A Q&A with Dr Marilyn Glenville- leading nutritional specialist in women’s health

By Editor1SYS | May 11, 2013 0 Comments

Q – So if people have fat around their middle – why don’t they just diet and exercise…it works for most people? If they have fat around the middle surely it’s their own fault?

Millions of years ago, our bodies were designed to react quickly to danger.  Like wild animals we were on constant alert so we could run or fight if threatened. When your brain thinks your life is in danger it stimulates the release of adrenaline and cortisol

This fight or flight response is incredibly clever and thoroughly efficient. It provides instant energy for 5-10 minutes allowing you to react swiftly to dangerous situations.

These days, many of us live under chronic stress.   But our bodies can’t distinguish between late trains, missed appointments, spiralling debt, infuriating work colleagues, family disputes and the truly life-threatening stress it gears up to challenge. So it reacts exactly the same as it’s always done.

The problem with many modern lifestyles is that stress (our ‘perceived threat’) is almost continuous and comes without the natural release that either fighting or fleeing might provide. Unless you do something physical (as your body is expecting you to) all that extra energy, in the form of fat and glucose, has nowhere to go. It must be simply re-deposited as fat.

After a stressful event cortisol levels in the blood often remain high for a while, effectively increasing your appetite because your body thinks you should refuel after all this fighting or fleeing. This means people under constant stress quite often feel constantly hungry. Worse, their body urges them to stock up on the foods it thinks will be most useful after all that ‘activity’ – carbohydrates (like sugar) and fats.

It’s just the sort high-sugar, high-fat comfort and convenience food many people crave.

If you don’t fight or flee when your body expects you to, the fat and glucose swimming around your system get deposited as fat – around the middle of your body. And if you eat something sugary or fatty as a consequence of the post-stress appetite surge, any weight you gain as a result, will be around your middle too.

The reason fat targets the middle is because it is close to the liver where it can most quickly be converted back into energy if needed.  There it provides the body with protection ready for the next stress attack.

Your body is only trying to help. To continue providing the energy it thinks you need, it tries to keep a convenient fat store ready for constant use and creates cravings and increases appetite to ensure good supplies of necessary fuel.

Exercise or physical activity has never been more important. If you have fat around the middle of your body caused, in part, by the activity of your stress hormones, exercise MUST become one of your priorities. By simply making time for exercise in your life, you can control the potentially damaging effects of the fight or flight response.

Build muscle

Muscle is metabolically active. This means it requires fuel in the form of calories just to maintain it even when you are sitting doing nothing.  So the more muscle you have, the more calories you use up, and, if you don’t overeat, the more fat you will burn.

This is one of the infuriating reasons why men tend to find it easier to lose weight than women – they generally have more muscle than women.

Weight gain with age

It is sad, but true that we all tend to gain weight as we get older. One of the main reasons is that we lose muscle.  After the age of 40, women can start to lose about 230g (½lb) of muscle a year. So over ten years between 40 and 50, most of us will have lost 5lbs of muscle.   As muscle mass decreases, our metabolism become increasingly sluggish. Let’s face it; we all also tend to get less active as we get older so this inactivity will only add to the problem. With less muscle and less activity weight is likely to pile on as fat.

What kind of exercise is best?

In order to lose that fat around the middle, you need to do a combination of interval and resistance training. The aim is to use exercise to help burn off fat AND to build muscle which helps you burn off even more fat faster.

 

Q – Is it just apple shapes who suffer from this?

For the purposes of measuring fat around the middle, the best test is the difference in size between your hips and your waist (your ‘waist to hip’). This is the true measure of fat around the middle and the best indicator of whether or not you are going to be vulnerable to all the health risks associated with it.

Just get a tape measure and compare your waist measurement (at the narrowest point) with your hip measurement (at the widest point). Divide your hip figure by your waist figure to get what is known as your waist–hip ratio.

 For example: 86cm (34in) waist divided by 94cm (37in) hip = 0.9

If your calculation gives a figure greater than 0.8 you are officially apple shaped and you need to take action. For men the danger zone is above 0.95.

