10 months for body to "reset it's memory" Fact - or myth?

[Huseyin]

Yep we have Prof KD on the case

KD yeah the say 70% but we shall see he certainly is a great salesman especially when he promotes those figures and tells you where you can buy the book shortly after

 

[KD]

Yep we have Prof KD on the case

LOL

 

[Bijoux]

Being a bit of a science geek I do not go by books at all as they are never peer reviewed. I will search PubMed when am at Uni tomorrow and see whether I can dig up any journals with good hard evidence. My opinion is anyone can write a book, anyone can carry out a scientific experiment but very few people can get a journal published.

 

[KD]

Being a bit of a science geek I do not go by books at all as they are never peer reviewed. I will search PubMed when am at Uni tomorrow and see whether I can dig up any journals with good hard evidence.

There's some on pubmed. One of my first calls, but I didn't find anything about the time frame. There's a fair bit about body setpoints, but that's established anyway.

And anyway. I didn't go out and buy the books, then think "hey...fancy that". I read the 'journals' then decided to buy the books. Okay...happened to have a couple of the books anyway as they had other things in them that I was looking up for something else

 

[KD]

BTW, did any of you watch the horizon programme about it a few weeks ago. Was interesting

 

[Bijoux]

KD, see to me it is a simple equation. If you work hard at keeping the weight off for a long time i.e. a year or two the probability of you putting it back on is greatly reduced as it is proof you have altered your life style. That doesn't need any scientific backing as it is just common sense. Since every human is individual it is impossible for anyone to set a time frame for it, it may take one individual 3 months to alter their lifestyle and adapt to it and another 36 months.

 

[KD]

KD, see to me it is a simple equation. If you work hard at keeping the weight off for a long time i.e. a year or two the probability of you putting it back on is greatly reduced as it is proof you have altered your life style. That doesn't need any scientific backing as it is just common sense. Since every human is individual it is impossible for anyone to set a time frame for it

That's what I said But I think BL was asking if it takes 10 months, and someone else suggested less.

This could well be to do with the bodyset. That would fit in well. But it could also be a change of habits etc.

That's the trouble with dieting research. It's incredibly hard to get definite answers as there are just too many variables.

My interest for the last 2-3 years has been in the area of leptin, insulin and ghrelin and it's effect on the body setpoint, rather than for how long. Which is why I can't answer that bit

But you think you will find it on pubmed. Good luck

 

[Bijoux]

Insulin is released into your blood stream after you've had a meal to mop up the excess glucose so how can it affect your appetite or body set point?

I will search the different journal databases to see what I can find, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

 

[KD]

Insulin is released into your blood stream after you've had a meal to mop up the excess glucose so how can it affect your appetite or body set point?

It does more than that. The main hormone is leptin though. Basically leptin tells the brain your size. On overeating, adipose stores get bigger and more leptin is made in the fat cells.

Leptin then tells the brain how big we are, how much we've eaten etc. The brain then tells us what to do about it..ie, eat more, eat less, stop eating.

Unfortunately the more fat you have, the more leptin you have, and the more resistant you can become.

The pancreas will produce more insulin, and resistance then builds up with that. It's easier to control the insulin with healthy foods. Not so easy to control leptin. Leptin is the biggy

Much more complicated than that though, and it really involves many dozens of hormones.

Do a search for leptin, insulin, ghrelin. It's really interesting.

I wrote a bit more about it on here a couple of years ago, but don't want to search....gotta headache

 

[Bijoux]

I will do. I know that insulin cannot affect your appetite so I was just wondering what that really means, I know if you develop Type II diabetes you are more likely to be obese but this is because your body is not very effective at taking up glucose so it stores it as fat.

As for the other two, there's alot of information on them however they were discovered in the mid to late 90s so there's many contradictory journals. I have however been reading about leptin and it is a life-time problem per say in people with the supposed homozygous gene that codes for this protein hormone, people with this gene always have the desire to eat. I have also read that at different stages of your life you have different levels of leptin so in essence the leptin level can be altered when you change your lifestyle. Leptin's action is co-dependant on ghrelin and vice versa, leptin is produced by adipose tissue so essentially a decrease in adipose tissue reduces the amount of ghrelin and leptin produced, that's my understanding. Unless ofcourse you have been obese for a good proportion of your life and have developed resistance to leptin. What do you think?

