Good blog, good food

I really hadn't intended to post any recipes here, but "A Weight Lifted; Healthy Weight Loss blog for women tired of dieting has some good ones along with posts and exercise and health. Check out that French Toast recipe!

My mother ate well

According to Sharon Begley's column in today's Wall Street Journal (May 13, 2005) "if you are undernourished as a first trimester fetus, you won't pad your hips and thighs with enough fat tissue." Then as an adult, all the extra calories go to your waist (apple shaped as opposed to pear shaped). This makes you more susceptible to heart diseases, diabetes, and breast cancer.

Unfortunately, she doesn't cite sources, although she collects some interesting items, even what your grandmother ate affects your health! Even a smoking grandmother is a smoking gun. So I did a look through Google and did find an interesting, fairly recent book that may be available in your public library, called Prenatal Prescription:

"Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on treatments for diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, and some forms of depression--all conditions Peter Nathanielsz argues could be prevented with better maternal health, especially during pregnancy. In The Prenatal Prescription, a guide for expectant parents, the former obstetrician explains how fetal biology adapts to the environment in the womb in preparation for the challenges of life after birth, a concept he calls prenatal programming. "If you're a lion cub on the Serengeti Plain and you're short of food in the uterus, that's a pretty darn good indication that there's not much food outside," says Nathanielsz. "Your mother's not making enough kills, so you develop what's called a thrifty metabolism in the womb. You learn how to grab on to every calorie you can so that when you come out, you're going to survive this adverse environment outside."

My mom must have eaten well because since puberty, I've been pear shaped. All extra calories reside on my hips and thighs. Thanks Mom.

More on sleep deprivation and weight gain

A recent article in Medscape Neurology and Neurosurgery, "The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Hormones and Metabolism" provides additional information on sleep habits, the endocrine system and weight gain. Apparently with lack of sleep, your hormones are telling you that there is famine in the land, so you better start eating!

"Sleeping and feeding are intricately related. Animals faced with food shortage or starvation sleep less;[8] conversely, animals subjected to total sleep deprivation for prolonged periods of time increase their food intake markedly.[9] Recent studies in humans have shown that the levels of hormones that regulate appetite are profoundly influenced by sleep duration. Sleep loss is associated with an increase in appetite that is excessive in relation to the caloric demands of extended wakefulness.

The regulation of leptin, a hormone released by the fat cells that signals satiety to the brain and thus suppresses appetite, is markedly dependent on sleep duration. After 6 days of bedtime restriction to 4 hours per night, the plasma concentration of leptin was markedly decreased, particularly during the nighttime.[10] The magnitude of this decrease was comparable to that occurring after 3 days of restricting caloric intake by approximately 900 kcal/day. But the subjects in the sleep-restriction condition received identical amounts of caloric intake and had similar levels of physical activity as when they were fully rested. Thus, leptin levels were signaling a state of famine in the midst of plenty."

So, apparently some of the obesity in our modern era may be due to not enough ZZZZZs, not just overeating. Perhaps when we don't see fat people in those old family photos it is because it was expensive to burn kerosene lamps, or there was no artificial light so you could party or work late, so everyone went to bed early?