From The Dietitian
Need vs. Want
I struggle a lot with my weight this time of year. This surprises people, they all assume because I am more active I will lose more weight. What really happens is I am more active, I eat more to compensate for the increase in activity and when the activity subsides, the food does not.
In the meantime, the yard and garden are lovely.
So the extra evening snack does not go away when the labor goes away. At which point extra calories I needed become extra calories that promote weight gain. And it is hard not to want to eat those extra calories, it has become a bit of a habit.
So the debate begins, do I need this food, or do I want this food? For me this tends to come on about 4 pm and/or about 8 pm. Four pm is a problem because dinner is not that far away. Eight pm is a problem because I try not to eat after 8 pm (this is one of Oprah’s weight control strategies).
But if I ran 3 miles and did 90 minutes of weeding, do I need the extra calories? Or did I compensate adequately for the activity with my food during the day and I merely want something to eat?
How do you tell if you want food or need food? Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart. Is it a habit to have something sweet in the evening, or do I need the calories, or is it to fill a void (such as boredom)?
My personal test is trying to distract myself. If I am really hungry and need the calories, I can’t do a task that requires focus, like crossword puzzle. I find my mind wanders back to food. So I put the puzzle aside and go eat. If I can focus on the puzzle, it is not a need but a want or a habit.
One trick is finding the right distraction. Television is not engaging enough to do the job. Also the commercials cue you like crazy to desire food. PBS may be the exception (did you see the show about whales? watching the orca eat the baby gray whale was definitely not a cue to eat). Also you can’t be too adept at the task, for example, every puzzle is new, so offers a new challenge. Try to not choose a task you are good at, it does not create the focus needed to not think about food.
Second trick is time. I figure if it takes 20 minutes for the brain to get the message that the stomach is full, it should work here as well. If you do not think about food for most of the 20 minutes, you aren’t really hungry. I figure the first few minutes before you are engaged don’t count, you may be still thinking about food and not the task at hand.
Side note, learning something new that also requires use of your fine motor skills staves off dementia as well as the extra calories. Coincidence? I think not.
Does the potato deserve its reputation?
I planted potatoes a few weeks back, not by St. Patrick’s Days as recommended of course, considering the Pacific Northwest’s cold, wet March. As I was finishing planting, I got to thinking about how did the potato get to be enemy number 1 in the weight loss and diabetes worlds?
My first thought was, well, if people got potatoes the way I get potatoes, they wouldn’t have to worry. I figure I expended 400 calories getting them planted. But that calorie deficit is not going to be filled by potato, I can’t eat one today, and there is no banking calories. But when the time comes to eat them, I get my fork out of the shed and start digging. Sometimes it seems like I am a prospector or oil wild catter, I seem to hit a lot of dry holes. So maybe 75 calories out to acquire 100 calories of potato?
My second thought was portion size. I rarely grow a potato that is bigger than my fist, and often they are a lot of them that are the size of 50 cent pieces. As a reference, a potato the size of the average woman’s fist is about 160 calories (not that I consider myself average).
My third thought was how they are prepared. My potatoes are obviously fresh from the ground, this means the skin does not get tough as it ages or in transit or whatever it goes through before it hits the store. I also plant potatoes that have a thin, smooth skin. When I eat a potato, I eat the entire potato, regardless of how it is to be prepared, mashed, baked, roasted, boiled, etc. When you eat the skin of a potato the fiber is double compared to a potato with no skin. And often when I do mashed, it is a cauliflower or turnip blend with the potato, big portion without big calories.
My preparation method also does not add a lot of fat or salt. Nor am I making potato salad.
What about glycemic index? Potatoes have a high glycemic index because they are all carbohydrate. They do not contain much fiber, fat or protein. The fiber, fat and protein alter glycemic index favorably, so French Fries have a lower glycemic index than a baked potato. For more information about glycemic index, the most recent issue of Diabetes Living has a great article (www.diabetesliving.com) and also Diabetes Self-Management (www.diabetesselfmanagement.com).
