Healthy eating and weight loss

New entry about YADB (yet another diet book) with a healthy eating focus: Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less.

Looks like a sensible book with good science behind it. That said, a commenter on Diet Blog sums it up pretty well:

Diet Blog also points to a review by USA Today. It’s curious that what Diet Blog is pointing to (by its link text) is a sidebar criticism by a nutritionist re the meals (”My major concern with the book is people may find some of the meal plans and recipes intimidating.”) since the actual review is fairly positive.

But aye, there’s the rub. Can we actually do this?

I have a post percolating in me around this whole issue of changing our ways (I want to revisit the idea of inertia that I’ve talked about before), but that will probably show up tomorrow or over the weekend.

In the meantime, I started poking around and came across The Nutrition Source, a website created by the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where Walter Willett is chair (he’s one of the co-authors of Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less).

The Nutrition Source looks like a worthwhile read. It’s not surprising that as it’s a school of public health, they are quite happy to take the “war on obesity” line (citing the 1999 JAMA study about 300,000 deaths due to obesity that others dispute).

But they aren’t totally toeing the jasminlive corporate line. I like how they disagree with the new food pyramid and note that it is based on guidelines that “reflect the tense interplay of science and the powerful food industry.” And I particularly like their version of a healthy eating pyramid (from Willett’s other book, Eat, Drink, And Be Healthy):

Harvard healthy eating pyramid

I like this pyramid a lot. It does a good job of describing how I am currently eating.

I’ve pretty much been doing this for a year now, and while I’ve made some changes over time (for example, I was doing a lot more takeout a year ago than I am now), I find that I’m mostly doing the things that Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less recommends (borrowing from the USA Today):

Choosing good fats

Choosing better carbs

Choosing healthy protein

I’m not quite so good at the other things yet (drinking more water and exercising), but I expect to do better now that my fibroids should be less of an issue. But what I like is that you don’t need to be perfect…you can start and improve as you get better at this.

In fact, one of these days I’m going to use the model of ski slope ratings (you know, green circle for beginners, blue squares for intermediates, black diamonds for experts) as a way to represent a better way of phasing into healthier eating compared to the hard induction phases that diets like Atkins and South Beach do.

Some people like to jump in the deep end of the pool (or go cold turkey) and some like to take steps. The real key is to first, figure out you really do want to go there (swim, quit smoking, or eat healthy) and then pick a way that would work well for you.

Me? I had to really minimize eating sugar and white stuff (pasta, white rice, etc). But I didn’t have to exercise at the beginning. Nor did I need to cook everything (or count anything). I figured out ow to make this easy on myself. Now, I want to cook more because I can control the ingredients better.

Anyways, I think I may pick up Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less if only to see what Willett and Katzen came up with, and since I like collecting cookbooks with a healthy eating focus. Of course, what I’m likely to do is take some of these recipes and figure out how to make ‘em even easier. As you can tell from the recipes here, I’m all about making it easy!

A case against weight-loss dieting

So if you’ve been here before, you know that I’ve been struggling to articulate why I’m not more anti-weight loss (for example, see why I weigh myself). Curiously, even if I’m not anti-weight loss, I am against dieting as a weight-loss tactic.

Seems like an unlikely position? Well, read on!

Today, I came across a pointer to a case against weight-loss dieting over at Alas, a blog. The pointer was courtesy of Jimmy Moore, who, as a low-carb diet evangelist, had a lot of issues with the Alas post.

I have different issues with the case than does Jimmy, as I’ll discuss below. But I encourage you to read the original post to get the whole argument.

So what is this case against weight-loss dieting? There are three primary points Ampersand makes.

For The Vast Majority Of Fat People, Weight Loss Dieting Doesn’t Work

Ah, where to begin here? Ampersand notes that there isn’t a “single peer-reviewed controlled clinical study of any weight-loss diet that shows success in losing a significant amount of weight over the long term.” Having been on a dozen or more weight-loss diets, I have no real issue with this statement.

Jimmy Moore’s issue with this is that part of the problem is matching the person with the right diet. But while I think that’s somewhat valid, I think the real issue is that to be successful over the longer term is to change your diet over the long term. So “livin’ la vida low-carb” may work for Jimmy not because it’s a weight-loss diet, but because it is a long-term way of eating that helps him manage the overeating that got him to 400 lbs.

For my part, I’ve given up “dieting.” But I’ve also considerably changed the way I eat. I’ve really minimized sugar and refined, processed foods, and that change has helped me control my overeating.

As an aside, there is a story at the end of The Hungry Years about Shelley Bovey, a woman who had been active in the fat acceptance movement in the UK (her first book was The Forbidden Body: Why Fat is Not a Sin). Since that time, Shelley has actually lost 100 lbs or so not by dieting, but by cutting back just a little bit. She’s described her chaturbate story in What Have You Got to Lose?

Anyways, my feeling is that the cliche is probably true: diets just don’t work. More problematically, I think that dieting is actually a really good way to take moderate (and potentially pretty healthy) overweight and turn it into morbid obesity.

