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Diets seem to be divided into two categories—the fad diet of the day and the traditional standbys. The fad diets may include regimens such as eating three protein-fortified cookies a day, cleansing of the colon or eating like skinny Frenchwomen or robust Italians. What they may have in common is novelty, quick weight loss, the chance to talk about the diet at a dinner party, and ultimately abandonment after a few weeks. In contrast, Conventional diets, such as the American Heart Association plan or Weight Watchers®, seem to offer a way of staying on a weight-loss program for many weeks with the chance to change permanently eating and exercise patterns. The point system of Weight Watchers, which allows the dieter to devise his or her individual food plan, stresses the consumption of vegetables and fruits as they are “free food.” They allow the points to be used for protein, starchy carbohydrates, dairy products and fats. The support given by Weight Watchers’ meetings takes away the loneliness of dieting to some extent and offers weekly encouragement. But conventional diets such as Weight Watchers pose a problem for people whose weight gain is caused by their antidepressant or mood stabilizing medications. These drugs weaken will power and often leave the dieter feeling permanently hungry even though enough food has been eaten to meet the dieter’s calorie needs. No matter how many bowls of salad or plates of steamed vegetables are consumed, and no matter how full or even bloated these foods make the stomach, the antidepressant–treated dieter still wants to eat. The meal is over, the points have been used up but the dieter is still looking around for more food to eat. Recently, a college student wrote to me asking advice about weight loss as he had gained about 15 pounds after starting on the antidepressant Lexapro for his anxiety. He had successfully lost about 10 pounds on Weight Watchers before starting the medication and returned to the program after gaining back the weight while on the antidepressant. “The diet program isn’t working for me anymore,” he e-mailed me. “I crave carbohydrates constantly but if I allow myself to eat them, say a cup of rice, I use up too many points. So I fill up on vegetables and my stomach feels bloated but my brain keeps telling me that I am hungry. I don’t understand what is happening.” In my return e-mail I told him that his antidepressant and, unfortunately, also his diet, were preventing him from feeling satiated after eating. Even though his antidepressant was making him feel less anxious and depressed by activating serotonin, the drug was somehow weakening the appetite-controlling function of this brain chemical. Had he been allowed to eat enough starchy carbohydrates, his brain would have made new serotonin and this would have resolved the problem. We had shown in our research that the brain, even on antidepressants and mood stabilizers, could shut off eating when enough serotonin was made. Serotonin is produced when an amino acid called tryptophan gets into the brain. This event occurs when a specific amount of starchy or sweet carbohydrate is eaten with no or very little protein. My diet advice startled and dismayed him since I told him that if he was going to feel full after a meal, he had to consume a pre-meal snack of a carbohydrate like a roll or dry cereal about an hour before eating. “That way,” I told him,” your serotonin will be making you feel full even before you eat your meal. And for the first couple of weeks, you must eat only starchy carbohydrates and vegetables for dinner so you won’t be fighting the urge to snack all evening.” “I can’t do this,” he replied. “ It goes against all the guidelines I have been following. And I am sure I will gain weight from all those carbohydrates.” After I assured him that our diet had the same number of calories as the one using the point system, he was willing to try our approach for a couple of days. “ It is so hard for me to go against what I have been told about carbs,” he e-mailed, “but I can’t stand feeling hungry all the time. All I think about is eating.” Three days later an ecstatic e-mail arrived. “You are right,” he said. “I never would have believed it but I really felt full after just eating a salad and some bread for dinner. And my mood is better too; I was really grumpy before. Do you think increasing serotonin might have even improved how I feel?” I told him that a better mood was one of the positive side effects of our Serotonin Power Diet but most important, he could finally feel confident that his appetite could be controlled. He questioned why our approach wasn’t more widely used and I explained that cutting out carbohydrates offered a faster way of losing weight initially. Water is dropped from the body when carbohydrate intake is drastically decreased and this shows up as weight loss on the scale. And for people who were not on