YOUR SECRET WEIGHTLOSS ENEMY

If you started off the New Year by cutting back on calories, my hat’s off to you. That’s an especially wise move if the axed calories are from sugar-added foods and other simple carbohydrate items. You’re cutting back on fried foods too? Look at you! Way to go!

So how is your battle with ghrelin going?

What the heck is ghrelin? If you’re cutting calorie intake – any type of calories – ghrelin is a formidable adversary.

When it comes to desire for food, you’re largely at the mercy of the hormones leptin and ghrelin. A rising ghrelin level prompts your brain to register the sensation of hunger. As you eat and fulfill your body’s need for nourishment, leptin rises, ghrelin drops, and hunger fades.

Simple. But when you’re trying to lose weight – not so simple.

A 2002 Journal of Medicine study followed subjects’ ghrelin levels over the course of a six-month weight reduction effort. After the first three months, each of the overweight subjects had lost an average of nearly 40 pounds. By the end of the study they had managed to maintain that level of weight loss.
But here’s the bad news (and possibly the key reason dieters typically regain lost weight): As body weight dropped, ghrelin output increased. At the end of the study, the subjects’ LOWEST ghrelin levels were almost as high as their pre-meal ghrelin peaks before their weight-loss program began.

It’s a real bummer! Here you are, working hard, day after day, depriving yourself of calories, while ghrelin lays the groundwork for backsliding the moment you let your guard down.

Now for the good news: There are  steps you can take to help tame the ghrelin gremlin.

1) Get enough sleep – Avoid fructose—Fructose makes ghrelin rise. And fructose shows up in a wide range of processed foods.

A study in which subjects of normal weight drank a fructose drink or a glucose drink after each meal for 24 hours. Results: High fructose intake was linked to higher ghrelin levels, and lower leptin and insulin levels.Research shows that ghrelin levels are generally higher and leptin levels are lower in people who regularly get inadequate sleep. As a result, hunger is more pronounced during the day. And worse: Sleep-deprived people tend to desire calorie-dense, high-carbohydrate foods.

Do you have to get 8 hours? A 2006 sleep study shows that many overweight people may experience benefits by adding just 20 minutes of additional sleep each night.

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3) Don’t Crash Diet—Too steep of a drop in caloric intake is a shock to the system which can increase grehlin. Cutting refined carbohydrates is a must, consuming inferior carbs just makes you hungry for more carbs.

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-Remember to Keep the Grehlin Gremlins at Bay by Getting Needed Rest, Decreasing High Fructose Corn Syrup and Don’t Starve Yourself! – Dr. B