“Your waistline is your lifeline.”
—JACK LALANNE
Getting “Ready for Tiny” means many things. First and foremost, you must understand that Tiny is a frame of mind. It’s a shift from thinking that you have to settle for some weight loss and a little less flab, to owning that you not only have the power to be perfectly Tiny, you deserve nothing less. Yes, you have the right to be Tiny!
What exactly is Tiny?
Tiny isn’t about vanity or some narcissistic need to stand in front of the mirror obsessing about being the fairest of them all. It’s the understanding that you have the absolute inherent power and right to be as red-carpet gorgeous, fit, and healthy as any Kardashian-Jenner. Tiny doesn’t have an age limit, and it isn’t just about looks—being Tiny is about being healthy. Tiny is about getting you the results that empower you to live your healthiest life ever. In fact, far from being fanatical, Tiny is actually the number one indicator of health and fitness—having a Tiny Waist is epic health, inside and out. Your outside beauty indicates your inside health.
Did you get that? Both things, inner beauty and outer beauty, are inherently related. Looking and feeling good on the outside—fitting effortlessly in your skinny jeans, being a showstopper in your little black dress, rocking that swimsuit—is a reflection of your inner health. That’s what having a Tiny Waist gives you: outer beauty and inner health. The great reality is that having a Tiny Waist is a reliable gauge of underlying whole-body wellness, vitality, and health. With this knowledge, you can and should embrace being beautiful, without fear of being labeled egotistical or superficial. A small waist gives you beauty, energy, and confidence; attracts other people to you; and lowers your risk for all diseases. We’ll get into this in great detail on the next pages, but for now, know that having a healthy waist circumference—having a Tiny Waist—frees you to be the best you ever. When you harness this powerful mind-set—the mind-set of Tiny—you are Ready for Tiny.
Now…
Are you Ready for Tiny?
First, we must address three points:
1. How a Tiny Waist equals health
2. How to get a Tiny Waist
3. How to beat THE problem: hunger!
After we’ve covered these points, you’ll be ready to commit to your health for the next 12 weeks—to promise yourself that you will get a Tiny Waist, which will free you to be the best you ever. You’ll be free to wear that swimsuit with joy and free to never diet again.
Let’s start by taking a deeper look at how slimming your middle will give you an overall body and mind health makeover.
A Tiny Waist Equals Health
If you want to be healthy, you’ve got to have a tiny waist circumference. Now I’m not saying you need to go out and grab one of the waist-trainers you see on Instagram. But, I am saying that measuring your waist is a great indicator of health and disease. In 2009, I had the great privilege of sitting down with Dr. Mehmet Oz for an interview. I’ll never forget that day. Despite an incredibly busy schedule of filming his own show, Dr. Oz had invited me and my team to film a short video for my readers while he was on a layover in New York. That day I learned some vital distinctions about waist circumference that I’d never before considered. I came away from our talk with a thrilling new insight—that wanting, no, needing a slender waist truly isn’t about vanity but is instead an essential requirement for true health and fitness. Your waist circumference, Dr. Oz told me, simple as it seems, is a key marker of health, vitality, disease, happiness, lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and many cancers. It’s also the main attraction, or detraction, when choosing partners—and not for the trivial reasons you might suspect.
According to the research of Devendra Singh, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas who published the pioneering findings on the significance of attractiveness and waist size, first impressions are belly-based. Singh’s research on waist-to-hip ratio spans 1993 through 2010, until just before he passed away. He was the first to reveal the link between having a Tiny Waist and attractiveness and health. One such study found that attractiveness is gauged by waist circumference—with thin being in, and fat being out. Singh’s paper reviewed three separate studies which all concluded that men define the attractiveness of women based on their low waist-to-hip ratio more on waist-to-hip ratio:
• The first study had men rate the attractiveness of pageant contestants over the past 30 to 60 years. The raters consistently decided that the tinier the waist, the more attractive the women.
• The second study found that college-age men find females with small waists more attractive, healthier, and of greater value as reproductive partners than women with thicker waists.
• And in the final study, men aged 25 to 85 were found to prefer women with smaller waists and rated them as being more attractive and having a higher fertility rate.
