Losing Weight is not for Sissies

People have been asking me lately, at work, at the gym, over the phone, do I have any suggestions? They generally start by saying they're trying to "eat healthier" or "lose my belly", and then mention some friend who trying some"new" diet they saw on TV. (Don't even get me started about the baby-food diet.) I feel like saying to every one "go talk to a dietitian!" but losing weight is perceived as some kind of semi-secret recipe that anyone can follow if they have the "will power".

In fact, losing weight and keeping it off is a fairly complicated process, because your body will resist you. Eating healthy isn't complicated but it takes a bit of education, some planning and getting used to. From what I've been reading lately, all compasses point to an annoying fact: your body will try to settle at a weight that you accidentally climbed to in the last 5 or 10 years.

First of all, recent liposuction studies indicate that your fat cells kind of stick around, and even if lipo doesn't cause you to gain fat elsewhere (some researchers say it does), a 2008 study found the number of fat cells after adolescence remain constant, and those cells can get larger or smaller. Freaky, huh? But don't despair, you are not doomed to fail at reasonable goals, not at all.

Secondly, you live in a society where the dairy and sugar industries are revered for their contributions to the economy. Corn farming is heavily subsidized (think, corn syrup and nachos). We are raised to celebrate everything from a baby shower to a birthday to a business dinner with a high-calorie low-nutrient meal, or cake. So it's kind of like, if you want to eat in healthful ways you have to swim a little harder to resist the undertow.

I know, happens to me all the time. Yesterday, I took my 5th grade buddy to dinner and he asked for a salad with his kid's meal burger. The chef "forgot" and gave him french fries. The nice server brought out a salad after that. She said the kids almost always order fries. Well, this kid wanted a salad. This is the atmosphere we live and diet in.

So you want suggestions? Um, I'll try.



1. Be more physical, like those folks on the reality shows. The losing weight ones. That could mean mowing the lawn with a power push-mower, riding a bike, going more often to the gym, or actually pushing PLAY on the P90x DVD before opening your chem textbook.

2. Don't eliminate healthy food from your diet like eggs, avocado, or whole milk yogurt. Believe me, that caramel macchiatto you had did a lot more damage than the whole milk in the yogurt.

3. Ask your teen to stash the chips and cookies in their room away from you.

4. Try having 6-8 oz. of milk or a handful of nuts (almonds or peanuts, if you're not allergic) about 20 minutes before dinner. This will help curb your appetite.

5. Don't assume that a food labeled "low fat" is a low calorie food. Sugars have lots of calories, too. Whole unprocessed food generally has fewer calories, and the higher-cal unprocessed food 'burns' slower, keeping you full longer. So, the more you stay away from boxed, prepared foods the easier it is to eat fewer calories, especially the "empty" kind.

And here's my bonus hint: when cutting back, never eat without putting the items on a plate. Why? Because you're not going to count it as food if it's not on a plate. Are you?

I guess you can see, I'm all about you getting the help you need to change your diet and not giving up if you slip back to your old habits. Whole food... whole food! And help from doctors and restaurant menus. Nutrition and weight are not rocket science but there's a lot of good science in it, and a lot still to be revealed. If there is a secret to dieting, it's to change what you did that didn't work. And the hard part is finding a new plan that does work. The genies are working on it, I promise.

Do you Dukan?

Sound the Royal horns… Here comes the best-selling Dukan Diet book, amidst widely publicized rumors that Kate Middleton and her Mom used the now famous diet to slim down for the big day. Written by eminent French nutritionist Dr Pierre Dukan, the four phase program is being touted as the French dieter’s secret. Dr. Dukan developed this diet to treat his morbidly obese patients, not for a duchess-to-be who wanted to lose a couple of inches off her slim waist.

I was going to bulldoze the Dukan Diet’s credibility until nothing but a paper-thin smudge was left, because I don’t like “diets”, especially the trendy variety. Fad diets tend to create failure by making promises they can’t keep, until the dieter becomes so frustrated, weight and food obsessed, they’ll try an even more risky or unproven diet.

Here comes the lowdown. This is probably a slightly risky, rather inconvenient way to lose weight. You can lose weight with nasty side effects, roller-coaster trips up and down the scale, food-obsessions and a sense of deprivation, or without those things. Here are my “Bests” and “Worsts” of the Dukan Diet. You can apply these to any eating regimen/diet and test it like a paper airplane to see if it’ll fly.


