Category: diets

body image · diets · eating · eating disorders · fitness · food · sports nutrition

Intuitive eating — beyond sports nutrition

Tracy I4 Comments
Image description: a single fresh strawberry with leaf still attached to the top.

As long time readers may know, I am a big fan when it comes to intuitive eating. I’ve written about it lots, including this post “Intuitive Eating: What It Is and Why I Love It.” So I was excited to see an article in Outside online singing its praises as the “ultimate anti-diet.”

Not everyone around here is sold on intuitive eating. Sam has written about her four worries about intuitive eating. I agree that it’s not a cure all that works for everyone. And as Sam says, it depends what you mean by “works.” She puts it like this: “I don’t mean weight, that’s for sure. I mean if you eat this way are you, on reflection, happy with the food choices you’re making? Are you leading a life you enjoy? Are you meeting your own food goals around nutrition? Do you have energy to do the things you love? “

For me, it goes back to the anti-diet idea outlined in the Outside article. Dieting breeds obsession. As someone with a history of chronic dieting and disordered eating, intuitive eating has freed me from that. It took awhile (see my post, “It only took 27 years but now I’m a bona fide intuitive eater”), but as an intuitive eater I am way more well-adjusted about food than I ever was before. Intuitive eating is more a response to chronic dieting. Granted, it may not work for everyone, but it does work for some.

In my reply (in the comments) to Sam’s worries, I said the following:

…many people who are drawn to this approach are dealing with a more psychologically deep set of attitudes and behaviours around food that, if they can get to intuitive eating, they can be free of. It works for me because for the first time in my life I do not obsess about food every waking moment. I don’t panic when I am at an event with a buffet table. I don’t hate myself when I take a brownie. I don’t gorge myself beyond full because I can’t figure out when I’ve eaten enough. And I don’t go to bed every night full of regret over what I ate that day (and it’s not because I’m always making “healthy” choices) and wake up in the morning planning my meals and snacks to the last unrealistic detail. I can also go hungry without panicking and recognize that’s okay. And that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no food around, but there may be no food that will do and I would rather wait. It’s okay to subject any approach that doesn’t work for you to criticism. That is what we as philosophers do. But for myself, who has a history of extremely messed up thinking about food and of disordered eating, it’s been an absolute life saver that’s taken me 27 years to reach. I don’t have perfect hunger signals, but being in touch with my hunger feels more like a hard won battle than a privilege at this point.

That’s why it’s inaccurate to say it’s only about listening to your body. As Christine Byrne, author of the article in Outside notes, there are lots of dimensions to intuitive eating besides “listen to your body.” On its own, for all sorts of reasons, “listen to your body” isn’t helpful advice. Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, authors of the 1995 book Intuitive Eating, identified a number of other features of intuitive eating, including the idea of challenging the food police (whether they’re other people or live in your head) and no longer moralizing food (it’s not good or evil).

Byrne also talks about the importance of a nuanced approach. A dietician interviewed for the article, Heather Caplan, comments: “For the purpose of sports nutrition, I’ll often have someone eat when they’re not hungry, before or after a hard workout,” Caplan says. “Not everyone feels like eating at 6 A.M., I identify with that. But I also identify with not eating and being hungry 15 minutes into a run.” Instead of honoring hunger, think of it as figuring out how food makes your body feel in different situations and honoring those feelings. If eating when you’re not hungry helps fuel a better workout or minimize post-workout soreness, it’s a good choice.”

A good choice serves your workouts and helps you with recovery. It’s not only about hunger signals.

I like how Byrne puts it: “Ultimately, intuitive eating is a way to make sure your needs are being met. What separates intuitive eating from traditional diets is that it’s 100 percent flexible—it can (and will) look different for everyone.”

That’s what makes it the opposite of dieting. Dieting is not about meeting our needs. Dieting isn’t flexible. The hallmark of a fad diet is that it looks the same for everyone.

