The Biochemistry of Weight Loss

Soaring BMI Rates

2013-07-09T03:39:00.002-07:00

I perused the most recent issue of the International Journal of Obesity and found a very interesting article on BMI rates over the past decade or so. The article is titled, "Morbid obesity rates continue to rise rapidly in the United States." It is (2013) 37, 889-891. It is a little hooky because they rely on phone calls to get people's BMI. However, they carried out a large number and have good statistics. BMI is simply your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. The lower the number the less fat you are. So over 30 is considered obese and then over 40 and over 50 are two cutoffs that signal extreme obesity. There are a lot of interesting facts in the paper; I'll list some that I found interesting. The worldwide BMI has increased by nearly 0.5 every decade over the last 3 decades. Of the high income nations, the U.S. has the highest mean BMI (no surprise there). One in three adults have a BMI over 30. BMIs over 40 are come with much more severe health problems than 30 (although they don't expound on what they are). From 2000-2010 people with a BMI over 40 increased by 70% while that over 50 was even higher. BMI numbers are higher among Hispanics and blacks. I found this odd as these groups generally have less money. I guess it boils down to cheaper food is generally worse for you, especially things like McDonald's. In 2010 nearly 7% of the American population had a BMI over 40. In 2000, the prevalence of BMIs over 30 was 19.8% while in 2010 the same number was reported as 27.2%. So, in summary, obesity rates as measured in BMI are increasing and increasing fast. People are getting fatter year after year. I'm not surprised at the number of fat people, but I am surprised that number of fat people is increasing. I figured that the rates would have plateaued by now.

On another note, I published my first scientific paper that was directly related to obesity (it even had the word obesity in the title) this past month. Not a first or last author paper though so not that big of an accomplishment.

My diet has suffered with relatives visiting and my child's birthday. Now time to get back into it. Hopefully not too much damage was done.

Bloody Gums

2013-07-02T04:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I have posted. I have had relatives vising from over seas. The trip was great but I didn't do so well with the diet. I broke it more than once. I've noticed that in situations with work and situations with out of town visitors like this I tend to find myself in situations where it is very difficult to stay on a diet. Situations where it would just look plain weird not to indulge in carbs. Then inevitably once you get off the wagon, it's a slippery slope. You think to yourself, "well, I have already cheated, why not just one more time, why not wait until tomorrow." Then it goes on and on. Even more frustrating is that I don't have a functional scale yet to measure the damage done.

As an aside, I thought I would explore a problem that has always interested me. Bloody gums and heart disease. I have always wondered what is the scientific basis for the connection for bloody gums and heart disease. There is a correlation between bloody gums and the risk of heart attack. As with many bodily ailments, correlation does not equal causation. I have bloody gums and would like to know the risk I am running and exactly why. I have done some research on the subject and it doesn't seem very well proven, but there seem to be consensus on the causes. Bleeding gums allow bacteria into the blood stream. Bloody gums create a passage for bacteria to go from the mouth to the blood stream. Once in the blood stream, bacteria get bound to platelets. These complexes and perhaps others clog arteries. Once the arteries are clogged you get a situation very similar to other heart diseases with plaques causing clogged arteries and heart attack.

Looks like I need to go to the dentist. It would really suck to die by bleeding gums because I couldn't take care of my dental hygiene.

Insulin and Cancer

2013-06-24T04:13:00.001-07:00

I was sitting in a talk today and saw some data that showed that insulin is involved in cancer. This probably should have been obvious to me previously but it wasn't. That's just one more example of how an excess of insulin is bad for you. Cancer cells learn how to hijack multiple systems in order to proliferate, and the insulin signaling pathway is one of them. In order to produce results and downstream signaling events, insulin has to bind to a receptor on the outside of cells called the insulin receptor. This insulin receptor then turns on a cascade of all kinds of events including those advantageous to proliferating cells. In fact, insulin receptor is highly upregulated in a lot of different types of cancer cells (meaning there is more of it to help proliferation). There are many different types of cancer cells that the insulin receptor is upregulated including lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells. What I would like to see is if there is data correlating obesity and cancer. Furthermore, many anticancer drugs induce or maker worse insulin resistance.

