Day: 27 October 2017

The Monaco Yacht Club (YCM) has reported that junior sailor Jérémy Moutout has become YCM Sports Section’s season champion.

The title comes after Jérémy pulled off “an excellent” 3rd place in the seventh and final stage of the Mediterranean Championship 2017 in Cannes. “Three races in a steady breeze gave Jérémy ample opportunity to experiment with tactics,” the club said.

“The Monegasque has shown impressive consistency to finish on the podium six times during the year, including two victories to keep him in front of 50 competitors,” said YCM.

READ ALSO

News

Is eating every 3 hours a good or bad idea? You snack so you don’t arrive famished at mealtime, and sometimes you might even start enjoying to swap your main meal for smaller food nibbles. At the same time, you might like to polish-off the meal with something sweet. You’re hardly going to say no to the dessert that comes with the lunch menu at Maya Bay or the new Maya Jah, and who doesn’t eat as much as they can get away with of their kid’s cookie at Stars’n’Bars … sound familiar?

You could be suffering from what I like to call a Common-Grazing Syndrome (CGS): a typical feeding habit which encourages eating addiction and is one of the main reasons for not being able to lose weight. So, what can you do about it?

What do we think makes us hungry?

For a long time, researchers from all over the world have tried to crack the reason why we cannot control our feeding habits.

Fifty years ago, we thought that three hours after a meal there was a drop in blood sugar levels, which caused us to feel hungry and therefore we should be eating every three hours or so. Twenty years ago, we believed that it was all caused by “hunger hormones” (such as ghrelin and leptin) and to stop from overeating we needed to promote satiety, which meant we should eat more fibre. And yet, we still seem to put on weight. In recent years, quite a few researches suggest that overeating is caused by nerve stimuli that can turn us into eating addicts.

What really makes us eat?

There are many factors that influence our eating habits. These include hormones, biological clock, local availability, patterns of behaviour and environmental conditions to name a few. However, there are two main reasons why we eat: one is homeostatic (the ability to retain internal balance despite external changes) and in this case, caloric supply to maintain physiological function. The other is hedonistic, or simply put, eating for pleasure.

What makes us stop?

We normally stop eating when our stomach feels full. In fact, its volume can change 20-fold between fasting and eating. Therefore, it makes sense to fill up on low-calorie, dense foods and start the meal with liquids, vegetables and lean proteins instead of with high-calorie dense foods. On top of that, there’s a battery of hormones, which are secreted as a response to the type and quantity of the food we consume, and they communicate to our brain the message that we’ve had enough food and it’s time to stop.

Lastly, our fat tissue also plays a role in controlling our satiety mechanism. Fat cells contain the satiety hormone leptin, and as the amount of fat tissues is reduced in our body, there’s less leptin to trigger a survival-mechanism in our brain that will bend backwards to manipulate our body to be more economic, burn less calories and therefore prevent us from shedding additional fat.

This includes making us feel hungrier and less active to the point that spending the day motionless seems like the preferred option. At the same time, being more economic in spending energy means being able to do more while burning less calories. Put simply, if the brain recons that famine is around the corner, it goes into economy mode. This is why sometimes you can see very slim and active people who are on a low-calorie diet and yet do not seem to lose any weight.

There is much research to show that during periods of extreme weight loss the rate of our metabolism (RMR) reduces greatly and sometimes it does not return to normal values even when normal weight is restored.

When can’t we stop ‘grazing’?

When we put on weight – often our satiety “sensor” can malfunction while we’re getting fatter. I meet quite a few clients who complain that their feelings of hunger got stronger during periods of putting on weight. One of the reasons for that is that when fat tissue is expanding, it secretes inflammatory hormones that can cause leptin resistance. This means that despite high levels of leptin in the blood stream, it cannot successfully trigger the brain to sense satiety and what follows is the brain initiating higher food consumption and less caloric expenditure.

We witness a similar pattern in weight gain which leads to diabetes, only in that case, the inflammatory hormones lead to insulin resistance, causing sugar to accumulate in the blood instead of being transported to body tissues.

When consuming addictive foods – processed and artificial foods are the biggest culprits. Hyperpalatable foods (aka comfort food, those loaded with fat, sugar and salt) are meant to enhance the eating experience and therefore result in overeating. Manufacturers of these types of foods wants us to eat more. So when we are exposed to foods which are high in flavours and hyperstimulate our senses, it’s very difficult to stop eating before nearly exploding – especially when dessert is still to come, personally I can’t resist a good cheese cake.

And as if all this is not enough, there are ingredients which are added to foods that work as a “feel-good” factor (they have a psychoactive effect) despite the fact that objectively they are almost taste-neutral. Therefore, when you combine hyperpalatable ingredients with psychoactive ingredients we stand a very small chance of being able to stop ourselves from continuous grazing.