If you’ve been avoiding intuitive eating because you worry that it seems not to fit with the nutritional needs of your sports activities, then thinking of it as a way to make sure your needs are being met might offer a new angle on it. My guess is that if you do not struggle or have not struggled with dieting, where food is an all-consuming mental obsession, then you really have no reason to feel drawn to this approach. But if chronic dieting of that kind is a thing in your history, then intuitive eating in all of its dimensions is an attractive alternative that can help bring some peace to your vexed relationship with food and your body. At least that is how it worked for me.

Does intuitive eating have any appeal for you?

diets · eating · eating disorders · weight loss · weight stigma

Losing My (Diet) Religion (Guest Post)

Sam B

by Mavis Fenn

(This post discusses disordered eating. Please be aware it may be triggering for some.)

 Eating issues began when I was ten. There were two contributing factors. The first was that I was pre-puberty, a time when many children put on additional weight. The second was related to my mother’s health. She died at fifty-eight of early onset Alzheimer’s. It was when I was about ten that her behaviour began to change. Looking back on it now, I realize that this was also the time I began to binge-eat. I clearly remember ketchup and mustard sandwiches on white bread. Yuck!

My parents were older and came from a generation that had survived the depression of the thirties and the Second World War. Not wasting and will power were considered virtues; a lack of frugality or will power was a moral failing. Fat people were considered to be lazy, gluttons with no will power. My dad loved me and wanted the best for me. We were close until he died at ninety-four. He was a great role model and still is. Having said that, family and friends believed that teasing was a good way to correct behaviour. How well I remember, “Your eyes were bigger than your stomach,” when I didn’t finish the food on my plate. Unfortunately, that hurt my feelings; hurting my feelings makes me mad. Thinking, “I’ll show you,” I would eat everything up even if they said I didn’t have to. And the boys that called me names, I ran them to ground and sat on them until they apologized.

For a girl, being fat could be limiting. It didn’t matter how smart you were, how funny or caring you were, you weren’t going to get a good job or a husband who would take care of you if you were fat. So, at about twelve I got on the diet roller coaster. I stayed on it for well over fifty years. It eroded my confidence and sense of self-worth. I was never good enough, strong enough; I was not perfect and it was all my fault. When I was thin, I worried about getting fat; when I was fat, I was anxious and depressed because clearly I was lacking in will power. Eating compulsively was my punishment. It made things worse and I knew it.

I never had trouble losing weight, just keeping it off. I used food in times of stress, knowing that I could lose it when the latest crisis passed. I didn’t know that genetics determines most of your weight range, that only about two percent of people who lose weight are able to keep it off permanently, and that when you begin to gain weight again your body adds a bit more because dieting puts your body into starvation mode. In January 2015 I decided it was time to lose weight again. I struggled and struggled. I couldn’t; I just couldn’t. I was overwhelmed with defeat and shame. I sat down on the bench in the gym, put my face in my hands and cried.

My trainer asked me what I intended to “do” about my situation. I mumbled that I guessed I’d get a therapist to recommend something.  She said not to worry and the next morning my inbox had an email with the contact information for the CMHA Eating Disorders program. I called.

When I met with the nurse, she asked me if I could accept myself as I was if my body stayed the same. My response was, “Absolutely not!” Getting rid of the diet mentality wasn’t easy.

As the introductory workshop wore on, I realized that I had in the recesses of my mind the idea that I was still looking for weight loss. That was not going to work. So, I made the decision to go “all in.” I analysed how I used food, the mind traps I set for myself, and most importantly I examined why I was still allowing myself to be controlled by childhood beliefs about body size. Those were stereotypes of a past generation and they were wrong. I didn’t need to continue to judge and punish myself for not being someone else’s idea of perfect. I was not defined by my body; it is only a part of who I am.

Do I ever think of weight loss or body image? Occasionally, but dieting would cost me my freedom and mental health. I prefer to think about healthy eating and being fit. In the two years since I completed the program, my weight has stayed just above or below my last “set point” (where my body decided we were safe from famine).

The last day we were asked to reflect on completing the course, I wrote this: “I think I have come to peace with my body. Therefore, I am at peace with myself.”