BESTS:

Once you eliminate sugary treats, baked goods, and oily french fries
you can actually start to taste, with pleasure, the more subtle flavors and textures of protein and vegetables that are not smothered in rich, gooey or sweet sauces or toppings. Something about sugar, cream sauces, and butter triggers cravings in us, and the habit of it makes us less adventurous with herbs, spices and cooking methods that bring out the subtle aromas and tastes of fresh food.

The Dukan Diet encourages walking and other aerobic exercise.
Thirty minutes or more of consistent exercise releases endorphins, which are little reward chemicals for your brain. When you are trying to stay out of the kitchen and remove yourself from places where you normally eat your extra or junk calories, going for exercise is great not just for burning calories but for enhancing your mood, without extra food.

The Dukan Diet doesn’t rely on counting calories...
which can be a nuisance, and a tempting rule to break. But, if you want to lose weight, you still have to have a basic idea of your daily calorie intake.


WORSTS:

It’s not Practical.
The Dukan Diet has four official phases. In the first phase you are on a strictly lean protein and water diet, plus a couple of spoonfuls of oat bran each day. Can you see being at a conference, a restaurant, or your aunt’s 50th birthday dinner? What are you going to do, pull some deli turkey out of your purse and munch on it? There are ways to start a diet without all that social embarrassment and self-torture.

You can eat “all you want”.
What could be wrong with that, eh? How are you going to learn to recognize what is “enough” and when you are full, if you can eat “all you want”? For most Americans, all you want means, go ahead, stuff yourself. This is not a way to keep your BMI in the zone.

It makes you Obsess about Food.
Even in phase two and three, the Dukan Diet is very particular about which proteins and especially vegetables you can eat, and how many days of the week you follow a certain regimen. It would make a crazy food obsessed person out of me, I’m sure. The last thing you should do to your relationship with the food you eat, is to let it devour all your attention, and trigger your guilt switch every time you see a sweet potato.

It throws you Out of Balance.
The more I learn about nutrition the more I see why cutting out whole food groups for more than say, a few days, is a really bad idea. A natural, varied diet contains a whole carnival of vitamin interactions, fiber, fatty acids (the Omega 3’s and 6’s), minerals and nutrients that regulate your blood sugar, iron levels, liver function, skin structure and immune response. You name it, if it involves your cells and organs there’s a group of foods for that. They all work together, and that’s why eliminating say, 99% of your carbs will lead to some sort of deficiency.


If you aren’t morbidly obese or trying to shed ten quick pounds for your wedding day, (and don’t care if you gain it back) I suggest you skip the Dukan Diet and try something less complicated, safer, and more long term. So, hey Princess (and Prince Charming) lay off the second helpings, hide the cookies and cream, and look for a diet that’s going to keep you physically and emotionally in balance.

Bountiful Bite: Craving Conundrums

Have you kept your New Year's resolution to slim down, exercise regularly, and eat smarter? Yes, until it snowed, until your daughter left a big bowl of chips and onion dip on the counter? Until your best friend's baby shower/cake fest, or the Call of the PMS? I understand, really I do.

Ah, the craving monster, or should I say the Monster Craving. It gets inside your brain, literally, and gets your mouth watering. It would be nice to pop a pill and stop the craving, but there is no safe snake-oil remedy, so listen up. You were biologically programmed from cave-guy (and cave-chick) days to crave food when it was available, and your brain was included in this programming. To this day, we still respond like neanderthals to delicious smells and visually appealing food. What to do?

The first action I recommend is biological, and for those women suffering the cravings of PMS. During PMS the amount of serotonin in a woman's brain tends to drop, and so she craves fatty snacks or chocolate. While this is natural, it's not that helpful. Exercise, sex, and a sense of accomplishment can also raise serotonin. So -ahem- go full throttle, ladies. You should also have your calcium levels checked because several studies, like this one published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, show that ovarian hormones affect our levels of calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. Magnesium helps regulate muscle relaxation and blood sugar levels, and helps you absorb calcium. Blood sugar ups and downs = cravings.

_____________________________

Male or female, young or old, none are totally immune to the allure of every brownie, pizza pie, french fry and donut we pass.

Like any behavior you'd like to change, you can get a handle on the Craving Monster and the way "it" makes you behave. Let's say I want to be more positive. Oprah and dozens of well-known psychologists advise us to surround ourselves with positive role models, give ourselves positive internal dialog, give negativity a wide berth, and set reasonable goals. My money's on this working for food cravings.

