Altering the Weight Set Point
Feb 15, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Today is the big day… My interview with Tom Nicoli for Premier Summits Weight Loss Summit is finally up.
You have exactly one day to listen to it for free, so check it out right away if you get a chance. The subject is the body weight set point, how restricted eating, stress, and endurance exercise tend to raise the weight set point (the weight your body maintains while sedentary and eating to appetite of a mixed diet), and the dietary and lifestyle factors that are likely to be the most effective in lowering the weight set point. The gist of course is that any weight you lose without a fall in weight set point occurs at the detriment of your health and with a virtual guarantee of returning and “bringing some friends along with it” over time.
Today is the big day… My interview with Tom Nicoli for Premier Summits Weight Loss Summit is finally up. You have exactly one day to listen to it for free, so check it out right away if you get a chance. The subject is the body weight set point, how restricted eating, stress, and endurance exercise tend to raise the weight set point (the weight your body maintains while sedentary and eating to appetite of a mixed diet), and the dietary and lifestyle factors that are likely to be the most effective in lowering the weight set point. The gist of course is that any weight you lose without a fall in weight set point occurs at the detriment of your health and with a virtual guarantee of returning and “bringing some friends along with it” over time.
Anyone know how to save the recordings instead of having to listen to them streamed? They aren't working on this stinkin' iPhone. I'm gonna have to find one of those big boxes people use to get on the Internet.
You can download it from the page with Realplayer.
Loving your work Matt, loving your work….. Very informative and free flowing! You put it down…..
Awesome interview Matt. I have a question, though: How are some individuals able to dramatically change their setpoints to extreme levels of leaness(e.g. Martin Berkhan), and maintain that state for the long-term by counting calories and macros?
And then of course there's Clarence Bass, is he just a genetic freak?
Wow that website looks sketch as hell. I was genuinely surprised when I could actually stream the talk for free. Good stuff though.
Thanks anonymous #1. Realplayer got it for me.
Danny, those guys had to work really hard to get that lean. Clarence Bass is a great example of some of the principles I was talking about in this program. His diet was very monotonous and he ate a lot of whole intact grains cooked in water, very low fat, and so on.
Martin seems to rely on astronomically large portions of protein, which has a strong appetite suppressing affect. He also uses stimulants as an appetite suppressant, fasting as an appetite suppressant, and he has a history of anorexia.
So his will power is presumably pretty fierce. But it is designed intelligently, done very slowly with a lot of re feeds. Clarence and martin both swear by this very very slow approach.
"Anyone know how to save the recordings instead of having to listen to them streamed?"
Yes.
Excellent, thanks for this Matt AND thanks to Brock for putting up the mp3 on dropbox, very much appreciated!!
Hey, was gone all day yesterday then crashed. Trying to download it with RealPlayer–HOW??? Thanks for the help.
Never mind, I downloaded it with Brock's link to my iTunes. Thanks!
Nice one there Brock. I am still discovering the wonders of dropbox.
Sounds like you were shifting focus a bit from diet, Matt. Like, hey, everyone knows what a 'healthy diet' consists of- eat it and don't stress so much. Do you stand by eating that pillowcase of M & Ms if you need to come to believe that you can have whatever you want, in the recognition that you'll eventually not feel awesome eating lousy food and change out of internal rather than external motivation?
Appropos to the topic, you spent more time than I've seen before talking about palatability and set-point. Water content for example was something I hadn't heard you talk much about before.
You mentioned you an eating guide, of sorts, coming out I think- 'Matt's Diet' and Jean-Claude's Diet' and all. Will you address approaches to developing a personal plan? I guess I just want to know what sort of eating style gets the 180 seal of approval after hearing this. Specifically a strong taste for salt- how do you interpret that? Is that something one should aim to reduce? If so, how do you do that effortlessly?
Just some thoughts and reflections. Thanks Matt.
Hey Rob,
Elizabeth just addressed a strong salt-craving over at Nourished Life
http://www.livingthenourishedlife.com/2010/08/adrenal-fatigue-tips-use-sea-salt-to.html
If what she says is true, then a strong appetite for salt is linked to adrenal fatigue, and will eventually calm down when your adrenals are all rested up. I guess mine aren't there yet, because I'm still a pariah around my granddad ("haven't used a bit of salt since 1958!") and my in-laws, who don't believe in salt because they "didn't grow up with it."
Of course, both of those people use the heck out of some Campbell's condensed soup, which has lots and lots of salt. For the sake of family harmony I don't mention that though, even when they have to scurry around the kitchen to find me some salt – it's never on the table.
Wow
i hope my chooses to change its weight set point soon. i'm a 19 year old boy who was anorexic and "switched" to low carb (thx mark sisson) when i was at my lowest weight which was 132 pounds. after starting to eat normally again i am now weighing 191 pounds even though i stay fairly low fat the whole time. this is freaking me out.
oh yeah and weight gain hasn't even come to a halt yet.
