Why I Cannot Lose Weight
Weight loss techniques published in popular books or magazines do not work very well on the people of the Indian subcontinent.
The English version of this topic is here
এই টপিকের বাংলা লিংকের জন্য এখানে ক্লিক করুন
💡A thought……………
Recently I am troubled by a thought. Most of the weight loss techniques published in popular books or magazines do not work very well on the people of the Indian subcontinent. Today we find 4 strategies to lose weight- which work well. If you know the background - you will be successful. If you open your eyes and watch, you will understand that most of the magazines and medical books actually practice weight loss in accordance with the Western style.
🏋🏻♂️ Are Eastern and Western lifestyles different?
You may argue if the human body is different in the East and the West? Isn’t everyone belongs to the same human race!
When I see patients in the clinic, I see many people say that I eat only little yet her weight is increasing. Another group of patients says that even though they are doing everything, they are not losing weight.
And sometimes I even hear : Doctor, you know I was not like this before. I used to be so healthy and so slim. And now I have become so big. I cannot find time for myself. Their eyes become watery.
🫃🏻 Obesity is now an epidemic
👉🏾 A few months ago, I began researching databases and journals to find a remedy for this issue. What I found is simply astonishing.
👉🏾 In fact, obesity is a global epidemic today. Heart problems, diabetes, cancer come hand in hand with it.
👉🏾 The number of people suffering from obesity is increasing because of daily stress of urban Indian lifestyle and modern fast food consumption. That’s not all. There is more to it!
First of all -
☝🏻 Famine
Are you wondering what is the relationship between obesity and famine? Incredible research. In today’s era of food abundance, many of us would be surprised to learn how famine has changed our ancestors and their genetic health. So, first of all, let’s face the history.
This study by Dr. Syed, Dick and Azim Sheikh in the Journal of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism published in 2022 has shaken news and media of England. References are given below - feel free to read.
During the 200 years of British rule, there were 25 famines in India. 6 crore Indians died. You heard me right. Consider the numbers again.
India’s population in 1800 was a little less than 17 crores. In the famine, 6 crore people died out of a total of 17 crore, which means one in three people lost their lives on average.
All of us who are alive today are descendants of people who survived in famine-stricken India.
East India Company ran a riot that time. Indian property worth 45 trillion dollars was siphoned off in Britain. Skyrocketing land tax, high taxes on essential salt. The list is endless.
As far as the history is available, it is known that there were 17 famines in India in 2000 years before the British Rule. And after the British came, that number jumped to 25 famines in 200 years.
From 1876 to 1878, over 10 million people died in the famine. 3 million or 30 lakh people died of starvation in the streets of Bengal in the single year of 1943.
🤷🏻♀️ So what is the relation between today's weight gain and the historical famine. Very clear. The fact is, our ancestors who survived the famine that day had a special power in their livers.👉🏾 The livers of these ancestors of ours could provide energy to our body on little food. This is how they survived the famine. We are all their descendants.
👉🏾 All our ancestors who did not have this quality in their liver died because they could not bear the famine. We are not their descendants. Today, our liver, muscles and body metabolism still have that blessing. That quality of the liver is now a curse to us. This liver cannot manage a lot of food and obesity develops.
🥗 Abundance of Food
Today we have an abundance of food, an urban lifestyle. The food we eat today has high calorie concentration. Because of the genetic changes following the famine period, people from the Indian subcontinent cannot handle the excess calories. Resulting in excess calories being stored as fat.
It is truly difficult to get rid of the extra fat. The process by which the harsh and challenging environment alters the genetic profile of our bodies is known as epigenetics, and the entire field of study is referred to as evolutionary biology.
Precisely for this reason Indian subcontinent is suffering in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Indian body is very energy efficient. Runs better on less fuel. So try to eat less.
✌🏻Color food plate and portion size
👉🏾 The amount of food we eat at one time is called a portion. History tells us, in 1500 AD, the people of the world consumed 13 trillion calories of food every day.
👉🏾 Today, we consume 1500 trillion calories every day.
👉🏾 Consider the numbers again. Since 1500 AD, the human population has increased fourteen-fold and caloric intake has increased 115-fold. Hope now you will be convinced that we eat far more than we need.
🥬 Green Revolution
New age crops, dairy industry, poultry meat nutrition have increased by leaps and bounds because of green revolution. We want no more famines.
Overeating causes more deaths than starvation in modern times. Crores of people are dying from diseases those are caused by obesity.
📇 Research in the Journal's journal of the American Dietetic Association published in 2003 shows that the portion size in the average American restaurant has increased up to five times. This is called Portion Distortion - Portion Distortion is a common practice for restaurants to catch customers.
🍕 Restaurant tricks
This dreadful business strategy of American restaurants has reached our country today. The restaurants are aware that we are budget-conscious. We only visit that restaurant which serves bigger portion size. Consequently, young people are gaining weight.
We consider the amount of food as a war target. I will continue eating until I finish all the food on that plate, regardless of how full I am. We gulp extra food. No wonder obesity is increasing.
