Subscribe to my feedLose Weight By Eating Soup
June 19, 2010 2:12 am weight lossAnyone trying to lose weight will tell you how difficult it is. In a way, it’s hard to blame people who cannot lose weight. The reason losing weight is difficult is because over the hundreds of thousands of years that we as humans have evolved our brains tell us to eat high calories food. This is because your brain still thinks we live in a cave where food is scarce. In our modern world however, the opposite is true. We live in a world of cheap, high calorie food, and our bodies have evolved to tell us to eat it!
In 1999 a bunch of scientists discovered one of the main causes for us feeling hungry – a hormone called “ghrelin”.
The walls of our stomach release this hormone where it then travels in the blood to the brain, where the brain detects it and tells our body we need to eat.
The important thing with this cell though is that it is only released when the walls of our stomach are not stretched… i.e. when our stomachs are empty. If you are full (stomach wall stretched) then the hormone is not released.
Pretty straightward so far isn’t it – a stretched stomach wall means you don’t feel hungry. Not too taxing…
Now let’s look at an every day situation. At lunchtimes say you have a drink of water and a sandwich. This will probably keep you from feeling hungry for a couple of hours, but no more.
Something funny happens when you blend the water with the food, i.e. you make soup – you end up feeling fuller for longer. How can this be when you have consumed the same amount of food?
The reason is that if you drink the water and eat the food separately the stomach allows the water through quickly, but holds the food back so it can digest it. But, if you blend the water with the food, the whole lot is kept back, therefore keeping your stomach walls stretched further for longer, therefore no ghrelin is released and therefore your brain isn’t telling you to find food!
Very simple. Very effective. Eating soup at lunchtimes will help you lose weight because it will hold off those mid afternoon cravings!
For more butternut squash soup recipes and information on losing weight click the link.