Anonymous – Give it some time, it took my body around 6 months to normalise and start losing weight after the initial gain (which capped off after around 3-4 months)…. I think a lot of people go from eating disorders to primal/paleo which finishes them off as its like suicide for an already worn down body.
Keep the faith, and eat the food. Its the only way to go…
I have to agree with Chris. The body needs to heal and that healing happens slowly. It's been almost exactly a year since I started HED and it's only recently this physically unpleasant sensation I can only describe as "the crud" finally seems to be on its way out.
You're going to go through some phases practicing HED. It's not just the physical healing that takes time. It's the deprogramming and learning to trust your body. You'll be reaching out, looking for answers or looking for validation. Keep reading and do your own research if possible. Don't expect anything overnight. The whole process can take several months.
Unluckly HED diet wasn’t for me, after 3 month of potatoes,red meat & butter my once normal fasting blood glucose (86) raised to 100, my urea & liver enzimes also went crazy, triglycerides double, so in a nutshell I fuc#! up my health.
Was it the potatoes?, was it saturated fat? I dont know but know I just replace meat with more fish, veggies for taters, some ghee & some yam here & there.
Im not trying to hijack Matt, just like to share my personal experience.
I have to admit those meat & taters were delicious though… :(
Nicholas, I wonder if you would have seen improvements if you did HED longer…maybe your numbers get worse and then improve over time. Kind of like the weight gain, you've got to put on some fat to lose some…. Just a thought.
@ Sarahk:
I would say some muscle gain was a nice HED effect, maybe a better sleep…but that would be it.
I started HED to gain weight, Im ectomorph to the extreme so I gave it a chance, but then I started to get blood glucose issues, headaches, cloudy urine, so I freak out, took blood panels and then I realized that HED wasnt for me.
I dont think liver enzimes, urea & other stuff have to get worse in order to improve, that would just be dangerously naive.
Nicholas,
Fish, veggies, ghee and yams is also HED, not just read meat and taters. Anything that's "real food", with a mix of protein, fat and carbs, and unrestricted calories, is HED.
I'm going to anticipate a few of Matt's question …
1. What were you eating/exercising for the few years before this? How you react to HED really depends on where you're coming from.
2. Did you listen to your own biofeedback? Did you feel good eating steaks & taters? Or were you forcing yourself to eat that out of some sense of "have to"? You should always listen to your biofeedback.
As an personal example, I was coming off 10 years of low carb/paleo. I couldn't handle a lot of carbs, and felt like crap when I over-did-it, so I kept them low and just added a little bit by bit. Now I can eat a plate full of nothing but potatoes with just a bit of butter and sea salt, but it took me two years to get here. You might be on a similar path to healing and will be able to handle all sorts of foods you think are "off limits" now in due time.
Week 4 Rrarf Update:
This past week had lots of ups and downs. Earlier in the week, I felt pretty crappy. I had low energy, felt cold for the first time since rrarfing, and didn't sleep as well. I was a little surprised, since the first three weeks had me fairly optimistic. Armpit temps were bouncing around a lot too. The week's range was probably like 95.5 – 97.0.
I was still overeating. Not gorging, but eating slightly past appetite.
Later in the week, though, things picked up. I had warmer hands & feet again, my digestion started to, uh, move faster, I've felt more energy while feeling more relaxed, and had improved brain clarity.
Let's see if that starts to become the norm. A few other things from the week:
– I measured my blood sugar at 94 before dinner, 112 1hr after, and 104 2 hours after. This was a big meal with lots of carbs (mashed potatoes) and fat (butter). I'd like the pre-meal number to go down, but am pretty happy with the glucose clearance.
– I haven't taken any supplements since the start of the week. No vit C, no selenium, no nothing. I was inspired by the fact that Keys found vitamins pretty worthless in his starvation experiment.
– Appropos to the above comments, I think I do better on lower amounts of red meat, or maybe protein altogether. It's something I'll try to keep an eye on.
– Interestingly, the past few days my appetite has changed. After eating, I have absolutely no desire to eat anything more. Before, even when I was full I still kinda wanted food — but I was just too full to eat. But now, I actually feel completely disinterested in food after eating. Perhaps that means my body is starting to realize it's going to get all the food it needs.
– FWIW, I've probably put on a few pounds. I'm not worried about it. I've never had a problem with weight (5'10", ~170lbs), so I'll gladly trade that for feeling better.
Fish, veggies, ghee and yams were also part of HED, although meat & taters were usually a staple.
1)Before HED I exercise 3 x week not more than 45 min.
2)I felt ok with meat-taters, although it was hard to finish the whole tater bowl.
Maybe youre right about taking small steps towards carb.
The question that remains on my head is:
Was it excess carbs (aprox. 300 g average)?
Was it excess sat. fat?
Was it sat. fat + carb combo?
I dont think starch or sat fat is bad, but overindulging in either one is really unwise. (as much as we like to believe that gorging on butter & starch will help us heal)
Matt, it was nice listening to you here. You are the only one that said something different. I got the impression that Nicoli guy didn't like what you were saying.
