Recognizing Roadblocks in Weight Loss

I've just read an interesting item from AHA but I'm not quite agreeing with their advice,  entirely.
Here is mine, based on my own experience. Your experience might be different, who knows?

"If I go to a buffet, I just can’t control how much I eat."
Don't rush to fill your plate like you haven' t eaten for days. Anyway, it's not "elegant". If possible: select from the buffet what looks healthier and arrange small portions on your plate, artistically,  following the rule: a quarter of the plate some proteins, half the plate veggies and fruits, a quarter of the plate starches or, much better, beans or nuts. Take your time. Eat slowly, don't rush for a second serving, or if you do, try other foods. Better be only proteins and veggies or nuts, the second time, they'll cut hunger.

"I usually grab something on the way home from work because I am so tired, I don’t feel like cooking."
Cooking your meals, if you're not used to do it, it's the most difficult change in your life.
Start simple: salads, stir-fried lean meats, mushrooms, canned beans, canned egg-plant or favorite veggies.
Take your time to shop once a week and fill your fridge with healthy vegetables, fruits, lean meats, low fat cheese a.s.o.
Even if you're dead tired, it takes less than an 1/4 hour to fix  a healthy sandwich and a salad. Add a fruit, an yogurt, a handful of nuts.
Then learn to make a soup. Any soup. You can make enough meat and vegetable stock to last a week and use it to prepare quickly soups. Add tomato juice and a handful of cooked pasta or par-boiled rice and you have tomato soup. Or, add a handful of cooked par-boiled rice, an yogurt and a whisked egg and you have a "Greek" soup. Add a bit of spinach and broccoli and you get a "green" soup.
Or don't add anything else, just a squeeze of lemon.
You can learn more recipes, whenever you have the time. Just keep it simple.

"Cravings for sweets and salt is a bit difficult to get rid of, but you can do it in two weeks if you're determined to change your lifestyle." Drinking a glass of water is always good but I doubt it will help with your cravings.
I suggest the South Beach Phase I for sweet or starchy cravings.
It will take 1-3 weeks but IT WORKS.
Cut sugar and sugar replacements from your recipes!
Salt is a different story. First of all, you have to read carefully the labels and skip salty food, at least for a while.
Try to avoid processed meats. No chips - cut them out.
If you're cooking your own  meals, change your recipes. Add less and less salt. Replace at least part of the salt with spices and herbs. Lemon juice is a great replacement.
Don't add salt to a green salad, but lemon juice. It'll be more crispy.

"I love dessert. I can’t give it up!"
Oh, yes you can. If after 2 weeks of SB Phase I diet you still can't resist a dessert,  always ask for a small portion. Eat verrrryyy slowly and try to stop after three bites. Maybe it'll work :D
Try eating a piece of fruit instead of a "classic" dessert. Once in a while, indulge yourself and don't feel guilty about it.
Once a month in a diet for life isn't quite like a drop in the ocean but it won't fatten you. Take care what else you eat that day and exercise a bit more the next day.

"I don’t like working out. It’s boring."
Oh, come on! What do you want your life to be like when you're old? Or in ten years? I like that Glasbergen cartoon: "What fits your busy schedule better: exercising 1 hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?"
Of course you can find some exercise and make it less boring. Just walking half an hour a day in fresh air can make the difference. Invest in a music player or a camera or a dog, to make walking more interesting. Invest in a pedometer and compete with others. Try swimming. Any physical activity is better than sitting  all day long. "Any" is the magic keyword.

Walk, Just Walk

It's Sunday, it's late morning and it''s raining a lot but my feet are telling me they feel like walking in the nearby beautiful park. Walking in the rain? Why not, I have an umbrella. The fresh hot coffee afterwards makes me already smile.

When I started the difficult road from fat to fit, I was in an extremely bad shape and was sure I didn't had the time or mindset or anything in my power to exercise.
Plus, I was convinced exercising is useless in a diet. Just eat less a.s.o.
Plus, I find jogging, aerobic and other "extreme" fitness chores even now boring. Sorry folks, I can't help it.

Then I've stumbled upon some interesting and useful science items on www and started my new life.
To make a long story short, you don't need extreme fitness (although if you do it, bravo for you).
Just walking for at least half an hour can help a lot.
But you have to do it every day. No use walking only in weekends.

Walking every day is not an easy thing to do in the beginning if you are a computer or TV freak, if you have a very busy office life or if you have quite a lot of excess fat (a nice way to say you're really too fat to move easily). You need outside help.
What really helped  me to keep moving, besides science, has been the South Beach Diet Forum.
Very supportive, excellent ideas and a lot of advice.