What does this mean? Six-pack-sizzle and the hotness factor aside, these men are not making superficial choices. Singh concluded that these preferences for slim waists are actually linked to health. These men were really being attracted to health. It’s easy to think that the unrealistic photoshopped pictures of beauty that we often see promoted in media images are what sway men to choose slim-waisted women, but, in reality, women with Tiny Waists are healthier. In a jointly published study from a prominent university in Spain and the University of Wisconsin, researchers found that higher amounts of belly fat in women are linked to increased risks for ovarian disease and infertility. Even more shocking, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, increased waist size is consistently linked to increased risks of cardiovascular disorders, adult-onset diabetes, elevated plasma lipids, hypertension, cancer (endometrial, ovarian, and breast), gall bladder disease, and premature mortality in women. So this fondness for Tiny-Waisted women is really a natural tendency to select a healthier partner.
And men aren’t the only ones “sizing up” their potential mates—women find slim-waisted men more attractive as well. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, two experiments were conducted to examine how females choose mates:
• In the first group, college-age women rated normal weight male figures with lean and thick waists. The women consistently rated males with leaner abs as being more attractive, healthy, and as containing positive qualities than the men with thicker waists.
• Women ages 18 to 69 rated men with a variety of waist sizes. All women, regardless of their age, education, or income, rated men with the healthiest waists more favorably than those with thicker middles.
And the links to waist size and health in men are just as evident as they are in women. Studies done by researchers in Texas, Australia, and Sweden connected high levels of belly fat in men directly to low levels of available testosterone. These investigators speculate that levels of abdominal fat on a man convert testosterone to estrogen, which lowers sperm count and causes lack of muscle. Experts who study mate choice and attractiveness speculate that the trend for choosing mates based on Tiny Waists comes from our evolutionary history. This preference for Tiny Waists, researchers believe, is in fact a deeply ingrained evolutionary adaptation that dates back more than 160,000 years.
According to researchers who study ancient humans, it seems that our ancestors instinctively knew to avoid mates with large bellies because they were an indicator of poor health. These ancient humans didn’t have the constant stream of 24/7 media telling them how to choose a mate. They had to go by instinct to tell them which man or woman would make the best partner in terms of provider, protector, and reproductive partner. So, the idea of “sizing someone up” may have had its start back among prehistoric humans. Besides doing a general once-over for a healthy body size and shape, it turns out that belly size is an easy to spot and reliable indicator of a high-quality or poor-quality mate. As for Paleolithic women, the researchers speculate that they had a biological instinct not to choose a big-bellied caveman because he wouldn’t be a strong protector, efficient provider, or good reproductive partner. On the flip side, if a Paleolithic man saw a woman with a large belly, researchers think his instinct would alert him that she was either pregnant (and therefore unavailable) or might have a hormonal imbalance such as ovarian disease, which could decrease her ability to reproduce.
The bottom line is that whether you are male or female, a high waist circumference is a marker of serious health issues, and “a hot body is an instinctual sign of health,” as Dr. Oz so beautifully states in his book, YOU: Being Beautiful, The Owner’s Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty.
So, stop feeling guilty about wanting a Tiny Waist. It’s hard wired. Accept that having outer beauty is a reflection of inner health. This is your new mind-set. You aren’t shallow, vapid, or vain—you want a Tiny Waist because you want optimal health. Looking smoking hot is just something you’ll have to live with.
What is a Tiny Waist?
Your waist-to-hip ratio is the measurement that best shows how Tiny—or not—your waist is. Figuring it out only requires a fabric tape measure, you, and some very simple math. If you’ve ever seen one of my Tiny Talks on Facebook Live, you’ll know that I am a huge advocate of measuring your waist weekly. All you have to do is take a tape measure, and while sucking your belly in, measure your waist at the level of your belly button. Next, measure your hips at the largest point around your bottom. Finally, divide your waist size by your hip size. An ideal ratio is 0.7 for women and 1.0 for men. Canadian researchers said that this test is an ideal and inexpensive way to predict something as serious as heart disease.
