The Starvation Response

No one should ever eat like this....

Your body works like a factory, with many thousands of workers and departments all using different resources and producing many different products. Conventionally this factory (your body) runs on energy. Energy is a vital substance delivered everyday and without it, the factory could not run at an optimum level.

Your body...

Let's say for example the factory loses half of it's contracted energy. Production immediately will go down, customers lose faith with the company, workers become disgruntled and agitated. Work ethic and incentive collapses. Sure some customers get their ordered products but they're sub-optimal. Some areas of the factory have to shut and some people subsequently lose their jobs.

This is exactly what happens with us when we decide to drastically cut our food intake.

But...who can blame us. We got the size we are by overindulging in foods only ever meant for a once in a blue-moon treat. Logically, anyone would assume that to lose the same weight again, you would simply not eat as much? Oh if only it was so simple!!

If we turn back to our factory analogy; energy doesn't enter into the factory  and come out the other end as a product without undergoing other processes. In the same way when we take food into our bodies we don't immediately undergo the desired movement. Food undergoes a million different processes before the subsequent energy reaches the final goal. If we compare to the factory again and immediately cut our food intake in half and expect ourselves to perform at the same level. Yeah right! Like that'll happen. Instead, like the factory, certain parts of your body shut down, your can't perform to the same standard. At this stage you start to lose a few pounds and everything is going great!!

As usually in this industry people generally have unrealistic goals in that they want to 5 stone, have a six pack, a perfect ass and 0% bodyfat. So when they drastically cut out food they in some instances can lose 7lbs, maybe even a stone within a month...then....BANG. They hit a plateau! No more weight comes off. They become annoyed with themselves, depress themselves with negative thoughts and give up of leading a healthy lifestyle.

But why does this happen? 

To the factory....!

As we said earlier, if energy supplies are halved, the factory performs at a sub-optimal level (like us). But each time some energy is delivered it's stored specially so that it can be used when it's most important. 

This happens with our bodies as well. Our body thinks to itself "oh no i'm getting barely any food at the minute, look how poorly i'm performing." It then begins a procedure called the starvation response. Any food that touches your lips within this period is prioritised to head towards your fat stores! This is to enable your body to help spread out the energy consumed over a longer period. Your body will remain in this state for as long as you continue this 'sparrow-eating.' The ironic thing about eating like this is that most people end up in the long run putting on even more weight than usual as their body's metabolism has slowed down so much. In actual fact, some individuals who diet like this over many years can actually destroy their metabolism beyond repair. 

Eating like a sparrow if for sparrows!!

So in total an individual maybe loses 7-14lbs by dieting like this, they reach their goal for the desired event (usually a wedding, formal etc.) afterwards they eat as normal and put on 7-14lbs plus more! Restricting calories should never be your first step in trying to lose weight. Many, many other steps come before this should ever be considered. 

If anything is removed from someones diet, something healthy should immediately replace it.

Thanks for reading guys!

Ethan

Why is bread so addictive?

Everyone, and I mean everyone who has ever tried to limit or cut carbs from their diet has screamed this at the bread bin in the kitchen! But who can blame us! Who doesn't love a nice crusty loaf cut into beautifully thick slices followed by the wonder of ingredients you can place in between these two tasty components and the application of an equally addictive sauce.

Pure Bliss...

The "School Lunch Box Survey: 2004" took data on the content of school lunch boxes UK wide. They found that 69% contained a white bread sandwich. It's the naturally progression of life. You drink breast milk, move onto baby food followed by your first sandwich. Then for the next 11 years you probably had at least one per day. But lunch time isn't the only time bread makes an appearance. It's eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper and snacks. 

So what?! It's only bread! I'll just eat something else! It can't be that hard! 

These are usually statement we tell ourselves when we set ourselves the challenge of cutting out bread. But within days, even hours sometimes, we experience varying degrees of:

• Fatigue
• Hunger
• Mood swings
• Decreased performance at work or home
• Depression

But why? 

Why? Why?!WHY!!!

If everyday since your were; lets say 4 years old someone injected you with heroin but one day when your 30 something and decide you want to be healthy, live an active lifestyle and get into shape. You need to stop using heroin and live drug free. To live drug free you decide to just destroy all your stash and never go near heroin ever again. Many of us would hazard the obvious guess that it's not so simple.

