Whay That Big Meal You Just Ate Made You Hungry

Every few months, a new study purports to prove that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, and that the only way to lose weight is to burn more than you take in.

But veteran dieters know some- thing that some researchers appar ently don’t: Certain foods seem to fuel the appetite like pouring gaso line on a fire. Some people find that once they start eating bread, cookies, chocolateor left over Easter candy they lose all sense of fullness and find it difficult to stop.

That`s the concept behind “The Skinny,” a new book by Louis J. Aronne, director of the Comprehen sive Weight Loss Program at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “It's tiue that a calorie is a calorie," Dr. Aronne says.  “But what that doesn’t take into account is how some calories affect what people eat later on.”

After 23 years of treating pa- tients, Dr. Aronne has concluded that refined carbohydrates and foods with high sugar and fat content promote what he calls “fullness resistance,” They interfere with the complex hormonal messages the body usually sends to the brain to signal that it’s time to stop eating. People feel hungrier instead.

This happens in part because refined carbohydrates raise blood sugar levels, setting up an insulin surge that drives blood sugar down again, causing rebound hunger. That insulin spike also interferes with leptin, the hormone secreted by fat cells that should tell the body to stop eating. Obese people have loads of leptin, but it either doesn’t get to the brain, or the brain becomes resistant to it.

Other researchers have described simi- lar phenomena. An article in this month’s Medical Hypothesis argues that for some people, refined foods with high sugar and carbohydrate content can be just as addictive as tobacco and alcohol.

Eating foods high in protein, veg- etables, fiber and water have the opposite effect, Dr. Aronne says. His plan recommends revising what you eat, one meal at a time, to restore your sense of fullness:

Breakfast: Loading up on lean protein ideally from egg whites or a protein shake in the morning reduces hunger all day long. Eating muffins, bread, sweetened cereal and juice does the opposite. A study of 30 overweight women at Saint Louis University»School of Medicine found that those who ate eggs for break- fast consumed 140 fewer calories at lunch, and ate less for the next 36 hours, compared with women who ate bagels in the morning.

Lunch: Some dieters try to cut calories by skipping this meal. But going more than five hours without foocl causes hunger hormones to rise and fullness hormones to drop, and sends more of the calories consumed at dinner straight to fat cells. Dr. Aronne recommends starting lunch with a salad, then more vegetables, and then lean protein. Skip the cheese, bacon and creamy dressings, he advises. Using vinegar alone will cut your appetite and slow the rise in blood sugar. 

Dinner. The end of the day is fraught with temptation. Obese people consume significantly more calories at dinner than slimmer people. Here, too, load up first on salads, clear soups, or high protein appetizers like shrimp cocktail, then have a lean protein main course. Eating bread before dinner makes peo- ple lose their sense of fullness and eat more, Dr. Aronne warns. Alcohol makes it worse by lowering your resistance and promoting fat storage.

Not everyone agrees that consuming more protein cuts appetite. Harard School of Public Health’s Frank Sacks led a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that compared 811 overweight adults on four diets with yaiying leyels of protein, fat and carbohydrate. “We found absolutely no difference in their sati- ety and hunger levels," Dr. Sacks says.

All the groups lost similar amounts of weight. That’s not surprising, other weight-loss experts say, since there were only modest differences in their fat, protein and carbohydrate intakes, and many partici pants didn't stick to their plans.

To be sure, if you eat as Dr. Aronne suggests, you’ll consume fewer calories overall. The point is, eating protein early in the day may make it much easier to cut dowm.