When it comes to losing weight, the old notion that “a calorie is a calorie” is outdated and oversimplified. New science reveals how the gut microbiome affects cravings, which foods activate satiety hormones, and how ingredient combinations affect calorie absorption. These insights can help you achieve effective weight loss while improving mood, energy, and overall well-being.
In this blog, you’ll learn to harness the power of your microbiome to transform cravings, choose foods that truly satisfy, avoid hunger-triggering foods, and understand how meal timing influences whether calories are burned as fuel or stored as fat. By understanding how your current eating habits affect your weight, you can achieve effective weight loss, better energy, and improved mood.
Lets's Get Started
- The Science of Hunger
- Your Microbiome’s Impact on Weight and Cravings
- How Processed Foods Hijacked Your Health
- Transform Knowledge into Action: 5 Essential Habits for Weight Loss
- Choose Whole Foods Avoid Processed Foods
- Fuel Weight Loss with Healthy Fats and Protein
- Carbs and Fiber Belong Together
- Time your Meals
- Use Your Gut to Reset Cravings
The Science of Hunger
Popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy work by stimulating the satiety hormone GLP-1, which helps reduce appetite. However, GLP-1 is just one of several hormones that control hunger and satiety. Imagine what you could achieve naturally by choosing foods that stimulate these hormones and avoiding those that trigger hunger.
More than six hormones control our hunger: leptin, ghrelin, peptide YY (PYY), cholecystokinin (CCK), insulin, and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). You don’t have to memorize their names, but note that foods high in fats and proteins trigger your satiety hormones CCK, GLP-1, and PYY. These hormones promote a feeling of fullness and prolong it by delaying gastric emptying.
Healthy fats and proteins are satiating because they trigger satiety hormones and delay gastric emptying, keeping you full longer. Studies show that consuming calories from healthy proteins and fats, especially earlier in the day, leads to fewer calories consumed over 24 hours. The more we choose satisfying foods, the less we tend to eat.
So, healthy fats and proteins reduce overall calorie intake, but what about carbs? Well, it depends on two factors: 1) how rapidly their sugar is broken down 2) how much fiber they contain.
Let’s compare blueberries and glazed donuts. One cup of blueberries contains 100 calories, whereas 100 calories of a glazed donut is just one-third of a donut.
Imagine eating 1 cup of blueberries or 1/3 of a glazed donut. Which would make you feel fuller? Most people feel fuller with 1 cup of blueberries. Why? Because your satiety hormones—CCK, PYY, and GLP-1—are not only triggered by fats and proteins but also by the stretching of your stomach and intestines. One cup of blueberries will stretch your stomach more than 1/3 of a donut.
Adding a tablespoon of organic whipping cream (50 calories of healthy satiating fat) to blueberries, further boosts satiety. So, 150 calories from blueberries and cream versus two-thirds of a glazed donut. Same calories, big difference in satiety.
Unfortunately, refined carbs not only fail to satiate you but also stimulate your hunger hormones. Without fiber, your body rapidly absorbs the sugar in a donut within 15-30 minutes, causing a sharp rise in blood sugar. This forces your body to release insulin to manage the high sugar levels by converting it into fat for storage. The insulin spike often overshoots, causing a drop in blood sugar, which triggers the release of ghrelin, your hunger hormone, making you hungry again. Additionally, refined carbs can damage leptin, a key hormone that regulates appetite and energy balance. Leptin signals to your brain that you have enough energy stored in your fat cells, curbing hunger. However, a refined carb diet can lead to leptin resistance, where the brain doesn’t respond appropriately to leptin signals, resulting in increased hunger and overeating.
Main Points:
- Fats and Proteins Satiate: They help you feel full by triggering satiety hormones and delaying gastric emptying, leading to decreased calorie intake.
- Fiber-Rich Carbs Satiate: Carbs with sugars bound in fiber provide satiety by slowly releasing sugars and stretching your stomach and intestines.
- Refined Carbs Increase Hunger: They trigger hunger hormones, increase fat storage, and damage critical appetite-regulating hormones like leptin.
Your Microbiome's Impact on Weight and Cravings
Your gut microbiome, a collection of trillions of microorganisms, plays a crucial role in influencing your cravings, mood, and overall health. Each microbe has its preferred food, and sugar-loving bacteria, like yeast, thrive on high-sugar diets. The more sugar and refined carbs you consume, the more these organisms flourish, creating a feedback loop that drives sugar cravings via your gut/brain axis.
The exciting part? Within weeks of reducing sugar intake, the sugar-craving bacteria in your mouth and gut begin to die off, and your sugar cravings subside.
An unhealthy microbiome impacts your mood because your gut makes over 80% of serotonin, a mood-regulating neurotransmitter. Improve your microbiome, improve your mood, and reduce emotional eating.
