health
Nutrition and diet
I'm just asking
Is our body balancing on its own after a week of overeating?
When we asked Dr. Goren the weekly question, we really expected a more encouraging answer, and we certainly did not think there was a chance we would carry the weight of Passover until Rosh Hashanah, but there is no point in denying the truth (and weight), so here's all you must know
Tags
I'm just asking
Passover
obesity
diet
Dr. Idan Goren
Friday, 02 April 2021, 07:01 Updated: 07:23
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on general
Share on general
Share on Twitter
Share on Email
0 comments
The weight gain on the holiday is fast, the loss - less.
Illustration of weight (Photo: ShutterStock)
Periods of holidays, such as Passover, almost always include increased eating along with a decrease in physical activity.
This is true not only here in Israel, so it is not surprising that researchers around the world have tried to test whether even a short period of overeating and decreased physical activity is detrimental to health, and whether our body has a "base" weight that it returns to even when we exaggerate.
Here's all they've discovered.
More on Walla!
health
How do you get back to a healthy body after a whole year at home?
To the full article
Can the pounds we gain on the holiday even go down without a diet?
Yes, but slowly.
Naturally our body strives to return to its base weight, but after holiday periods it may sometimes take several months.
A 2016 American study published in the prestigious journal The New England Journal of Medicine and following 1,781 participants for an entire year, found that after the holidays there was a rapid and significant weight gain.
The weight loss, however, was slower.
In the study, the average person lost half the excess weight gained during the holiday during the following month, while the weight returned to baseline up to five months later.
This means that for a great many people, the weight they gained on Passover will return to base only towards Rosh Hashanah.
How does overeating on holidays affect our body?
The combination of temporary overeating and decreased physical activity has been tested in several studies.
Researchers found that just three days of increased eating (1.5 times the basic caloric intake) and limited exercise of up to 1,500 steps per day, resulted in a decrease in insulin sensitivity, a condition that characterizes type 2 diabetes.
Even 3 days of increased eating greatly affect the body.
Matzah with chocolate (Photo: ShutterStock)
A similar study that examined a moderate increase of 1.25 times in energy consumption and a decrease in structured exercise, also led after three days to a similar effect.
This means that increased eating during a holiday week, especially if you add more celebrations for dessert, is enough to impair metabolism, at least in the short term.
Is there a way to avoid this harm to health?
Because it is difficult to get through the holiday without eating, the important question is whether these metabolic changes that occur during the holiday can be overcome.
The answer to that is actually yes.
A study examining the effect of strenuous exercise at the end of a day of increased eating, has shown that such activity may balance the negative effects of overeating.
More on Walla!
health:
Why does matzah cause abdominal pain and what to do with it?
Did you go back to training?
Here are 4 rules you must keep in mind
5 unhealthy habits we have adopted and it is time to get rid of them
The perfect gift for a holiday without pain: Bee Cure laser in a special sale
A 2013 study examining the impact of exercise once a day, in parallel with increased food intake, shows that this strategy had significant physiological benefits even when participants consumed thousands of calories more than burned.
The study involved 26 healthy young people who were asked not to engage in daily activities and increase their caloric intake by 50 percent.
Half of the group practiced once a day walking on a treadmill for 45 minutes.
After only one week of overeating, the adverse effects on the bodies of all participants included poor control of blood sugar levels during fasting and expression of genes in fat cells leading to unhealthy metabolic changes.
However, these negative effects were considerably less among those who exercised.
The bottom line is that even a short period of over-calorie intake and reduction in exercise leads to very profound negative changes in a variety of physiological systems.
At the same time, a combination of daily exercise can significantly prevent most of these negative changes.
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on general
Share on general
Share on Twitter
Share on Email
0 comments