Interesting research on people who keep off the fat they lost....

Today's Post: Friday, 9-18-2009

In people that are too fat for good health or who are much fatter than they want to be there are several groups.

1. People who simply make no effort to lose any fat.

Some of those people simply don’t care. But many would like to do it but are unwilling to try unless they expect to succeed and simply don’t know what to do. And, there are people who have virtually no control over what they eat and literally have too little time to exercise at all. Lastly, there are people who simply have no clue anything exists that can help them change & lose fat.

2. People who try to lose fat and lose none.

Some of these people simply try things that don’t work or do things that can work but in such tiny amounts, nothing happens. And some people have things in their bodies that prevent methods that normally work from doing so, such as a drug they take that prevents fat loss or an undiagnosed, low level shortage of growth hormones or thyroid.

3. People who lose fat successfully but lose little and then gain it all back.

This may be the largest group. People often lose fat by eating a lot less but in ways that cause their bodies to react with the famine response – which is to make them dramatically hungrier and lower their metabolism so that fat loss stops. Then eating less produces no more fat loss; they feel lousy and are always very hungry & they virtually always give up and gain all the fat back that they lost.

4. People who lose all or most of the fat they want to lose or need to lose for their health and then keep it off.

This one is the best group to be in!

These people have made changes in their normal lifestyle. They are eating right as what they normally do and often don’t think of what they eat as a “diet.” They are NOT on a TEMPORARY program.

And, they virtually all exercise regularly. In fact, most of them exercise more each week than the average person who exercises regularly.

They also know how to make an extra effort if they find they begin to gain weight or fat and do so until they reverse the process or at least brings it to an early stop.

They do NOT feel excessively hungry. They have normal energy levels. And, their bodies are NOT in famine response mode.

Research I saw recently looked at what parts of people’s brains lit up when they saw fattening foods. They tested some obese people and then tested another group of people who had lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off.

In the obese people, the part of their brains that lit up were the pleasure and reward centers & virtually nothing else.

In the people who had permanently lost fat, the main response was in the parts of their brains that were engaged in people with self-control.

In other words, in the obese people, their brains were simply anticipating how good the food would taste.

In the people who had successfully lost fat, their brains were THINKING about what the food was and whether or not the consequences of eating it were OK or not.

That’s one of the reasons the posts here have so much information about the consequences of the different kinds of foods people eat.

If ALL you know or focus on when you see commercially baked donuts or cookies or microwave popcorn or the pie crust in a pie or a soft drink is that they are things many people eat and drink – and that you’ve enjoyed them before, you’ll have trouble staying healthy or losing any fat you’ll keep off.

But if the first thing you think about is that some of these things have refined grains, excessive sugars, and/or trans fats that will make you fat and sick and drive up your future medical bills and that you know NOT to eat them even if you once did and enjoyed them, you’ll either pass completely or eat very little.

So, if you want to lose fat, learn what NOT to eat and drink and stop doing it.

THINK about what’s in foods and drinks and what those things are likely to do to you BEFORE you make any decisions about whether or not you’ll have any.

It also helps to eat enough foods that are health OK that you aren’t starving hungry.

AND it also helps to know and eat many things you actually enjoy eating that either will add no fat to you at all or only will if you eat them too much or too often and then avoid doing so.

Here are some health OK foods and drinks many people like that you might also enjoy.:

Raw pecans, raw walnut halves or pieces, dry roasted almonds,

small servings of dark chocolate,

avocados and guacamole,

strawberries, a kind of apple you enjoy eating,

savory foods that you enjoy eating that contain mostly health OK proteins, health OK oils, and vegetables along with spices you like that are actually good for you (garlic & curry & ginger and “hot’ spices like chili powder or red pepper, & even cinnamon -- for example),

unsweetened, strong cocoa without milk, and one or two glasses of red wine that you like a few times a week.

This is a very incomplete list.

But the more foods and drinks YOU like that are actually good for your health or OK in small quantities that you’ve found that you actually have and enjoy, the easier it gets to pass on the junk that will harm you to ingest.

But the take home in this research is to know foods and THINK about what you eat BEFORE you decide whether or not to ingest anything.