For a brief moment this addict lives in a pure utopia of bliss!

But what does this have to do with bread? Heroin is a derivative of opium, the same stuff used to make morphine. 

Bread is sourced from the very popular grain called wheat. Wheat is subsequently made up of many components but most importantly it contains gluten. Now, I can hear you thinking; "This guy isn't going to try and tell us wheat is bad for us?" Well you'd be wrong, but that is for another blog. 

Zioudrou et al. (1979), Teschemacher, (2003) and Fanciulli et al. (2005), plus many more studies have found that the exposure of gluten to a diet causes direct stimulation of morphine receptors within the brain. Lets swing back to the heroin addict, heroin stimulates the exact same morphine receptors. You must remember however that each of us have been designed totally unique and so to one person a simple slice of bread can be their daily fix, for others who have a lower tolerance and a well established bread addiction a larger dose of bread is required to satisfy these strange desires!

What am I saying? Basically we're all heroin addicts. And I'm not joking. To expect someone to just give up bread after eating it for decades is as ludicrous as expecting a heroin addict to give up using after decades. That's why so many of us fail to keep away from breads. We give in so easily. To enable us to give up bread/wheat we need to gradually reduce our exposure, switching to wholegrain is the first step definitely not the end goal. Wholegrain bread still contains gluten and so therefore addictive but it's a stepping stone. Gradually ween yourself down and simultaneously replace with a wheat-free source of carbohydrates: for example: potatoes, rice or even gluten free breads.

Soon the desire to devour a ham sandwich will be forever a distant memory and you will be on the road towards a healthy lifestyle.

Stay tuned to discover why wheat is so bad for you besides it's addictive qualities!

Thanks for reading,

Ethan

Lose Fat in just 6 weeks........

Fat Burners.....

Want to get ripped in just 6 weeks? Rock hard abs with the crunches! Burn your fat off in days! The secret pill that's putting personal trainers out of business!

Any of the above statements sound familiar?

Often seen on the sidebars of webpages or crammed into advertising pages in health and fitness magazines, such claims are often accompanied by ludacris before and after pictures.

The above image can display some of the more ridiculous images, but below are the all too familar advertisements often seen in magazines:

Beautiful, minimally dressed woman on the front packet, if she takes them maybe I'll look like her?

Green tea is meant to be really good for you, a super concentrated dose is bound to be even better!

 I WANNA BE A RIPPED FREAK!

Anything with 'grenade' in the name must be really aggressive against fat!

And so on.....

As i sit and read these claims on various supplement websites, the same echoes around my head....

"Where is the evidence?!"

What you most likely didn't know is that these pills are not classed as pills, according to many governments around the world (particularly the USA), these pills are classed as foods and so are not regulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

Because of this precise fact, these companies that create and make such claims, do not have to provide evidence. Interestingly when evidence has been provided, who do you think has funded the research? Thats right, the same company that created the product! For some reason I think there may be an issue of bias within these studies??

Without sound evidence, how can anyone continually fall victim to the exaggerated, over-sexualised, impossible and down right lies that these people portray to be gospel truth! For people whose job involves a lot of critiquing, it is easy to immediately stop the supplement salesman in his path and demand some evidence. On the other hand, the majority of the general population has no time to critique or research supplements. They want results fast to keep in line with their busy work-horse lifestyle and if a new pill claims to drop lbs of fat in just 2 weeks without going to the gym they will literally through money at them! In fact, 33.9% of people who have attempted weight loss, have admitted to using a 'fat-loss pill' with the highest prevalence in women and those on low incomes (Pillitteri et al. 2008).

These bold claims and a chance to save even more time by not going to the gym is incredibly enticing!