When we get used to “grabbing a bite” instead of having a meal , often the recommendation to eat every three hours tends to become a series of small food “grabs” which are not really filling though they do make us feel energised for a short period of time. This habit seems to be especially popular in our little neck of the Monaco woods, where the excuse you’re most likely to hear is that “I don’t have time to eat properly.”

I will say that deep down, I don’t feel that heavy meals are essential but this is an illusion because if we skip meals we tend not to be able to shed weight. In such cases, you’re better off with three rich and tasty meals instead of 6 daily “bite-grabs” which do not give you any satisfaction. If you think about it, French gourmet cuisine is characterised by fatty food served in small portions on a big plate and “snacking” is not really popular. Yet, French people are generally considered slim compared to other nations.

When we feel like something sweet, I must admit that this is the biggest challenge when it comes to my own nutrition. However, I treat sugar as poison. Eating sugar gives us an instant high because it causes dopamine to be released in the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that makes us feel energised, focused and creative, which is both pleasurable and satisfying. Sugar is not the only substance that causes a surge in dopamine; cocaine acts in a very similar manner.

High sugar consumption causes a dopamine flood and as a result we can see a decline in the number and sensitivity of dopamine receptors. To compensate for that, we experience an increased longing for sugar in order for more dopamine to be released. Therefore, constant sugar consumption is very addictive and the need for something sweet becomes very familiar after meals, leading to complete dependence.

The frequency of sugar consumption is one of the main factors in sugar addiction. Consequently, eating a whole chocolate bar twice a week is probably less addictive than dividing it into smaller portions, which are consumed daily (at least from an addiction perspective; I know my wife, who eats a couple of squares of 70% chocolate daily would disagree). And there’s a good chance that these daily portions will increase in size.

How to prevent feeling hungry

• Make sure you satisfy your basic physiological needs – get enough sleep, hydration and plenty of proteins. Lack in any of these will increase your need for snacking to retain energy levels.

• Eat protein-based breakfast (including tyrosine, a dopamine boosting amino acid), which contributes to extended satiety sensation. Favourites in our kitchen are cottage cheese (readily available in the bio shop, Carrefour and U-Marché) on homemade bread, porridge with coconut milk topped with chopped nuts or a spinach/feta/egg omelette. There are many options for breakfast and not all of them are time consuming to prepare.

• Eat balanced and unprocessed whole foods to make you fill fuller quicker. All the supermarkets offer a big variety, so don’t be afraid to explore the organic aisles or visit the bio stores in Monaco. You can start small by replacing certain things such as white pasta with whole grain pasta; maybe try oat pancakes instead of the traditional ones.

•Eat conscientiously, as more awareness will reduce snacking.

• Reduce the frequency of consumption of sweet tasking foods. For healthy people, a larger less frequent portion is better than frequent smaller portions.

• Increase the variety of foods you eat. Dopamine production seems to diminish when we consume the same food. Our inbuilt survival mechanism is programmed to encourage varied food consumption. Reduce dopamine production leads to increased craving and caloric consumption. Therefore, make sure you consume a variety of fresh and wholesome food.

• Avoid extreme diets – which basically means that not only will occasional junk food not kill you, but you could actually benefit from it.

Article first published October 24, 2017. Udi Gon-Paz is a Monaco-based and licensed wellness coach with diplomas in Clinical Nutrition and Stress Management Therapy. For more visit: wholeiswell.mc

The annual Ladies’ Vintage Car Rally on Sunday, September 17, raised €14,000 for the girls’ school in India run by Child CARE Monaco.

The money collected from the fourth edition was used to buy much-needed equipment for the Sneh Girls School in Tresta Village in Rajasthan, including 20 classroom computers, 90 bicycles and solar panels.

On Saturday, October 21, Child CARE Monaco founder Martine Ackermann visited the school, with Annie De Jonckheere. They inaugurated a playground, distributed bikes and offered school supplies to some very happy young girls.

“The girls were so excited and happy,” Martine told Monaco Life from Rajasthan. “This is the first time they have ever been on a bike. What an experience, and all the villagers – fathers, mothers, grandmothers – they all came out to watch.”

Martine explained that the girls are thrilled to come to school by bike, and are excited to discover the areas surrounding their village.

“Yesterday evening after school, we walked to the village and saw the girls learning how to ride a bike. It’s a big change because they are becoming not only more confident but also independent,” Martine said.

“Even this morning, some of the mothers and fathers came to thank me again”, she shared. “We are so proud that our hard work makes a difference for these girls and for all the villagers.”

Child CARE Monaco’s next project will be mushroom production, which is easy and inexpensive, and possible to sell at markets and restaurants.

“After the girls finish school, they’ll be able to manage the marketing and sales of mushroom production,” Martine said.