📇 In a 2012 research paper in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Dr. van Kleef proved that the bigger our food plates, the more we eat. Research has proven that we eat more on a large white plate in a dark room.
To maintain good health, eat in a well-lit room and use a small sized black or brown plate. Then, mind and stomach will feel fully fed, even with a small amount of food. We can escape from the trap of extra calories.
🤟🏻 Leptin Mystery
👉🏾 We feel more hungry in our mind and brain than the stomach. Our stomach takes the food in but it is out of their capacity to control how much we eat. Our brain has two nerve-centers. Hunger center, and the other one is called satiety center.
👉🏾 Imagine, the food enters the stomach. How does the brain's headquarters receive the news of our eating?
👉🏾 The name of this delivery boy is leptin. Scientists could discover this leptin only a few years back. It is simply a chemical whose function is to convey the message from the stomach to the brain that we are full. When this signal reaches our brain, the satiety center wakes up and shuts down the eating center. Stop it now, you have eaten a lot.
🤦🏻♂️ Deep inside the leptin issue.
Actual problem lies in the fact - how prompt our leptin is. The journey of leptin from the stomach to the satiety center in the brain takes a specific amount of time. Surprisingly, it varies from person to person. Yes, you got it right. Leptin is very prompt in lean and thin people. They feel full after eating relatively less. for them, leptin reaches the brain fast from the stomach.
For chubby people like me leptin is rather slow. Even with a full stomach, it takes a while for the message to reach the head.
👉🏾 Let’s assume this time interval is fifteen minutes. That means, after the stomach is full, for that person it takes fifteen minutes for leptin to reach the brain. All that time, we stay hungry. We keep on eating. So this last fifteen minutes we continue to overeat. These are extra calories in our body.
👉🏾 We can use this to find a solution. So introduce a half time in lunch and dinner. Just like football and cricket. Eat a little, relax, then head back to the table. Once you return, you won't feel like eating the extra food.
🖖🏻 Untimely sleep
👉🏾 A good night’s sleep is essential. But sleep does not depend only on how many hours you sleep. The quality of sleep and what time you go to sleep are also important!
Right inside brain, there is a small area with only twenty thousand nerve cells called Suprachiasmatic Nucleus or SCN. Our body clock is located here.👉🏾 This little centre orchestrates all the 37 trillion cells in our body. For 60 million years of human history, this clock has put us to sleep with the setting sun. And we woke up with sunrise.
👉🏾 This clock controls our hormonal fluctuations. It decides how many calories our body burns or stores.
⏰ The body clock
How fast we breathe, how hard our heart beats, how thin or fat we are- everything can go wrong if this clock is messed up.
To keep this clock accurate, it's necessary to get around seven hours of sleep in complete darkness at night.
Often because of the stress of studying, work-pressure , or going to bed late at night because of Netflix and staying in bed even after sunrise, the clock malfunctions. These actions completely disrupts Suprachiasmatic Nucleus of the brain.
🧮 The results are countless
The consequences of this ranges from obesity to depression, from diabetes to cancer. During our research on London Underground night shift workers, we became aware of these.
No matter how much you earn in that job or study that requires you to stay awake night after night, if you do not sleep well, it will be spent on hospital bills.
If you really want to work at night, you must do it in rotating shifts. So that you can sleep in the dark most days of the week.
And those who can’t go to sleep at the right time are often tired and lethargic. They develop craving to unhealthy foods.
💪🏻 No more neglect
Drinking enough water is essential to our lifestyle. If we stay dry, it leads to cravings for cigarettes and alcohol. If the body is water-deprived, everything from the gut to hormone function, blood flow and metabolism will go awry. And unwanted obesity and fatigue will come.
So don’t give up if you don’t lose weight. Remember that your real objective is to keep yourself fit with plenty of exercise. Even if you don’t lose weight very soon, both body and mind will be good. And you will reap the benefits anyway.
This is an impartial , unsponsored health information. For public awareness and not a replacement of Medical Advice.
References:
📒 Syed, Mubin & Deek, Feras & Shaikh, Azim. (2022). The Susceptibility of South Asians to Cardiometabolic Disease as a Result of Starvation Adaptation Exacerbated During the Colonial Famines: 10.31038/EDMJ.2022621
📰 van Kleef E, Shimizu M, Wansink B. Serving bowl selection biases the amount of food served. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2012 Jan-Feb;44(1):66-70. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2011.03.001. Epub 2011 Oct 6. PMID: 21982579.
📰 Scheibehenne B, Todd PM, Wansink B. Dining in the dark. The importance of visual cues for food consumption and satiety. Appetite. 2010 Dec;55(3):710-3. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2010.08.002. Epub 2010 Aug 13. PMID: 20709127.
📰 Young LR, Nestle M. Expanding portion sizes in the US marketplace: implications for nutrition counseling. J Am Diet Assoc. 2003 Feb;103(2):231-4. doi: 10.1053/jada.2003.50027. PMID: 12589331.
📒 Schwartz J, Byrd-Bredbenner C. Portion distortion: typical portion sizes selected by young adults. J Am Diet Assoc. 2006 Sep;106(9):1412-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2006.06.006. PMID: 16963346.
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