Food Cures (7 page)
Authors: Carol Svec
There is no reason to be a Sally.
In the movie
When Harry Met Sally
, there is a restaurant scene that shows Sally ordering a salad and pie a la mode. She wants her pie heated with ice cream on the side, strawberry not vanilla, but if there isn’t strawberry then whipped cream, but only real whipped cream…if there isn’t real whipped cream then the pie shouldn’t be heated. As her list of special demands go on and on, we begin to understand that Sally is a high-maintenance kind of girl (adorably so in that Meg Ryan way!). Many of my high-profile clients are understandably afraid of being labeled high-maintenance or—even worse—a
diva
. They ask me the best way to stick to their meal plans while attending a dinner party or public function without acting like a Sally. Simple. I tell them to eat a single portion of whatever they are served (no matter what it is). They can even eat a dessert (or half a dessert) if it will put them and their hosts at ease. The key is to eat extra carefully the rest of the week.
The lesson: You can have a social life while trying to lose weight. Follow your meal plan as closely as possible when you are in control of cooking at home or ordering in a restaurant, but relax and allow yourself to be an easy dinner guest
.
Starvation diets backfire.
Fashion model Rinna was convinced that if she lost just 10 more pounds she would be able to book more jobs, and resorted to starving herself when nothing else worked. By the time she came to see me, she was depressed and desperate—her self-imposed diet had worked for a little while, but then she regained every pound. Rinna skipped breakfast, exercised in the morning, skipped lunch, drank diet sodas all day long, chewed sugarless gum, and ate a calorie-controlled dinner. Then came what she called her all-night eating orgy—nonstop binging on the limited food items she kept in her apartment (things like dry cereal, oatmeal, and toast with peanut butter and jam). Her body craved food! She would wake up the next morning feeling bloated and sluggish, and then start the cycle all over again. We figured out that between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and midnight, she would eat about 1,800 calories—as much as many people eat all day! I encouraged her to start eating regular meals. She was terrified that she would gain even more weight, that she would eat all day and then eat all night, too! But eventually she trusted my experience and took the leap. She ate breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and even a small snack before bed. After one week, she lost 4 pounds. All 10 pounds were gone after six weeks.
The lesson: You can feel good and look the way you want to, all while eating healthfully. Starvation is never a good choice, and it may even move you further from your goal
.
FAQS
My husband and I both went on the same diet at the same time, but he’s losing weight so much faster than me. How come?
Men generally burn more calories than women just by living and breathing. On average, men are taller, heavier, and have more lean muscle mass than women. It takes more energy (in the form of calories) to fuel all the body processes necessary to keep his larger body going than it does to keep your body going. Plus, lean muscle mass increases metabolism, so his testosterone-fed muscles give him an automatic weight-loss advantage. Increasing your muscle mass through resistance training will give you a boost, but his weight loss will always be easier than yours. Try not to make losing weight a competition. Instead, plan a celebration every time one of you loses 10 pounds—with the two of your losing at different rates, you’ll be able to celebrate twice as often.
Limit or eliminate alcoholic beverages.
Nearly every weekday, Scott—a brilliant CEO for a large, national company—meets with clients for lunch and dinner. These schmoozing fests often involve alcohol, sometimes two or three drinks each. Scott understands the use of alcohol as a social lubricant, but he has no particular craving for it himself. In fact, he would just as soon drink ice tea, but he wants clients to feel comfortable and typically matches them drink for drink. The problem, of course, is that alcohol is loaded with empty calories, and they contributed significantly to Scott’s weight problem. Perhaps worse, the alcohol lowered Scott’s usual inhibitions; his best laid plans to make healthy menu choices crumbled after a couple of drinks, and decadent, calorie-rich desserts often followed full meals. We did two things that helped Scott take control while still enabling him to court clients. First, I made him promise that his first drink of the meal would be club soda, and then he would alternate between club soda and his standard vodka. That way, if the client had three drinks, and Scott matched him order for order, Scott drank one vodka. He would not only save calories, but he would be sharper, less buzzed, more aware throughout the meeting. Second, he changed the way he ordered his drink. Scott enjoyed the flavor of vodka straight-up, with just a hint of extra flavor from a twist of lemon. We discovered that if he did without the lemon, he drank a little more slowly. The lemon twist made the drink go down easier. By removing the twist, his drinks lasted longer, so he ordered fewer of them. After just one week on his new routine, Scott lost 6 pounds. After four months, he had lost more than 30 pounds, and he was as gracious a host as ever.