Q – Is what you advocate hard to follow?  Is it a complicated control of diet or restrictive in lots of areas like the Dukan?

Follow this four pronged approach for three months to see a significant change in your body shape and as a consequence, it will dramatically improve your long term health.

1) eat healthily

2) take supplements

3) address stress

4) take exercise

 

Eating healthily – NOT dieting!

There is a chance that your pattern of eating is subconsciously telling your body that it is under stress.  If you restrict your diet or cut calories your body inevitably thinks there is a famine out there and that causes stress.  It will slow down your metabolism to hold on to your precious fat stores. Furthermore, if your blood sugar levels fluctuate (as they do for most women), your body will be releasing adrenaline which is the same hormone it releases when you are under stress. Once more it encourages your body to store fat.

The solution is to find a way of eating that tells your body all is well –and reassure it that is not under stress.

The 3-month eating plan

Aim to stick to the eating plan 80% of the time and allow yourself a 20% off for good behaviour (and human fallibilities!) and don’t talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods (it induces guilt). Instead try to think of foods as junk (unhealthy) and healthy foods.

Try to stick to these simple rules:

1) Stop dieting

Stop dieting (yes, really!) and don’t count calories, otherwise your body will think there’s a famine and raises stress levels (which contribute to fat storage)

2) Eat little and often

Try to keep your blood sugar levels and energy levels stable by eating something every three hours. Just eat breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a snack mid morning and one mid afternoon, with no longer than three hours between. Oh, and try not to eat carbohydrates after 6pm.

This will stop those roller-coaster highs and cravings for sweet foods.  Because your blood sugar isn’t allowed to drop, your body will no longer have to ask you for a quick fix. As the blood sugar steadies, so will the mood swings. As your cortisol levels reduce you will automatically start to happier and calmer inside.

3) Don’t skip breakfast

If you miss breakfast completely your body immediately registers famine and hangs on tight to your ample stores of fat.

4) Eliminate all sugar and refined carbohydrates

Avoid any foods that make your blood sugar rise quickly because as blood sugar drops again your body releases adrenaline and cortisol to stabilise it once more.  Swap to whole grain alternatives.

5) Add protein to each meal

Protein slows down the rate the stomach processes food and slows the passage of the carbohydrates with it. As soon as you add a protein (be it animal or vegetable) to a carbohydrate you change it into a slower releasing carbohydrate, which is a very good thing.

6) Eat essential fats

A lifelong dependency on low fat diets might mean you’re consuming less saturated fat, but most people today have unwittingly made themselves deficient in the good fats – essential fatty acids. As the name implies these essential fatty acids (EFAs) are essential.

Essential fats are so important as that they help you in a number of ways:

* They slow down the rate at which the stomach empties, so making carbohydrates even more slow-releasing

* They boost your metabolism

* They make you less insulin resistant

* They reduce inflammation

7) Don’t eat on the run

It gives your body the message that time is scarce, you are under pressure and stressed. Furthermore, your digestive system will be less efficient. Make a point of sitting down and eating your food as calmly as possible.

8) Watch what you drink

Cut out all caffeine and sugary drinks and significantly reduce alcohol intake (cut it out completely for a month if you can).

9) Change the way you think about food

If you’re really serious about changing your body shape you need to think about food and eating as a way of life so that healthy, enjoyable eating becomes a habit, something you do everyday without even thinking about it, just like cleaning your teeth.

Supplements

Because your body has been under this constant stress for so long it will usually need a bit of extra help to get its functioning back to normal, and to reassure it that it’s not under constant attack.  You can get this extra help in the form of supplements and herbs.

Chromium

One of the most important minerals for losing that apple shape is chromium.  This mineral is needed for the metabolism of sugar. It helps insulin take glucose into the cells. Without chromium, insulin is less effective at controlling blood sugar levels and glucose levels rise.

Magnesium

Known as ‘nature’s tranquilliser, magnesium calms the adrenal glands and helps balance blood sugar by contributing to the production and action of insulin. Diabetics are often deficient in magnesium.

