Study Finds Your Body Fights to Add Weight After Weight Loss

The world is facing an obesity epidemic, and many people who diet and gain back weight blame themselves for lack of self-control or not exercising enough. A new study based on the contestants of the hit show “The Biggest Loser” has shown that the body actively slows down its metabolism after weight loss, in an effort to add pounds back on. There is also the problem of falling leptin levels – leptin is a hormone that controls hunger. With weight loss comes a drastically reduced level of leptin, which leads people to be hungry more often. These two factors combined explain why people who lose weight, whether it’s 10 or 200 pounds, often gain back what they lost, sometimes even gaining more weight. The study will provide some relief for the people who are beating themselves up for their weight gain following a weight loss, and will also provide some direction for research into this issue. We now know our bodies want to gain back the weight, the question is how do we stop biology?

Students in Hawaii Recover Food and Donate to the Homeless

Last year, I interviewed Ben Simon, the Founder of the Food Recovery Network, who started a program at the University of Maryland, to collect all of the leftover food from his campus, and deliver it to homeless shelters. Well the program has been a huge success, not only at the University of Maryland, but across the country, and now it has made it all the way to Hawaii! Students at the University of Hawaii-Manoa formed the UHM Food Recovery Network, and are taking all their unsold university food and donating it to their local homeless shelter. The idea is spreading to the other University of Hawaii campuses, and the number of volunteers is skyrocketing. A 13 year old who heard the organization leaders speak was so inspired, she started a scrap garden project – collecting discarded produce and planting it! We love to hear these stories, and hope people across the nation are inspired to start their own Food Recovery Network chapters.

The Vegan Burger For Meat Eaters

A few weeks ago, at the Chefs Collaborative Summit in NYC, The restaurant Bareburger, served up the Impossible Burger, as one of our lunch courses. The Impossible Burger is a vegan burger that will be debuted in restaurants across the country in July, and it could change the way Americans view plant-based foods. The purpose of the Impossible Burger is to show non-vegans that a plant-based burger can look and taste like their normal burger, but be good for their health, the environment, and animal welfare. When I ate the burger, I was a little weirded out, because it looked so much like a meat burger, and the consistency and taste reminded me of my memory of what a burger was like. It was hard to believe it wasn’t the real thing! I think you meat lovers out there will love this! The burger uses ingredients like coconut oil and potato protein to emulate a real burger, to encourage meat eaters to embrace foods that benefit the whole planet. More and more people are learning that reducing their meat and dairy consumption benefits their wellness, pockets, and environment, so options like this will hopefully be welcomed with open arms.