The lesson: You can dilute the negative effects of alcohol on weight. Make each drink last as long as possible by removing your personal flavor “incentives.” Also, always alternate alcoholic beverages with no-calorie drinks
.
It is possible to get too much of a good thing.
Many of my most nutritionally knowledgeable clients are athletes. They know that their performances depend on good nutrition, so they do everything right. Emma is an Olympic medalist who was a nutrition fanatic. She ate whole grains, organic fruits and vegetables, fat-free dairy, and lean meats. She never ate sugar or bleached flour. And yet, she still needed to drop about 15 pounds to get to her optimal performance weight. It was a joy to see such stellar eating habits and I found it painful to nit-pick at her diet. It came down to nuts. She was a walnut and almond fanatic. Nuts are a healthy food choice, rich in healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals…but I don’t recommend eating more than a small handful at one sitting. Emma ate a generous portion of nuts with breakfast, and as an afternoon snack. In all, she was eating about 1½ cups of nuts per day, or about 1,100 calories. Nuts are portable and bite-sized, which makes them easy to overeat. They are also high in calories. Emma cut back on the nuts, lost the weight she needed, and was back in award-winning form in just seven weeks.
The lesson: Go easy on foods (even healthy foods) that are easy to pop into your mouth—including grapes, olives, sunflower seeds, and dried fruit
.
Condiments are not always your friends.
Many people forget that condiments contain calories. If you use them sparingly, they can add dimension and a little flavor to your meal. If you eat them in excess, they may be standing in the way of your weight-loss goal. One ounce of ketchup, for instance, contains about 40 calories (each tablespoon of ketchup provides 15 calories; barbecue sauce can often be higher). If you use more, the calories multiply. Other add-ons are worse: A tablespoon of mayonnaise contains about 100 calories; 1 tablespoon of French, bleu-cheese, or other creamy dressing has about 75 calories; a 1-ounce packet of tartar sauce can contain more than 150 calories. I have clients who have finally taken off those last 5 stubborn pounds when they learned that condiments aren’t calorie-free. For intense taste with minimal calories, I recommend: tomato salsa (¼ cup has only 30 calories—much less than ketchup); mustard (1 tablespoon has 9 to 15 calories, and you typically don’t use that much); pickle relish (1 tablespoon has about 14 calories); reduced-sodium soy sauce (1 teaspoon has about 3 calories); and hot pepper sauce (1 teaspoon has about 1 calorie).
The lesson: Don’t forget that condiments aren’t just toppings—they are food. Use them wisely and sparingly
.
Beware of mindless eating—part one.
Sarah never counted calories and never kept a food log because she thought she ate perfectly. She was frustrated that her weight never budged, despite being a busy mom who never seemed to sit down. I asked Sarah to pay close attention to every mouthful and she was surprised to discover that she actually did a lot of “tasting” while cooking, enough to add up to a significant number. We fixed that by having her chew sugarless gum whenever she prepared meals so she couldn’t mindlessly enjoy these tasting portions before dinner.
The lesson: “Tasting” is eating. If you nosh your way through food preparations, keep your mouth otherwise occupied by chewing sugarless gum, sipping on hot tea, or singing along with your favorite CD
.
Beware of mindless eating—part two.
Kimberly didn’t overeat…she just picked off other people’s plates. Because it was only a couple French fries from her son’s portion or a cookie from her daughter’s snack pack, Sarah didn’t think those nibbles could account for the trouble she was having losing those few extra pounds. As an experiment, I asked her to carry a bunch of plastic zippered sandwich bags with her for a day. Every time she picked someone’s food, she was to place it in a bag instead of eating it. Then, she brought that one day’s worth of pickings to me. We were both surprised to discover that she was grazing through about 1,000 extra calories per day of
other people’s food!
That’s a full breakfast and dinner.
The lesson: Be picky about your pickings! If you plan for calories, you can enjoy them more. Be mindful
.
Choose your sweets for their staying power.
Brenda is a writer who spends most of her days sitting in front of a computer. She kept a jar of hard candies on hand for whenever she got the urge for something sweet. Brenda inevitably crunched the candy instead of sucking it and ate one after the other, racking up calorie upon calorie. Each piece has less than 25 calories, but Brenda could easily eat six (about 140 calories) in just a few minutes. I had her swap her hard candy for Atomic FireBalls, which are very hot candies. They are hard as rocks, so Brenda couldn’t just crunch them away. They give off two waves of “atomic” heat, so she never forgot that she had a candy in her mouth. After just one, Brenda was satisfied and didn’t need any more “sweet” for the afternoon. Although each Atomic FireBall has only 40 calories—more than a small sucking candy—Brenda still saved herself about 100 calories per day…and up to 10 pounds in a year!
