The Fallacy of Moderation



What does moderation really mean?

 Moderation is a word that has been used quite often when describing healthy eating and drinking patterns. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines moderation as avoidance of extremes or tending toward average. What does this really mean when we are talking about food? Does it mean one cookie a day or one less cookie than we usually eat? Perhaps it means that we don't eat the whole cookie jar? Does it mean once a day, once a week, once a month or once a year? The problem is that it can mean anything that we want it to mean. This isn't good enough when we are talking about promoting healthy eating behaviors. To say "all things in moderation" to me seems like an excuse to maintain the status quo, which arguably is average.

Paula Deen announced this week that she has had type 2 diabetes for the past three years. Her announcement mentioned very little about following healthy dietary habits. Rather, she stated that she has always been a advocate for moderation (there's that word again). Deen's recipes are not known for being healthy and it must be extremely embarrassing for her to have developed a disease that has a strong tie to dietary factors. Regardless of the cause of diabetes, diet and exercise are integral for its management. They are much too important to be passed off by the use of a non-specific word such as moderation. Deen's announcement this week motivated me to write this blog post, but this post is not about her.

The food industry loves the term moderation for the very reason that it is non-specific. Hershey's has created the Moderation Nation to help consumers find balance in their lives. Part of their message is that 100 calories a day of chocolate can fit into your balanced diet. That's fine, if you do not need to lose weight, but about one third of American adults are obese. George Blackburn, MD, PhD, Chief of the Nutritional/Metabolism Laboratory, and Director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine, which are affiliated with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, reports that for a vast majority of obese Americans, as little as 200 calories a day prevents them from losing the 20-30 pounds necessary to gain significant health benefits(1). That is less than a small package of M&M's (240 calories). Often, that 100 calorie treat becomes a 200 or 300 calorie "nibble" especially when the whole package contains more than 100 calories. The concept of moderation keeps consumers buying products, which is the primary concern of major food manufacturers and restaurants. In the case of Deen's Savannah, GA restaurant, it keeps the line of patrons circling the block waiting to be seated. Moderation promotes sales and keeps the customers coming through the door.

Last month the marketing research group NPD discovered that Americans are following MyPlate guidelines only 2% of the time. That translates to seven days out of the year! That surely is not moderation and I would argue that the message of moderation is not working. MyPlate promotes such a simple concept and advises Americans to consume half of their plate from fruits and vegetables. It doesn't get much easier than that!

So what can we do that is better? The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in collaboration with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases developed the WeCan Program to teach children and families how to choose healthier diets and exercise more. This program uses the Stoplight Approach to teach which foods should be eaten every day (green light), which foods should be eaten in smaller quantities and less often (yellow light) and which foods should rarely be eaten (red light). Another way to define this approach uses the words "Go, Slow, and Whoa." These three simple words convey more meaning than the word moderation and help to underscore that not all foods can be eaten regularly in moderation if you are trying to lose weight. This approach can be used to teach adults how to better control their food intake too and shows great promise in some area weight management programs.

Stoplight symbols have been added to packaged foods in some European countries to help consumers choose healthier diets. It's doubtful that food manufacturers would allow such a system in the United States because many food products would be labeled yellow or red which could potentially negatively impact sales. You can understand why manufacturers prefer the use of the term "moderation" when it comes to promoting healthier diet habits.

Smart phone users can benefit from using the Fooducate application which independently grades thousands of grocery food items and provides a stoplight color code and letter grade to help consumers make appropriate food choices. The app also discusses the reason for the grade so that you can better understand what makes a food more or less healthy.

I encourage you to make a pertinent comment on this post. I will send a copy of The Little Black Book of Foodspiration by Yvette Quantz, RD, CSSD, LD to the first 20 people who leave a comment. If you are one of the twenty, please email me at info@rochesternutrition with you name and address.

Resource:
1. Blackburn, GL and Waltman, GA. Expanding the Limits of Treatment-New Strategic Initiatives. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005;105:S131-S135.

