Kansas State University nutrition professor Mark Haub is engaged as we write in a 30 day Twinkie / junk-food diet.  The idea: challenge the widely held conviction and advice that eating better quality of food is key to good health and losing weight.   To the contrary, he posits that junk food may actually help people lose weight. 

And when this effort ends, he plans to gain back the weight eating only healthful foods like vegetables, fruit, whole grains and lean protein. 

It is events like this that in my opinion serve to further confuse matters in an already difficult environment.  It is undeniable that consuming fewer calories than burned in a period of time will invariably lead to weight loss.  This is a mathematical law!  It proves nothing to show that you lost 10 pounds eating only chocolate cake, by eating 1800 calories worth per day knowing that you burn 3000+ daily. 

Even if cholesterol and triglycerides are tracked, these results include many variables outside the food one eats and are therefore not a conclusive indicator. 

The truth about diet, weight loss and health lies closer to the concept of balance, controlled intake quantity, periodic indulgance (eat that pizza and pie – or Twinkie – once every week or so), and regular rigorous exercise. 

Like many mainstream and outlandish systems and theories about dieting that focus on one food to eat or avoid, one technique to follow,  or some shortcut or another, this research misses the point.  Junk food, in any quantity, is titled as such because it either provides empty calories (nearly no energy nor valuable nutrients), or worse delivers unnatural chemicals that the body must fight and expel. 

Is this research, or merely a publicity grab?  You make the call. 

Source article: here

Our focus at PsychDIETry is to explore and share ideas, techniques, trends, developments, scams and the like that consider the mind in achieving diet goals.   We recently discovered a blog (link below) with some excellent content and analysis of personal motivation. 

Most of us go through periods of low energy, low output, and a general lack of motivation.  While in these times it seems impossible or daunting at best to maintain our focus and apply ourselves, achieving goals requires sustained effort and continuous output.   

Battling this condition requires knowledge of the issue (self awareness), a set of tools and techniques to counter the effect, and establishing a new set of habits that come in to play on a daily basis. 

The article includes notes on taking action, finding motivating tools that fit your own personality, living healthfully, and advocates stepping out of your “fog of dreams into the light of reality”.   There are also a number of links and references to useful source material.   For example the Sedona Method is recommended as an approach to releasing blocked energy that stands in the way of action and motivation.   

As always, there is no magic bullet.  Achieving goals is an incremental process that includes progress, set backs, and a long-term investment of time and energy.  The rewards, we know, are many.   Enjoy!

http://www.wilywalnut.com/The-Motivated-Mind.html

Apparently there is more to weight management than, “less is more” when it comes to performance athletes.  The New York Times reports today that contrary to what you might expect, lower weight may not lead to better performance.  

Athletic events that require carrying one’s body weight over distances - such as biking,  running, or climbing for example, would seem to benefit from reduced weight.  The study finds that at some level, the loss of body mass crosses a line and causes a reduction in efficiency and power resulting in weaker performance. 

Athletes were only able to find the optimal weight through trial and error, a time consuming and  difficult process.  The technology doesn’t exist yet to figure this out easily. 

As with any effort undertaken to improve physical or mental performance ability, the key is moderation.  Too much of a good thing may eventually turn bad.

Having realistic goals is as much a key to success as the commitment to achieving them.

This was recently made clear in an article from the Associated Press about the national health goals in the U.S. established by leading federal health officials every ten years.

As the new decade rolls around, we look back and find that the goals set in 2000 were largely unmet.  We are more obese, have higher blood pressure and more tooth decay in children.  Not only did we fail to meet the goals, we moved in the wrong direction.

There is always a balance between realism and “stretching”, but clearly something was wrong in the planning and implementation of these national goals.  Setting appropriate targets that push us yet don’t discourage is an iterative process.  Set a target, work towards it, assess results, review targets, do it again.

I’m suggesting that the ten year period is too long and these goals should probably be assessed every 2 or 3 years with adjustments made to the rolling ten year plan.