All the other speakers are just all about strategies, mental or physical, to eat less and exercise more. Give it up already…it doesn't work! I was doing a 500 calorie per day diet and going for long walks everyday (cause I was so bored I guess) and I was STILL gaining and not losing. WTF
"I dont think starch or sat fat is bad, but overindulging in either one is really unwise"
Nicholas,
HED/Rarrf didn't work for you, I get it, I understand that you're disappointed and what not. However you shouldn't make generalizations like the one above.
I overindulged and continue to do so on lots of potatoes and butter with ground beef and I have good energy, my weight is stable around a set point and even though I haven't tested my glucose readings I really doubt that there would be a problem since I feel fine after eating a bowl of 8 potatoes, 2 tablespoons of butter and half a pound of ground beef.
At the same time though, you will not hear me say that overeating on potatoes and butter is the answer to everything. It ended up working for me but it may not work for you, there are infinite amount of variables in human nutrition so it's impossible for me to tell you that you just didn't give it enough time or any other advice.
Pleasure Center Activation Theory (PCAT) rebuttal (post 1 of 2):
Hey Matt,
So I am getting a little confused, in the interview you talk about your pleasure center activation theory (PCAT) and how that uniquely raises peoples' set points. I have a few problems with that theory…
1. You describe modern processed foods as triggering the reward centers far more than any whole foods can do but I disagree with this. Even if we go for the pure fat-sugar combo, the real food combination of grass-fed whip cream and pure maple syrup will kick the pants off any store bought cookie or scone. Most of the time, stuff like pizza isn’t all that appetizing anyway. This relates to point 2…
2. The reward centers are necessary for guiding us to the most nutrient dense foods. This is described pretty well in Deep Nutrition. Center food combinations and cooking techniques enhance flavor by orders of magnitude. Not surprisingly, they also maximize nutrition. I am not convinced there is anything wrong with fat/sugar or fat/salt combinations per se.
3. Saying that certain foods are too good at stimulating the reward centers is at odds with the idea that we should be learning to eat intuitively. If junk foods always provide the greatest reward then why do people enjoy so many different cuisines and why are world cuisines so diverse? You would expect regression towards the ?most stimulating? foods. Instead what you see is that consumption of junk foods correlates highly with socioeconomic status. Wealthier people tend to opt more against junk foods as they have better access to fresh foods, wider variety, and better preparation methods.
Pleasure Center Activation Theory (PCAT) rebuttal (post 2 of 2):
If you really are saying that modern processing is better as stimulating a deeper level of satisfaction while also providing poorer nutrition, then you are calling into question the whole pleasure/reward system and its evolution.
I believe anybody that truly lets go and eats whatever they want while also applying deep awareness and non-judgment will find real foods provide a level of pleasure much deeper than the superficial stimulation provided by junk foods. I believe it is dangerous to say that certain foods are ‘too stimulating? as it discourages people from letting go and developing the deep awareness necessary.
One more comment on this. Connection with food goes deeper than just flavor. It is not something I can go into fully here, but is something that readers of Michael Pollan or Wendell Berry may perhaps understand.
"Eating with the fullest pleasure – pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance – is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend."
? Wendell Berry
Ok, one more thought on this. About rats in cages that become addicted to junk foods over real foods. Keep in mind the overall context. The rats are not being provided any real stimulation. Many of us with our modern lives are not too dissimilar. Creating a natural connection with food goes beyond just food itself. In many ways, it incorporates our lifestyle and all our beliefs.
Damn you bastards! I tweaked my back yesterday doing my favorite Abel exercise (reverse hyperextensions – now demoted to my LEAST favorite Abel exercise) and was hoping to take a day off from the computer!
But then Nicholas of course says something interesting and now Aaron, well, you iced that cake. How could I resist masturdebating about that?
First of all, Nicholas you have to keep in mind the entire point and theme of 180. If you eat meat and potatoes and notice a rise in urea and liver enzymes, the problem is NOT eating meat and potatoes together, the problem is that there is something metabolically awry with YOU.
And that's fine. We're all a bunch of freakin degenerates here and that's just how it goes. I too feel like I am still a little impaired when it comes to animal protein digestion and nitrogen build-up for example, as eating a lot of meat leaves me with a funky ammonia-ish smell.
But some have had short-term deteriorations in health, to be expected when your body sucks at digesting and metabolizing food and you present it with lots of meat, fat, starch, fiber, and so on. One guy, Collden, had a rise in blood pressure up to nearly 180 systolic at the 3-month mark, but his overall experience after doing it for over a year has been as positive as anyone's – his blood pressure normalized, all edema left his body, he's lost 25+ pounds of fat and gained 20-30 pounds of lean body mass during the whole experience. That's just one example of a poor responder.
Anyway, the answer is probably not to just bail and eat a restricted diet for life, but seek out supplementation and treatment that can help you reap the rewards of the diet without collateral damage of poorly metabolized animal protein – the most likely cause for some of your current issues.
