|
Television advertisements for highly caloric, yummy-looking foods have been around for so long that some of us avert our eyes when they appear so we won’t immediately give into the temptation to obtain the food. Otherwise, we would be phoning the local pizza place or raiding the freezer every time the commercials came on the screen. Over the past several months I noticed something about the commercial breaks that may drive all of us to the kitchen to find something to eat even if the advertised product is not food. The time dedicated to showing commercials between segments of a network television show seem to be getting longer and longer. I noticed this when, during the commercials. I tried to take care of those last-minute household chores of the evening. To my astonishment, it was possible to get the coffee maker ready for morning breakfast on one break, brush my teeth for the allotted time on another and, if my dog was fast enough, take him out for a last minute “pee” break. But then once these tasks were completed, I was faced with the problem of what to do during the subsequent two or three minutes of advertisements. Going to the kitchen to find something to eat was always a possibility as was spending the time deciding whether I wanted to eat or not. Eating to use up time is a chronic problem that many of us face. regardless of whether we are on a diet or simply trying to maintain our weight. When faced with large amounts of uncommitted time, such as on a rainy Sunday afternoon or during the evenings, it is too easy to spend the time walking back and forth from the kitchen. Often the best way to prevent this is to get out of the house or become so involved in an activity that the desire to snack is forgotten. In fact, diets will succeed only if the dieter can figure out how to spend the time he or she used to be spend eating doing something else. It is easier to identify activities that use up several hours than it is to find something to do for three-minute intervals every ten minutes of a television show. Few people are going to run to the piano to practice a scale or put a few strokes of oil on a canvas during the commercials. So I thought I would come up with a list of activities that can be done during the advertising interval and are far away from the kitchen. 1. Look up definitions of words whose meaning is a mystery to you. If you don’t have a dictionary, Google them. 2. Write a thank-you note or sign and address birthday, anniversary or other celebratory cards. 3. Check your appointment schedule for the next day. This is particularly important for people such as myself who write down meeting and other appointment dates but fail to open the calendar where they are written. 4. Scan the weather report in the newspaper so you can find somewhere in the world with worse weather than tomorrow’s forecast for where you live. 5. Check to see if your pet’s water bowl is filled. 6. Get down on the floor and do a minute’s worth of push-ups or abdominal crunches. 7. Stand on one foot during the commercial. With practice you might be able to do it for the full length of the advertising. This is a great way to improve your balance. 8. Go through the container where you keep your earrings and line up them up. Think about what to do about those missing a partner. 9. Fold clothes (this always has to be done). 10. Write down what you remember eating during the day and check to see if you consumed any vegetables, fruits or dairy. If not, program your cell phone or computer to remind you to do so tomorrow. This may take two commercial breaks to accomplish. 11. Empty your wastebaskets or yell at your kids to do it if it is their chore. 12. If you plan to travel to a foreign country, repeat an essential phrase in that country’s language like “where is the toilet?” 13. Check the thermostat and argue with your partner/spouse over the setting. This may take longer than the commercial break. 14. Floss your teeth, again. It’s impossible to do this enough. 15. Brush your cat or dog. Do not do this if animal is on bed unless you want fur on your pillow. 16. Watch the advertisements. Sometimes they are funny. | permalink | related link |    ( 3 / 121 )A research team from San Diego reported recently that people who are depressed eat more chocolate than non-depressed individuals. Although this news might surprise men, any woman who has experienced premenstrual syndrome takes this for granted. PMS and chocolate cravings go together like peanut butter and jelly or fireworks and the 4th of July. An editor of a woman’s magazine told me years ago that she always knew when she was premenstrual because she was unable to walk by a gourmet chocolate shop next to her office without going in and buying a large chocolate bar. “The crankiness, fatigue, confusion and depression come later on,” she told me. “The craving for chocolate is always there first. I remember once longing for a chocolate ice cream while sitting through a formal three-course dinner and after- dinner speaker. The food served at the meal did not tempt me at all but as soon as I could leave, I headed for the nearest ice cream shop. Sure enough, I was premenstrual.” The association between chocolate craving and premenstrual syndrome has been known for decades and theories promoted to explain this relationship tended toward the fanciful or bizarre: hysterical personality, malfunction of the reproductive organs or water on the brain. Moreover, because doctors noted that the women eating the chocolate were bad-tempered, depressed or confused, they concluded that the chocolate was making them that way. As recently as 10 to15 years ago, chocolate-craving premenstrual women were told that eating chocolate, and indeed any sweet food, would make their moods worse and to eat only fruits, vegetables and lean protein. This advice can still be found in