Most people who have tried to diet will tell you that losing weight is a tough business. The main reason people find it so hard to resist that extra slice of pizza of chocolate cake is because hundreds of thousands of years ago our brains were evolving in a time when food was scarce – our brains evolved to tell us that we needed to eat high calorie food as often as we could. However, the problem now is that we obviously do not live in a world where high calorie food is scarce. In fact, we live in a world where high calorie food is hugely abundant and easily available, and our brains have evolved to tell us to eat as much as possible (because it doesn’t know that the next meal is just around the corner!)
In the late 90’s scientists discovered a hormone that makes us feel hungry. It’s called “ghrelin”.
The walls of our stomach release this hormone where it then travels in the blood to the brain, where the brain detects it and tells our body we need to eat.
The interesting thing about ghrelin is that the stomach only releases it when the stomach is empty. It knows when our stomach is empty because the walls of the stomach are not stretched. If they are stretched (i.e. we are full) then the hormone is not released.
Pretty straightward so far isn’t it – a stretched stomach wall means you don’t feel hungry. Not too taxing…
At lunchtime, say you have a sandwich and a drink of water. This will fill your stomach up and therefore stretch the walls of the stomach, and therefore the hormone is not released, and therefore you won’t feel hungry. This will be the case for at least a couple of hours.
Now, something interesting happens if you blend the water and the food (make soup). You will fill fuller for longer. But why is that? You’ve had the same amount of food…
The reason is that if you drink the water and eat the food separately the stomach allows the water through quickly, but holds the food back so it can digest it. But, if you blend the water with the food, the whole lot is kept back, therefore keeping your stomach walls stretched further for longer, therefore no ghrelin is released and therefore your brain isn’t telling you to find food!
Very simple. Very effective. Eating soup at lunchtimes will help you lose weight because it will hold off those mid afternoon cravings!
For butternut squash soup recipes and other information on losing weight, click the link!