How to Mindlessly Eat Better



Arrange your home and work environments
 to help you to make healthy food choices 


The food industry knows what we like. Sugar, fat, and salt have incredible power over us, and for a very good reason—survival. I recently had an opportunity to interview and attend a lecture by Brian Wansink, PhD, behavioral psychologist and author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. We are programmed to love the taste of sugar, salt and fat according to Wansink. Our ancestors knew that sweet berries were safer to eat than bitter ones, and that they supplied us with much needed quick energy to help us build civilizations and flee danger. Fatty foods provided energy reserves to help us through periods of famine. Salt helped our active forbearers to retain water and prevent dehydration. Finding convenient food was also important for survival. The less time prehistoric humans spent in the pursuit of food, the less risk they had of encountering something that would pursue them as food. The concerns that our ancient ancestors had for survival are not as relevant to us today, but our preferences for sugar, fat, salt and convenience persist. Do not blame the food industry for the overabundance of convenient foods loaded with sugar, salt and fat. Dr. Wansink contends that the food industry’s only concern is to sell you the foods that you want. “They could care less if you eat it” he claims.

Our desire for sugar, salt, fat and convenience paired with a very marketing savvy food industry are a part of the reason we have become the fattest nation on earth. We make over 200 food decisions in a day, and many of those decisions are mindless. Dr. Wansink’s research shows that calorie consumption is greater when we are cued to eat mindlessly. He also discovered that no one is immune to it. Wansink studied graduate students who were trained to understand the concept of mindless eating, and found that they were just as likely to engage in eating mindlessly as anyone else. Education and intelligence do not prevent mindless eating.

It seems the answer to mindless eating would be to become more mindful of what we put into our mouths. However, Wansink believes that mindfulness requires too much energy to maintain. Instead he believes that we should adjust our environment to allow us to mindlessly eat better.

Eating Cues

There are many cues that promote mindless eating and they very often trump hunger. The cues around us suggest when it is time for us to eat; we may habitually eat at a certain time or take a specific amount of food because that is what we are used to doing. We develop unhealthy habits that we engage in frequently simply because they have become normal. Wansink has discovered that we can eat on average 20% more or less without being aware of it. He calls this the mindless eating margin. Big portion sizes and giant-sized packages have helped us to become accustomed to eating more. Making a few small changes can help us to eat less. The following is a list of cues that promote mindless eating with suggestions how we can re-engineer our environment to mindlessly eat better.

• Dish and Utensil Size: Larger plates, bowls and serving spoons can encourage us to eat about 25-30% more food.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Use smaller plates, bowls and spoons when serving and eating food.

• Glass Shape: We pour a greater volume of beverage in short wide glasses than in tall narrow ones. A study conducted on bartenders showed that they over poured beverages an average of 37% in short wide glasses.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Drink only from tall thin glasses.

• Food Package Size: The larger the food package, the more we tend to eat.
Mindlessly Eat Better: When buying larger packages for value repackage the food into smaller portions at home right away and hide the extras.

• Variety: When presented with a greater variety of food we will eat more total food than when we are given fewer food choices.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Provide a greater variety of healthy foods during meals such as offering two vegetables and/or a piece of fruit every time you eat.

• Visibility: If we see food we will most likely eat it. In one study, participants ate 71% more candy when the candy in the dish was visible.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Place healthier foods in visible locations and less healthy foods in less visible locations in your workplace and home.

• Family-Style Meals: We tend to take more food per serving and take additional servings of food when it is offered family-style.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Serve foods such as vegetables and fruits family style and serve entrées and bread, rice or pasta from the counter. Having to get up from the table to serve more food provides enough pause for us to determine if we are still hungry.

• Distractions: Eating while doing other activities such as reading, working on the computer, watching TV or eating with other people promotes mindless eating.
Mindlessly Eat Better: Eat only fruits and vegetables when doing other activities. When eating with other people, pace yourself to be the last one to start eating and the last one to finish eating to avoid taking extra food.

Wansink says that, “it is easier to change your environment than to change your mind.” He is currently involved in a program called The Smarter Lunchroom Initiative whose mission is “to design sustainable research-based lunchrooms that subtly guide smarter choices.” Most lunchroom changes cost less than $50. By making healthy foods more visible (serving fruit in a nice bowl in a well-lit area) and offering a greater variety of healthy choices (two vegetables instead of one) schools can significantly promote healthier eating among students.

