Listen to Your Gut!

The following article was sent to me by one of my WW members. I liked it and thought I'd share it with you....

Listen to Your Gut

The real story behind hunger pangs--straight from the source

Your Stomach, Reporting by Morgan Lord

Hey, you. Up there. Can we talk? I know you don't expect to hear from me except around mealtimes or after you've had Mexican food, but there's a lot about me you don't know. You think I'm a troublemaker who sabotages your diet and makes you look bad in a two-piece. You think I'm an ingrate who's always complaining: too full, too empty, too spicy, too many beans.

OK, I see your point. And maybe all the growling doesn't help my image. But hear me out: I do more for you than you know. I work nonstop, 24 hours a day, with no breaks, and I usually pull a double on holidays. I kill the bacteria lurking in your food to protect you from disease. And most important, I help convert the food you eat into fuel for everything you do, from washing the dishes to running a marathon. So give me a little credit, why don't you, and cut out the pinching already. That's never going to make me any flatter.

Besides, those rolls you like to grab and call your "Buddha belly" aren't me. I'm high up in the abdomen, under the bottom of your rib cage, a little to the left. I'm also not as big as you think--only about 12 inches long and four to 10 inches wide when I'm empty. I can stretch to hold up to three liters of food--pretty impressive, right? That's why you need to unbutton your pants after stuffing yourself silly (ahem, need I remind you of the Super Bowl?). But don't go blaming me for your muffin top. That's fat padding your abdomen, not me spreading out.

Believe it or not, my size actually has nothing to do with yours: Bellies' dimensions are predetermined by genetics, and we don't grow in proportion to our owners. That's why some very svelte people can gulp down a lot of food without getting a gut. For instance, 98-pound Sonya Thomas, a competitive eater most famous for downing 39 hot dogs in 12 minutes, regularly defeats men four to five times her size. I sure don't envy her stomach.

So here's what I'm doing while you're tucking into a plate of ribs: The upper section of my bean-shaped body, or fundus, serves as a pantry, storing food until it travels through my central region, the corpus, to be processed by my lower half, or antrum. That's where all the actual work of digestion takes place. And it is work. I have to flex my muscles (yes, I do have them! They form the muscularis, the third layer of about five I have) in a rhythmic, agitating motion, like a washing machine, to mix your food with acid and digestive juices that break it down into its basic components: proteins, sugars, and fats.

It's a big job, but I have help from the 35 million acid-secreting glands in my lining. On a normal day, I produce two to three liters of gastric juices. Dropping all that acid (hey, a little stomach humor!) doesn't just help with digestion; it also kills bacteria, protecting you from infection. Normally, a healthy layer of mucus over my lining keeps me safe from the acid's harmful effects, but from time to time, you aggravate that layer--with a bacterial infection, or by popping aspirin like it's Pez--and acid can erode through. Too much of that kind of damage could mean--gulp--an ulcer. Every stomach's worst nightmare.

Anyway, after I've churned the food into a nice, mushy mixture called chyme, I squeeze it every 20 seconds through the pyloric sphincter, a strong ring of smooth muscle at the end of my food-passing canal, into the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. It typically takes me several hours to work through an entire meal, and if it's really big or fatty, I have to put in overtime.

The only time I ever stop is when your brain releases the stress hormone cortisol. That "fight-or-flight" response either shuts down digestion completely, making me feel full of butterflies, or speeds it up to the point that you feel sick. That's what stress will do to you, though.

When I'm completely empty, you'll feel those contractions as hunger pangs, which I jump-start by releasing ghrelin into your bloodstream. Your brain sends me signals to make me secrete this hormone, known as the "hunger hormone."

You might hear those contractions, too--an empty stomach amplifies the rumbles. The other noises I make are just normal digestion. I'll sound off for 10 to 20 minutes while I'm digesting food, and then again every one to two hours until you down your next meal. Sorry I don't always have the best timing (I forgot you had that big presentation at work last week). But I'm not alone in the noisemaking; your small intestines get rowdy too: As food makes its way to the large intestine, it pushes air and liquid around in your bowels, and that causes all those gurgling sounds.