Aaron-
Riddle me this tough guy (by the way thanks for issuing this masturdebatory duel, I'm in heaven right now)…
Q: Who eats the most intuitively (with the least societal pressure to be thin, education on what is and is not healthy), is the most satisfied with body image, and diets the least in the United States?
A: Poor African American and Hispanic American citizens (and native Hawaiians).
Q: Who has the highest rate of obesity, hypertension, early puberty, and type 2 diabetes in the United States?
A: African Americans and Hispanic Americans (and native Hawaiians)
And yes, this pertains to how I feel about the evolution pleasure/reward energy regulation systems of the body.
I have to chime in,
Aaron well put I have similar thoughts on the subject.
but at the same time i do believe there is a phenomenon in relation to weight gain with flavor as matt describes. Only in my eyes it does not have an effect on weight set point only on temporary gains or losses. there is some merit to it.
MATT,
Who eats the most intuitively? speaking as one of the "ghetto dwellers" ( native rates are at least as high as african americans) we eat intuitively among what is available. Meaning "pass me some of them ramen noodles" only because there is no steak and also because culturally thats all we know. ( see dave chapelle on grape drink for more on this ). This is not intuition it is survival with limited supply. You'll eat anything it if your hungry enough and this has more to do with our position in society not intuitive junk food consumption. I'll plow junk food and get totally sick of it because my brain makes me look for better options because i have experienced them unlike some of my non travelling ghetto( rez) associates.
this actually happened this week after plowing through junk for a week. ( yes i lost weight )
we have as much desire to be thin as any other people we just have a bigger support group for overweight because there are more of em so it seems we are more satisfied deep down they all want it just as bad and they will daily say i gotta stop eating so much and still cant fight it, not out of addiction to the pleasure but out of following the order for fat gain given by the body.
we are educated on what is bad its just the wrong ideas … "dont eat so much butter your going to get fat." an other dumb ideas that spread like wild fire in "ghettos" like "dont drink so much "juice" ( kool aid) you'll get diabetes" or "doesn't salt make you fat?" or "what is sodium?, i don't know but I think its bad don't eat that."
sorry i have not posted my blog up been dealing with deaths and hospitals of those near to me ( I'm fine and losing fat and feeling great otherwise) soon soon soon
Remember your recent post on Eating Order and how difficult it was for you to define what exactly a non-disordered relationship to food is? It’s not an easy solution. I’d typed up three pages as a possible guest post on the same topic but then abandoned it as I felt it was too pessimistic.
Here’s the thing. Food can’t be separated from social context. Who we eat with, our relationship, our connection to the food all matter. The problem is, nutritional dogma is so distorted that almost no-one has a clear understanding of what really is nourishing vs. what is damaging.
The trick for us is to get as accurate information as possible, and then let that knowledge sink in without creating any hard rules about it. The bottom line message I’ve been getting from 180dh is ‘trust your body?, which PCAT seems antithetical to, and that’s why PCAT bothers me.
I might not be able to directly tell that vegetable oils are causing slow and long-term damage, but if I’m aware of that, it will affect my relationship with food. On the other hand, I do not expect industrial non-foods to produce the same pleasure experience as in season local foods. This is why local-foodies highly anticipate the start of farmers? markets. Some industrial non-foods may come close, but most do not. That’s the other reason I don’t like the PCAT theory. It just doesn’t add up in my experience.
African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and native Hawaiians may have the unrestricted attitude towards food you describe but they have also lost the guidance of their native cultures. This is the real problem, and it’s a gap not easily filled. I’ve often considered culture and ecosystems two sides of the same coin. Clearcutting either does not make for easy replacement.
In a sense, that’s part of what we’re trying to do at 180. Mostly we’re concerned about cutting through the BS, but it’s become more than clear our relationship to the food, its context, and the community that surrounds it is highly important. It is something each of us has to figure out how to navigate on our own.
?Trust your body? has to go beyond just food though. It’s a total mind/body awareness. I think it’s something you shift into gradually. Slowly you start to understand why you’re eating the foods you do and how pleasurable/not pleasurable or mindful/mindless your patterns really are. I don’t see how following this path would ultimately lead somebody to eating lots of Doritos, or doughnuts, or whatever. I also don’t think it would lead to total restriction either. But following this path, for me at least, requires non-restriction and non-judgment.
So yes, it requires tuning into the pleasure centers. But at the same time it requires you being free of mental static and being tuned into yourself at a really subtle level.
Hi Chief,
Just read your comment…
You were thinking some of the things I was. I just got off on a someone different tangent and couldn't pull all that together.
The basic issue is that this is about access to (or awareness or experience of) certain foods along with good guiding knowledge, not "butter makes you fat". This is what 180 gets at while also reminding us we need to stay attuned to our bodies and not overlook the social context.
Those living in poorer socioeconomic conditions don't have all these aspects in place, so to use that as support for PCAT doesn't seem to fit the overall argument.
