2019-10-01 Australian Men\'s Fitness

20 MEN’SFITNESS OCTOBER 2019

Weight loss
Breakthroughs

Researchershave

discoveredthat

dietstrategieslike

intermittentfasting

oreatingearlierin the

dayappeartohelp

peopleloseweight

byreducingtheir

appetiteratherthan

burningmorecalories.

Thestudyclaims

thatcoordinating

mealswiththebody’s

circadianrhythms

maybea powerful

strategynotjustfor

reducingappetite,

butalsoforimproving

metabolichealth.

“Thesestrategies

appeartocurb

appetite,whichmay

helppeopleeatless,”

saysDrCourtney

Peterson,leadauthor

ofthestudy.

Five hundred. That’s the

number of extra calories

you can expect to scoff if

your diet is full of ultra-processed

foods. A recent report published in Cell

Metabolism found “ultra-processed

diets tend to have foods in them that

are more calorically dense and with

less water content”. In other words,

you’re getting more calories, but feeling

less full, than you would with a diet full

of fresh food. In the study, researchers

found that subjects who ate ultra-

processed foods ate about 500

calories more per day and gained

more weight than subjects who ate

unprocessed foods, despite the two

groups being provided with meals that

were identical in calories, sugar, fat,

sodium, fibre and carbohydrates.

Both groups were also allowed to eat

as much or as little as they wanted.

500 club

53

%

61

%

of Aussie

packaged food

is energy-dense

junk food.

of food in Aussie

supermarkets

is ultra-

processed.

■Eveningscreentime

doesn’tjustscrew

withyoursleep.It

couldturnyouinto

a cookiemonster.

FrenchandDutch

researchershave

foundthatjustone

hourofexposureto

bluelightatnight– the

lightproducedbythe

screensofourdevices

• raisesbloodsugar
  levelsandincreases
  sugarconsumption
  inmalerats.Much
  oftheartificiallight
  we’renowexposed
  tocomesfromLED

A light snack

screens, which emit

high levels of blue

light. Retinal cells of

the eye are sensitive

to this blue light and

directly convey

information to areas of

the brain that regulate

appetite, making us

more likely to snack

on sugary foods and

also disrupting our

ability to process

that sugar. Over time,

this increases risk

of weight gain and

diabetes. So switch

off – or switch to night

mode – before bed.

Got the

blues?

■If you’restill

followingthepaleo

dietinanattempt

toloseweightor

behealthier,you

shouldknowthis:

theworld’sfirst

majorstudy

examiningthe

impactofthepaleo

dietongutbacteria

hasfoundthat

peoplewhofollow

thediethavetwice

theamountofa key

bloodbiomarker

linkedcloselyto

heartdisease.

Bad blood

Australian

researchers

from Edith Cowan

University followed

people on the paleo

diet and compared

them to others

eating a “traditional”

Aussie diet. They

found that paleo

diet followers had

higher levels of

trimethylamine-n-

oxide (TMAO) in

their blood. High

levels of TMAO, an

organic compound

produced in the gut,

are associated with

an increased risk of

heart disease, which

kills one Australian

every 12 minutes.

Good bacteria in the

gut was also lower in

paleo subjects, due

to their lower intake

of carbohydrates.

Meat a

sticky end.

ALL IN

THE

TIMING

Highly processed foods

have more calories, but

they also make you want

to eat more.