Getting reacquainted: Hunger

Last week, it dawned on me on my monthly weigh in that I have regained half the weight that I lost over the past 3 years. On the other hand, I have maintained half my weight loss, but the trend is moving in one direction - up - and it is a call to action.

There is an opinion piece in last Sunday's NY Times that felt more less like opinion and more like someone who is also struggling with the same issues, and is also disappointed that the culture and the science still hasn't quite caught up with whats making us and keeping us fat.

In a nutshell, the human body's hunger-drive has shown it's ability to override even the strongest-willed, rationality-lovingest person's desire to eat what they believe to be a moderate, weight-controlling, healthy diet...over time, on the day-to-day, boots-on-the-ground level. When the human body is called upon to lose weight and spend more calories it takes in to access fat storage,  the body kicks over into a mode that ha been developed over millions of years to guarantee the survival of the human race: "starvation mode". The science has been done, and it looks grim.

When the period of imposed starvation ended, the subjects were allowed to “refeed.” At first they were allowed to eat more calories, but restricted as to how much. A subset under continued observation was then allowed to eat to satiety, which was surprisingly hard to achieve. The men consumed prodigious amounts of food, up to 10,000 calories a day. They regained weight and fat with remarkable rapidity. After 20 weeks of recovery, they averaged 50 percent more body fat than they had when it began — “post-starvation obesity,” the researchers called it.

"Post-starvation obesity" is a concept that gives me chills. Is this where my monthly-weigh-in trend line is heading? For all this thought and effort, I'm going to end up fatter than I started, despite radically altering the quality of what I eat and how much of it?

I know what happened when the trend line evened out then started going up. I started getting hungrier. I took that as a signal that my body was ready for more food...but really it was a signal that it was worried that it was losing too much weight and wanted me to spend more time on the plains hunting for meat or baking bread or something. Hunger is literally like the addiction a junkie or cigarette smoker feels -- when you don't have it, all you can think about is getting it, and you don't feel right until you do.

That advice implies that the ensuing hunger will be an easily bearable burden (no depression, lethargy, irritability — no tantrums, please!). And bearable not just for 24 weeks, but a lifetime. The Minnesota experiment tells us that when semi-starvation ends, the refeeding period will not end well.

"Starvation", i.e. making yourself lose weight, increases hunger until a tipping point is crossed where the hunger will cause a person to eat enough to get them heavier than where the started...(bolding mine)

That humans or any other organism will lose weight if starved sufficiently has never been news. The trick, if such a thing exists, is finding a way to do it without hunger so weight loss can be sustained indefinitely. A selling point for carbohydrate-restricted diets has always been that you can eat to satiety; counting calories is unnecessary, so long as carbohydrates are mostly avoided.
But this advice raises a pair of obvious questions, or at least it should: If people on low-carb diets eat less (the conventional explanation for any loss of fat that ensues), why aren’t they hungry? Where’s the semi-starvation neurosis? And if they don’t eat less, why do they lose weight? It implies a mechanism of weight loss other than caloric deprivation and suggests that the carbohydrates and fats consumed make a difference.

It's easy to lose weight when you're not hungry all the time. It interferes with the basics of life and relationships when you are.

Questions like these about the relationship between calories, macronutrients and hunger have haunted nutrition and obesity research since the late 1940s. But rarely are they asked. We believe so implicitly in the rationale of eat less, move more, that we (at least those of us who are lean) will implicitly fault the obese for their failures to sustain a calorie-restricted regimen, without ever apparently asking ourselves whether we could sustain it either. I have a colleague who spent his research career studying hunger. Asking people to eat less, he says, is like asking them to breathe less. It sounds reasonable, so long as you don’t expect them to keep it up for long. 

Fighting hunger and the urge to eat is an innate drive like breathing, sex (hello, Josh Duggar!) and the need to be social. It's easy to be puritanical and dismiss all fatties as people of fallen morals who chose to be fat, but despite that being the American Way for many, it's just plain wrong and harmful. "No pain, no gain"? Fuck you. The system is rigged. You must understand the system then change it or work around it, not just grit your teeth and endure endless pain/hunger. The nonsense being spewed by corporations like Coke to protect their profits by encouraging us to exercise more and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain is essentially the definition of evil.

