Tues. March 23

20 Min. AMRAP:

5 Burpees
10 Lunges (total)
15 Double Unders

Strength:
Press
1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Mon. March 22

"Fran"

21,15,9 of:
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull Ups

Strength:
Front Squats
3-3-3-3-3
_________________________________
*from paleochix.com

5 Minute Paleo

I like to say that I’m a 5-minute Paleo girl. A lot of people prep and plan, but I frankly don’t know what I will be hungry for any given day, so more often than not I wing it. I have 3 busy daughters, a full-time job and a budding gym, not to mention my own workouts, but somehow this works really well for me. I have come to the point of unconscious competence (see my post of 2/10/10).

Sure, I try new recipes at least once a week, and take great pride in my Sunday dinners, but whipping up a good, well- rounded Paleo meal has become common place. I eat lunch at home most days and love knowing that I can make whatever I’m craving that day, and still have time during my lunch-hour to relax or get my laundry started.

So getting to the point here….. once Paleo becomes a natural, normal way of eating for you, you will develop a list of staples in your household that will allow you this freedom. The most common question I get with someone starting Paleo seems to be “what do I buy.” Sure you know the basic drill – meat, vegetables, nuts&seeds, some fruit, NO GRAINS and NO SUGAR but when it comes to what to buy people seem at a loss.

Here is my list of staples that allows me to make most anything. Of course I have a cajillion spices, and add this and that, but these are the items I have all the time in my kitchen:

* almond meal – I use this mostly for fritters, meatloaf and as a coating when I fry things
* coconut oil – excellent for frying
* olive oil
* garlic – I want it on EVERYTHING!!!! Vampires will never bother me!
* sea salt
* coconut milk – love my shakes!
* berries
* apples
* eggs
* broccoli slaw – one of the coolest all-purpose items! I use it for salads, stir fry, you name it!
* mushrooms
* celery
* onion
* spinach
* tomato
* carrots
* almonds
* chicken
* steak
* canned tuna – good to have around when pressed for time
* canned tomato sauce ( sugar free!)
* ground beef

So what to make??? OH MY HECK!!! The possibilities are ENDLESS! And the 5-minute stuff – easy peeasy! Here are a few super, duper quick recipes that will cover all the bases :

HERM’S BEEF EGGS

1 lb ground beef

1 cup spinach

6 eggs

Brown ground beef adding in whatever spices you choose. Once brown, add spinach on top til it cooks down. Lastly, cover whole mixture with 6 eggs. My very routine boyfriend swears by this for breakfast and it keeps him satisfied til dinner.

PONY’S BROCCOLI CRUNCH (Thanks Aileen!)

1/2 bag of broccoli slaw

1 can of tuna drained

hand full of nuts or seeds

1tsp of olive oil, apple cider vinegar or dare i say Italian dressing – its only a tsp!!

mix well – YUMMY!!! Also add in grapes or raisins and or dried cranberries

PATTY’S LEFT OVER SALAD

*always, always make a little extra of ANY meat you cook!!!

big bowl of mixed greens

1 avocado sliced

cut up leftover meat

salad dressing made of lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt basil too taste

and VOILA!!! One of my favorite meals!!

I hope I have been able to show you that Paleo IS possible in under 5 minutes, and you don’t have to cook well to enjoy a good, filling Paleo meal!!!

Sat. March 20

5 Min Stations of:

Deadlift
Thrusters
Pull Ups
Back Extensions
Box Jumps

Total reps for score.

Fri. March 19

10 Man-makers
Run 800m
10 Man-makers
Run 800m
10 Man-makers

Saturday Night Update

So far we have the following people confirmed:

Stephen and Amanda
Megan
Amber
Kevin and Sonya
Jonathan and Blakley

... Keep 'em comin'!

Thurs. March 18

"Nate"
In honor of Chief Petty Officer Nate Hardy, who was killed Sunday February 4th during combat operations in Iraq. Nate is survived by his wife, Mindi, and his infant son Parker.
20 Min AMRAP:
2 Muscle Ups
4 Handstand Push Ups
8 KB Swings (70/53)

scaled:
*sub 6 pull ups for muscle ups, 8 Press for HSPU.

Saturday Get-together!!!

For all those interested, we should get together Saturday evening at 6pm at Cool Springs Brewery (formerly Guido's Pizza). Let us know if you'd like to meet up for some empty calories. We can go somewhere else after we get kicked out of that place.

