CHAPTER 1
More Isn't Always Better
America is a land of many riches; those of us who call it home are, to my thinking, fortunate to be able to do so. Geopolitical strife aside, America still offers the greatest opportunities for growth and prosperity. It is principally for this reason that those who seek better lives for themselves and their families aspire to settle here. Since our founding it has always been so.
The opportunities about which I speak are not purely financial. While it is true that the American standard of living is among the highest in the world, it is, I suspect, the freedoms that our society affords that make life here such an attractive notion.
I can't know what impressions our country leaves upon those who visit here or upon those who arrive here to begin their lives anew, but it has occurred to me throughout the course of my travels to distant countries that those who come here must be struck by our abundance. The particular abundance may vary dependent upon the proclivity of the observer, but that which must be especially awe-inspiring is the variety and sheer volume of our food choices. Surely we are not alone in that regard; other countries share our good fortune as it relates to the availability of foodstuffs, but few countries can boast of the vast repositories (let's call them grocery stores) where these items are held for inspection, and ultimately, purchase.
Far from boasting about such repositories, other countries are likely to point to them as a symptom of the disease that has taken hold of our country and threatens to shake it to its very foundation. As I sit here and peck away at my keyboard, fully two-thirds of my fellow Americans are either overweight or obese. The statistics related to this epidemic are truly staggering, both in terms of the increases in the rates during the course of the past few decades and the costs that our society must bear to manage the medical issues that grow out of this alarming shift in the direction of obesity.
Let me assure you that I, as much as anyone, know that none of us gets out of this alive. We will all one-day breathe our last. That being so, some might argue that they should be left to lead the lives they choose. Forgetting the cost that each of us are made to pay to care for those whose choices lead to protracted illness and non-productivity, it is my general feeling that they should be free to do as they will. I do not attempt to reach those through this book. After all, we cannot, in spite of Mayor Bloomberg's (New York City, 2002-2013) attempts to do so, legislate good health. Neither can we bully people into it, although Jillian Michaels has made millions trying to do just that. People must go willingly into this challenge, not poked or prodded but self-motivated. I address those people who hope to maximize their lives if not extend them outright, those who look to reduce the weight that they feel limits their opportunities to enjoy their lives to the fullest. For those there is a path that leads to increased vigor and restored health. Mind you, for most it will be a long and difficult slog. But as is true with most of life's battles, those that are hard- won are most treasured.
This particular path begins with one especially agonizing first step, a step that comes in the form of an admission: the weight you carry is a product of your own doing. As a younger person, I attempted to convey this very message to a group of "weight-challenged" women in Northern California. Were it not for some apologetic backpedalling, they would have run me out of town on a rail. Vowing to fight another day I revisit that notion here.
For entirely too long we have been told that our problems, whatever they might be, are not of our own creation. We are all victims of outside forces that conspire to separate us from our bliss, or so we are led to believe. As it pertains to our weight, we cannot break free from the legacy bequeathed to us by our parents and theirs. Or can we? Sure, some inescapable genetic predispositions dictate where and how we store our excess body fat. However, for the excess fat itself, we must take responsibility. Some might find this stance a bit harsh, particularly for those who began adding to their fat stores at a very early age. Still, it is my feeling that we must own our weight if we are going to own the changes that ultimately bring our weight under control. Sadly, that alone will not get you to where you want to be. Others have accepted that responsibility and failed to achieve their goal. In fact, the diet landscape is awash with such failure. How then are we, they, any of us to succeed when failure is so commonplace? I'll tell you what, let's come back to success after we've had a good hard look at failure.
Most of you who have bothered to read this far have at one time or another participated in a diet program. In fact, statistics indicate that many of you have involved yourselves in multiple such programs. Encouraged by a friend or family member who saw the diet featured on Dr. Oz, or read it was used to great success by a long list of Hollywood celebrities, you thought, why not? Spurred on by draconian calorie restriction, you might even have appreciated some early weight loss. But overtime you simply could not adhere to the diet's narrow and/or stringent guidelines and back came the weight. This same scenario plays out in American homes on a daily basis. Whatever the plan, whichever foods it vilifies, and however it purports to accomplish its purposes, most diets fail.