If your waist circumference is higher than these results, don’t fret. This book is designed to help you eat off the pounds over the course of the next 12 weeks. Tiny and Full™ will give you long-lasting, sustainable results. You’ll get the body you want, and it will stay the body you dreamed of forever.
How to Get a Tiny Waist
You have to cut calories. Period.
There.
I said it.
I didn’t come to this conclusion easily, folks. I’ve been a calorie-bashing, fruit-banishing, nut-noshing, spinach-with-chicken-salad-eating enthusiast for years now. I have published books, posted blogs, and tweeted regularly and passionately about only “counting the calories that count,” or worse, “not counting calories at all.” But, calories are the key to weight loss, and I’ve finally seen the light.
Whatever the diet, this is the new reality—you must create a calorie deficit if you want to shed pounds, lose belly fat, and get a Tiny Waist. Now I know that this isn’t really “new,” but for some time now, the most popular diets, from Atkins to South Beach, The Paleo Solution to The Primal Blueprint, and yes, The Belly Fat Cure to The 100 (those two are mine), all promise weight loss without tracking or counting calories, or at least not all calories. To be fair, many of these plans (and my diets always) do provide menus that are low-calorie, so they do result in weight loss (as long as the reader follows the menu to the letter). The faulty premise of most of these diets is the claim that you’ll naturally eat less because you’ll be eating more filling and slowly digestible foods, and also that you won’t be eating foods (refined sugars and flours that spike insulin) that cause fat accumulation. Unfortunately, these claims don’t hold. The first idea—that you’ll naturally eat less—doesn’t hold because most of us don’t stop eating just because we feel full. Many physical, emotional, and psychological reasons regulate how much food we consume and when we stop eating. Brian Wansink, professor of consumer behavior at Cornell and author of Mindless Eating, has conducted several clever studies that show repeatedly that the more food you put in front of you, the more you eat. It doesn’t matter what it is—we humans always eat more than we should. We are simply lousy at randomly limiting ourselves to an appropriate amount of calories. Secondly, while avoiding refined sugars and flours is still a good rule of thumb, if you don’t cut overall calories, you won’t see weight loss. There is no one food component that causes fat accumulation, as some fat enthusiasts argue. Finally, diets that focus on cutting out an entire food group—all fruits and grains, for example—are too severe and are unsustainable even when they do cut calories. The result is that most people eventually go off these plans and binge on the forbidden foods.
The idea of fat accumulation as being the result of insulin-spiking foods (all carbs and sugars) is one that I once wholeheartedly endorsed, but in the light of more recent and accurate studies, I now reject this theory. I was one of many who loved the message of Gary Taubes, an engaging and gifted journalist, who has written many books and articles that claim carbohydrates are solely responsible for obesity and fat accumulation. Taubes argues that it’s impossible to lose weight while eating carbohydrates, but that you can achieve weight loss by eating as many calories as you desire as long as you cut out all carbs and sugars. This all boils down to the way that insulin, says Taubes, spiked by carbohydrate-rich foods, causes fat to be accumulated. The research does not bear out, however. More recent and careful studies provide evidence which shows that more calories, regardless of type, means more weight, and vice versa.
In 2015, a new National Institutes of Health study published in Cell Metabolism examined the effects of low-carb and low-fat, calorie-controlled diets on 19 obese men and women. The participants stayed in a metabolic unit for two weeks so the researchers could control, regulate, and record all food intake and activity. Each group cut their daily calorie intake by 30 percent. Half of the group cut carbs (low carb), and the other half cut fat (high carb). After the two weeks, the subjects took a break for a few weeks, and then they came back and repeated the study, with the two groups switching diets. Interestingly, the average participant lost about a pound of fat over two weeks, and about four pounds of weight, but the high carb group lost more body fat (the high-carb group lost 463 grams of fat on average, compared to 245 grams in the low-carb dieters). Further, the researchers predicted that had the diets continued over the following six months, the people in the high-carb group would have ended the study losing six more pounds than the low-carb group. This directly debunks the popular low-carb theory purported by Taubes which claims that low-carb diets are more effective for fat loss because they lower levels of insulin and therefore liberate fat from fat tissue. This dispels the theory that only low-carb diets can help people shed fat. The bottom line is, once again, overall calories matter most for weight loss.