If you really want me to quiet down, steer clear of the break room on Krispy Kreme days. Your brain releases ghrelin to tip me off the second you see or smell food, so I can get my juices flowing in preparation. And I especially like sugar. In fact, I have some of the same sweet-detecting proteins that are in your tongue. I use them to help regulate insulin production and appetite. I can't exactly "taste" sugar the same way your tongue does, but sweetness does make me rev up the release of hormones that make you feel happy.

And please remember: While you might notice the difference between diet and regular, I can't. I'll react to artificial sweeteners as if they're the real thing: by wanting more. That's why every time you down a Diet Coke, you get a hankering for a brownie.

When you eat too much, I definitely feel it. I try to help kickstart the release of leptin, the hormone that tells you you're full and induces nausea. It's my way of saying "Stop!" So give me a chance to say it before you wolf down seconds. A third of what you eat is processed in about 20 minutes, so if you take the time to chew and enjoy your meal, you'll push yourself away from the table before you overdo it. That's good, because too many supersize meals can desensitize my stretch receptors, the ones that let your brain know I'm maxed out, and then it'll take a lot more food to make me feel full next time.

The good news is that unlike your boss, I respond well to sensitivity training. Eat smaller meals for a while, and I'll get used to more reasonable portions again and feel full on less food. Just don't cut back too far. I'm no fan of being empty, and when you don't feed me enough, I have no choice but to let loose more ghrelin. That can send you running for the junk-food aisle--and neither of us wants that. Let's strike a bargain: Don't let me get empty, and I'll go easy on the "Feed me, Seymour" dramatics. Just keep small, healthy meals coming throughout the day so I stay busy.

You can help by choosing foods that take me longer to digest. That includes protein: fish, chicken breast, lean beef, eggs, and skim milk. Fiber-filled foods, especially those mixed with water, like brown rice and oatmeal, tend to stick around a while too. In a pinch, other carbs will do, though I generally go through them a lot faster. They subdue ghrelin, but only temporarily--and when it bounces back, it's with a vengeance, making you more ravenous than you were before you ate. Even worse is overloading on fats. They are the least efficient at suppressing ghrelin, so try to avoid giving me a whole lot of them on a regular basis, unless you want to hear me grumble about it.

Unfortunately, I stink at math, so it's up to you to count calories. It's all the same to me, whether you fill me up with French fries or salad, because I react to volume, not density. I don't know how much fat is in those fries, but I do know they aren't going to keep me happy for as long as, say, some fresh fruit.

And while we're on the subject, I know you've been thinking about Alli, that over-the--counter diet aid. Well, let me make up your mind for you: Fat substitutes and fat-blockers, including olestra-filled foods like Wow potato chips and Alli, go right through me. Mess with them and you may be able to finish War and Peace on the john. These products work by preventing enzymes from breaking down fat, so it gets eliminated with other waste instead of ending up on your thighs. But urgent bowel movements, diarrhea, and gas with horrible oily spotting come with the territory. I think you've got better things to do with your time.

Well, thanks for -listening. I think we make a pretty good team, you and I. I'll keep expanding to meet your needs, sterilizing your grub, and churning it into your intestines if you keep me full of protein and fiber, stop eating when I'm full, and steer clear of crazy fad diets. Maybe this year we can even enjoy swimsuit season together.

Oh, and if you don't mind, grab a snack soon. It's getting a little lonely down here.

Sources: David E. Cummings, M.D., professor of medicine in the division of metabolism, endocrinology, and nutrition at the University of Washington; William Chey, M.D., professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at the University of Michigan Health System; Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., the author of 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet; Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and the author of Mindless Eating (mindlesseating.org) and Why We Eat More Than We Think.