The Terrible Ten: Those Last 10 Pounds :: Weight Loss

The Terrible Ten: Those Last 10 Pounds
by author Brad King, MS, MFS

Why do those last few pounds of fat seem next to impossible to shed? You’ve been painstakingly following a weight reduction program for the past few months. You look and feel better than you can ever remember, but one thing is wrong - that last bit of fat is clinging to you for dear life.

Almost anyone who has tried to lose excess body fat can relate to this problem. Why do those last few pounds seem next to impossible to shed? The secret may lie within a little-known hormone called leptin.

A hormone produced by our fat cells, leptin plays numerous roles in our biochemistry. One of these is to regulate bodyweight by sending satiation (fullness) signals to the brain. Another is to increase our overall energy expenditure - our body’s ability to burn fat.

When we lose body fat, leptin levels decline along with the excess fat. When we gain fat, leptin levels rise.

In fact, leptin does its job so well that one human study presented in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that moderately overweight healthy women following a low-calorie diet over a three-month period actually increased their appetite two-fold. The subjects who experienced the greatest decline in leptin levels also experienced the greatest increase in their desire to eat.

Leptin also has the ability to lower our metabolic rate by negatively affecting the conversion of thyroid hormones when we skip meals or severely restrict our calories. The end result is we find it next to impossible to lose any more fat.

A human study presented in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism proved that the thyroid-lowering effects brought on by declining leptin levels - through weight loss and dieting - could actually be reversed by administration of “replacement” doses of leptin. But before you go asking your family doctor for an injection of leptin, let me explain how you can naturally stimulate its production.

Don’t be deceived by the “fad diet promise” of losing tons of weight in minimal time. Severe caloric deprivation will send leptin plummeting. Instead, teach yourself to eat smaller meals five or six times a day. Whatever you do, don’t skip meals because that only leads to lower levels of leptin and negative changes in your thyroid hormones.

Another little trick is to supplement with the mineral zinc (10 to 30 milligrams, depending on individual needs). Zinc has been shown in studies to raise leptin levels. In fact, a study published in the journal Life Science showed that zinc was able to increase leptin production by a whopping 142 percent.

So try a little zinc and say ta-ta to those last 10 pounds.

Brad King, MS, MFS, is a nutritional researcher and author of the international best-seller Fat Wars: 45 Days to Transform Your Body and the new Fat Wars Action Planner. To subscribe to the Fat Wars Chronicle, his free monthly newsletter, visit fatwars.com.

Source: alive #257, March 2004

The Hormones of Fat Loss
By understanding how hormones such as insulin, thyroid, serotonin, leptin, and cortisol work, we can regulate our weight more effectively.

Rock Around the Clock
According to The New York Times (May 6, 2004), surgeons will perform over 144,000 weight-loss operations in 2004. This is way up from 20,000 in 1995.

Hormone Helpers
Hormones deliver a powerful punch. These tiny chemical messengers, secreted by the endocrine system, have huge impact on our mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

Abolish Your Weight Woes
Conventional weight loss wisdom makes trimming the pounds gained during the holidays sound so easy-burn more energy than you take in and you'll shed pounds. But for most people, that's an oversimplification. Diet and exercise are not the only factors that play a role in your weight.

Avoiding the New Year's Dieting Blues
You've made it through another year, and if you're like most of us, you have probably already made a pact with that New Year's resolution.

Stress and Your Metabolism
Is everyone stressed these days? According to Kenneth Pelletier, PhD, author of Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer (Stanford University Press, 2002), between 80 and 90 percent of all illnesses are linked to stress, and 75 to 90 percent of all visits to the doctor are for stress and anxiety-related concerns.

Men-O-Pause
One of the biggest pet peeves among women lies in the belief that men have it so easy when it comes to their metabolisms. For instance, when men and women go on the same diet, men tend to lose more weight without trying as hard, but why?

Your Liver
When we think about enhancing our metabolism, we might look to one of the countless metabolic enhancers or fat burners that line the shelves of many health food stores.

Body Fuel
Over the past two decades, many of us have bought into the idea that carbohydrates give us energy, fat makes us fat, and protein-in excess-causes kidney damage. The truth is, it's not this easy.