some women’s health and fitness magazines. Not only is it wrong but any premenstrual women who follows it will gnash her teeth over being denied her chocolate. There is a good reason why women with PMS go out in a blizzard to get chocolate or eat a dinner of melted chocolate on a chocolate brownie sitting on chocolate ice cream. The chocolate was making them feel better, not worse. The improvement in mood is due to chocolate’s substantial sugar content and, to a small extent, the caffeine-like ingredient is also contains. Because chocolate has a creamy texture, we are unaware of how much sugar it contains. But anybody who has accidentally mistaken baking chocolate for the eating kind knows the difference; baking chocolate is incredibly bitter. Sugar is a simple carbohydrate and when sugar of any carbohydrate, except that found in fruit, is eaten without protein, the body responds by making new serotonin in the brain. To be sure the flavor and mouth-feel of chocolate starts the eater on the road to a good mood. But the immediate sensations on the taste buds quickly disappear, whereas the relief from irritation, agitation and fatigue may last for a couple of hours. Several years ago at the MIT clinical research center, we carried out some extremely complicated studies with premenstrual women to show scientifically that eating a brownie or even a bowl of starchy carbohydrate like cornflakes relieves that mood and eating disturbances of PMS. To begin with, we found that normal weight women may increase their calorie intake by more than 1100 calories a day when they are premenstrual compared to when they are in the first half of their menstrual cycle. And to no one’s surprise, these calories came from sweet and starchy snacks and starchy meal food, and not from chicken, fish or cottage cheese. We also found the anger, confusion, depression, anxiety and cravings of PMS became more tolerable after women consumed a beverage containing a mixture of carbohydrates. When they drank a beverage containing protein, there was no improvement in how they felt. They did not know what they were drinking and the two beverages tasted exactly the same. For reasons we still don’t understand, hormonal changes associated with the menstrual cycle affect serotonin activity. This also may be true for women who are pre-menopausal. When our premenstrual volunteers ate carbohydrate, their brain cells made more serotonin and this chemical messenger brought the women back to feeling normal. An extra bonus was that they lost their intense cravings for carbohydrate so those who were trying to lose weight felt their appetite was under control. Just to be sure that serotonin was the main actor in all this, we also carried out more studies with one of the antidepressant drugs that activated serotonin. We found that a short bout of treatment with the drug improved the moods of women who had severe PMS and this actually led to drug companies using some antidepressants for the extreme form of this disorder. Obviously someone on a diet, or even not on a diet, cannot live on a meal plan consisting of chocolate Cheerios for breakfast, a chocolate bar between two slices of bread for dinner (they do eat this in Switzerland) and a bowl of hot fudge sauce for dinner when she has PMS. But as long as portion control is monitored, fat is decreased as much as possible ( for example, fat-free fudge sauce) and a vitamin pill is taken, no real nutritional harm will come from a once-a-month indulgence in this wonderful mood food. However, all carbohydrates except fructose (fruit sugar) will produce the same beneficial effect on premenstrual mood. If you find that your mood is bearable in the early part of the day but intolerable by afternoon eat your protein, vegetables and dairy products for breakfast and lunch and switch to carbohydrates from 3 PM on. This way your nutritional and emotional needs will be met. And rather than dreading PMS, think about chocolate and look forward to it. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 45 )The newspapers are filled with pictures of people sleeping on cots in airports waiting to get home. Days have passed since the volcano in Iceland erupted, stranding people on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to stories of people washing their socks—and even their hair—in restroom sinks, there must be untold numbers of travelers running out of more than clean underwear. Medications are an obvious problem. If you expected to be away only for a long weekend, you may not have taken the medications you need for an extended stay away from home. But there is one over-the-counter medication Are vitamins classified as medications? that you might not think of packing, even if you are not planning to spend your vacation in the airport. I’m referring to multi-vitamin pills. It is pretty obvious to anyone trying to eat before boarding a plane that most airport restaurants do not offer foods meeting the USDA standard of what you should be eating each day. Even though the ubiquitous fast-food hamburger, pizza and Chinese restaurants may be joined by a few places offering salads, grilled vegetables and non-fried protein like grilled chicken, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables and non-fat dairy products are not featured prominently on any airport restaurant menu. Even assuming that your travel will not be limited to arriving and staying at an airport, you should still consider packing vitamin pills. Railroad stations and highway rest-stop restaurants echo the nutritional limitations of airport restaurants. Moreover, a steady diet of restaurant food during an extended business or pleasure trip may further restrict your access to a nutritionally adequate diet. This is especially true if you are traveling with children. For obvious reasons, restaurants offer “kid-friendly” menu