2.

The Truths About Dieting

After observing my own and many other people’s relationship to food over many years, I have come up with a list of the “dietary truths” that I consider to be self-evident. While I don’t claim that these are revolutionary or even original thoughts, I do believe that it’s important to list them here, clearly and explicitly, because understanding and accepting them will help you to understand why you need to have a specific, practical plan to help you respond to and combat them.

1. Humans have evolved with a preference for foods with a high calorie density and to eat whenever food is available.

As our species evolved and food was scarce, survival (evolution) favored those who ate the most and who ate foods that were high in calories and, therefore, provided the most energy. Over the centuries, these behaviors have been programmed into our DNA.

2. The cheaper and more available food becomes, the more we will eat and the fatter we will be.

There are many theories offering alternative biological explanations for obesity, but none, other than the change in the food environment, reasonably explain the huge rise in obesity we are currently witnessing.

According to The Economics of Obesity: A Report on the Workshop Held at USDA’s Economic Research Service, by Tomas Philipson, Carolanne Dai, Lorens Helmchen, and Jayachandran N. Variyam, the worldwide long-term increase in obesity is clearly correlated with technological improvements that reduce the cost of food.

Having historically survived by eating as much as we could whenever we could, we are now genetically programmed to do that. The more primitive, nonrational part of our brain (often termed the “reptile brain”) is constantly telling us to eat. The difference between us and our ancestors is that we now have an endless supply of relatively low-cost food always available. At this point each of us is, figuratively speaking, a great crocodile swimming through a sea of tempting foods that are constantly saying, “Eat me, eat me!” and too often we find that the rational control part of our brain is unable to overcome the temptation.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, author Michael Pollan blames the increase in obesity on the collusion between the federal government and agribusiness that has created increasingly cheaper commodities such as corn. But the fact of the matter is that all food commodities have gotten enormously cheaper (and proportionately cheaper than other consumer goods), as has everything else in our consumer society, in the past fifty years. The incredible success of our free-market economy has increased the efficiency of production across the board and is responsible for the lower costs of everything, not just foods.

Your Reptile Brain on Junk Food

To compound the problem, the commercial food industry is constantly bombarding us with messages designed to get us to eat their products, which translates to an incessant demand that we eat more and more. In fact, according to Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and author of Mindless Eating, each of us makes more than 200 food-related decisions every day, mostly without even being conscious we’re making them.

3. Our appetite-control mechanism is broken.

The most reasonable explanation for the explosion of obesity throughout the world is that the mechanism controlling our internal appetite-signaling device is broken. Although the terms “hunger” and “appetite” are often used interchangeably, we can no longer differentiate one from the other. We have a desire to eat when we see something tasty (or simply when we just think about eating something we like) whether or not we are actually hungry. In fact, many of us no longer know what hunger feels like because we haven’t allowed ourselves to become hungry in years.

In a May 2007 article in Time magazine, “The Science of Appetite,” Jeffrey Kluger wrote: “Somewhere in your brain, there’s a cupcake circuit. How it works is not entirely clear, and you couldn’t see it even if you knew where to look. But it’s there all the same—and it’s a powerful thing. You didn’t pop out of the womb prewired for cupcakes, but long ago, early in your babyhood, you got your first taste of one, and instantly a series of sensory, metabolic and neurochemical fireworks went off.

“The mesolimbic region in the center of your brain—the area that processes pleasure—lit up. . . . Your midbrain filed away a simple, primal, unconscious idea: Cupcakes are good. A lifetime love affair—perhaps pleasant, perhaps tortured—began.”

Kluger then goes on to discuss the many biochemical mechanisms by which we humans regulate hunger. Among them is a hormone called ghrelin, discovered in 1999. It was dubbed the hunger hormone, because when ghrelin is produced in the gut we want to eat. It is designed to be released in response to meal schedules, but according to some theories, Kluger says, ghrelin is also released by “the mere sight or smell of food.” In other words, our appetite is stimulated whether or not we’re hungry, whether or not it’s actually time for us to eat.