It just seems to me, when incorporating the messages of 180 in a holistic manner, and making this about all aspects of your life, not just food (which I believe is necessary), then ideas like PCAT conflict with all of that. So it's like an inconsistency in the argument, which is what I was trying to get at above.
I think the word "pleasure" keeps throwing you off. This is not necessarily about pleasure, but a chemical response that takes place in the brain.
In other words, it's an addiction model of how the normal feedback mechanisms designed to keep weight constant (like leptin) short-circuit.
We know that chronic stress can short-circuit the normal feedback mechanisms and cause the weight set point to jump up a level before being re-established at a new high.
But I suspect that addiction, which is different from the anticipation of fresh produce at the farmer's market (pleasureful, tasty as well, but addictive?) can do this because I suspect that the human drive to recieve neurological/emotional satisfaction trumps the biological metabolic need for a certain number of calories.
But only something that was truly excitatory enough to trigger the closure of dopamine and/or serotonin receptor sites (or exhaust the production of serotonin and/or dopamine) could ratchet up the weight set point.
But even in animal studies where the weight set point increased upon exposure to more cracked out foods, a new weight set point was established and the animals were just fine – they just weighed more than their brethren.
We know that chronic stress can short-circuit the normal feedback mechanisms and cause the weight set point to jump up a level before being re-established at a new high.
Chronic stress (between age 19 and my current age, 27) has always seemed to lower my set point… like in 10 pound increments, too. I brought this up here a while back and a few people replied to the effect of, "Just you wait. You'll gain it all back and then some." Hmmm. Still waiting…
8 years, and still waiting…
mike, i have ben wondering about that … i see a few people that avoid food in stressful times i have not made much sense of it but it is definitely not the norm.
Aaron, ( and matt ) I feel similar about it being very important that an overall solution must be all congruent and that we must be in tuned with our bodies and definitely not need to think about eating on a conscious level. I dont believe at this point that flavor is a big issue as I seek out enjoyable foods and plowed through quite a bit of junk food lately and more or less just got bored of junky flavors. Oddly today I did just ate some oranges at a buffet that were quite crackish to the point which I have never seen and had a second plate most likely due to flavor alone but in the grand scheme of things calories will be automatically adjusted over the next few days so I doubt it matters. Eventually as time goes by whatever it tastes less appealing to the point of disgust. I've attempted to eat too much of my favorite things only to reach a point of not being able to look at them for months. I believe PCAT describes a mechanism that when we study its effects it can help make sense of the bigger picture.
one problem i have with alot of studies on animals is they are in cages … cages suck most likely worse than ghettos and you can't really say for sure what it translates to in real life. without the stress of the cage and lab perhaps they would disregard the junk food. how often have you seen super ft mice in real life?? the way i see it is regardless if it tastes amazing or not has little to do with how much you will eat of it over time with all other aspects of life at a prime level. your brain "drops" the flavor level when you are not starving so you eat less of whatever it is. alot of rarrfers know that sugary foods start to taste too sweet after they get past the immediate starvation state. the real question to ask is why does junk food still taste good day in day out to african, native and hawaiian americans ??
Matt, your M&M pillow story/theory directly contradicts your PCAT theory. If it were correct, the girl wouldn't have gotten tired of the M&Ms and lost weight.
I'm a stress starver, too (vs. a stress eater) for really acute stress. But for longer-term stress I can eat more sometimes. Every time I've been through a break-up I've dropped weight like crazy (while trying to force-feed myself). I think the reason you don't regain is that the body doesn't feel like it's starving in these situations. You eat whatever you want, you just can't eat much.
-Amy
AMY,
i have experienced situations like you described where I was so stressed i could not imagine eating a bite as the though repulsed me. it is an odd thing seeing as I feel stress is the main factor in all ill health especially obesity. I would love to understand that one. I will say over time though an increase in weight happens around those times when i finally do start eating. i have been trying to figure all of that out for a while now.
also
I am a firm believer in the pillow case of goodies technique.
I'm one of those people who puts on weight when stressed regardless of how much I eat.
Any help on giving up caffeine? I've been doing RRARF about 6 months and am doing great healthwise. I haven't lost much weight but I can tell my body composition is better. Is there a way to trigger fat loss? Whenever I cut food intake I start daydreaming about coffee, even though I've never been much of a coffee drinker. I'm eating 3 full meals now but am thinking maybe I should spread it out to 4 meals?
I gave up diet coke 6 months ago and have no desire to drink it again. To replace the caffeine my body now wants chocolate, chocolate icecream or coffee. I can live without all other processed food but I can't quite give up the caffeine. I know I have had adrenal fatigue in the past as I needed to use HC for a few months Should I just quit the chocolate cold turkey even if I have mad cravings? I don't eat a lot of chocolate or drink coffee very often, but is giving them up the only way for me to lose weight? Help please!
Matt, you said:
"Q: Who eats the most intuitively (with the least societal pressure to be thin, education on what is and is not healthy), is the most satisfied with body image, and diets the least in the United States?"