A healthy microbiome helps you absorb fewer calories by consuming some itself. For example, gut microbes can consume about 30 out of every 100 calories from walnuts. In contrast, refined carbs, stripped of fiber, are quickly absorbed in the stomach or small intestine, leaving nothing for your microbiome, which mainly resides in the large intestine. When starved, your microbiome starts consuming the protective mucus barrier of your intestines. This loss allows microbes to contact your intestinal lining directly, leading to a leaky gut and chronic inflammation. An unhealthy microbiome is a major cause of chronic inflammation.
Key Points:
- Your microbiome determines your cravings and mood. Change your microbiome, change your cravings, and improve your mood.
- A healthy microbiome consumes some of your calories, leaving fewer for you to absorb.
How Processed Foods Hijacked Your Health
We’ve evolved to thrive on whole foods—natural, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, naturally raised meat, nuts, and seeds. These foods balance hunger and satiety while nourishing a healthy microbiome. Processed foods, however, disrupt these natural processes, leading to numerous health issues.
A primary culprit in processed foods is hidden sugars, appearing under names like sucrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, lactose, brown sugar, cane sugar, cane juice, molasses, agave nectar, maple syrup, honey, barley malt, caramel, fruit juice concentrates, evaporated cane syrup, invert sugar, turbinado sugar, muscovado sugar, rice syrup and more. Remember, these sugars spike your blood sugar (triggering your hunger hormones) and feed sugar-loving microbes in your gut, perpetuating cravings for more sugar.
Processed foods also contain additives that harm health. Preservatives like sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate damage the microbiome, while emulsifiers like carrageenan and xanthan gum alter gut barriers and promote inflammation, potentially leading to weight gain and metabolic issues.
Moreover, processed foods contain pro-inflammatory fats, particularly seed oils like canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, and safflower. These cheap, shelf-stable oils are high in omega-6 fatty acids, which foster chronic inflammation, disrupt leptin sensitivity (the hormone that signals satiety), reduce insulin sensitivity, and promote fat storage.
Key Points:
- Whole foods support balanced hunger and a healthy microbiome.
- Processed foods spike blood sugar, increase cravings, damage your satiety hormones and contain harmful additives and fats that damage the microbiome and increase inflammation.
Transform Knowledge into Action: 5 Essential Habits for Weight Loss
Are you ready to turn your understanding of hunger, satiety, and cravings into practical steps for successful weight loss? Here are five essential habits to harness the power of science to achieve your goals.
1) Focus on Food Quality: Choose Whole Foods Over Processed Foods
Instead of counting calories, prioritize the quality of your ingredients. Foods with longer ingredient lists are more processed. Replace these with delicious, satisfying whole foods for better health and effective weight loss.
Action Steps:
- Read Ingredients: Choose foods with minimal labels. Whole foods don’t need labels! Avoid foods with long ingredient lists and unpronounceable ingredients.
- Shop the Perimeter: Focus on fresh produce, meats, dairy, soy, nuts, and seeds found on the supermarket’s outer edges. Make these your main shopping zones.
- Replace Processed Treats: Make a list of delicious, whole foods you’ve avoided due to calorie content and make them your go-to snacks. Enjoy cheese or roasted salted nuts. Swap chips for tamari-roasted almonds, salted pistachios or olives. Replace sweets with fresh berries, organic full-fat yogurt, or a dollop of organic whipping cream. Keep your chocolate over 70% to get more fat and cocoa (healthy) and less sugar.
- Easy Access: Keep healthy snacks like dried fruits and nuts readily available, and avoid keeping junk food in your house.
- Make Smart Choices When Eating Out: Opt for restaurants known for using fresh, whole ingredients. Look for farm-to-table, organic, or health-focused establishments.
2) Fuel Weight Loss with Healthy Fats and Protein
Healthy fats and proteins trigger our satiety hormones and are key to feeling full and satisfied. Contrary to popular belief, saturated fats found in whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meats, coconut and dark chocolate do not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yes, you read that right. According to the latest meta-analysis by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, “reducing saturated fat intake has not shown beneficial effects on heart disease or overall mortality and may even protect against stroke.”
While saturated fats can raise LDL cholesterol, they increase the larger, more buoyant, less harmful LDL particles vs the small, dense LDL particles associated with increased cardiovascular disease. Plus, reducing saturated fats can lower HDL (good cholesterol), and it’s the LDL/HDL ratio and triglyceride levels that are more critical for heart health.
Action Steps:
- Choose High-Quality Meats and Organic Dairy: Grass-fed, organic, humanely raised, and wild meats are free from growth hormones and antibiotics (which can disrupt your microbiome and damage your satiety hormones). Grass-fed meat and dairy are higher in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids versus grain-fed, which are higher in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.