Wed. March 17

For Time:

Run 1 Mile (3 building laps)
25 Wall Ball
25 Push Ups
25 K2E's
25 Box Jumps

Tues. March 16

5 RFT:

10 1-Arm Dumbell Snatch (Each Arm)
10 Power Cleans (95/65)(High Hang)
10 Floor Wipers (95/65)

Strength:
Overhead Squats
3-3-3-3-3
____________________________________
New Shirts have been ordered. They will be in next Monday or Tuesday. I need sizes from everyone who wants one. Also, you can pay $25.00 or we can draft your card on file. Just let Stephen know.

Mon. March 15

"Angie"

100 Pull Ups
100 Push Ups
100 Sit Ups
100 Air Squats

Strength:
Back Squat
1-1-1-1-1-1-1
______________________________________
*from Robbwolf.com

If it works for a SEAL…
By Robb Wolf | December 26, 2009

Good word from DR. Harris at Panu. I don’t want to just copy and paste that piece here but I do want to throw in some observations. Dr. Harris’ Brother in Law, Jason (who is a SEAL):

1-Started doing CF and saw dramatic improvements in his work related performance. Not too surprising, swapping out flutter kicks and high volume running for OL-complexes and more variety. Makes complete sense. And there is data to support this.

2-Jason changed his food along Zone parameters, eventually getting to 3-4x fat and saw vast improvements in his body composition and performance.

3-Jason then dropped his carb intake (shifting to fruit and veggies only), ate the bulk of his carbs post work out, upped his protein and fat…started doing intermittent fasting…and crushed all his previous benchmarks.

I have almost 1300 testimonial virtually identical to the above from people in every conceivable profession and walk of life. So much for my lack of data and clinical experience! I’ve been approached by a few statisticians to analyze that data and we might tackle that at some point. The problem is I would need to harvest and organize that information from thousands of emails…unfortunately I have not been entering the data into and XL spreadsheet for the past few years…yeesh.

The take home here is “Shift the bulk of your fueling along ancestral lines and you will see optimized performance”. The only place I see this breaking down is EVENT epecific nutrition (100mile foot race, tour de France) or if we need to build a 300lb lineman for football. In the case of the former we’d likely benefit from some liquid nutrition like maltodextrin and whey protein, in the later we’d certainly benefit from a Gallon of milk per day. Other than these extreme outlies however we consistently see folks perform best on somehting akin to the ancestral diet.

Coach Glassman has a great line “The Paleo diet is compelling, but largely anecdotal…”

I just need to point out, the existence of the Universe is largeley anecdotal…

So, some kind of ancestral diet appears to fuel optimum performance for most people under most situations. Even SEAL’s. Check.

What about training? Is CrossFit better or worse than the standard PT that has traditionally been used to prep people for BUDS and then for subsequent duty? Well, despite my recent falling out with CrossFit, the truth is CF is far better than the standard PT, even when implemented in a sub-optimal fashion. I’ve seen data on this, and talked to far too many people for this not to be the case. But just becasue CF is better does not mean it is BEST. More on that later.

Right now I want to look at some thoughts Mike Caviston has on CF, nutrition and training. I think my first awareness of Mr. Caviston was when I was asked to write a rebuttal to his article that painted the Zone in a poor light. That rebuttal was supposed to go in the CrossFit Journal, but that’s another story! So, I posted it here in the form of The Zone and Athletic performance. Mr. Caviston also had this to say about CrossFit training in general. Short hand here is how I see all this:

1-Caviston thinks the Zone is inadequate to the needs ot SEALs and operators. CrossFit thinks there is nothing besides the Zone with regards to nutrition. Obviously, I think both are out to lunch. People do far better on the Zone than they do the standard high-carb chow. They do even better when they start tinkering with some kind of higher protein, higher fat paleo oriented eating. The example at Panu simply supports what I have seen now in thousands of people AND it’s a very simple experiment.

2-Caviston thinks CF is inadequate to training SEALS. CrossFit thinks a constantly randomized program ala- CF.com is the best way to train EVERYONE. Here again I disagree with both camps. CF+ some other specific work has produced better results than the previous PT incarnations. An even better approach would be something like CF Football. Agility work, short hard sprints heavy weight lifting, progressive overload, planning…this simply works better.

Is your first exposure to the deadlift better if it is under no metabolic duress, with sets of 3-5, scaled appropriately and then met-con based on movements you have aptitude in, OR is it in a 21, 15, 9 format using PVC, or weight that produces “20% slop”? I think the planned structured program is better. I’ve played both ways…you tinker and make your own conclusions.