My answer: Skinny people! Especially children and teens
FWIW:
"Animal obesity: canary in the coal mine?"
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coal-mine/
excerpt:
'animals populations living in the most strictly controlled conditions were the same ones who saw the greatest increase in body weight in recent years.'
Ian2.
And here's the link to the study that the article's based on:
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n11/pdf/0803326a.pdf
Ian2.
Ian2-
Sweet article and blog. I'll try to remember to go peruse that whole site. That's pretty much Matt porn right there.
Mike Jones-
More acute-fashion stresses defnitely have an appetite-suppressing effect for most, whereas chronic stresses have the opposite effect for most. But human physiology is a funny thing. As a kid I had the exact opposite reaction to the drug codeine for example than most – bouncing off the frickin' walls even though it is an opiate.
Vida-
True, there are lean intuitive eaters – especially all over Europe. But in the U.S. surveys of young girls, such as one that was pointed out in Laura Fraser's book Losing It, which was pretty decent, showed that 90% of white girls felt like they needed to lose weight while 70% of African American girls didn't, despite the African American girls being much heavier than whitey.
Chief-
Just saw the Grape Drink skit by Chappelle for the first time ever about 3 weeks ago, just in time to get that hilarious reference. Revisited it today, twice, in your honor. I am increasing the "pleasure" of my foods at the moment so I'll let you know how that turns out if I can stick with it for a bit. Monotony does rule though, and is the ultimate weight set point reducer. Guyenet actually talks about that in his post on the potato guy…
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/12/potato-diet-interpretation.html
Guyenet's commentary…
"Mr. Voigt was not deliberately restricting his calorie intake at all, and he did not intend this as a weight loss diet. In my interview, I asked him if he was hungry during the diet. He said that he was not hungry, and that he ate to appetite during this period, realizing only after three weeks that he was not eating nearly enough calories to maintain his weight*. I also asked him how his energy level was, and he said repeatedly that it was very good, perhaps even better than usual. Those were not idle questions.
Calorie restriction causes a predictable physiological response in humans that includes hunger and decreased energy. It's the starvation response, and it's powerful in both lean and overweight people, as anyone knows who has tried to lose fat by decreasing calorie intake alone. The fact that he didn't experience hunger or fatigue implies that his body did not think it was starving. Why would that be?
I believe Mr. Voigt's diet lowered his fat mass 'setpoint'. In other words, for whatever reason, the diet made his body 'want' to be leaner that it already was. His body began releasing stored fat that it considered excess, and therefore he had to eat less food to complete his energy needs. You see this same phenomenon very clearly in rodent feeding studies. Changes in diet composition/quality can cause dramatic shifts in the fat mass setpoint (5, 6). Mr. Voigt's appetite would eventually have returned to normal once he had stabilized at a lower body fat mass, just as rodents do.
Rodent studies have made it clear that diet composition has a massive effect on the level of fat mass that the body will 'defend' against changes in calorie intake (5, 6). Human studies have shown similar effects from changes in diet composition/quality. For example, in controlled diet trials, low-carbohydrate dieters spontaneously reduce their calorie intake quite significantly and lose body fat, without being asked to restrict calories (7). In Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's Paleolithic diet trials, participants lost a remarkable amount of fat, yet a recent publication from his group shows that the satiety (fullness) level of the Paleolithic group was not different from a non-Paleolithic comparison group despite a considerably lower calorie intake over 12 weeks (8, 9). I'll discuss this important new paper soon. Together, this suggests that diet composition/quality can have a dominant impact on the fat mass setpoint.
One possibility is that cutting the wheat, sugar, most vegetable oil and other processed food out of Mr. Voigt's diet was responsible for the fat loss. I think that's likely to have contributed. Many people find, for example, that they lose fat simply by eliminating wheat from their diet.
Another possibility that I've been exploring recently is that changes in palatability (pleasantness of flavor) influence the fat mass setpoint. There is evidence in rodents that it does, although it's not entirely consistent. For example, rats will become massively obese if you provide them with chocolate flavored Ensure (a meal replacement drink), but not with vanilla or strawberry Ensure (10). They will defend their elevated fat mass against calorie restriction (i.e. they show a physiological starvation response when you try to bring them down to a lower weight by feeding them less chocolate Ensure) while they're eating chocolate Ensure, but as soon as you put them back on unpurified rodent pellets, they will lose fat and defend the lower fat mass. Giving them food in liquid or paste form often causes obesity, while the same food in solid pellet form will not. Eating nothing but potatoes is obviously a diet with a low overall palatability.
So I think that both a change in diet composition/quality and a decrease in palatability probably contributed to a decrease in Mr. Voigt's fat mass setpoint, which allowed him to lose fat mass without triggering a starvation response (hunger, fatigue)."
I love Dave Chapelle and wish he would do some new shows.