Child CARE Monaco’s next fundraiser is a Christmas Gala Dinner at the Salon Bellevue, Cafe de Paris, on December 2, 2017, starting with a rooftop aperitif with a view of the decorated Place du Casino. Tickets, including live music, dinner, dancing, and a show, are €130/person, with all benefits of the event going to the girls school. Reservations before November 25: childcare@monaco.mc

READ MORE Ladies rally Gingham-style for Child CARE Monaco

The land extension project at Portier Cove is now entering a new phase, the dredging of unpolluted marine sediments, which will be then deposited off Monaco in a zone chosen for this purpose.

In recent days the ship “Francis Beaufort”, a dredger of 140 metres in length, has been sucking up sediment at the rate of approximately 11,000 cubic metres of a seawater and sediment mixture per hour. Nearly 400,000 cubic metres of sediment will be removed by the end of November.

The dredging phase follows several operations to relocate marine plants and other fauna to protected areas in order to minimise the environmental impact of the project. The next stage, starting in December, will involve the laying of the backfill on which the caisson foundations will rest.

RELATED Watch Monaco’s land extension unfold

Last week, JCI Monaco – the Junior Chamber International and also referred to as the Monaco Junior Chamber of Commerce, or JCEM– held another winning networking cocktail-conference, this time at the Yacht Club de Monaco.

Over 160 attendees, which included JCI Monaco members, Member of the Strategic Council for Attractiveness (CSA), members of the government and town hall, hospital staff, officials from the Public Works Office, as well as members of the public, came to hear three distinguished guests speak about “Health Care in Monaco: the Strategy of Attractiveness of the Princess Grace Hospital” on October 18.

The evening opened with Olivier Mura, National President 2017 of JCI Monaco, followed by JCI Monaco’s Director of Business Network Events 2017, Laetitia Mikail, who pointed out that quality and personalised care are the fundamental values of the CHPG for which it has been recognised accordingly, with a grade A certification “without reserve or recommendation” – the highest possible accreditation awarded to a health-care institution.

Ms Mikail further stated, “I couldn’t possibly discuss Monaco’s attractiveness without mentioning the Monaco’s Strategic Council for Attractiveness. Since its launch in 2011, the CSA has been a key partner in developing public policy on economic development issues. One of the best possible examples of their work will be presented this evening since the Check-up Unit actually originated from the CSA.”

Leading the conference, Patrick Bini, Director of the Princess Grace Hospital (CHPG) since 2008, explained the strategy for attractiveness in the field of healthcare in Monaco and reminded the audience of the importance of the CSA.

Mr Bini, who along with Laetitia Mikail, was appointed by Sovereign Order in July 2017 as a qualified member of the CSA, also presented the hospital’s new logo to the public for the first time. “Princess Grace Hospital offers a complete range of treatments on an international level thanks to its high-quality medical teams and its state-of-the-art technological equipment for numerous specialisations,” he said.

The second speaker of the evening was CHPG’s Deputy Director, Benoîte de Sevelinges, who is also in charge of the New Hospital project. Ms de Sevelinges talked about values and services, which reflect the high standards of quality and safety of care provided by the hospital. “The high-end inpatient hospitality and catering service provided by the hospital are designed to improve the comfort and well-being of patients during their stay,” she explained.

Ms de Sevelinges mentioned that sustainable development is also a key part of the CHPG’s institutional policy and a number of measures have been undertaken to improve performance in this area, such as energy savings, food waste reductions and waste management.

A particular focus was placed on the Monaco Princess Grace Checkup Unit, inaugurated in February 2016. Dr Gilles Chironi, Department Head, gave details about this five-star luxury check-up unit where one can have a combination of multidisciplinary tests within a single block of time, in one single location and under the strictest confidentiality.

The conference portion of the evening ended with the insightful presentation of the New Hospital, one of Monaco’s exemplary projects, the first part of which is due to be delivered in 2023.

“The project is part of a wider policy aimed at enhancing accessibility to the CHPG not just for patients and visitors with reduced mobility,” Ms de Sevelinges said, “but also for those for whom movement is difficult more generally.”

The Business Network event closed with a brief presentation from Nazanine Matin, Founder of TEDxMonteCarlo, which takes place on November 11 at Grimaldi Forum, who kindly offered invitations to three guest speakers.

The final Business Time of 2017, which be a sports-themed cocktail-conference, will take place in December.

Article first published October 24, 2017.

RELATED ARTICLE

An “unforgettable” networking evening courtesy of JCEM

Wednesday 29 November, 6.30 pm, Rainier III Auditorium – Troparium

Musical Happy Hour: chamber music concert by the Orchestre de Poche, comprising Liza Kerob, violin, Federico Andres Hood, viola, Thierry Amadi, cello, Thierry Vera, double bass, Véronique Audard, clarinet, Michel Mugot, bassoon and Didier Favre, horn. The programme features: Franz Berwald and Max Bruch.

Information: +377 98 06 28 28