Image description: A plaid pajama clad foot with bright blue toenails stepping on a bathroom scale.

Mavis Fenn is an independent scholar (retired). She loves lifting weights, Yin yoga, and Zumba Gold. She is mediocre at all of them.

diets · eating · eating disorders · fitness · health · overeating · self care · tbt · weight loss

Metabolic Health Is a Feminist Issue #tbt

Tracy I3 Comments

For #tbt posts I like to go back to the same month in a previous year. Today we go back six years, to February 28, 2013, when I posted about metabolic health. Reading posts from the early days helps me to see how far I’ve come since we started the blog over six years ago. In this post, I finally “got it” about why it’s important to eat enough.

Over the last few years, my thinking and practice has shifted completely. Rarely do I worry about “eating too much,” unless in the sense of eating to physical discomfort, which simply doesn’t feel good. I think my metabolism has recovered from any damage I did in my decades of chronic dieting with the weight loss-gain roller coaster that comes along with it. Besides the idea of Intuitive Eating, this concept of Metabolic Health really helped me get to where I am today. If that’s of interest to you, read on….

body image · diets · fitness

The power of a pound or two

catherine w12 Comments

Content warning: talk about weight loss and body image.

About two weeks ago, I wasn’t feeling so great– less peppy and more draggy walking around and going up the two flights of stairs to my office. By the weekend, I was clammy and nauseated, with abdominal pain on my left side. It didn’t get better, and I found myself reluctantly heading to the hospital emergency department on a Sunday morning.

At the end of five hours there (including lots of testing, waiting around, and generally watching the show which is an ER over the weekend), the doctor wasn’t sure what was wrong, but had a concerned urgency in his tone that I must say I didn’t like. He insisted I go to the GI specialist the next morning.

Long story short, I have a mild-ish case of pancreatitis, with no clear cause. There are some very clear risk factors for it, but I don’t have any of those. I happen to fall into the 20% of cases classified as “misc other.”

Great, I’m officially in the junk drawer of medical causes… Sigh.

It turns out that the main treatment for pancreatitis is not eating food for a while. Three doctors explained the technical details like this: “the pancreas needs to rest”. Well, okay then. Let’s be very quiet. Shhhhh…

I was on a liquid diet for 3 days, transitioning to jello, popsicles, and finally– apple sauce! By day 5, I could have chicken noodle soup. Oh joy! One key feature of this diet is severe restriction of fats. Much fat intake would cause me abdominal pain (I discovered this when I accidentally ate some ramen noodles, which apparently are high in fat. How did I not know this?)

As you can imagine, I soon noticed that I had lost a little weight. I don’t weigh myself, but I could feel the difference in the way my clothes fit.

Despite the medical circumstances and the knowledge that this weight drop is temporary (it’s water weight which will come back when I start eating properly again) I felt a small thrill. Oh boy, weight loss! Oh boy, looser clothing!

I also felt a rush of irrational hope: maybe now, maybe this time I’ll really lose that extra weight I’ve been dragging around. Maybe I can keep this going, and who knows how far I can go?

Yes, it’s understandable that I would have these feelings. I have been unhappy with my body off and on (more on than off) for almost as long as I can remember. This is so sad, and I wish it weren’t true. But it is true.

When I was 13, I had mono. I went from 115 lbs to 105 lbs in a few weeks. Of course this wasn’t good for me. But boy did I feel like I’d gotten this huge gift– a slightly lighter body, which to me looked and felt transformed. Of course it wasn’t transformed– it was undernourished and dehydrated. Over the next month I gained the weight back as I regained my health.

This time I’m paying closer attention, and I’m on to these beliefs– that this sickness-induced weight loss is a sign of what I can/should/will do to change my body weight.

These beliefs are a cheat and a con.

These beliefs are not reflecting anything true about my body. They’re reflecting my continued struggle with body image and self-acceptance.

For the next month or more, I will need to adhere to a low-fat diet. It’s possible that I will experience more weight loss. That’s fine– it won’t harm me to weigh less. What does harm me, though, is the weight I give to these small changes in my body– what meanings they have and what power they wield over my feelings of well being and self image.