The same concept applies to individuals.  If the goal is to lose weight over a period of time, call it 12 months, the program can be established on January 1st but will likely fail if it isn’t reviewed and evaluated on a monthly basis, or something in that range.

PsychDIETry believes that feedback, monitoring and revising the goals and the implementation program on a regular/repeating basis is central to achieving results.

Photo Credit: chart

It is our goal at PsychDIETry to provide readers with simple, intelligent and direct information about dieting and health, along with insight into the mental pathways that often hinder, yet can exponentially propel the achievements we pursue.

As we conduct research and make entries to the blog, we often come across books, products and services that complement our ideas and facilitate their implementation.  For your convenience, we’ve launched a list of referrals to such products under a “store” tab where you can view, read about, and purchase items.   These items are highly supportive of our philosophies and approach to diet, health, goal achievement, and life in general.

The list will be updated periodically usually to reflect background information or solutions pertaining to our latest stories and entries.

Your input on the PsychDIETry store will help shape its direction and keep it relevant.  Please don’t hesitate to comment.

Thanks!

PsychDIETry

By Robert Preidt

(HealthDay News) — Seniors who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, a new study has found.

Cognitive function refers to the ability to think, remember, plan and organize information.

Researchers at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia analyzed diet and cognitive data on 4,879 people (3,101 women and 1,778 men), age 70 and older, who took part in the U.S. Longitudinal Study of Aging. The participants were followed for an average of seven years.

The analysis revealed that:

Those who ate three or more servings of vegetables daily had a 30 percent lower risk for dying from heart disease and a 15 percent lower risk for dying from any cause during the follow-up period than those who ate fewer than three servings of vegetables a day.
There was a significant association between higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and decreased prevalence of cognitive impairment.
People who scored high on cognitive functions tests were less likely to die from heart disease or any other cause during the follow-up than were those with low scores.

The study was to be presented Wednesday at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute explains how to prevent and control heart disease risk factors.

Eating disorders (ED) patients display a high prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms and functional gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome. These symptoms may interfere with their nutritional management. Ingestion of fructose-sorbitol (F-S) is an established means of gastrointestinal symptom provocation in irritable bowel syndrome patients. Surprisingly, although ED patients are known to consume “diet” products containing fructose and sorbitol, their gastrointestinal symptom responses to F-S provocation have not been studied.

A research article published on November 14, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology describes the responses of 26 ED patients to F-S provocation. The research team, including Professors Kellow, Abraham and Hansen from the University of Sydney, Australia, monitored gastrointestinal symptoms and breath hydrogen concentration (a marker of small bowel absorption) for 3 h following ingestion of 50 g glucose on one day, and 25 g fructose/5 g sorbitol on the next day. Responses to F-S were compared to those of 20 asymptomatic healthy females.

F-S provoked gastrointestinal symptoms in 15 ED patients but only in one healthy control. In contrast, only one ED patient displayed symptom provocation to glucose, which does not usually provoke gastrointestinal symptoms; this shows specificity of the F-S response. A greater symptom response was observed in the most underweight ED patients (BMI ≤ 17.5 kg/m2) compared to those with a BMI >17.5 kg/m2. There were no differences in psychological scores, prevalence of functional gastrointestinal disorders or breath hydrogen responses between patients with and without an F-S response.

The key findings of this study are that F-S provoked gastrointestinal symptoms in more than half of the female ED patients, a significantly greater proportion than that found in healthy individuals; the response was specific for F-S ingestion; and there was a greater symptom response in patients at lower BMI values. Consistent with this last finding, symptom provocation was more common in anorexia nervosa patients. Hence negative energy balance appears to play a role in F-S sensitivity in these patients. As fructose and sorbitol are likely to be commonly ingested by ED patients, representing a potential source of gastrointestinal distress that would impact negatively on their nutritional management, F-S provocative testing could prove valuable in identifying those patients with symptom sensitivity to these substances.

