Fat also helps us old farts (I say at the ripe old age of 34, ouch!). Fat can actually help you lose weight. Fattening foods are more full-filling then low fat substitutes, which generally work to try and dupe your nervous system into thinking you are full, only to be back munching in an hour or so. If you are like me then fattening foods also make you "feeeeeel" good, too. Like, how do you feel after you down that cod and chips, ice cream sundae (there I go again), or hot wings.... mmmMMM. I feel psychologically wonderful after eating these foods. That is, until the guilt about eating all that fattening food set in and I realize how much fucking exercise I need to do to burn off all the calories (yes I have mental illness related to eating and working out too).
But, there is hope. You can be fat and healthy. Seriously. A recent study (3) suggests that it is not how fat you are that matters in terms of developing obesity related illnesses, but how you utilize that fat. Take or example, the Sumo wrestler pictured above. Fat bastard, right? Wrong! Well wrong in our colloquial use of the term fat bastard. Yes he is fatter than the average middle American. He is one big mother fucker. However, He utilizes his fat in a fundamentally different manner. Sumo wrestlers through rigorous eating regimes and exercise regimes (yes they exercise, about 8 hours per day! They eat the rest of the day), they actually assist their body to store fat subcutaneously (under the skin). This keeps the fat away from the vital organs - heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, etc - which are involved in obesity-related disorders. Neat eh?
Now chances are you won't have this luck as Sumo's start their training very young and thus their body actually develops like this. This recent study suggests that for each of us, we have a fat "set point". Yes this is a new take on an old idea. The old idea, that everyone has a set point weight and if you go too far above (or below ) this individual set point you can get sick. The new idea relates the weight directly to the storage of adipose (fat) tissue. It states, succinctly, that each individual has a fat set point, or what might be called a "metabolic" set point. This is the point at which you effectively utilize fat stored in our body. Too little and you can develop diseases. Too much and you can develop diseases. The latter, the authors suggest, is related to a storage issue. Think if it this way: you have a determined amount of fat your body can store with little effect on your health. If you exceed this limit then the fat stores (of which you might be continuing to ingest) need to go somewhere. The hypothesis suggests that this extra fat, since it has no place to go in the individuals normal storage places, starts to find and store itself on major organ systems. Think of it like pouring yourself a drink. You set out a glass. The volume of the glass is your fat store limit. Now your pour a little liquid in, let's say beer for shits and giggles (and because it's about my favorite liquid beverage on the planet). If you pour that brewski down the center chancing are you will get a large head on your beer. If you keep pouring into that glass eventually that head needs to go somewhere. First it slowly moves upward toward the top of the glass (i.e. the top of your fat limit). Keep pouring and what happens? The head and maybe some beer spill over the top of the glass and onto the countertop, into your hand, etc. That is how I think of the fat spilling out over your fat store limit and the countertop or your hand is the rest of your body, the major organ systems.
Now when this happens and people get sick (i.e. the beer is all over the countertop) we get all worked up and decide that this person needs to lose all the weight. This is where the idea of a metabolic set point comes into play. See, if we adopt the position that there are normal limits of fat store (under the skin) that vary individually then we can begin to design weight loss programs to target the set point instead of the ideal. That is, we can wipe the counter enough so that there's no beer visible (it might still be sticky, but shit we've got beer to drink and who has time to clean up that mess?) So rather than forcing people into weight loss programs that hold for them the ideal portrait of healthiness and fitness (e.g., a supermodel, or men's health magazine cover model) we hold for them an ideal that is personally tailored to their individual set point. This is the point at which, while still over weight in appearance, is actually a healthy point at which the major organ systems are not impacted by the fat. At this point the weight loss program may be further tailored to a longer term (as opposed to an acute - lose weight now or die) program. The authors suggest that this could increase the efficacy of such weight loss programs because psychologically you are giving patients 1) realistic goals to reach and 2) using individually tailored data.
So, can you determine what your fat/metabolic set point is? Well, not exactly. This is where more science is needed. See to determine your metabolic set point scientists need to understand the genetic mechanisms involved (currently underway in mice) as well as the individualistic, developmental experiences of that individual. So in the end, more science is needed and the likelihood of a "take this pill" to get think approach is not going to be as effective for long-term health.
Thoughts welcome....