These messages I send myself are a cheat and a con. Why? Because I know that my weight goes up and my weight goes down. I am still here and I am still me, in my gloriousness of intelligence, disorganization, enthusiasm, friendliness, beauty, procrastination, athleticism, and vulnerability.

Everything changes. Including weight. I don’t want to be held hostage to fluctuations, regardless of whether they cause panic or glee. So I’m sharing it with you all. Thanks for reading.

PInkish purple dragon fruit. Fear of fruit: reasons not to be afraid
diets

Fear of fruit: reasons not to be afraid

catherine w3 Comments

Content warning: discussion of diets.

Don’t worry, readers– you didn’t miss a new scary press release on how bananas have all become toxic and death-inducing. Of course food safety is an important issue; the recent romaine lettuce recall has ended, but worries about agricultural methods, water cleanliness and industrial food production are real and prudent.

The fear I’m talking about here is based on nutritional advice published in popular media about how eating fruit might hinder weight loss. In an Shape magazine article titled, “Is fruit still part of a healthy diet”, the author warns dieters not to eat much fruit. Why? It contains two scary components:

  • Sugar!
    Sugar!
  • Carbohydrates!
    Carbohydrates!

What the author leaves until later in the article is the fact that fruit also contains this component:

Fiber!
Fiber!

Oops– wrong screenshot. I didn’t mean this kind of fiber:

Carbohydrates!
A colorful fiber optic cable.

Rather, this kind of fiber:

All kinds of fruits of vegetables and grains, which contain dietary fiber.
All kinds of fruits of vegetables and grains, which contain dietary fiber.

Okay, so is fruit’s threat to our existence saved by its fiber content? Is that why we shouldn’t fear fruit?

All kinds of fruits of vegetables and grains, which contain dietary fiber.
Uh. no.

Fruit is saved from the trash can and compost heap by its following features:

  • Its tastes– sweet, sour, perfumey, tart, etc.– it’s got it all.
  • Its colors– every color of the rainbow (except blue, I think)
  • Its textures– crunchy, soft, velvety, crisp— again, you can get anything
  • Its nutrients– fruit contains all kinds of vitamins and such like, which are good for us
  • Its glorious variety– you can find fruits in a dizzying variety of shapes and sizes and tastes and seasons and uses

I’ll end with my fruit suggestion of the day: Mangosteen. If you find yourself in a place where they are ripe and are sold, run (don’t walk) to get one. They have a purple leathery outer covering, and white soft inner sections. They taste a bit grapefruity, and bit perfumey. Astounding.

A mangosteen, opened to reveal white inner sections, ripe for eating.
A mangosteen, opened to reveal white inner sections, ripe for eating.

Hey readers– what’s your favorite fruit? Something exotic? Are you a classic fruit lover of apples? Share your picks with us.

diets · fitness

Why you shouldn’t buy a home DNA kit for weight loss, in 25 words or less

catherine w1 Comment

Content warning: mention of dieting, although not in a way that is advocating for it.

At my local CVS the other day, I was strolling in the direction of the cough drop aisle, when my gaze happened to fall on the following item:

A home DNA kit for healthy weight-- hmphf.
A home DNA kit for healthy weight– hmphf.

Okay, I promised you 25 words or less, so here is why you shouldn’t buy one of these:

  1. It’s totally made up.
  2. Science doesn’t know how to do this.
  3. You’re wasting your money.
  4. Spend the $125 on shoes.
  5. Or this porcelain essential-oil diffuser.

For a nice longer article on one person’s experience with trying a DNA kit for exercise and diet advice, check it out here. Spoiler: the advice the person received from the DNA kit more or less amounted to “eat less, move more”.

I’ve got even better and shorter advice in lieu of buying this kit or even reading that article:

Eat. Move. Sleep. Done!