These strategies can also be used in home and work environments. Anyone can make two easy changes to eat better. You will hardly notice that you are hungry with a daily decrease of about 100-200 calories, but you will be establishing new eating patterns that will lead to significant weight loss and improved health over time. Don’t let another day, month or year go by without making a consistent change. Think about it, in a year you could be ten pounds heavier if you do nothing or ten pounds lighter if you change your environment.

This article will be published in Rochester Healthy Living.

Facebook Moratorium

The social network connection

I often wonder why I spend so much time creating my online presence using social media tools such as Facebook. There are a few reasons that I use Facebook professionally. It is a great tool for staying connected with my colleagues and keeping on top of cutting edge news in my field. It also serves as a valuable resource for getting my message out to my clients, although I question if I'm really reaching my ideal client. It's difficult to tell the impact that I'm having without getting feedback in the form of comments. I carefully look for information to post to help others make positive diet and fitness changes and have only once been made aware of the value of this work to my audience. It is important to me to stay connected with my audience but difficult to to so when I wonder if I even have an audience.

Social media is a time sink. Facebook and Twitter eat up time that I should spend doing other things to grow my business. There already is enough to keep us tethered to our computers without the addition of Facebook and Twitter. In the back of my mind I think that I should spend more time in endeavors that will make money rather than posting free information for an invisible audience.

To make matters worse, I have been gaining weight lately despite exercising regularly. I can't help but think that all this sitting behind a computer is a bad thing for humans in general. My recent weight gain has spurred me into action. I have decided to impose a moratorium on Facebook and Twitter for the next week. Every time that I think about checking my social media accounts I will do ten jumping jacks and ten push-ups instead. One of the purposes of my social media existence is to inspire others to improve their lifestyle. I can think of no better place to start doing this than with myself. The calories we burn when we exercise are a small fraction of what we burn in a whole day. Our goal should be to pursue activity all day long. So whenever I have the urge to post an article, picture of food, recipe or any other tidbit that I find interesting, I will be active instead. I wonder how many jumping jacks and push-ups I will complete in a week. I'm sure that I will be doing quite a few of them. Social media has become a big part of my professional life in the past couple of years.

I will return to sharing information on Facebook and Twitter after a week, but I will incorporate my new habit of activity before every interaction. I encourage everyone else to attach some form of physical activity to your more sedentary pursuits.

To Health!

What are some of your impressions about social media?

Adventures in Soup Making

Delicious and easy red lentil soup 

We love soup in my house. I began making soup a more regular part of our meals a few years ago. I started by using prepared organic broths. There are many easy recipes out there making soups with prepared broths. The only problem is that they are high in sodium. Yes, I know that you can buy low sodium broths and this is a good option, but I have flavor fatigue from most commercially prepared broths. As my husband and I are pushing the second half century of our lives, I think that it is better to prepare more homemade soups with homemade stock.

This may seem like a daunting task, but really, it isn't. You can prepare your soup or broth when you have more time. Once you get familiar with what tastes good to you, you'll be able to "wing it" without a recipe. I still like to find a great soup recipe like Red Lentil Soup from The Best of Bloodroot, Volume Two, but most of my soup adventures are flying by the seat of my pants. I throw all kinds of combinations of food into a pot and typically the results are great.

I'll share the recipe for Red Lentil Soup as this one is really out of this world and it can teach you some soup-making skills. After the recipe, I'll include some guidelines for mixing up your own creations.

