A Shrinking Stomach

The other day I was looking at some research that suggested the signal for hunger can be stopped when the wall of the stomach becomes stretched. Signals are sent to the brain telling us to stop eating. This does seem to make sense in order to protect the stomach from potential damage. The problem with dieting is that many overweight people tend to have a larger stomach so to stretch the wall they may need to eat a larger meal. But a larger meal often means taking in too many calories, unless, of course you eat a big plateful of salad.

I was thinking this could possibly mean that a person trying to lose weight may feel constantly hungry if they suddenly select a diet of low-calorie foods and smaller portions, which is actually one of the best ways to lose weight. But how does a person avoid the hunger pains?

Well, when I had to suddenly limit my food intake to 2 meals per day (due mainly to my workload so I couldn't find time to eat my normal 5-6 meals) I did lose weight although, I was aware this was mainly water from protein muscle loss and thus I wouldn't really recommend losing it this way. However, I also noticed that my stomach did shrink (this is because the body will take some protein from the breakdown of the stomach wall, as it no longer needs to work as hard thus it no longer needs to be as strong). This meant that when I ate a meal I seemed to get full very easily on less food, thus I felt comfortable eating a diet of smaller portions which help to maintain my weight loss at that time. It also helped stop those horrible hunger pains that I experienced at first but luckily couldn't hunt down food as I had to concentrate on work. I suppose I had to break Through the pain barrier for a while.

I think that going through those first 10-14 days with, what seemed to be a forced low food intake actually helped me to shrink my stomach, and I believe that a smaller stomach stopped me from binging out on huge portions when I did finally manage to get around to eating. This means it helped stop the weight re-gain which often occurs after quick weight loss.

Maybe shrinking the stomach is one way to limit portion size when on a diet. Although I personally don't recommend losing weight quickly.

If you believe this may be why you are struggling to lose weight then seek advice from your doctor before attempting to try losing weight quickly to shrink the stomach size. The benefits you obtain from a smaller stomach may be out-weighed by the possible metabolic effects of losing more lean muscle.

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Don't buy the food from the big supermarkets

I noticed the other day just how easy it is to have too much food in the house. My partner went to do the weekly food shopping at a new supermarket that had recently opened. This supermarket was huge and sold every item you could think of. When she came back she had twice as many bags as normal, and spent 35 minutes telling me about all these lovely new healthy foods she had found.

Being a little concerned about health she thought all these new "healthy" foods would be good for us but, we are quite a healthy family with no real health problems to worry about. The only thing we need to watch is our weight, and with all this food about that's one thing we'll have to watch even closely now!

Yes, I suppose it's good food but it's still calories, and extra calories no matter where they come from will cause weight gain.

I suppose the one tip we could take from this experience is NOT to shop at large supermarkets with huge choice available. Research has shown that having lots of different foods available can easily cause overeating.

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Eating Too Little Too Late!

Eating little and often is usually good dietary advice for people trying to lose weight. The only trouble with having frequent low fat snacks is that you are supplying the body with a steady supply of sugar, the body's preferred energy source. Having a steady supply of sugar means the body may be burning less from the fat stores, this could be especially true if the individual has a low activity level because the number of calories burned is not sufficient to over ride the number of calories supplied from the frequent sugar intake. All this could mean hampered results for losing weight. This is a classic case where some generally good advice may not be much use to others with a different lifestyle or situation.

I believe some people really need to let themselves go a little bit hungry for longer periods to try and force the body to use up excess fat stores more readily. This does not means starving oneself, as is the case for most things in life, too much of anything is never much of a good thing. I mean if you don't manage to get much activity then maybe let that hunger continue for a little bit longer.

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