So, perhaps you can boil the whole thing down to:

1-A planned, structured approach to training works best. There are logical progressions for various movements, and appropriate times to introduce movements. Strength is the foundation of strength-endurance. Strength & Conditioning is a balancing act between the general needs of an individual and the specific demands they will face.

2-Something approximating an ancestral diet fuels optimum performance in most situations.

Fri. March 12

For time:

Run 10 Mezzanine Laps w/Med Ball
100 Push Press (45/35)
50 KB Swings (53/35)
Row 500m

Thurs. March 11

Total Reps for:

4 min Push Ups
4 min ABMAT
4 min SDHP (53/35)
4 min Jumping Air Squats

Strength:
Bench Press
5-5-5-5-5

____________________________________
from Inhuman Experiment

Two Brave Men Who Ate Nothing But Meat for an Entire Year

Low-carb diets and paleolithic nutrition are all the rage these days, and for good reason. Compared to the Standard American Diet, both of them are superb.

Few of us would dare to take the two to their extreme, however. Giving up sugar and wheat is one thing, but what about giving up everything except meat? Yes, I'm talking about an ultra low-carb diet with even foods like nuts and berries removed. Unsurprisingly and understandably, studies on the long-term effects of such a diet are severely lacking.

There is at least one study that did just this, however. If the diet brings the Eskimos to mind, it's no coincidence. You may have heard of Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson – the Canadian ethnologist who spent more than a decade with the Inuit during his arctic explorations in the beginning of the previous century. For nine of these years, he lived almost exclusively on fish and meat (you can read about his experiences here). At the time, this was considered heresy and life-threatening, just as it is today (note that Stefansson apparently refers to both fish and meat with the word "meat"):

A belief I was destined to find crucial in my Arctic work, making the difference between success and failure, life and death, was the view that man cannot live on meat alone. The few doctors and dietitians who thought you could were considered unorthodox if not charlatans. The arguments ranged from metaphysics to chemistry: Man was not intended to be carnivorous - you knew that from examining his teeth, his stomach, and the account of him in the Bible. As mentioned, he would get scurvy if he had no vegetables in meat. The kidneys would be ruined by overwork. There would be protein poisoning and, in general hell to pay.


To the surprise of many (including Stefansson himself), he suffered no health problems during his decade of pure carnivorism. When he told people of his amazing experiences, he was met with skepticism from medical authorities who asked him to undertake a study that would replicate the results. He and a fellow explorer named Andersen agreed to eat an all-meat diet for an entire year in a closely observed setting.

Composing a diet of nothing but meat and fat

This time, however, the diet was even more radical than the traditional Eskimo diet, which is based on fish and includes a small amount of berries and vegetables – not a lot, but enough to keep them out of ketosis most of the time. Furthermore, since fish is high in omega-3 fatty acids, you could argue that it's all those good fats that keep the Eskimos free of disease.

But how could anyone subscribing to conventional health wisdom explain thriving on a diet consisting solely of red meat? No vegetables, no fruit, no vitamin supplements. Nothing. Just meat and animal fat.

The results of this fascinating study were published in 1930 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (link). At the beginning of the experiment, Stefansson was given only lean meat at the request of his supervisors. This was to confirm Stefansson's bad experiences with low-fat meat; during his explorations, there had been periods during which fat was not readily available and which lead to diarrhea and nausea in a few weeks. This time, the illness kicked in much earlier:

As said, in the Arctic we had become ill during the second or third fatless week. I now became ill on the second fatless day. The time difference between Bellevue and the Arctic was due no doubt mainly to the existence of a little fat, here and there in our northern caribou - we had eaten the tissue from behind the eyes, we had broken the bones for marrow, and in doing everything we could to get fat we had evidently secured more than we realized. At Bellevue the meat, carefully scrutinized, had been as lean as such muscle tissue can be.


After fat was added back into the diet, a full recovery was made in two days. The authors of the study describe the diet from then on:

The meat used included beef, lamb, veal, pork and chicken. The parts used were muscle, liver, kidney, brain, bone marrow, bacon, and fat.


Thus, fat played an important part in their diets. According to the authors, Andersen usually ate beef, while Stefansson often chose lamb. Both men ate about 800 grams of meat per day in 3-4 meals. The protein contents ranged from 100 to 140 grams, the fat from 200 to 300 grams, and carbohydrates from 7 to 12 grams. In calories, the percentages were 15-25% protein, 75-85% fat, and 1-2% carbohydrate. The carbs came solely from the glycogen of the meat, making this not so much a low-carb as a no-carb diet. In addition to water, coffee and tea were allowed throughout the period.

