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Ellen Glovsky, Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Coach Learn more...   For a complimentary telephone consultation, call or email me at (781)890-1618 or elglov@aol.com. Offices in Waltham and Copley Square, Boston. Services offered include: > in-person consultations > telephone sessions > home visits Please forward this newsletter to others who may be interested. Feel free to contact me with questions or topics you would like to hear about in future issues.     Many of my clients have been struggling with food and their weight for a long time, and they have tried many different diets. What if you stopped dieting and started responding to your body's hunger and fullness signals?     In This Issue August/September 2009 Why Do People Overeat? The Dieting Industry The Chemical Trail The Food Industry       Coaching for Nutrition  and Weight Management Ellen Glovsky, PhD, RD, LDN, Nutrition Coach   Make peace with food. Why Do People Overeat? Have you wondered why, despite your best efforts, you still overeat your favorite foods? As more people in our country are overweight and so many people are "on a diet," why aren't we looking at the reasons people overeat? The Dieting Industry Perhaps you simply blame yourself for not being able to stick to a weight loss diet. An entire multi-billion dollar industry exists which is devoted to helping us lose weight, and it's a terrific business to be in right now. Since most people regain the weight they lose, this industry has a built-in customer base. Scientists are only now beginning to investigate why people overeat.  Dr. David Kessler, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has a new book titled "Why We Overeat." The book describes current research looking at the causes of overeating. And no, it's not just that you are lazy or undisciplined. The Chemical Trail Research demonstrates that when we eat sugar, fat, or salt, the brain is stimulated to produce dopamine, a chemical that conveys messages from one nerve cell to another. When we consume just sugar, there is a small dopamine spike, but when the food contains both sugar and fat, the spike is larger and lasts longer than with sugar alone. Combine sugar, fat and salt, and the dopamine spike lasts longer still. When you add a variety of temperatures, textures, and aromas, the lure of certain foods becomes nearly impossible to resist. These chemicals "activate" the brain and turn on reward circuits, causing the desire for more and more of the food. For example, ice cream contains sugar and fat and is cold. When you add hot fudge (sugar, fat, hot, creamy, chocolate), crumbled cookies (sugar, crispy), and peanut butter candy (sugar, fat, chocolate), the food becomes multi-sensory and, consequently, even harder to resist.  The Food Industry The food and restaurant industries know that to make food more irresistible, they should layer the fat, salt and sugar with the other sensory qualities such as texture, temperature, and color. These industries are smart enough to put these foods on every street corner, grocery store, and drug store. Add the gloss of advertising that says "eat this with your friends and family, have fun", and we become conditioned to consume these foods beyond fullness. Dr. Kessler points out that not everyone is equally vulnerable to the irresistability of these foods. We don't know for sure why, but we think that some people produce fewer brain chemicals in response to stimulus, or perhaps the chemicals just don't have the same effect. Dr. Kessler refers to people whose brains are activated and remain so by food "conditioned hypereaters." When people who are not hypereaters begin to eat very appealing food, they do so until the "reward circuits" in the brain shut off at a point of satiety. Conditioned hypreaters appear to be missing the shut off mechanism. For more on this subject, see Dr. Kessler's book: The End of Overeating, Rodale Press, 2009.

 

