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The Holiday Overeating Myths
2. Micromanage the Table
Surreptitiously controlling your food microenvironment when you do sit down to eat makes a huge difference as to how much goes in your mouth. So as you take your seat, bear in mind that short, skinny neighbors will serve themselves smaller portions and tempt you to eat less than tall, overweight, or athletic ones. If you can't sit next to a featherweight, at least keep the high-calorie foods and alcohol moving down the table away from you, making sure it doesn’t end up within reach. Multiple research studies have shown that the proximity of food determines how much you load onto your plate, so even simple steps like this can be a big help.
3. Skip the Boring Stuff
Every holiday meal has some high-calorie things you don't particularly care for. By not looking at, smelling, and especially tasting even a single bite of the mundane items, you avoid revving up metabolic hunger signals unnecessarily and can save hundreds of calories. As for work parties and other events where the food is simply all-around poor, eat something satisfying before you go and keep a glass of seltzer in your hand for a zero-calorie event.
4. Recover Control the Very Next Day
Yes we have the metabolic effects of feasts like Thanksgiving that make us hungry for another good meal, and then another, but that doesn't mean you’re helpless. The key to nipping negative cycles in the bud is doing recovery activities in the right order. Although cutting out high-calorie treats starting the next day might seem like the right place to start, in fact this superficially easy route frequently leads to failure because you get hungry and then overeat when you get hungry again. The key here, in my clinical experience, is to recover satiety first. Put yourself on a high-fiber regimen the very next morning—high-fiber cereals, legume dishes, and low-carb, high-fiber breads are best—and see how quickly you lose the urge to overeat. With some good satiety under your belt, you are ready to start eating healthy stuff again and will be better able to keep those pounds from sticking around your middle.
Susan B. Roberts is professor of nutrition and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University and author of the Beast-endorsed Instinct Diet weight-loss program (The Instinct Diet, Workman 2008, and The "I" Diet, Workman 2010). Weight loss on the Instinct diet averages 16 pounds in eight weeks and 30 pounds in five months.
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Dr Susan Roberts is a professor of Nutrition and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, and author of The "i" Diet. She has not taken money from food companies for the food endorsements in this article. She welcomes comments on the program through her website and encourages you to become her friend on her just-started facebook site where she is setting up an interactive process to further improve The "i" Diet with new recipes and menus.
The Diet Killer
Dr Susan Roberts is a professor of Nutrition and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, and author of The "i" Diet. She has not taken money from food companies for the food endorsements in this article. She welcomes comments on the program through her website and encourages you to become her friend on her just-started facebook site where she is setting up an interactive process to further improve The "i" Diet with new recipes and menus.
The New Fat Hazard
Dr Susan Roberts is a professor of Nutrition and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, and author of The "i" Diet. She has not taken money from food companies for the food endorsements in this article. She welcomes comments on the program through her website and encourages you to become her friend on her just-started facebook site where she is setting up an interactive process to further improve The "i" Diet with new recipes and menus.
hithere3
This is great. Tell Americans, a majority of whom are overweight, and who comprise the largest proportion of obese people in any nation, not to bother trying to eat less.
Well done!
chengdulaoshi
umm, hi there, hithere3.
I don't really think this is the point of Dr. Roberts' article. This nutritionist and psychiatrist is attempting to point out, quite lucidly, the causes of, and potential cures for, overeating during the holiday season.
She is also schooling us in the established scientific fact that it is often not the *amount* of food that we consume, so much as the *types* of food, that contributes most to America's legendary rotundity.
Americans habitually choose to "fuel up" on a quick and easy McDonald's meal, for example (no slight intended to the Burger King fans out there) when they could just as easily opt for a huge, high fiber salad and not suffer the same setbacks in their Battles of the Bulge.
Dr. Roberts is also attempting to point out the classic situations to watch for during the holiday that can trigger binge eating.
As an American living in China, I see thousands and thousands of Chinese every day. Yet I almost never see a fat Chinese person. But the thing is, these folks are eating all the time. They love to eat!
In the first three months of living here, I dropped twenty pounds without even trying. I eat exactly the same quantity of food, only my food choices are dictated by the cultural milieu that surrounds me.
I loathe behaviorists on humanistic grounds, but I have to admit that they are on to something here. In many ways, we really are the products of our environments.
This is further proven by the fact that, with China's recent opening to the West, many Chinese have begun to adopt America's fast food lifestyle, so obesity is now beginning to rise here. Coronary heart disease - one of America's many gifts to the world!
Alas, the vast majority of Americans who could profit from Dr. Robert's advice will never actually *read* her article, and thus the cycle of obesity in America will probably continue.
(By way of illustration, please note the relative dearth of comments to this article, compared to the flood of comments on a recently-posted TDB piece, exploring the complex and nuanced social and political implications of Sarah Palin's recent pant suit dilemma.
"What, Sarah is having wardrobe worries?"
Happy Thanksgiving!