In years gone by weight loss pills began as typical one ingredient powders or herbs etc. making just the simple claim of weight loss. Nowadays we face the highly concentrated doses of various powders herbs, chemicals that have been broken down, reshaped and given funny names that none of us can pronounce never mind understand what the do. To aim to keep this article as simple as possible, below we have listed the most common of fat burner ingredients:

• Caffeine
• Green Tea Extract
• Yohimbine
• CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)
• Raspberry Ketones
• Pyruvate

Caffeine:

When we refer to caffeine here, we are not referring to a simple cup of hot rich Arabica beans, freshly grounded and filtered in the morning. Instead we are referring to synthetic, lab-created powders lace with many different chemicals from the manufacturing process. That being said not all fat burners use such poor quality caffeine, but many do. Caffeine is the most common of all fat burner ingredients and is available in many different forms, foods, pills, liquids. It has long been claimed to increase fat metabolism and fight the good fight in our battle with excess fat. Thankfully it is such a heavily researched substance, that many papers are available for review. 

The consumption of this substance firstly causes a massive surge of activity of the neurons within the brain, which leads to the activation of the pituitary gland and subsequently a release of adrenaline (Bassini-Cameron et al. 2007). This increase in adrenaline is then the direct cause of an increase in an individuals heart rate and blood pressure (British Heart Foundation 2012). Synergistically this has been linked to an increased fat oxidation.

A study by Leijten et al. (1984) has suggested that caffeine also causes an increase in the availability of fat as a fuel source by delaying the breakdown of cyclic AMP. These findings have been shown to increase further when said individual takes part in low intensity exercise (Graham et al. 2008).

A study by Acheson et al. (1980) found that caffeine was shown to provide short-term thermogenic effects on the body.

Theses effects however seem to occur only in the very short term and in no way can allow for a sustainable and permanent weight loss regime, as pointed out by Westerterp-Platenga et al. (2005). Ironiclly it has also been found in repeated studies that an increase in metabolism and fat oxidation deminishes when the individual has a higher body fat percentage (Leblanc 1985).

Green Tea

Along with increased fat oxidation, metabolism and decreased fat percentages, green tea also boasts a lowering of LDL cholesterol, increase of HDL cholesterol and increasing insulin sensitvity, reversing the adverse effects of many obese individuals diets. 

Meng et al (2003) notably stated the cause of increase fat metabolism with the consumption of green tea was due to the inhibition of COMT and as green tea also contains caffeine it allows the body to free up fat for metabolism by inhibiting the degrading of cAMP. 

As with caffeine, green tea works better with individuals who are not habitual drinkers of the tea (Viechtbauer et al. 2009). The effectiveness of green tea is also limited by a persons genetics, with some ethnicities stating no effect whatsoever and an effect spectrum of 40% each way of the median (Miller et al. 2012)!

Yohimbine

Yohimbe, and its subset yohimbine, are fat-burning compounds, primarily used to lose fat during short term fasting. Yohimbine is also an aphrodisiac and can aid erectile dysfunction. It is also a general stimulant. Yohimbine works by increasing adrenaline levels in the body, as well as inhibiting a regulatory process in fat cells, which normally suppresses fat burning. 

This then functions in the same way that caffeine does. Though with that being said, users often dissociate coffee, tea and fizzy drinks as stimulants causing collective effects on the adrenal glands. This may eventually lead to adrenal fatigue.

The effects of yohimbine are partially negated by food intake, which is why it is often taken in a fasted state.

Unfortunately however Yohimbine can cause extreme anxiety in those individuals who are already prone to it.

CLA and Pyruvate 

These two popular fat burner ingredients have shown some promising results in particular studies to increase fat metabolism (Gaullier et al. 2004, Blankson et al. 2000). With that being said current trials only show a minimal increase in fat metabolism and weight loss. With individuals having to take very high dosages to have any effect. This obviously would not be feasible financially.

Raspberry Ketones:

This is the new kid on the block! To date there are absolutely no human trials on the effectiveness of raspberry ketones in burning fat! The few animal studies available involved rats and when the dosages used were translated to humans, you would have to take upward of 5g-10g per serving. For example a 100g bag costs £15 on myprotein.com but if your taking 1 serving of 10g per day, you only have 10 servings for £15. Totally financially unfeasible.

There are many other popular ingredients used in fat burners:

- Chromium 

- Forskolin 

- Fucoxanthim

- Hydroxycitric Acid

For these four ingredients there is no significant evidence for their use as a fat loss method. 

