HEALTH with Claudette Freeman
‘I eat like a mouse, so why do I still gain weight?’ Claudette Freeman explains... ver wondered why you eat so little food yet still accumulate excess weight? Have you ever felt it was unfair that all your friends around you seem to eat like ‘horses’ and remain slim, yet no matter how little you eat, you still cannot seem to lose it? It doesn’t make sense does it…? You see, there are pathophysiological aspects of disordered eating that transpire in the body, which means eating like a mouse will indeed cause you to gain even more weight. I know so many friends and clients who regularly skip breakfast, or often skip lunch because they are so busy at work, and when they do eventually get to eat, they crave carbohydrates and eat at the computer or on the go. Many of them eat very little food in an attempt to lose weight. There are three main hormones involved in creating a disordered eating habit and they each play a huge part in effecting weight, as well as promoting negative eating patterns. Those of you who experience periods when you ‘just don’t feel that hungry’, take note. Cortisol is a hormone triggered in response to psychological or physiological stress, and has been found to influence eating behaviours, and affect both weight and health over time. Cortisol also stimulates appetite and especially cravings. Researchers have demonstrated that patients susceptible to high cortisol consume an unbalanced high energy and high calorific diet, high in saturated fats and starchy foods on their stress days compared with patients with low reactors of stress. Furthermore, Cortisol is intensified during an underlying pattern of disordered eating due to an adaptive response to increased and activated energy stores. Leptin is an appetite suppressive hormone secreted by fat cells. In normal circumstances, it regulates food intake and energy expenditure and induces weight loss. When Leptin falls it stimulates hunger, positively correlating with BMI and fat mass. Despite the whole appetite mechanism aspect with Leptin being complex, it is assumed that when you starve or decrease food consumption, Leptin falls below your threshold and the brain senses starvation. This begins several processes in the body, bringing on severe hunger pangs until your body senses the Leptin back at its level. However, when you repeatedly starve or decrease food consumption, you become Leptin-resistant. This is where the body
Balancingact
stores more fat cells to secrete more Leptin in an attempt to tell the brain that it does not need any more food, but the brain does not receive the signal. The brain continues to feel starved. And if your brain cannot receive the Leptin receptor signal, you are going gain weight. Those who yo-yo diet and fluctuate heavily in weight usually experience a drop in Leptin when they lose weight, however, thyroid activity can be compromised as well as energy expenditure due to a lower basal metabolic rate. Furthermore, changes in brain activity occur with emotional and cognitive control of food intake. Some researchers conclude this explanation to be a metabolic disorder caused by severe nutritional deficiencies, while others assume high fructose/high sugar consumption to be the culprit, or simply an adaptation to the excess body weight and fat cells. Lastly, a polypeptide hormone, which is an appetite suppressant hormone secreted by the intestine in response to food intake is called Peptide YY. Its job is to modulate appetite via the hypothalamus, by binding to Y2 receptors which promote the appetite suppressive pathways. Peptide YY levels work opposite to Leptin, since they are elevated in anorexia and low in obesity and are inversely associated with BMI and 43
possibly involved with the HP-Adrenal axis signalling. To rebalance appetite-regulating hormones remember to: l Include a lean source of protein with every meal l Never skip breakfast or meals l Eat a big healthy breakfast l Relax in order to beat those hormones This will help to curb cravings, reduce Cortisol and Leptin levels and increase the Peptide YY levels. Important to note, the above explanation is only one of the causes of excess weight gain that is hard to combat with just diet alone. There are many other factors that need to be taken into consideration for those unable to lose weight through only healthy eating. For more information, you should book an appointment with a nutritionist, GP or your trusted healthcare professional.
About Claudette Claudette Freeman (B.Hlth.Sc.) is a nutritionist and research writer, specialising in weight loss, disease healing and disease prevention by using ‘food as a medicine’. Claudette can be contacted via email: claudettecaseyfreeman@gmail.com.
March 2014