Category: Weight Loss

The intense desire to eat certain foods can make weight loss very difficult.

Green spaces, like gardens, parks or allotments, can help people overcome food cravings, new research finds.

People who experience natural spaces have reduced cravings for unhealthy foods.

Previous studies have also shown that exercising in nature reduces cravings of all different types.

The intense desire to eat certain foods can make weight loss very difficult.

Food cravings may account for up to 10 percent of eating behaviour, which is more than genetics can explain.

Ms Leanne Martin, the study’s first author, said:

“It has been known for some time that being outdoors in nature is linked to a person’s wellbeing.

But for there to be a similar association with cravings from simply being able to see green spaces adds a new dimension to previous research.

This is the first study to explore this idea, and it could have a range of implications for both public health and environmental protection programmes in the future.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 149 people who were asked about cravings they experienced, their feelings and exposure to nature.

The results showed that people regularly exposed to natural scenes experienced fewer food cravings and of a lower intensity.

Gardens, allotments, parks and green views in general were all associated with lower levels of cravings.

Dr Sabine Pahl, study co-author, said:

“Craving contributes to a variety of health-damaging behaviours such as smoking, excessive drinking and unhealthy eating.

In turn, these can contribute to some of the greatest global health challenges of our time, including cancer, obesity and diabetes.

Showing that lower craving is linked to more exposure to green spaces is a promising first step.

Future research should investigate if and how green spaces can be used to help people withstand problematic cravings, enabling them to better manage cessation attempts in the future.”

The study was published in the journal Health & Place (Martin et al., 2019).

This routine helps people maintain their weight loss.

People who exercise at the same time each day sustain their weight loss more successfully, new research concludes.

People who exercise consistency end up doing more exercise, researchers found, which helps with weight loss.

The most common time for people to exercise is in the morning.

However, those who exercised in the evening successfully maintained their weight loss, if they stuck to this time.

So, it is not the time of day that matters most, but sticking to a consistent pattern.

The study followed 375 adults who had successfully maintained their weight loss.

The results show the importance of habits in weight loss.

Positive habits that are repeated day after day can help keep people healthy.

This is because habits tend to be performed automatically, sometimes with little conscious effort.

Dale Bond, study co-author, said:

“Our findings warrant future experimental research to determine whether promoting consistency in the time of day that planned and structured physical activity is performed can help individuals achieve and sustain higher levels of physical activity.”

Leah Schumacher, the study’s first author, said:

“It will also be important to determine whether there is a specific time of day that is more advantageous for individuals who have initial low physical activity levels to develop a physical activity habit.”

Another new study has suggested that working out in the morning burns the most calories.

Morning exercise increases the ability of muscles to burn fat and sugar, a separate study of mice has shown.

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Schumacher et al., 2019).

A handful of this food reduces the risk of obesity.

Eating a handful of nuts each day is linked to a lower risk of obesity, new research finds.

They are best used to replace an unhealthy snack, such as crisps, red meat, fries, or another processed food.

Brazil nuts, peanuts and other varieties of nut are all linked to cardiovascular benefits along with reducing the risk of weight gain.

Brazil nuts in particular have been shown to help stabilise blood glucose levels and increase feelings of fullness.

Almonds and walnuts are also healthy types of nuts to substitute for less healthy food choices.

The conclusions come from two studies: the first followed approximately 125,000 people across four years.

The results clearly showed that a one-ounce portion of nuts was linked to a lower risk of weight gain.

Dr Xiaoran Liu, the study’s first author, said:

“People often see nuts as food items high in fat and calories, so they hesitate to consider them as healthy snacks, but they are in fact associated with less weight gain and wellness.”

Dr Liu says that prevention is better than cure:

“Once people reach adulthood, they start to gradually gain about one pound a year of weight, which seems small.

But if you consider gaining one pound over 20 years, it accumulates to a lot of weight gain.

Adding one ounce of nuts to your diet in place of less healthy foods — such as red or processed meat, French fries or sugary snacks — may help prevent that slow, gradual weight gain after you enter adulthood and reduce the risk of obesity-related cardiovascular diseases.”

A second study of Brazil nut consumption included 20 people who ate either Brazil nuts or pretzels as a snack, in addition to their normal diet.

Dr Mee Young Hong, who led the study, explained the results:

“While both Brazil nuts and pretzels increased a sense of fullness after they were eaten, eating Brazil nuts stabilized postprandial (after eating) blood glucose and insulin levels, which may be beneficial in preventing diabetes and weight gain.”

The two studies were presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2018 in Chicago.

Three tips to understand this common barrier to weight loss.

The biggest barrier to weight loss is actually psychological, a survey has found.

Ninety percent of people do not guess this, citing diet and exercise instead.

However, eating has an emotional component and psychological well-being is important to achieve and maintain weight loss.

Understanding the cause of overeating is the key to weight loss.

People frequently have an emotional connection with food — it is this that really drives overeating.

