Why can some of your friends eat all the holiday treats they want and stay slim while you start to look like Santa by smelling a fruit cake? And what if you could make your body work more like the body of these naturally thin people? Here's some simple science to get you started.
Your Body Balances Calories for You
Our genetics and hormones combine to create a sort of "set-point" weight that our bodies work to keep us at regardless of how much we eat or exercise. This is why studies show that starvation diets fail for over 95 percent of us and why we don't end up weighing 2,000 pounds no matter how much we eat. [1] [2] [3] Everyone's body works to keep them in balance automatically; it's just that some of our bodies balance us at a more Santa-like set-point thanks to our genetics and hormones. The good news is that scientists have proven that we can change our hormones and get our bodies to work towards a slimmer set-point by changing the quality of the food we eat.
- Satisfying -- They fill us up quickly and keep us full for a long time.
- unAggressive -- They don't rush into our blood stream and cause hormonal chaos.
- Nutritious -- They provide us with many nutrients per calorie.
- inEfficient - -They are not easily converted into body fat.
SANE foods are rich in water, fiber, and protein and move us towards a slimmer set-point because they make us too full to overeat (Satisfying), do not trigger a fat storing hormonal response (unAggressive), prevent our bodies from detecting starvation and dropping our metabolism and muscle (Nutritious), and are difficult to convert into body fat (inEfficient). Here's how to shed a Santa-like set-point while eating more -- but smarter.
How to Have a SANE Set-Point Lowering Holiday
Research reveals that the key to staying slim "automatically" like your naturally slender friends this holiday season is to eat as much as you want, whenever you want, as long as it's SANE. [4-19] Eating more-but SANEr-is simple during the holidays because water, fiber, and protein rich SANE foods abound.
- Non-Starchy Vegetables -- vegetables you can eat raw and generally find in salads such as spinach, romaine lettuce, kale, any green leafy vegetable, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, onions, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, etc.
- Nutrient Dense Protein -- any seafood, organ meats/sweet breads, grass fed beef, free range poultry, eggs, lean conventional beef, lean conventional poultry, plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.
- Whole Food Natural Fats -- almonds, walnuts, pecans, flax, chia, coconut, macadamias, cocoa, etc. (nuts and seeds)
- Low-Sugar Fruits -- berries and citrus fruits (oranges and grapefruits)
Step 1: Protect Your SANEity
inSANE starches and sweets are everywhere during the holidays. The office is crammed with cookies. Cakes clutter the counters. Eggnog overflows. We can all preserve our SANEity by keeping ourselves so satisfied with SANE food that we are too full for these sugar bombs -- or at least can enjoy a bite or two and walk away smiling. By going out of our way to eat more non-starchy vegetables, nutrient dense protein, and whole food natural fats, we can "full" ourselves into slimness. We can always -- or at least most of the time -- be too full for dessert. Know you're about to step into an inSANE situation? Eat. Eat a lot, but simply eat SANEly *before* you get to the party or walk into the lounge.
Step 2: Splurge SANEly
The holiday season comes but once a year and it's fine to splurge occasionally. The good news is we can splurge SANEly by focusing on fatty rather than sugary or starchy treats. If you have to pick something off of the cheese and meat platter or the cookie platter, splurge on the fatty cheeses and meats. Natural fats are a wonderful treat as they fill us up while keeping our fat-storing hormones at bay. Sugary starches do just the opposite. They make us hungrier while sending our fat-storing hormones soaring. Splurge on fat to avoid storing fat.
Step 3: SANEitize Your Plate
Most holiday spreads offer an array of veggies, fruits, cheeses, meats, seafood, nuts, starches, and sweets. Perfect! Fill half your plate up with veggies, most of the other half with seafood and meat, fill in the gap with fruits and cheeses, and enjoy. Still hungry? Repeat the first plate. Still craving the starches and sweets? Go back for thirds. Seriously. The key to long-term SANEity and slimness isn't avoiding food. Hunger isn't healthy. The key is enjoying so much satisfying, unaggressive, nutritious, and inefficient food that you're too full for starchy fillers and diabetes-inducing desserts. The holidays are all about positivity and your eating strategy is no different: Pursue the positive rather than attacking the negative. Starvation isn't sustainable. Skip it. Go SANE instead.
...
Combine SANE science with these simple steps and you will be 100 percent satisfied, full of holiday cheer, and improve your biology instead of starving or fighting it. Topping it off, you will receive an amazing holiday gift: the ability to eat a lot of food and then to burn a lot of fat like your naturally thin friends.
