There is a huge discussion going on in the blogosphere concerning what causes obesity which bubbled up at the Ancestral Health Symposium this month in Los Angeles. Gary Taubes has put forth the carbohydrate hypothesis (carbohydrates pumping up insulin), and Stephen Guyenet has put forth the food reward theory, and others say it is the Neolithic agents of disease –gluten, excessive fructose, and omega 6s as well as food reward. Lustig of youtube fame says that we are becoming leptin and insulin resistant due to excessive fructose. So if you are interested, it is good reading. However, I am only going to speak for me, an older woman who has lost 40+ lbs. and still has 10 lbs. to go that won’t budge. I have been losing and gaining all my life so I am sure I may have a messed up metabolism. There is probably some reason that I cannot lose weight at 1400 calories a day. I do practice 3 meals a day without snacks, seconds or sweets. But I cannot lose weight without watching my calorie and carbohydrate consumption. And I have always had trouble with S Days undoing all the good work of my N Days. Here is where I think the food reward hypothesis does have some validity.
We already know that processed foods and restaurant foods are chocked full of sugar and fat and salt combinations designed to get us to over eat. We are also now living at a time when foods of all types are abundant year round. We probably have the most variety of any diet since the beginning of mankind. We can go to local stores or walk into our own kitchens and food is readily available. It is obvious that our food environment is contributing to obesity because of all those darn high reward foods calling our name. But shouldn’t I have more control of the available food in my own home?
Here is a list of foods that I really have trouble limiting. Can we say FOOD REWARD?
Salty foods…nuts, chips, fries
Sweet foods…especially if combined with flour and fat…Brownies, pies, cookies
Breads, especially homemade and biscuits and cornbread
Coffee with cream leads to more coffee consumption than black
Creamy foods…butter in mashed potatoes, cheese, mayonnaise, creamy dressings, buttermilk
Fruits…ripe and juicy
Do I ever overeat vegetables without seasoning or butter? Do I overeat unseasoned lean meat? Unseasoned rice or potatoes? NO… NOT ENOUGH REWARD
I do not plan to put Guyenet’s plan into practice…i.e. eating foods separately, unseasoned, bland, etc. However, since food reward is an area where I do have troubles, I have to be very, very careful. I have learned that it is better for me to have some foods outside of the house on S Days, and there are some foods I just do not eat any more. Even on N Days I have to put some restrictions in place so that I don’t overeat.
How do you handle highly rewarding foods?
I've been thinking more about this and I am so used to it - maybe I forget how unusual it is. When I ate a low cal/low fat diet, I used to think about food all the time - even dream about it. It was such a struggle not to eat.
ReplyDeleteNow I bake brownies that go stale. I bake bread every week, but it's just something I do. I take it out of the oven, set it out to cool and don't even think about it. Sometimes I don't even eat any of it. My cookie jar has cookies in it, but I can't remember the last time I ate one. My pantry is full of jars of dried fruits, macadamia nuts, almonds and pecans. Every time I open the door, the potato chips are at eye level, but they don't interest me at all. I've got a cheesecake and half of a chocolate cake in the freezer that maybe we'll get around to eating one of these days. I just threw away a carton of ice cream that sat there so long, it got all crystalized.
It's not just that I don't eat them. I don't even want to eat them.
As far as other foods go we eat grass-fed meats, vegetables, some kind of starch and always with grass-fed butter. It's nutritious on its own, but it also makes vegetables more nutritious as well. It sounds like a lot, but with that kind of food, there's no need for large portions or 'seconds'. I can barely finish one.
Every so often I run the numbers through a calorie counting software. I did this over the last two weeks. I averaged about 1300 calories a day. The S day was 1800, and that included two glasses of wine.
Sometimes I wonder if I"m not eating enough. I played tennis four days last week, and I've been doing some heavy gardening. But I don't feel like I"m not eating enough. I'm learning a lot of patience, that's for sure!
I know that last post looks out of context, but it's all about why I don't think food reward plays a huge part *for me*.
ReplyDeleteWe're all different though - and I'm sure there are people for which this is a big problem. But even then I wonder if in many cases, it's not really biochemistry disguised as food reward.
I think you are correct. It all comes back to biochemistry. And whatever was the cause of our weight gain may not be the answer to weight loss...In other words, there may be a cause/effect but the effect has to be undone in a more complex way. I do eat very similarly to you...local beef and pork (can't get 100% pastured), pastured eggs and butter, fresh vegetables, etc. I have been gluten and sugar free for 9 months and I have no cravings when I eat this way. Sweets are not the least bit tempting. However, I have found some foods that I will over eat and I have to leave alone...nuts, cheese, jerky, and dried fruit will cause my frontal lobe to go brain dead I guess. I don't know whether it is the food reward issue or whether something happens biochemically. But I have learned again to not even include these foods on my S Days. We really all are different and I would not want to impose my restrictions on any one else!
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