods won’t help you lose weight faster, say researchers presenting their findings in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Their new study, completed at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, shows overweight women who cut 500 calories a day from their diet and added soy-protein-rich foods every day for 12 weeks did not lose any more weight than women who did not eat extra soy.

Authors note previous research suggests adding soy to the diet can enhance weight loss. And the FDA approves health claims eating 25 grams of soy protein a day as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol can reduce the risk of heart disease.

Click here for full article.