Count the Exercise Cost of Calories

A bottle of sugary (non-diet) soda contains about 250 calories. That’s a lot. Reminding yourself of this fact can give you the extra motivation to pass up the soda and go for a drink of water instead. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health think they have found an even better motivation: exercise cost.

To test their theory, they created a sign with the words “Did you know that working off a bottle of soda or fruit juice takes about 50 minutes of running” and posted it in a corner store frequented by thirsty adolescents. The presence of the sign reduced the odds that an adolescent would purchase a sugar-sweetened drink by about 50%. This worked even better than their sign that said “Did you know that a bottle of soda or fruit juice has about 250 calories?” If it works for thirsty teenagers, maybe it’s worth a try!

You can read more about the exercise cost of calories study on the school’s web site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: When you are tempted by junk food, think about how much exercise it would take to work off the extra calories. If it seems worth the cost, commit to doing the exercise before taking the first bite.

Thought Suppression and Overeating

Trying to suppress thoughts of a craved food can cause you to eat even more of it at the first opportunity. That’s what St. George’s University of London researchers concluded after observing 116 chocolate-tasting female undergraduates. The women had been divided into three groups. One group was told to think about anything but chocolate for five minutes, another group was told to think about only chocolate, and the third group was told to think about whatever they wanted. Later, when the women were asked to compare two brands of chocolate in a taste test, the group of thought suppressors took a few extra bites…just to be sure.

You can read more about the just-don’t-think-about-it study on NCBI’s web site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Instead of trying to suppress thoughts of food you are craving, use this visualization trick.

Potatoes Make You Fat, Study Says

Researchers at Harvard University conducted a study in which they monitored the weight and habits of 120,877 adults over a 20-year period. The study revealed that potato-based foods caused more weight gain than any other food category, with potato chips the main offender. Consumption of other vegetables was associated with weight loss.

To learn more about the study, read the New England Journal of Medicine paper on diet, lifestyle, and long-term weight gain.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Think outside the potato. Try snacking on colored vegetables, and include more of those in meals as well.

Breakfast Skippers Crave High-Calorie Foods

Researchers at Imperial College London used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 20 subjects while they looked at pictures of high-calorie (cake, chocolate, and pizza) and low-calorie (salad, vegetables, and fish) foods. The brain scans were done twice: 90 minutes after the subjects had eaten breakfast, and again at the same time on a day that the subjects had skipped breakfast.

Brain scans conducted on subjects who had skipped breakfast showed significantly greater activation of the brain’s “reward” centers while the subjects viewed the high-calorie foods. Brain scans conducted after subjects had eaten breakfast showed no significant difference in reward center activation between high-calorie and low-calorie foods.

To learn more about the study, read the Endocrine Society‘s article on fasting and cravings.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: To reduce your food temptations, take time in the morning to eat a good breakfast, then plan a healthy lunch and dinner while you are still feeling satisfied.

Stay Up Late, Gain Weight

In a study of eating and sleeping habits of 51 adults, researchers at Northwestern University found that those who habitually went to bed late and slept late into the morning ate about 250 calories more per day than did those on a more normal sleep schedule.

The extra calories were largely due to consumption of twice as much fast food and half as many fruits and vegetables as were eaten by the normal sleepers. Late sleepers also drank more sugary drinks. The extra calories tended to be eaten after normal sleepers were already in bed.

To learn more about the study, read the article on sleeping late and weight gain at Northwestern University’s news site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Get to bed at a reasonable time. If you do plan on staying up late, have some fruits and vegetables handy to snack on.

Toxic Sugar

Is sugar toxic? In a recent New York Times article entitled “Is Sugar Toxic,” author Gary Taubes suggests that sugar is not only the primary ingredient behind the obesity epidemic, but also that it independently contributes to risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, and many cancers. Fructose, he says, is the big problem because of how it is handled by the liver relative to other sugars. Many people get their fructose primarily from the high fructose corn syrup in sweetened beverages and other junk food, but it also occurs naturally in most fruits. The article has ignited plenty of controversy, and Gary Taubes has responded to many readers’ comments about his article on a New York Times blog post. In an LA Times post,  Dr. Gerard Mullin, a nutrition expert at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, provides some independent analysis of Taubes’ article. 

According to Dr. Mullin and most nutritionists, the fructose in fruit is not usually a problem. Fiber in the fruit slows the digestion of the sugar, reducing its potential for harm in the liver and blood stream. Sugar added to drinks, on the other hand, can be consumed quickly and in large quantities. This sudden burst of sugar can not only lead to fatty liver, but can also quickly exceed your daily calorie requirements, making weight loss goals extremely difficult to achieve. Most other sweets don’t produce quite the burst of calories that sugary drinks do, but they can be eaten and digested quite quickly, and are often eaten in large quantities (compared to fruit and other natural foods), so they also tend to provide more than their share of calories. 

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: If you drink anything with added sugar, consider replacing it with something a little more natural. Perhaps water? It is completely natural and no calories. But you like the sweetness? Try fruit. Changing an eating happen can be difficult, especially for the first few days, so here’s another tip. Make a goal to give up sugary drinks for two weeks, and then see how you feel. It could be the start of something good.

Do You Have a Junk Food Addiction?

Researchers at Yale, the University of Texas, and Arizona State University scanned the brains of 48 women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as the woman looked at pictures of chocolate milkshakes. The women had all previously been scored for food addiction tendencies using the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS). While looking at pictures of the milkshakes, the women with high food-addiction scores showed more neural activity in regions of the brain associated with drug addiction than did women with lower scores. These regions of the brain are involved in anticipation and cravings. The authors concluded that “these findings support the theory that compulsive food consumption may be driven in part by an enhanced anticipation of the rewarding properties of food.” In other words, stronger cravings.

The study will be published in the August 2011 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. Meanwhile, you can read more about it in the Science Daily article, “Study Identifies Neural Activity Linked to Food Addiction”.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: If you are overweight because of addiction to unhealthful foods, then long term weight loss will, at a minimum, require that you learn better ways of coping with cravings. Preventing and coping with cravings are hot topics in current scientific research. I will discuss some of the findings of this research in future posts. Today’s weight loss tip: Keep reading this blog, and expect to learn something useful.