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Ellen Glovsky, Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Coach Learn more...   For a complimentary telephone consultation, call or email me at (781)890-1618 or elglov@aol.com. Offices in Waltham and Copley Square, Boston. Services offered include: > in-person consultations > telephone sessions > home visits Please forward this newsletter to others who may be interested. Feel free to contact me with questions or topics you would like to hear about in future issues.     Many of my clients have been struggling with food and their weight for a long time, and they have tried many different diets. What if you stopped dieting and started responding to your body's hunger and fullness signals?     In This Issue June 2009 The Trap of Mindless Eating An Evolutionary Instinct       Coaching for Nutrition  and Weight Management Ellen Glovsky, PhD, RD, LDN, Nutrition Coach   Make peace with food. The Trap of Mindless Eating "Mindless Eating" refers to any time you eat without really paying attention. If you've ever found yourself with a half empty container of ice cream or a bag of chips or cookies, and you don't remember having eaten the food, you have had an experience of mindless eating. Here are a few other "mindless eating" scenarios: You eat automatically, perhaps when certain foods are available, such as candy, cookies, chips or other foods that trigger you to "just eat." You always eat when you first get home from work, whether you're hungry or not. You eat while you watch TV, work at the computer, or talk on the telephone, whether you are hungry or not. You eat by the clock, "It's noontime, I'll have lunch," whether you are hungry or not. You stop eating only when the food in front of you is gone, not when you are no longer hungry. An Evolutionary Instinct To some extent, mindless eating is part of typical human experience in our society. We have much more food than we need and are surrounded by food more than any society in human history. Prior to the past century, most humans lived through cycles of feast and famine. Thus we evolved with the instinct to eat when food is plentiful in order to defend against periods of famine. This instinct has become a disadvantage, contributing to the problems we now have with overweight and obesity.  It takes concerted effort for many of us to stop mindless eating. It requires really paying attention to and responding to hunger and fullness signals. It is normal to occasionally eat when you are not hungry, and to eat beyond fullness from time to time. However, most of the time, if you are thinking about eating and you are not actually hungry, find something else to do! For more on this topic, view this interesting video of Dr. Brian Wansink talking about his research on "mindless eating". Feel free to contact me with questions or topics you would like to hear about in future issues.

Nutrition Scams and Quackery

Let’s begin with some general ideas about these ads.

These ideas are recycled over and over again. Remember stories about the “snake oil salesman” from the past? He’s back, just a lot more sophisticated now.

Wouldn’t a quick fix to chronic and sometimes serious problems like overweight, diabetes, heart disease, and just plain low energy be terrific? If an advertiser or television personality tells you that they have the answer, and that medical practitioners either don’t know about it or don’t want you to know about it, be suspicious!

Here are some ways to spot nutrition scams and quackery:

• Terms such as “clinically proven” or “research proves” have no meaning. What clinic? What research?
• What are the credentials of the person who conducted the study? Unfortunately, some of my colleagues with legitimate credentials have put their names on commercial, unproven products, and this is a shame. Literally, they should be ashamed of themselves, since this is extremely unprofessional and unethical. Current examples are Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Nicholas Perricone who are promoting Acai Berry with Oprah. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that this product has any health benefits.
• Who sponsored or paid for the study? If the company that is selling the product has sponsored the research, the results are suspect.
• How many subjects were in the study? Two, five, ten? This is not enough to get accurate results to make claims that something is “proven”.
• Was this research published in a peer reviewed, scientific journal, or presented at a scientific meeting?
• Is the site/expert selling you something? Legitimate health care providers generally do not sell products. It is considered unethical.

For more on Acai Berry, from a legitimate source, go to Web MD at http://www.webmd.com/diet/acai-berries-and-acai-berry-juice-what-are-the-health-benefits.

Looking for the "Perfect Diet"

Many people believe they are overweight and "go on a diet" to correct that problem. Obviously, these people expect to lose weight! These expectations are generally unrealistic. The truth is that about 90-95% of people who diet either don't lose weight, or lose some weight and gain it all back, often and then some. Would you take a medication or other treatment for your health if it had that kind of success rate?

Typically, people are able to follow a new diet for a short time, perhaps achieving some success at weight loss. They may even feel a real thrill when they are successful at controlling themselves! Most people gradually slide back into old food habits for very good reasons. After all, "We eat what we like and we like what we eat".

Yet we continue to think that we should be able to restrain ourselves and not eat our favorite foods, our comfort foods. Why do we think we should be able to avoid or limit foods we love?

The "False Hope" Syndrome

So, hope springs eternal, and in this case, false hope. We think we should just try harder and be more disciplined. Or, we think the next new diet will be "the one that works". This idea gives the power to the diet itself to "work". If we could just find the right combination of foods or nutrients or the times of the day we eat, we will finally be able to be in control.

The basis of this argument is false! When we restrict the number of calories we consume, the body revolts and fights back, leaving us hungry, irritable, and constantly thinking about food. Our bodies are designed to maintain the status quo, both in terms of body weight and the amount of food we eat. Ever notice that when you're "on a diet" food becomes the central focus of your day? It's not the diet that has to be the right one, it's a change in philosophy about the idea of dieting that's in order.

There is an Alternative to "Dieting!"

What if you tuned into your body's signals and

• ate only when you were physically hungry,
• ate the foods you REALLY wanted to eat, and
• stopped when you were full?