What influences our success and failures?
At the recent Harvard review course on newer concepts of obesity management, I heard from a variety of speakers including:
• PH.D researchers on the hormones that influence our hunger and metabolic control centre of the brain
• Exercise physiologists who have decades of experience in developing sustainable programs for exercise both for health and weight maintenance
• Psychologists who have studied behaviours of eating and ways we might help people overcome the addictive nature of food
• Surgeons who are developing innovative ways to alter the way food stimulates hormone receptors in the upper small bowel
• Specialists in nutrition who collectively are saying "it's not about calories” , "it's the way certain foods affect gut hormones which ultimately affect insulin levels or stimulate receptors in the brain to decrease hunger and increase metabolism , or the opposite”.
All to say: "It's complicated”. Now throw in our busy lives, stress at work and home, sleep, pain, T.V., IPads, smart phones and you can see how we have reached a perfect storm of weight gain and difficulty losing, and even more difficulty keeping that weight loss off and never regaining.
That we, as human beings are driven hormonally to store fat ‘for the next famine', is a given. Our DNA or regulatory hormones have not changed for thousands of years. We must find the inner fortitude to resist the excess cheap food that is available. Although temporarily pleasurable, it will only lead to excess weight gain. It means saying ‘no' to desert. Possibly there was a time in the not distant past when our lives were much more active and we were walking more, playing more, sleeping more, and relaxing more. Then that dessert wouldn't have had much of an impact. Now, we sit, and sit, and sit; possibly we go to the gym 3 times per week, but the rest of the time we are pretty sedentary.
A lot of people do not have a ‘signal' of fullness due to faulty leptin (the hormone that regulates weight) receptors in the brain. They must learn visual cues and stop eating well before there is any sense of fullness.
We must learn not to snack in the evening. When did this become so automatic? Certainly, in the 1960's we did not spend the evening watching T.V. and snacking. Nevertheless, this is where we are and somehow, someway, we must learn that we are eating, not out of hunger but boredom. One family I know will use sugar free popsicles as their snack - maybe we can find low calorie low sugar alternatives for the evening.
Since the invention of the light bulb we are, on average, sleeping 2 hours less per day. Turn off the T.V., shut off the IPad or Iphone, and turn out the lights! Try to get more sleep and don't force yourself to stay up late because it's your "down time”.
The crux of what I'm trying to say is that it is difficult to keep losing weight and keep it off for the rest of our lives. You must remain, at all times, aware of quantities, unnecessary snacking, and the need to move more.
You will have good weeks and bad weeks, but you must persist in developing healthy behaviours of eating and movement; and you and I must realize that this is a ‘forever' lifestyle, not a temporary change after which we go back to old behaviours.
Never ever give up trying. Seek help to guide you through the ups and downs of change. Try not to get discouraged. I know, from all the experts around the world researching cause and treatment of weight, that it's difficult no matter where you live. You are not alone, find out what works for you and stick to it.
You can do it!
Dr Doug