For the record, I still believe that refined sugars and flours and overly processed foods cause serious health issues, but they aren’t the reason for weight gain or loss—that’s all about calories. You can just as easily lose weight eating 1200 calories of Twinkies as you would eating the same amount of lean protein, vegetables, fruit, and whole grains (for proof, see the “Cutting Calories Any Way You Please” box). Other health problems arise when you dedicate your diet to junk food, but we’ll get into that later. The bottom line is that when it comes to weight loss—just weight loss—it’s simple math. Eat fewer calories than you burn, and you will lose weight.
Marion Nestle, professor of human nutrition at New York University, inspired much of the Tiny and Full™ philosophy that I now believe to be the best method for losing weight. In her book, Why Calories Count, she uses studies to show that cutting calories is the only reliable method for reducing weight. This is not a new idea. The whole idea of what a calorie is—a measurement of the energy, heat, or work in a food, or the energy or work that is expended in physical activity—was discovered and solidified in the 1800s. Scientists have long understood that to maintain weight, you must have a balance between the number of calories you consume and the number you expend. To lose weight, you must consume less food than you expend, or you must expend more calories in exercise than you consume in food. What you eat doesn’t really matter in this equation. Consider these studies:
• In a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, nutrition researchers from Texas Woman’s University found that regardless of the components of a diet, as long as the participants stuck to the calorie restrictions, they lost weight. The study separated women into three groups of at least 11 per group and had them eat 1,200-calorie diets of 25, 45, or 75 percent of carbohydrates with variations on fats and protein.
• In a 2001 review, researchers from the US Department of Agriculture and the University of California compared the high-protein, low-carb Atkins diet; the low-fat, high-carb Ornish plan; and the low-fat, moderate-carbohydrate Weight Watcher program. The study found that all three resulted in equal weight loss as long as the calories didn’t exceed 1,400 to 1,500 calories per day. The researchers concluded that the major determinant of weight loss was calorie balance. All people succeed at losing weight when they eat fewer calories than they burn, regardless of protein, fat, and carbohydrate levels. In addition, the subjects all reported similar effects on hunger and satisfaction despite the diet followed.
• In a 2009 study, researchers found… researchers compared four diets: low fat, average protein; low fat, high protein; high fat, average protein; and high fat, high protein. Nearly 80 percent of the 200 people followed the dietary restrictions, all of which required the men and women to cut 750 calories off their daily intake. At the end of six months, the participants, regardless of diet group, had lost an average of nine pounds. All groups reported equal levels of hunger and diet satisfaction, and all had similar improvements in insulin and cholesterol. Because the weight loss was low, and the calorie cutting was high, the investigators revisited the results and concluded that most participants had only reduced their calories by 250 per day. (The participants self-recorded their calories.)
This isn’t rocket-science, we’ve known for a while that cutting calories is how to get a tiny waist. But the truth is, cutting calories isn’t the only way to get a tiny waist. There are actually three new scientifically proven ways to reduce waist circumference that I’ve discovered:
1. Phytochemicals: Foods such as blackberries, eggplant and even dark chocolate contain certain phytochemicals that actually ignite your body’s belly burning cells. I know what you are thinking, how can dark chocolate burn off my belly fat? Well it’s because of the phytochemicals found within that dark chocolate that you CAN burn your belly fat off. A phytochemical is a chemical compound that occurs naturally in plants. Some are responsible for color and other organoleptic properties, such as the deep purple of blueberries and the smell of garlic. We’ll explore which phytochemicals burn belly fat, what foods contain them and how to successfully incorporate these foods into your diet in Chapter 3.