medication and wanted to learn how to improve their eating while losing weight, Weight Watchers and similar diets were excellent resources. His final e-mail had a complaint: He said that he used to spend every evening fighting his desire to snack on cookies and ice cream especially while writing papers and often resolved the problem by going to sleep. He told me that he could study without constantly snacking and even though he wasn’t sure his grades would be going up, at least his weight would be going down. | permalink | related link |    ( 3 / 225 )told a funny story about herself a few days ago. She was about two blocks away from her stop when she saw her bus coming. “I sprinted down the sidewalk,” she said. “Luckily I had my old lady rubber-soled shoes on because I felt as if I was breaking the 4-minute mile. I got to the bus just as last person at the stop was boarding. I hauled myself up the steps breathing heavily and proudly waved my senior citizen pass at the driver. He looked at it, looked at me, looked at it again and then said, ‘You run pretty fast for an old lady.’” We laughed but then started to talk seriously about the number of people we knew who were just barely able to hobble around. Age, orthopedic or neurological problems and chronic illness were responsible for some of their physical impairments. But sometimes the inability to walk fast, climb stairs, lift only moderately heavy objects or even carry groceries was due to years of physical inactivity that left these individuals with reduced stamina, poor balance and fading muscle strength. I recalled a client who came to see me for a weight-loss consultation who told me quite emphatically that she was simply too old to exercise. Her age? Forty-eight. I remember asking her how she planned to move about when she was forty years older if she stopped exercising now. “But I am almost menopausal.” she informed me. “Once I go through menopause, my body will be too old to exercise.” Fortunately she was receptive to my short talk on the importance of physical activity for cardiovascular, bone and even mental health. Or maybe it was because I told her I could not help her lose weight unless she committed herself to a regular exercise regimen. My words came back to me after a recent visit as a volunteer visitor to residents at a local old age home. I saw two women, one 90 and the other 91. Both were extremely articulate. Their memories were intact and they related wonderful stories of their lives. Unfortunately, both were confined to wheelchairs and, because their upper body strength was so weak, they could not wheel the chairs themselves. Thus they spent most of the day in their rooms alone because the home had too few staff to move them except to the dining room for meals. Their families lived in other cities and their distress at the physical isolation due to their physical disability was great. There is a common expression one hears around gyms: Use it or lose it. Although this expression usually applies to people who are training to acquire a competitive edge in a particular sport, develop well-defined muscles or the ability to engage in difficult yoga postures, it really applies to all of us. Aging will take its toll on our physical strength; this is why there are age categories in competitive events and why Olympic contenders are usually in their mid-twenties or younger. But we can slow the progression of age-related deterioration on our bodies by making sure that every day we engage in some physical activity, even if it is as little as lugging laundry up a couple of flights of stairs, carrying home groceries or walking a frisky puppy. To make the exercise even more protective against spending elder years in a wheelchair, try to do the following: 1. Increase your heart rate. Walk fast enough so that window-shopping is not an option but talking (and gossiping with a friend) still is. 2. Increase your muscle mass. Use lightweights, resistance cords, or gym equipment to strength muscles. Focus on your back muscles, as this will compensate for computer screen slouch and strengthen posture. 3. Work on your core; this is jargon for your mid–section. Your abdominal muscles and back muscles hold your body up and keep you balanced. Yoga and Pilates are very effective ways of strengthening is part of your body. 4. Practice balancing exercises such as standing on one leg, barefoot. Aging takes its toll on balance pretty early on. Just watch people wobbling on one foot in a beginning yoga class. When you can balance with your eyes open, try doing it with your eyes closed. Make sure you can grab onto something if you feel yourself tilting. 5. Find a recreational activity that forces you to move. If you have fun, you will be more likely to continue. Think dancing, bowling, bird watching, gardening, outdoor photography, walking tours, or walks for charity, and ping pong in addition to the obvious ones like hiking, biking, tennis, golf (without the cart) and jogging. You may never need to run for a bus. But as long as running or any other type of exercise is part of your life, it is more likely to be a healthy one. