Diet - The Problem May Be in the Food, Not in You

Excerpted from
The Thin Commandments: The Ten No-Fail Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss
By Stephen Gullo, PH.D.

The following scenario is as predictable as a Hollywood action movie. Call it Diet Terminator. You commit yourself to losing weight. You have all the best intentions of sticking with a diet and actually do so for a while. Until... a tray of cookies shoots you a tempting glance. Or you inhale the riveting aroma of a pizza bubbling in a brick oven, or perhaps you'll just have a few nuts from that bowl of cashews. The next thing you know, you're sitting in a bloated stupor, wondering how a tiny bite of food led to eating so much more than you ever intended. You call yourself weak and undisciplined and think that you have no willpower. You might even suspect that you have an eating disorder.

You may be dead wrong. A whole new field of scientific research is emerging that may explain why you have failed so often in your dieting. This research is exploring how the foods you eat today may change the chemistry of your brain in such a way as to increase your appetite and cravings for these and other foods-even without you being aware that this process is taking place.

Just as the first chapter discussed changing your thinking, so this chapter will address your physical makeup and its influence on your food choices and teach you how to be a winner at weight control. You'll learn about the physiological basis of appetite, why you may be having recurring problems controlling certain foods, and how to make your body work for you, not against you. Using this knowledge, you'll be able to reduce or even eliminate your cravings for certain foods and, for the first time, have the power to take control of foods that have sabotaged your weight loss again and again.

These new studies may even change your own perception of yourself as a person lacking willpower, as someone who has never succeeded on a diet because you lacked backbone.

Thanks to the latest scientific research, we've learned that while weight control is primarily about balancing calories in and calories out, appetite and craving control is about the types of foods you eat and how they interact with your body's genetic and chemical hardwiring. In short, the problem may be in the food, not in you.

In fact, what may surprise you is that your eating behavior and the very foods you choose for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today may be influenced by the interaction of the food with your genetics and neurochemistry. This process is going on without your knowing it, which is why you may overconsume these foods without intending to. (Remember those promises to yourself: "I'll have just one"?) It may also explain why you keep regaining the same weight with the same foods, despite the best of intentions.

Now, as science is revealing that the problem may be in the food, not in you, the good news is that even if you have genetic sensitivities to certain foods, all you need are the right strategies to manage them. And for those of you who prefer to get a certain food out of your life completely, I'll provide the powerful tools to not only nuke it possible, but easy.

So if you have an uncontrollable craving for a particular food that unleashes a furious eating bender, you'll be relieved to discover that this urge doesn't prove that you are a spineless mess with a weak character. Or that you can't succeed at weight control. All it proves is that you are human-and you need strategy.

Does Our DNA Rule Our Appetites?

Genes exert a tremendous influence over both our biology-they give us such things as red hair and blue eyes-and our behavior. But up to now, we've never realized genes' influence over our eating habits, our appetites, and the type of diet we should follow-and even whether or not we'll succeed on that diet.

Your genes may send powerful, unconscious messages that impel you to, say, make a beeline for the pastry cart or to accumulate more than a few extra pounds of fat. While these urges can cause us grief, they have a sound basis in evolution. As Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan write in their book Mean Genes, "Our ancestors lived off the land by hunting animals and gathering plants . .. Just staying alive required lots of energy-energy that could be found only in food . . What kept our ancestors going in a tough, physically demanding world? Hunger. Our ancestors needed to stay hungry day and night; their only goal was storing enough food to keep them alive during the inevitable lean times. And they sought not just any kind of food, but calorically dense, fatty foods. But while this kind of gluttony was necessary for survival in the Neolithic African bush, in our ultra-convenient, sedentary society of plenty, it only leads to expanding waistlines.

Scientists have clearly established that for many of us, our genes play a large role in controlling our weight, as confirmed by the following discoveries:

• Hereditary factors can impact our appetites.

• Genes may regulate how efficiently we convert food into energy, which can affect our weight.

• In 2002, scientists discovered a gene, HOB1, that they promptly labeled the "fat gene." They've also identified from eight to 30 other genes that may contribute to obesity by inhibiting the body's metabolism.

• Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center are working on discovering a "sweet tooth" gene that would locate a person's vulnerability to sweet cravings.

Jump-Start Your Appetite

Hormones are complex molecules produced by the endocrine glands that manage many bodily functions and processes. One of the most important hormones for appetite is insulin, the "hunger hormone," which the body uses to process glucose (sugar) and mediate our cravings for fat and carbohydrates. The level of insulin also influences the storage of calories as fat and even the degree to which we may be able to lose weight on a particular diet.

When blood glucose rises, your pancreas produces insulin, which converts the excess glucose to glycogen (glucose stored in the liver) or fat. When your blood glucose dips too low, and you don't replenish it by eating, your body siphons glycogen. Normally, this process is neatly balanced, and insulin and other hormones help you maintain a stable body weight.

However, your diet can shatter this equilibrium. If you consume large amounts of refined simple carbohydrates, and you're significantly overweight (especially with abdominal fat), you can cause the pancreas to become a superproductive insulin factory, creating the condition known as "insulin resistance."

A person with insulin resistance has to produce more insulin to reduce his blood glucose to normal levels, according to Walter Futterweit, M.D., clinical professor of medicine and for many years chief of the Endocrine Clinics at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and one of America's leading endocrinologists. The increasing amounts of insulin lead to hyperinsulinisin - too much of it in the body. All that insulin can increase your appetite and lead to fatigue, lack of concentration, shakiness, sweats, and an excessive lowering of blood sugar called reactive hypoglycemia. At this point, you may try to get relief by taking in more and more simple carbohydrates, which only causes more insulin production in a damaging cycle. It's important to note that even if you are not insulin resistant, but you go too long without eating, you can create a state of induced reactive hypoglycemia with the same cravings and symptoms.

In working with thousands of clients, it has been my observation that a large number of them have had insulin cravings for carbohydrates, and giving them a diet that includes such foods as cookies, pasta, bagels, and sugary breakfast cereals may actually increase their cravings for more and lead to a heightened appetite throughout the day.

A study conducted by Peter Havel of the University of California and Michael Schwartz of the University of Washington also revealed that over time, a diet high in fat and fructose (a sugar very frequently found in healthy products such as many bran muffins and baked goods) may affect insulin levels and increase appetite. The food itself is actually increasing the person's cravings, appetite, and hunger level. What's worse, Schwartz says, is that the brain loses its ability to respond to insulin as a person gets fatter and/or when fat is more than 30 percent of the person's diet. Under these conditions, tissues also may become insensitive to insulin, and carbohydrate cravings are intensified.