Reference: Friesen N, Hansen RD, Abraham SF, Kellow JE. Fructosesorbitol ingestion provokes gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with eating disorders. World J Gastroenterol 2009; 15(42): 5295-5299

Source: Jin-Lei Wang
World Journal of Gastroenterology

I remember stumbling upon SparkPeople.com late last year. I surfed through what appeared to be a fairly modest website with a small community and relatively few resources and thought, “just another diet website”. What impressive progress they have made since then.

SparkPeople.com is a health and diet website that provides a broad range of information, tools, newsletters, and other resources to help people improve their health and quality of life through diet and exercise. The site proudly announces their “mission is to SPARK millions of PEOPLE to reach their goals and lead healthier lives.”

SparkPeople started in 2001 as a goal setting site and changed its focus to nutrition and fitness in 2002 as they saw most of their members were interested in nutrition, fitness, and health goals.

At the time of this writing, SparkPeople.com was ranked #1 for Diet Websites (most pages viewed) and #3 for Health Websites (most pages viewed) by comScore.com. SparkPeople.com is 100% free, and funded largely by ads and product sales.

The site hosts a team of coaches, dietitians, and fitness instructors to moderate forums and contribute articles.

SparkPeople Tools include:

• Nutrition & fitness planning tools – calendar based planning tools with easy-to-use interview-style data entry
• Goal achievement tracking tool (SparkStreaks) – enables highlighting, posting, and sharing of an individual’s activities and progress
• Report tool – provides the ability to generate a variety of reports such as calorie intake, weight, and workout time; to help track an individual’s trends and progress
• Motivation tool (SparkPoints) – tracks progress and initiates challenges in an entertaining game-like setting

Information Resources
The website includes numerous blogs, newsletters, videos, and articles on diet, nutrition, fitness, health, recipes, lifestyle, and motivation.

Community & Motivation
SparkPeople.com is heavily focused on community building and enabling member interaction. Members can share their stories, goals, progress reports, and even enter into challenges with each other to fuel motivation.

Members are encouraged to dive into the message boards to discuss Fitness and Exercise, Diet and Nutrition, and Staying Motivated, and to share diet plans, recipes, success stories, and support each other. Members can start their own communities within the site, create their own personal web pages, and contribute their own Blog entries. The site also provides a section (SparkPages) to highlight web pages of motivational stories created by members.

Social interaction between people with common goals, problems, and personalities can play an extremely important role in motivation and human behavior. Community and a support infrastructure are often unavailable for many people for a variety of reasons and the importance of social interaction in helping individuals achieve their goals is often underestimated. SparkPeople.com gets this right.

Final Thoughts
It was a quick and simple process to sign up on SparkPeople.com. There is no fee and the site was very easy to navigate through. The dynamic “Calories Burned”, “Pounds Lost”, and “Cups of Water Drunk” counters on the home page are interesting reminders that there are many people out their with similar goals. I came away from my recent visit to SparkPeople.com feeling good and feeling part of the community.

I recommend checking out SparkPeople.com. It costs nothing to join, the website is inviting, you may make some new friends, and you have nothing to lose but maybe a few extra pounds.

Let me know what you think about SparkPeople.com.

Photo of happy people.

If you want to achieve something really meaningful, you need to set a goal and then take steps that lead you in the right direction.  Like setting out on a road trip without a destination, no goal nor map and you could end up nearly anywhere. Often we do just that and are then disappointed with the results.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  It was none other than Dr. Seuss who once said, “you have brains in your head and feet in your shoes, “you can steer yourself any direction you choose”.

Wouldn’t it be helpful to build a set of success tracks and ride them to a better place?  It’s simple to do if taken one step at a time.  Businesses large and small create strategic plans all the time so why shouldn’t we regular folks develop our own personal strategic plans (PSP) to carry us victoriously through this life? 