Red Lentil Soup

2 cups red lentils
2 large onions, sliced
8 cloves garlic, sliced
3 T. fresh ginger, sliced
2 T. grapeseed oil
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
8 cups water
1/3 c. low sodium tamari
2 cups canned diced tomatoes (low sodium is best)
pepper to taste (only add salt if you really have to after you serve the soup)

Spiced Oil Garnish

4 T. grapeseed oil
1/2 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. whole cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1-2 sliced green onions

1. Pick over and rinse lentils (I admit that I usually skip this step-I rarely find rocks in my legumes).
2. In a large stock pot heat oil and saute ginger, garlic and onions with cumin and coriander for about 2 minutes.
3. Add lentils, water, and low sodium tamari. Add tomatoes (the original recipe says to drain the tomatoes. I add the whole can, including the liquid. I use a 28 oz. can of organic diced tomatoes. It is not low sodium and I do not add any extra salt). Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer until lentils are tender, about half an hour (I find that red lentils cook quickly since they are so small).
4. Puree soup until smooth. You can use a blender, but this is a big task. The soup is hot and you have to blend it in batches. I can't tell you how many times I've had hot soup going everywhere. It is definitely not fun and enough of an annoyance to prevent future blended soup adventures. I suggest using a hand held immersion blender. It will make this step much easier.
5. Season with pepper.
6. To make spiced oil garnish, heat grapeseed oil in a small pan and add red pepper flakes, cumin and turmeric, stirring for a few seconds.
7. To serve, ladle hot soup into bowls and drizzle a spoonful of spiced oil on top. Sprinkle with sliced green onions (the recipe calls for cilantro. I much prefer green onions).

Serves 6 to 8 people

Hints for Creating Your Own Soups

1. Begin by making soup a few times following a recipe. I tend to make vegetarian soups so I look for vegetarian recipes. Bloodroot is my new favorite cookbook and if you're looking for amazing vegetarian recipes, I highly recommend it. I've learned a lot about flavor combinations by following recipes.

2. Choose healthy ingredients. I encourage you to make soup the main part of your meal. To get the nutrition you need you should include healthy sources of protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. In food lingo that means lean meats, legumes, whole grains (barley, brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, millet, etc.), and lots and lots of vegetables (don't forget the greens. Soup is a great way to eat greens)!

3. Season for flavor and that doesn't mean salt! You can use a little salt or salt containing foods such as canned legumes or tomatoes, but experiment with a variety of flavors from spices, herbs and flavorful foods (garlic, onion, lean meats, citrus peel, dried mushrooms, etc.).



Add a variety of vegetables, herbs and spices to your soup 


4. Go for color. Colorful foods have antioxidants and add to the appeal of food. I'll add onion skins to my stock because I like the color that it gives the broth. I'll also add beets. Nothing looks prettier than a red vegetable soup in a white bowl.



Colorful foods add nutrition, flavor, and eye appeal 


5. Be daring. When you've made soup a few times you'll begin to improve upon what you've made. Perhaps you may decide that a stalk of lemon grass would enhance your recipe. Or you might like to add a bit of lime zest or some coconut milk. Get out of your comfort zone and explore new flavors.

Soup can be served as part of a larger meal or it can be the main dish. I often serve it as the main dish. I'll round out the meal with crusty whole grain bread and a salad containing a variety of interesting greens.

One of the benefits of eating soup is that it promotes a feeling of fullness that can help decrease calorie intake. If you've stuck around long enough to read this statement, it should motivate you to experiment more with homemade soups.

Please share your adventures in soup making. I'm always looking for interesting combinations of flavors to add to the pot!

To your health!

PS: When my son was 18 months old he commented on his grandfather eating soup. As he couldn't pronounce his "s" it sounded like, "Papa eating poop." Papa replied, "I hope not!"

My 500-Calorie Bowl of Cereal

I admit that I don't always eat breakfast immediately upon waking up in the morning and sometimes I wait until I've finished my early morning workout. I eat breakfast every day, but I'm often not hungry first thing in the morning. One or two hours after waking up, when hunger kicks in, I look forward to eating a healthy and satisfying breakfast.

With the release of the new Dietary Guidelines a week ago, I've been paying particular attention to the recommendation to make half of my plate fruits and vegetables. Dietitians have been recommending this for years. Half of all the foods that we eat in a day should be fruits and vegetables. Breakfast is a great place to eat a full serving (or two) of fruit. It's also a great place to eat whole grains and satisfy the Dietary Guideline to make half of our grains whole.