Surround yourself with positive role models. In the case of food, this may mean you need to get your significant other to be an ally as your anti-craving advocate. Stopping for lunch? Walk the extra two blocks to the healthy spot. Read books or blogs by chefs or nutritionists who inspire you. And flip the channel when the 'chip-i-tos' commercial comes on. Stock your pantry with fruit, whole grain snacks and other healthy snack choices.

Positive internal dialog. Here are examples: "I don't need to eat that, because I had some last week." "I'll just have one square of dark chocolate with this tangerine." "When I go home tonight I'll be so glad I didn't eat all those fries." "There's a smoothie with my name on it after my workout."

Give negativity a wide berth: In the case of cravings this means walking down the other hall to avoid the break room where the red velvet cake sits. Bring a non-food gift to the party. Don't anticipate cravings by bringing junk food home. Don't give any credit to those who say "You have to try this!" or "You know you'll give in, you always do."

Set reasonable goals: You know what this means. Have you seen someone try to flip from a pastry and fast-food diet to 100% macrobiotic in one day? It didn't work, did it? There will be times, like before a big test or after a particularly stressful day that you will oblige the craving monster (in a hopefully not too egregious way). No reason to beat yourself up over it.

So if you're ready, as I am, start applying a little positive psychology to your cravings. Kudos, from the Bountiful Bite.


Additonal Reference: http://www.womans-health.net/eliminate_pms_food_cravings.htm

Bountiful Bite - 10 Food Additives to Avoid

Hey, guess what? March was "National Nutrition Month". No, I never knew this before, either. And with all the free nutrition "advice" floating around 365 days a year, who needs a special month? Most of us feel pretty good about at least 2/3 of what we eat, anyway. 

There's an easy way to self-asses if you're eating well or not. How do you feel? How much energy do you have? Do you get winded going up stairs due to extra body weight? Do you suffer from indigestion? Does the doctor say your liver's overworked? Do your kids fall asleep in class? Are your teeth healthy? Do you have high blood pressure? These are all not so subtle hints that maybe you could use a healthier diet and celebrate your own personal nutrition month.

According to FoodMatters, "A typical American household spends about 90 percent of their food budget on processed foods." Ninety percent! Are we crazy? For "National Nutrition Month" I'd like to discuss two main nutritional bad habits that need much more focus in this country.

1. Serving size. No wait, I want to discuss the other one...

2. Food additives, or, things in your food that weren't in your grandfather's food when it came from the local small farm. National agencies and NGO's such as the US Department of Agriculture, the CDC, the National Center Health Statistics, and the Dairy Council, as well as diet book authors, periodically point the finger at something organically based in our food and say THAT is the evil ingredient. Saturated fat, margarine, sugars, salt, carbs, and red meat have all been on the healthy eating chopping block at some point. But how often do you hear officials or TV diet pundits talking about the things that don't occur naturally in your food? Maybe these sources of information are ignoring the obvious... what occurs naturally in our food has a healthy purpose, when eaten wisely, but what we add to our food may pose an actual threat to our health.

If you shop in a "regular" big box grocery store, up to 90% of what you buy there could have things added to it that are made in a lab, not grown in the ground or naturally occurring in say, a fish. (Hint: shop the periphery of the supermarket first, and bring cook from scratch recipes for ideas.) So what's the big deal?

Well, let's look at the time frame. In the last 20 years diabetes has been on the rise, heart disease in on the rise, some cancers are on the rise including pancreatic cancer, food allergies are on the rise, and people are getting fatter. Maybe, just maybe, when we ate fresh whole ingredients our bodies were better able to regulate our metabolism, our appetites, our digestive systems, and our ability to fight off illness and disease.

Indeed, there's quite a lot of evidence supporting this idea*. For example, the outcome of some scientific studies of certain food additives have borne ominous results. This month I'm passing along FoodMattters' list of the Top 10 food additives to avoid. Even if you know what they are, check out the source for a handy listing of what food products may contain them, and why you should avoid them even though they aren't illegal yet.
Hint - what's lurking in your rice mix, crackers, lunch meat, mac and cheese, candy and gum?

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_427697/top_10_food_additives_to_avoid

10. Potassium Bromate
9. Sulphur Dioxide
8. BHA and BHT
7. Sodium Nitrate/Sodium Nitrite
6. Sodium Sulphate
5. Food coloring: Blue #1, Blue#2, Red dye #3, Red #40, Yellow #6
4. Trans Fat (at least this one has gotten some attention)
3. MSG
2. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
and number one:
1. Artificial Sweeteners.

* http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/msg010306.cfm <----British Study, creepy findings

Note to self: bring reading glasses to grocery store to read ingredients.