Zinc

Zinc is an extremely important mineral, as it is needed for the production of stress hormones, insulin and sex hormones. Research has shown that supplementing with zinc helps control cortisol.

Vitamin C

We know that vitamin C is involved with glucose metabolism and that according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, people with diabetes have significantly lower concentrations of vitamin C, up to 30% lower. Vitamin C is crucial for adrenal gland function.  The more cortisol is made, the more vitamin C is used.

B vitamins

The B vitamins are known as the ‘stress’ vitamins and are important to take when working on nourishing and calming the adrenal function.   B vitamins also have an effect on blood sugar balance because they are needed for glucose metabolism.

Co-enzyme Q10

This vitamin-like substance is important for energy production and normal carbohydrate metabolism.  Co-enzyme Q10 helps shift fat around the middle because it releases energy by burning that fat. 

Co-enzyme Q10 also has a role in controlling blood sugar levels and helps to lower glucose and insulin, so improving insulin resistance.

Alpha Lipoic acid

Alpha lipoic acid is a powerful antioxidant that is made by the body and is a co-factor in vital energy-producing reactions.  Its role is to release energy by burning glucose.  The more glucose is burned, the less insulin the body has to release and so the body stores less fat.  Alpha lipoic helps makes tissues more sensitive to insulin so that insulin can do its job of moving glucose into the cells and not storing it as fat.

Amino Acids

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and a number are vital to losing fat around the middle because they can help to make cells more sensitive to insulin while others are important to help cushion the body against the effect of the stress hormones.  The most important ones are: N-acetyl cysteine, carnitine, tyrosine, arginine, glutamine, leucine, isoleucine and valine.

Herbs

There are a number of herbs which have a long history in helping with adrenal function and calming the body.  The herb of choice for the adrenal glands is Siberian ginseng. Siberian ginseng is classed as an adaptogen, which means that it works according to the body’s need – providing energy when required, and helping to combat stress and fatigue when pressure.  It helps to encourage the normal functioning of the adrenals and acts as a tonic to these glands.

To avoid having to purchase single supplements for all of the above and to make the process easier, I have formulated two supplements that contain all of the most important nutrients for losing that fat around the middle.  They are NHPs Nutri Support and NHPs Amino Support available from www.naturalhealthpractice.com.

Q – what led you to discover this solution?

It was from looking at the statistics on how women have changed shape over the last 50 odd years and asking why does fat gone on around the middle.  Because if we can find the cause of a problem we can solve it.

Research has shown that women in the UK are changing shape.  The traditional pear shape is being replaced by the apple – women have become generally taller and larger since the 1950s but it is waistlines that have ballooned enormously.  Women are fatter around the middle than they have ever been.

Compare the changes in height, bust and hips:

	1951	2004	Difference
Height	5ft 3in (1.6m)	5ft 4.5in (1.64m)	1.5in (3.8cm)
Bust	37in (94.0cm)	38.5in (97.8cm)	1.5in (3.8cm)
Hips	39in (99.1cm)	40.5in (102.9cm)	1.5in (3.8cm)
Waist	27.5 (69.9cm)	34in (86.4cm)	6.5in (16.5cm)

Source:  National Sizing Survey

So we have become generally taller and larger but there is an enormous difference between the 1.5in gain in height, bust and hips and the 6.5in gained on the waist.   There is no doubt that we have lost the traditional hourglass figure (synonymous with a pear shape) and women have become more apple shaped with all its health risks.

Dr Marilyn Glenville PhD is the UK’s leading nutritionist specialising in women’s health.  She is the Former President of the Food and Health Forum at the Royal Society of Medicine and the author of a number of internationally best selling books including ‘Natural Solutions to IBS’ and ‘Fat around the Middle’.  For more information go to www.marilynglenville.com.  Dr Glenville runs a number of women’s health clinics in London, Tunbridge Wells and Dublin. If you are interested in a consultation, you can contact Dr Glenville’s clinic on 0870 5329244 or by email: health@marilynglenville.com.