Eat Move Sleep
Eat Move Sleep

There you go. No charge…

diets · eating · fitness · food · holiday fitness · holidays · Martha's Musings · nutrition · season transitions

T’is the season to detox yourself from cleanses, diets and weird wellness claims

marthafitat556 Comments

By MarthaFitat55

It’s not even December 1 and I have been seeing a non-stop stream of ads, posts and recommended links on all manner of cleanses. Some are short, some are long, some are liquid, and some are minimal. All are useless.

Timothey Caulfield at the University of Alberta debunks the latest holiday cleanses in this article. Caulfield writes:

The idea that we need to cleanse and detoxify our bodies seems to have become a culturally accepted fact. This feels especially true around the holidays which are associated with heavy foods and even heavier shame about what that turkey and gravy and wine might be doing to our insides. After a weekend of indulgence, wellness gurus cry, your body is begging for a detox. But is it?

 While there is something to be said for countering a week (or two) of indulgence with lighter fare, unless you were born liver-less or you lost your liver along the way, the human body has its own detox system right inside you: the aforementioned liver and kidneys.

 There’s a huge market out there and if you build it, make it, sell it, they will come. The promises are endless but the long and short of it is simple: today’s cleanses and detox programs are primarily designed to relieve you of your money.

The sellers of these cleanses rely on fear and vanity, and also on society’s preoccupation on thinness. The messages are often wrapped upin social beliefs about health and wellness.

 We empower people to take charge of their health, especially women who are often responsible for managing their well being along with those of their families. Who wants to be known as someone who does not care about their health? Not me.

While the social imperative to diet, to cleanse, to eat clean is present year-round, there seems to be special pressure in December to do any number of things to ensure we have the perfect body.

 All the ads I have seen lead me to believe that we must cleanse the body the same way we cleanse our homes for special occasions this time of year. In January, when the new year has begun and we barely have had time to vacuum the pine needles and expunge the last piece of glitter from our homes, we get a different chorus but still with the same tune.

I suggest, if we are to cleanse anything, it is these sorts of unhelpful and unhealthy approaches to wellness.

So if you are confused and challenged by all that you see, remember this: everything in moderation. Your body will do what it needs to do. Fuel it appropriately.  Move lots (preferably outside if it isn’t blowing a gale). Get lots of sleep. Drink lots of water. Have fun.

MarthaFitat55 lives and writes in St. John’s.

What's in a name? What’s in a name? More profits, according to Weight Watchers (now WW)
diets · fitness

What’s in a name? More profits, according to Weight Watchers (now WW)

catherine w1 Comment

How many of you readers have been to a Weight Watchers meeting? I’m guessing at least this many:

A large group of people with hands raised.
A large group of people with hands raised.

You can count me among this group. My first visit was in my mid-20s, during graduate school.  I went out of anxiety about weight gain, but without any plans or optimism, lasting only about 3 or 4 meetings. The second time I went, I lasted two meetings.  What sent me running for the exit was the leader of the meeting, explaining why we should drink a lot of water: “it washes away the fat”. Argh.  I’m outta here.

Stick person exiting...
Stick person exiting…

Times have changed since those days, 30 years ago. We all know that diets don’t work, and in fact have harmful effects– they reduce our resting metabolic rate, encourage disordered eating, and are often associated with disordered mood.

Weight Watchers has been paying attention to these developments– both in the science of body weight and in public opinion.  And they responded by changing their… name.  To this:

The new name of Weight Watchers, which is WW-- two Ws, one on top of the other, in a circle. Then the words "weight watchers reimagined." I can't make this stuff up.
The new name of Weight Watchers, which is WW– two Ws, one on top of the other, in a circle. Then the words “weight watchers reimagined.” I can’t make this stuff up.

Oprah, who owns a 10% stake in the company, assures us that the new WW is no longer about dieting– it’s about wellness.

 

Oprah's head with the quote "WW freestyle (their newest plan) is not a diet. It's a way of living."
Oprah’s head with the quote “WW freestyle (their newest plan) is not a diet. It’s a way of living.”