No weigh in today since I still haven't gone out to get a new scale. Probably will join the gym this week. I had to skip breakfast since I woke up too late. Had 3 sausages for lunch. Had chicken wings for dinner. No soda all day, just water.

Sugar Blues showed up today, so I will start reading it tonight and give a review as soon as possible.

Dominos Low Carb Pizza

2013-06-21T04:21:00.002-07:00

I think I have found the greatest thing since sliced bread- sliced low carb pizza! Dominos is selling low carb pizza now. When you are low carbing, sometimes you get desperate for things like this, and it's nice to have alternatives to the real thing so as not to loose your head. The idea here, though, is not to take it as something of a staple in your diet. Based on the ingredients and the carb count it is something you would want to eat sparingly, maybe as a treat. There is about 8 grams of carbs per slice (I think this boils down to about 20-25% of the normal stuff).The major ingredients are modified wheat starch, water, and wheat flour. So it's not something I can recommend for the hard core low carber but it sure is nice to know it exists. Now, only of McDonalds had something like this! I just ordered a low carb cheese pizza, and it tastes great (to me). You can tell a difference but its not huge. It still has all the grease and cheese of regular pizzas, and tomato sauce has few carbs. So if you make an order of wings and then add to it a couple pieces of low carb pizza you will be in good shape carb count wise and will have been able to satisfy a real craving.

I weighed in at 129.9 kg this morning but then upon reweighing I bounced around in the low 130's now matter how many times I tried I got a different number. So, I think my scale is hosed. I will pick up a new one soon. I had the usual eggs and cheese this morning and then a seafood salad for lunch (no greens, just shrimp, crab, celery, mayo). I felt tired after lunch so I think there may have been carbs hiding in the salad. Then for dinner of course I had Dominos.

Adaptive Thermogenesis

2013-06-18T03:53:00.001-07:00

I decided to peruse the International Journal of Obesity to find an interesting article. Most of the articles looked at things from a more macroscopic vantage point than I am used to (not so much on the protein or atomic level) highlighting the necessity for more research later more in depth. Better protein chemistry could later lead to more drugs. However, there was plenty that looked interesting. I choose the article, "Adaptive thermogenesis can make a difference in the ability of obese individuals to lose body weight" by A. Tremblay et al. First we should define thermogenesis. Originally thermogenesis related to the energy expenditure related to when an organism heats its body. This is accomplished largely through stimulation of norepinephrine which stimulates the betaadrenergic receptor and finally lipases to feed fatty acids into energy expenditure. Caffeine, ephedrine, and green tea are all known to stimulate this process. This paper explores one important observation: why do people that were fat and have lost weight show a decrease in the ability to loose weight (in the form of adaptive thermogenesis). One hypothesis is that adaptive thermogeneis (a decrease in thermogenesis) is a means to protect your body from depleting its energy stores (in the form of fat). Seems reasonable from an evolutionary stand point. Obese individuals that have lost weight show a decrease in leptin plasma levels which could contribute to the decrease. Another hypothesis is that pollutants interfere with thyroid function, a hormonal control over energy expenditure. Interestingly, probiotics may have a role. Mice that have lactobacillus (releasing conjugated linoleic acid)showed increased energy expenditure. Dietary calcium was also shown to increase thermogenesis, by means of inhibiting lipogensis and increasing lipolysis. The biochemical pathways associated with increased thermogeneis associated with calcium intake seemed weak to me (not necessarily untrue, just not well explained). One depressing factor described by the paper is that 80% of people that loose weight eventually go back to pre-weight loss levels. Also, people that have lost weight have an increased desire to eat food and have a more difficult time reaching satiety, The most direct conclusion towards weight loss recommended by the authors is the administration of leptin to people that have lost weight. I need to make a future post on leptin as it is extremely important in the obesity epidemic.

