Overeating and watching your weight not enough?

Salmon, asparagus and potatoes, salad

Food Diary (January 18, 2012)

Breakfast: Ham sandwich, berries and muesli with yogurt

Lunch: Salmon, asparagus and potatoes, salad

Dinner: Spinach and spaghetti

Baking/sweets: Apple and cinnamon cake

I ate way too much for breakfast and lunch today and was feeling bloated until dinner. I read earlier in an article that if you feel bloated, dark leafy greens help ‘de-bloat’ since greens fuel the liver.  So I had spinach for dinner and maybe it worked. Well, it was working until I overate pasta and spinach, which does not really solve the “feeling bloated” issue. It is like drinking alcohol to sober up. Lesson learnt, if you feel bloated don’t overeat. It sounds logical but don’t we do illogical things sometimes like eating too many sweets when trying to avoid eating sugar. Or drinking too much when avoiding alcohol?

Today's Favourite Photo

Source: Camemberu

Ceviche of 'Buri-OH' and steamed bamboo shoots with micro greens

Today’s Favourite Blog

Source: the Doctor will see you now

Keeping an eye just on your weight may not be enough. A diet which is high in fat, high in carbohydrates, and low in protein can cause people to gain body fat, even if they aren't gaining a lot of weight.

Over a three month period twenty five young adult volunteers were either fed a low-protein diet (5 percent of calories from protein), a high-protein diet (25 percent of calories from protein), or a normal-protein diet (15 percent of calories from protein) to see if the amount of protein consumed had an effect on body composition, weight gain, and energy expenditure. Carbohydrate intake was kept constant at 41 percent of calories during the study, so the higher protein diets resulted in a higher fat intake. The study participants were encouraged to be couch potatoes - no exercise.

All of the volunteers gained weight, regardless of which diet they followed. Those on the normal-protein diet gained about 13 pounds, and those on the high-protein diet increased their weight by about 14 pounds, but these two groups gained muscle mass while those on the low-protein diet did not.

All three groups gained about 7.7 pounds of body fat. Those on the low-protein diet lost an average of 1.5 pounds of lean body mass, and body fat accounted for about 90 percent of the extra calories stored as fat compared to a 50 percent gain in body fat for those eating the normal- or high-protein diet.

At the end of the study the volunteers who had been consuming the normal- or high-protein diets had a higher resting energy expenditure, which means they were burning more calories while their bodies were at rest.

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