Can Laughing Help You Lose Weight?

I recently ran across a very neat research article in Diabetes Care on the power of laughter.

Japanese researchers took a group of type-2 diabetics and healthy subjects for two days:

Day 1 – they ate a 500 calorie lunch and attended a “monotonous lecture (40 min) without humorous content.”

Day 2 – they ate an identical 500 calorie lunch and attended a 40min comedy show where “the subjects laughed.”

(Funny excerpt: “The subjects estimated their laughter level on a scale of 0–5, and most of them considered that they laughed well (level 4 or 5).”  Leave it to a scientist to take the fun out of a comedy show!)

Researchers monitored the subjects bloo d glucose levels for two hours after the and in the people who attended the comedy show glucose levels where significantly lower .

“Negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, and sorrow are known to be factors that elevate the blood glucose level.”

Why Does This Matter To You?

Elevated blood sugar (glucose) levels require that your body secretes insulin to bring them back down.  The more insulin you secrete the more your fat cells grow.  Anything you can do to reduce your insulin levels (high intensity exercise, low-carb eating) will help to make you leaner.

Apparently, its not just what you eat, but how you eat.  If you eat in a stressed out state, that can make your healthy lunch less healthy.

So, lighten up!  Pass gas and blame it on somebody else at lunch.  Make sure that you are having fun every day – even at work.

You can read the whole article in Diabetes Care right here for free:
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/5/1651.full

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

I’m worried because I’ve got too much energy!

That’s not something that you hear every day (or every life time – it makes most people happy), but the other week a client named Alyssa came in rather concerned because:

#1.  She was dropping fat too fast (she had dropped 2.5 inches off her waist in the first 2 weeks).

#2.  She had too much energy.

She was worried that maybe there was some kind of stimulant in the Atkins protein shakes that she had been drinking as mid morning and mid afternoon snacks.  I assured her that other than the coffee flavored ones, they have no caffeine whatsoever.

Low Energy & High Body Fat Are Actually Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Accumulating extra body-fat and having less energy are actually two sides of the same coin – insulin resistance.

If you are prone to gain extra fat, then you have at least some degree of insulin resistance.  Insulin resistance is when your cells can’t “hear” or don’t respond very well to insulin.  Usually this is only in your lean (non-fat) tissue.

Lets say that you had a healthy breakfast of bacon, eggs and spinach.  Your body will be running off of fat afterwards.  Then lunch rolls around and you have a sandwich.  The bread from the sandwich will unleash a flood of carbs into your bloodstream that must be dealt with.

In response your body will secrete insulin.  The insulin sends the fat that you were using for fuel before back to your fat cells for storage in an attempt to force your body to burn off the carbs because blood sugar is toxic if it gets too high.

The problem is that if your lean tissue (non-fat) has any level of insulin resistance then it doesn’t respond very well to the insulin and can’t do a very good job of taking in the carbs, so blood sugar remains elevated.

In this scenario your lean tissue is actually being starved by the act of eating carbs:  the fat that your lean tissue was burning is unavailable, and they can’t really do a very good job of taking in the carbs, so the lean tissue doesn’t have enough fuel.  Hunger is determined by how well your energy needs are being met.  So you are both tired and hungry.

Since your blood sugar levels remain elevated (because your lean tissue couldn’t handle the carbs), your body releases more insulin.  At this point the carbs (energy) gets sequestered away in the only tissue that can take them in – your fat.

Carbs make susceptible people fat, hungry and tired.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

The Truth About Splenda Part III – The Twist!

Its time to finally complete the 3 part Splenda series that I started the day before Valentine’s day.

If you missed part I or part II, check them out.

The Final Two Verdicts

#5.  Splenda has chlorine in it, and since chlorine is poisonous, Splenda must be poisonous.

Uh, your body has chlorine in it.  You’d be dead without it.  There are a LOT of very important things that go in your body that absolutely require chlorine!  Chlorine is in just about everything you eat every day and has been since food was invented.

They might be talking about elemental chlorine – like chlorine gas.   Chlorine gas is deadly and toxic.  You aren’t really going to get that off of a molecule of sucralose.   I’ve got to take you back to chemistry class again – sorry.

In chemistry the strongest bonds are “covalent” bonds, those are the bonds that are drawn with the straight lines between the black balls and the green balls.  That means that those two atoms are sharing a pair of electrons, so that bond will not be broken in your digestive system.

6.  Splenda is a no calorie sweetener and will not raise blood sugar or insulin levels.  (You’ll be surprised about the REAL answer to this one.)

The answer here is NO!  Actually a tablespoon of Splenda has 6 calories in it and its all carbs!  Splenda is so sweet that the amount needed to sweeten a cup of coffee could not fall out of a package – its just too small.  They have to put it into a carrier.  In this case they use maltodextrin.

It is still better than sugar.  A tablespoon of sugar has 46 calories and 800% more carbs.  But, go easy.  I know a lot of people trying to be low-carb who put mountains on their food.  A normal amount is OK, but a mountain on your yogurt or coffee is too much.  It defeats the purpose.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 fat-loss expert for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

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