Today I weighed in at 132.2 kg. My weight really seems to be bouncing around a lot. I had the usual eggs .and cheese for breaky. Sausages for lunch. Taco salad for dinner

Quick Loss

2013-06-17T02:53:00.001-07:00

The purpose of this blog is not only to learn/share science. It is also to share my experiences with low carbing (or whatever diets I chose) so that you can get a human experience of what it is really like to do these diets (instead of just reading the facts in a book). Today I didn't feel light headed any more. I felt great and filled with energy this morning and then felt exhausted in the afternoon. I can feel the ketosis and fat burning starting. I felt a bit thinner, but that could just be the water loss. I weighed in this morning at 129.6 kg(285.7lbs). This seems amazingly too good. I did shed a lot of water through urination yesterday, but this seems too high a loss. There must be something up with my scale. I did weigh myself multiple times and got the same number. We'll see what tomorrow holds. It's been a week, so I should be losing now. My craving for sweets were pretty high today. My next science reading/posting (until Sugar Blues arrives) is to check out the Int. Journal of Obesity, pick an article, and review major findings here in my blog. If it is not too boring it will be something I do regularly.

Taco Mix and the Human Condition

2013-06-16T02:56:00.001-07:00

A bit of a disappointing day. Woke up and weighed in at 134.4kg. Seems like my scale is jumping around a bit. I made taco meat yesterday. I used store bought powder mix to put on it. I know that many of the Atkins sites say that powders like this are often hiding places for sugar. So I had a look at the ingredients listed on the taco mix package: maize flour, salt, sugar, spices, dehydrated vegetables, anti-caking agent, food acid, herbs, colour. It is disturbing that flour and sugar are in the top 3 ingredients, given that it is just supposed to be spices for meat. Then if you look at the numbers sugar is 1 g, but then it says there are 12 servings per package! I spread the seasoning over 2kg meat, so it definitely was more than 1 serving but it was not anywhere near 12 (maybe 3-4). I know in the U.S. you can find Atkins packages like this or stuff on the diabetic aisle. Not here though, it's kind of this or make it myself. This is a good example of how commonplace just dumping sugar on things has become in the food industry. Now I am going to be making up batches of taco seasoning. Low carb diets can be a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes. Most things that are allowed on the diet have to be prepared.

Calories

2013-06-15T05:52:00.001-07:00

There has been debate over whether or not calories are a useful tool in determining whether one will gain weight or not. The prevailing idea is that if one consumes more energy than one expends, one will gain weight. The measure of this energy has been calories (interestingly though now that I am in Australia all the food labels measure every thing in Joules). One can estimate the number of calories one needs per day based on gender, height, weight, muscle content, etc. This gives the bmi, or the basal amount of calories needed for basic life every day. To loose a pound of fat most estimate that you need to burn 3000-3500 calories. Many in the low carb camp think that the calorie idea is a myth. It will be interesting to explore the derivation of what a calorie is in a future post, but at this point I want to find evidence that simple calories in, calories out is flawed. I think I have found two studies which show this. The first was done with rats. The reference is J Nutr 2004, 134 (10):2646-2652. They showed that rats fed a high fat diet with no carbs gained less weight than rats fed an equal amount of calories on a high fat diet that included carbs. The second study (reference: Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2007, AR Kennedy et al.) showed that a low carb (ketogenic) diet in rats could reverse obesity that was caused by a high fat diet that included carbohydrates in the form of sucrose. So very quickly I have found two scientific studies that show that eating carbs and eating things other than carbs is not the same metabolically. Obviously it is not a clear cut case. The studies were done in rats, not humans. There also has to be some truth to the fact that ingesting more energy than you should will catch up to you sooner or later. For example, I bet rats fed 10,000 calories a day on a high fat diet with no carbs still gain weight as compared to those on 1000 calories (the rat equivalent number of calories, not sure what that is so I used human numbers in the example). However, I am glad I found this information and will strive to find more and perhaps answers as to why this is. It makes sense to me though. Fatty acids and sugar are metabolized through very different pathways in the human body so it makes sense that when ingested they will lead to different end points. As for me, I am still in the grumpy induction phase of my low carbing. I had to endure watching my family eating McDonalds in front of me and not have any. I had the usual eggs with cheese for breakfast and then taco salad for dinner. I weighed in at 132.4kg this morning (it was 132.7kg yesterday). So I must have really been retaining water before I started the diet. I was unusually grumpy today. This reminds me of when I quit smoking. My blood sugar must really be out of whack. (It's been 4 and a half years now without any nicotine by the way!).