The survey of over one thousand Americans asked them about the biggest barriers to weight loss.

The results showed that:

• 26 percent thought the biggest barrier to weight loss was poor nutrition.
• 31 percent mentioned a lack of exercise.
• 17 percent thought it was too costly to be healthy.
• 12 percent mentioned a lack of time.

Just 10 percent thought that mental health was important to weight loss.

Dr Diane Robinson, a neuropsychologist at Orlando Health, said:

“Most people focus almost entirely on the physical aspects of weight loss, like diet and exercise.

But there is an emotional component to food that the vast majority of people simply overlook and it can quickly sabotage their efforts.”

People often use food to comfort themselves, which is what leads to overeating, said Dr Robinson:

“If we’re aware of it or not, we are conditioned to use food not only for nourishment, but for comfort.

That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, as long as we acknowledge it and deal with it appropriately.”

Dr Robinson gives three tips for understand emotional eating:

1. Keep a daily diary of mood and food. Look for patterns, such as eating particular foods in response to certain moods.
2. Identify which foods make you feel good. Is it about evoking a memory or are you eating from stress?
3. Before eating, think: do I need this because I’m hungry or is it something else (like stress). If it’s stress, food isn’t the way to deal with it.

The survey was commissioned by Orlando Health.

People who did this consistently lost the most weight, research finds.

Keeping a food diary is linked to the most weight loss by new research.

Just fifteen minutes per day making a note of each meal or snack boosts people’s awareness of what they are eating.

People in the study who did this each day lost an average of 10 percent of their body weight.

Those who monitor their food intake consistently and quickly lose the most weight.

In fact, other studies have shown that food diaries can double weight loss.

Although people imagine keeping a food diary will be tiring, it is not that bad.

Professor Jean Harvey study co-author, said:

“People hate it; they think it’s onerous and awful, but the question we had was: How much time does dietary self-monitoring really take?

The answer is, not very much.”

For the study, 142 people followed an online weight management program.

They visited a website to record how much they had eaten and what exercise they had done.

It was clear from the results that people who logged their intake more often lost the most weight.

Professor Harvey said:

“Those who self-monitored three or more time per day, and were consistent day after day, were the most successful.

It seems to be the act of self-monitoring itself that makes the difference — not the time spent or the details included.”

A food diary does not have to be formal — it could be something as simple as sending yourself an email or text message.

Having the right expectations helps people stick to their task, said Professor Harvey:

“We know people do better when they have the right expectations.

We’ve been able to tell them that they should exercise 200 minutes per week.

But when we asked them to write down all their foods, we could never say how long it would take.

Now we can.

It’s highly effective, and it’s not as hard as people think.”

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Harvey et al., 2019).

This common mineral could increase weight loss by up to six times.

Taking a calcium supplement can increase weight loss by up to six times, a study has found.

Calcium deficient women who took a supplement lost 13 pounds, in comparison to 2 pounds in a control group.

Around half of people who are obese have a calcium deficiency.

Calcium is lost every day through through sweat, hair, nails and skin.

The body cannot produce calcium, so relies on it from food intake.

Calcium deficiency is thought to encourage the brain to increase food intake to obtain more of the mineral.

Studies have also shown that people who are calcium deficient have more body fat, larger waistlines and higher levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL).

The study involved 63 obese or overweight women who took part in a 15-week weight loss program.

Before starting the program, their calcium intake was 50 percent down.

Instead of the recommended 1000 mg per day, they were consuming less than 600 mg.

Half were given 1200 mg per day of calcium and the other half a placebo.

After following the diet, the results showed that those taking the supplement lost 13 pounds, compared to only 2 pounds in the placebo group.

Professor Angelo Tremblay, who led the study, said:

“Our hypothesis is that the brain can detect the lack of calcium and seeks to compensate by spurring food intake, which obviously works against the goals of any weight loss program.

Sufficient calcium intake seems to stifle the desire to eat more.”

Another study has shown that decreasing intake of dairy products, which contain a lot of calcium, is linked to putting on weight.

Getting enough calcium is also linked to lower risk for cardiovascular disease.

The study was published in the British Journal of Nutrition (Major et al., 2008).

Try this trick and see if it works, says Professor Tim Spector.

Skipping breakfast IS linked to weight loss, new research shows.

Contrary to the popular belief, people who skip breakfast do NOT eat more later in the day to compensate.

Instead, they end up eating an average of 260 calories less per day.

People who skip breakfast feel no hungrier in the afternoon, neither are they less energetic.

Skipping breakfast could add up to around one pound of weight loss over several months.

The conclusions come from a review of 13 separate randomised controlled trials — the gold standard in science.

All the trials examined how much difference eating breakfast had on people’s weight and energy intake.

Whether people were overweight or not, skipping breakfast helped them lose weight and did not cause them to gain it.

The results showed that breakfast skippers ate fewer calories overall and therefore lost weight.

