Karen Lofstrom wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> cardarch wrote:
>
> > Tea and toast with butter would be nicer. I think its called
> > "eleven's".
>
> In an article re this diet, the inventor stressed that it was important
> that the sugar or oil NOT be a tasty snack. He took plain sugarwater or
> oil. He believes that yummy tastes trigger a biochemical reaction that
> raises the body's setpoint and makes us want "More! More!"
>
> I can't remember where I found the article, sorry.
>
> --
> Karen Lofstrom [email protected]
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> "I'm different in exactly the same way! Yes." -- K.
He believes in weight set point theory. Namely, that the body has a
particular target in mind for what it should weigh, and it will use
feedback to control body function to get there. So if over the set
point, signals to eat will be reduced. If under the set point, strong
signals to eat will be produced.
So if you believe the body has a set point, the big question becomes,
can the set point be changed? He correlates two things in the food we
eat - taste and calorie density. Historically, a wide variety of
tasty, high energy foods were not usually available. (e.g. Stone Age
living) However, in the instances when they were, (e.g. tribe kills a
big game, or finds plentiful wild plants to harvest) the set point of
the population quickly rises so that the body packs on fat to last
through any lean time which might arise. When those lean times come,
the body quickly recognizes that the flavor of the available foods has
markedly decreased - maybe no more meat, just nuts and berries - and
that's one of the triggers for the body to accept a lower set point and
therefore send less signals to eat. So the tribe loses weight, but
maybe without the hunger pangs we would feel - the bland food meal
after meal convinces their bodies that high calorie food is not
available, so their lower set point is appropriate.
So modern people, programmed for a much different time, naturally
gravitate to such foods as hamburgers and pizza - very flavorful and
with a high density of calories.
So Robertson's idea is - can we fake the body out into lowering its set
point and therefore make it want to lower its weight, and stay there.
Eating bland foods would obviously be the answer to his
flavorful/calorie theory. But being a food lover, he rejects that
approach as not practical. So he chanced upon the notion of consuming
sugar water while on a trip abroad. The body would identify the
water's relatively high calorie content, but is "sweetness" deemed
flavorful by the body? In another words, would sugar water fulfill
both the flavorful and high calorie criteria which he believes raises
the bodies set point. He lost 40 pounds on the diet, so his answer to
that question is no.
Eric