Eat Out Eat Well

weight management strategies

What Not to Ask: How Much Weight Have You Lost?

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In the past few weeks I have heard two well-respected interviewers ask some well-known people questions like “How much weight have you lost?” or, “What do you weigh?”

The interviewers, Barbara Walters and Ann Curry, are excellent at their craft; highly intelligent; two people I admire; and thin, thin, thin. Neither of them looks like she has ever struggled – really struggled (I don’t mean losing five pounds to look better) with her weight.  I’m talking about the kind of weight that makes your health care professional describe you as obese or morbidly obese and start waving red flags.

In both cases, the person being interviewed (Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey in Ms. Curry’s interview, Carrie Fisher in Ms. Walters’) declined to give a number – but rather said that s/he’s on the right path, feels better, and is dedicated to losing weight for his/her health.  (Carrie Fisher is a paid spokesperson for Jenny Craig).

Good for them!  No, a stand-up round of applause for them!  I get it – both personally and professionally, that people who have never really had weight challenges don’t understand the difficulties associated with losing weight – real weight, not vanity weight.  There are legions of completed and ongoing research studies that have looked and are looking for answers to why some people gain – and cannot easily lose – weight, even though their caloric intake and energy expenditure should allow them to do so.

Inherent in the question, “How much weight have you lost?” is the implication that there is a formula, an algorithm, and if it is just applied weight will fly off and stay off.  Yea, right.  Don’t we wish!  Do people trying to lose weight function in a controlled space where all of the influences from the outside world coupled with their own unique physiology allow a predictable weight loss — a weight loss that can be easily sustained after it occurs?  If that’s the case, my education has misled me and I’m lying to my clients.  (On the record, I respect my education and I love working with my clients.)

So, here’s the thing.  If someone you know – or have occasion to talk to – is in the process of losing weight, don’t ask him or her to put a number on it.  Quite honestly, this could have a counterproductive effect because frequently people will lose inches, feel better, and have better clinical numbers (lipids, blood sugar) that may not initially be reflected in pounds lost.

Asking that dreaded question, “How much,” might just make the person think that a lack of significant change in numbers means that they are not succeeding.  If they want you to know, they’ll tell you.  Anyway, why do you need to know?

Losing weight is a long-term process.  Healthy habits need to be created that will facilitate weight loss and then keep it off.  Some people will never be slim – but they will be a whole lot healthier at a higher number on the scale if they are eating well and moving around.

Keep the number questions to yourself – just encourage and applaud the effort.

Too Few Veggies — You’re Not Alone!

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Despite a couple of years of public health initiatives, an explosion in farmers markets, bagged salads, and a White House garden, Americans still don’t eat enough vegetables.

Only 23% of meals include a vegetable (fries don’t count but lettuce on a burger does) and only 17% of dinners prepared at home include a salad (down from 22% in 1994).  Salads ordered as a main course at either lunch or dinner in restaurants dropped to 5% (10% in 1989).

Only 26% of America’s adults eat vegetables three or more times a day (not including French fries) according to a study recently released by the CDC, way short of the government’s health objectives set a decade ago, and less than half of what public health officials had hoped.

2010 Dietary Guidelines

The just released 2010 Dietary Guidelines (yes, 2010 released in 2011) recommends that as part of a healthy eating pattern we should increase the amount of vegetables and fruit we eat.

That means filling half your plate with fruit and vegetables.  They should be colorful and include a variety of dark green, red, and orange veggies, including beans and peas.

Give Me A Reason I Should Eat More Veggies

Vegetable haters might ask, “Why should I”? There are some really good reasons:

  • They’re low in calories
  • They’re rich in the nutrients we often lack (folate, magnesium, dietary fiber, Vitamins A, C, and K)
  • They may help prevent some chronic diseases
  • They’re linked to lower risks for heart attacks, strokes, and some kinds of cancers.

Why We Don’t Eat Them

Just telling people to eat more vegetables obviously isn’t working. People know veggies are good for you but lots of us don’t want to admit that we don’t eat them or even like them.

