New Diet Focuses On Boosting Serotonin Levels
Low-carb diets are so popular they can seem like the only way to go to drop the pounds, but two women are trying to show there's a better way to lose weight that includes carbs and improves your mood at the same time.
Kristine Sorensen talked with one of the authors of "The Serotonin Power Diet" about how and why it works. Dr. Nina Frusztajer explains that serotonin is a naturally-occurring brain chemical.
Her co-author, Dr. Judy Wurtman, discovered in her research at MIT that not only can serotonin make you feel good, it can shut off your appetite and stop those cravings.
Frusztajer says, "The weight loss program is based on harnessing the power of serotonin so you can eat less and lose weight."
The key to doing that is to eat carbohydrates. "Carbs set off a series of chemical reactions in your body that tell the brain to make more serotonin," Frusztajer says.
In their book, "The Serotonin Power Diet", Frusztajer and Wurtman explain in detail which carbs to eat and when. For example, eat more protein in the morning and more carbs at night when serotonin levels are naturally lower.
And you should eat low fat, non-fruit carbohydrate snacks between meals and after dinner.
"It can be nutritional foods, but the purpose of the snack is really to boost serotonin -- just an amount to take the edge off your appetite," Frusztajer says. "The serotonin diet really debunks the myth that eating carbs leads to weight gain. What we find is that carbohydrates enable weight loss because they result in a good mood and also shut off the appetite."
This all sounds too good to be true, and some dieticians are skeptical of how it works.
But Dr. Christine Mackey, an internist at Allegheny General, says no matter what the diet, research shows they all result in similar weight loss.
"The people who maintain that weight loss are the people who actually adhere to the diet, so it doesn't really seem to matter what diet you're on, as long as you stick with it and incorporate other healthful behaviors such as exercise," Mackey says.
Frusztajer says for their clients who follow the right portions and the right carbs at the right times, the serotonin power diet works.
"We have clients who say can sit down and eat entire bag of large size of Doritos, or walk in from work and can't stop eating for hours," Frusztajer says. "On this diet, they say for the first time, they are able to have a dinner and throughout the evening, they don't have the cravings anymore."