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 354 )Even though it is still snowing in certain parts of the country and mud, rather than grass and flowers, color backyards and parks, it is beginning to feel like spring. Folks are beginning to drag their cool weather clothes out of their storage closets and think hopefully about taking the winter coats to the drycleaner. Along with transitioning to brighter, lighter clothes of spring, why not consider tossing out the heavy, often calorie-rich foods that comforted you during the cold, dark months just past. Traditional Jewish families go through a ritual cleaning of their food supplies in preparation for the spring holiday of Passover. The intent is to get rid of foods containing flour, corn, rice, beans and anything else that swells when in contact with water. Why not do your own spring preparation and discard bags of high-fat snack foods such as cookies and chips and throw out leftovers like a frozen remnant of cake from a winter birthday or a forgotten slice of pizza in the back of the freezer? Just as it feels good to look at the brightly-colored clothes of spring, it also feels good to open the refrigerator and see a variety of newly available springtime vegetables like asparagus or fruits like strawberries. Salads suddenly feel more appealing than they did when the outside temperature hovered around minus 5ºF, and heavy casseroles, stews and soups are about as welcome as another snowstorm. This transition to lighter, more vegetable and fruit-based dishes is helped by the effect of spring on the brains. We have passed the spring equinox and all over the northern hemisphere there are more than 12 hours of daylight. As the number of daylight hours increase, moods rise and, happily, appetites decrease. Many people feel renewed mental, emotional and physical energy, sleep less and find themselves thinking of new activities and interests rather than what is planned for dessert. Pay attention to the effect of spring daylight and increased serotonin on your food cravings. You may discover that you no longer need to eat a snack late in the morning. You may even forget to snack in the late afternoon of a bright sunny day. However, even spring sunshine can’t replace your brain’s need to renew its serotonin levels. As we point out in The Serotonin Power Diet, a dinner of starchy carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit is the easiest way to boost the levels of this essential brain chemical. Try lighter versions of carbohydrate comfort meals such as Pasta Primavera. This pasta dish contains a variety of spring vegetables like baby peas, asparagus tips and shredded young spinach leaves and can be seasoned with a lemony tomato sauce. Polenta, a creamy textured dish made from finely ground cornmeal and water, is a light golden version of southern grits without the fat and thickness. Preparation requires only water, salt, cornmeal and stirring. The latter can be done with one hand while chitchatting on the phone. When the mixture is smooth and has thickened, add some grated cheese or sautéed mushrooms and garlic or a mixture of lightly sautéed red peppers, carrots and onions. Fingerling potatoes are another spring treat. These tiny thin-skinned potatoes pop in your mouth when oven roasted with a sprinkling of olive oil and kosher salt. Make extra and, after heating them in a microwave, eat them as an afternoon snack. Bruschetta, which is a fancy name for toasted slices of Italian bread, can be layered with finely chopped tomatoes and fresh herbs like basil. It goes well with a tossed salad made with spring vegetables. Replace the Romaine or iceberg lettuce with leafy greens such as arugula, chicory and curly lettuce, add cut-up asparagus tips, roasted beets, sweet peapods, spring onions (scallions) and use red and yellow peppers to make the mix more colorful. After microwaving them to medium softness and rubbing off their skin, roast new beets. Then sprinkle them with olive oil and kosher salt and put them in a hot oven for ten minutes or so. Their ruby color will make your salad glow. Combine lunchtime with walking time. On warm days, take your lunch and walk to a sunny place to eat it. Start doing this now and try to extend the duration of your walk each week by walking a little faster. The combination of warmer weather, sunshine and exercise will make the afternoon more tolerable, even if you have to push yourself to go back inside. Walk, garden or do other outside activities in the evenings. This is the season for late sunsets so don’t let these hours of daylight go to waste by staying inside when you arrive home from work. Remember those days when it was dark by 4 PM? Use the three or more hours of daylight to reward yourself from enduring those weeks of inside hibernation. Finally, as you pull those spring clothes out of the closet, try on a few that did not fit last year. Just by shutting off your appetite with serotonin-boosting carbohydrates plus your springtime increase in vigor and exercise, this year they will. | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 136 )Hi SPD blog subscribers and fans: Beginning March 15th, we will be transferring our community forum completely to our Facebook fan page! If you are not yet a fan, click here to join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boston-MA ... 