Your PSP is a vision of where you want to be in the future along with some ideas on how to get there.  Like any trip there are many stops along the way and also detours and changes.  Let’s call these stops the milestones.  In creating this plan, you will be working on your 1, 3, 5, 10, and 20 year view for what you want to get out of life and how to get there.  Your milestones will be a record of progress and a key to seeing if things are going right. 

Here’s what to do. 

Start by having some fun and writing down your dreams.  Conduct a full-on brainstorm. Let if flow and don’t edit or criticize yourself.  Paint a picture of where you would love to be personally, professionally, with family, geographically, financially, physically 10, 15 or 20 years out. 

Take the resulting notes/ideas and put it through a reality filter.  For example, if you wrote down, “space shuttle trip to experience zero gravity”, decide if the $20 million ticket is in any way likely to be in your affordability range, or you might consider changing the goal to “experience zero gravity on a simulator ride.

Categorize the brainstorm into areas – family goals, professional, etc., and then list the top tasks that need to happen to move forward with each goal. These become your action items or projects that need to be implemented.

Organize the goals and tasks and all of a sudden you have your first PSP!  The process itself should be enjoyable, even refreshing and the resulting document can be incredibly motivating. 

As time progresses, the PSP serves as the context to evaluate whether you are moving forward, stagnating, or moving further away from your goals in all areas of life.  Use New Years, the end of a quarter or some other timeframe to step back and evaluate if things are going according to plan, or maybe the plan needs to be changed based on new dreams, information, or circumstances. 

Dr. Seuss also said, “You’ll look up and down streets.  Look ‘em over with care.  About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street. And you may not find any you’ll want to go down.  In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town.”

Photos:  Dr. Seuss, screen shot

New research in the FASEB Journal shows that high-fat diets are just as unhealthful in the short term as they are in the long term

Short-term memory getting worse? Exercise getting harder? Examine your diet. New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) showed that in less than 10 days of eating a high-fat diet, rats had a decreased ability to exercise and experienced significant short-term memory loss. These results show an important link between what we eat, how we think, and how our bodies perform.

“Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention,” said Andrew Murray, co-author of the study and currently at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “We hope that the findings of our study will help people to think seriously about reducing the fat content of their daily food intake to the immediate benefit of their general health, well-being, and alertness.”

Murray and colleagues studied rats fed a low-fat diet (7.5 percent of calories as fat) and rats fed a high-fat diet (55 percent of calories as fat). The researchers discovered that the muscles of the rats eating the high-fat diet for four days were less able to use oxygen to make the energy needed to exercise, causing their hearts to worker harder—and increase in size. After nine days on a high-fat diet, the rats took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes in the process than their low-fat-diet counterparts. Researchers then investigated the cellular causes of these problems, particularly in the mitochondria of muscle cells. They found increased levels of a protein called uncoupling protein 3, which made them less efficient at using oxygen needed to make the energy required for running.

“It’s nothing short of a high-fat hangover,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. “A long weekend spent eating hotdogs, French fries, and pizza in Orlando might be a great treat for our taste buds, but they might send our muscles and brains out to lunch.”

Receive monthly highlights from The FASEB Journal by e-mail. Sign up at http://www.faseb.org/fasebjournalreaders.htm. The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) is published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The journal has been recognized by the Special Libraries Association as one of the top 100 most influential biomedical journals of the past century and is the most cited biology journal worldwide according to the Institute for Scientific Information. FASEB comprises 22 nonprofit societies with more than 80,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. FASEB advances biological science through collaborative advocacy for research policies that promote scientific progress and education and lead to improvements in human health.

Details: Andrew J. Murray, Nicholas S. Knight, Lowri E. Cochlin, Sara McAleese, Robert M. J. Deacon, J. Nicholas P. Rawlins, and Kieran Clarke. Deterioration of physical performance and cognitive function in rats with short-term high-fat feeding
FASEB J. doi:10.1096/fj.09-139691 http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/abstract/fj.09-139691v1

Photo of rat.