2. Thyroid Boost: If you’ve had a lack of energy, constipation or a sudden weight gain that just won’t come off you may be having symptoms of an underactive thyroid. If you are experiencing any one of these symptoms I recommend consulting with your doctor. But I would encourage you to be proactive with your testing. Some doctors misdiagnose the thyroid treatment due to a lack of testing, so it’s important to take multiple in-depth tests to help support your thyroid to the fullest. However, there are natural nutrition remedies that can help boost your thyroid with the right minerals and nutrients to repair the thyroid. Now, how does this help you get a tiny waist? Well, the thyroid is master gland of metabolism. The thyroid’s main job is to metabolize our food, in other words break down down our food and release energy into our body to keep us awake and alert. If your thyroid is underactive it can’t metabolize food, resulting in a broken metabolism. If you feel that you may have an underactive thyroid, I hope you consult with your doctor and continue reading as I further explain how to repair your thyroid in Chapter 3.
Cutting Calories Any Way You Please
When it comes to weight loss, it really doesn’t matter how you slice away the excess calories—reduce your intake, and you’ll drop the pounds. There are no promises of great health here, and I don’t recommend any of the following diets, but when it comes to moving the needle on the scale down, cutting calories is the key. The following outrageous examples illustrate just how crazy diets can be:
• Twinkies: To show that all calories—even the emptiest—count, an overweight Kansas State University nutrition professor put himself on a self-professed Twinkie Diet where he ate one of the Hostess treats every three hours, and interspersed the Twinkies with snacks of Doritos chips, sugary cereals, and Oreos. He limited himself to roughly less than 1800 calories a day of the overly processed, highly refined, sugar-and-fat-filled diet and lost 27 pounds over the course of 10 weeks. The professor to date hasn’t released any health issues resulting from his diet.
• Baby Food: Yes, this Hollywood fad of substituting baby food for two, or possibly three, meals a day does result in weight loss. Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson started this gimmick for cutting calories and controlling portions, and although it does cause weight loss (as long as you are cutting your calories), most people who tried it reported that the weight quickly returned when they started eating adult food again. This diet is an Internet phenomenon and isn’t published anywhere, but it makes sense when you use baby food, which is around 20 to 100 calories per jar, to replace a meal that would typically be 300 to 500 calories.
3. False Belly Fat: Do you have a history of eating processed foods? Is your belly fat hard instead of jiggly? Do you experience frequent constipation? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you may be experiencing what I call False Belly Fat. What is False Belly Fat? Well False Belly Fat isn’t actually fat, it’s built-up waste in your colon from the consumption of nutritionless foods. Eating the wrong kind of food makes you prone to this false fat as well as raising risk for visceral fat. Eating foods that high in fiber and water help promote regularity that eliminates this false fat. We’ll explore more on the foods that eliminate false belly fat and the importance of healthy digestion in Chapter 3.
I’ll explain all about bringing health into Tiny and Full™ and how to get a tiny waist in the next chapter, but for now, I’m focusing on just the aspect of losing weight—nothing else. It’s an important concept to understand. One thing we have plenty of in our society is constant access to plenty of highly nutritious foods. What we lack is moderation, and in regards to weight loss, moderation is the central concern.
THE Problem: Hunger!
The central problem when it comes to cutting calories—what you need to do to get Tiny—is hunger! Your body does not like to be denied food. If you are deprived of calories, you’ll want food and you’ll want it right now. You’ll be so bombarded with hunger signals incessantly telling you to eat that you’ll become increasingly irritated, aggressive, and even angry. This concept is so common and pervasive that the term “hangry,” an amalgam of “hungry” and “angry,” has been added to the Oxford Dictionaries to describe this phenomenon of being bad-tempered, agitated, or irritable as a result of being hungry. You might even get hangry regularly, or love someone who does. Interestingly, a natural brain chemical, the neuropeptide Y that is released when you are hungry, is the same chemical your brain secretes when you feel angry or aggressive. This reaction is thought to be part of your evolutionary being that developed to protect you from going without food for too long. We didn’t always have the plentiful open access to food that we have today. Back in the days of the hunter-gatherer, humans had to be prepared for times when food was scarce. Being aggressive and greedy about food was key to survival, which is why we don’t act with grace when we are hangry. So while it isn’t always pretty, hanger makes sense. Think about it. If our caveman forefather had been chill about the freshly killed wildebeest he worked so hard to hunt and had graciously invited the folks from the neighboring cave clan to join himself and his family, he and his might have starved. Being greedy and ravenous isn’t our most civilized behavior, but when you are in a state of hanger, it’s understandable.
