What's going on in that body of yours??

Food and dietary habits: What’s going on in that body of yours? (PART 1)

Time to bore you with some science!!

But some important, need to know science, about how your body is reacting to what is going into it and how every person is different.

It has been accepted for hundreds of years that excesses in dietary intake are a major factor in causing obesity and its related health issues.

Modern life has had extensive effects on society and the affects, not only in a person’s weight, but their health.

We often class Obesity by how we view people, what their size, clothes size and appearance is.

These days, there are many factors that influence our diets and food intake such as:

·       The development of market economies

·       reliance on imported, non-traditional foods

·      Increasing urbanisation

·      Changing occupational structures

·      Social status

·      Increases in animal fat and animal protein intake

·      Decreases in vegetable fat and vegetable intake

·      Reduction in total and specifically complex carbs and increases in sugar intake

These factors are major players of the modern diet. Diet is one of the most powerful influencers of obesity in modern life but due to the fundamental human right to freedom of choice and freedom of speech i.e. advertising, diet is probably one of the most difficult influences to control.

There are many different ways in which food intake can affect the capacity of the body to change its underlying controls and therefor increase or decrease the likelihood of fat storage occurring.

These include:

·      Total calorie intake and energy balance

·      The effect of foods on appetite and satiety

·      Macronutrient (protein, fat, carbs) and alcohol intake

·      Food processing and chemical additives

Hormonal considerations:

It is accepted that the balance or imbalance of certain hormones can play a big part in the development of weight gain and obesity.

This is a very complex area because there are many different hormonal interactions that influence the body’s natural state.

Have you ever heard of Homeostasis?? This means remaining stable by staying the same.

What about Allostasis?? This means remaining stable by being variable.

The body needs to keep some mechanisms the same whilst other must ebb and flow in order to keep the body healthy.

Therefore, our health relies on the proper management of the homeostatic and allostatic processes of the body.

A good example of homeostatic control would be the maintenance of a consistent blood sugar levels while an allostatic control would be the management of a healthy female reproductive cycle.

Obesity can happen as a result of disruption to homeostatic controls that fail to keep internal mechanisms and environment the same, as well as interference with allostatic controls that subsequently allow body chemistry to swing beyond healthy parameters.

The hormonal environment within a person’s body influences the body as a whole especially the storage and release of different molecules absorbed into the blood or lymph from the digestive system.

Hormone imbalances can cause one person to store more fatty acids in adipose (fatty) tissue where another burns these for energy, or one person to use amino acids to build muscle tissue where another breaks these down in the liver to use as an energy source.

A balanced hormonal environment can enhance health, whereas imbalances in one hormone tend to have a knock on effect on others, causing a cascade of imbalances and potentially influencing the development of the disease process.

Hormone balance itself is affected by many factors, including diet and physical activity; sleep patterns, stress and emotional resilience; exposure to drugs or toxins; medications and environmental chemicals.

I know this is all the confusing science jargon but believe me this is very important to understand.

It is important to understand how your body works and that there are many different factors other than the amount of calories you consume or don’t consume, that could be affecting your fitness/health goals.

In the next blog I will be covering the dietary factors that influence weight gain and also explain the law of Thermodynics, which again is very important and will definitely change your outlook on calorie counting.

This will make this section seem a lot clearer and you will understand why this is an important chapter.