MikeLicht
Sorry. Real Guys just gotta deep-fry their turkeys.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/turkey-torching-tips-for- guys/
drjonathan
Dr Roberts:
I do appreciate your article, as it does point out several psychological techniques to assist the overweight person with portion control. However, I do notice that your article mentions "the best scientific research available," but then fails to reference just what that is. The reason for this is probably more complicated that you think: There really isn't very good American research on how to help people eat healthy and be healthy. To prove my point I simply offer this: Of ALL industrialized nations, our nation typically ranks LAST in terms of lowest obesity rates, best fitness levels, and lowest levels of cardiovascular disease. LAST. Our nation, which is not only our citizens but also the "health" care system that provides care, has miserably FAILED to keep ourselves at reasonable weight and level of fitness. If YOU are going to reference the 'best' scientific research available, I expect you to tell me what it is exactly, since our nation's researchers have failed terribly to do what most nations do easily. (and to be honest I expect MORE from you, a psychiatrist, who should be well aware that psychiatrist precriptions for mental disorders cost Americans millions each year, but are usually only slightly better than placebo... according to the research of YOUR OWN COMMUNITY).
If you have some stunning research and just 'know' what it takes to keep Americans healthy, you really need to reference it, since most psychiatrists and nutritionists in America should be classified as failures for the amount of money they cost us versus their expense. Especiall when we compare your performance to other countries.
For instance: have you EVER successfully taken an overweight person and guided them until they were fit, healthy, and no longer overweight? If so, THAT is the story you need to tell. If not (and by the way you, your mom, or you neighbor that you helped don't count), you really shouldn't be spouting off on this topic. If so... THAT is what Americans need to hear.
chengdulaoshi
Dr. Jonathan,
I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on T.V.), and therefore confess to being woefully unqualified to cut in on your professional conversation with Dr. Roberts. However, it seems to me that your post does contain a few glaring logical fallacies that bear examination.
You write:
"There really isn't very good American research on how to help people eat healthy and be healthy. To prove my point I simply offer this: Of ALL industrialized nations, our nation typically ranks LAST in terms of lowest obesity rates, best fitness levels, and lowest levels of cardiovascular disease. LAST. Our nation, which is not only our citizens but also the "health" care system that provides care, has miserably FAILED to keep ourselves at reasonable weight and level of fitness."
Isn't this a bit of a *non-sequitor* (a logical fallacy in which the conclusion does not follow from the premise)?
There may or may not be "really good American research" on the causes and potential cures of obesity. Your declaration that there is no such research seems to me a startling claim, in view of the fact that obesity has been the subject of thousands of research studies by top American scientists for decades.
But assuming for the sake of argument that we grant you this claim, how does it follow that this is the cause of continuing obesity in Americans?
I mean, isn't it possible that excellent and conclusive research has been conducted, many times over, and despite the knowledge that exists thousands of Americans simply choose to *ignore* the research findings and choose to eat whatever they damn please?
Researchers are only researchers, after all. They lack the legal authority or physical capacity to *force* people to listen to their conclusions and/or follow their advice. They can't stand beside every American queued up at Burger King and say "my God, man, don't eat THAT!." Even if somehow they could, their audience would probably just ignore them. It's still a free country, after all.
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
You continue:
"Have you (Dr. Roberts) EVER successfully taken an overweight person and guided them until they were fit, healthy, and no longer overweight? If so, THAT is the story you need to tell. If not (and by the way you, your mom, or you neighbor that you helped don't count), you really shouldn't be spouting off on this topic."
You may or may not be aware that Dr. Roberts is the author of "The Instinct Diet," a highly successful book outlining her research into the causes of obesity, as well as her plan for weight loss, based on her theory that our eating behaviors are "hard-wired" into our genetic makeup, causing us to 1) eat when food is available, 2) choose the most calorie-dense foods, and 3) react irrationally to the feeling of hunger.
Dr. Roberts' diet plan is designed to help us to use these instinctual drives to our advantage, and in the process help us lose, rather than gain, weight.
Thousands of Americans have been successful in achieving substantial weight loss through Dr. Roberts' system. There are 32 testimonials to Dr. Roberts' Instinct Diet system on Amazon. Of those testimonials, 27 readers gave the system Five Stars, the highest rating possible.
Most of the testimonials report substantial weight loss using her system.
The review appended below is representative of the results reported using Dr. Roberts' Instinct Diet.
* * *
I am a 59 year old male. Eight weeks ago I weighed 179 pounds. My target weight is somewhere around 155 or maybe a few pounds lower.
At the end of eight weeks (two weeks of stage 1 and six weeks of stage 2), my weight is 161.5. That is a drop of 17.5 pounds or just slightly under 10 percent of my initial body weight.
I did not do any aerobic exercise during this period beyond my normal daily activities, which sometimes includes walking between a half-mile and a mile. I had no cravings or hunger except a few mild late-night cravings during the first week.
My intention is to stay on the stage 2 diet until I reach my target, which should be within 3-5 weeks if I continue to lose at the same rate.
UPDATE: At 12 weeks, I have reached my target of 155. This is a drop of 24 pounds, or around 13-14 percent of my starting weight. This is my best weight in 25-30 years.
* * *
In brief, Dr. Roberts' many years of clinical experience and real-world success in helping obese Americans lose weight would appear to make her a supremely qualified person to "spout off" on this subject.
Thank you.
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