I have not recommended fruit for years due to its Sugar Calories, but I’ve discovered new research that has opened my eyes to how we look at food in relation to weight loss. As I continue to do research, I can’t help but find indisputable evidence that there is another approach to weight loss that is more effective than just focusing on Sugar Calories. And today I am happily enjoying bowls full of watermelon and am leaner than I’ve ever been before.
Sugar Calories is the term I used in my books The 100 and Happy Hormones, Slim Belly, to define any carbohydrate calorie. It’s an accurate term in that all carbohydrates are “read” as sugar by your body—hence Sugar Calories. The mistake I made was to say that all Sugar Calories are equal. They aren’t. There are good sugars and bad sugars. The second misstep I took was following the advice of writers such as Gary Taubes, who argued persuasively that it was carbohydrate calories that caused weight gain. The truth is that too many calories cause weight gain, whatever food components they come from.
Knowledge exists in a flowing and changing state, and this includes nutrition and weight-loss research. Remember, once upon a time, we thought the world was flat. Several explorers were brave enough to venture out farther and discover the truth. In a similar vein, I have never believed in resting on my laurels. When I discover that I can share a better message for weight loss and health, I am always willing to update my philosophy to reflect the latest and most accurate science available. So, after much research, thought, and even internal struggle over accepting this science, I now have no lingering doubts that the most effective approach to weight loss is to consider all calories. That’s it. All calories count.
Do I still think it’s important to avoid refined sugars and flours? Absolutely. It’s a great first step and vital to your health. However, just avoiding these empty calories won’t cause weight loss in the way I once believed it would. I have discovered that “counting only Ssugar Ccalories,” along with the research relating to insulin and its effects on fat accumulation, is not as critical a factor to weight loss as watching your overall calories. In fact, it’s actually quite insignificant.
So, I bring this information to you with the sincere hope that you will continue to trust me to bring you the latest dietary science and the most effective ways to lose weight and improve your health.
Here’s to a big bowl of watermelon, grapes, and strawberries! You’ll soon learn all about celebrating the one natural source of sweetness that will help you get the Tiny Waist you’ve always dreamed of having—and you’ll find that fruit is an essential part of feeling Full while being Tiny!
Your body is a magnificent machine that is always working to maintain balance. Hunger is simply a signal to your body that it’s out of balance. The feeling is unpleasant for a good reason. What you feel when you are deprived of food is your brain beckoning your body to eat. When you diet by cutting calories from your daily allotment, you naturally feel hungrier. Let’s say you have a smaller breakfast than usual, and then you plan on having your lunch at the midday hour just like you normally do—only this time you are functioning on less than your average amount of calories (and remember, you’ll be eating a smaller lunch portion as well). Your body takes notice of such things. As time passes since your last meal, the nutrients in your bloodstream (your blood glucose) begin to drop. If the drop is far enough, your brain will see it as an emergency situation. Initially, you feel the pangs of hunger, and you might get a headache, snarl at someone, or grow weak and fatigued. You might begin to have trouble concentrating. Your thoughts will increasingly turn to food, and you’ll begin to obsess about when you can eat. Eventually, you’ll be able to think of nothing else. The result in almost every circumstance is that you will eat. Now, if you are really pumped up about losing some weight and cutting calories, you might be able to stick to your plan for a few days, but being hungry day in and day out gets old pretty fast.
One survey from the UK found that women start about three different diets per year, and quit on or around day 19. Yep. According to the researchers, by day 5, two-thirds had already cheated on their weight-loss plan. In another poll conducted by British researchers, 1,000 women reported that they quit their diets by week 5. As early as week 2, 25 percent had quit, and 50 percent dropped out by week 4. Not one woman reached her goal.