How do you pick a healthy breakfast cereal? I choose a whole grain cereal, either cooked or dry. The first ingredients listed on the package should say "whole" and the list should not be excessively long or contain unrecognizable ingredients. I also look at fiber and sugar. I don't always choose the highest fiber cereal because sometimes it comes with too much sugar. Currently, I'm eating Cascadian Farm Organic Multigrain Squares. Three-quarters of a cup has 2 grams of dietary fiber and 4 grams of sugar. I eat about one and a quarter cups which is 3 grams of fiber and 6 grams of sugar. The calories listed on a cereal box are the last thing that I look at. I find that many of the low calorie breakfast cereals are anemic; they don't provide much nutrition and can leave you hungry an hour later. I'd much rather eat a cereal with substance, and for a cereal to have substance, it must have some calories.

To my bowl of cereal, I add a hefty portion of fruit. I easily add more than a cup of fruit. I'm trying to fill half of the bowl with fruit. I add my own fruit rather than choose a cereal with fruit-like pieces that may or may not be real fruit. All this fruit provides me with a bounty of antioxidants, nutrients and fiber, and it fills me up. I top off my cereal with a scant quarter cup of nuts for added nutrients, fiber and protein and a full cup of milk (I prefer soy milk) for more protein.

My 500-calorie bowl of cereal sufficiently fuels my morning activities and meets my nutritional needs.  I'm not hungry again until lunch, at which time I'm ready for my 500-calorie leftovers!  

Small Changes for a Healthy New Year

Start with small achievable goals

Another year has begun. It’s a good time to start a diet and exercise program, many of us think. We have to be ready to do more than think. Like getting married or starting a family, there is no perfect time to begin a health regimen. What’s most important is to have the resolve to make small changes in your lifestyle that will be far-reaching over the long run, and to stay the course. Change too many undesirable habits at once, and you could end up abandoning your efforts altogether.


The changes that you make must have significant value to you. It is not enough to just want to lose weight, exercise more or eat healthier. There needs to be some type of internal motivation that drives you to achieve these goals. Take the time and explore why it is important for you to make these changes, and then start making (and mastering) one small change at a time.  The following is a list of lifestyle changes that current research has shown will benefit your health, from promoting weight loss to decreasing the risk of cancer. Some you may already do; others you may need to work on. Take it one small step at a time.

Eat Breakfast. It’s the best way to control your weight. Start the morning with whole grain cereal. Breakfast is a great place to get fiber in your diet. Look for cereals where the first ingredient listed on the label is a whole grain, like oatmeal or whole wheat. Add berries or other fruit and a full cup of low fat milk.

Exercise. Give up the excuses; you have to do it to stay healthy. Sixty to ninety minutes of daily exercise is recommended to promote weight loss and maintenance. If you can’t meet these recommendations don’t be discouraged, any movement helps.

Eat Low Fat Dairy. The jury is still out on whether low fat dairy can promote weight loss, but dairy is important for other reasons. The calcium that it provides can stave off osteoporosis and has been linked to improving blood pressure. Recent studies have shown that men who consume low fat dairy regularly have a reduced risk for developing type 2 diabetes and gout. Women that get plenty of calcium and vitamin D may have a reduced likelihood of developing PMS. Get 2 to 3 servings daily of milk, yogurt or low fat cheese.

Add Vitamin D. It promotes the absorption of calcium and is very important for bone health. It may also improve muscle strength, reducing the risk of crippling falls in the elderly. Vitamin D has also been shown to reduce the risk of developing the most aggressive form of prostate cancer. It may be difficult to get enough vitamin D from your diet. If you live in the northern half of the country, your skin isn’t making any vitamin D from October through March. Vitamin D supplementation is recommended for most people, but the amount of supplementation is still being debated. Supplementing with 1,000 to 2,000 IUs of vitamin D daily is considered safe, however some people may require more. The rest of the year, expose some skin (arms and legs) without sunscreen to the sun for 20 to 30 minutes. People with darker skin may require up to six times more sun exposure.

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables. The evidence is mounting, if you don’t eat enough of it, you’re at a health disadvantage. From arthritis to weight loss, fruits and vegetables have been shown to improve health. No wonder the dietary guidelines increased the daily servings. Eat the rainbow. Five to thirteen daily servings are recommended.