Perhaps all calories aren't equal, but the science isn't in yet, though anecdotal evidence suggests it's so. A person will feel radically different at the end of the day if they are 2500 calories of fresh fruit, vegetables and fatty protein as opposed to if they eat 2500 calories of just coca cola and hershey bars.

I crossed the tipping point about a year and a half ago when my starvation-mode kicked in and my hunger caused me to eat more despite my better judgement. I need to find a middle ground where I'm eating less but not getting too hungry. So here is some late summer resolutions:

• Sugar. We've been here before. No more sweets during the week except socially.
• New category in the food journal below: all evening snacks after dinner is now a "hunger snack", and needs to be rated on a scale of 1-10. One, being nauseous and the last thing I want is food, 10 being blinded by food lust.
• Count calories during the week a little more precisely.
• Limit weekday calories to 2,600, assuming it does not wake the hunger beast.

The Army of Overconsumption has a big weapon (our own instincts) and tremendous allies (capitalism that feeds on our instincts). The only real weapon I have in fighting my physiological imperative to get fat and a culture driven by profit  is mindfulness. This blog and journal is a mindfulness-bomb that makes me stay awake, despite the numbing effect of hunger and the desire just to lie down and eat a big bag of cheesy poofs.

-----

WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2488

With my injury further receding and my work flow allowing me time, I took two big bike rides during the week, and tracked my calorie consumption/expenditure closely those days. The fact that the budget came in so low those days gives me pause, but my hunger was revved up the next mornings, giving credence to the numbers.

-----

MONDAY COUNT: 2700

SLEPT: 9:30am-6am, 8.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 6:15 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 9am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11:30am, Fage yogurt with honey, vanilla, almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, falafel, chicken soup, pickles, momma salad, 620 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, cheezits, 210 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, mahi mahi,  asparagus, poppa salad with dressing, 650 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, +/- 400 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, kind bar, 210 cal, 8/10
-----

BIKE CREDIT: 1550 cal
TUESDAY COUNT: 2285

SLEPT: 9pm-6am, 9hrs

AM SNACK: 6:15 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, beef patty, 400 cal

BIKE SNACK 1: 11:30am, homemade granola bar, 425 cal

BIKE SNACK 2: 1:15am, homemade granola bar, 425 cal

BIKE SNACK 3: 2:45, cheese doodles, 525 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm watermelon, 310 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 7pm, French Bread pizzas, poppa salad with dressing, 1080 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 7:30pm, Kind bar, 200 cal, 7/10
-----

WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2895

SLEPT: 10pm - 5:30am, 7.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea

 BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: noon, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:45pm, chicken & mushrooms, poppa salad with dressing, 830 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito, diet coke, +/- 925 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 9:15pm, peanut butter crackers, 220 cal, 9/10
-----

BIKE CREDIT: 2900 
THURSDAY COUNT: 1640

SLEPT: 11pm-4am, 5 hours

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 4:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BIKE FOOD: 6:30am-3pm, 3 homemade granola bars, 1 bag of Fritos, 3 bottles of gatorade, 1 packet of cupcakes, burger with onion rings & diet coke, 3180 cal

DINNER: 6pm, vegetarian Ethiopian food, 1 beer, +/-1000 cal

EVENING SNORT: 9pm, pint of cider, +/-200 cal
-----

FRIDAY COUNT: 2920

SLEPT: 11pm-7:30am, 8.5 hours

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken meatballs, mushroom curry, steamed string beans, 600

PM SNACK: 2:45pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, poppa salad with dressing, 200 cal

DINNER: 5pm, hot dog, fries, cake, +/- 1000 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 7pm, watermelon, 8/10, +/- 200 cal

Hunger Control: White People Problems Edition

Hunger, it ain't a game.

Yes, I should have known better. When early last month I found myself getting hungrier than usual, I engaged in some magical thinking: Hungrier? Well, I haven't expended extra calories and my diet is pretty healthy. This must mean my body's metablolism is speeding up and needs more calories to stay the course! 

What it really meant was my body was expressing its unhappiness with losing weight. If the weight starts coming off, it must mean there is a problem with access to the food supply and the body pulls levers and switches to make the regaining of that weight more of a priority. Specifically, that lever is a hormone called Ghrelin, which is released to stimulate hunger. Of course there is a vaccine in development to prevent the release of the hormone, but until then, the scientists basically say, "shut yo mouf!"

