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How many calories does it take to watch a football game on television? Does it take more when the game is the Super Bowl? Do these football game nights so drain the body of calories that the television viewer might starve to death unless fed constantly during the show? Take away the beer and franks and is a baseball game as interesting? Would the tennis matches at Wimbledon be as enticing if played without strawberries and cream being consumed by the spectators? In short, is calorie intake an essential part of watching a sport and if so, is it one of the reasons the war against obesity is being lost?
Eating seems to be the go –to activity that fills up our so-called recreational or relaxation time. It is such an essential part of our life style that it seems rude and inattentive to have friends or family over to our home and not feed them or to meet someone for conversation without including a meal, snack or at least coffee and a pastry. Recently I received a flyer announcing a lecture series given by a local academic and tucked into the corner of the paper was a notice that refreshments would be served immediately following the talk. It is hard to think of any activity devoid of the opportunity to eat, although I suppose bungee jumping and deep-sea diving would qualify. Anyone attempting to maintain weight loss or prevent weight gain faces the problem of almost endless opportunities to eat at recreational events. It requires enormous will power stamina to crunch on ice cubes rather than Buffalo wings or potato chips and cheese dip or nurse a diet soft drink rather than a beer. And despite the many electronic devices willing to record the number of chips or wings consumed so you know at the end of a game how many calories you just consumed, it is unlikely that someone will punch in those numbers after each wing or chip is eaten. However, a graver threat to weight maintenance is eating as recreation. Nothing to do on a cold dark Sunday afternoon? Go to the refrigerator or pantry and find something to munch. Bored with commercial breaks that are longer than the television program segments? Wander off to the kitchen to find something to eat. Dreading a three-day holiday weekend stuck in the house with young children while a spouse is off on a business trip? Go to the supermarket beforehand and stock up on cookies and ice cream as a reward and diversion from playing endless rounds of Candy Land. Working hours on a report, legal brief, research material, tax returns? Leave the computer or desk for a few minutes and relax with some nibbles. The act of eating can be recreational; it allows us to stop whatever we are doing and relax our mind and even our emotions. Smoking does the same thing but unfortunately its side effects such as chronic sickness and/or death make it a much less desirable avenue of escape from work, boredom and loneliness. Weight-loss programs recognize the danger of recreational eating and attempt to teach the dieter to choose non-caloric forms of entertainment and diversion: go for a walk, volunteer, learn to play an instrument that uses your fingers and your lips, get a pedicure. Given the high percent of people who regain weight after these programs, one might suspect that these suggestions, regardless of their worthiness, are not being followed. Moreover, eating, especially eating at home, trumps many other forms of recreation by being immediately accessible, cheap (the food is already paid for) and requiring little equipment other than a fork, possibly a microwave, and napkins. Perhaps this is the time to consider a radical approach to this problem. To paraphrase the alleged words of Marie Antoinette, “let them (the dieters) eat cake.” Well, not cake exactly but a low-fat, portion-controlled carbohydrate. Rather than saying “no, you can’t eat when you are bored, or lonely or want to take a break” dieters should be informed about “take a break” foods that can be eaten without impairing their weight loss. Popcorn, pretzels, breadsticks, low-fat ice cream, rice crackers and sweet breakfast cereal are inexpensive, ready-to-eat, good tasting, easy-to-store snacks that can fit into any diet or weight maintenance program. Their virtues extend far beyond their crunchiness and ability to produce a tasty diversion from work or tedium. These, and similar low or fat-free carbohydrate foods, will improve energy, good mood, and focus within 20 to 30 minutes after being consumed. And, unlike Buffalo wings or nuts or even fruit, they will shut off the need for further eating for at least a couple of hours. The reason is deceptively simple. A brain chemical, serotonin, is made after an ounce of carbs like pretzels or rice crackers or Frosted Flakes are eaten. Serotonin liberates us from boredom, fatigue, irritability, restlessness and distractibility. Sweet and starchy carbohydrates are the only food to bring this about; fruits don’t and protein foods actually prevent serotonin from being made. Alcoholic beverages do not make serotonin and neither do nuts, as they contain equal amounts of carbs and protein. Even better, recreational carbs need to be eaten in only small amounts to bring about this effect. About 120 to 130 calories containing 30 grams or so of carbohydrate is sufficient. Diets should be able to accommodate that number of calories, as we have shown in our book, The Serotonin Power Diet. But these recreational snacks do come with a warning. Overdosing; i.e. continuing to eat beyond the therapeutic portion, will