Scientists are diligently looking into what it is that makes us hungry and what makes us feel full, but whatever chemicals may be contributing or used to control the increase in human obesity, the pleasure principle always seems to be at work. According to Barbara Rolls, of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Health and Human Development, one of the things that gives us pleasure is variety in our meals. Loading up on one particular food, she says, may satisfy our desire for that particular nutrient, but it will still leave us craving something else. Rolls calls this “sensory-specific satiety” and relates it to the fact that even after a large and satisfying meal we, more often than not, can still find room for dessert.

Kluger concludes his article by saying, “We may always be pleasure-seeking creatures, intoxicated by the very experience of food—with its colors and textures and notes of flavor.” And if that’s so, “The same human brain that invented the food court and the supermarket must now develop ways to control how we use them.”

THE EMOTIONAL EATING COMPONENT

Eating for pleasure can readily sabotage our efforts to control consumption. There is significant evidence to show that much of our overeating or eating when we’re not really hungry is triggered by an emotional component. Just as Pavlov’s dogs were trained to eat at the sign of a bell, we more or less automatically eat at mealtimes. But emotions may also trigger that Pavlovian response. We may eat when we’re stressed, sad, anxious, angry, frustrated, or just plain bored. Without being consciously aware of what we’re really hungry for, we attempt to quiet the emotional turmoil with food. And the foods we tend to eat in those situations are usually calorie-dense, nutrient-deficient “comfort” foods. Chocolate, for example, has been shown to increase brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is the same chemical that is increased by many antidepressant medications. Sugary foods create an upsurge in blood sugar that gives us a quick energy boost. Then, because eating those foods does, in fact, make us feel better in the short term, we turn to them again and again, much as a drug addict turns to his opiate of choice to escape negative emotions.

High-Fat, High-Sugar Foods Disrupt
Our Appetite Control Mechanism

Under normal circumstances, our brain accurately senses our nutrient needs and sends signals to our body that automatically control our energy balance so that we consume almost exactly the same amount every day, thereby maintaining stable body weight.

The regulation of food intake is a complex feedback system affected by environment and psychological factors, but that system is made dysfunctional when we eat foods rich in fat and sugar.

These foods activate the brain’s “reward” system, which means that we are eating not because we need the calories for energy but because our brain is responding to the food in the same way it responds to an addictive drug. Levels of brain substances that make us feel good—such as dopamine, serotonin, and endogenous opiates—rise, and because of this we eat longer and more (“going back for seconds”) than we normally would.

At the same time, these foods blunt the satiety signals that would normally tell us it’s time to stop eating.

Over time, we adapt to high-fat, high-sugar foods by increasing the amount we eat in order to get that mental “fix.” It feels like we’re just satisfying our hunger, but from the standpoint of brain function, we are reacting as if we were enjoying the effects of a drug “high.”

Emotional eating can also be a learned behavior. Perhaps your mother taught you to associate eating with pleasure. She may have rewarded you with food for good behavior. Or perhaps you grew up in a large family where sitting around the table at dinnertime was an enjoyable part of your day. Conversely, your mother may have restricted your access to sweets, and you learned to associate eating candy with guilty pleasure. Maybe you were punished for bad behavior by not being allowed to eat dessert.

Whatever the reason, the problem with emotional eating is twofold. Eating unconsciously doesn’t solve the underlying problems that triggered our desire to eat in the first place. And because we’re normally unaware of why we’re eating at any particular moment, it can lead to serious and potentially unhealthy weight gain.

EVERYBODY WILL BE FAT

If we don’t exercise our free will to overcome the base reptilian thinking patterns—to eat whenever and wherever food is available—and to control the primal urge to seek the pleasure of food, in another thirty years all but perhaps the lucky 10 percent of us who can eat without restriction and not gain weight will be fat.