While the reasons for these failures may be many, the common thread that seems to run through all diets is their failure to address what I consider our pathologic relationship with food. We Americans eat for reasons other than to satisfy hunger. If only hunger drove our desire to eat, none of us would be overweight, let alone obese. And if hunger motivated us to eat, then it stands to reason that satisfying hunger would cause us to cease eating. Sadly for many, hunger is but one of a litany of reasons that compel us to feed. Equally sad is the fact that satisfying our hunger fails to turn off the need to feed. Thanksgiving dinner is not the only meal that leaves us feeling discontentedly overindulged. Yet in this pattern we persist. Eating not necessarily because we're hungry, but because we're angry, or frustrated, or lonely, or disappointed, or unloved, or bored, or because someone else is eating, or because it's time to eat, or because there is food to eat, or we have an event to celebrate, or one to mourn. Food is our friend that accompanies us through good times and bad, and provides us with comfort from the rigors and stresses of the outside world. Food is a palliative, a band-aid covering the wounds inflicted by the lives we lead. Food does these things and at no time in the process does it judge us for our choices.
Making matters worse is our predilection to consume alcohol. A palliative in its own right, alcohol is the great disinhibitor. Consumed in the proper quantities, it removes the restraints that might otherwise influence, if not govern our decision-making. Here I speak with specific reference to eating, but as we're all aware, alcohol and its mind-altering cousins can and do affect our ability to make reasoned decisions in all manner of subject areas.
Perhaps if it provided some nutritional value I might be more forgiving of alcohol. Aside from some speculative benefit tied to tannins found in red wine, I think one would be hard pressed to make a compelling argument in favor of its regular consumption. So regular is some people's alcohol consumption, that if asked the question, "When did you have your last drink?", they are more likely to refer to a clock than a calendar. For any number of reasons, our weight included, consuming alcohol on such a frequent basis is a practice that we simply cannot sustain.
As a rule, I discourage folks from drinking their calories. Regardless their source, but particularly alcohol, beverages tend to be high in calories and low in nutrient density. For those unfamiliar with the term, nutrient density speaks to the relationship between the nutritional value of a food and its caloric content. A food is said to be nutrient dense if it delivers high concentrations of vitamins and minerals with a low calorie cost. Still not clear? A good example would be a comparison between whole milk and nonfat or skim milk. Along with its fat, skim milk has more than 50 percent of its calories removed when compared with whole milk. With its nutrient profile otherwise unaffected, skim milk would be considered more nutrient dense than whole milk would. Similarly, grilled chicken rates higher in its nutrient density than the Colonel's breaded and fried alternative does. Perhaps an arcane concept, but I believe it is critical to the discussion and because it will be revisited later I want to be certain it is well understood.
I trust it is also understood that we Americans need to come to terms with our issues surrounding food. Is there a heretofore-undiscovered biologic imperative that drives the human feeding behavior, or are we simply sublimating eating for our feelings of hostility, anger, isolation, frustration, (you fill in the blank)? An appropriate, although at first blush bizarre, follow-up question might be, in the way we eat are we more akin to dogs or cats? As a dog lover and one who has had a long-standing antipathy for cats, it grieves me to acknowledge that, at least as it concerns how each manages their food, cats are superior. While dogs typically wolf down their meals then rush to sit alongside the family dinner table in hopes of earning a scrap, cats cannot be bothered. Cats eat when the mood strikes and even then only in moderation. Cats seem to understand that when they finish their food, more will appear in its place. Dogs, on the other hand, eat everything placed before them and then quickly set out in pursuit of something more. Dogs seem to operate with the belief that they'd better eat now, for the future is uncertain.
Sure our futures may be uncertain, but most of us have never known true hunger; a meal, or at the very least a snack, is always in the near offing. It is not necessary for us to behave like dogs and eat as if there will be no tomorrow. In the case of our diets, if nothing else, cats can teach us a lesson-moderation is the key.
