Put your calorie-counting, food-journaling ways on freeze. Here's new thinking on exactly how to eat to lose.
The Intuitive Eating Approach
Jill Carlson, 36, had issues with ice cream. So the Chicagoan, who
had lost and regained 60 pounds through a series of different diets, did
something drastic. Instead of following conventional weight-loss wisdom
and banishing Ben & Jerry's Cake Batter from the house, she filled
her freezer with it, stocking 10 pints and giving herself permission to
eat it. At first she did — a lot. But after a couple of months the sweet
treat sat untouched. "It lost its sparkle," she said. "I knew at that
point that ice cream — or any food — no longer had an unhealthy grip on
me."
Jill is among the growing number of women who are turning their back
on typical diets. They're making peace with food and their weight, using
what experts have dubbed a no-diet approach. Their ranks include Oprah
Winfrey, who declared she would never diet again after reading Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth, and Smash
star Katharine McPhee, who credits this tactic for helping her recover
from bulimia. These women practice what's called intuitive eating; that
is, they eat only when hungry, they don't feel guilty about food, and
they eat whatever their body tells them to. And it works: According to
researchers at Brigham Young University, people who scored high on an
intuitive-eating scale not only had less anxiety about food and got more
enjoyment from eating but also had lower BMIs.
[post_ads]If you stop focusing so much on eating less, you'll actually eat
less. It's a radical notion, but desperate times call for desperate
measures. "For most people, dieting doesn't lead to weight loss
that lasts," says Traci Mann, PhD, a professor of psychology at the
University of Minnesota. In the most complete analysis of weight-loss
studies to date, she found that most people regain all the pounds they
dropped, and as many as two-thirds pack on even more. Not shocking, when
you consider that chronic dieting can affect a person's psychology —
for example, cause moodiness or preoccupation with food, says Janet
Polivy, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
Dieters have a tendency to binge, both before their diet begins and
after it fails.
Unfortunately you can't change how you view food overnight. "It's a
journey," says Barbara Meyer, PhD, the program director of Green
Mountain at Fox Run, a nondieting weight-loss retreat for women. "We've
had distorted relationships with food for a long time; dieting
disconnects you from how food makes your body feel." But with time, you
can get to a better place. Just look at Jill's unconventional ice cream
experiment. It's actually a well-known tenet of the no-diet approach,
called habituation; Jill ended up dropping 50 pounds — without trying!
"I'm eating healthier because I realize I have more energy and better
digestion when I do," she says. "My relationship with food and my body
is more peaceful, and the weight loss is just a side effect of that.
That makes me feel really powerful."
Jill's success made us wonder, Can the habituation strategy work for
anyone? Are there other no-diet techniques that sound like psychobabble
but actually get results? We sent three women to the experts at the
forefront of the movement to find out. The goal: to fix stubborn eating
problems by trying anti-diet tactics for two weeks.
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Anti-Dieting Strategies, Tested
"I can't keep cookies in the house."
Michelle Arteaga, 41, of Novato, California, wants to bake cookies
with her kids. What's stopping her? Fear of gobbling up the whole batch.
"I try to resist, but I end up eating them all," she admits. "I've even
put cookies down the garbage disposal when I've felt really out of
control. Why can't I eat just one or two like a normal person?"
Anti-diet strategy: Habituation Conventional weight-loss
wisdom says that keeping trigger foods out of the house will keep them
out of your mouth. But anti-diet proponents say just the opposite: that a
food loses its power over you when it's available 24-7. "Some people
actually discover they don't like it as much as they thought they did,"
says Evelyn Tribole, RD, the author of Intuitive Eating. To try
this, keep your kryptonite in the house for two weeks. In Michelle's
case, that meant stocking her cookie jar with homemade chocolate chip
cookies at all times and baking a fresh batch whenever she ran low.
Real-world results: Michelle says: "I was sure I had an
insatiable appetite for cookies. But the first time I gave myself
permission to eat as many as I wanted, I was surprised that I was
satisfied after just three. By day four the cookies were already less
tempting. Now they don't seem as scary as they did before. Removing the
danger sign helped me realize that they are just cookies and don't have
special power over me."
"I overeat at meals."
Gabby Meyerson, 29, of New York City, is a lifelong member of the
clean plate club. "I'm generally a healthy eater, but I love food. I
often don't know when to stop," she says.