The lesson: If you have a sweets habit that you can’t break, look for a way around it by substituting similar treats that might last longer or give you fewer overall calories
.
Avoid the snack traps.
Kevin, a television actor, had done a good job dropping most of the weight he had put on between seasons, but he had a snack habit that kept him from his weight-loss goal. His determination fell apart when faced with “snacky” foods—especially late in the afternoon. One serving would turn into two, which could turn into three or four before he would finally stop eating. For three weeks in a row, he vowed to me (and to himself) that he would stop after eating just one serving of pretzels, or one small bag of baked chips, or one granola bar. But vow or no vow, he ate two to three times more than he was allotted. They say that the camera adds 10 pounds, so he was justifiably worried that his extra weight would be magnified on the screen. I suggested that he switch from “snacky” foods to “real-food” snacks—calorie-controlled portions of foods that we typically eat at meals. For example, he now snacks on a two-serving container of fat-free cottage cheese, or 2 cups of hearty vegetable soup, or half a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, and mustard. It worked like a charm! The key for Kevin was that the snacky nature of snack foods made him want to continue eating, while the food-like nature of my substitutes allowed him to feel satisfied sooner. Everyone has certain foods that are, well, let’s say
problematic
. Foods that, once you start eating, trigger a need to keep eating. For Kevin, it was snacks. For other people, it is ice cream, or peanut butter, or even dry breakfast cereal.
The lesson: It is possible to break away from the never-ending snack, without going hungry. If you have a problem controlling snack portions, avoid your trigger. Try a different type of food that you don’t usually associate with snacking
.
JUMPING PAST A WEIGHT PLATEAU
The trickiest time during any weight-loss program is the plateau—that long stretch when the quick drop in pounds you saw at first tapers off, and every additional ounce feels hard-won. Frustration can turn to overeating, which leads to weight gain, which will move you off your plateau for sure—but in the wrong direction. Don’t give up, and don’t lose heart. There’s hope:
- Don’t worry about the steady state.
If you’re on a plateau, that means you’ve already lost weight. Enjoy it! Take a few days (or weeks, if necessary) to celebrate your new body. If you keep eating well and exercising, all plateaus end. Of course, it may be that you have reached your body’s ideal weight, and striving for any new weight loss will be fighting against nature. If that’s the case, acknowledge your great accomplishment and enjoy (and accept) the new body you have.- Exercise a little more.
As the weight comes off, metabolism slows down. The only way to rev it back up is by increasing the duration or intensity of your exercise. Just adding an extra ten minutes of aerobic exercise to your daily routine will help you burn an additional 50 to 100 calories per day, which could add up to an extra 10 pounds of weight gone by the end of the year!- Change your routine.
Maybe you and your body are becoming bored with the same old program. Vary your food choices, share recipes with a friend, try a new restaurant, modify your exercise routine. Sometimes little changes are just enough to get you out of a rut.- Look for sneaky foods.
Some foods that sound healthy (and some that actually ARE healthy) are weight-loss saboteurs. Granola and granola bars can be chock-full of calories, fat, and sugar. Dried fruit, yogurt-covered nuts or raisins, banana chips, trail mix, and so-called natural potato chips are all diet-busters. Eliminate the sneaky foods and see if that doesn’t make a big difference.- Eliminate starchy carbohydrates with dinner.
Starchy carbohydrates are delicious, no doubt about it. But they also are relatively high in calories, easy to eat in large quantities, and some people even claim they’re psychologically addictive. Of all healthy foods, people crave starches the most. So when you want to break a plateau, avoid all pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, corn, and peas for a week or two. Instead, choose dinners that consist of lean protein and non-starchy vegetables, such as broccoli, carrots, peppers, spinach, cauliflower, zucchini, and lettuce.- Close the kitchen after dinner.
Eliminate nighttime snacking and alcohol for a few weeks when you need a weight-loss boost. Clean the kitchen, put all dishes away, and move away from the pantry. Find a noncaloric way to train your body to understand that eating time is over—drink a cup of herbal tea (peppermint can be particularly soothing if you don’t have heartburn), floss your teeth, and perhaps apply a tooth whitener…anything that keeps your mouth feeling clean and otherwise occupied.