by patbarone
As I travel, spreading the word about permanent weight loss, I often speak to middle and high school girls about health, body image, and the negative impact of dieting on weight. It’s always very touching for me to look out over the classroom and see the young women as I speak. Many of them (according to some statistics, about 50%) are already dieting and associating being thin with deprivation.
Thin = Deprivation
Wrong!
Most of them can’t look ahead to see how their current behavior and stringent dieting will lead to frustration, anger and excess weight in their twenties and thirties. It takes many years to see the real equation:
Dieting and Food Avoidance = More Fat
If I could do one thing for these girls, who deserve a healthy future free from disordered eating, it would be to freeze them right where they are.
Why?
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by patbarone
This blog post is inspired by my fabulous twitter buddy, Shannon. She asked for input on a particular diet on twitter. Since I wanted to say more than my initial “under 140 characters” reply (“DON’T DO IT!”), I decided to share it here.
The diet program that caught Shannon’s eye was first popular about 12-14 years ago, right in the middle of my 4-year weight loss period.
I had lost about 65 lbs when I entered a 9 month training program. At that point, I didn’t think of my weight loss as tenuous and I was committed to the idea of permanence, but I still experienced lots of anxiety about it.
During our training, we had a lunchtime speaker come in and talk about fitness. “Oh, this will be interesting,” I thought. The man brought the book “Body for Life” by Bill Phillips and talked about how great it was. I rolled my eyes (kinda like this):
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by patbarone
I just had my heart ripped out by a new client. Janet* came to me because she is tired of losing and gaining weight. Her latest experience was with a diet doctor who was fixated on dietary fat. He gave her a very low fat diet and, feeling desperate, she began to eradicate fat from her diet. Janet is an all-or-nothing kind of gal. She made every attempt to be “perfect” on the diet. When her weight loss slowed, she’d cut fat further. Most reasonable, healthy diets suggest approximately 30% of our daily food intake should be fat. Janet wound up making 10% of her weekly diet fat.
She lost weight. She was elated. She lost 80 lbs in 6 months. When I heard her say this, I held my breath. I knew what was coming.
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by patbarone
Successful weight management requires a lifestyle change that includes healthy eating patterns and lots of activity. Making far-reaching changes may be even more challenging if you are involved in relationships that promote or support an unhealthy approach to eating and exercise.
For example, does your best friend agree to go to the gym with you but, once there, grumble and complain the entire time? After an hour with a whiner, who wouldn’t avoid the activity again?
Does your mother tell you that you need to lose weight but constantly push fattening food at you when you visit?
Common saboteurs to a healthy lifestyle are the relationships around you. After all, change can be frightening or threatening within a relationship.
Take the spouse or partner who becomes nervous or argumentative when you being to lose weight. This partner may have his/her own weight problems or simply feel more comfortable when you are lacking self-esteem. When one partner begins to actively work on lifestyle issues and loses a few pounds, the saboteur may accept an invitation to a lavish party, or bring home chocolates, or simply insist on restaurants that lack healthy food choices.
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by patbarone
In response to my last post, hotmother asked me to address the cost of healthy food.
It doesn’t have to cost more. In fact, most of my clients find they spend a lot less once they start to eat healthy food. Not only does real food have more nutrients, it fills you up faster and keeps you satisfied longer. This is especially true when you put the emphasis on lean or low-fat protein in your diet.
For example, the next time you tuck into a large pasta dish with a side of garlic bread, notice how quickly you’re hungry again. Add dessert to that meal and you’ll be hungry before you get home from the Olive Garden!
Most processed snack foods are actually simple carbs layered with a lot of fat and offer little nutrition and lots of calories. Chips, crackers, snack bars, cookies, cakes, etc. will “pad” your grocery bill and your waist. Have you ever noticed that an entire bag of chips doesn’t seem to fill the stomach, but an apple will satisfy hunger at less cost and a whole lot fewer calories?
I’ve seen many a client lose weight by addressing the protein imbalance in their diet. They find two eggs will give them energy until noon whereas a big serving of cereal with fruit and toast had them gnawing at the computer mouse at 10 a.m.!
So, don’t assume it will cost more to eat fresh, healthy food.
In fact, the biggest money saver…
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