An important factor in sustaining weight loss is making sure you know how to reset hypothalamus activity, which prevents your body from creating fat reserves The human body has a built in ability to store the energy from food as fat, which allowed our ancestors to store this energy when food was less plentiful. Ancient hunter-gatherers had to deal with extended period of little to no food, and these fat reserves allowed them to survive.
Now most people have plenty of food available all of the time, so they no longer experience period of feast or famine. Therefore, we really don’t need large fat reserves any more. However, the hypothalamus has not evolved to recognize this situation. So unless we can reset hypothalamus function with healthy eating that is carefully planned, we will get fatter thanks to our body’s old survival strategies.
If you want to maximize weight loss or control, strive to reset hypothalamus responses to food by what you choose to eat. The same amount of calories from different foods can cause very different reactions and will be integrated into the system in different ways. If the calories come from fat or protein sources, absorption and triggering will be different than the same number of calories from carbs, and whether the carbs are simple or complex also changes the responses.
A gland deep in the brain, called the hypothalamus, is responsible for regulating appetite. Signals from the hypothalamus let us know when to eat by sending hunger pains. It also signals us when we have eaten enough and are full. Unfortunately the signal for being full is slow. It can take up to 20 minutes for us to realize we have eaten enough. You can be the boss of your hypothalamus by eating slowly. By doing so, you will get the signal that you are full before you overeat.
Fat in the diet requires caution because it is so calorie dense, nine calories per gram compared to only four for carbs and proteins. A healthy diet requires some fats, but fats need to be limited to preferably as many polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats as possible. Any good quality protein is always a wise choice because it is converted slowly and deters hunger for a longer time and is needed for tissue construction and healing.
Carefully choosing carbs is the most important factor in retraining your hypothalamus from storing up fat. Simple carbohydrates, such as those found in syrup, honey, and sugar, absorb into the body quickly. This results in a barrage of hormones being released as a signal to the hypothalamus to begin hoarding fat. Complex carbohydrates, such as those found in fruit, vegetables, and whole grain, take much longer to seep into the system. So they do not trigger the fat-storing process. Putting less stress on your hypothalamus will keep you from saving up fat.
healthy eating is the key to dodging the ancient need of the hypothalamus to save fat for lean times. A good diet geared to normal weight maintenance will rely on healthy fats, proteins, whole grains and other complex carbohydrates while avoiding simple sugars.
Unlike the primitive ages, now we have an assured regular food supply. Therefore, fat reserves have outlived their usefulness and we need to reset hypothalamus which sustained humans through lean times by ensuring build up of fat. Human body assimilates different foods differently, some of which have a natural tendency to accumulate as lipid reserves. Eating slowly helps the hypothalamus send the “stop” signal. Healthy eating, with the right mix of nutrients in the right quantities at the right time, supplies our body with ample energy to perform daily metabolic functions and eliminates the need for hypothalamus to conserve fat.
- J. Boda