FatScrap 27th September to 3rd October 2010 - What Are You Hungry For?

Hi and welcome back!


Being hungry for something means that brain is receiving signals that you need satiating but sometimes it is not food that you need…

There are two kinds of hungers; one is caused physiologically, and the other is caused psychologically. We eat not only to feed our bodies to satiate physiological hunger, but also to feed our minds to satiate psychological hunger as well. So when you are feeling hungry, try tuning into the signals and perhaps you will recognise that it may be your mind that needs feeding rather than your body.

Hunger can be triggered by many different factors, externally and internally.

Externally, time can trigger hunger. We see the clock saying 1pm lunch time and feel hungry just because it is 1pm. We have learnt to be hungry at this time of day. So equally, if you are not hungry at a certain time of day, e.g. breakfast, then you can learn to be.

Hunger can also be triggered by sight, smell and taste so keeping foods out of sight is a good way to avoid eating them. This can be more difficult when faced with the colourful array of junk foods at places like the petrol station but once you have turned yourself off to the sight, smell and taste of them it will be easier to not respond to these foods. Further more on the subject of sight, colour can greatly affect our desire for a food. Often we are attracted to a food because of its brightly coloured packaging rather than the food itself! Apparently we are not attracted to blue food as this not a natural food colour so the colour blue can be an appetite suppressant!

I have noticed that when I have travelled East, I find that I feel less hungry and far more satisfied and this is because each meal is designed to satisfy the taste...sweet, sour, salty and bitter using herbs and spices. You could try following these principles with your meals and see if you notice that you no longer crave certain tastes.

Internally, hunger can be triggered by:

• Blood glucose levels and insulin so this is why it is important to keep eating slow release energy foods;

• Body temperature – hunger is triggered when the body feels cold;

• Equilibrium - the body maintaining it’s natural balance so hunger will be triggered if starvation mode is reached;

• And interestingly, hunger can be triggered by setting boundaries around how much you think you should eat, in other words, if you eat a smaller portion than you think you need you are more likely to feel hungry.

But what about those psychological hunger, the needs that you are not filling in your life? The needs you are not fulfilling may be causing feelings in you that you don’t like, don’t want to deal with, don’t understand, don’t think you should have and don’t want  so you end up trying to smother, fill, bury, drown, push down, squash or change these feelings with food.

Of course, knowledge plays a great part in what you are hungry for. Understanding and recognsing your needs, how food affects you and how you respond to it will trigger your choices. But the question is..

Are you hungry enough to make the choices that will get you where you think you want to be?

Sue x

FatScrap 20th to 26th September 2010 - What does being healthier, fitter and slimmer mean to you?

Hi and welcome back!

If you watch programme like X Factor you will often hear this question asked “What would it mean to you to…?”

And the answer, nearly every time is “Everything!”

But what is “Everything!”? Is this where we often go wrong, expecting everything, and ending up never reaching our goals because we don’t really know what they are?

If your goal is to become a healthier, fitter and slimmer person we need to ask more questions about what this means. Questions like:

What does "being healthier, fitter and slimmer" look like?

What does it sound like?

What does it feel like?

If you could create a healthier and fitter life, what would you change, if anything? Would you add anything? Subtract anything?

To me it means enjoying eating healthy foods, enjoying keeping active, enjoying feeling positive about myself, enjoying taking responsibility for myself and letting go of blame and guilt.

It means making choices that will serve me well.

It means tuning in to my needs and values while at the same time, remembering the needs and values of my family and friends.

Your version being healthy, fit and slim might look very different...but it’s about what works for you.

Today I invite you to explore the idea...let your subconscious explore it, too...and see what shows up!

Sue x

FatScrap 13th to 19th September - Are You Responsible For The State You Are In ?

Hi  and welcome back!

Do you blame your past and present circumstances for your body’s current state? Perhaps you blame the lack of time you have to prepare healthy meals or exercise, or you blame other people or events for preventing you from making healthy choices, or maybe you put it down to will power and the fact that you don’t have any..Well how would it be if you actually took responsibility and looked at how your excess weight could be influenced by the state of you.