4. All diets work. All diets fail.

According to a study conducted by Michael Dansinger of Tufts–New England Medical Center in Boston, adherence to a weight-loss plan—any plan—is more important for success than what the specific plan might be. On the other side of the coin, Bärbel Knäuper, associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal, states that the number-one cause of dieting failure is setting goals that are not realistic.

Most overweight people have attempted to lose weight and many have been successful for a time. Even the most outrageous-sounding diet will work as long as we remain conscious of what we are eating and stick with it, but all diets will fail eventually unless we devise a plan that can be followed indefinitely. That is, we have to find a way to beat the statistics that indicate that close to 100 percent of those who succeed in losing weight will regain it within five years.

Anyone will lose weight on whatever diet they choose to follow so long as it results in reducing total calorie intake. When it comes to weight loss, nutrient balance isn’t really the issue. Whether we restrict fat or carbohydrates or protein, the bottom line is to take in fewer calories than we expend. But the overwhelming body of evidence indicates that any form of constant daily restriction will not work because we simply can’t stick with it.

When we start a new diet we develop a feeling of euphoria that helps us to stay on the program and not feel hungry, but gradually that feeling goes away. Eventually we’ll feel frustrated, hungry, deprived, bored, or just plain disappointed because we’ve lost weight and our life hasn’t radically changed for the better. (We’ve set unrealistic goals not only for our weight loss but for lifestyle issues that accompany it.) When these feelings occur, we stop following the diet and, almost inevitably, regain the weight we lost.

5. No diet will work without a plan that overcomes our inclination to eat whenever and whatever food is available.

The extent of the obesity problem today is self-evident. Most of us are overweight and it is reasonable to assume that most of us don’t want to be. The “natural history” of body weight in the current environment was clearly demonstrated in a ten-year community-based volunteer study conducted by Harvard surgeon George L. Blackburn and his colleagues.

In the course of the study, one group of people substituted a meal-replacement shake or nutrition bar for one or two meals a day while the control group ate normally. Those who used the shake experienced a sustained weight loss of 6.2 pounds over ten years while the control group gained 26.6 pounds, an average of 2.5 pounds per year, creating a differential between the two groups of 33 pounds over all.

Logically one would have to assume that many if not all the people who ate normally were making some effort to control their weight since they were participating in a study. If so, they were typical victims of their genes, their emotions, and our food-rich environment. To me, therefore, these results indicate that we need to have a specific self-monitoring plan (such as one that uses a meal-replacement shake) in order to avoid becoming fatter over time. Simply wanting to lose weight—or not gain—over time requires such a plan, without which no amount of willpower will be enough.

6. The only diet that will continue to work over the long haul is one that involves a long-term strategy.

Recent studies that compared different kinds of diets—Atkins, Weight Watchers, Dean Ornish—show only minor differences in the amount of weight lost at the end of one year, indicating that all diets will work in the short term. But experience shows they will all fail in the long term.

There are members of the National Weight Control Registry—established in 1994—who are on record as having been able to maintain a weight loss of over 30 pounds for at least five years. And another group, which was studied by James W. Anderson, MD, and colleagues at the University of Kentucky, involved very obese people who had lost 100 pounds and maintained a weight loss of 66 pounds for a period of five years.

Variety may be the spice of life but there is ample science showing that the greater the variety in a diet, the higher the calorie intake. The National Weight Control Registry participants have very low levels of variety. Monotony in flavor is helpful in reducing how much you eat. The Shangri-La Diet and The Flavor Point Diet are based on this principle.

I suggest that you find five recipes of low-calorie-density food that you enjoy and can eat over and over.

While these “maintainers” are still in the minority, a key to their success appears to be a shift from a short-term diet mentality to a long-term strategy. My extensive experience with dieters is that the Alternate-Day Diet lends itself to a maintenance mentality, because not only does it take into account the self-evident dietary truths, it also avoids a feeling of deprivation on a daily basis.