Beyond that one lesson, and regardless of how much we may love our pets they are not we, and we are not they. We occupy a unique niche in the animal kingdom. Although we don't always live up to our billing, humans are meant to be reasonable and rational, problem solvers of the highest order, capable of unraveling the mysteries of life, but yet unable to achieve or sustain weight loss. It is with that as a backdrop that those who pedal diet programs are able to convince America's overweight population that weight loss is tantamount to splitting the atom in terms of difficulty. From the perspective of those who struggle to achieve weight loss, the belief there is something more at work here than simple calorie restriction seems reasonable. The presence of certain disease states, the taking of a variety of medications, even a dysfunctional hypothalamus or thyroid might be factors for weight gain, but the truth is that such factors intervene rather infrequently. Similarly cited is the go-to nutritional issue du jour-gluten sensitivity. Many are touting it as a factor contributing to weight gain, but the corroborating evidence is scant. For most, the difficulty arises from the inability to accurately estimate the number of calories consumed as a function of the confusion over serving size. Our weight has increased in direct proportion with our meal sizes, and this is no coincidence. Much has been made of portion size today versus that of years ago. Today, large quantities of inexpensive items (what I refer to as "brown foods"), everything from pizza to bagels to burgers and fries, have morphed into supersized versions of their former selves and altered our perception of what a meal should look like.
With the changes in the portion sizes of our food come changes to the sizes of the plates, bowls, and cups in which those items are served. The dinner plate of 1950 measured ten inches across while today's plate is fully twelve inches, a two-inch increase that allows for the placement of 25 percent more food. Whatever the size and type of vessel we happen to be working with, we do endeavor to fill them. Once full, most of us accept it as our mission to ensure that nothing is left behind.
CHAPTER 2
Food Is Not the Enemy
I promise that it is not necessary to eat like a cave dweller, become a vegan (although restraining your saturated fat consumption is a worthy goal), limit yourself to cabbage soup or grapefruit, or cleanse your colon with coffee. Diets that have as their basis excessively restrictive nutritional practices or that encourage bizarre medical procedures as a means of weight loss should at the very least cause one to exercise careful consideration before enrolling. Weight loss is a process; it is not a science experiment. Are there foods that one would be wise to avoid? Absolutely. However, if eliminating those foods from your diet would make you miserable in the process, then ways must be found to include them, if perhaps only in a limited way.
Food selection is a very personal thing and is influenced by many factors, including cultural and religious preferences, upbringing, individual taste, availability and cost to name but a few. Whatever it is that motivates one to select a particular food item, the item itself has no evil intent. The most sinful appearing cupcake is after all inert, asking neither to be eaten nor ignored. Our antagonist is not food but rather how we respond to it. As cartoonist Walt Kelly observed, "We have met the enemy and he is us". We constantly sabotage our efforts to stay on the nutritional straight and narrow. Confronted with a choice between the aforementioned cupcake and a handful of carrot sticks, which would you choose? Dependent upon your mood and a host of other factors, you could decide either way. The enduring fact about diets is that each day presents new opportunities for successes and yes, failures. As is true with life itself, diets are a marathon not a sprint. It is important we look at the diet in its totality rather than how we performed on any single day. Let's not celebrate too loudly our short-term successes or bemoan our minor setbacks. No one who woke up overweight today was thin and fit yesterday. Just as weight gain occurs overtime, so too must weight loss.
Perhaps it is best we work to change our mindset relative to diet. To most people's way of thinking, the word diet refers to a process by which one's food intake is reduced in order to achieve weight loss. The alternative definition speaks in more general terms to the foods that an individual or an animal typically eats. For instance, it can be said an African elephant's diet consists of grasses, small plants, bushes, twigs, tree bark, roots, and fruit. Elephants and others that feed exclusively on plant materials are referred to as herbivores. On the other hand, those that eat principally meat are called carnivores. The human animal is neither one nor the other. We belong to a group referred to as omnivores. On this point, the rabid members of the vegan community and I differ. They would argue that humans are biologically adapted to eating plant materials; that, among other things, the shape of the human head is ill suited to dig into the carcasses of our prey. This is a lovely visual to be sure, but for me, aside from the point. I will not debate them on the taxonomy of our species, I will simply say that the vast majority of us can and do eat freely from both categories of food and thanks to the advent of meat departments, our head shape is not a limiting factor.
If you're one who chooses to have meat in your diet, fear not. Neither it nor the occasional doughnut spells ruin for your weight loss goals. We must account for the calories that come from those foods as with all foods we consume. Whatever their source, if you desire to lose weight then the calories you consume must be outstripped by the calories you burn. At the end of the day shedding pounds comes down to this very simple math equation: calories out must exceed calories in. Here too I am likely to get a great deal of push back from those who have made it their business to dispense nutrition information. Some among them might suggest that when you consume your calories is a factor or from what source your calories come. Still others would contend it is necessary to remove all processed foods from one's diet and eat only natural or organic foods. To them I would say, strictly as it relates to weight, these things don't matter.
