Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
by Brian Wansink, Ph.D.
Dieting? Thinking about dieting or trying to control your weight? Do you want to make smarter, healthier food choices? You'll want to read this book, even if you are an avid Weight Watcher or South Beacher or Atkins Advocate. Whatever your diet, the information in Mindless Eating will help you do it better and easier. I'm pretty much at my maintenance weight (four more pounds to get the rest of the Europe weight off) but even so, I still found a lot of fascinating food information in this book. I discovered why my mini-plate technique helped with my weight loss and maintenance success, for instance.
The majority of the book reports on how the author, his students, and various research associates created several scientifically sound studies, some of them downright hilarious, to figure out why people eat the way they do. They conducted studies involving self-filling soup bowls, North Dakota wine, and stale popcorn, among others. The conclusions are enlightening and helpful for anyone wanting to lose weight or maintain a current healthy weight. The end of the book includes recommendations on how to apply the study results to real life to achieve effortless weight loss. Additionally, it's darn readable. The author has a great sense of humor reflected in the book. The Eldest and I were stuck waiting for bureaucracy this afternoon and she wound up reading and chuckling along with me; she's planning to read the whole book as soon as I hand it over to her.
*I purchased this on my Kindle but there were some charts comparing diets in the back of the book that were almost unreadable due to their small size and my aging eyesight. You can normally change font size for text but I wasn't able to make the charts bigger.
**Disclosure: I bought this book for myself. I'm not a commercial blogger so I don't get paid for any reviews. If I'm reviewing it, you're getting my unbiased opinion.
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Yes, We're Back, But Here's Something Interesting
We're back from our Disney vacation (more on that later) and I'm back to my internet stumbling. I ran across an article on the Time website about diet and exercise with a novel slant. Researchers are finding that people who exercise don't necessarily lose weight! There are a few caveats, of course; the writer isn't saying stop exercising since it has significant health benefits other than weight loss, but they are rethinking the recommendations about using it as a weight loss tool. It seems that people who exercise more also wind up eating more calories than they burn off, which defeats the purpose. The type of exercise is also seen as a factor; the x-number-of-times-at-the-gym per week thing is less effective than having a generally active lifestyle. The article discussed several research studies, among them one where the test subjects in one group worked out and the subjects in another group didn't. The researchers found that the exercisers had their spurt of activity then spent the rest of the day chillin' and lazing around; the non-exercisers were more evenly active the whole day through, resulting in a net calorie expenditure that was about the same for both groups.Connect this with the recommendations of Dr. Perricone (I heard him once on a PBS special) who says you shouldn't exercise more than 40 minutes a day, 6 days per week, and my own personal success with walking 30 minutes (almost) daily, and I kind of agree with the article, with caveats. (After googling Dr. Perricone, I found an article that says he's pretty much a quack, and I have to admit his book was out there in terms of the supplements he recommends, but I think his ideas about exercise fall in line with the article in question so he might just be ahead of his time in that one respect.)
So, what does that mean? To me, it means that when you exercise you should do so with moderation and that you also have to be generally active throughout the rest of the day; take the stairs, park far from the building, etc. (Which is hard sometimes with fibromyalgia; I do the best I can!) Additionally, you have to be very careful about portion control. If exercising increases your appetite, then you have to really watch it and keep weighing and measuring for every meal. The combination of moderate exercise and eating wisely is what led to my weight loss. Continuing to walk, control portions, and make healthy food choices is what's keeping it off. (But we won't talk about what I ate at Disney World...)
So, what does that mean? To me, it means that when you exercise you should do so with moderation and that you also have to be generally active throughout the rest of the day; take the stairs, park far from the building, etc. (Which is hard sometimes with fibromyalgia; I do the best I can!) Additionally, you have to be very careful about portion control. If exercising increases your appetite, then you have to really watch it and keep weighing and measuring for every meal. The combination of moderate exercise and eating wisely is what led to my weight loss. Continuing to walk, control portions, and make healthy food choices is what's keeping it off. (But we won't talk about what I ate at Disney World...)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
True Confessions
Time to 'fess up. I gained weight on the trip. :( I came back seven pounds over my "top out" (goal) weight, but actually I started out two pounds below so that's nine pounds, even in spite of the massive amounts of walking and biking we did. Oh, the horror!!! I'm currently kind of in a holding pattern with it. I got a little off then it bumped up again, and now I'm back down a little so I'm at five pounds over. Sigh.
It was worth every bite.
