Sydney Morning Herald - 2/3 page article on cpap

[Guest]

If your fat your fat

Not to nitpick, but that should be "If you're fat you're fat". "Your" is possessive, whereas "You're" means "You are".

As for diet soda, steer clear of aspartame, also known as Nutrasweet. The controversy over its safety is still raging at the moment, but there's enough worrisome data currently in existence to easily justify totally avoiding it, in my opinion.

[ehusen]

Yeah, I hear you. I'm a bit concerned over Aspertame, Splenda, etc.

Sometimes it seems the only safe thing is tap water, and even that is questionable.

I wonder if I'm choosing between brain cancer or a heart attack sometimes.

But it's very difficult to try and find tasty lo-cal "safe" food items in today's world. And time is always a consideration too. So I do what I can and try to avoid some of the bad stuff without getting too stressed about it.

"My doctor told me I had to reduce my stress or it will kill me. That's the most stressful thing I've ever heard..."

[Xian]

On the subject of the relationship between body weight and sleep quality, I think it is generally agreed upon that lack of sleep is associated with weight gain, via a number of mechanisms:
- Chemical imbalance: the hormones or neurotransmitters that are responsible for telling your brain "you are full" after a decent amount of food is grossly lacking in people with sleep deficiency. So they tend to eat larger portions to fill 'full"
- It takes more energy for the sleep deprived body to stay awake, and the craving goes to food with rapid energetic "value" (simple sugars, sweets, snacky foods in general... full sugar soft drinks?). It's about survival!
- Of course, it is much harder to find the energy to exercise
- Lack of sleep and not being able to "function", the fear of loosing job, relationships etc. cause anxiety and depression, which in turns send those hormones/neurotransmitters out of whack and, often result in over-eating (few react with loss of appetite, which is not any better anyway)

and I may be forgetting a few... along with a number of other factors responsible for weight gains, not associated with lack of sleep (metabolic rate, hormonal deficiencies etc…)

Of course, the question is still out there: which came first, the weight or OSA? Perhaps, just perhaps, mild overweight leads to OSA in pre-disposed people (with the right/wrong throat/jaw configuration) and it snow-balls from there??? And of course, the fact that some people who are not overweight but have OSA tells me that OSA can come first… (why they do not become overweight should probably be studied!)

I believe "liking to eat" is never a good reason to be overweight, obese or morbidly obese. Something else has to be the cause for the body to self destruct....Same goes to any other self destructive behaviors (I like a drink once in a while, but I am not an alcoholic, I know when to stop; I like sex once in a while, but I am not going to put myself in danger for it and I am not a sex-addict etc, etc...). No-one argues that you do get fat by over eating for your size and level of activity. The reason why is far more complex, and I am convince lack of quality sleep has a lot to do with it for a lot of people… My humble opinion!

[blowfish]

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[Xian]

On artificial sweeteners: look for the new line of products from Coca Cola with Stevia extracts, a non-caloric natural sweetener about 200 sweeter than sugar. (See a wall street journal announcement today.. sorry, I only have a paper copy). Of course you will probably have to go to Japan to get it, but hey!

Stevia is not currently approved as a food additive in the US or Europe because there are still some controversies on old clinical studies on rats but I believe most experts dispute them and look at clean epidemiology data instead (this plant has been eaten in South America, Asia, etc. for a very long time...) Coca Cola is confident enough to spend millions of dollars on a new clinical study on people, I believe. (Of course, we need to believe in the FDA to regulate ethically...)

Today, Stevia is approved as a supplement and you can find it at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and other "health stores"... (Conveniently packaged like sugar!)

As usual, good quality water and a diverse diet from food grown locally and organically is probably best. But who has the time and the money for that, and where would the fun be???

Again, my humble opinion!

PS: I do not work for Coca Cola, or Cargill, the manufacturer of Stevia!

[blowfish]

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[soulfixinman]

I have been using Stevia as a sweetner for about 2 years now,

here is a link to the site I bought mine from
it contains much info about Stevia and loosing weight in general.

A great drink I enjoy is the juice of a half a lemon in water and a pinch of Stevia, instant no sugar lemonade.
Stevia is also great in tea but not coffee,

another no fat breakfast I sometimes have is
one half a large container of Danon no fat yogurt
mix in a pinch of Stevia to sweeten the no fat yogurt
and then I mix in a cut up apple

http://www.steviva.com/archive/mbs052907.htm

[JimW]

Some folks may want to be careful with the use of stevia. My daughter has read that it can increase insulin production, and seems to find this for herself. She has a fair degree of insulin resistance, and does not feel well when she uses stevia.

As for Aspartame, my sister-in-law tells of meeting one of the developers of this at an airport; he told her he wouldn't use it himself, based on his knowledge.

Regarding soda or pop, folks might want to look at its impact on demineralizing bones, amongst other side effects.