I have to say, the crack like quality of chocolate sends me off the rails.
xoxo
haggie
I agree with AaronF that something about the PCAT theory is fundamentally at odds with the (in my opinion, much more logical and well-supported) "obesity as misguided starvation response" theory and he articulates it better than I could.
Our tastes evolved to guide us to food that best supported our metabolic function with respect to characteristics like freshness, ripeness, digestability, nutrient density and availability and absence of toxins. The problem with moder processed foods is not that they're tasty but that they, through chemical tampering aimed very specifically at modifying taste and mouth-feel alone, create a disconnect between tastes and the various health-promoting characteristics historically associated with those tastes. Making people drawn to foods that provide the taste, but not the other nourishing qualities required to eventually satisfy the specific hunger for that taste, ergo why the very tasty whole foods HED diet can eliminate cravings whereas junk food overfeeding typically doesn't.
For another thing, nothing I've personally experienced or seen suggests that a very bland diet makes it easier to maintain a low weight without starvation symptoms. Beginning dieters (at least the ones who seek help at fitness forums) are often the ones who take the bland diet approach to the worst extreme, since they usually know nothing about cooking but still want to avoid junk food and are scared of fat and sugar, they end up with an incredibly dull diet of rice, chicken, eggwhites, raw vegetables, curd cheese, sour-tasting bread and protein shakes. This group of dieters are also the ones most susceptible to starvation symptoms after having lost a few a pounds like intolerable hunger and fatigue, as well as rebound weight gain (ie, bulking) and commonly develop serious eating disorders.
In contrast, people who successfully lose weight long term while maintaining a relaxed relationship with food I find are consistently the ones who actually learn to cook and make food that is both nourishing AND tasty, as well as satisfying their taste for fat and sugar.
Lastly, just about every diet ever devised is both bland and monotonous to varying degrees, yet none of them produce long term weight loss, suggesting that they certainly don't act to lower the body fat set point. I'd wager that diets actually perform worse long term the less palatable they are.
good stuff matt chapelle is a funny bastard ( warning not safe for work) ..see hostage on a bus as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtqEknAtyQQ
let us know how the pleasurable diet goes, i think it does not have a direct influence its more of an "power up ". I have tried eating gross stuff as a dietary approach even eye watering spiciness with little success. Im yet to fail disregarding flavor as a factor though.
i would like to see the strawberry and vanilla tests redone with natural flavors. chocolate is the one of the three flavors that is rarely faked maybe it was the fakeness factor.
monotony is really good at calibrating the "calorie meter" in humans. the same thing over and over does not throw any curve balls to the brain and definirtely speeds weight loss but is quite miserable and may even have a stress effect plus its not necessary. it is especially true with smoothie type foods with little to nothing to offer in the way of chewing. I have no idea why but it does. it does not actually change a weight set point though because it is not truly spontaneous in terms of weight loss because if more favorable options are available it will not make them less desirable to you, you will still eat em if you are below calorie count. on the opposite end of the spectrum I have seen the phenomenon many times ..out of nowhere people not giving a shit about a chocolate bar when you go from "grape drink" to "acai berry wheatgrass smoothies ".
( meaning you upgrade your life and get better nutrition) PS acai berry and wheatgrass do not grow in the ghetto …coincidence I think not
just thought of something else chocolate has a caffeine like alkaloid theobromine that definitely play a role completely different than flavor.
@Mike and others about stress and weight gain…I love the Jon Gabriel explanation of this. JG balloned up to like 400 lbs or whatever it was from the stress of his job while his business partner stayed lean and rarely ate. JG would "internalize" his stress, hold it all in so his body reacted to it as if he was facing a long, cold winter with little food. His body was holding on to the fat for the long-term to survive.
Hi business partner flew off the handle at every little thing. He would order a milkshake for lunch and only eat half of it. He would "externalize" the stress. His body reacted as if it were being hunted by a predator, so the need was immediate for survival. The need to was to flee, be lean to be fast and agile to escape. It doesn't mean that the people that externalize their stress are psychopaths that flip out all the time; they just react in a certain way to stress. I believe that our own Lady Haga (Deb) mentioned once that there was a time she was under a great deal of stress (loved one was dying?..don't remember exactly) but she said that she just couldn't sit still during that time in her life and she was very lean at the time.
My wife barely cracks 100 pounds…probably only topped 110 when she was pregnant, and she is the typical fly-off-the-handle-at-every-little-thing kind of person. It's funny when people ask her what she does to stay so lean and she gives them advice, LOL. I tell her that she is thin because she was born that way!
Those of you that lost weight under stress, do you "externalize" your stress?
http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2010/10/01/friday-weird-science-having-trouble-pooping-maybe-you-should-look-at-your-bra/
the body works in so many mysterious ways
let the girls go free
Darn–I hadn't realized there was such an interesting debate going on triggered by that interview. I'm so glad that Aaron, Matt, Chief and others have addressed the PCAT theory vs M&M's pillowcase and other assorted issues that my little brain has been buzzing about too.