 

However, looking on the same web page, just above her head (so maybe she couldn’t see it), was this:

 

The simplest, most flexible WW program is based on science-- you'll lose weight and have freedom with your food choices.
The simplest, most flexible WW program is based on science– you’ll lose weight and have freedom with your food choices.

 

That sounds exactly like a diet program to me.

 

And then, looking to the right (on the same page), we see what their updated smartphone app looks like:

A smartphone view, showing food points for the day and week, and allotments for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. The points plan, a longtime Weight Watchers method.
A smartphone view, showing food points for the day and week, and allotments for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. The points plan, a longtime Weight Watchers method.

 

This looks exactly like their standard diet plan, with daily and weekly and meal-ly points assigned for total food consumption and restriction.  My friends, this is a diet. Full stop.

There’s been a lot of media coverage of Weight Watchers’ attempt to rebrand themselves. Even the fancy international economics magazine The Economist noticed.  The article is definitely worth reading, for its archness and detail. Here’s how they summarized some of the changes in the company:

… it has rebranded and adopted the tagline “Wellness that works”. It has stopped promoting before and after pictures, announced a partnership with Headspace, a meditation app, and encourages “beyond the scale” goals. Much of this is to show that the programme is not just meant for your mum.

… the firm is becoming less rigid about its system of points. Previously, members were given a strict daily allowance for anything they put in their mouths. In the early days avocados, yogurt and peanut butter were “illegal” and the banana-allowance was one a week. The new “Freestyle programme” is more flexible. “FitPoints” can be earned for exercise.

However, not everyone is applauding the shift.  The Canadian women’s health blog Chatelaine, said this about the new WW:

One of the dangers of this rebrand is that it makes certain behaviours, like counting points and tracking food and exercise, seem benign. However, Toronto-based nutritionist Emily Tam says they’re anything but. “The repackaging is problematic to me because I think it will propagate the idea that carefully tracking what you eat and how much physical activity you do are normal wellness behaviours,” she explains. “It’s still a dieting program.”

…Their WellnessWins program still counts losing weight as a positive lifestyle habit. “What they’re telling us with this is that weight management is an important aspect of wellness, so to me, Weight Watchers and WW aren’t all that different,” Tam says. “Because the notion that ‘overweight’ and ‘obesity’ are ‘health problems’ that need to be fixed is so prevalent, weight loss or management is widely seen as a part of wellness.”

Here’s what I think:

  • Calling a diet plan a “wellness plan” doesn’t make it so.
  • Calling a diet plan a “wellness plan” messes with peoples’ senses of reality.
  • Calling a diet plan a “wellness plan” when it is so clearly a diet plan is lying.
  • Calling a diet plan a “wellness plan” makes it seem like dieting promotes wellness– but we all know it doesn’t.
  • Changing its name from “Weight Watchers” to “WW” is a bald-faced move to prey on people who suffer from body dissatisfaction, for whom dieting will make them feel worse.
  • I liked Weight Watchers better when they were Weight Watchers– at least it was clear what they were.
  • What’s in a name?  A lot.

 

Hello-- my name is... IMPORTANT
Hello– my name is… IMPORTANT

 

Readers, have you had any experiences with Weight Watchers?  With WW?  What do you think about the change?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

 

 

 

 

diets · eating · monthly check in · weight loss

Sam’s monthly check-in: What’s up, what’s down, the September version (CW: some discussion of weight loss)

Sam B4 Comments

    Bright red maple leaves against a blue sky. Photo by Unsplash.

    What’s up…

    Here’s the fun, easy thing. I’ve started swimming lessons and I’m excited about that. I love learning new things though I feel like I have been learning to swim my whole life! And maybe that’s okay. We’re working (so far) on breathing and kicking. I feel like I am learning lots, I’m not hopeless, and I feel like someday I might be able swim lengths of the pool again. The lessons are semi-private and the other student is a 4th year undergrad, an international student, hoping to learn to swim strokes. The instructor is also a senior undergrad and we’re all having fun. The lessons are short–30 minutes–but twice weekly and I can come early and stick around after for extra time in the pool. This weekend I’m shopping for a second fitness-y, swimming pool type bathing suit and new goggles. Woohoo!

