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Archive for February, 2013

Quote of the day

Posted in Food addiction, QOTD on February 28, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Over at Addiction Inbox, Dirk Hanson looks at the role cravings play in addiction, both in his experience and as discussed in Dr. Omar Manejwala’s new book, Craving: Why We Can’t Seem To Get Enough.

Hanson asks some important questions (emphasis Hanson’s; embedded quotes are Dr. Manejwala’s):

Why do cravings matter? Because they are the engine of addiction, and can lead people to “throw away all the things that really matter to them in exchange for a short-term fix that is often over before it even starts.”

…

Why are cravings so hard to explain? One reason is that “people use the word to mean so many different things.” You don’t crave everything you want, as Manejwala points out. Cravings are not the same as wants, desires, urges, passions, or interests. They are “stickier.”

I can SO relate to this! Little “c” craving — like for chocolate or for sweets or for pickles — is one thing. But big “C” craving, that’s completely different. That’s the urge that makes you go out in the middle of the night, wandering up and down the aisles of the convenience store trying to figure out what will soothe the urge while at the same time being aware of just how nuts the behavior is.

Or as Hanson so nicely puts it:

Cravings are not necessarily about reward, but about anticipating relief.

Over at Evolutionary Psychology, Emily Deans has a great post on the dark side of food addiction. Stay tuned for more on this, particularly her discussion linking this behavior to restrictive diets. Hmmm!

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Friday cat blogging

Posted in Friday cat blogging on February 22, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Well done, Mashable, well done!

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Today’s moment of Zen

Posted in TMOZ on February 21, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

With apologies to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show’s Your Moment of Zen (mine won’t be half as fun), I’m adding a category of blog posts that are things that make me go “hmmmm.” Could be a quote, could be a picture, could be a story. I hope you find them interesting!

Today’s entry showed up on my Facebook feed yesterday and did indeed make me go “hmmmm” (I’d attribute it, but it seems to be one of those viral things with no clear source). See what you think:

A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.”

It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses. As early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night, and day after day. Remember to put the glass down!

Hmmmm!

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Quote of the day

Posted in Food industry, QOTD on February 21, 2013 | 2 Comments »

Michael Prager makes an important point about HFCS in responding to a recent “maize-pimping website Corn Commentary” blog post (emphasis mine):

The globesity pandemic did take off in the ‘70s, about the same time that HFCS was synthesized in an industrially scaleable way. This is why many people thought that the substance was more harmful than other processed sugars.

But the danger laid not in its chemistry but in its economy. Manufacturers had previously known that sweetness sells but had been economically prevented from sprinkling it over … everything. HFCS was cheaper to make, making that possible, which is why today it’s in soda, bread, hot dogs and other protein, salad dressing, condiments, and many other products in which it’s neither needed nor expected.

One more reason to cut back on processed foods when/where possible!

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Quote of the day

Posted in Obesity, QOTD, Weight loss on February 20, 2013 | 5 Comments »

Slate’s Dan Engbar after watching a full episode of The Biggest Loser (~16:00):

I found it shocking. Shocking! And compelling. … I was shocked at how fraudulent it is just from top to bottom. And I found it compelling to see people fall off of treadmills and vomit.

Well worth a listen to Slate’s longer panel discussion. HT Yoni Freedhoff for the pointer; see Yoni’s blog Weighty Matters for lots more on The Biggest Loser.

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Quote of the day

Posted in Exercise, QOTD, Research on February 16, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Think you’re good to go after pounding out an hour or so on the elliptical or treadmill? Not so much if you’re spending the rest of the day on your butt. Or so suggests the conclusion of a recently published paper on exercise and sedentary behavior:

One hour of daily physical exercise cannot compensate the negative effects of inactivity on insulin level and plasma lipids if the rest of the day is spent sitting. Reducing inactivity by increasing the time spent walking/standing is more effective than one hour of physical exercise, when energy expenditure is kept constant.

This study seems to echo the findings of one from earlier in 2012. The good news from the earlier study is that you may not need to completely overhaul your life to avoid the downside of a desk job:

[By] breaking up long periods of sitting still, you can partly counteract the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle.

We were meant to move!

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Study: Exercise meets Goldilocks

Posted in Exercise, Research on February 14, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Woman exercisingThe NY Times’ Well blog has an interesting post on exercise this week: a recent study suggests that with exercise, less may be more.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham took 72 women aged 60-74 and split them into 3 groups: 1 day/week of aerobic exercise and 1 day/week of resistance exercise (1+1); 2 days of aerobic/2 days resistance (2+2); or 3 days aerobic and 3 days resistance (3+3).

Researchers supervised participants over 4 months and at the study’s end found that (emphasis mine):

all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. …

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week.

But the researchers also looked at how much energy the women were expending outside of their formal exercise efforts:

the women exercising four times per week … were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising …

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

Hmmm! That’s a 425 calorie swing/day between the two groups. Over the course of a week (or a month), think that might make a difference to weight loss efforts?

Now before you say, hey, these were all menopausal women, researchers at the University of Copenhagen found a similar compensation to exercise in younger, sedentary men (emphasis mine):

Although the exercise-induced energy expenditure in [the group exercising 600 cals/day] was twice that of [the group exercising 300 cals/day], the resulting accumulated energy balance, calculated from changes in body composition, was not different … No statistically significant changes were found in energy intake or non-exercise physical activity that could explain the different compensatory responses associated with 30 vs. 60 min of daily aerobic exercise. In conclusion, a similar body fat loss was obtained regardless of exercise dose. A moderate dose of exercise induced a markedly greater than expected negative energy balance, while a higher dose induced a small but quantifiable degree of compensation.

Now this doesn’t mean folks who like to exercise more shouldn’t. Both studies were relatively small and motivation to exercise certainly can vary indvidually (just like tolerance to macronutrients and/or preference for a plant- or meat-based diet). [On the plus side for exercise fans, researchers measured participants’ cytokine levels and found that those exercising 6x a week did not show higher levels of this stress-related chemical.]

But this does suggest (to me anyways) that if you are exercising daily, you may want to pay attention to whether you are compensating during the day. And if you aren’t a daily exerciser, it looks like a little exercise can go a long way … good news for people who don’t have the time or the inclination for doing lots more!

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