Have you ever considered that your stress level, your emotional state, your thoughts, your beliefs and values, your communication with yourself and others, your relationship with food and exercise, your actions and the way you see yourself can all play an important factor in food digestion and assimilation and whether you lose or hold on to body fat/weight.

If you think about it, food is energy, so if surplus food is stored as body fat, body fat is extra stored energy. So you could ask yourself why it is that your body holding on to this extra energy?

When we hold on to something it can be because we don’t want to let go of it, it makes us feel safe or supported, we are frightened of letting go of it, we think we need it, we are attached to it…..what is this extra stored energy doing for you?

What needs to happen for you to stop holding on to it?

What are you holding in that needs to be released and expressed?

What would happen if you did stop holding on to it?

When it comes to weight loss the focus always seems to be about making changes on the outside but I believe, and the FatScrap Programme promotes, that to achieve and maintain healthy body fat levels, deeper changes on the inside have to be made as well.

Accepting that your physical state can be determined by your emotional, spiritual and nutritional state, you can then be responsible for making choices that will lead to you being in the physical state you want to be in.

Sue x

FatScrap 6th to 12th September - Balancing hormones

Hi and welcome back!

Leptin is a circulating signal that reduces appetite, and is believed to increase physical activity and feelings of well being.

Ghrelin is the hormone that makes sure we eat enough and, is the one that works alongside leptin.

Insulin is a hormone that increases appetite, decreases physical activity and feelings of well being by suppressing leptin, as well as promoting the chemical dopamine which makes a person want to eat to get the feel good dopamine “rush”.

It is an imbalance in these hormones that can lead to obesity.

Leptin
In general, obese people are found to have an unusually high circulating concentration of leptin and are said to be resistant to the effects of leptin.

A study published recently suggests that the consumption of high amounts of fructose causes leptin resistance and elevated triglycerides in rats. The high fructose diet rats subsequently ate more and gained more weight than controls when fed a high fat, high calorie diet.

Eating fructose in it’s natural form (fruit) is not usually the cause a high fructose diet, it’s the high levels of fructose hidden in manufactured products. Reducing your consumption of these foods will help lower your levels of fructose and in turn help balance your leptin levels.

Insulin
It is the high level of sugar and the low level of fibre that are now in our diets from processed, manufactured foods that promote insulin production.

So lowering your intake of sugars and increasing your fibre intake will likely lower your leptin resistance and your levels of insulin.

Ghrelin
Higher levels of gherlin have been found in people who have less sleep than those who have more so it is now thought possible that lack of sleep leads to higher levels of ghrelin, which in turn triggers the appetite and leads to obesity (although scientists are not completely certain whether obesity raises gherlin levels or high gherlin levels lead to obesity).

Higher levels of gherlin also create less leptin which means this appetite suppressant doesn't get to kick in and do it's job!

In addition, high levels of ghrelin have been found to suppress the amount of fat used by the adipose tissue. This implies that those with high levels of ghrelin in their bodies will not only feel hungrier than those with low levels, but may burn fat more slowly as well.

I have read that high levels of blood sugar trigger the overeating behavior. In other words, binge eating or out-of-control feeding, is associated with a malfunction in the brain’s hunger signals. The level of ghrelin depends on the state of nutrition and hydration of an individual. So its effect does not end with hunger, it affects thirst as well.

So, bearing all this in mind, this is why the recommendations for aiding fat loss are to eat less sugars and refined carbohydrates in order to maintain normal blood sugar levels, drink plenty of fluids to keep well hydrated and increase activity and exercise so that you are not just mentally tired from your busy day, but physically tired as well.

And what are we trying to encourage you to do on this FatScrap Programme?

- Eat healthily by eating less sugars and refined carbohydrates in order to balance hormones and maintain normal blood sugar levels.

- drink plenty of sugar free fluids to keep well hydrated and drink less alcohol which we know contains sugar and dehydrates the body.

- make exercise part of your routine to help you get fitter and sleep well!

Sue x