But now it's back to business. I definitely notice a big difference in how I feel, so somewhere along the continuum of that nine pounds I hit a tipping point. DH says I'm snoring again and I don't get cold as easily as when I weigh less, which is neither good nor bad unless you look at our electricity bill. I'm having more bad days with the fibromyalgia so my energy level is down and my aches and pains are up. My clothes aren't as comfortable. Maybe I'm being hyper-aware, but when I gained weight the first time I was in total denial of any negative effects along the way, so hopefully awareness will work to my advantage. ;)
On the plus side, I've continued my (almost) daily walks and I've added bike rides a few times a week. Sometimes I only bike, which is easier for me when I'm having a flare up of the fibro. Probably doesn't burn as many calories, but it's getting out there and sometimes it's more important to maintain the exercise habit than it is to burn the calories. I don't keep a food diary but that's because I know how much of each category of food (fats, carbs, dairy, protein, and produce) I'm going to eat at each meal and over the course of the day. I have breakfast (usually a cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch, and I keep a one cup measure in the cereal container, a scoop of frozen blueberries, a few dried cranberries, and milk to fill the bowl), lunch with not more than two servings of carbs and 2.5 oz of protein plus some kind of produce, a snack which is usually a repeat of breakfast, and dinner which is usually a repeat of lunch. (Not the same food, just the same amounts of protein, carbs, etc.) (Although my snack is usually Kashi and fruit just like breakfast.) If I want an additional snack I usually eat fruit. I might munch on a few peanuts or nuts; I've started keeping a bowl of nuts in the shell on the kitchen counter. (You eat fewer if you have to crack them open; see "The Blue Zone" book review.) As for fat, we mostly cook with healthy fats like olive or canola oil in reasonable amounts. For dairy and protein I go for no or low fat, except for cheese which I use sparingly. We eat a vegan meal at least once a week, sometimes more, and I'm keeping an eye out for more vegan/vegetarian meals we can incorporate into our regular menus. We try to eat seafood a few times a week.
A couple of other things that really help me are keeping a journal about my weight where I've written about why I gained weight in the first place, my struggles with getting my eating under control, what I think went wrong when I let my eating get out of control, exercise challenges, and so forth. This post is similar to something I would write about, only when I was losing weight the first time around I wasn't blogging. I also WEIGH MYSELF EVERY DAY OF THE WORLD and record that weight in a little book I keep by the scale. I figured I gained the weight by burying my head in the sand and pretending I wasn't getting fat, so if I do nothing else but weigh in on a daily basis I'll stay aware of what I'm doing to my body and make healthier choices.
That's my diet plan in a nutshell! It worked to help me lose 45 pounds in 2007, so now I'm going to get focused and get back to it and lose the extra pounds I gained on my trip.
It was worth every bite.
But now it's back to business. I definitely notice a big difference in how I feel, so somewhere along the continuum of that nine pounds I hit a tipping point. DH says I'm snoring again and I don't get cold as easily as when I weigh less, which is neither good nor bad unless you look at our electricity bill. I'm having more bad days with the fibromyalgia so my energy level is down and my aches and pains are up. My clothes aren't as comfortable. Maybe I'm being hyper-aware, but when I gained weight the first time I was in total denial of any negative effects along the way, so hopefully awareness will work to my advantage. ;)
On the plus side, I've continued my (almost) daily walks and I've added bike rides a few times a week. Sometimes I only bike, which is easier for me when I'm having a flare up of the fibro. Probably doesn't burn as many calories, but it's getting out there and sometimes it's more important to maintain the exercise habit than it is to burn the calories. I don't keep a food diary but that's because I know how much of each category of food (fats, carbs, dairy, protein, and produce) I'm going to eat at each meal and over the course of the day. I have breakfast (usually a cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch, and I keep a one cup measure in the cereal container, a scoop of frozen blueberries, a few dried cranberries, and milk to fill the bowl), lunch with not more than two servings of carbs and 2.5 oz of protein plus some kind of produce, a snack which is usually a repeat of breakfast, and dinner which is usually a repeat of lunch. (Not the same food, just the same amounts of protein, carbs, etc.) (Although my snack is usually Kashi and fruit just like breakfast.) If I want an additional snack I usually eat fruit. I might munch on a few peanuts or nuts; I've started keeping a bowl of nuts in the shell on the kitchen counter. (You eat fewer if you have to crack them open; see "The Blue Zone" book review.) As for fat, we mostly cook with healthy fats like olive or canola oil in reasonable amounts. For dairy and protein I go for no or low fat, except for cheese which I use sparingly. We eat a vegan meal at least once a week, sometimes more, and I'm keeping an eye out for more vegan/vegetarian meals we can incorporate into our regular menus. We try to eat seafood a few times a week.
A couple of other things that really help me are keeping a journal about my weight where I've written about why I gained weight in the first place, my struggles with getting my eating under control, what I think went wrong when I let my eating get out of control, exercise challenges, and so forth. This post is similar to something I would write about, only when I was losing weight the first time around I wasn't blogging. I also WEIGH MYSELF EVERY DAY OF THE WORLD and record that weight in a little book I keep by the scale. I figured I gained the weight by burying my head in the sand and pretending I wasn't getting fat, so if I do nothing else but weigh in on a daily basis I'll stay aware of what I'm doing to my body and make healthier choices.