Eat More Dark Leafy Greens. Some vegetables are better than others. This is where Popeye was right. Spinach and other colorful greens may help prevent cataracts, stroke, and the cognitive decline associated with aging (and possibly even Alzheimer’s disease). This is one of the biggest changes that most people need to make in their diets.

Choose Healthy Fats. Switch from saturated animal fats and trans fats to monounsaturated and polyunsaturated vegetable oils. All fats have about 120 calories per tablespoon, so don’t add vegetable oil, but replace unhealthy fats with it. Olive oil is good, but so is canola oil. Minimize fats from dairy and meats by choosing lower fat varieties.

Eat More Fish. It’s the easiest way to get those omega-3 fats that are so good for us. Plan a fish meal twice a week (yes, tuna fish sandwiches count, but fried fish is a no-no). Omega-3 fats are good for your heart, immune function, and your brain (those who eat fish twice a week show less mental impairment with age). They have also been shown to fight inflammation, which benefits your joints too.

Hydrate. The first thing you should do in the morning and the last thing you should do before bed are to drink 1-2 cups of water. Sip water all day long and eat foods with high water content such as cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, soup, apples, and oranges (you get the picture). Being well hydrated will also help you look your best.

Get An Extra Hour of Sleep Each Night. Sleep is when your body repairs the physiological damage done each day. Most of us burn the candle at both ends and then trudge through the day feeling like a zombie, going from one cup of coffee to the next. A good night’s rest will help us look and feel our best and can help our weight loss efforts too.

During the next few weeks, I will discuss each of these recommendations in more detail. I will provide more practical tips and recipes that can help you make 2011 an incredibly healthy year!

5 Healthy Tips for Your Best Holiday Season Yet!

Keep your healthy habits through the holidays

'Tis the season for overeating and inactivity, but it doesn't have to be. You've worked hard all year to change unhealthy habits and now it's time to run the gauntlet of holiday parties and coworkers bringing cookies and treats to work. If you can make it through the holidays unscathed while practicing your healthy habits, you are truly a new person. Here are five tips to keep you focused on having a happy and healthy holiday season.

1. Be positive. Positive emotion is necessary for behavior change. To flourish, we should exhibit three positive emotions for every negative emotion. Flourishing is like navigating a sail boat. Negative emotion is your rudder and positive emotion is the sail that soars high into the air. Your sail should be three times as high as your rudder to keep you on course. Of course, you need both a sail and a rudder to navigate. The trick is to have enough positive emotion to balance the negative. We typically focus too much on negative feelings, so lighten up and be positive. You can track your emotions at positivityratio.com. Emotions change daily, so track yours often. It might help you focus a little more on the positive aspects of your life.

2. Catch up on your ZZZ's. During the holidays, most people overstuff their days and weekends with activity and short change sleep. Adequate sleep is vital for health. Lack of sleep is a risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, obesity, accidents and it lowers your immunity. You may have to resist the urge to be a party animal, but getting enough sleep will ensure that you enjoy your celebrations to the fullest. Allow at least one day a week to catch up on your sleep. You might have to delegate some holiday shopping or cooking, leave a party early once in a while, and resist the urge to stay up late watching TV, playing video games, etc.

3. Keep moving. The best way to avoid weight gain over the holidays is to move daily. Face it, we are made to move and without movement we couldn't survive. Preserve your regular exercise routines as much as possible. If you notice that you can't exercise as much as you used to, wear a pedometer and track your activity as daily steps. The goal is to log at least 10,000 steps a day which is equivalent to walking about five miles. I did this last year between Thanksgiving and New Year's. It was a great way to keep moving. When I noticed that I was short of my goal, I would take the dogs for another walk (god for the dogs as well as me) or take an extra lap in the mall while shopping. Taking a walk after a larger meal is also helpful. The artery clogging effects of one high fat meal can literally be visualized. Fortunately, so can the health promoting effects of one bout of activity. So get up after your meal and take a walk!

