HANGER: Why it happens and how to fix it.
The overarching message of all nutrition coaching I do is to navigate the middle. I’m not a big proponent of 12-week plans, “diets”, or anything of that nature; I prefer to find ways that we can achieve our goals in the context of real life. By that, I mean, I don’t want to have a panic attack if I’m caught somewhere without exactly 4oz of chicken. I’d rather be able to go out to dinner with my boyfriend and friends, look at the menu, and be okay…as opposed to either asking for a plate of steamed broccoli, or saying, ‘f it,’ and ordering the cheesiest thing I can find and getting back “on plan” tomorrow. It’s a more sustainable way to live and eat, for me. If diets and plans work for you, by all means, continue, but we’re going to spend the next 3 weeks discussing strategies to avoid “on” or “off” plans. :)
A good place to start, on this topic, is to first differentiate between a few terms you’ll come across if you research this further (I’m not the only one that does that…right? #NerdyAndIKnowIt).
Satiety v satiation: often used interchangeably, these words are different. Satiety refers to your perception of fullness between meals, whereas satiation refers to your perception of fullness during a meal. What we’ve after is to increase our awareness of our satiation, so that we can accurately gauge our portions before we’ve eaten too much and feel like we need to unbutton our pants (no one really loves that feeling, right?).
Related, there are two different types of eating: homeostatic (in which we eat to keep our energy balanced…think maintaining the status quo) and hedonic (in which we eat for pleasure or to manage emotions…you know, self-indulgent). Precision Nutrition covers these topics (along with some hormone breakdown, if you’re into that) here: www.precisionnutrition.com/eating-too-much-blame-your-brain, but the long and short of it is, most often, we are eating in some combination of homeostatic and hedonic. The goal is to stop eating before we switch to pure hedonism. Or at least be able to recognize we’re there and control it. And/or investigate the reasons why we end up elbow-deep in a box of cereal we don’t even want. It’s much harder to control your intake when you’re eating purely for comfort, right? We’ve all been there, and the ‘f it’ effect in that place is strong.
To achieve body change, we need to be aware of both our satiation and of the reasons why we are eating- there’s no way around it.
One of the ways in which we regulate our appetites is through a series of hormonal changes that occur after we eat known as the leptin feedback loop. Leptin is a hormone that is released by our fat tissue that tells our brains how much energy we’ve just consumed and how much energy we have stored as fat. Like all hormones, it’s a communicator that basically gives our brains a status report of fuel gained in a recent meal and how much fuel is left in the tank. As you can imagine, since it’s released by our fat tissue, if we have a higher body fat percentage, there’s a higher amount of leptin floating around in our bloodstream.
Our brain uses the blood level of leptin to determine our hunger, calorie intake, and energy usage/storage. After our brain tells us to either keep or stop eating, it then regulates leptin production. Our brains’ goal is always for us to maintain an energy balance- as we’ve covered (hint hint, 3 posts ago), our brains hate to diet and will do everything they can to maintain the status quo. The brain picks up what leptin puts down, and then makes more once it’s interpreted that data, all with the goal of keeping us where we are.
The leptin feedback loop tells us a lot more than momentary “stop eating” or “eat more”. Stable levels of leptin mean that we are more easily sated during meals, so we tend to eat less, or at least are less likely to overeat. Stable leptin levels lead to a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR), so we’re burning more calories at rest. A well-balanced leptin loop allows us to eat reasonable portions, feeling satisfied not stuffed, and ready to move. It’s therefore a pretty reliable way to regulate our energy consumption and expenditure.
Unless, of course, we disrupt the loop.