Health markers after one year

Examinations at the end of the observation showed that both men were healthy while on the diet. The authors write:

There were no subjective or objective evidences of any loss of physical or mental vigor. The teeth showed no deterioration and gingivitis had disappeared. There was, however, an increase in the deposit of tartar on the teeth of [Stefansson]. Bowel elimination was undisturbed.


Though neither man was overweight to begin with, and weight loss was not the goal of the experiment, both men lost a few pounds during the year. This was despite the fact that calorie intakes ranged from 2,000 to 3,100 kcal. Stefansson averaged about 2,650 kcal (2,100 from fat and 550 from protein), while Andersen averaged 2,620 kcal (2,100 from fat and 510 from protein).

Given that Stefansson, the taller of the two, was 180 cm (5 feet 11 inches), and both of them were fairly sedentary, this represents a significant amount of calories without any weight gain. During the first weeks, weight loss was more significant, apparently due to a shift in the water content of the body. Both men appeared "ruddier" at the end of the experiment than at the beginning.

Blood pressure did not increase in either subject. Stefansson's blood pressure remained at 105/70 mm. throughout the study, while that of the other subject decreased from 140/80 to 120/80 mm. Salt intakes were fairly low.

No physical fatique or problems sticking to the diet were experienced by the two men. Only when the protein content of the diet increased substantially (45% of calories, 55% fat) did problems with digestion occur. Replacing excess protein with fat (20% protein, 80% fat) quickly resolved them, however.

No clinical evidence of vitamin or calcium deficiency was noted, despite the diet being both acidic and low in calcium. In addition, the mild gingivitis Stefansson had suffered from, cleared up entirely during the meat diet. Interestingly, Andersen reported that his hair stopped falling out shortly after the meat diet was started; Stefansson also noted his hair started growing thicker and his scalp was healthier.

Acetone bodies in daily averages per experimental period ranged from 0.4 to 7.2 gm, with the maximum excretion measured during the year being 12.3 gm. The acidity of the urine showed a 2-to 3-fold increase, which is consistent with the highly acidic nature of the diet. A slight increase in uric acid nitrogen was found during the first three months only.

All in all, no evidence of irritation to the kidneys was found – despite the fact that these men were in ketosis practically for an entire year. A higher degree of ketosis was noted when the fat content of the diet increased and the protein content decreased. Acetone bodies quickly disappeared when carbohydrates were introduced into the diet.

In general, the men were in ketosis whenever the ratio of fat to carbohydrates was over 1.5. With the extremely small amounts of carb in their diets, no definite relation between the amount of acetone bodies and the ratio of fat to carbs was found. Stefansson's friend, who was smaller and had less subcutaneous fat, had the highest sustained ketosis.

Seven years after the meat diet

In 1935, one of the authors published an article titled "A Year's Exclusive Meat Diet and Seven Years Later", in which he revisits Stefansson's case (link). First, he summarizes the main points of his earlier article from 1926, titled "The Effects of an Exclusive Long-continued Meat Diet". The following medical facts regarding Stefansson's life during his explorations are listed:

1. He spent altogether altogether eleven and one-half years within the Arctic Circle.
2. He lived for a number of days, totaling nine years, on an exclusive meat diet.
3. He lived for nine successive months on an exclusive meat diet.
4. He reached his maximum weight while subsisting on meat (fish).
5. His sense of physical and mental well being was at its best during that period of his life.
6. He found that the exclusive meat diet worked as well when he was inactive as when active, and as well in hot weather as in cold.
7. Constipation was never present. One month's entire absence from exercise produced neither constipation nor muscular weakness. (Stefansson avers that not a single case of constipation was observed in 600 exclusively meat-eating Eskimos for a period of three years).
8. His hair thickened, and his scalp became healthier.
9. Tooth decay was apparently much less rapid.


Seven years after the meat diet study, the author examined Stefansson again, who apparently had reacquainted himself with some aspects of the Western diet. Instead of eating only meat, he was now eating a breakfast of one egg, bread and coffee, and a dinner and supper consisting of a moderate amount of meat, vegetables, and some cheese. His fruit and milk intake remained negligible.

During this period, Stefansson had put on quite a bit of weight. He now weighed 84 kg, compared with 70.8 kg in 1922 and 72.5 in 1928. His hair was as thick as before, but his gingivitis had returned. Blood pressure was up to 120/80 mm. All in all, the author states Stefansson was in excellent general health. Looking at the numbers, however, it seems that he was doing better on his monotonous carnivore diet.

