How do you get rid of a pot belly that won't go away?!

[yick]

I watched some BBC programs on diet and exercise last week. One program said that science has discovered that theres a hormone that tells us when we have eaten enough. In slim people this hormone works and is activated and tells them when they are full. But in obese people this hormone doesnt work. So obese people dont know when they are full and stop eating. Therefore being fat or slim is not a matter of will power or character, as some assume. Science does not know how to turn this hormone on or off.

Another BBC program took a group of slim people who can eat anything and stay slim and doubled their calorie intake of food for two weeks. They found that they gained very little weight even if they ate twice as much. Their bodies simply shook off the excess calories. The conclusion was that your body picks what is your normal weight and stays there. So if your body thinks obese is normal then it will try to maintain that. Its bad news for overweight people. It means that its all in the genes and out of your control. That sucks.

One modern solution is to have surgery on your stomach. Theres a new procedure where they cut your stomach and create a new smaller stomach for your digestion. The smaller stomach holds much less food. Hence u get full a lot faster and eat a lot less. So far its proven to work for many obese people and has reduced their weight significantly.

What you think?

You're eating too many processed carbs and not enough protein, when you eat your 1 gram per 1.6 kilos of bodyweight, you don't binge because when you binge, your body is telling you to consume more protein but if you consume instead doughnuts and cream cakes then your mind and body will urge you to eat more to get enough protein - the building block of the body - and the urge won't stop until you have ate your minimum amount for the day.

If you eat three protein filled meals a day plus a whey protein shake first thing in the morning then the urge to binge will disappear.

I agree with Dan Cilley to a point, legumes, beans, bulgur, buckwheat, sourdough/Russian wholemeal bread, vegetables and a good vegan protein powder will have to be central to your diet, reintroducing animal products will make this easier especially the consumption of oily fish and chicken. Oils I use, olive, avocado and a quality omega 6 oil I use sparingly,

My days eating is something like this

Whey protein shake/oatmeal or buckwheat flakes from Russia (alternate)

Chinese bacon and a fried egg with lentils.

Sardines and buckweat pasta with spinach, onions, olives, bell pepper and eggplant.

No need to binge, in fact, pretty much impossible to do so.

@Winston Winston, what exactly are you eating? How many calories are you eating? Are you eating fast food? Chinese food? Fried foods? Potato chips? Donuts? Crackers? Chocolate? Ice cream? Pizza? All of these foods have a ton of fat. The fat you eat is the fat you wear, because it doesn't have to be chemically converted to fat in order to be stored, so it efficiently is stored in the fat cells. It goes "from your lips to your hips." Carbs and protein have to be converted to fat first, which takes a lot of energy, so generally you can't gain fat from eating pure carbs or protein.

What you need to do is get used to eating rice, beans, corn, popcorn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, oatmeal, bananas, melons, apples, berries, grapes, dried fruit, carrots, celery, cabbage, broccoli, onions, garlic, lettuce, mushrooms, nuts and seeds, avocado, olives.

You need to stay away from all oil, butter, cheese. Oil is the worst because it is pure fat. You need to avoid all the above junk foods, in general.

You will get used to the taste of the healthy food so that you will lose interest in the junk anyway.

And you can use a lot of salt and sugar and herbs and spices on the healthy foods. You will probably stop wanting the sugar pretty quickly. Refined sugar is not attractive to me.

Right now as I am typing this, I am eating blueberries and many bananas, and I am about to eat potatoes after that.

I eat a huge volume of food, but the amount of calories I eat is relatively low, because I usually do not eat oil, cheese, butter, and foods with those ingredients in them. "Eating too much" is not the right way to think about food. You can "eat too much" starch every time--just rice or potatoes or whatever--and you will never gain fat, but will lose fat. You shouldn't think that you have to restrict your food intake, ever.

All large, successful civilizations throughout all of human history have obtained the bulk of their calories from starch. For example, in China they traditionally ate rice and vegetables, in America the native Americans ate corn, beans, and squash, in Europe they ate wheat and barley, in Africa they ate sorghum and millet and yams, in Peru they ate potatoes, etc.

The longest lived populations eat high carb, and low animal products, and no oil or probably a low amount of oil. The Mediterranean diet includes olive oil, but the oil is not why it's healthy, but everything else in the diet, such as a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, is why.

Oil is the worst food because it immediately injures the lining of the arteries, and causes weight gain so efficiently...so if you only cut out only one food, oil would have the biggest impact.

What questions do you have?

I wouldn't say oil is the worst thing to eat, the worst thing to eat in my opinion are GMO foods and steroid induced meat which the US food chain is riddled with and is making people ill, the second worst thing is of course food you have not made yourself - if you eat our or eat pre-packaged or microwave/ready made meals - then you have no control in what is going into your mouth. The best thing to do is to learn how to cook and cook all your meals, I agree with a lot of your premise though, all those foods are good but I would include bulgur, buckwheat, millet (all these I get from Russia where growing GMO is a criminal offence), sorghum etc - loads of great carbs out there which are healthy and are good for you.

You need some fat in your diet - oily fish and omega 3 is good for you, a lot of societies that eat oily fish live long and well - if you eat sardines daily you're not going to get fat even though sardines have a high fat content though I would agree that you need to use fats in moderation but if zero fat/oil is working for you then you keep going!

One thing I do keep away from is fruit, I load up on vegetables but go easy on fruit except for Peruvian blueberries.

[yick]