YO-YO DIETS: ARE WEIGHT LOSS SYSTEMS THEMSELVES LEADING TO FAILURE?

As you may have noticed, one of the most frequent problems with weight loss programs, is that they are very focused on counting calories and weigh food constantly; sometimes we begin a diet just because we don't want to eat in excess, but the very structure of the diet requires we to spend an entire day focusing on food (what we've just eaten or what we are going to eat today). This is often cause of
- a form of obsession with food
- stress and anxiety that can lead to blow the diet (stress hormones - cortisol - are hungry hormones).

Researchers from the ORI, the Oregon Research Institute, coordinated by professor Eric Stice wanted to give their explanation to the failure of weight loss systems and a full description of the effects of caloric restriction. According to what is established in the study, the secret is in the brain and in its response to the stimulus of food and its sense of reward. The amount of food we eat is driven by a combination of sensory signals of "measure", like the sensation of stomach fullness and satiety. Once you have satisfied a particular food craving, gratification and feeling of well-being are associated with the activation of brain areas in response to stimuli of smell and taste, and these areas regulate the relationship quantity-desire for food.



The full results of the study were published in the journal NeuroImage, and suggest that restricting food intake increases the value of reward. This happens especially when it comes to high-calorie or delicious foods (like a chocolate milkshake, for example). The greatest difficulty comes right when you have to follow a caloric restriction regime.
In addition, scientists have discovered that abstaining from food for longer periods of time also increases the value of food reward, showing that fasting or skipping a meal are deleterious in reaching a goal of weight loss. Instead, efforts should be concentrated in a diet that includes healthier, low calorie foods.
"These results are unique – stresses Stice – because these data are the first to suggest that an elective caloric restriction increases the degree in which attention and the brain regions involved in reward are activated by exposure to good food».

The action of the various brain regions was observed using scanned images of the brain of a group of volunteers who had to see and imagine different types of food. In one case were proposed pleasant food images, in another case unappetizing food. At the same time, participants were asked to imagine a series of foods that they particularly liked or judged appetising. The decision to include both pleasant and unpleasant food images was made to compare the response of brain reward areas in these two different cases. In a second phase of the study, the researchers asked participants to have a chocolate milkshake and, in another phase, a zero calorie and tasteless drink. After this additional step, Stice and his colleagues have examined whether the number of hours since the last caloric intake (ranging from 3 to 22 hours) was correlated with the neural activation in response to the actual receipt or the anticipation of receiving a palatable food. A further analysis took into account the possibility that there was an aberrant neural response to food stimuli in participants who have being with a negative balance of energy for a period of 2 weeks, compared to those with a positive energy balance.

The final results have shown that in order to lose weight effectively, but above all to mantein your ideal weight, it is important following a healthy diet rather than choosing short term, "costly" sacrifices. "The implications of this study are clear: if people want to lose excess weight, it is more efficient to eat healthy, low in fats and sugars foods during regular meals, rather than staying for long periods of time without any calorie intake," concluded Dr Stice.
In a nutshell:
- a healthy diet that has become your daily habit is better than the "30 pounds in a month", fast weight loss systems;
- skipping meals can lead to "fall into temptation" of our cravings.

No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance - Ramana Maharshi