084583809. If you are a fan, post a question or discussion topic, by clicking the tab "discussions" at the top of the page. Then, click on the button "Start a new topic" and complete the fields on the following page. Once you are satisfied with your post, click "Post new topic." Please feel free to post your questions, stories, and responses here any time. We (Judy and Nina) will respond to your questions and comments as before and can't wait to hear from you! Caution to spammers: inappropriate posts and information will be deleted. Remember, after March 15th, this forum will no longer be available. As always, we wish you continued success on The Serotonin Power Diet and look forward to seeing you on Facebook! - Judy & Nina | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 405 )Most women’s magazines advise the reader to use accessories to refresh a winter wardrobe or to update last year’s clothes. Given budgetary restraints, it is obviously much cheaper to buy a belt or necklace to liven up an old dress or boring sweater than to buy an entire set of work and leisure clothes every season (assuming that there are still readers out there who are even considering doing this). Perhaps we should take the same approach to perking up our meals since they can become monotonous even if we are not dieting. Although most of us have moved away from the “if it is Thursday, it must be meatloaf” approach to menu planning, many would likely admit that they rarely go beyond a limited culinary repertory. Week after week I stare at certain items in the produce section that I rarely buy, such as kale, and resolve that one of these days I will try to incorporate them into my meals. But then I go back to buying the same vegetables and fruits that I bought the previous week. Like many people I enjoy reading recipes in the newspaper and often cut them out. Then I stuff them in my recipe drawer and notice them only when the drawer becomes hard to close. I also go online to look up a recipe but sometimes the number of choices is so great that simply reading all the options takes longer than making the dish. A few days ago I was in a clothing store that also sells household items including cookbooks. A visiting relative was busy trying on clothes and, trying to mentally block out the loud music, I picked up a cookbook by a familiar author, Mollie Katzen. Years ago she made healthy vegetarian meals accessible and delicious in her Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. This book, Get Cooking, includes recipes for vegetarians and omnivores with pictures that make you want to run into your kitchen and start chopping and stirring. What was so appealing about the recipes is that the methods were simple. They used familiar ingredients and included suggestions for slightly altering the recipes for the second time you made the dish. Like adding a belt to a sweater or a great necklace to a dress to make them seem new and interesting, using these recipes allows us to still eat our weekly pasta or fish or chicken but in novel and easy-to-prepare ways. Moreover, many of the recipes fit comfortably into the dinner guidelines of The Serotonin Power Diet as they feature soups with salads as the main course or main course vegetables such Greek-style stuffed eggplant, chickpea and mango curry, or Portobello faux burgers. Just as we may be leery of some new fashion accessories and unwilling to try them out unless approved by friends or family, so too some of us may be leery of trying our recipes that seem a little too novel for our family’s tastes. One way of testing the approval and acceptability of some of the recipes is to eat them as a first course (soups are an obvious example) or as side dishes. For example, you can “accessorize” a plain piece of broiled chicken with a side dish of panko (Japanese bread crumb)-coated eggplant cutlets or skillet potatoes with fried onions. And if spicy, different foods are not your family’s eating style, the cookbook will tell you how to make simple vegetables, such as winter squash, that you may think is too much trouble to prepare. And to my great delight, Katzen has two pages devoted to dark leafy greens, including how to prevent them from taking over all the space in the refrigerator. Tomorrow it is kale for dinner! | permalink | related link | ( 3 / 389 )Back Next |
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