While it would be interesting to replicate the study with a larger sample size and have more health markers measured than the ones used in the study, it is quite remarkable to see that a diet consisting of nothing but meat and animal fat is both feasible and, apparently, healthy. It also lends support to the importance of having a sufficient amount of fat in the diet, especially when protein is present in significant quantities.

Wed. March 10

21,15,9:

Overhead Squats (95/65)
Pull Ups

Strength:
Power Cleans
1-1-1-1-1-1-1

___________________________________
New T Shirts!
We will be ordering new shirts next week. Ask Stephen to show you color options. We will need a pre-order size and dollars from anyone who wants one, or two, or three....

As of now, looks like $25 for each. These will be a thinner, more athletic cut than any previous shirt we've done. Gray and black are the options, but you need to see them to really get the shades.

Tues. March 9

20 Burpees
20 Deadlifts (135/95)
20 Wall Ball
15 Burpees
15 Deadlifts
15 Wall Ball
10 Burpees
10 Deadlifts
10 Wall Ball
__________________________________
from CrossFit Evolution


Paleo Stuffed Zucchini
(modified from paleomama.com)

Ingredients:
3-4 medium zucchini
1 lb. sausage (I used chicken Italian sausage from Publix’s greenwise section)
1 leek, chopped into rings
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup coconut milk
1 ½ tsp. Italian seasoning
¼ tsp. pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut off stems of the zucchini. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Use a small spoon to scoop out the inside of the zucchini (save the ‘guts” in a bowl) to make hollow boats. Put the zucchini boats in a casserole dish.

Remove sausage from casings and cook over medium heat until no pink remains. Add in leek, garlic, zucchini guts, coconut milk and spices and cook for 1-2 minutes until leeks and zucchini become soft.

Spoon mixture into zucchini boats and bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes.
__________________________________

*Please be sure to get your $10 in for the Benchmark Contest ASAP.

Mon. March 8

20 Min. AMRAP:

10 Box Jumps
10 Push Press (65/45)
10 Knees to Elbows (K2E's)

Strength:
Back Squat
3-3-3-3-3

___________________________________
P90X and CrossFit

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/p90x-and-crossfit/

Sat. March 6

Meeting at Aspen Grove park.

3 RFT:
Run 800m
50 KB Swings (53/35)

Fri. March 5

Open Gym

Pick any strength movement:
5-5-5-5-5

-Then pick any movement/skill and work on it.

You're welcome....

Thurs. March 4

"Elizabeth"

21,15,9:
Clean (Squat)(135/95)
Ring Dips


Strength:
Power Snatch
3-3-3-3-3

___________________________________
How to Deal With Overtraining
*Mark's Daily Apple

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-deal-with-overtraining/

Wed. March 3

"Barbara"

Five rounds, each for time of:
20 Pull-ups
30 Push-ups
40 Sit-ups
50 Squats

Rest precisely three minutes between each round.

Post total time minus rest (12 minutes)

______________________________________________
HOW TO DRINK IRRESPONSIBLY, YET PRIMAL

Article courtesy of Son of Grok

During my recent “lets get serious” post, a lot of people talked about struggling to stay primal due to consumption of alcohol. Being a health blogger, I can’t straight up condone the heavy consumption of booze but hey… lets all be honest with ourselves. Booze is nice.

While only shown to be healthy is very small quantities (so I wont make that argument yet again here), booze can just plain be fun. It can be relaxing, it can loosen you up and it can enhance a good time. I myself drink booze fairly regularly and occasionally heavily.

Part of the danger of booze is that whole “loosens you up” part. You drink a little.. then you drink a lot… then you start the munchies… then you “head for the border” at the local taco bell at 2:00 in the morning. Until you can get in the habit of being Primally responsible while partying it is always good to go in with a game plan.

Here are some game plan tactics:
1. Know your drink.
Know what you are going to be drinking and stick to only that for the whole night.
2. Carry emergency reserves.
Have primal snacks like nuts or pork rinds with you. Whether in the car, your purse or jacket pocket having snacks like this will help you from straying to the tortilla chips or loaded potato skins. You just need something to hold you over until you get home and can heat up some primal left overs. If you are going to a party, bring the vegetable tray or bowl of nuts. If you have something primal there, you will be less likely to crack.
3. Have food waiting for you at home.
No drunky wants to cook anything more complicated than a frozen pizza (which usually gets left in the oven and burnt anyways). Whether it be leftovers or a purpose prepped meal, make sure you have something easy to grub when you get home and late night taco bell or dollar menus cheesburgers wont seem like quite as much of a necessity.