That's my diet plan in a nutshell! It worked to help me lose 45 pounds in 2007, so now I'm going to get focused and get back to it and lose the extra pounds I gained on my trip.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Artificial Sweeteners
I've always avoided artificial sweeteners. I'm not sure why I initially rejected them, but I just don't feel I need them and I'm somewhat suspicious of them. Nutra Sweet gives me headaches, and the research is so conflicted- today they cause cancer, tomorrow they don't, that I just washed my hands of the lot of them. Now I'm finding out that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is also an artificial sweetener I want to avoid. It's not a low calorie sugar substitute but a high calorie, cheap-for-the-corporations sugar substitute. It's also really bad stuff, in spite of the ad campaigns they have out now. My new blog buddy Melinda wrote about it and included a link to a website with more information, and I'm spreading the word, too. It's so hard to avoid! Luckily we aren't big on sodas around my house so we weren't getting it that way, but it's in salad dressing, bagels, popsicles, and waaaaay more products that you would imagine- read your labels!
As far as dieting goes, a lot of people think the artificial sweeteners will help them lose weight. How wrong you are, Grasshopper! I'd figured out why myself, sort of, which I'll explain, but then I've also heard other sources verify what I'd already theorized about. When you eat/drink something with a sweet taste, which artificial sweeteners give you, your tongue sends a message to your brain- "hey, here's some sweet stuff for you", then your brain gets ready for nutrients. Only there aren't any nutrients in artificial sweeteners! So your brain kind of panics a little and says back to your body "we got sweet but no nutrients; must eat more, must eat more!", and you get hungry. When you get hungry, you eat more to get the nutrients you needed in the first place, and wind up over eating, and gain weight. When I'm a nutritionist the FIRST thing I'll tell people is NO MORE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS!!! And they'll probably run screaming from the room, but oh well. ;) Now, as to what I figured out on my own. In a book I read about why diets fail and people have such a hard time maintaining weight loss, the author wrote about a study done during, I think it was one of the World Wars, where a bunch of service men were put on a super restrictive diet and lost weight to the point where they were underweight. They found that the men developed an obsession with cooking, cookbooks, and finding new recipes. The author came to the conclusion that this study was proof that the men were going to fail in their attempts to diet since they developed such an obsession with food, or something like that. (I was so disgusted with the obviously flawed conclusions throughout the book I threw it away, so I can't go look it up.) MY conclusion is different. I think that the men weren't looking for recipes and so forth in order to increase calories, but rather to increase NUTRITION. Our bodies need certain building blocks in order to survive and be healthy and if those soldiers were on restricted calorie diets then their brains wanted every calorie to count and be packed with the nutrients needed for survival, thus the interest in food preparation. I've heard variations on the same theme on Oprah, both from Dr. Oz and from her diet guru/personal trainer guy. It boils down to this- if you eat junk without the nutrients your body needs, then your body is going to crave more and more food just in hopes of getting some of the nutrients needed for health and survival. If you eat nutritious, healthy, minimally processed food, then you'll be able to feel quite full and content on far fewer calories. You can't just count calories without counting the quality of those calories!!
As far as dieting goes, a lot of people think the artificial sweeteners will help them lose weight. How wrong you are, Grasshopper! I'd figured out why myself, sort of, which I'll explain, but then I've also heard other sources verify what I'd already theorized about. When you eat/drink something with a sweet taste, which artificial sweeteners give you, your tongue sends a message to your brain- "hey, here's some sweet stuff for you", then your brain gets ready for nutrients. Only there aren't any nutrients in artificial sweeteners! So your brain kind of panics a little and says back to your body "we got sweet but no nutrients; must eat more, must eat more!", and you get hungry. When you get hungry, you eat more to get the nutrients you needed in the first place, and wind up over eating, and gain weight. When I'm a nutritionist the FIRST thing I'll tell people is NO MORE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS!!! And they'll probably run screaming from the room, but oh well. ;) Now, as to what I figured out on my own. In a book I read about why diets fail and people have such a hard time maintaining weight loss, the author wrote about a study done during, I think it was one of the World Wars, where a bunch of service men were put on a super restrictive diet and lost weight to the point where they were underweight. They found that the men developed an obsession with cooking, cookbooks, and finding new recipes. The author came to the conclusion that this study was proof that the men were going to fail in their attempts to diet since they developed such an obsession with food, or something like that. (I was so disgusted with the obviously flawed conclusions throughout the book I threw it away, so I can't go look it up.) MY conclusion is different. I think that the men weren't looking for recipes and so forth in order to increase calories, but rather to increase NUTRITION. Our bodies need certain building blocks in order to survive and be healthy and if those soldiers were on restricted calorie diets then their brains wanted every calorie to count and be packed with the nutrients needed for survival, thus the interest in food preparation. I've heard variations on the same theme on Oprah, both from Dr. Oz and from her diet guru/personal trainer guy. It boils down to this- if you eat junk without the nutrients your body needs, then your body is going to crave more and more food just in hopes of getting some of the nutrients needed for health and survival. If you eat nutritious, healthy, minimally processed food, then you'll be able to feel quite full and content on far fewer calories. You can't just count calories without counting the quality of those calories!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)