Light headed

2013-06-13T01:57:00.001-07:00

I weighed in this morning at 132.9 kg (293 lbs). Seems like way too much weight to have lost in more than one day. This tells me that my scale is not that great or I was really retaining water like crazy. We'll see how it compares tomorrow. I had sausage for breaky, for lunch, and for dinner. That's one thing about this type of diet, you really have to be prepared ahead of time. You have to have food stocked in the fridge, time to cook, and food prepared ahead of time for lunches. I started feeling a bit light headed. This is day three so I should be bottoming out my carb stores about now. Hopefully I'll feel better in a few days. The book Sugar Blues is not available on Kindle. So I bought a hard copy online from England. Will be a while before I get it, so no review on that any time soon. But, in the meantime I have some science journals up my sleeve. My problem is that pop culture books are full of epidemiology, hearsay, opinions, and soft science. In contrast, scientific journals have plenty of facts but are just plain boring and require reading through tons of material to find something useful. My next post will have some science in it.

James Salisbury

2013-06-12T02:42:00.001-07:00

I weighed in this morning at 136kg (299lbs). The heaviest I have ever measured myself at is exactly 300 in 2006. Depressing. I'm not sure exactly how this happened. The obvious answer is diet and exercise, but the part I don't get is that before moving to Australia I was eating fast food about 2 times a day and not exercising. Here I have cut out a lot (but not all) of that fast food and am walking at least 2km a day. Well, I am going to get back on track. Why did I chose low carb again? Because I know it works. I want a guaranteed thing. The only problem is that inevitably I go off it. The best I can hope for is to slowly add carbs back into my diet after I lose weight and follow a sensible exercise routine. This will require some serious thought, but it won't matter until I get the weight off in the first place. In my research today I found something funny. Ever heard of the Salisbury steak? The inventor, James Salisbury, was one of the first proponents of the low carb diet. So he gave us the hamburger with no bun. He was a physician and believed diet was the key to human health. He even went as far as saying TB was related to diet (probably completely wrong). He died in 1905. I didn't realize that low carb started so long ago. I need to transition from pop culture to real scientific journals at some point for my posts, but in the mean time I'd like to check out a book called sugar blues. If I can find it cheaply I will buy it and write my review here. So, today I had the usual eggs for breaky. No lunch, and then chili and sausage for dinner. I felt fine most of the day, then a little light headed starting in late afternoon. I can't wait to get rid of this fat....

On the wagon again

2013-06-11T04:06:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning and began my weight loss journey again. As my previous posts show, most of my previous success was achieved with the low carb method. Now that I think about it, most weight loss methods fall into one of the following categories: Low-carb: limits carbohydrates. These include atkins, the zone, the south beach diet, and even the paleolithic diet and scarsdale diet. Calorie restriction: These limit calories. This includes things like weight watchers and the hcg diet. Crazy diets: This includes all kinds of crazy ideas. The banana and water diet, the cabbage soup diet, etc. These will be fun to explore. Pure exercise: Not necessarily a diet, but some expose just exercising to lose weight. Vegetarian: There are many diets that claim eating only fruit and vegetables is good. To some degree the raw diets fall under this heading. I guess I could add low fat diets, but those usually fall into the calorie restriction diets. I have a new strategy. I am not going to switch through diets on a monthly diet as before. I am going to stick with what worked for me before- low carb. When I feel I have made some progress, I may dabble in other things like vegetarian. I will study interesting ideas and post them as I go along. I am especially interested in the biochemistry of obesity in general (pathways, metabolism, etc) and will keep reading and writing. I will also use my blog as a bit of a journal to keep track with what I am doing. I will also use it as a motivator to keep going. I didn't weigh in this morning. I will try to remember in the morning. A new aspect is that all the scales for sale here are in kilograms. I will have to convert them for the blog. I had eggs with cheese for breaky and chili for dinner. No lunch. I don't feel bad at all. From my recollection the first 3-5 days are the worst. I have added a few things to the blog. There is a bmi calculator on the right side. I thought I would point it out because it might be confused with an advertisement. It is actually very handy, but it is a cheap and simple bmi calculator. I might make a post on how to do a thorough bmi calculation later. I also added a gadget that will allow you to follow my blog by email.

I'm back!

