Living Well

Carbs make you hungry!

Frank and I have been eating a low carbohydrate diet for the past two months and we were just commenting this morning on how well it's going.  (Although I think Frank still misses potatoes.)  My favorite part of eating low carb is that I'm eating a lot less and I'm not hungry.  US researchers have just proved that protein is best for keeping you from feeling hungry:

Diets high in protein may be the best way to keep hunger in check, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that offers insight into how diets work.

They also said that eating carbohydrates will actually make you hungrier.

They also found that eating carbohydrates resulted in a strong ghrelin suppression at first, but ghrelin levels rebounded with a vengeance, rising to an even higher level.

Basically, the carbohydrates eventually made people even hungrier than before they had eaten.

So at the very least, it should be easier to lose weight on a low carb diet as you won't always feel like you are starving!

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I listened to an interview of Michael Pollan the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and I immediately added his book to my wish list.  He says to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."  He points out that the food industry is around to make money, not to make us healthy, and natural, unprocessed foods are cheap.  For example, if oatmeal costs 50 cents a pound, you can sell it for $2 pound if you process it into cheerios, $5 pound if you further process it into cereal bars, $10 a pound if you make it into breakfast straws, etc.  And each step is more expensive and less healthy!  (Those aren't the exact numbers he used.) 

My dad's doctor gave him the same advise a while back.  "Don't eat anything from a package."  He claimed all our health problems would go way if we didn't eat anything processed and packaged.

Low carb can cure allergies

We've been eating low carb for almost two months now and I just noticed that my stuffy nose is gone!   I'm allergic to something - but after 100+ pin pricks, the allergist wasn't able to figure out what I was allergic to.  Since it's more of an annoyance than a problem, I just take benadryl a lot - a lot as in every day.  (My allergist didn't recommend this.  He recommended nose washes which also worked but took more time and were harder to do away from home.)  Today I realized:

• I have not been taking benadryl or even feeling like I need it for over a month now.
• Last night we had lasagna (very high carb) and I woke up with a stuffy nose this morning.

Not conclusive proof but a very good sign that I am mildly allergic to one of the high carb foods that I've cut out of my diet recently.

Is obesity contagious?

Children think so.  In a recent study, kids avoided drinks made by obese people.

Other studies have shown that you tend to be as overweight as your friends, even if they don't live nearby.  Researchers don't know why that is so!

Cocaine vaccine coming soon

Researchers are working on a vaccine to cocaine.  After receiving the vaccine, people woould no longer respond to cocaine. "The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive." 

Not sleeping makes you fat

We know that getting enough sleep is crucial to weightloss.  Even kids that don't sleep gain more weight than kids that sleep.  Recent studies have shown that lack of sleep is tied to insulin resistance and diabetes - after just two nights without enough sleep!