Yours in replacing calorie myths with proven science,
-- Jonathan Bailor
Author, THE CALORIE MYTH
References:
1. Crawford D, Jeffery RW, French SA. Can anyone successfully control their weight? Findings of a three year community-based study of men and women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2000 Sep;24(9):1107-10. PubMed PMID: 11033978.
2. Summerbell CD, Cameron C, Glasziou PP. WITHDRAWN: Advice on low-fat diets for obesity. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Jul 16;(3):CD003640. Review. PubMed PMID: 18646093.
3. Pirozzo S, Summerbell C, Cameron C, Glasziou P. Should we recommend low-fat diets for obesity? Obes Rev. 2003 May;4(2):83-90. Review. Erratum in: Obes Rev. 2003 Aug;4(3):185. PubMed PMID: 12760443
4. Weigle, DS. "Human Obesity. : Exploding the Myths." West J Med. 1990 Oct; 153(4) (1990): 421-28. ; review. ; PubMed PMID: 2244378; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1002573.
5. Keesey, RE, and MD Hirvonen MD. "Body Weight Set-Points: Determination and Adjustment." J Nutr. 1997 Sep; 127(9) (1997): 1875S-1883S. ; review. ; PubMed PMID: 9278574.
6. Weigle, DS. "Appetite and the Regulation of Body Composition." FASEB J. 1994 Mar 1; 8(3) (1994): 302-10. ; review. ; PubMed PMID: 8143936.
7. Schwartz MW, Niswender KD. Adiposity signaling and biological defense against weight gain: absence of protection or central hormone resistance? J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2004 Dec;89(12):5889-97. Review. PubMed PMID: 15579732.
8. Guyenet SJ, Schwartz MW. Clinical review: Regulation of food intake, energy balance, and body fat mass: implications for the pathogenesis and treatment of obesity. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Mar;97(3):745-55. doi: 10.1210/jc.2011-2525. Epub 2012 Jan 11. Review. PubMed PMID: 22238401; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3319208.
9. Friedman JM. Leptin, leptin receptors, and the control of body weight. Nutr Rev. 1998 Feb;56(2 Pt 2):s38-46; discussion s54-75. Review. PubMed PMID: 9564176.
10. Morrison CD, Berthoud HR. Neurobiology of nutrition and obesity. Nutr Rev. 2007 Dec;65(12 Pt 1):517-34. Review. PubMed PMID: 18236691.
11. Schwartz MW, Woods SC, Porte D Jr, Seeley RJ, Baskin DG. Central nervous system control of food intake. Nature. 2000 Apr 6;404(6778):661-71. Review. PubMed PMID: 10766253.
12. Cabanac M, Rabe EF. Influence of a monotonous food on body weight regulation in humans. Physiol Behav. 1976 Oct;17(4):675-8. PubMed PMID: 1013218.
13. Cabanac M, Duclaux R, Spector NH. Sensory feedback in regulation of body weight: is there a ponderostat? Nature. 1971 Jan 8;229(5280):125-7. PubMed PMID: 4923100.
14. Hashim SA, Van Itallie TB. Studies in normal and obese subjects with a monitored food dispensing device. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1965 Oct 8;131(1):654-61. PubMed PMID: 5216999.
15. Guo J, Jou W, Gavrilova O, Hall KD. Persistent diet-induced obesity in male C57BL/6 mice resulting from temporary obesigenic diets. PLoS One. 2009;4(4):e5370. Epub 2009 Apr 29. PubMed PMID: 19401758; PubMed Central PMCID:PMC2670508.
16. Shi H, Akunuru S, Bierman JC, Hodge KM, Mitchell MC, Foster MT, Seeley RJ, Reizes O. Diet-induced obese mice are leptin insufficient after weight reduction. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2009 Sep;17(9):1702-9. Epub 2009 Apr 16. PubMed PMID: 19373220.
17. COHN C, JOSEPH D. Influence of body weight and body fat on appetite of "normal" lean and obese rats. Yale J Biol Med. 1962 Jun;34:598-607. PubMed PMID: 13880343; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2604224.
18. Hetherington, A. W. and Ranson, S. W. (1942), The relation of various hypothalamic lesions to adiposity in the rat. J. Comp. Neurol., 76: 475-499. doi: 10.1002/cne.900760308
19. Morton GJ, Cummings DE, Baskin DG, Barsh GS, Schwartz MW. Central nervous system control of food intake and body weight. Nature. 2006 Sep 21;443(7109):289-95. Review. PubMed PMID: 16988703.