Losing Weight Makes It More Likely You’ll Die Sooner

For me, this one is a lot more blurry than the former. There are so many variables here, it’s hard to tell what the real story is (and if you read the citations Ampersand lists, it’s pretty confusing. Some show some benefits from weight loss, some show that it matters whether you’re a man or a woman, etc.).

Here’s what I think. First of all, I’ve been losing weight for nearly 40 years, so for me, the damage is already done. When they’ve done the study that says that staying really, really fat after decades of yo-yo dieting is healthier for you, then maybe I’ll reconsider adding Big Macs back to my diet.

Instead, what I believe is that it isn’t so much the losing weight that is the problem as much as the method of losing weight. I’ll bet that gradual weight loss as a result of healthier eating is not a problem compared to drastic weight loss as a result of starvation diets, pills, and so on.

Also, like Jimmy, I tend to think that the health issues are more blurry for people like us who are hundreds of pounds overweight. For us, it may well not have been the weight that was the problem as much as the poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. If fixing these results in weight loss, then it’s hard to see how this kind of weight loss is detrimental compared to the health issues we were facing.

The Idea Of “Normalizing” Eating Habits Is A Myth

Here’s what Ampersand has to say about this:

The case for weight loss dieting typically assumes that fat people are fat because they eat more and exercise less than thin people; that thin people, if they ate as much as fat people, would also be fat; and that if fat people only “normalized” their eating habits, they would be thin.

Under this model, fat people eat like fat people, and so need to “modify their lifestyle” to eat “normally,” after which they’ll lose weight.

But evidence indicates that all these assumptions may be false.

Hmmm…you know what they say, all generalizations are false.

I think there’s a lot to this, and some of it has to do with the damage we do to ourselves through dieting. More drastic diets can result in lowered metabolisms, reduced muscle mass, and disordered eating. For lots of fat people, they may well be eating less than their thin friends.

But there are people like me. Folks like Ampersand may want to just put me in the “diseased” (at least psychologically) group, but I was eating a lot.

So, I think people need to look at their eating and figure out whether they are in this class of folks who are already eating too little. If so, then dieting will surely hurt, not help.

But folks like me who are eating in a disordered way may well wind up losing weight by “normalizing” their eating patterns. Now of course, this doesn’t imply dieting. It implies stopping binge eating, etc. For me, the way I’m eating now has resulted in my being able to minimize my overeating, which has resulted in a lot of weight loss. So my diet (read: what I eat) has helped me, where dieting had failed me.

Like Jonny Bowden says, “No one plan works for everyone!” I would strongly encourage people to avoid dieting at all costs. Yes, it may appear to take longer, or it may even involve learning to appreciate your body at a higher weight than you’d like. But in general, the more drastic the diet, the less likely you will be to benefit.

It’s certainly hard. After hitting goal I’ve managed to stick to my new way of eating (it’s no longer a diet, but a whole different way of eating), but take in too many calories and too many carbs and put back on 6 pounds. It seems my appetite is always going to be bigger than my body’s daily caloric needs.

So here I am cutting the calories and carbs again and getting stricter with the exercise. I won’t be another casualty that gains the 60 pounds I lost back again. I like myself a lot better this way. And if my jeans are strangling me it’s not time to buy new jeans - it’s time to make these jeans fit again!

And even more than weight I’m interested in body fat percentage. Mine is still higher than I’d like it, though I’ve made a lot of progress

I don’t think anyone over at Amp’s would deny that there are fat people who eat a lot and don’t exercise. The point being that you can “normalize” your diet, take up exercise, and your body will reach a happy, stable weight that’s still unacceptable to our thin-crazed society. Or maybe you will become fashionably bony. Some people have that kind of DNA.

The point is, as you know, to be healthy whether you’re large or small.

Carla, my point re the normalizing is that Amp may have overgeneralized. I think it is very fair to point out that not everyone will become Heidi Klum by “normalizing” their diet. And I agree that many fat people may well be eating less than their thin friends. But it strikes me as awkward to argue that it’s a “myth” that fat people eat too much, when some of us are pretty clear that we do.

But either way, we both agree that dieting is problematic, and you’re absolutely right, being healthy is the key. This is one of the other reasons I like my approach now. Like after someone loses x lbs on a diet they no longer need to be concerned about eating for health? That’s been my biggest change, and the payoff is first and foremost how I feel.

Soul pain managment

Post-recovery, I started to try and respond to the most recent comment in the intellectual dishonesty thread. I typed up a few paragraphs, and debated about a comparison to religion and abortion before thinking better of it, and just trashed my response.

But watching yesterday’s Oprah got me thinking about this in a different way. It occurs to me that some of the angst about weight loss may be represented by Pink’s “Stupid Girls.” In the song and jasmine live video, Pink dings Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Jessica Simpson for playing dumb in order to succeed in our celebrity-crazed society.

But Pink isn’t arguing that girls need to go back to the days of Peyton Place (after all, look how well that worked). But instead, she’s arguing for something more powerful:

My point is not that sexy is a bad thing. My point is that sexy and smart are not oil and water and that you don’t have to dumb yourself down to be cute.