Fascinating about the rats and chocolate Ensure: the strawberry and vanilla flavors are way _sweeter_ (and gross, as is the choc), so it's not a sweetness trigger. I know that my ND says I shouldn't eat chocolate (because of adrenal/thyroid probs) but that I can't help eating it sometimes and that of all things, it stimulates my appetite more than anything else (which many would say is a good thing) but also wigs me out, disturbs sleep, etc. I'll think on those rats!
Matt, I think you were right that the 'pleasure' word is the catch. I was going to very similar Pollan/Berry-esque places and trying to draw a distinction between that kind of pleasure and the compulsive, wigged out, hyper kind of overstimulated pleasure, and I think your characterization as a chemical response makes a lot of sense. And then, for the individual piece, you need the further nuance of how the person responds to that chemical reaction and compulsiveness.
E.g. I would respond with a flood of guilt and anxiety and hypersensitivity to all the ways that this 'transgressive eating' is screwing my body up right now, whereas my husband would eat the entire pie, enjoy his sugar haze and feel zero guilt and forget all about it, maybe feel a bit sick the next morning but not even be able to figure out why! Seems like having his attitude gives you a lot more leeway to get away with 'transgressions' (if you don't even think they are transgressions).
This may be an unpopular way to put it, but I think it's partly a spiritual orientation too: what your path in life is will govern what kind of pleasure is acceptable to you. For some people, the 'drug high' is what they want and is pleasurable. For some other people, it feels like a red herring holding them back from their true purpose. And those that feel guilty about it may not even be able to tell which of those camps they fall into, and need to figure that out.
I've been thinking about this ever since listening to your interview, as well as some of the speakers on the Great Health Debate: thanks again for these further thoughts.
Ela wrote, "… I think your characterization as a chemical response makes a lot of sense…"
The activation of the pleasure centre of the brain is simply a chemical response within the brain, activating neurons. Nothing more and nothing less. It's not about guilt or "spirit" (whatever that is). It's just activity in the brain that the eater is not even consciously aware of.
"The activation of the pleasure centre of the brain is simply a chemical response within the brain, activating neurons"
Tezza, for what its worth, I agree. It is not necessarily 'pleasurable' per-se, but rather just activates a particular neuro-chemical response that drives subsequent 'choice'.
Exactly, and the process is escalating – the more crack you smoke, the more crack you want to smoke… and it's not even about the pleasure you get from it but having to do it just to feel normal.
Few differences have been found between lean and obese people physiologically-speaking… but one we know of is that it takes more stimulation for their pleasure monitor to feel satisfied – something I think of happening once you become truly addicted to something (be it alcohol, artificial sweeteners, MSG, refined sugar, or what have you).
Here's an interesting related article that sort of brings harmony to both what I'm saying and the challange issued by Aaron…
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/why-making-dinner-is-a-good-idea/
The one thing I see different about crack and food is that it has a changeable level addiction depending on if a person is starving or not.. Crack is an escalation where food and alcohol have can be much easier to give up in instances where blood sugar and metabolism are rectified. Alot of people apply studies to their thoughts that say obese people react differently to flavor or whatever and do not take into consideration that being obese is temporary so this same phenomenon can be attributed to the lean individuals in the study if they were to be starving.
Right, it's something that happens in the brain, but how we 'feel' about that happening seems, in my experience, to have a further effect that somewhat rules how well we can resist the results of the addiction. Which may be a further chemical change too, of course…
its not a flaw in the human body it goes back to normal when you live/eat "normal "
Real Will,
I would actually consider myself a major "internalizer" of stress. I tend to hold things in (maybe this explains my constipation too?), not share my feelings with others, etc. I find people who are always overtly "blowing off steam" close to insufferable and respond to stress much more stoically myself–not that this is necessarily healthy.
On the other hand, I do have one rather literal "external" response to major stress, which is to go outside and take insanely long, solitary walks. I guess this is my really quiet, protracted way of blowing off steam, and an example of the "flight" response to stress. I don't imagine that the walking itself could induce much weight loss, except in the sense that a lot of time spent walking displaces time spent cooking and eating. So maybe that's part of the explanation.
mile walking is good medicine … it is a really good stress reliever
some fly off the handle types also hold shit in at the same time. its a funny thing the stress response. expert self protecting types are good at stress relieving at the expense of others, they pass the buck on the next "nearest internalizer type"instantly ridding themselves of baggage. the best solution is to recognize, adjust, deal with it all, go with the flow and let go.
That's pretty interesting Mike. Which would lead to another question…maybe it's a matter of doing some kind of physical activity in response to stress rather than nothing at all. Someone had posted (maybe it was Matt?) that animals in a stressful situation will shake for a period of time afterwards. Maybe those stress balls that you squeeze actually work? Also, what is the minimum required to "blow off steam"? Hitting a heavy bag for 2 minutes? Walking for 10 minutes? I think that's another road to explore.
Is there any way to still hear/watch/read the whole altering weight set point anymore since it is obviously expired?
I don’t know where to find it these days.
:( Do you have an article on this topic then?