Honestly, veggies can be a lot of work. How often do you get home, open your fridge, look at the veggies (if they’re in there) and just admit you’re too tired to cook them?  Cooking fresh stuff does require time and a commitment. And, unfortunately, poorly cooked vegetables can taste terrible – and, especially for out of season or organic, can be costly.  We basically want low cost, tasty, and convenient.

What To Do

  • Change your mindset.  Eating vegetables needs to become a habit – the go to, the default, instead of chips, or cookies, or fries.
  • Think visually:  make one half of your plate a color palate of vegetables.
  • Don’t be intimidated by them.  Learn about them and how to cook them.
  • Experiment with ways to make them taste good (hold off on gobs of butter, cheese, and cream, however, or you’re somewhat defeating your total healthy diet purpose). Try cooking with herbs, broth, and big flavor producers like onions, garlic, and peppers.
  • Check out the way the food industry is making vegetables easier:  fresh cut up vegetables ready to cook; already prepared vegetables to take-out; washed and bagged salad varieties; frozen vegetables ready to pop into the microwave.
  • Expose children’s palates to vegetables.  Make them the norm.  Students who gardened in Berkeley’s “edible schoolyard” program ate one and a half more servings of fruits and vegetables a day than kids who weren’t in the program.
  • Work to make vegetables more affordable and available.  Support farmers’ markets (some markets allow food stamps to be used), rooftop and urban gardens. Get fresh veggies into schools.
  • Plant your own garden or just a pot on the stoop or windowsill.
  • Do what you can to make vegetables an easy choice.

Obesity Spreads Through Social Ties

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Take a good look around you – at your family and friends.  Do the bulk of them seem to be overflowing their chairs?

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2007;357:370-9)  seems to indicate that if you’re struggling with your weight, there is a good chance that your friends and family are, too.

Using data collected over 22 years from a “densely interconnected social network” of 12,067 people who took part in the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers found identifiable clusters of obese people, determined by a body mass index ≥30, present in the study’s network at all times.  The clusters and the risk of obesity extended to three degrees of separation.

Here’s what they found:

  • A person’s chance of becoming obese increases by 57% if he or she has a friend who becomes obese. In a mutual friendship, the person’s risk of obesity increases by 171% if the friend becomes obese.
  • Among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling becomes obese the chance that the other becoming obese increases by 40%.  This is more prevalent among siblings of the same sex (55%) than among siblings of the opposite sex (27%).  Among brothers, the chance of becoming obese increases by 44% if a brother becomes obese, and among sisters there’s a 67% increased risk if a sister becomes obese. Obesity in a sibling of the opposite sex doesn’t seem to affect the obesity risk of the other one.
  • Among married couples, when one spouse is obese the other is 37% more likely to become obese. Husbands and wives appear to affect each other similarly (44% and 37%, respectively).
  • Neighbors in the immediate geographic location don’t seem to have an effect on a person’s obesity.
  • Pairs of friends and siblings of the same sex seem to have more influence on the weight gain of each other than pairs of friends and siblings of the opposite sex. In same sex friendships, the probability of obesity in one person increases by 71% if the friend becomes obese.  For friends of the opposite sex there’s no significant association.  In same sex friendships, a man has a 100% increased chance of becoming obese if his male friend becomes obese.  For female friends, the spread of obesity is a non-statistically significant 38%.

As the researchers conclude, “obesity appears to spread through social ties.” Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Stick With It

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Are you always looking for the next best thing – the next miracle cure for sugar or caffeine addiction, the best way to motivate yourself to exercise, or the best way to lose the most weight in the shortest period of time?

You try, try, and try again. You step on the scale. “That can’t be right – no way – I starved myself all week – I was soooo good! I went to the gym everyday and sweated like a pig!

Sound Familiar?

We’ve all been there. So what do we do? Toss out the baby with the bath water, give up, screech that the diet is a scam, scream that the scale is broken, swear the trainer has no clue what he or she is doing.