 

[KD]

I will do. I know that insulin cannot affect your appetite so I was just wondering what that really means,

Taken from Lyle McDonalds book 'Bromocriptine' as he explains it much better than me...though remember that insulin isn't as important as leptin in the bodyset/appetite etc.

Although I assume that most readers know what insulin is, here’s the brief
rundown just to be safe. Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas in response
to carbohydrate (and to a much lesser degree protein) intake. While its primary role is
as a storage hormone, putting calories into muscle and fat cells for later use, insulin
appears to send the brain signals about your eating patterns. Injecting insulin directly
into the brains of animals decreases hunger and appetite; the same system may play
a role in humans as well (8). You can’t inject insulin into human brains, of course, but
increasing insulin levels after a meal may be one of several short-term signals telling
your brain that it s time to stop eating.
Since insulin is very responsive to single meals, going up when you eat, and
back down after a few hours, it mainly affects short-term responses to food: when to
eat, when to stop eating, that sort of thing. As well, it’s fairly easy to control, just make
certain food choices and you can manipulate insulin pretty easily: fast digesting
carbohydrates raise insulin quickly but it tends to crash afterwards; slow digesting
carbohydrates raise insulin more slowly and keep levels stable for longer. I won’t
really talk about insulin that much more.

I have also read that at different stages of your life you have different levels of leptin

Yes, and leptin levels can change on a daily? basis. For example, when you go on a diet, your leptin levels can reduce by 50%, even though you would have only lost a little fat.

Also, leptin levels respond differently in men than ladies. The brain reacts quicker to the lowering of leptin levels than it does to raising them, as it's an anti-starvation hormone.

Leptin is very complex. It does more than just regulate body size. For instance, leptins role in the onset of puberty (okay, I got that from Professor Robert Winston talking about it on the TV )

so essentially a decrease in adipose tissue reduces the amount of ghrelin and leptin produced, that's my understanding. Unless ofcourse you have been obese for a good proportion of your life and have developed resistance to leptin. What do you think?

Well, I'm 53 and was overweight for most of it , but I believe that it's not a case of a person being either resistant, or not resistant. There are varying levels of resistance.

Complete leptin resistance is very rare, but often receptors have various level of sensitivity.

If the receptor is very sensitive, just a small amount of the hormone will have a big effect, and vice versa. This was shown with the research on mice (in the beginning anyway). There was the DB mice who were completely resistant, and the FA mice who were only partially resistant. The DB one is overweight from birth, whereas the FA mice became more resistant with age.

What I find really interesting is that much of the 'advice' we receive about dieting, plateaus, healthy eating, low GI, cycling calories, why some people lose weight when they eat more after a plateau...blah, blah, even the advice about reducing weight slowly (eek), is probably to do with insight into leptin, yet the word 'leptin' rarely gets a mention.

 

[Bijoux]

Thanks KD. I can see why you are so into it. It is quite addictive when you get started. Will deffo be looking more into it.

 

[KD]

Thanks KD. I can see why you are so into it. It is quite addictive when you get started.

That and a few other things

I know I go on about it but it explained so much about what was going on.

People misunderastand though. I remember someone on another forum telling me she didn't believe the body set thing. That she was overweight because she ate too much.

But I agree!!!

My initial interest wasn't about metabolism, or trying to find out why when I ate too much I put on weight , but instead, why I ate too much in the first place.

I couldn't believe that naturally slim people spent their lives using willpower and self control to stay slim. I couldn't understand why they can love food like me, yet turn down 2nd helpings. I couldn't understand why I appeared greedy with food, yet I'm not a greedy person by nature, or why I can eat things that damage me because I like them, yet like other things but easily resist if they cause me grief.

I wanted to know not only why I ate so much, but why, when I was slim and very happy with my weight, I was still driven to overeat.