2013-06-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back! It's been a long time. So what have I been up to? I have moved across the world. I have moved from America to Australia. Quite a big move. I have also taken my first faculty position. I now have my own lab to run. I can research whatever I would like. Very exciting and very scary. I do intend to do some obesity research as time unfolds. Things have been stressful. I had to apply and interview for my positions, not knowing what I would get. I had to make my research packages. I had to interview. I had to move. I had to start teaching. I had to adapt to a new culture. I had to write grants to fund my lab. A lot of stress. IN the shuffle, my weight loss plans have gone to crap. I am certain I am as fat as when I started. I am now hoping to get back on the wagon. I am also interested in taking some reflection on what happened. The good news is that life is a bit healthier here. There is no Taco Bell, taquerias, or Whataburger. I also walk a lot more than before. Unfortunately I haven't seen these small changes help in staying trim. It's strange, I have cut fast food (not nearly as much as I need to cut though) and am walking a lot more, but still feel really fat. I think I will need to take some drastic measures to correct this. Most importantly I will need to put some serious thought into the mental and emotional reasons for getting fat again. More soon.

March 23, 2010 (Bugs)

2012-05-07T15:35:00.002-07:00

Well, as of last Friday morning I was doing pretty well adding back in some good carbs, I was at 243.8. Then Friday came along, and I had a bottle of red wine, then cheated by eating a lot of pizza. Now I am at 245 still. The only positive not on that is that I got back on the wagon as quickly as I fell off. I started adding in brown rice and whole grain pasta. I am still trying to keep to low carb breakfast and light lunch/snacks. Today I had eggs with cheese for breakfast, cheese stick and apple for snack, salad for lunch, and brown pasta with fresh organic eggplant sauce I made for dinner. Pretty good. I started buying organic. I found a downside to it. I bought some organic spinach, expensive. I fried it up and as I was eating it I found a bug in it. It had many segmentations, looked like a lightning bug. I guess that is going to happen when you eat organic, being no pesticides and all. I also went to the dentist. I'll talk about that in another post. I am starting to get a little bored with this diet, even though it is pretty flexible. Nothing new with science for South Beach to report.

March 15, 2010 (Maybe the Hippies were right?)

2012-05-02T17:04:00.003-07:00

Today I weighed in at 242.2 I also started phase II of the South Beach diet. It basically means adding in some "good" carbs. For breakfast I still had the standard eggs and cheese. But for snacks I had fruit (healthy carbs). For lunch I had some nuts, which was forced on me since I forgot my lunch and didn't have time to go get lunch. For dinner I had turkey in my red tomato sauce and whole grain pasta. After adding in the carbs I will probably gain a little weight over the next few days. Switching topics, I always used to think hippies were full of crap and buying "organic" was a waste of time and a marketing scheme. Then, a few years ago I realized that organic produce actually tastes better. Recently, I looked into what kinds of chemicals (usually in the form of pesticides) are present on produce. The USDA compiles a big list. In the list is how many they have inspected in a given year, the concentration range they found safe, and the concentration range they actually found. Most of the produce was in range. Some was not. But, what surprised me was how many man made chemicals there were!!! And, the concentration ranges they say are safe are based on testing one compound at a time. There very well could be, and probably, is a synergistic effect when you combine all these things together. I probably will not be ingesting this crap any more and will spend the little extra amount to get organic. Check it out for yourself, click on the 2008 data (or the newest one): http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateO&navID=HistNav2Link4&rightNav1=HistNav2Link4&topNav=&leftNav=ScienceandLaboratories&page=PDPLatestActivities/Reports&resultType=&acct=pestcddataprg

March 12, 2010 (40 lbs)

2012-04-30T17:40:00.001-07:00

I weighed in at 245.6 this morning, close enough to call it 40 lbs lost since Jan 1!!! At this rate I'm not sure how much more I can loose in a year. My goals might have to change mid year.

