A few weeks ago, a chance conversation with my sister, Lori, led to my reading about the nutrition ideas of David Ludwig (MD, PhD). He's spoken and written extensively, and has published a book detailing his recommendations called Always Hungry?
I do not consider myself an expert in this by any means, but some of the key concepts, as I understand them, are that the endocrine system of the body reacts to glucose by producing insulin, which then sends that glucose to fat cells. So, eating a diet rich in easily digested sugars and starches results in a short-term blood glucose spike, followed by a crash. After the crash, we get a feeling of hunger, because our glucose is down.
It's basically a futile cycle. Once our body is used to this pattern, we eat (because we're hungry), the body sends much of that food energy to our fat cells, we're hungry again, and we eat more. As over-simplification you can say rather than being overweight because we eat too much, we eat too much because we are overweight.
In the short term, you can control this with will-power. But eventually the feelings of hunger almost always win, and any weight loss experienced from self-control and exercise is cancelled by a later weight gain.
Calories are not all the same. Turns out that fat calories don't trigger the insulin response, and so we maintain a "not hungry" feeling for much longer. If you can get your body used to this, you can wind up eating less, feeling hungry less, and actually reducing your body fat stores. The book goes into considerable detail, with references, on the research foundation for this concept. It also contains a detailed plan, in three phases, to change the way you eat in order to change the way your body reacts to food.
Those five paragraphs are preface to my comment that I've begun trying to eat according to the Always Hungry? plan. From the very first day's breakfast (I'm currently on my day 12) I was astonished at how filling the food was, but also that I wasn't hungry at all for over four hours after breakfast. That's the most astonishing thing for me. I've always been a grazer, nibbling on this and that throughout the day. But on this plan, it isn't even a matter of self-control or will-power when I don't nibble or eat. I'm just not hungry for long periods of time throughout the day.
Body weight fluctuates too much to make a day-by-day analysis meaningful, but the so-far trend on my consumer grade bathroom scale is that I've lost eight pounds since starting this plan. I'm still significantly overweight, but can already see a visible difference in my face, and in my body profile. I will move on to phase 2 Monday, and intend to continue this plan, as it is almost effortless to follow. I am experiencing no feelings of sacrifice. Rather, I eat delicious food until I am full (not stuffed) and otherwise do what I have always done in my life. Honestly, this feeling of not being hungry is quite enjoyable.