To summarise:

Of all the fat loss ingredients, only caffeine and green tea extract have been shown to cause a significant effect in regards to fat loss. This though has been totally dependent on a number of factors: habitual caffeine intake, current fat percentage, genetic predispositions. Regardless The effect of even caffeine and green tea in minimal at best. That being said organic green tea and coffee (as opposed to fat burner pills) have a range of health benefits - not just aiding in fat metabolism. 

In otherwords.....

DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY OF FAT BURNERS!!

Many Thanks,

Ethan

Does eating broccoli really burn more calories than it actually contains?

Does eating broccoli really burn more calories than it actually contains?

The staple vegetable of many bodybuilders and fitness models.
It has long been considered to be the most prominent of what is known as:
"Thermogenic Foods"

Thermic Effect of Food / Thermogenic Effect of Food

Definition:

"The energy expenditure brought on as a direct cause of the digestion, absorption and transportation of nutrients" (Goljan, 2013). 

The apparent criteria for a thermogenic or 'negative calorie' food is one that contains a low calorie count while simultaneously containing a high fibre count. A list of these so called fruits and vegetables can be seen below:

The Theory:

In one piece / spear of broccoli there is, on average, 11 calories. The theory of the thermogenic effect of food dictates that throughout the digestion, absorption and transportation of nutrients from that one piece of broccoli, the body actually burns more than the original 11 calories consumed.

"Great! So if i eat nothing but broccoli I will lose copious amounts of weight!"

Wrong!!!

This theory and subsequent popular assumption is wrong on two parts:

Part A: The theory is flawed

Part B: The Calorie Myth

Part A: Why the theory is flawed.

Different foods do use varying degrees of energy within the digestion-absorption-transportation process: 

Carbohydrates: 5-15%

Fats: 5-15%

Proteins: 20-35%

The body obtains the above mentioned percentages from the energy obtained from the digestion process (Granata, Brandon, 2002). So if a piece of meat contains 100 calories the body will use 20-35 calories to digest, absorb and transport the nutrients from that piece of meat......on average of course.

No one is denying that certain foods use a varying amount of calories during this process, this has been proved in various studies. But not a single study has ever proved that the processing of certain foods like broccoli or celery. None! Zilch! Nada!

Unfortunately it's all lies, based on unfounded theories and evidence!

In fact, those who fall into the category of overweight or obese have actually been found to burn an even lower percentage of consumed calories during the day compared to a lean individual. (De Jonge, Bary, 1997, Nelson, Weinsier et al. 1992). 

Part B: The Calorie Myth

Part B will evolve into a 4 part series of blogs featuring over the next 4 Sundays. 

We've already shown that no evidence to support TEF (Thermic Effect of Food) exists. But let's for one minute assume that the theory played out and you did in fact burn more calories than you consumed. This is based on the Calories in Vs. Calories out way of thinking, in that, if you require 2000 calories to maintain your bodyweight and only eat 1800 in a day, you will lose 200 calories and subsequently lose weight. 

Wrong! And on many levels!

• A calorie is defined as a unit of energy that is required to contribute to a reaction within the body. A certain amount of calories are required for daily functioning and that is it! No mention of a certain amount of grams of calories so why would a reduction in the weight or number of calories consumed have a direct impact on the weight of an individual. It all depends on everything that comes along with the calorie. To put it another way some houses are heated using home heating oil, another house is heated using gas. They both heat our homes but weight totally different amounts, but, that doesn't effect how warm our house is, does it!
• Different foods cause different hormonal reactions within the body. These different hormonal reactions cause an array of different processes to occur and to make matters more confusing, each process effects each person differently based on body fat%, lean mass%, vascular health, nerve health, gut health, skin health and organ health. The hormonal changes can cause weight gain in one person and weight loss in another. This can again be influenced by stress, exercise and disease! In essence no one person is the same and any diet or nutritional plan should be individualized.

An excellent source on this very topic and a contributor to my own personal research is a book called: 

"The Calorie Myth" by Jonathan Bailor." Below is a link to a review of his book through amazon! But remember to check out the 4 part series starting on Sunday night on my blog called "Eat Less, Lose Less".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calorie-Myth-Exercise-Weight-Better/dp/0062267337/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395782438&sr=1-1&keywords=the+calorie+myth

Thanks,

Ethan