March 9, 2010 (Sucralose)

2012-04-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

I woke up and weighed in at 247.4 today. Looks like things are working well. I also listened to the first half of the South Beach audio book. The guy who wrote it is a cardiologist, so it is fairly interesting. But, nothing new yet. Stay away from sugars, high glycemic index foods, no saturated fats, etc. I had eggs and cheese for breakfast (found out South Beach says eggs are ok). Turkey, lettuce, tomato tossed salad for lunch. Cheese sticks for snacks. Bak Choy for dinner. I started looking into sugar alcohols. The major one I use at home is sucralose. So, I started there. It is basically a sucrose molecule (table sugar) with a 3 chlorine substitution. It appears to be a miracle sweeter. It is sold as Splenda and marked as no calories. 85% of it is not absorbed (meaning it goes straight to feces) and the other 15% goes to the blood stream. It is not recognized as a carbohydrate and is urinated out, often in conjugation with glucoronic acid. I have found no studies that it spikes insulin at all. I have also not seen any studies showing it to be toxic or carcinogenic at all. But, the nefull of skeptics. I think it is harmless, and much more healthy than real sugar.

March 7, 2010 (ethanol metabolism)

2012-04-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

I weighed in today at 249.2!!! This marks a breakthrough for me, at least mentally. Dipping below 250 is important to me as a marker of success. I want to reach at least 220, and perhaps even below 220. So I am over half way there. I had eggs, cheese, and turkey bacon for breakfast. A couple cheese sticks for snacks. A tomato with balsimic vinegar and chinese style chicken breast (cooked in olive oil). I had Chinese style chicken and broccoli for dinner. Only water today to drink. I went back to the foot doctor last week and got more injections in my feet. They aren't better yet. But, I have been making an effort to exercise in creative ways anyways. I started yoga. It is amazing how inflexible and weak I was. I also enjoyed it very much. I hope to keep up with it. I also have been swimming. I have felt better. I wanted to explore one aspect of biochemistry I am always curious about- ethanol. And when I say ethanol I mean getting drunk. How does this effect being fat. Studies have indicated that drinkers generally consume more calories. It is also obvious that if you drink a lot of beer you will gain wieght from the excess calories and bad carbs. But, what I want to know, is what effect does ethanol itself have on weight? For example, if one was to drink pure everclear, how is it metabolized? There seem to be a few steps: 1. Ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde via oxidation by alcohol dehydrogenase. As far as I can tell this occurs in the liver. 2. Acetaldehyde is converted to acetic acid. This is done by adlehyde dehydrogenase 2 family (ALDH2). Interestingly, a large portion of ethanol metabolism stops here, when getting drunk, and a lot of ethanol is then excreted out as acetic acid in the urine (full metabolism ends in CO2 and water). I think this is because the TCA cycle gets overwhlemed by the amount of acetyl-CoA around. 3. Acetic acid is then converted into aceetyl-CoA by ACSS2. Interestingly, this step requires ATP. 4. Finally this acetyl-CoA is fed into the TCA cycle. This yields water and carbon dioxide and some ATP. It seems to me this is a fairly neutral process as far as weigh loss is concerned, especially if most of it is urinated out at the acetic acid step. But I know that ethanol metabolism messes with blood sugar (part of the reason you get a hang over), in the direction of low blood sugar. Why is this? Apparently alcohol inhibits the liver from making glucose and alcohol increases and prolongs the action if insulin, I am not sure of the mechanisms of these.

March 4, 2010

2012-04-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 250.6 this morning. Seems in about half a week I have undone the damage I did last weekend. I started thinking that I would like to reach 220. So this marks the point where I am over half way there- I have lost 35 lbs and have 30 to go. I feel like crap today, my blood sugar must be bottoming out. I had 3 eggs with cheese for breakfast. Fish and green beans for lunch. Cheese sticks for snacks. Various BBQ meat and green beans for dinner.

March 3, 2010 (Trying to get Exercise)

2012-04-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

I weighed in today at 255.6. I must be losing that water weight that I had gained over the weekend. I urinated a lot today. I had egg beaters and salsa for breakfast. Cheese sticks for snacks. Left over turkey taco meat and tomatoes for lunch. Fish for dinner. I have to say I am a little hungry. I can't wait for the ketosis to start again so I won't be hungry any more. I went to the foot doctor today out of frustration of not being able to exercise. He gave me 2 more injections. Hopefully they will work. He told me that I could join yoga. I might give that a try. I also made it to the Y today to go swimming with my daughter. It wasn't a great work out but it was something and definitely better than nothing. No science today.