Just walking might be boring, if you don't have some friends to walk with. Here comes technology to the rescue. Try any mobile device with music, audio books or radio programmes.
Investing in an Omron Pedometer has been one of my best ideas so far. I've started very low, less than 2000 steps a day and increased the number from week to week.

In my experience walking is good for your feet and brain but it's not enough for your body.  You need more to feel fit and wit.
A bit of gymnastics will come naturally. Simple exercises like cycling now and then on a static bicycle, some exercises with small weights. Any kind of physical activity will do, in fact, including dancing, cleaning your house, shopping, gardening etc.
A sport, any sport, will do wonders for your body.
I've  been lucky that I and my husband are nuts about swimming. Must have been ducks in a previous life. We've enrolled in a swimming club (not easy to find and quite expensive in Bucharest but cheaper than doctors and medicine).
From time to time we  manage to find some pond, lake or sea to swim a whole day long.

A few days ago, I've analyzed the data in my daily journal.
Such a journal is extremely useful for your diet. Besides controlling better what you eat and drink, it's good to look from time to time at historic data. They can tell a lot, even  if you don't  have the basic knowledge of statistics and Excel.
For example, my journal  shows that the best recipe to put a pound on is to eat a bit more for several days while exercising too little or at all.

Checklist

• Start walking. Start with 20 minutes every other day and increase this from week to week. 
• Try to find a community of people helping each other to become fit to support you: a forum on www, some  friends, relatives, a club, a team.
• Put technology to work and invest in a mobile device with music or audio books or radio.
• Invest also in a pedometer (step counter) device. 
• Find other opportunities of physical activity, even if this means just cleaning your house or shopping.
• Try to find a sport you can afford and enjoy.
• Aim for at least 90 minutes daily of physical activity.
• Eat less 2-3 days a week (less than 1600 kcal but no less than 1200 kcal), eat good food like veggies, beans, fresh lean meats, fish, eggs, a bit of cheese, 1-2 portions of fruit a day, yogurt or kefir, some vegetable oil like sunflower and olive oils, nuts, whole grains. 
• No need to ruin yourself with fancy or exotic dishes. Stick to your local market and the traditional recipes.
• On days you eat or drink more than you'd need to (like a party or some emotional burst for ex.)  try to exercise a lot more. Dance, swim, walk as much as possible a.s.o. A couple of days will do the trick and bring you back on the path.
• Keep a "diet journal".

The Science behind it


Is diet or exercise more important in combating obesity?

"Diet and exercise has the same importance if you are trying to lose weight.
Research shows physical exercise on its own or diet on its own is not an effective weight
loss strategy, they need to be combined. Weight loss will only be achieved if energy input
(food and drink) is lower than the total energy expenditure ( activity of daily life and physical
activity). Research shows that to lose weight you need to exercise more than 60-90
minutes/day at moderate intensity if energy ( food and drink) intake is not modified."

Epigenetic Changes to Fat Cells Following Exercise

The cells of the body contain DNA, which contains genes. We inherit our genes and they cannot be changed. The genes, however, have 'methyl groups' attached which affect what is known as 'gene expression' -- whether the genes are activated or deactivated. The methyl groups can be influenced in various ways, through exercise, diet and lifestyle, in a process known as 'DNA methylation'. This is epigenetics, a relatively new research field that in recent years has attracted more and more attention.

All Fat Is Not Bad: Study Shows Exercise Creates "Good Fat"

"Our work provides greater motivation than ever to get out there and exercise," Stanford
said.
These studies suggest that even if you're not losing weight, exercise is still training your fat
to be more metabolically active; even if you don't see the results on the scale, you are still
improving your overall metabolism and therefore your health.

Long, Low Intensity Exercise May Have More Health Benefits Relative to Short, Intense Workouts

Standing and walking for longer stretches improves insulin sensitivity and blood lipid levels more than an hour of intense exercise each day does, but only if the calories spent in both forms of exercise are similar.

Brown Fat

White Fat, Brown Fat, Beige Fat... This is beginning to sound like jazz.
Many of us would like to hear a simple pop song "An apple a day keeps the fat away" or maybe some hard
rock "Eat what you want 5 days and almost nothing for 2 days and you'll kill that fat".
But when it comes to the chemistry in our body, things are so complicated that can't be compared, not
even with a symphony.