add only calories, not good mood and diversion. Even serotonin won’t be able to speed up your report, make your kids stop whining, or get your team to win the game. Eating these foods will give you the relaxation you crave without the penalty of added pounds—and perhaps you still might consider learning to play the trumpet. | permalink | related link |    ( 2.9 / 35 )Recently, Tara Parker-Pope at the New York Times authored one of the more depressing articles about the obesity problem. She accurately described research and personal history that supported the sorrowful conclusion that diets do not guarantee permanent weight loss. She then went on to report that weight gained after a diet may push the now ex-dieter into an even heavier weight than before the diet was started. What the article pointed out was how fast weight is regained after a diet. People with multiple sizes of clothes in their closets know the peril of thinking dieting will result in permanent weight loss. They know that every low weight will be followed by a return to a higher weight, if not immediately, then soon thereafter. Over a lifetime, their weight profile will resemble the stock market during one its more chaotic years. Apparently after substantial weight loss, the levels and activities of hormones and other substances that control hunger, fat stores and metabolic rate are impaired, thus causing the body to veer to its pre-dieting weight. Those people with a genetic profile associated with obesity might as well stock up on Rocky Road ice cream and potato chips because their fat trap is deep enough to prevent any rescue. Does anyone succeed? Yes, but the number is far fewer than those who fail. But it is important to realize that an estimation of how many have succeeded is totally inaccurate because most former fatties do not announce their success to folk who know them only as thin people. “Hi. My name is Judy and when I was in second grade, my classmates called me Fatso.” This is true—I was called that awful name—but I usually do not greet people with this self-revelation. I learned that my skinny primary care doctor was quite pudgy in high school when his wife told me. He never said a word. A close college friend tried every popular diet while we were in school without success. When she graduated, she lost 40 pounds in a year and has never gained an ounce back. Even her husband never knew her as fat. Our stories don’t make it into magazine articles or onto talk shows, and we rarely offer our bodies to researchers so that the reasons for our success can be discerned. There are obvious reasons why weight is regained after diet: 1. Muscle is lost, calorie output is decreased, metabolism is slowed and a permanent decrease in calorie intake is necessary to maintain weight loss. The solution: Quickly build muscle mass, increase physical activity and resign yourself to eating less. 2. Quick weight loss is pathological. The body is stressed just as if weight were lost because of a serious infection, surgery or inability to digest or absorb food. Forces in the body are mobilized to regain and restore body mass. The solution: Avoid these kinds of diets. 3. Triggers that caused weight gain crawl out of wherever they were hiding while you were on a diet and cause you to start overeating again. The solution: Identify these triggers before starting on a diet to remove or disarm them. Practice techniques to stop them from interfering with your eating while on the diet, and, like physical therapy after a bad back flare up, never stop protecting yourself against their reoccurrence. 4. The longing to return to a pre-dieting eating and drinking style pre-empts healthy, calorie-controlled food choices made on the diet. The solution: Either drag out your larger size clothes or decide to give up the uncontrolled eating that caused weight gain. This may seem harsh but so is being condemned to a chronic medical problem caused by obesity. 5. Successful stretching of the stomach by gradually increasing portion size so eating large amounts of food becomes easy. The solution: Make yourself feel full before starting a meal by increasing serotonin. Do this by eating about 130 calories of a fat-free or very low-fat carbohydrate food 30 minutes before a meal. Serotonin causes satiety so portion size can be easily controlled. 6. Food becomes the go-to recreation. The solution: Try non-eating recreations while on a diet. By its conclusion, you will have an itinerary of non-caloric distractions. This could include activities that range from pole dancing to dating web sites to learning ancient Greek. 7. Emotions overwhelm willpower and eating to feel less stressed, less depressed, and more calm is more important than maintaining weight loss. The solution: Eat about 30 grams of a low or fat-free carbohydrate snack twice daily on an empty stomach. This is best done as a late afternoon and mid-evening snack. Serotonin will be produced and your mood will shift from distressed to tranquil. 8. Inadequate sleep and persistent tiredness cause automatic, mindless eating in order to stay awake. The solution: Do not go to the kitchen. Go to bed. Search out ways of getting enough sleep. Its lack not only causes weight gain; it even affects cognitive function. 9. Genetic predisposition to obesity seems a convenient rationalization for weight gain. The solution: Regardless of genes, everyone loses weight in a famine. You don’t have to starve but watchful eating and consistent exercise trump an inherited tendency to gain weight. 