March 2, 2010 (Disappointment)

2011-07-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the Zone diet is over and now I am starting the South Beach diet. I have to say I am disappointed in my progress and my discipline the last month. Last Friday I weighed in at 253. Then Saturday I went to my friends house and drank beer with him. Then I woke up Sunday feeling like crap, then I ate unhealthy food to soothe myself. I weighed in yesterday at 259. So, in the end a lost just a few pounds on the Zone, 2 lbs total. This is misleading though as I retained water since Friday. I have to figure out what is going on with me and social drinking, it seems to be destroying my diet even though I don't appear to be drinking that much when I do drink.

The South Beach diet looks very simple. It looks like just another low carb diet. There are 3 phases: 1) phase one where you eat no refined carbs the first two weeks 2) phase two where you add in some more carbs and 3) phase 3 the rest of your life. When you eat carbs later on in the diet you should be guided by the glycemic index just like in the zone. So, what is different in this versus the other low carb diets? It encourages good carbs versus bad carbs and good fat versus bad fat. This boils down to eating no trans fats and low amounts of saturated fats. It also includes monitoring carbs via the glycemic index. And, there is no scientific mumbo jumbo about eicosanoids and the like. I haven't read the book yet, I am debating whether I should get a second hand copy or not. Since there isn't much new science on this diet I may be able to focus on other subjects I have neglected thus far.

So, now it's back to plummeting blood sugar. I am not looking forward to not eating carbs again, but I know I will lose more quickly here the first 2 weeks.

I had egg beaters with salsa for breakfast. Turkey meat and low fat cheese sticks for lunch. Turkey taco meat, tomatoes, and onions for dinner. I have to say I am hungry and grumpy now. I also had only water all day long. And I had no sugar alcohols at all.

February 23, 2010 (Binging again and Leukotrienes)

2011-06-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

I screwed up again. Everything was going fine, and last Friday I weighed in at 251. Then Saturday came. We had guests, that I wasn't all that familiar with, come to our house for a bbq. The only thing I know how to bbq well is burgers, so we had burgers. So as not to look out of place, I had a burger (which is not on the Zone diet), cookies, and beer. After they left, I kept on drinking beer. I had too many. Probably about 10-12 over a 10 hour period. I woke up a little hung over. In order to pamper myself I continued to eat garbage not on my diet. I didn't get back to it until Monday. I have really got to figure out what is going on with my social anxiety and binging. Then today, I weighed in at 260!! I couldn't believe my eyes. I knew I would be set back, but not that much. Perhaps the scale was off (I didn't read twice) or I gained a lot of water weight. Either way, all I can do now is pick myself up and get back on track.

Today I am going to talk about Leukotrienes. Their name was coined by the Swedish guy that discovered them- he combined the words leukocyte and triene (signifying that they have 3 double bonds). They are derived from arachidonic acid (the bad eicosanoid) and are mainly involved in the immune system signaling. There are several forms of them. They include: LTA4, LTB4, LTC4, LTD4, LTE4, and LTF4. They act on G-coupled receptors and are also associated with histamine formation (when leukotrienes are made, so is histamine). They are involved in allergic reactions, asthma, and are pro-inflamatory. Since they are so involved in creating inflammation they are pretty much "bad." So, I guess in the Zone you would want to decrease the amount of leukotrienes overall in your system. More on that later.

Today I had the usual oatmeal and protein drink for breakfast. Lunch I had out at a deli by circumstance and I had an apple and their "health" sandwich (low fat, chicken, etc) but I should have gone with the wrap. For dinner I had my chicken fajita salad and an apple. I had peanuts for snacks.

I have been hungry the past 2 days.

I can feel my feet are getting better, but they are still not good enough to exercise. Frustrating.

February 13, 2010 (progress)

2011-06-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

I weighed in this morning at 255.2. Seems like I am finally making some progress without ketosis. I had Egg beaters with salsa and oatmeal for breakfast, peanuts for snack, celery and peanut butter for lunch, stir fried broccoli, cheese, and turkey lunch meat for dinner. I also grabbed a few of my daughter's popcorn.

February 11, 2010 (Prostacyclin)

2011-06-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

I weighed in today at 256.8. I was quite surprised. I think maybe multiple bowel movements yesterday had something to do with it. I expect to gain some back. I had the usual oatmeal and protein drink for breakfast. Peanuts as snacks. Smoked turkey meat (luncheon style), provolone cheese, and an apple for lunch. Grilled chicken breast salad and an orange for dinner.