Now lets cover the drink choices. Everyone knows from the USDA approved food pyramid that alcohol can basically be broken into three basic booze groups (maybe I should have studied harder in high school?).

1. Wine
Wine is delicious, it is sofisticated and it can be quite enjoyable. Wine has even been shown to be healthy in small quantities (darn I just said it didn’t I?). Wine however can be very hard to drink in mass quantities even though it can be done (just ask roger de rok or me). When drunk in mass quantities, wine also has the tendency to roll over in the morning, look at you lovingly… and then kick you right in the temple. Hangover city. Wine is very calorie intensive as well and if drunk in large quantities frequently does have the ability to sabotage your gains.

2. Hard liquor
This is the primal party animal secret weapon and party piece. Toss the sugar filled mixers to the side and take a page from the alcoholics handbook. Find a strong, hard, un-fooferated liquor (at least 80 proof) that you can stand on the rocks and drink to your hearts content. When I want to get my swerve on this is where I go. My poison of choice is a glass of top shelf vodka on the rocks with lime. Roger de Rok’s personal favorite is a gin on the rocks with lime (bleh). You may have to start with sipping but once you adapt to the flavor of your booze of choice, you will be able to put it back no problem. Even though hard liquor is not exactly “primal per say” you can through it back almost limitlessly with next to no calories and virtually no guilt.

3. Beer
Beer is just bad m’kay. We have this belief as Americans that beer is just… well American. The big three beer companies have spent billions.. yes billions of dollars ingraining in us the importance of beer. From High School parties to College to middle aged bars we are taught that beer is the drink of choice. A beer here and there wont kill you but beer is a sure fire way to sabotage all of your progress. There is a reason that they call it a “beer gut”. Beer is light on alcohol, heavy on calories and heavy on grain. Many beers still have the stuff floating in it for goodness sake. There is always light beer but it is flavorless, over filling and well… crappy. Beer can leave you feeling bloated and crappy and leave you actually physically bloated and crappy. Get over your beer addiction. Once you start enjoying fine wines and well crafted hard liquors, you really wont miss the stuff. Some studies have shown that a single glass of beer can give health benefits so if you are going to drink a beer, have a glass of the good stuff you really enjoy (a finely crafted, dark, hard stout would my choice but I don’t even crave that anymore).

Now that you are armed with a game plan and a primally wisened selection of booze… get out there and partay!

Tues. March 2

“Festive 40” Chipper

Complete 40 Reps of the following for time:
Push Ups
Med Ball Cleans (20#/10#)
Box Jumps
SDHP (53/35 kettlebell)
Muscle Snatch (high hang) (45)
Jumping Back Squats (45)

Strength:
Push Press
1-1-1-1-1-1-1

________________________________________
*from Futurepundit.com

Belly Fat Secretes Hormone That Makes Us Even Fatter

Belly fat begets belly fat.

The extra fat we carry around our middle could be making us hungrier, so we eat more, which in turn leads to even more belly fat. Dr. Yaiping Yang and his colleagues at the Lawson Health Research Institute affiliated with The University of Western Ontario found abdominal fat tissue can reproduce a hormone that stimulates fat cell production. The researchers hope this discovery will change in the way we think about and treat abdominal obesity.

So then does liposuction done to the belly reduce the amount of future weight gain? After all, belly liposuction removes fat cells that secrete Neuropeptide Y.

Yang identified that the hormone Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is reproduced by abdominal fat tissue. Previously, it was believed to only be produced by the brain. Yang believes this novel finding may lead to new therapeutic targets for combating obesity. Their findings were reported in a recent issue of The FASEB Journal.

The traditional view is that one of the main reasons why overweight people eat more food is because their brains produce the hormone NPY in excessive amounts. NPY is the most potent appetite stimulating hormone known, sending signals to the individual that they are constantly hungry. However, Yang, a Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Physiology & Pharmacology at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario, has provided evidence that in obese rat models NPY is also produced locally by abdominal fat.

A fat cell cannot replicate itself. But the researchers found NPY increases fat cell number by stimulating the replication of fat cell precursor cells, which then change into fat cells.

Yang says “this may lead to a vicious cycle where NPY produced in the brain causes you to eat more and therefore gain more fat around your middle, and then that fat produces more NPY hormone which leads to even more fat cells.”

If you can't lose weight blame it on NPY.