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4 comments:
Another excellent post from the Ste-inator!
going back to an early post, about food and being able to process natural foods better, and fat storage....
Ok, so it makes sense to me to be eating what our bodies have adapted to eat. We process certain foods better than others. I generally refer to this as ‘the fat of the land’ and by this I mean, eat anything that’s natural. Anything from a packet (as a rule of thumb) is going to have things in it that are bad for you and your body won’t process it as well and some fresh meat, eggs, nuts, berries, fresh fish bla bla bla.
But, from an evolutionary biologist’s point of view and someone who is interested in physical fitness, training and performance, what do you think about meal sizes and frequency?
For me it makes sense that our environment and living styles have changed drastically recently (in terms of humans being around). When running around on the savannah we craved fat, because it contained high calories/energy. Craving fat was a survival mechanism that we still posses although our environment is very different (and we have access to all the fat we could possibly want). This in turn makes us obese, and as you stated, if you’re unable to control this it can lead to health problems. So, going back to the savannah and early man – from what I can gather is that we were scavengers, hunter gatherers. I am sure that we would not have had a regular food source (this didn’t come about until farming?) so, what do you think about regular meals? I mean, I have seen articles that recommend we should eat at the same time every day, and break our daily food down into 6 meals rather than 3. (This is something that anyone getting into bodybuilding will read in any ‘for beginners’ article)
Does this make sense? Surely if our bodies have adapted to live on the African planes the best thing for us should be to gorge on the kill, and maybe not eat properly again for a few days, maybe nibbling on a few nuts and berries until the next ‘kill’.
Also, why have regular meal times?
What are your opinions about this?
Sorry for my mindless rambling, I hope you managed to make some sense out of all that gibberish. :)
dan, whoa - excellent questions.
actually I think about these things constantly... sad, I know.
the advent of eating times is hypothesized as correlating with the advent of farming, true - farming is an all day affair so you eat before you work and after you work, then you sleep and repeat cycle. Typically you might 'snack' while working, but ancestrally I dont reckon this would have been done systematically, like every 2 hours of something. I think eating times are bogus. Our ancestors, like many wild animals eat when they are either 1) hungry or 2) when there is food available. We do the same thing - for example, ever eaten a burger or chips, just because they are in fron tof your face. You may not be hungry, but you nibble at them anyhow? I have. I think most people have. It takes a strong willed person to NOT do so. However, in caveman days opportunity was what ruled and we probably ate when it was available. The thing is, IT, food, was probably not all that plentiful so we had to be nomadic in order to get to new sources of food. Meaning we probably ate a lot of smaller meals (grubs, shrubs, berries, small mammals) along the way. Eating a mouse might be the evolutionary equivalent to your mid-morning snack! LOL
I also think about this in terms of animals. For example, it is highly recommended that we, humans eat 6 small meals a day to keep our metabolic rate high and help us burn fat. That makes sense; the more your body works, the more heat if generates, the more calories you are forced to burn.
But then I only fee my cat 2 times a day! What the fuck? It could be a species thing, but my cat is fat and I have started to consider construction of a device that distributes small amounts of food to the cat, Billy is his name, while I am at the office to see if the same principle applies to cat. So I think your idea about nibbling 'in between' kills is spot on mate!
I think you are an evolutionary biologist at heart... LOL
I must say, also, that recently Austen has started us out on a more regular eating schedule - smaller meals more frequently - about 5-6 meals, well not all meals to me, some would be considered snacks (e.g. rice cakes with 1/2 tablespoon peanutbutter, smoothies, etc) and I have noticed good things. I feel more energetic. I feel a little more tone. And, she has lost 2.5% body fat in 5-6 weeks!
Great thoughts dan. Thanks. Let me know if I answered your question.
Yes, that all makes perfect sense. Some animals, )namely the big predators) will hunt, and gorge...but you only need to watch an episode of Bear Grylls and see how he survives in the wild (I fucking love this guy by the way) to see how a human would locate enough food to live in the wild. Like you said, i recon it would mostly have been small, easy access (less danger involved type of food) rather than a massive hunt that would be a risky endeavour. Bear Grylls eats anything he can get his hands on, but its namely small animals and plants, and roots...
yes, exactly! and yes bear grylls is amazing. and shit, if you are named bear you have got to be pretty amazing right? LOL
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