Lose Weight By Eating Soup
June 26, 2010 by Dave Tant
Filed under Lose Weight
Anyone trying to lose weight will tell you how difficult it is. In a way, it’s hard to blame people who cannot lose weight. The reason losing weight is difficult is because over the hundreds of thousands of years that we as humans have evolved our brains tell us to eat high calories food. This is because your brain still thinks we live in a cave where food is scarce. In our modern world however, the opposite is true. We live in a world of cheap, high calorie food, and our bodies have evolved to tell us to eat it!
In the late 90′s scientists discovered a hormone that makes us feel hungry. It’s called “ghrelin”.
This hormone is released by cells in the walls of our stomach. It then travels through in our blood to the brain, where the part of the brain monitoring hunger detects it. Once detected, it tells our body that we must eat.
The important thing with this cell though is that it is only released when the walls of our stomach are not stretched… i.e. when our stomachs are empty. If you are full (stomach wall stretched) then the hormone is not released.
Ok, so far so good – a stretched stomach means we won’t feel hungry because it’s full. Makes sense!
Let’s now look at a situation people find themselves in every day – lunchtime. You sit down and eat a ham sandwich and have a drink of water. This will keep you from feeling hungry for at least a hour or two.
Something funny happens when you blend the water with the food, i.e. you make soup – you end up feeling fuller for longer. How can this be when you have consumed 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 more info on butternut squash soup recipes and other information on losing weight, click the link. This article, Lose Weight By Eating Soup has free reprint rights.