(Researchers) agree that even with high levels of ghrelin, you don't have to be at the mercy of your hormones. ''There are a couple of studies suggesting the orbital frontal cortex activity can be modified," he says.

Among those who do it best, he says, are people who are most concerned about maintaining a healthy weight -- who exercise what researchers call dietary restraint.

In another study, Goldstone says, he found that those with high dietary restraint scores had less activity in the orbital frontal cortex. The executive decision-making part of their brains seems to override the reward system activation, he says.

Eventually, ghrelin-blocking drugs may make it easier to pick the salad over the chocolate ice cream, but until then? "The advice not to skip breakfast comes out again with this study," Goldstone says. Other times of the day, eating before you are famished can help, too, he says.

Even the scientists sound a little like morning talk-show guests -- eat breakfast, and eat before you get to hungry. I think all our grandmothers said that, too, but they didn't get published on Web MD.

OK, Dr. G, maybe YOU did.

Looking at the bigger picture, you could say that we do not have an obesity problem or an over-eating problem: we have a hunger problem. Or more accurately, we have a hunger-control problem. I'm not going to rail against the American Food-Industry-Complex here*,  but how to control hunger. Outside of somehow taking out your brain and cutting out your orbital frontal cortex, how best to up your dietary restraint? Especially if one of the major components of the base of the FDA's food pyramid is addicting...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Thought for Food - Wheat Addictions
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

As I discovered when figuring out glycemic indexing, grains in general are  high in the index, while wheat and wheat products has a ridiculously high impact on increasing blood sugar, whole or not. As the talking head says, eating bread is a lot like eating sugar, and causes cravings for more. See what I did there? A full circle: glycemic index, bread equivalent to sugar, a carousel of craving, addiction! It's all connected...

On the unaired 6th season, the cornerboys start pushing wholewheat pumpernickel raisin bagels.

This is all getting a bit jumbled. OK, whether bread is the new crack we'll leave alone. Whatever this bad trip is...how do I get off it?! Internets to the rescue! When you Google "hunger control",you get THREE more times the hits than "boobies" and 1.5x the hits than "butts" (though only about 1/3 the hits of "sex", unsurprisingly). The research staff here at FBIWC is trolling through thousands (ok, hundreds) of hunger-control tips on the Internet and next week we present them to you, from what we feel are the best to the silliest/most dangerous.

*about how it's a monster designed to make us spend us much as possible regardless of the health toll it takes on the population. No, I'm not gonna. 

-----

Sugar, oh my gawd. Last weekend was trying. I went Wednesday-Saturday evening with no sweets, and Saturday night at a wedding, I topped off 2 glasses of wine and a beer with 2 1/2 pieces of wedding cake. It was delicious, but gave me a headache right on the spot. Then on Sunday, I ate no sugar but the temptations were coming at me fast and furious. In the morning, a few close friends who spent the night thanked us with some quality chocolate from their home town. Betsy promptly opened it and offered it to all, and a lot of cooing about how good it was ensued. Then I took Edie to a baby-naming ceremony, which turned out to be more like a bar mitzvah in the traditional sense: a lot of old people, a good family vibe, and a lot of great food that wrapped up with cake-a-palooza and cookies. Edie had 1.5 pieces and would have had more if I didn't stop her. In the evening, when discussing what to make for dinner, my wife suggested making cookies and apple crisps. Urg! 

Adult drink wine, kids get purple drank.

The afternoon party was a bit of an eye-opener. Unlike the cake I gorged on the night before, the birthday cake looked really well-made, with a glossy chocolate fondant and high-quality decorative touches. Underneath the dark chocolate fondant was milk chocolate butter cream. And there was old-school cinnamon ruggelah. When someone shouted, "Who wants cake?!, " there was a high pitched wail of every 3 year old in the room shouting, "I DO!" all at once. I watched Edie it her cake and I watched every one else eat theirs, too. It was odd being on the outside looking in -- with other foods, everyone is eating variations from the buffet, but with this food, everyone was eating the exact some thing. I offered Edie a ruggelah, but she was not interested and I held it between my fingers, contemplating it. It felt heavy, moist, dense, slightly pliable. Egg wash gave it a glossy coat, and a sprinkling of sugar helped it brown and caramelize. This was the food of my parents, food of my childhood, and I would not eat it. I felt drawn to eat the cake, eat the cookie. I desired it, to taste it, to feel satisfied. Note I just ate a bagel with cream cheese and lox and was in no way hungry, but my desire for these sweets were not about hunger. I realized in the moment it was partially about community and partially about remembering growing up with loving parents. But above those things, it was about quieting the cravings, about eating the sweet stuff so I could focus and feel straight. I did not. I am addicted, and I want to kick it.
-----