Anti-diet strategy: Pace eating "When we eat, we tend to
consume the entire portion. This doesn't account for the fact that it
takes some time for the brain to register that the stomach is full,"
says Pavel Somov, PhD, a psychologist in Pittsburgh and the author of Eating the Moment.
"So we end up eating beyond the point of pleasant fullness." The
following technique is the perfect solution: Divide your portion in
half, eat the first half, and then set a timer for a five-minute break.
Close your eyes, tune in to your body and ask yourself, Am I still
hungry? Am I satisfied? Next, open your eyes and notice the moment: What
do I smell? How does the remaining food look? Then, if you're still
hungry, eat the rest of the food. If you're satisfied, don't. If you're
full but yearn for another taste, have a slow, mindful one.
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Real-world results:
Gabby says: "At first it was strange to just sit there with food in
front of me, especially when I ate with my husband. But I got used to
checking in with my body instead of automatically cleaning my plate.
Turns out, I need much less food than I thought. Sometimes I'm full
after the five-minute break, and I don't eat any more. Now I actually
enjoy my meals instead of inhaling them. I'm eating less overall, and my
pants feel a bit looser."
"I multitask while eating."
Busy bee Amanda Betts, 28, of Vancouver, British Columbia, is always
doing several things at once. "While I eat, I may be texting, working on
my computer, reading, or watching TV," she says. "Even right after a
meal, I often feel dissatisfied and still hungry."
Anti-diet strategy: Silent meal Once a week, guests at the
Green Mountain weight-loss retreat have a 40-minute meal with no
conversation, music, or distraction of any kind. The theory is that when
you quiet external noise, it's easier to hear your internal hunger and
satiety cues. "It's a profound eye-opener for many women, because they
realize they don't listen to their bodies when they eat," says Meyer.
Here's a quick how-to: First, warn your family so they won't think
you're mad at them. Then, unplug from technology. Set a timer to go off
every few minutes as a reminder to pause and check in with yourself; put
down your fork and take a few mindful breaths, noticing if you're
satisfied or still hungry. From there, decide whether or not to stop
eating.
Real-world results: Amanda says: "I usually eat dinner with my
boyfriend. Eating in silence was a bit weird because we're so used to
chatting at supper. But when I tried it alone and focused on the food —
how it tasted, what it looked like, and how full or hungry I was — I
noticed that it seemed more flavorful, and it was easy to tell when I
was satisfied. I still do a silent meal occasionally; my boyfriend does
too. Even when I'm out with friends, I eat a lot less now because I
check in with myself about whether I'm full."
Start Anti-Dieting
These four simple strategies will help you get started with the
anti-diet. Sure, they seem to go against everything you've heard about
weight loss, but experts say that's exactly the point.
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Use your senses.
Employing all five senses, not just taste, when you eat is an easy
way to be more mindful. "This gives you more pleasure from your food, so
you end up being more satisfied," says Lilian Cheung, a Harvard School
of Public Health lecturer and a coauthor of Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life.
Stop eating on autopilot and relish each bite. Look at the colors on
your plate and inhale the aroma. Listen to the sizzle of that stir-fry
or the crunch of the carrots. Enjoy the texture of that creamy Greek
yogurt.
ID your hunger.
"Give yourself unconditional permission to eat when you're hungry," says Evelyn Tribole, RD, the author of Intuitive Eating.
But be sure it's the stomach-rumbling, physical kind. Ask yourself,
"What am I hungry for?" If you're bored, sad, or feeling celebratory,
it's not food that you're craving.
Table the labels.
Research in the journal Appetite revealed that one in four
dieters, as opposed to one in 25 nondieters, labels foods with the words
guilt or no guilt. Part of what drives you to overeat ice cream or
chips is a fixation on the allure of bad foods, says psychoanalyst Carol
Munter, a coauthor of Overcoming Overeating. Try to view all
foods as being equal. This takes practice, Munter says, so remind
yourself of your new mind-set when you catch yourself thinking Brownie equals bad, and grape equals good.
Slow down.
Instead of inhaling your dinner, sit at the table while you eat and
make the meal last at least 20 minutes. When you go slow, it's easier to
read your body's hunger and fullness signals. Need proof? In a study
published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association,
women consumed less, yet reported feeling fuller, when they put down
their utensils between bites and chewed each mouthful 20 to 30 times.