The other problem that comes with cutting calories is that your body’s calorie-burning engine (your metabolism) slows down in proportion to the calories you cut and also to the weight you lose. If you want to continue to lose weight, you have to eat fewer and fewer calories as the number on the scale goes down; otherwise, you won’t continue to lose weight. As time goes on, this gets tiresome, and, eventually, most of us bag the diet and overeat. Or, we diet for a certain amount of time, thinking that when we reach our goal, we’ll get to splurge and eat again. And when you splurge, the weight comes back with a vengeance. Remember, your body thinks you’ve been starving it, so it greedily replaces whatever you’ve lost—and fast. This situation is why yo-yo dieting is as common as rain in Seattle. Consider the following studies that illustrate the common struggles with calorie cutting and hunger:
• In a Minnesota study, researchers put 19 men on a severe calorie-restricted diet, largely composed of potatoes. At the end of the six-month study, the men had become lethargic, depressed, irritable, cold, and lost all libido while they were eating a diet that severely limited their calories. They were constantly obsessed with thoughts of food. Their muscles grew weak, endurance declined dramatically, and they lost muscle mass.
• In a study that examined the heart health of 18 voluntary calorie-restricting, antiaging enthusiasts, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that while they were about 20 percent leaner and had lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and markers of inflammation than a comparison group of “normal” eaters, the calorie restrictors were open about other difficulties. These members of the Calorie Restriction Society, who believe that the choice to reduce calorie intake will extend their life spans, report constant experiences of hunger and cold. Women report menstrual irregularities, testosterone levels will decrease in men, and many say that they obsess about food and alienate family members and friends with their lifestyle choices.
• Of dieters who lose weight, 80 to 95 percent of them gain it back within a year or two, according to a 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Researchers speculate that cutting calories too severely, or following a rigid diet that cuts out certain food groups entirely, make most diets unsustainable and leave dieters too hungry. It’s better to focus on avoiding highly processed foods and to eat moderately.
• In a Columbia University study, researchers underfed men and women to make them lose 10 to 20 percent of their weight. Not surprisingly, hunger increased while metabolism plummeted. After the studies ended, the subjects quickly regained the weight.
I have worked with many A-list stars who have horror stories of rigid self-starving plans they’ve put themselves on to lose weight. The dieting is miserable, and the weight loss is always temporary. It reminds me of the movie, The Devil Wears Prada. While the movie is fictional, it’s based on a true-life story of the fashion industry and how it glorifies the ultra-twiggy ideal for women. One of the all-too-real exchanges is between the editorial assistants Emily (played by Emily Blunt) and Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway):
Emily: Andrea, My God! You look so chic.
Andy Sachs: Oh, thanks. You look so thin.
Emily: Really? It’s for Paris. I’m on this new diet. Well, I don’t eat anything, and when I feel like I’m about to faint, I eat a cube of cheese. I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.
And another between the fashion director Nigel (played by Stanley Tucci) and Andy Sachs:
Andy Sachs: So none of the girls here eat anything?
Nigel: Not since two became the new four and zero became the new two.
Andy Sachs: Well, I’m a six . . .
Nigel: Which is the new fourteen.
These examples are unfortunately all too real for many women who want to achieve the ideal thinness factor. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to starve or deprive yourself to have a Tiny Waist. You can be Tiny and Full™—and feel great having it all!
So how can you lose weight by cutting calories without suffering from feelings of deprivation and hunger? How can you counter the basic biological desire to eat that occurs when you restrict calories to lose weight? This is the weight-loss paradox—to get and maintain a Tiny Waist requires eating tiny amounts of food, which leads to being hangry and then, often, to binging and regaining weight. Being hungry or hangry obviously isn’t the answer.
The good news is that I have a solution that works! There is no reason to suffer. No longer will you have to cut portions and deprive yourself, because I’m going to teach you how to eat more while cutting calories. I know it seems impossible, but it’s true, you can actually feel Full and have a Tiny Waist! Feeling Full is not being stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s important to understand the difference. People who have dieted for decades have often lost touch with the internal signals the body gives to alert them to levels of satiation. Feeling Full, not uncomfortably stuffed, is the feeling of being satisfied, content, and not hungry. When you are a healthy “Full,” you aren’t thinking about food. You know that you have nourished yourself appropriately and don’t need to eat again for a few hours. You could eat more, but if you did, you would cross from being Full to being uncomfortably bloated and distended. Being Full is being energized, comfortable, relaxed, and happy. Are you Ready for Full? Then, turn the page.