     

    Here’s the thing that’s hard to talk about, doctors and weight loss. I met with a family doctor with some experience/expertise in the area of weight loss. Why? Well, less knee pain is the short answer. But also better surgical outcomes and quicker recovery if I go that route. I also stand a better chance of avoiding knee surgery until the inevitable knee replacement many years down the road. I know doctors recommend weight loss for everything but in this case–I’ve read a bunch of the journal literature–I think they’re right.

    So in my case I’m not being extra active in order to lose weight. I’m trying to lose weight to preserve my level of activity. There’s nothing magical on offer. The best diet is the one you can live with. I knew that going in. Weight loss is tough. Read Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong if you want to know how tough. But with my active lifestyle which I love up for grabs, I have to try. The odds aren’t great. I know that. Given my size and the knee problems, I qualify for weight loss surgery. I declined. I also qualify for appetite suppressing medication. Again, for now, I declined. I might try it later. Instead I’m using MyFitnessPal and tracking all the things, trying to find a lower calorie life I can live with. I like this, from Yoni Freedhoff,

    Now, you should know that I too have a weight-loss agenda. It’s fairly easy to describe. In a nutshell, I don’t believe that there’s one right diet to suit everyone. In my clinical practice, as well as in my book, I embrace the fact that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of factors that influence an individual’s chances of long-term success. Low fat, low carb, keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, vegan, Mediterranean, meal replacement, whatever – there are success stories out there with each and every diet that exists.

    While I’ve seen proof of this in my own clinical practice, you don’t have to take my word for it. Instead, look no further than the National Weight Control Registry for evidence that, when it comes to successfully keeping weight off long term, everyone’s different. The massive database established in the 1990s tracks why and how over 10,000 people have managed to keep an average loss of 67 pounds off for over five years. And there, as I’ve described, there isn’t one answer.

    The one thing successful dieters have in common is that they reduce their calories on their new diets and like their lives and diets enough while on it to sustain its adoption for good. So, while it’s true that you might be able to lose more weight, or to lose weight faster, with one diet versus another, unless you keep living with it forever, that weight’s coming back when you head back to the life and diet that you actually liked before you lost.

    To put it even more succinctly: If you promote the notion that there’s one right way to lose weight or live healthfully, you’re part of the problem. The more weight you’d like to permanently lose, the more of your life you’ll need to permanently change. And, when it comes to something as pleasurable as food, merely tolerable lives just aren’t good enough. What’s best for you is undoubtedly worst for someone else.

    I reviewed his book, The Diet Fix, here. I’m seeing a family doctor, who as part of his training did a placement with Yoni Freedhoff.

    At no point have I felt like I’m not believed about what I eat and my current level of activity.

    Where am I? I started at 240 lbs for my all time winter high and I’m down to 225. I’d like to get down to 175, which is still solidly in the ‘overweight’ category for my height. But I’m pretty muscular and the normal range 121-158 lbs are weights I haven’t seen since elementary school me! I’ve been keeping my weight loss updates to the monthly check-ins, complete with content warnings. Tracy and I are pretty committed to keeping weight loss talk to a minimum. But I’ve been writing about it at all because it’s very closely tied to my desire to stay active.

    Two different knee surgeons say that no matter what I’ll never run again and though weight didn’t cause that (lots of skinny people have osteoarthritis–it’s not caused by my size) if I want to keep walking, hiking etc I need to lose weight. You can read about my left knee here. You can read more about it here.

    Given that it’s tied to me having an active future, I feel like I want to write about it. The content warnings should help people avoid it, I hope.

    Why is it so hard to write about weight loss? Why?

    I know what’s hard about it for me. For years I’ve been happy and active at a larger size, sharing the message that you don’t need to be thin to be fit. I’m not throwing that message out now this larger body isn’t serving me so well.  There are so many imperatives to lose weight. See Wishing for weight loss. Looks, caring about pay and teaching evaluations even, and so many medical arguments that aren’t true. So many reasons I reject. But then there is this one, pain. It’s awful and urgent and I want it to stop.