options. These options may be friendly to your child’s taste buds but are often unfriendly toward good health. Many years ago, when my husband was on a sabbatical, we took our kids to England and our first meal in London was breakfast. When our junior high school-aged kids saw a typical English breakfast—fried eggs and sausage swimming in lard, baked beans, warm mushy tomatoes and soggy toast—they were ready to go back on the plane. It is less hard to get vegetables and fruit these days but these foods are certainly not served as often as French fries or chicken nuggets. In fact, one of the frustrating aspects of travel is the disconnect between what is in the supermarket or farm stands and what is served in restaurants. A farmer’s market in late spring or summer will offer countless local vegetables and fruits but try to find those fresh blueberries or recently picked lettuce in the restaurant a few blocks away! When we travel during those months, we try to stop at local farm stands whenever we can. If we are staying in a hotel, we store them in the refrigerated section of the mini-bar. Then we eat the fruit at breakfast or make a lunch out of fresh tomatoes, basil and local goat cheese and bread. But of course these nutritional pit stops are unavailable in the winter months or if the closest supermarket or farm stand is in the next state. So vitamin pills are like nutritional travel insurance. You don’t expect volcanoes to erupt or lack of sunshine and citrus fruit to make you vulnerable to rickets and scurvy. But carrying a small bottle of pills with you will give you a sense of nutritional security. And we all hope the planes start flying before you use up your bottle. | permalink | related link | ( 3.1 / 35 )An advertisement by North Face in the May issue of Runner’s World magazine shows an extremely fit runner on a mountain trail. On the opposite page the caption reads ”When life’s problems begin to take their toll on you, take them running.” This message describes the beginning of my years as a runner (which, sadly, came to an end with an Achilles heel tear). At the time I started running, I was juggling lab research for my doctorate with taking care of two elementary school-age children and a husband who was working at least 80 hours a week. What kept me sane during those months of doing experiments that had to be abruptly terminated because of car-pooling needs, or finding a childcare giver who lasted more than three months, was running. After a few minutes, the stress of sitting in traffic on my car-pool days or trying to multi-task too many things at home or work would fall away. My focus would be on whether I could run up the next steep hill without stopping for breath half-way or making sure I didn’t trip over tree roots jutting out of the sidewalk. These days the gym, or if weather and time permit a long bike ride, provides the same relief from daily stress. One summer I spent many afternoons picking low bush blueberries in the hot sun as a way of easing worry over the health of a family member. Moving one’s body rhythmically and repetitiously as one does in running, biking or even picking tiny blueberries somehow calms the mind and the emotional state. The problems are still there but they seem a little more manageable when our bodies are tired and sweaty after a workout. The stress relief may come from something as simple as having the tension exercised out of our muscles. Or it may be that like meditation, focusing our minds on something other than our mental clutter from anxiety and worry, is calming in itself. We talk about exercise as important for our health, fitness, weight loss and even memory. But as the advertisement in the magazine shows, its impact doesn’t have to wait until your next medical check up or the next time you step on a scale. Its effect on decreasing stress is immediate. And the opposite is true as well. People who habitually exercise tend to feel irritable and restless and complain about sleeping badly when they are denied the chance to move their bodies. After I sprained my ankle twice while running, I forced myself to swim in order to keep my grumpiness in check until I could resume running again. Some people claim that serotonin; the chemical in the brain that keeps our emotional state healthy, is made after exercising. They say that this is why feeling good is so common when the workout is over (and not just because the work out is over!). There is no evidence for this, as the brain makes serotonin only after a carbohydrate food is eaten with little or no protein. On the other hand, the combination of eating a carbohydrate snack to boost serotonin levels and then going for a run, bike ride or workout in the gym may double the benefit of the latter. What is important is to identify a dependable way of exercising off your daily stress. It could be yoga, swimming, gardening, walking the dog, gathering seashells on the beach, strolling around a bird sanctuary or pulling dandelions. Whatever it is, it should be easily accessible and compatible with your schedule since you don’t want to add to the obligations and stresses of the day by doing something inconvenient. Dogs are usually always ready to be walked. In the summer, dandelions are available to be pulled from the lawn. Like meditation, exercising away stress takes practice and time. The beginning stages of meditation can be very frustrating when the mind won’t stop its chatter and the knees and back rebel at sitting in one position for more than 30 seconds. The same thing is true about the early stages of a new physical activity. The discomfort or frustration at making your body do the unexpected may seem too high a price to pay for the supposed relief you anticipate. When I started swimming as my ankle was healing, I spent more of my time trying not to sink to the bottom of the pool or gasping for breath. It felt like punishment, not stress relief. But in time, it became easier and like running, the repetition and rhythm did its magic in making me feel relaxed. So if you are just starting out on your new exercise regimen, or returning to it after a long absence, be patient. The rewards will come and soon you will wonder how you ever managed to deal with stress without it. