Dr John Briffa's blog, A Good Look at Good Health — writing on food, cholesterol, weight, energy and the science behind everyday health, from the drbriffa.com archive. Filter by topic, browse by category, or search the library.
Healthy Eating
Conventional wisdom often dictates that we should eat three meals a day with nothing in between. The idea here is that snacks just add to our calorie intake, and therefore can only contribute to our body weight. However, I find in practice that for successful weight management, more frequent feeding is required. Regular eating can, […]
Exercise and Activity
Despite repeated calls for us to be more active in order to counter rising rates of overweight and obesity, the evidence suggests that activity has, generally speaking, very modest effects on body weight. I wrote quite recently about this here and here. Generally, two main reasons for why exercise does not promote significant weight loss […]
Weight Loss
Where weight loss is concerned, the maxim has traditionally be ‘slow and steady wins the day’. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that rapid weight loss generally leads to rapid weight regain too. Like a lot of nutritional ‘truths’ though, a recent study suggest that this meme is wildly misleading. If […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
There are a myriad of ways to lose weight, but I lean generally towards diets relatively low in carbohydrate and rich in fat. This is on the basis that such diets consistently out-perform diets explicitly low in fat in terms of weight loss. Also, such diets tend to, generally speaking, bring about desirable changes in […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
I was giving a presentation last night to a group of individuals of Indian sub-continent extraction. As a group, south Asians appear to be particularly prone to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. And judging by the expanded waistlines in the audience, this group were no difference. Part of my presentation focused on the potential […]
Weight Loss
The body mass index or ‘BMI’ (calculated by dividing someone’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters is the most commonly-used weight-related measure of health. The problem is, though, it’s virtually useless for this purpose. This is for two main reasons: 1. It tells us nothing about body composition. It is […]
Unhealthy Eating!
When it comes to weight (specifically fat) loss, I’m not into counting or consciously restricting them. I’ll come onto why in a moment. But before I do, I want to share the results of a recent study in which women ate in one or four ways [1]: 1. where individuals ate a diet which restricted […]
Men's Health
My 7th book, Waist Disposal – the Ultimate Fat Loss Manual for Men, has recently been published. The title of this book is pretty self-explanatory. The book provides comprehensive nutritional advice (naturally) on how to achieve meaningful, sustainable weight loss, but also includes information on exercise and psychology too. Information about the book here can […]
Sleep
In my blog yesterday I mentioned how a carbohydrate-rich diet can drive some people to overeat. High-carb foods tend to disrupt blood sugar levels in a way that can lead to episodes of low blood sugar that itself can trigger cravings for further carb-rich fare. Also, carbohydrate has relatively limited capacity to sate the appetite […]
Exercise and Activity
Some time ago one of my blogs focused on the thoughts of Dr Andrew Wadge – Chief Scientist at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK. The blog specifically focused on his broadside at ‘detox’ regimes. I can understand that someone may be a bit sceptical of such regimes. However, if Dr Wadge wishes […]