10. Antidepressants and related medications cause substantial weight gain. A side effect of these medications is inhibition of satisfaction after eating. The solution: Avoid food plans that avoid carbohydrates. Increase a sense of contentedness and satiety by increasing serotonin before a meal. A small fat-free or low-fat carbohydrate food (like a small roll) eaten 45 minutes before the meal counteracts the effect of the medication by making you feel full. You don’t have to be stuck in the fat trap described by Ms. Parker-Pope. Follow these simple suggestions and you will be released to live a healthy, thin life. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 48 )Soon the advertisements on television for holiday eating and drinking will be replaced with promotions for weight-loss programs guaranteed to remove those extra pounds effortlessly and quickly. Before the tree is even put out for recycling you will be forced to make good on your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, exercise and call your mother daily. (Well, maybe not the latter.) Most of the programs advertised have been around for decades: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutri-System and their surgical counterparts, such as lap banding and gastric by-pass procedures. Some advertisements, as likely to appear on the Internet as well as your TV screen, will be new and represent the novel weight-loss scams of 2012. The products will have Asian- sounding names, claim to be extracted from trees, leaves, shrubs or grasses that grow in exotic regions and will be accompanied by pictures of svelte yet curvaceous women who prior to ingesting the twigs or leaves or roots were considerably overweight with saggy, dumpy bodies. If this year’s roster of weight-loss products is similar to those of years’ past they will be loudly proclaiming: Magic diet pill! Melt your fat away! Diet and exercise not required! Scientific breakthrough promises 10 pound weight-loss per week! You may even be offered a free trial of 30 days or a money back guarantee. Even though this hype should be about as convincing as thinking that your Christmas gifts were delivered by a sleigh instead of UPS, we post-holiday individuals really want to believe that swallowing some “magic crystals” or pills, or drinking a unique tea, will turn our pudge into muscle and dissolve our fat. Of course this miraculous feat will be accomplished safely and without side effects. "Not so", says Dr. Michael Levy, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of New Drugs and Labeling Compliance. He is quoted on an FDA consumer web site warning dieters that weight-loss dietary supplements may contain, “…hidden prescription drugs or compounds that have not been adequately studied in humans.” Case in point: The prescription weight-loss drug Meridia (generic name sibutramine) was removed from the market in October 2010 because an increased prevalence of heart disease and stroke was associated with its use. Now the drug is being sold, on the Internet, as a hidden ingredient in “newly discovered” herbal supplements. This October, a year after sibutramine was removed from the prescription drug market, the FDA warned consumers not to buy Ja Dera 100% Natural Weight Loss Supplement. This exotically named, natural supplement contains sibutramine. But how would you know from the pretty leaves on the label that the main ingredient was manufactured in a pharmaceutical facility? If you go to the FDA’ consumer web site http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/Consume ... 245742.htm, you will see lists of products containing what they term “tainted” ingredients. Tainted means that the products contain, according to the FDA, harmful ingredients not listed on the label including controlled; i.e. addictive drugs as well as those prescription drugs with known side effects including death. The list, just for December, was amazingly long with intriguing names such as Magic Slim Tea, PhentraBurn Slimming Capsules, Health Slimming Coffee, Que She Weight Loss Capsules, Fruta Planta weight loss products, Pai You Guo Slim Tea, Fruit Plant Losing Fat Capsule and Leisure 18 Slimming Coffee. Who thinks up these names? My favorite was Slender Slim. Is there any other kind of slim? For years I would become apoplectic when looking at advertisements for serotonin-containing capsules, “...guaranteed to remove cravings and increase satiety.” My shouting at the computer and occasionally sending letters that probably disappeared into a virtual wastepaper basket did not get the manufacturers of these fraudulent pills to admit that serotonin cannot—and will never—get into the brain from the blood, so taking it by mouth is totally useless. Perhaps these products have found their way onto an FDA’s “Beware of This Product” list. Certainly it should be on the, “Don’t Waste Your Money on This” list. Occasionally the courts have been used to bring attention to products whose hype is not supported by weight-loss results. A few years ago, a product called Sensa Weight-Loss Crystals was heavily promoted and advertised in women’s magazines. Product testimonials filled up computer screens. The idea was novel: Sprinkle Sensa crystals on your food and their odor, presumably of pleasurable foods, will supposedly stimulate a specific area in the brain that will turn off the appetite. The advertisement predictably promised 30+ pounds weight loss without dieting. Last spring, a federal class action suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco and included an