4. Maintain your weight. Most people only gain about one pound over the holidays, but that one pound hangs around long after the holidays are over and is often joined by more pounds the next year, and the next, and the next... Setting your sights on weight loss may be too difficult at this time. The goal should be to maintain what you've already lost. You have to measure this somehow. I encourage my clients to weigh themselves daily. You will notice small changes in your weight that you can equate to your eating and exercise habits. If you notice a weight increase in one day, examine what you ate earlier. If you ate a meal in a restaurant, chances are the meal was excessive in calories, fat, and sodium. You can make corrections in your eating and activity and work to bring your weight back to where it was. If you don't measure, you won't know to correct. Before you know it that one pound will be sitting on your hips or mid-section and will be hard to lose.

5. Be thankful.  There is so much flurry around the holidays that is is easy to forget what they are about. Enjoy the time that you are allowed to be with your family, friends, colleagues and coworkers. Humans are social beings and having a supportive community around us is one of the best ways that I can think of to be happy and healthy. We bring the burden of the season upon ourselves. It is within our power to lighten that burden with humor, love, kindness, thoughtfulness, friendship and thankfulness.

I wish you the best holiday season yet!

No Free Refills!

I'm often asked by people if they can eat all they want of a certain food. Perhaps vegetables or fruit? What about diet soda? You're not going to like what I have to say, but there are no free refills when it comes to healthy eating. In fact the notion of "free refills" perpetuates mindless eating. There is and should be a limit to what we consume. By eating all that we want, we tend to overeat (think about the last time you ate at a buffet). Shouldn't we stop and evaluate our level of hunger before eating more?

Hara hachi bu is an Okinawan expression that means eat until you are 80% full. This was traditionally practiced by the Okinawans who were among some of the longest lived people on the earth. Their diet consisted mostly of  vegetables, whole grains, fruits, legumes including soy foods, fish and very little amounts of meat. Sadly, younger generations of Okinawans may not live as long as their elders because they seem to prefer a more western diet, with a nice helping of western diseases to boot.

As a 15 year old athlete, my son has a healthy appetite. I'm fortunate that he likes most foods and with a dietitian for a mother, he gets more than his fair share of vegetables, whole grains and legumes. He often desires second or third helpings. I'll ask him if he's still hungry before digging in a second time. His reply has often been, "well, I'm not full." I don't believe that fullness should be the gauge that we have had enough to eat, but rather absence of hunger. Fullness is the gauge that we have overeaten. This is food for thought in a world of overabundance. It takes real discipline to practice hara hachi bu when we are being bombarded by food advertisements that make us want to eat more with excessive portion sizes on every street corner. A mere 100-200 hundred calories a day extra can prevent us from obtaining weight loss, and over time promote weight gain. It's something to think about when you want to eat more because something tastes good, but you are no longer hungry.

To those who question why we shouldn't eat as many vegetables as we want, after all they are low in calories; I say sure, eat plenty of vegetables. Most people don't eat enough. But no food should be eaten unchecked. A recent article in the New York Times told of an 88-year-old woman who developed life threatening hypothyroidism from eating two to three pounds of raw bok choy daily for several months. She believed that it would help control her diabetes. Instead it suppressed her thyroid. This is an extreme example, but it shows that you can get too much of a good thing.

My challenge to you, try practicing hara hachi bu for a week. Be mindful about the food that you eat and stop eating when you are no longer hungry, but not full.

Diets Don’t Work? …Really?

Have you ever noticed how an idea gains popularity but the idea may not be true? Drinking eight cups of water a day is one such concept. It seems like a good idea, but there are many people who do fine drinking less and many people who need more. Another such idea is that diets don’t work. This is a common idea circulating within the nutrition community and one that I’m sure many “dieters” have also heard. The purpose of this idea is to move people away from the “dieting” mentality to encourage them to engage in healthy eating and lifestyle habits, and to become more aware of their bodily need for food. It also, unwittingly lays blame with the “diet promoting” community for the failure of dieting efforts.




As a practicing dietitian for 20 years I have to say that diets DO work! I’ve been witness to many people achieving their goals by following a specific dietary plan. The problem is that people can be limited by their ability to follow recommendations consistently. There are all sorts of reasons for this, too numerous to describe, but here are a few: emotional eating related to the need for comfort, lack of time to prepare meals due to social pressures, and medical problems (and medications) that change the body’s response to food.