“Hyper-palatable, highly-rewarding, heavily-processed” food… you know, the stuff you find yourself face-first in after a few drinks or that terrible argument with your partner… is a major disruptor. Have you ever noticed that after eating a whole can of Pringles/2lbs of Sour Patch Kids/half a pizza, that you don’t really feel full…or even satisfied? Foods like this light up the pleasure centers of our brain and override our natural “stop” signals. We keep eating, ignoring that we’re stuffed, waiting until we feel sick or blacked out or there’s none left. Typically, these foods also contain relatively few nutrients, so we haven’t nourished our bodies properly: we’ve consumed a ton of calories, very few of which are actually serving us. We’ve moved from mixed eating into pure hedonic eating, and this hormone loop disruption is why it’s so hard to control: our natural regulatory system gets interrupted, and we feel powerless to stop it, as our innate stop-gap measure is thrown out the window.
Foods like this change our interpretation of (and, therefore, feedback to) our leptin levels. Just like we can become insulin resistant by eating too many sugars, we can become leptin resistant simply by eating too much. This is bad from a body change perspective, because leptin is made in our fat stores. If we’re leptin resistant, we’re communicating that we need more leptin, because our brain isn’t picking up the signal from what is flowing in the bloodstream already. How do you make more leptin? You guessed it…you need a bigger factory: more body fat. So, leptin resistance causes us to hold on to the fat that exists and make more of it. I don’t know many people whose goals include extra body fat, so getting our hormone levels stable is the goal, always.
The best news is that there are strategies to combat this. Consistency is vital to implementing any food or habit change, so I tend to make “strategies” in broader strokes. What works for your sister might not work for you, and if something doesn’t work for you, there’s no point in making yourself miserable trying to do it just because Women’s Health told you it was a good idea. J So… how do we get our leptin feedback loop (and, consequently, our appetites) to return to normal?
1. Eat whole, minimally-processed foods as much as possible. This is a doozy, and one I advocate always. Lean Cuisines and granola bars are great if we’re coming from McDoubles and frappuccinos, but not so good as a permanent solution. While I don’t live in trainer La-La Land, believing that everyone should always have kale salads and freshly-caught salmon on hand at all times, it *is* possible to make whole-food choices virtually anywhere you are (in the US, anyway). Look for as many fruits and veggies as you can find on a menu. Choose a leaner whole protein like a grilled chicken breast sandwich instead of a conglomeration of meat like a cheeseburger. Do water or a plant-based protein shake (check out my favorite here) instead of the doubleshot mocha not-even-coffee-anymore afternoon pick-me-up. If you look, you’ll find places you can improve, guaranteed.
2. Eat slowly and mindfully. I’m the former queen of eating while I’m reading or writing and not really thinking about what I’ve just ingested. I’d often times find that I’d eaten 2/3 of a meal without even remembering anything other than being excited to get to lunch time, taking the first bite, starting a task, then looking down and seeing most of the meal gone. Eating more slowly, being in the moment and not multitasking, has made a world of difference. I can slow down and actually feel when I’m getting full, so that I stop when I’m satisfied (~75% full) rather than stuffed. I typically feel light and ready to take on my next activity rather than feeling like I need a nap. Being more mindful of my food choices forces me to really think about what I’m putting in my body. Knowing what I was eating (whole foods are really the only way to go to figure this out) allowed me to realize which foods work for me and which don’t. I never would have discovered my gluten intolerance, how I respond to carbs so that I knew to have them a few hours before a heavy or high-volume workout rather than after, or how my cravings were affected by each food choice I made without slowing down and understanding what my body was telling me.
3. Eat fewer of the crack foods. The “hyper-palatable, highly-rewarding, heavily-processed” stuff. That’s easier said than done, many times, but it’s also easier done if we pay attention to #’s 1 and 2 above. If there’s more spinach and chicken in your body, there’s less room for donuts (that was not me suggesting you save room for donuts).
Paying attention to our bodies’ natural way of regulating our food intake can help us a great deal. Knowing where we stand and why we’re feeling those intense cravings or lack of physical motivation allows us to stop thinking of ourselves as failures who will never get a handle on this and shift our thinking to know that these feelings are nothing more than data points. They’re influenced by very real chemical processes, but, once we know how that works, we can begin doing the (super brave, I might add) work of understanding our responses to food and treating it like that: JUST FOOD. No obsession. No guilt. No shame. Just food.