accusation by one disappointed dieter that she was tricked by Sensa’s advertising into believing there was a scientific foundation behind their claims. This woman’s frustration is easy to understand, but what is harder to understand is how anyone could believe in the sales pitch. If smells activates the satiety or appetite control center in the brain, then inhaling the smells of bread baking, or chicken frying, or chocolate cake cooling should take away our appetites. Speaking for myself, I find it just makes me hungry. So another crop of weight-loss supplements will appear in 2012. Here are some I predict will be appearing: 1. Coconut water as the new miracle fat burner. Slimming teas and coffee will be so last year; 2. Thin gel strips that can be put on the tongue (they are used now to deliver caffeine as an energy boost) to deliver an appetite-destroying drug. Some preparations may try to sneak in ephedra, an amphetamine-like drug that has been banned by the FDA for years, as it is linked to many deaths; 3. Deep-fried protein bars for those who are following a high-fat, high-protein diet and don’t have time to cook. These will be consumed several times a day instead of meals; or 4. Specially formulated crystals to remove all flavor, color and odor from food. Because boring food offers no pleasure, this will work to decrease spontaneous food intake. Before you start on any diet on January 1, consider this. A comfortable, slow, weight-loss diet, accompanied by exercise and increased muscle mass, always works. There are no side effects, no outrageous fees or shipping costs, and no need to drink or ingest a concoction, with an exotic name, that was probably made in Brooklyn. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 87 )I went off to my favorite discount clothing and housewares store the other day to buy some glasses for a party we are throwing. As I emerged from the escalator, stacks of elaborately-boxed food items, ready for gift giving or at-home nibbling, surrounded me. Chocolate-covered pretzels, nuts and coffee beans, and mock chocolate-covered dog biscuits (for the pet on your list) were piled on one table. An entire aisle was filled with bags of high-fat snack foods designed to titillate your guests as well as clog your arteries. As I hurried toward the glassware section, I almost felt as if I should wear blinders so my eyes would not stray toward these tempting and all-too-fattening holiday treats. The next day, as I checked in at my gym, I saw a message written on a large board: "Are you going to gain five pounds this holiday season?" Well, yes, I thought, if the gym members, like most everyone else, chew their way through the ubiquitous holiday snack offerings. Chocolates, nuts, candies, cheese, sour cream dips, cakes and cookies are but a few of the foods set out in bowls, on platters and trays everywhere you go. Hannukah potato latkes (pancakes), dripping with oil, or jelly doughnuts fried in hot oil, followed by coin-shaped chocolate candy add another opportunity for holiday weight gain. Mercifully, people rarely eat the oil-laden delicacies all eight days of the holiday. The holiday of Kwanzaa is another opportunity for overeating, although the foods typically included on the feast day, "Karamu," include healthy ingredients such as sweet potatoes, okra, rice and chicken. Sweet potato fritters and sesame seed biscuits may make an appearance, but these high-fat foods compete with collard greens and black-eyed peas. Nevertheless, all three December holiday traditions are often successful in generating a five-pound weight gain (at least) and perhaps even more, especially when calories from alcohol are also increased. This is not cause for alarm if gaining five pounds puts the eater slightly over his or her perfect weight. But alas, for most of us gaining five pounds, like an unanticipated credit card charge, simply makes the problem even more difficult to solve. "If I can't lose weight during the summer, I am in bad shape literally all fall and winter," a houseguest told me last August. "My weight starts to creep up by October, probably because I work, and too little light makes me too tired to exercise. So by December, I am already 15 pounds heavier than I should be. I dread the holidays because I always gain even more weight. As a result, my back and knees feel the effects all winter." The solution to preventing or minimizing weight gain isn't all that difficult. It simply takes focus, i.e., focus on what you have just eaten, are chewing on now and planning to eat in the next few minutes. And the best way to do this is to talk to yourself (silently, of course...). "Do I really need to eat this third handful of cashew nuts or a fourth gingerbread cookie? How many chocolate Santas did I just eat? The dip is good, but must I put so much on the potato chip that it starts to break? Yes, my first bite of that potato pancake was heavenly, but the third one tastes cold and greasy. Maybe I should stop eating it. Can I put anymore food from the buffet on my plate? It looks pretty loaded. I guess I don't have to eat it all. How many appetizers have I eaten so far? Was it three or four? More? Better make it no more. Is this my second drink? The eggnog looks good but all those calories! I should get diet soda instead. I really want Aunt Jessie's coconut cake but I feel stuffed. If she lets me take a piece home, I can save it for when I am really hungry." Like putting charges on your credit card, you can decide that you are able to "afford" the calories at the party, feast