All posts tagged: fatigue

Mindful Eating, Or- How I lost 35 pounds by enjoying my food more

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Like many people, I found myself overweight in middle age. Quite overweight, in fact. With a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 30, I was more than overweight. My fasting blood glucose levels were still in the normal range, barely. My mother continued to remind that I have Type 2 diabetes in my family. What to do? As a scientist who has studied obesity and body weight regulation, I knew that dieting was not an option. The starvation response/ diet induced obesity, and all that. So… I decided to take my own advice. Background: There are two kinds of things that influence how much we eat: “Head Factors” and “Gut Factors”. Head Factors are “psychological” things such as how appetizing the food looks and smells. Social cues or influences, emotional situations, habits and conditioning (e.g. always eating a snack at 4 PM) are also powerful influences on what and when we eat. Gut Factors are signals from the gut (and/or liver) that convey the gut’s opinion about how much we should eat, and may also influence …

Why worry about stress?

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Why start this blog by talking about Stress? There’s so much out in the media about stress, and so many seminars and workshops about stress. And “listicles” about the 7 things you can do to reduce stress!!!! (Why are they always odd numbers?) There’s a lot of information out there. But personally I find it all tends to swing between banal and overly technical. Stress is a part of life. Some people think it is good for us, motivating us to work hard. Is it really so terrible, and is it really that important manage it? The short answer is yes. But this blog is not about short answers, at least not that short! Stress makes our lives less enjoyable, less meaningful, and one thing is clear- stress contributes to, and worsens, most chronic disease (for instance type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, cancer), and can even increase inflammation. But the evidence base for how it does so is complex, especially for human studies. Part of the problem is that for scientists it is hard …