The findings may come as a surprise to many, writes Professor Tim Spector, in a linked article in the British Medical Journal:

“The mantra of breakfast being the most important meal of the day has been ingrained in most of us from an early age—from our mother’s mouth as we were late for school to government campaigns to get us to “go to work on an egg.”

We are told that breakfast helps our metabolism and that skipping it will make us much hungrier so we’ll over-eat and put on weight.”

Instead, this review finds the exact opposite, writes Professor Spector:

“…no evidence supports the claim that skipping breakfast makes you gain weight or adversely reduces your resting
metabolic rate.

Furthermore, reasonable evidence now suggests that skipping breakfast can actually be a useful strategy to reduce weight.”

Try skipping breakfast and see if it work, says Professor Spector:

“…no harm can be done in trying out your own personal experiments in skipping breakfast.”

The study was published in the BMJ (Sievert et al., 2019).

Weight loss is hard enough without this surprising barrier.

Being criticised by others is one of the biggest barriers to weight loss, research finds.

Young people who are teased about their weight put on an average of 7 pounds more, compared to those not teased.

Far from motivating change, teasing or criticism causes people to put on more weight.

Teasing and criticism may cause people to engage in unhealthy behaviours like overeating and avoiding exercise.

Criticism may increase levels of the ‘stress’ hormone cortisol, which has also been linked to weight gain.

A previous study has also found that people criticised by their families have difficulty losing weight.

Women criticised by their family about their weight ended up putting on more weight, that study showed.

In contrast, those that received unconditional acceptance from their family lost over five times as much.

Feeling better about themselves likely encouraged people to eat more healthily.

Receiving acceptance from others may also reduce stress, leading to less weight gain.

The latest study involved 110 young people who were followed over 15 years.

Many were overweight and all were asked whether and how much they were teased about this.

They were asked if they agreed with statements such as:

• People laughed at you for trying out for sports because you were heavy.
• People called you names like “fatso”.
• People pointed at you because you were overweight.
• People snickered about your heaviness when you walked into a room alone.

The results showed that young people who experienced the most teasing put on an average of 0.44 pounds each year, compared with those not teased at all.

Over the 15 years of the study, this meant an average weight gain of almost 7 pounds.

The study was published in the journal Pediatric Obesity (Schvey et al., 2019).

The weight loss achieved in this study is one of the largest ever without the use of an aggressive diet or medication.

Acceptance therapy is the most effective therapy for weight loss without dieting, new research finds.

The therapy helps people accept that weight control will be uncomfortable and that pleasure will be reduced.

Accepting these things in advance helps people work harder to improve themselves.

It also reduces the damaging effects of any setbacks.

Fascinatingly, accepting difficulties makes them easier to surmount.

People in the study lost 13.3 percent of their initial weight within one year.

They were also more likely to maintain this weight loss for longer than those receiving an older style of therapy.

For the study, 190 people received either an acceptance-based therapy or standard behavioural treatment.

The key extra components of acceptance therapy are:

• Choosing goals based on life values, such as living a long life.
• Accepting that weight control can be uncomfortable and may reduce pleasure in some ways.
• Learning the cues — such as feeling down — that can affect eating and exercising behaviour.

The weight loss achieved in this study is one of the largest ever without the use of an aggressive diet or medication.

Professor Evan Forman, the study’s first author, said:

“We’re excited to share this new proven therapy with the weight-loss community, and in fact this is one of the first rigorous, randomized clinical trials to show that an alternative treatment results in greater weight loss than the gold standard, traditional form of behavioral treatment.”

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Forman et al., 2016).

The mineral is linked to losing six times more weight.

Women who take a calcium supplement lose six times as much weight, one study has found.

Women taking the calcium supplement dropped 13 pounds in 15 weeks on a weight loss program, in comparison to only 2 pounds in a control group.

It is thought that calcium deficiency encourages the brain to increase food intake to get more of the essential mineral.

Studies have also shown that people who are calcium deficient have more body fat, larger waistlines and higher levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL).

Another study has shown that decreasing intake of dairy products, which contain a lot of calcium, is linked to putting on weight.

Getting enough calcium is also linked to lower risk for cardiovascular disease.

Around half of all obese people are calcium deficient.

For the study, 63 overweight or obese women followed a 15-week weight loss program.

The analysis showed that they consumed less than 600 mg of calcium per day, whereas the recommended intake is 1000 mg.

Along with following a diet, they also took 1200 mg of calcium per day or a placebo.

The results showed that those taking the calcium lost an average of 13 pounds, in comparison to just 2 pounds in the placebo group.

However, these results were limited to those who had low levels of calcium intake initially.

Professor Angelo Tremblay, who led the study, said:

“Our hypothesis is that the brain can detect the lack of calcium and seeks to compensate by spurring food intake, which obviously works against the goals of any weight loss program.

Sufficient calcium intake seems to stifle the desire to eat more.”

The study was published in the British Journal of Nutrition (Major et al., 2008).