I did some reading on the second class of eicosanoids, prostacyclins. There is much less information on them than the PGs. They weren't discovered until the 70's. They are made in the endothelial cells and have a very short half life (seconds). It's major function is in platelet aggregation and is very potent in doing so. Other functions include antiproliferation/apoptosis, anti-inflamatory, and anti-mitogenic. As far as I can tell there is only one natural prostacylcin, while there are plenty of synthetic ones designed as drugs.

I am not sure how this all ties into the Zone diet exactly, yet. I also am starting to realize there is a connection between inflammation and getting fat, which I intend to explore more.

February 10, 2010 (eicosanoids: prostaglandins)

2011-06-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 259.6 this morning. Finally some weight loss. I had the normal oatmeal and protein drink for breakfast. Turkey taco meat, mushrooms, and cucumbers for lunch. Peanuts for snacks. For dinner I had a big grilled chicken salad.

Eicosanoids again. Generally speaking there are 5 major classes. I'm still not sure why they aren't classified as hormones, I guess because they are fatty acids. The major classes are 1)prostaglandins 2)prostacyclins 3) thromboxanes 4)leukotrienes 5)the others that can't be lumped together in a group. They are generally named from an abbreviation derived from the names above and a number denoting the number of double bonds. I'll just cover one class per blog entry since it is a ton of material.

Prostaglandins all have 20 carbon atoms and a 5 membered ring. They were originally isolated from the prostate, hence their name. Interestingly, aspirin, inhibits the synthesis of prostaglandins (aspirin is so important as background information in the zone it will be described in detail more in another blog entry). Prostaglandins are made from EPA, AA, as well as DGLA. The enzymes reponsible for this are the cyclooxygenases (COX). The 3 major types are:

1. PGI2: responsible for platelet aggregation, vasodilation, and bronchodilation. There appears to be only one receptor for this PG.

2. PGE2: This is the big one. Is is responsible for brochoconstriction/bronchodilation, GI smooth muslce contraction/relaxation, vasodilation, decreases gastric acid secretion, increases gastric mucus secretion, uterus contraction, lipolysis inhibition, increases autonomic neurotransmitters, increases atherthrombosis, hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain), and pyrexia (fever). There are many, some unidentifiedm, PGE2 receptors. That is why there are often contrasting results of the signaling- it depends which receptor it hits.

2. PGF2alpha: responsible for uterus contraction and bronchoconstriction.

The way to manipulate these thru diet is what the zone is all about and will be discussed further later.

February 9, 2010 (eicosanoids part 1)

2011-06-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 260.8 this morning. The good news is that I probably lost some water weight from my binge. I had the usual oatmeal and protein drink for breakfast. Chilli for lunch with some ground turkey. Peanuts as snacks. Turkey tossed salad for dinner and mushrooms fried in olive oil and garlic. I was curious about the nutritional value of mushrooms. 1 cup has about 15 calories, 0g fat, 1g fiber, 1 gram sugars, and 2 grams protein. Seems like a nice low calorie dish.

I'd like to go into eicosanoids. The whole basis of the diet is that the perfect balance of protein to carbohydrates to fat will promote good eicosanoids. Insulin is negatory for good eicosanoids and glucagon is negatory for bad eicosanoids. So, what are eicosanoids and what do they do?

In short they are signal molecules that are similar to hormones. They are derived from oxidized fatty acids. The are involved largely in inflammation pathways as well as the immune system and nervous system. Eicosanoids are mainly derived from omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids.(omega 3's lead to "good" eicosanoids and omega 6's lead to "bad" eicosanoids generally. That's why Barry Sears is all on about taking supplements of omega 3 oils.

Specifically eicosanoids are derived from 3 types of essential fatty acids:
1. EPA = eicosapentanoic acid (omega 3)
2. Arachidonic acid (omega 6)
3. DGLA = Dihomo gama lineolic acid (DGLA)

Arachidonic acid being an omega 6 leads to bad eicosanoids, that why Sears recomends avoiding them. They are found in large amounts in beef and chicken egg yolks.

This is a complicated series of pathways and will take several blogs to get into all of them. That's it for today.