And when I found out why, it was such a relief to discover that I might not be able to stop my brain from wanting excess food (well..not for a while anyway), but I could still control what I ate. That I wasn't doomed. I still had the ability to say No and eat healthily. To overide my biological instincts IYKYIM.

Anyway, talked too much on here Will try to step aside.

Question is though, does this thread answer BLs question?

 

[Mini_Me]

Wow - nice thread.

I started looking into this a few weeks ago, and I bought a couple of books on the subject (all of Lyle McDOnalds' ones and the 'Facts about Food' one that KD mentions above).

I would recommend watching the following videos:
Deconstructing Obesity

which talk about Leptin and the genetic view on obesity...

and the videos here:

HHMI's BioInteractive - Obesity Lecture Series

especially the 'Student Discussion' one...

The above videos are by the scientist who did a lot of the research into (and discovered?) leptin - so its a fairly good source of information...

I still don't have an answer regarding the set-point though - however, I will let you all know when mine has changed - it may be months or years, but I will let you all know ;-)

Huseiyn - I definately recommend Lyle McDonalds books. They are very good, especially for those interested in weight training, since he is into that alot (i think most of his audience are weight trainers)...

Regards,

 

[Mini_Me]

Yes, but very difficult to gain muscle without eating loads! And even more difficult for us ladies to gain muscle :sigh:

From what I have read (much less than KD I can safely assume you cannot build muscle on a calorific deficit - i.e. you need to eat more than you need to maintain your current weight. The diet also needs to have the right amount of protein in it to get the most effecient muscle gain... just something to consider for those people considering looking into this... Lyle McDonalds books explain this all very well...

 

[Mini_Me]

Same principle i believe on LL, you start to reduce the packs until you hit the 1500 cal marker.

Im just thinking if its wise to use the CD program for RTM over LL. Im on a time frame before i go holiday. In theory it should not matter.

LL does this

3 packs one meal, then it becomes 2 packs then it goes to 1 and finally you are off it. Calories are about 1500 too im looking at the book now.

I agree setpoint is a mute point right about now

Hi Huseyin,

My LLC said that some people choose to do a 'condensed' RTM, where it is shorter than 12 weeks... might be worth asking your LLC if you can do the same...

 

[KD]

Damn. I'm back already. D'oh

From what I have read (much less than KD I can safely assume you cannot build muscle on a calorific deficit - i.e. you need to eat more than you need to maintain your current weight. The diet also needs to have the right amount of protein in it to get the most effecient muscle gain.

Yes, that's what I would normally say but....it's a huge myth around the net about people dieting and thinking they've gained muscle. There again, it's a minor myth that you can't on a calorie deficit. Evidently a beginner can. Something to do with partitioning abilities, but I don't know the details.

For those that weight train regularly, they would need something in the region of 46,000 calories extra to build a pound of muscle. Yum

I'm sure the figure isn't exact though, so won't risk it. Will keep to my approx of 500cals for dinner today, just in case it's wrong

Cheers for the vid link. I haven't seen those :clap:

 

[cah-ching]

really interesting thread guys!

Just the sort of thing I like to get my mind stuck into and what sets (or will set) Minimins apart from the bog-standard.

 

[snowmum]

I wanted to know not only why I ate so much, but why, when I was slim and very happy with my weight, I was still driven to overeat.

And when I found out why, it was such a relief to discover that I might not be able to stop my brain from wanting excess food (well..not for a while anyway), but I could still control what I ate. That I wasn't doomed. I still had the ability to say No and eat healthily. To overide my biological instincts IYKYIM

KD this is interesting, can you simply explain some of your thinking and practical things you do in regard to this. (Simply because i do seem to have eaten some of my brain whilst on this diet!)

 

[Blonde Logic]

Thanks everyone for all the great replies and info! I have been so busy I haven't had time to say thank you until just now.

KD< it was not the timing that I was concerned with - its just thats all I ever heard - "10 months". I just wondered if it was even possible to reset our bodys like that.

There is so much great info here, I am really going to have to trawl through this more thoroughly on the weekend. I just wanted to say thank you now.

Everyone,. Thanks!!

XX