Made tea Monday morning, though without sugar. Sure, it's only 50 cal per pint, BUT that's 350 cal a week! Figure I can shift those calories to the oil of the salad dressing for papa salads. I sweetened the tea to knock the bitter edge off the tea, but this time instead of letting the water come to a boil then steeping the tea, I used a thermometer to bring the water to the recommended 185 degrees (when the water is just starting to bubble) and give the loose tea only 3 1/2 minutes.Weird. There is no bitterness, it's pretty much perfectly brewed, but there is no sweetness. Around the time of my increased hunger, I doubled up on the sugar in the tea, and I didn't realize until drinking the unsweetened batch just how much I enjoyed that little bit of sugar in the morning. Perhaps I liked it too much, like a maintenance dose.-----

Made poppa salad on Monday, too. Green chopped salad with red leaf lettuce, iceberg, cucumber, carrot, radish and scallion. The entire (1,211g) bowl is 220 calories, so....once I get used to what my standard salad bowl's value is, I probably won't need to do the numbers every time I make this kind of salad. Because that would be totally nuts.Made a dressing with 6oz olive oil, 2oz red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp dried basil, 1tbsp dried oregano, 1 tsp onion powder, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp guar gum and salt & pepper. OK, but a little flat. Next batch will do equal parts oil/vinegar, and kick it up a notch with lemon juice and grated parm. A tablespoon is about 100 cal, which is enough for a big bowl o' salad.-----

I imagine back in the day 365 was a huge number, and a dessert for every day seemed like an incredible indulgence....

It just occurred to me that as a kid, my parents would serve dessert after almost every meal, and if it wasn't served, I would insist. They used it as a reward for finishing a meal, and it was also used for nothing -- it became rote. Cookies, cake, brownies, ice cream. THEY didn't have dessert every day as kids -- they were of the generation where it was way too expensive, and when there was a dessert, it was a rare and special occasion. I guess in wanting to give me that feeling that they got from sweets, they denied it to me. Hows that for a head-f@ck.

-----

Good thing I kept my old belt. I've started to use the 3rd notch in my new belt, which doesn't make much sense if I gained weight last month. Yep -- the belt has stretched. The 3rd notch is almost exactly where the 1st notch was when I bought it. The old belt is still to big for me, but not THAT big. Gotta keep it real, yo.

-----

WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2297

Huh, lookit that, an average in budget. No sugar this week, and man I felt it. Friday night, just KNOWING sugar was coming over the ekeend, my cravings increased. I was able to fight it, but still.

-----

MONDAY COUNT: 2300

Poppa salad is a nice break in the vegetable rundown, but gotta make my own Italian dressing. I can do better than the bottle.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 50 cal

BREAKFAST: 11:30am, fruit smoothie, 375 cal

LUNCH: 1:45pm, sardine & avocado on whole wheat toast, momma salad, pickle, 7oz diet coke, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, apple carrot kale beet parsley cilantro ginger juice, 150 cal

Good but a strong taste. Watered 8oz of juice down with 8oz of water.

DINNER: 8:30pm, grilled chicken breast, curry cous cous, poppa salad with store-bought Italian dressing, 7oz diet sprite, 805 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9:45pm, cheesy poofs, 7oz diet sprite, 320 cal

Diet soda really does take the edge off sugar cravings. Also nice to be able to eat a satisfying, decadent snack that isn't a sugar bomb AND stays within budget.

-----

TUESDAY COUNT: 2125

Sugar cravings still there, but they are not nearly as bad as they were on Friday and over the weekend. 

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 0 cal

Weirdness. Not what I expected. It's good, but it's not the same thing as my mildly sweetened stuff.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH:  3pm, double quarter pounder, 12oz diet coke, 750 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30, poppa salad with homemade dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm. chicken sausage, madras lentils, steamed string beans, 7oz diet sprite, 630 cal
Lentils: they're a "starch", but they're also high in protein. Hmmm.

