WeightMatters » overeating

“If You Could Take Away Hunger, Food Is Not Attractive”

Kirsty Payne — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:42:58 +0000

"If you could take away hunger, food is not attractive". Professor Stephen Bloom from Imperial College, London.

A new drug for weight loss is being developed by the afore-mentioned professor.

The drug works by switching off the appetite by mimicking the effect of the hormone that is naturally released when the stomach is full.

The hormone, Oxyntomodulin, is also found in those who have had their stomachs made small by operations such as Gastric Bypass.

The professor says that he wanted to develop something that will produce weight loss without the need for surgery.

The drug is still in the early stages of development and initially will be given to diabetics but in time could be available over the counter according the The Daily Mail.

The professor is reported to have said, "If you take away hunger, food is not attractive". Is the professor saying that people who overeat do so because they do not have enough of the said hormone to tell them they are full or do they overeat regardless of this particular hormone's level? I think the answer is clear! Given the number of overweight/obese in this country, surely they cannot all be suffering from a lack of the ability to feel full.

People overeat for a vast wealth of reasons, even when they are obviously full and obesity is the result.

One has to be cautious when another "wonder" diet pill hits the headlines. Questions need to be asked such as will it cause more health issues than it sets out to solve? What are the long term effects?

Indeed more and more people are turning to therapy following disastrous bariatric surgery. If you haven't got your emotions and mental health sussed, even bariatric surgery will fail you in the end.

Non surgical solutions to the obesity epidemic are to be welcomed but by far and away the best course of action is to look deep inside yourself to find out the root cause of your weight issues and find a way to resolve it if at all possible.

James.

Weighing Up The Scales!

jameslamper — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:17:25 +0000

Hello, late November can be a trigger time for many people to get anxious about their weight. The thought of wanting to look great for Christmas parties, combined with a jam-packed social schedule can leave many fearful of losing control of their eating behaviour and putting on weight, at a time when they want to lose weight.

December brings with it big Christmas meals, family reunions and munching chocolate whilst trapped around the TV. This can make weight control a precarious balancing act for many.

One bite too many of a forbidden food, one unwanted comment about your size, or feeling you have no choice but to eat the portion sizes served to you can cause weight anxiety to sore.

Imagine a dimensional scale with no anxiety about weight on one end, and extreme anxiety about weight on the other end. Where would you place yourself?

Do you shrug off overeating at this time of year and tell yourself you will do something about it next year? Maybe you allow yourself to have fun and relax, but make some attempt to compensate for the extra calories with more activity? Or do obsessive thoughts about food and calories proliferate your waking hours making you fearful of weight gain.

Your weight can become a distorted way of validating your self-worth. It can make you feel as if you are in control, when other domains of your life seem chaotic. A fluctuation in the number you see on the scales can instantly change your mood. Weight gain can shoot off negative thoughts in your head, which in turn stir up unpleasant emotions about your self-worth.

Changing the way you validate yourself and breaking any habits or rituals you have around jumping on the scales can take time. Staying the course of this journey brings freedom, and with it a shift to healthier place on the dimensional weight scale.

Each day take a few minutes to acknowledge things about yourself, your character, your personality and your achievements. Remind yourself that you are a great friend, fluent in spanish and you have run a marathon. Search for the things that are positive and special about yourself.

This exercise will help you validate yourself in new ways, and allow you to slowly change your relationship with weighing yourself.

Please leave your comments about weight and weighing behaviour below.

Email me on info@weightmatters.co.uk if you are interested in creating a 'Healthy Christams Survival Plan' to help you through the holidays.

Have a great week!

James

Exercise Does Lead to Weight Loss – Behavioural Change

WeightMatters — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:42:34 +0000

Yesterday I talked about reading an article by Dan Roberts in the Telegraph titled ‘Why your workout isn’t and the flaws in it’s argument in relation to the Physiological Adaptations which are Compensatory Responses to Exercise. I pointed out that there is individual variability in every piece of research conducted, and for this reason any expectation of Weight Loss following exercise must be valued against an individual’s physiology and psychology – one size doesn’t fit all!

You can also get Compensatory Responses to Exercise, which are Behavioural. Changes in behaviour, which arise as a result of exercise, may be automatic, resulting from physical changes such as metabolic adaptations and changes to the appetite system.

For example if metabolism slows down a person may go to sleep earlier, be more tired and less likely to move around when they are not exercising. A decrease in normal lifestyle activity resulting from fatigue or metabolic slowdown can deprive the system of a valuable source of energy expenditure.

When there are changes to the appetite system, this can lead to eating that is faster, more frequent or high in energy dense food. Other behavioural changes, which result from exercise, are volitional and purposeful.

Some people reward themselves for exercising by having a glass of wine and a pub lunch after a walk, or a coffee and a cereal bar after a swim. Misjudgement here means people eat more calories than they have expended. It may take an hour to expend only 200 calories with the most vigorous activity, while they can eat 600 calories in a slice of cake in a mater of minutes. So people who reward themselves for exercise are likely to gain weight.

A final behavioural response to activity is compliance, with the amount and intensity of activity reducing over time as a result of many complex motivational factors. We all start off with good intentions, but stuff just gets in the way.

So once again there are various behavioural reasons why research data will give mixed or sometimes inconclusive results. We are all different and will react to different life factors in different ways. Our lifestyle, physiology and psychology all collude to either help us maintain weight, gain weight or lose weight. How are your life factors balancing at the moment?

In the New Year, starting 1st January 2010, I will be starting a daily video blog of my attempt to lose weight leading to my 40th birthday on May 12th 2010. I want to share my personal experiences; feelings and insights into a diary to share with my readers, and at the same time combine it with the education that I give my clients here at the WeightMatters Clinic. Stay tuned and spread the word – it will be an interesting experiment!

James