Practical Wellness
On any given day in America, half of the women and a quarter of the men are on a diet. This time of year, the numbers are even higher, as people vow to lose weight for their New Year’s resolution.
Sadly, 90 percent of most diets fail, either because they’re too hard to stick to or because people go right back to their poor eating habits when the diet is over. A far more sensible approach is to eat real foods that taste good and leave you feeling satisfied and energized. Below I’ve described some eating strategies that have helped many people lose weight. These tips aren’t likely to result in rapid weight loss, but all are easy to incorporate and may help you gradually lose weight and keep it off.
Eat 5 to 9 fruits, veggies, and legumes daily. Michael Pollan opens his new book, ‘In Defense of Food,’ with this wise and simple advice: ‘Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’ Plant foods are high in fiber as well as vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, which perform critical functions in your body. Plus, eating lots of plant-based foods fills you up so you’re not as likely to binge on junk food.
Munch an apple or pear before every meal. The high fiber content of apples and pears will help you feel full, so you’ll eat less at your meal. This is what 346 people from a small town in Washington found. By exercising, eating balanced meals, and having an apple before each meal, citizens lost an average of 17 pounds over 12 weeks.
Eat protein with every meal. Protein increases the hormone glucagon, which helps your body burn fat instead of storing it. In addition, studies show that protein makes you feel more satiated than either carbs or fats. In addition to obvious protein sources like meat, fish, and dairy, consider nuts, eggs, beans, tofu, soymilk, and edamame (soybeans).
Don’t skip breakfast. A Harvard study found that people who ate breakfast every day dropped their risk of obesity by 35 to 50 percent compared with people who ate breakfast only twice a week. Eating breakfast stabilizes blood sugar and appears to boost your metabolism for the entire day.
Drink water or tea instead of soda or juice. Research shows that soda and juice do not suppress appetite; apparently you need to chew your food in order for the body to register signs of fullness. In one study, subjects were given extra daily calories in the form of either candy or soda. The people whose diets included candy adjusted their food intake to compensate for the extra calories, but those who drank soda simply ate as usual and ended up gaining weight.
If you’re trying to drop pounds, forego caloric drinks in favor of water or tea. Green tea, in particular, has been shown to increase caloric burn, although there is a lack of human studies proving it an effective weight-loss tool. Since it’s a great antioxidant, you’ve got nothing to lose by drinking it, even if it doesn’t help you shed pounds.
Eat the right fats. Fats are calorie-dense, but research has shown repeatedly that dieters who eat a moderate amount of healthy fats feel more satisfied and lose more weight than people on very low fat diets. Healthy omega-3 fats appear to boost metabolism, so add some of these oils in the form of oily, cold-water fish (such as Alaskan and Pacific salmon, sardines, trout, and small species of mackerel), walnuts, or flaxseed meal. Pre-ground flax meal can be found in health food stores and the cereal aisle of some grocery stores. Whole flaxseeds must be ground in a coffee grinder or they’ll pass through your body undigested. Keep flax refrigerated to preserve the delicate oils.
Incorporate healthy monounsaturates in your diet by eating nuts, olives, and avocados, and cooking with canola and olive oil. At the University of Wisconsin, researchers discovered another great reason to eat these fats: when study participants exercised aerobically, the fats they burned off first were monounsaturates. Eventually they burned off saturated fat, but not as easily.
Eliminate trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) from your diet. These fats don’t contain more calories than other oils, but if you remove them from your diet, you’ll automatically cut out lots of processed junk food, making it easier to eat foods that leave you feeling satisfied, energized and balanced. You’ll also protect your heart, as trans fats are the most damaging of all fats to your cholesterol profile.
Snack on nuts. Dieters in a study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that eating one to four teaspoons of almond or peanut butter daily helped them lose weight and keep it off for more than a year. In a Harvard study, dieters who ate a handful of nuts each day kept their weight off more easily than people who avoided nuts. But all nuts are calorie-dense, so don’t go overboard. Spread almond butter on apple slices, sprinkle plain or dry-roasted nuts on salads, or snack on a handful of tamari almonds from New Moon Natural Foods.
Choose whole grains. Most white flour products – like bagels, pastries, rolls, and white bread – break down quickly in your bloodstream, causing a sharp insulin surge that can leave you feeling hungry and depleted. Whole grains, which contain more fiber, keep blood sugar levels steady and curb appetite, which translates into weight loss.
Ideally, choose bread that says ‘100% whole grain,’ or at least lists whole grain as the first ingredient. Each slice should contain at least two grams of fiber, preferably more.
Got dairy? A 2002 study at the University of Tennessee found that subjects who ate three daily servings of dairy products lost more weight and body fat compared with a group who ate less than one serving per day. Researchers believe that calcium and amino acids may be responsible for the weight loss: they suspect that when calcium intake is low, the body goes into starvation mode, releasing hormones that not only pull calcium from the bones, but also stimulate the body to produce fat and suppress its breakdown.
The 2002 study was the first fully published study to illustrate the fat-burning effects of dairy. Soon afterwards, full-page magazine ads, TV commercials, billboards, and yogurt containers were sporting the claim that eating diary could help you lose weight. How could one small study create such a media sensation? As it turns out, the American Dairy Council funded the study and launched a $200 million ad campaign following its publication.
What the public wasn’t told was that all participants in this study cut their caloric intake by 500 calories a day. (Almost anyone can lose weight cutting that many calories.) What’s intriguing about the study is that participants who consumed 1200 mg of calcium from dairy (roughly the amount in three servings) lost more weight and body fat than other participants, including those who ate just one serving of dairy per day and those who received 800 mg of calcium from supplements. A serving of dairy consists of eight ounces of milk, one cup of yogurt, or two ounces of cheese.
It is still not known if eating dairy without cutting calories will help you lose weight or body fat, but most dairy is a good protein source, and, as noted above, may help you feel fuller.
Healthy Habits At The Table
•Eat slowly and incorporate pauses into your meal so your body has time to signal your brain that you’re full. If you eat too fast, you can outpace this natural signal and end up eating more than you need.
•At dinnertime, keep the food in the kitchen, not on platters at the table.
•Use this trick to balance the food groups: on one half of your plate, place greens or colorful veggies. On one quarter, place lean protein. On the last quarter, place healthy complex carbs like whole grains, whole wheat bread, or legumes (beans and lentils.)
•Use small plates. Research shows that the larger the plate or bowl, the larger the serving a person will take. And the larger the serving, the more a person will eat.
