I came across this great article and wanted to pass it on:

Hey, you. Up there. I know you don't expect to hear from me except around meal times, but there's lots about me you don't know. You think I'm a troublemaker who sabotages your diet and makes you look bad in a bikini. You think I always complain: too full, too empty, too spicy. OK, I see your point. But hear me out - I do more for you than you know.

I work nonstop, with no breaks, and I usually pull a double on holidays. I kill bacteria lurking in food to protect you from disease. And most importantly, I help convert the food you eat into fuel for everything you do. So give me a little credit, and cut out the pinching already - it's not going to make me flatter.

Besides, those rolls you call your "Buddha belly" aren't me. I'm high up in the abdomen, under the bottom of your rib cage, a little to the left. I'm not as big as you think - only about 30cm long and 10 to 25cm wide when empty. I can stretch to hold up to 3L of food - pretty impressive, huh? That's why you need to unbutton your jeans after stuffing yourself silly. But don't blame me for your muffin top - that's fat padding your abdomen.

Believe it or not, my size has nothing to do with yours. Stomach's dimensions are predetermined by genetics and we don't grow in proportion to our owners. That's why some svelte people can gulp down a lot of food without getting a gut. For instance, 45kg Sonya Thomas, a competitive eater most famous for downing 39 hot dogs in 12 minutes, regularly defeats men four to five times her size. I sure don't envy her stomach.

So here's what I'm doing while you're tucking into pancakes: the upper section of my bean-shaped body, or fundus, serves as a pantry, storing food until it travels through my central region, the corpus, to be processed by my lower half, or antrum. That's where the digestion work takes place. And it is work. I have to flex my muscles (yes, I have muscles!) in a rhythmic, agitating motion, like a washing machine, to mix food with acid and digestive juices that break it into its basic components: proteins, sugars and fats.

It's a big job, but I have help from 35 million acid-secreting glands in my lining. On a normal day, I produce 2 to 3L of gastric juices. Dropping all that acid (hey, a little stomach humour!) doesn't just help with digestion; it also kills bacteria, protecting you from infection. Normally, a healthy layer of mucus over my lining keeps me safe from the acid's harmful effects but, from time to time, you aggravate that layer - with a bacterial infection, or by popping aspirin tablets like they're M&Ms - and acid can erode through. Too much of that kind of damage could mean - gulp - an ulcer. Every stomach's worst nightmare.

Anyway, after I've churned the food into a mushy mixture called chyme, I squeeze it every 20 seconds through the pyloric sphincter - a strong ring of smooth muscle at the end of my food-passing canal - into the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. It takes me several hours to work through a meal and, if it's really big or fatty, I have to put in overtime.

The only time I ever stop is when your brain releases the stress hormone cortisol. That "fight-or-flight" response either shuts down digestion, making me feel full of butterflies, or speeds it up to the point that you feel sick.

When I'm completely empty, you'll feel those contractions as hunger pangs, which I jump-start by releasing ghrelin - the "hunger hormone" - into your blood. Your brain sends me signals so I secrete this hormone. You might hear those contractions, too - an empty stomach amplifies the rumbles. The other noises I make are just normal digestion. I'll sound off for 10 to 20 minutes while I'm digesting food, and then again every one to two hours until your next meal. Sorry I don't always have the best timing (I forgot you had that romantic evening planned last week). But I'm not alone in the noisemaking; your small intestine gets rowdy too: as food makes its way to the large intestine, it pushes air and liquid around in your bowels and that causes all those gurgling sounds.

If you really want me to quiet down, steer clear of Krispy Kreme stores. Your brain releases ghrelin to tip me off the second you see or smell food so I can get my juices flowing in preparation. And I especially like sugar. In fact, I have some of the same sweet-detecting proteins as your tongue. I use them to help regulate insulin production and appetite. I can't exactly "taste" sugar like your tongue does, but sweetness makes me rev up the release of hormones that make you feel happy.

And please remember - while you might notice the difference between diet and regular, I can't. I'll react to artificial sweeteners as if they're the real thing: by wanting more. That's why every time you down a Diet Coke, you crave a chocolate biscuit.

When you eat too much, I feel it. I help kick-start the release of leptin, the hormone that tells you you're full and induces nausea. It's my way of saying "Stop!" So give me a chance to say it before you wolf down seconds. A third of what you eat is processed in about 20 minutes, so if you take the time to chew, you'll leave the table before you overdo it. Too many super-sized meals can desensitise my stretch receptors, the ones that let your brain know I'm maxed out, and then it'll take a lot more food to make me feel full next time.

The good news is that if you eat smaller meals for a while, I'll get used to reasonable portions again and feel full on less. Just don't cut back too far. I'm no fan of being empty, and when you don't feed me enough, I have no choice but to let loose more ghrelin. That can send you craving junk food - and neither of us wants that. Let's strike a bargain: don't let me get empty, and I'll go easy on the "Feed me, Seymour" dramatics. Just keep small, healthy meals coming throughout the day.

You can help by choosing foods that take me longer to digest. Protein's good, so eat fish, chicken, lean beef, eggs and skim milk. Fibre-rich foods, especially those mixed with water, like brown rice and oatmeal, tend to stick around a while too. I generally go through other carbs faster. They subdue ghrelin, but only temporarily - and when it bounces back, it's with a vengeance, making you more ravenous than you were before you ate. Even worse is overloading on fats. They're the least efficient at suppressing ghrelin, so try to avoid giving me a whole lot of them.

Unfortunately, I stink at maths, so it's up to you to count kilojoules. It's all the same to me, whether you fill me up with hot chips or salad, because I react to volume, not density. I don't know how much fat is in those fries, but I do know they aren't going to keep me happy for as long as, say, some fresh fruit.

And while we're on the subject, in case you've been thinking about diet aids, let me make up your mind for you: fat substitutes and fat-blockers go right through me. Mess with them and you may be able to finish War and Peace on the dunny. These products work by preventing enzymes from breaking down fat, so it gets eliminated with other waste instead of ending up on your thighs. But urgent bowel movements, diarrhoea, and gas with horrible oily spotting come with the territory. Not fun.

Well, thanks for listening.

I think we make a pretty good team, you and I. I'll keep expanding to meet your needs, sterilising your grub, and churning it into your intestines, if you keep me full of protein and fibre, stop eating when I'm full and steer clear of fad diets. Maybe this year we can even enjoy wearing a bikini together.

Is your belly gender-biased? Click here to find out. 

 

 

http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/womens-health/1902/listen-to-your-gut/