A study carried out for a documentary by the BBC, found that if a typical meal such as chicken and vegetables with a glass of water, is consumed, you will typically feel full for a couple of hours before hunger kicks in.
However, if you blend the food with the water, to make soup – you will stay hunger free fro much longer and less likely to snack through the afternoon.
After you eat a meal, the pyloric sphincter valve at the bottom of your stomach holds food back so that the digestive juices can get to work.
Water, however, passes straight through the sphincter to your intestines, so drinking water does not contribute to “filling you up”.
When you eat the same meal as a soup, the whole mixture remains in the stomach, because the water and food are blended together.
The scientists’ scans confirm that;
- the stomach stays fuller for longer, staving off those hunger pangs and between-meal snack cravings.
Ghrelin – Appetite Hormone with Important Role In Weight-Loss
The key to this low-tech weapon against hunger is a hormone called ghrelin. It is one of the major players in the body’s appetite system.
Discovered as recently as 1999, ghrelin is released by specialised cells in the stomach wall.
These cells produce a constant stream of ghrelin whenever the stomach is empty. The ghrelin travels via the blood stream to the brain’s appetite centre, an organ called the hypothalamus. As a result, the hypothalamus screams “You are hungry – find food.”
But whenever the stomach wall is stretched – when the stomach is full – the cells stop producing ghrelin, and the hypothalamus responds accordingly, turning off the appetite signal. The longer the stomach remains full, the longer you feel satisfied and the less you are likely to eat.
The stomach gradually empties, more slowly for the soup than the solid meal plus water. The BBC staged an experiment for the programme, ‘10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight’.
In this experiment, and in previous experiments,
- participants reported feeling full for up to an hour-and-a-half longer than their solid meal counterparts.
Unfortunately, the appetite system is complex and still poorly understood.
There are probably dozens of hormones that play a role in regulating appetite.
Of those that have already been discovered, there is one that is released after eating protein-rich meals (called PYY), one that is released by fat cells (leptin) and several that respond to the presence of any kind of food.
But of all the hormones that make up the appetite system, it is ghrelin that has caused the most interest.
In addition to its role in sending the “stomach empty” signal to the brain, ghrelin also promotes fat storage!!
Even worse, it inhibits the breakdown of stored fat during times of weight loss. Inject ghrelin into the bloodstream of a rat and the animal eats insatiably – and quickly becomes obese.
So, if you attempt to diet , without controlling the release of ghrelin, you will find it a lot more difficult , as you will be hungry and also, ghrelin will be prompting your body to store fat and inhibiting the breakdown of your fat stores!
In 2006, scientists at the Scripps Research Centre in the US developed a vaccine to counteract the influence of ghrelin, in an attempt to control appetite.
It is still undergoing clinical trials – so for now, the best and simplest way to keep hunger at bay is to reduce your stomach’s release of ghrelin: and one of the best ways to do this is to blend your food into a healthy, voluminous soup.
If you would like to be updated, as I add new tips and tricks for easier weight loss, just enter your email address below. Thanks for visiting!
{ 2 trackbacks }