This resonated with me a lot re the issue of fat politics and weight loss. And I think it has to do with the issue of being a subject versus being an object.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the issue of power, desire, and overeating, and mentioned I really liked this quote from Mark Epstein’s Open to Desire (emphasis mine):

Freud’s perennial question, “What does woman want?” was not phrased correctly … The question is not what do they want, but do they want, at all. Do they have their own desire? Or perhaps the question might be more correctly stated: Can women be their desire? The challenge for women … is to move from being just an object of desire to becoming a subject: she who desires.

This concept of subject and object came up on Oprah as well in the context of young girls emulating celebrities like Lohan and Simpson:

Dr. Robin: We have been socialized again by men to be objects … to stroke their egos. Their sense that they are big and we are small. The more we stroke that, the less we exist.

Oprah: So what people are saying as the definition of stupid is … any time you have to play yourself small.

Dr. Robin: Absolutely. You play yourself small because you are scared. You are scared that if I don’t play small, then I’m going to lose out. I won’t be invited to the party. Guys won’t want me.

Oprah: I won’t be accepted.

Dr. Robin also said she might not use the term “stupid” to refer to this phenomenon Pink sings about, but rather, she’d use the expression “lost.” The point is that in trying to gain someone else’s approval, you easily lose who you really are.

In that vein, I’d argue you can approach weight loss from the perspective of either a subject or an object. From the object perspective, weight loss is about the future. In the future, I’ll be thin and then I’ll be happy, because I’ll fit in. Men will like me. I’ll be accepted.

But there’s another perspective. For me, the point of being a subject is that it is a position of strength, i.e., you’re not doing harmful things in order to gain someone else’s approval. Instead, you’re “finding yourself” and learning how what you eat and how you move can improve the quality of your life.

Dear god woman, how do you find time to post these thought-provoking essays??? I feel like my brain is little better use than silly putty. Although, again I’ll reccomend The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, something I read often when I was younger and had more brain cells. Not meaning to harp, just wanting to share it with anyone who didn’t read the other post.

I’m glad to see some backlash against the Paris Hilton phenom. There’s an issue I have with the “pro-slut” images I see these days, and I haven’t been able to articulate it. I’m such a feminist that it’s not an open-and-shut case; female sexuality has been so suppressed and male-dominated that it’s hard for me to express any value judgments without feeling like I’m betraying my own beliefs

Ooh, ooh, and I wanted to mention this:

A short article on Hugh Hefner’s 80th birthday, and it’s not Hugh who says something wonky, it’s the female author of the article. I was just… STUNNED when I saw this:

“But for some women [Playboy] provides an insight into how men perceive them (or want to see them). Knowledge is power, and only once women understand what’s going through men’s minds can they counter their behaviour.”

How about saying “The HELL with men’s perception of us, how ’bout we live our lives as we wish REGARDLESS??” Oh, I so wish I were as articulate as you are, and could clearly describe why this pisses me off so much.

Marla, thanks for the great comments! This topic could be the subject of a blog all its own. BTW, I meant to mention that Oprah also had the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs on her show. Her book is all about why women are not only buying into this “raunch culture” but are now a driving force behind it.

I agree with Librarian that making an impulsive decision for something that may seem less healthy is not as “bad” as it might sound. We’re not “on diets” here, and a small indulgence now can be the equivalent of letting off steam rather than building up to a major incident.

I’m glad to say that I’ve never felt genuinely compelled to binge, but on the other hand I can also say that every time I did binge, I knew when I should and could stop and chose not to. I know what Susan meant by “trying not to feel something” — it’s been demonstrated in the lab that fats and/or sugars trigger soothing neurochemicals. Any critter can get hooked on those feelings.

Heck, I spent a year trying to switch my cat to raw food, but he won’t give up the high-fat, chemical-filled commercial stuff.

It occured to me while reading this, that I never have an impulse to do something GOOD. Like, I’m never just sitting around and think “Hey, I should get up and do some sit-ups!” or “Wow, I have an uncontrollable urge to have half a slice of whole wheat toast, an orange and a quarter cup of low-fat cottage cheese for breakfast!”

Stupid brain.

I’m glad you went for the chicken. Often times the “healthy” choice isn’t too tasty. I feel much less deprived if I order what really hums to me and eat half of it than if I order the “low calorie” dish and eat the whole thing and still end up feeling somewhat gypped because it wasn’t what I really wanted. I know I ordered wrong if I end up gazing longingly at everyone else’s choices.

You know, I never thought of it this way- I always assumed I was over eating- but after reading this I think there IS a difference and I eat compulsively. Sometimes I can be in tears and be miserable while eating something and just can’t stop. Something to think about- thanks.

Such a wise and thoughtful post, Beth. And I’m so glad you mentioned the Female Chauvinist Pigs book. I read it and it really is worth a look. I think women’s sexual empowerment is a wonderful thing. Again, as long as you are the subject in that and not the object. But a lot of women, I call them “stripper-pole feminists,” think they are being subjects, when they are really still being objects. It takes a huge amount of self-awareness and thought to avoid that trap, and to avoid becoming an object (even if you think you’re being or trying to be) a subject in weightloss.

Worth a visit