Perhaps the first myth to dispel is that "diet" is a four letter word. It depends on how you look at it. The word “diet” as a noun describes a way of eating. All living creatures have a diet, ranging from the worms and bugs that birds eat to the broad variety of items my dogs eat – dog food supplemented with small rocks, twigs, shoes, undergarments and broccoli. Change diet into “dieting” and viola—it becomes a verb. This is how many of us are most familiar with the word. Dieting implies that we are doing something to change our eating regimen—not necessarily a bad idea. But when one “goes on a diet” they inevitable must “go off a diet” abandoning all the good changes that they previously made. It seems best to focus on the word diet as a noun to grasp the long term nature of what our commitment should be to a healthy diet. As long as we are living and eating, our commitment shouldn’t end.



Research conducted by the National Weight Control Registry showed that people can lose weight on ANY diet plan. So weight loss doesn’t seem to be the problem as much as weight maintenance. And weight is not maintained when the permanence of an eating regimen is not considered. As is the case with weight loss, there are many diets that are successful in improving other aspects of health. The Mediterranean diet is heart-healthy. The DASH diet lowers blood pressure, and has recently been shown to help prevent kidney stones. And there are many different diet manipulations that can improve intestinal function, reduce the risk of cancer, lower cholesterol levels and control blood sugar. Diets do work!



I agree with my colleagues who espouse the non-dieting approach, but don’t say that diets don’t work. Let’s go back to looking at the word “diet” as a noun and encourage each individual to choose the best diet to achieve and maintain their health.

To Weigh or Not To Weigh

Should you weigh yourself every day? Good question! We used to teach restraint with the bathroom scale. We thought that it was better to weigh only once a week so that you could see your progress over time and not be fixated on the slight fluctuations that happen in normal weight management. Well, data from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) show otherwise. People who are successful losing weight and maintaining weight loss, weigh themselves daily. The logic is that if (or when) you gain a couple of pounds, you will correct for that gain with more activity or decreased food intake. This is an important skill to master in weight loss and maintenance.

Energy balance is maintained when energy intake is equal to energy output. But this equation is not easy to achieve, in fact, it probably is never achieved on any one day. The best that research has been able to show is within 50 to 100 calories of input or output. So there is never a day when we burn 2000 calories and eat 2000 calories. Maybe we burn 2014 calories and we eat 2115 calories. And the next day we burn 2354 calories (we exercised that day) and we eat 2274 calories. And that's how it goes. We need a tool to be able to measure the effect that this has on our body. The scale is such a tool. Whether you hate it or not, it can keep you honest about what you are really doing.

My recommendation to my weight loss clients now is to start with weekly weights until about five pounds are lost. Then it's time to weight daily. I know how much work goes into losing weight and I want my clients to be successful and not regain lost weight. The key with monitoring weight is to weigh on the same scale at the same time of day, wearing the same clothing (it is best to wear no clothing or minimal clothing). Write it down in your journal (because writing everything down increases your chances of success) and move on. At the end of the week go back and look at your weights and write a summary of your progress. It may go something like this:

Started the week at 155.6 pounds. Weight went down to 154.3 by midweek. Ate Chinese food for dinner at the end of the week and noticed that weight went up to 155.1 pounds. Probably holding extra water from all the salt in the restaurant meal
the night before. Finished the week at 154.7. Lost almost one pound this week.

Now, weighing daily is not good for people who struggle with eating disorders. If you are aware of disordered eating patterns, you will require both diet and psychological/behavioral therapy and you will have recommendations made by eating disorder specialists. The rest of us need to stop hating the scale. When we hate the scale, we hate ourselves. It's just a number that helps us measure progress toward our goal. We expect to see drastic changes in a short amount of time, but research again shows us that those who are most successful with maintaining weight loss, lose weight very slowly, 1/4 to 1/2 pound a week. So when the scale tells you that you've lost 0.4 pounds in one week, feel confident that slow and steady wins the race!