- Cook with Healthy Oils: Use avocado oil for high-temperature cooking, and olive oil for salads and low to medium-temperature cooking. Be liberal with olive oil on salads and baked veggies to promote satiety.
- Avoid Processed Foods with Unhealthy Fats and Proteins: Processed foods contain unhealthy fats such as canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, and safflower oils. Avoid processed meats like most deli sausages, deli meats, and any foods with long ingredient lists.
- Avoid Low-Fat Substitutes: Avoid low-fat yogurts, skim milk, and low-fat cheeses. They are more processed, contain extra ingredients that can damage your microbiome, and do not promote satiety.
- Promote Microbiome Diversity with Variety: To cultivate a diverse microbiome, aim for a variety of healthy fats and proteins. Include nuts, seeds, fatty fish, eggs, full-fat dairy, and minimally processed plant-based meat substitutes such as soy, lentils, and mushrooms.
- Protein Intake Guidelines: Aim for 1-2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. While higher protein intake can help increase muscle mass, be mindful that high intake of animal protein, particularly processed meats, has been linked to an increased risk of certain cancers. Conversely, higher protein intake in older adults may have protective effects due to age-related metabolic changes.
3) Carbs and Fiber Belong Together
Choose carbs with high fiber content to nourish your microbiome and trigger satiety.
Key Steps:
- Increase Fibrous Carbs: Select fiber-rich carbs like fruits, vegetables, beans, and lentils to promote satiety and gut health. Aim to eat 30 different fruits and veggies per week to create a diverse microbiome. Eat the Rainbow.
- Reduce Grain Intake: Most grains we eat are processed unless we consume the whole wheat berry or oat seed. Opt for less processed whole grains like brown rice and quinoa, and avoid overcooking them. Reduce pasta in your meals and replace it with more olive oil, veggies, and meat to boost satiety and reduce processed carb intake. Keep your pasta Al dente to slow down sugar uptake.
4) Time your Meals
Eating late at night disrupts sleep, reduces next-day energy, interferes with hormones like leptin and ghrelin, and increases hunger. This leads to weight gain as food is stored as fat due to lower metabolic rates during sleep. To optimize your weight loss:
- Avoid Eating Early and Late: Don’t eat within the first hour of waking up, and finish your last meal at least 3 hours before bed.
- Consider Time-Restricted Feeding: This effective weight loss strategy can help regulate your metabolism and has been shown to increase weight loss and overall health. (learn more here)
5) Use your Gut to Reset Cravings
Did you know that transplanting a gut microbiome from a thin person into an overweight person can lead to weight loss? This demonstrates just how powerfully your gut microbes influence your cravings.
Change your diet, and within days, your gut microbiome starts to transform. Most microbes live only a few days, so in just 2-4 weeks of cutting down on sugar and processed foods, you’ll begin to notice changes. Your taste sensitivity sharpens, your taste buds resensitize to sugar, and those sugar-loving microbes die off. Soon, processed foods will taste overly sweet and unsatisfying.
Key Steps:
- Cut Sugar Completely: The stricter you are about eliminating sugar, the quicker you’ll kill off sugar-loving microbes and resensitize your taste buds.
- Take the Challenge: Avoid all processed foods, refined carbs, and added sugars for 3-4 weeks. This means no sugar or honey in your coffee/tea and no fruit juices or sodas.
- See the Difference: In just 4 weeks, you’ll likely notice positive changes in your cravings, energy, and mood. These changes will motivate you to keep going.
- Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth Naturally: Enjoy dehydrated fruits, 70% dark chocolate, coconut yogurt, or homemade cocoa, coconut, and date balls with no added sugar or artificial flavours.
Challenge yourself to Transform.
Can you commit to 4 weeks of change? Clear out processed foods and sugars from your home and fill your kitchen with whole, healthy fats, proteins, low-glycemic carbs, and tasty, nutritious snacks.
Add exercise, including resistance training, as muscles burn fat even at rest. As your cravings decline and your energy and mood improve, you’ll start seeing results. This will motivate you to continue, making your weight loss journey easier.
Use science to make your weight loss journey simpler. Start your transformation now and experience the powerful cycle of looking better and feeling better.
References
- Saturated Fats and Health: A Reassessment and Proposal for Food-Based Recommendations: JACC State-of-the-Art Review. JACC. 2020 Aug, 76 (7) 844–857.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.05.077
- Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Foods. Robert Lustig MD
- Change your Diet Change your Mind Georgia Ede MD
- Diets https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2211889
- The impact of food order on postprandial glycaemic excursions in prediabetes.https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.13503
- Chronic Inflammation: Science-Based Insights and 8 Steps to Reduce it.
- Resynching Circadian Rhythms: Your Gatewayt to Optimal Health
