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Loading Screen Tip: when it comes to medicines and drugs, your pharmacist will often know more than your doctor, and almost always be more accessible.
So when you want to know more about something you’re taking (or thinking of taking), your pharmacist should be your first port-of-call!
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
It takes a lot more exercise than you probably think, to burn off calories.
Your daily 10,000 steps, for example, will burn around 400 calories, for the average person.
The more you exercise, the more your body increases your metabolism.
Exercise is great for many aspects of health; it’s not an amazing weight loss tool, however.
Today’s expert wants to draw our attention to the kitchen instead, and pay attention to why we get so hungry and how to fix that
Certain foods, especially starches and processed oils, cause blood sugar spikes to which our beleaguered bodies respond badly—and to our bodies, the aftermath of this is easily mistaken for starvation. So, it makes sure to a) store as much fat as possible b) increase hunger signals to make sure we get enough food. And so the cycle repeats.
See today’s main feature for how to break out of this cycle!
Speaking of cycles: electric bikes are cheaper, cleaner, and less stressful than cars or public transportation.
Today’s sponsor, Upway, is offering substantial discounts on a wide range of highest quality e-bike brands; you should definitely check them out!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Why "Stand Tall With Shoulders Back" Is The Worst Posture Cue
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🍽 MAIN FEATURE
The Science of Hunger, And How To Sate It
This is Dr. Dr. David Ludwig. That's not a typo; he's a doctor both ways—MD and PhD.
Henceforth we'll just say "Dr. Ludwig", though! He's a professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center.
His research focuses on the effects of diet on hormones, metabolism, and body weight, and he's one of the foremost experts when it comes to carbohydrates, glycemic load, and obesity.
Why are we putting on weight? What are we getting wrong?
Contrary to popular belief, Dr. Ludwig says, weight gain is not caused by a lack of exercise. In fact, people tend to overestimate how many calories are burned by exercise.
A spoonful of sugar may make the medicine go down, but it also contains 60 calories, and that’d take about 1,500 steps for the average person to burn off. Let’s put this another way:
If you walk 10,000 steps per day, that will burn off 400 calories. Still think you can exercise away that ice cream sundae or plate of fries?
Wait, this is interesting and all, but what does this have to do with hunger?
Why we get hungry
Two important things:
All that exercise makes us hungry, because the more we exercise, the more the body speeds up our metabolism accordingly.
Empty calories don’t just add weight themselves, they also make us hungrier
What are empty calories, and why do they make us hungrier?
Empty calories are calories that are relatively devoid of other nutrition. This especially means simple sugars (especially refined sugar), white flour and white flour products (quick-release starches), and processed seed oils (e.g. canola, sunflower, and friends).
They zip straight into our bloodstream, and our body sends out an army of insulin to deal with the blood sugar spike. And… that backfires.
Imagine a person whose house is a terrible mess, and they have a date coming over in half an hour.
They’re going to zoom around tidying, but they’re going to stuff things out of sight as quickly and easily as possible, rather than, say, sit down and Marie Kondo the place.
But superficially, they got the job done really quickly!
Insulin does similarly when overwhelmed by a blood sugar spike like that.
So, it stores everything as fat as quickly as possible, and whew, the pancreas needs a break now after all that exertion, and the blood is nice and free from blood sugars.
Wait, the blood is what now?
The body notices the low blood sugar levels, and it also knows you just stored fat so you must be preparing for starvation, and now the low blood sugar levels indicate starvation is upon us. Quick, we must find food if we want to survive! So it sends a hunger signal to make sure you don’t let the body starve.
You make a quick snack, and the cycle repeats.
Dr. Ludwig’s solution:
First, we need to break out of that cycle, and that includes calming down our insulin response (and thus rebuilding our insulin sensitivity, as our bodies will have become desensitized, after the equivalent of an air-raid siren every 40 minutes or so).
How to do that?
First, cut out the really bad things that we mentioned above.
Next: cut healthy carbs too—we’re talking unprocessed grains here, legumes as well, and also starchy vegetables (root vegetables etc). Don’t worry, this will be just for a short while.
The trick here is that we are resensitizing our bodies to insulin.
Keep this up for even just a week, and then gradually reintroduce the healthier carbs. Unprocessed grains are better than root vegetables, as are legumes.
You’re not going to reintroduce the sugars, white flour, canola oil, etc. You don’t have to be a puritan, and if you go to a restaurant you won’t undo all your work if you have a small portion of fries. But it’s not going to be a part of your general diet.
Other tips from Dr. Ludwig:
Get plenty of high-quality protein—it’s good for you and suppresses your appetite
Shop for success—make sure you keep your kitchen stocked with healthy easy snack food
Nuts, cacao nibs, and healthy seeds will be your best friends and allies here
Make things easy—buy pre-chopped vegetables, for example, so when you’re hungry, you don’t have to wait longer (and work more) to eat something healthy
Do what you can to reduce stress, and also eat mindfully (that means paying attention to each mouthful, rather than wolfing something down while multitasking)
If you’d like to know more about Dr. Ludwig and his work, you can check out his website for coaching, recipes, meal plans, his blog, and other resources!
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🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart Until You’re 80 and Beyond - by Chris Crowley & Dr. Henry Lodge
Is it diet and exercise? Well, of course that's a component. Specific kinds of exercise, too. But, as usual when we feature a book, there's more:
In this case, strong throughout is the notion of life being a marathon not a sprint—and training for it accordingly.
Doing the things now that you'll really wish you'd started doing sooner, and finding ways to build them into daily life.
Not just that, though! The authors take a holistic approach to life and health, and thus also cover work life, social life, and so forth. Now, you may be thinking "I'm already in the 80 and beyond category; I don't work" and well, the authors advise that you do indeed work. You don't have to revamp your career, but science strongly suggests that people who work longer, live longer.
Of course that doesn't have to mean going full-throttle like a 20-year-old determined to make their mark on the world (you can if you want, though). It could be volunteering for a charity, or otherwise just finding a socially-engaging "work-like" activity that gives you purpose.
About the blend of motivational pep talk and science—this book is heavily weighted towards the former. It has, however, enough science to keep it on the right track throughout. Hence the two authors! Crowley for motivational pep, and Dr. Lodge for the science (with extra input from brain surgeon Dr. Hamilton, too).
Bottom line: if you want to feel the most prepared possible for the coming years and decades, this is a great book that covers a lot of bases.
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May all your days be satisfyingly healthy,
The 10almonds Team