Bottom line is that so many of us start with a plan, don’t stick with it, and change course right away. Your body gets confused, your head gets confused, and the scale is probably cringing from the verbal threats you have thrown its way.

Time And A Chance

Give yourself and all of your good efforts a chance. Ask yourself: are your goals realistic? Despite the Biggest Loser, most people are not capable of losing massive amounts of weight in a week. Are your expectations realistic? Do you expect to see the numbers on the scale drop each and every day? The scale might not be moving right away (by the way, minor fluctuations are to be expected – extra salt in last night’s meal needn’t send you into a tailspin) – but perhaps your measurements are changing and your clothes feel looser. Or maybe your body is taking some time to readjust to a new healthy eating plan.

Give it some time before you declare a lost cause, jump ship, totally change direction, or plain old give up. You’ve got to stick with it. As hard as it may be, think logically and rationally — not with your emotions. Change is hard and it takes time. Give it a chance.

Did You Eat 23 Pounds Of Pizza Last Year?

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If you did, you’re not alone — actually you’ve got plenty of company!

Our pizza eating habits are amazing.  Whether we buy it fresh or frozen, by the slice or by the pie.  We eat it for takeout or grabbed off of round metal trays plopped on formica tables.  We eat it everywhere and by the ton.

So What’s The Problem?

For the most part:  fat and calories.  Sure, you may not like a particular type of pizza, or perhaps you love round pizzas rather than square ones.  But, if your mouth has started to water at the thought of golden brown crust and cheesy goodness — here’s the downer: that luscious pizza can be a fat and calorie nightmare.  Don’t despair.  Here’s the good news: pizza can be a healthy food choice filled with complex carbs, B-vitamins, calcium, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin C and calorically okay if you choose wisely and don’t eat more than your fair share.

It’s difficult to estimate the number of calories and fat grams in a slice of pizza because the size and depth of the pies and the amount of cheese, meat, or other toppings varies so enormously – and, we all have our preferences..

How Many Calories?

The membership warehouse club Costco has 416 domestic locations, and most of them have a food court that sells pizza, making Costco the 15th largest pizza chain in the US. They  serve a whole lot of pizza and a whole lot of calories. A single slice of Costco pizza is estimated to have 804 calories,  342 of them from from fat.

Mall pizza can be okay — and not okay.  For instance, Sbarro’s Low Carb Cheese Pizza has 310 calories and 14 grams of fat. But, its Low Carb Sausage/Pepperoni Pizza has 560 calories and 35 grams of fat. A slice of the Fresh Tomato Pizza clocks in at 450 calories with 14 grams of fat. Any of Sbarro’s “Gourmet” pizzas have between 610 and 780 calories a slice and more than 20 grams of fat. “Stuffed” pizzas are even worse—790 calories minimum and over 33 grams of fat per slice.

Are You Craving Pizza?

Although we all have out own pizza preferences, the next time you order try some of these tricks to keep your choice on the healthy side:

  • Order thin crust rather than thick doughy crust.
  • Resist the urge to ask for double cheese.
  • Pile on veggies like mushrooms, peppers, olives, tomatoes, onion, broccoli, spinach, asparagus. Some places have salad pizza – great if it’s not loaded with oil.
  • Ask for your pizza to be cheeseless, made with low fat cheese, or “go light on the cheese, please”  (no guarantee but it’s worth it to try).
  • Instead of cheese go for big flavors:  onion, garlic, olives (use them somewhat sparingly because of the oil but they’re a whole lot better than meat).  And Don’t forget anchovies anyone (low in calories)!  A lot of flavor for minimal calories – but you have to like them!
  • Avoid meat toppers. Think about the fat content in sausage, pepperoni, and meatballs.
  • Try to hold it to two slices of pizza and order a salad on the side.
  • If you’re willing (and not embarrassed or grossed out), try blotting the free floating oil that sits on top of a greasy slice. Blotting (it’s easy to do this on the kind of hot slice where the oil runs down your arm)  can soak up a teaspoon of oil worth  40 calories and 5 grams of fat.