or open house, or you can choose to stop eating because you have already consumed more than your caloric limit. But don't fool yourself that if you decide not to notice how much you are eating and drinking, your scale won't notice either. Do you know those advertisements for furniture that promise "no interest or payment required for 18 months"? Eventually, of course, you have to pay, and if you can't you may lose your purchase. Well, eventually, you will have to "pay" for your overeating. Just as limiting your credit card charges during the holidays takes away much anxiety and worry over bill-paying in January, why not limit your unhealthy eating during the coming weeks? Those five pounds do not have to be inevitable, and what a wonderful gift you will be giving yourself to enter the New Year without the extra weight of the past. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 94 )A dog park opened up a few blocks from where I live. Now, instead of walking my dog Simon (a long-haired dachshund) around several neighborhood blocks I, along with my pet, invariably head toward the doggy play area. Once there, he runs around to sniff other dogs while I stand and chat with the dog owners who are usually known only by the name of their pet (as in, "Do you know Scuffy's mom?"). After several mornings of this, I realized that whereas in the past, both Simon and I got exercise in the morning, now he is the only one moving while I just stand and talk. One of the basic recommendations for motivating people to exercise has been to tell them to get a dog and take the animal for long walks, and even runs. But now this advice seems to be subverted by not only the proliferation of dog parks but also the appearance of doggy gyms in shopping malls and, hard to believe but true, a kind of doggy treadmill that you can buy for home use. One remote but possible outcome of having the dog exercise while we stand or drive the dog to its gym is that the dog will be lean and fit while we will reap the unfortunate effects of gaining weight due to ever-decreasing physical activity. Whether we walk our dogs or stand and let the dogs play in a dog park should not have any impact on our weight, should it? Of course not, if we follow a lifestyle that has many opportunities for physical activity besides going to the gym for a few hours each week. Alas, for many, long work hours, family and community commitments have eroded almost all opportunities to move. A few days ago, I sat next to a woman at a dinner who complained that she had gained five pounds in one month because her new job compelled her to drive rather than walk to work. "I changed absolutely nothing else in my life. I ate the same way and kept the same workout schedule and errands on the weekends. But sitting in the car a couple of hours each day, rather than walking 45 minutes to work and then back home, decreased my energy use enough to cause this weight gain. It's dreadful. At this point I have no idea how I can squeeze some exercise time into my very limited hours at home." When I asked why she couldn't exercise at lunch, she laughed. "Lunch? We eat at our desks or, if we are in a meeting, the food is brought in. The only way I could escape the office at lunch would be if there were a fire and we had to go outside. No one takes a lunch break. You would be regarded as lazy if you did." National obesity experts have focused on the absence of gym time in many schools and play time when the kids come home as one cause of increased pediatric obesity. But very little attention is directed to the lack of exercise time for adults, even though we are becoming fat at an alarming rate. These same experts tell the country that physical activity is mandatory for our physical and mental health. What they don't tell us is how to fit exercise into our lives. When can people with these schedules and obligations exercise? Consider the: • Person working two jobs and looking for a third; or • The college student with a long commute to school and both an afternoon and a weekend job; or • The working parent taking children to daycare early in the morning, picking them up after work and going home and starting the second job as mom or dad; or • The adult caring for a live-in parent who needs constant care; or • A corporate worker whose day starts at 7 a.m., lasts until 10 p.m., and often includes weekends; or • The regional manager who must travel constantly and spends "free time" at home catching up with work in the office, etc. The list could go on and on, and indeed might be much longer than a list of people who do have the time to exercise regularly in addition to walking their dog. And it doesn't even include obstacles to exercise for those who do have the time, which include: • No sidewalks or shoulders on the road on which to walk; • Late sunrises and early sunsets; • Snow, ice or excessive heat; • Cost of health clubs or home exercise equipment; • Danger (assaults on women has been a problem along a popular running path where I live and many areas may be unsafe for someone running or walking alone); • Air pollution; and/or • Medical problems that limit mobility. If we are to achieve a fit country, we have to go beyond talk and public service announcements. Exercise has to be made as accessible as getting food when one is hungry. At present, having the time to exercise is a privilege granted to only a relative few in our society. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 103 )Next |
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