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 160 )As I was wheeling my supermarket cart toward the checkout area, a display of outrageously colored marshmallows chicks caught my eye. “Of course,” I thought to myself, “it is Peeps season.” Easter was a few days away, and in honor of the traditional junk foods of the holiday, the supermarket had stacked shelves with the garish little chickens and rabbits. Seeing them there brought back memories of giving them out to a group of binge eaters who participated in a weight-loss program at our clinic. I am quite fond of Peeps; they are one of a very few number of foods that are almost guaranteed to stop people from bingeing. “What would make you stop eating?” we asked the members of the group when each described a situation in which her eating was out of control. The answer was usually “when I can no longer put any more food in my stomach.” At that point I, or the other leader of the group, would produce a plate of Peeps. We kept them in the freezer so we would have them when no holiday confections were being sold. After passing them around and telling the group to eat a couple, we would ask, “So how many of these could you eat during a binge?” Some of our participants would turn the green or yellow of the little chicks and respond by saying they would gag if they had to eat more than a couple. “They are so sweet. How could anyone eat more than a two or three?” were the typical responses. “Most people can’t” was the answer. “And that is why each of you is going to take home a box of these marshmallows. When you feel an uncontrollable urge to binge, you can eat only the chicks. Nothing else.” We were never disappointed in the results. Unless she cheated and ate something else, no one in the group could eat more than six of the chicks. Each found her binge stopped in its tracks. Although one could suspect that the color of the Peeps was enough to stop eating, that wasn’t why they worked to abort a binge. Peeps are made of rapidly digestible sugar. The sugar stimulates the production of an appetite-controlling chemical in the brain called serotonin. By the time the fourth or fifth Peeps was eaten, enough serotonin was produced to shut down the desire to eat anymore. It is not necessary to wait until Easter or Christmas Peeps are in the supermarket to control a binge. Any rapidly digestible carbohydrate (except that in fruit) will accomplish the same thing. In fact, one of the other foods we used to block the binge was a sports energy gel called GU. Like other energy gels, GU consists of glucose, the simplest sugar in nature. People engaged in long- distance competitive events use energy gels to restore their depleted carbohydrate energy stores. The gels come packaged in tiny plastic containers similar in size to fast-food mayonnaise or ketchup pouches. Once opened, they are squeezed onto the tongue. They taste more or less like chocolate, vanilla or orange frosting. Because the sugar is the same as that used by the body to make energy, the contents travel rapidly through the digestive system and quickly stimulate a process in the body that allows serotonin to be made. The problem with binges is that they tend to take hold without warning. Anxiety, unexpected problems at work or home— indeed any type of stress—can make many people reach automatically for food and start to eat with no end in sight. And all too often, once it is realized that five chocolate chip cookies have already been gobbled, the binge eater gives up all hope of control and keeps on eating until either there is nothing left or it is too uncomfortable to eat anymore. An effective way of stopping the binge before it gets wound up and unstoppable is to shock the tongue and the brain. This is why the excruciating sweetness of GU or Peeps on the tongue makes the person focus on how and what she is consuming. Within minutes the brain is focusing on making the new serotonin that will take away the desire to eat. Of course, the best way to stop a binge is to develop an eating style that prevents you from falling into one in the first place. Binges often occur following a high protein, low-carbohydrate diet. Such a diet leaves the brain depleted of serotonin. Since serotonin also buffers you against the unpleasant emotions of stress, lack of serotonin leaves you hanging out there, vulnerable to every stress that comes your way. If you follow a food plan such as The Serotonin Power Diet, your serotonin levels will be available to help you cope with the emotional unpleasantness that comes into all our lives. You won’t have to eat to relieve the agitation and anxiety the stress is causing because serotonin will soften the harshness of these emotions. Simply by making sure you eat a non-fruit carbohydrate at least once or twice a day without any protein (protein prevents serotonin from being made) will put you in a stress-protected mode. This doesn’t mean that you won’t experience stress—it will just be easier to endure. What will happen to post-holiday Peeps if they are no longer needed for a binge? Around Easter there was a national competition to see what kinds of artwork could be created out of these creatures and some complicated dioramas were shown on national television. So when binges are no longer a problem, get out your scissors and glue and see what you can create from pink chickens and green rabbits. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 153 )Back Next |
|
|
Categories