I smile bitterly when I read that "weight gain is caused by a fundamental energy imbalance,
when energy intake from food chronically exceeds energy expended by physical activity and metabolic
processes".
A therapy for weight loss must, of course, involve less food intake and more exercise. But by far is
not enough. Anyone who's been through a diet knows this too well.
Humans have evolved incredible complex biological mechanisms to acquire and defend their energy stores.
Besides some "wheels" in this mechanism can malfunction, as a result of some environment changes, because of age, too much sugar and starch or I don't know what else.

For years now, scientists have been studying the brown fat, a type of heat-generating fat that burns
energy rather than storing it (like the white fat does).
Babies have it, to keep them warm. This explains why babies survived after hours spent in freezing cold.
Initially, researchers thought adults had no brown fat at all. But, surprise, adults have some of it too and it's playing an important role in heat production and energy metabolism.
Another surprise, brown fat provides a natural defense against obesity: people with greater quantities of brown fat have lower body weights

Following a severe diet makes things worse.
In normal weight people, brown fat burns energy while white fat tends to store energy.  But in obese
people following a calorie restricted diet, brown fat can become largely inactive which means both
types of fat become organs of energy storage making weight loss extremely difficult.
It's like you're driving a car, and the harder you press on the accelerator, the harder an invisible
foot presses on the brake.
While this phenomenon is known, scientists at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the
University of NSW have found a scientific explanation. They used mice in their research but the
mechanism discovered is probably similar in humans.
They have shown that the neurotransmitter Neuropeptide Y (NPY), known for stimulating appetite, also
plays a major role in controlling whether the body burns or conserves energy.
“High levels of NPY signal to the body that it is in ‘starvation mode’ and should try to replenish and
conserve as much energy as possible. As a result, the body reduces processes that are not absolutely
necessary for survival.”
Brown fat, one of the primary tissues where the body generates heat and therefore uses up energy,  is
deactivated as a result.

A lot of hormones are involved in fact in human metabolism and I don't know how many other chemicals.
Not to mention the genome and the mechanisms that activate/ deactivate genes.
But when fighting the stubborn fat, you try to cling to the last straw.
Studies now try to find how to increase and activate the brown fat in obese people.

One year ago, researches at the Harvard University made an exciting discovery on mice models, confirmed
lately on human. It seems that exercise has more benefits that burning calories. A hormone, named
Irisin, is produced. Irisin is an "eco" traveler in our body. Increases the good brown cells and
decreases the "garbage sources", the white fat cells.
Irisin is not the only "by-product" of exercise, hundreds of proteins result which make us healthier.

Another candidate for increasing brown fat is Ursolic Acid, found in apples (especially in skin),
prunes, some Mediterranean herbs like basil, rosemary, lavender, oregano, thyme and several berries like
bilberries and cranberries.
Of course mass-media launched immediately a new top song "Eat apples" but it's not that easy.
Reasearch results are confirmed for the moment in mice only.
Nevertheless, an apple a day is one of the best ideas for your health.

Other researches discovered a protein that activates the brown fat but whether this discovery would be
practical for weight control, is unclear.

Best advice so far, until better methods are identified to increase the brown fat:
- don't follow fad diets, which restrict drastically calories. Don't eat too much either.
- what you eat and when you eat is very important. Don't eat too much in the evening. Eat a variety of
food, mostly vegetable, fruit and beans but also lean meats, eggs, dairy and cheese. Include "good fats".
Make fish, vegetable oils, nuts part of your weekly menu.
- a salad a day and a couple of fruits, apples and prunes included,  won't probably increase your brown fat but will keep the doctor away.
- make daily walking and other physical exercise a part of your life. Even if you won't see immediate
results, on the long term, your health and weight will improve for sure.

So, whatever song is on top, put your shoes on and start moving!




References

Mechanism That Regulates Production of Energy-Burning Brown Fat Discovered
Apple Peel, New Weapon to Fight Obesity
Wikipedia Brown Adipose Tissue
Ursolic Acid
Ursolic Acid Increases Skeletal Muscle and Brown Fat and Decreases Diet-Induced Obesity, Glucose 
Intolerance and Fatty Liver Disease
Understanding Obesity And How Brown Fat Cells Form
Turning White Fat Into Energy-Burning Brown Fat: Hope for New Obesity and Diabetes Treatments
Why obesity is stubborn
Protein that stimulates brown fat could boost weight loss strategies
Joslin Scientists Discover Mechanism That Regulates Production of Energy-Burning Brown Fat
A PGC1α-dependent myokine that drives browning of white fat and thermogenesis