    Wish me luck. 

    diets · fitness

    Slimming World’s new diet plan: avoid fatter friends, maintain weight loss!

    catherine w4 Comments

    Yes, you heard it here, folks (although you may have read about this in your info stream already): Slimming World, a UK-based dieting business, considers no lifestyle change too extreme if the goal is to maintain weight loss. These changes now include “spend less time with your overweight friends.”

    As is common these days, the news was broken by an Instagrammer whose friend, upon reaching her target weight on her Slimming World plan, was given a booklet of tips for maintaining weight.  Most of them were the usual suspects, like eat a good breakfast (which, in some studies, have failed to find systematic associations between eating breakfast and weight loss or maintenance; see here for a recent study that shows an  association only for men, NOT for women… I’ll be blogging more about this later).

    However, at the bottom of (but still on) the list is this:

    A screenshot of a list of dos and don'ts for weight loss. The last one says 4% of weight loss maintainers spend less time with overweight friends. really.
    A screenshot of a list of dos and don’ts for weight loss. The last one says 4% of weight loss maintainers spend less time with overweight friends. really.

    There are so many things wrong with this advice. Let me state a few, and then say where in the world this may have come from, and then explain why it’s still wrong wrong wrong.

    First, the math person in me has to point this out: telling me to do something based on the fact that 4% of my group does this is not compelling advice. I’m willing to bet that at least 4% of some group of weight loss maintainers: 1) play badminton twice a week; or 2) do hydroponic gardening; or 3) vote solely based on what their podiatrist advises. This is not, by itself, a good reason for me to do this thing.

    By the way, Slimming World claimed that they got this list (including the 4% claim) from the National Weight Control Registry, which collects and does research on data from more than 10,000 people who have lost a lot of weight and maintained that weight loss. I know their work well, and spent a good bit of time looking for the study that supports this 4% claim.  I couldn’t find it.

    Their list contains a bunch of relatively common bits of advice, which, according to said list, at least 25% of the group members do.  Then there’s a big gap– from 25% down to 4%.  Where are the other things that groups between 4 and 25% of the people do? This is suspicious to me.  Either they left out a lot of more useful tips, or they had incomplete information, or…

    Or, they deliberately chose to highlight and misinterpret a complex result (why complex?  because science is complicated!) from 2007 by researchers Christakis and Fowler. You can see it here. In their social network analysis of 32 years’ worth of data from participants in the Framingham Heart Study, they found associations between social connections and chances of gaining (or losing) weight.  For mutually-identified same-sex friends, if one person gets fatter, that increases the chances that the other person also gets fatter.  It also works in the other direction, but there weren’t many data points for that association.

    The press, as you can imagine, had a field day with this study.  Even the New York Times indulged itself in the headline “Are your friends making you fat?” Shame on you, New York Times.  Of course, the real story is (wait for it)… complicated. Christakis and Fowler say in their article that their results don’t support any theories about how these influences work.  They also don’t know what amplifies or mitigates them.

    I published an article co-authored with my friend Norah ten years ago about their work, and we are continuing to study the ways that community affiliation (like being a part of the Fit is a Feminist Issue community!) influences views about health promotion, health and identity.  These are fascinating and complex questions, and their exploration involves examining deep issues about how we see ourselves, and how connections with others affect how we see ourselves. And, finally, how all this translates into how we form our own health goals.

    Nowhere in this literature is anyone who knows anything about this advising anyone to shun their friends.

    Take that, Slimming World!

    It’s a fact that we weigh what we weigh, and we have the strengths and weaknesses we have with respect to all kinds of activities (confession:  I am the most terrible volleyball player ever.  Please don’t make me play it ever again.) We navigate all of this information with our friends and community in complex ways.

    So, dear readers, what are your thoughts?  How do you manage social or community or family connections with physical activity? I tend to do a variety of activities with different folks, and also I like mixed age/experience groups for social activity– like a nature walk or beach bike ride. What do you do?  I’d love to hear from you.