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, beef jerkey, 7oz diet sprite, 120 cal

-----

WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2365

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 0 cal

I like it. Need to get used to it. Not sweet, but pleasantly no bitterness, just smooth. Just a pure green tea flavor, like a chord. Sugar supplied bass to get over bitterness's treble.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, fage yogurt with almonds, agave, vanilla, 430 cal

Ugg! What the hell! Way too sweet! This is the same recipe I've been using for a few months, but now that I really haven't eaten sweets in a week, this seems totally different. It's:

• Fage Whole Yogurt: 200g (1 serving), 190 cal
• Agave: 30g (1 serving), 60 cal
• Roasted Salted Almonds: 30g (1 serving), 180 cal
• Shot of home made vanilla extract, less than 5 cal

I started using agave because of the lower glycemic index than honey, and it's a little less sweet than honey, too. The packaging lists a "serving" as 30g,  which all seems reasonable. But now that my taste buds are more attuned to sweet, it just tasted....candied. I originally put sweeteners in yogurt to balance out the tartness, and next week I shall aim to do that again, cutting back the agave by half, regardless of what the packaging calls a serving!

LUNCH: 1:30pm, broiled flounder, chili-flavored quinoa, roasted asparagus, momma salad, 7oz diet coke, 700 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, apple carrot kale beet parsely cilantro ginger juice, 135 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, small pork & veg fried rice, shio ramen, water, +/- 800 cal

Nice dinner out at a ramen shop. I guessed the soup was 400-500 cal, nice to see the internets confirm my suspicions.

EVENING SNACK: 10:15pm, cheesy poofs, 7oz diet sprite, 300 cal

-----

THURSDAY COUNT: 2355

Had a harder time with hunger today, and reviewing how I ate, I see why. High glycemic breakfast cereal in the morning, high glycemic pasta for lunch, a high glycemic pizza in the evening. It was all tempered by a lot of vegetables and a glass of fresh juice, but it was really setting me up. Fortunately, by eating 3/4 of my usual cheesy poofs I was able to stay in budget -- I was going to eat jerky, but was too desirous of carbs, oddly enough.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, kolon bloe with whole milk, 400 cal

Went from a double serving to a triple serving on the cereal to bring the cal count closer to what my other breakfasts are -- this size seems to suit me. Funny, just starting to notice how sweet this cereal is. 

PM SNACK: 1pm, momma salad, 80 cal

Ran out. Poppa salad will have to take me through the rest of the the week!

LUNCH: 1:45pm, whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce and shrimp, roasted Brussel sprouts, 7oz diet coke, 935 cal

Huh. Haven't had pasta in a while. This used to seem like a crazy-small portion, now it seemed a bit much. A serving is 2oz, I had 4oz -- after adjusting from my previous regular portion of 8oz. I think next time will do 3oz as a meal with stuff in and on it, and 2oz as a component of a meal.

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, apple carrot kale beet ginger parsley cilantro juice, 135 cal

DINNER: 7:45pm, 1 Stouffer's French Bread pizza, poppa salad with homemade dressing, 7oz diet sprite,  585 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8:15pm, cheesy poofs, 7oz diet sprite, 225 cal

-----

FRIDAY COUNT: 2340

Woke up at 6am and could not get back to bed, feeling somewhere between hunger and a sugar craving. Got to bed a little after 11, so felt OK. So much flu going around, gotta watch it.

AM SNACK: 6:30am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, fage whole yogurt with agave, almonds and vanilla, 430 cal

Cut the agave in half, tasted great.

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, poppa salad with homemade dressing, 200 cal
Went a bit heavy on the dressing, was good.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, chicken meatballs, madras lentils & roasted broccoli, pickle, 7oz diet coke660 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, double quarter pounder, 24oz diet coke, 750 cal
Not how I thought I'd finish the week, but just spent a hot, stuffy hour with the whole fam at the pediatrician getting flu biznizz done, and it was raining and we needed something fast and convenient. B wanted fries, so I order the combo, hence the stupidly large soda.

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, cheesy poofs, quart of water, 300 cal
Thought I was gonna do jerky, but dried meat after a burger is gross.