Ever hear that we need more potassium? Potato is an excellent source. Also potatoes have vitamin C.
A friend of mine is attempting to grow sweet potatoes, though no difference in calories or fiber or fat or protein or glycemic index, they are nutritionally different because they are a different color (just like grapefruit and orange or cauliflower and broccoli, same family, different color, different vitamin profile).
So does the potato deserve the reputation it has? Probably not, because it is eaten with a lot of added fat and salt and a big portion, which is problematic. And any food that is eaten in large portions and/or with high fat cooking methods deserves a bad rep. And there are a lot of those foods lurking in our environment too.
Ah, the food log….
After having faced a number of people that are struggling to get off those last few pounds, and knowing I am in the same boat. I got the food log out.
I guess I feel guilty about giving them a piece of weight loss advice and not following it myself. I lost 1 pound in the first week of logging, and 2.5 total pounds lost, so the results speak for themselves.
Not that long ago, many female friends and I challenged each other to see who could lose 3 pounds the fastest. A colleague asked me if this was a fair contest since one of the women had a lot more weight to lose than the others. I asked if it was fair that I have a superior knowledge base than the others and should lose the weight the fastest. Something to ponder. Well there was no winner, so both points are moot.
In the meantime. The caloric difference between weighing your current weight and your goal weight is somewhat easily calculated. Assume you burn 10 calories per pound (most everyone does, somewhere between 9 and 11 is very common). Take your current scale weight and multiple it by 10, and do the same with your goal weight. So if you weigh 180, your calories are 1800. If your goal weight is 150, those calories are 1500. Subtract 1500 from 1800, and the difference between your calories to maintain your current weight vs. getting to your goal weight is 300 calories.
My goal is to lose 3 pounds, and using the calculations above, means the caloric difference is 30 calories.
Either 30 or 300 calories, it is easy to be over and not know it. Oh look, mints on your coworkers desk that you grab as you go by, jelly bellys in the break room that find their way into your mouth when you are there, samples at Costco, uh oh, Easter candy is out, that was 5 ounces of salmon not 3, that was full fat sour cream not low fat, need I go on?
As a general rule, the mistakes made in the diet when you are within 30 pounds of your goal weight are minor and numerous. It isn’t one thing. If it were one thing, you’d know what it was and you’d do something about it. But when it is a bunch of little things, it is harder to see. Thus the food log.
I recommend using online logs or apps. Be sure to choose the free ones, and ignore the ads.
How to judge food
Last blog talked about changing some of your foods to help save calories. Hopefully you have tried something new in the interim.
But is this food really working for you?
Consider:
- Convenience
- Palatability
- Satiety
- Energy
- Weight
- Blood sugar
There are a myriad of diet books out there, why can’t people stick to something and get the weight off and keep it off. The list above contains the factors that lead people to throw their hands up in the air (eventually) and resume their old eating habits. I like to say to people, the author does not live your life, so what makes you think they know what is right for you?
Some anecdotes:
I saw a person that went on a diet recommended by a naturopath, her energy was awful, but she saw improvement in her blood sugars. In the long run, she quit exercising because of the low energy.
Or the person on the paleo diet that was so low energy, he could work and do nothing else. That really zapped the joy out of his life.
How about the person I saw that was on the South Beach diet, but when she retired, she found sticking to the meal pattern didn’t work in her retired life, also considering she had meds she needed to take on an empty stomach further messed with the meal timing. The diet book doesn’t talk about flexibility of food timing to fit her new schedule.
I believe one of the reasons the dropout rate is so high on the Atkins diet is because people are tired of being constipated from eating a low fiber diet. Not very convenient or palatable
Let’s relook at the list
- Convenience – the food prep, the shopping, cooking and clean up can take up a lot of time and energy, yes you may be losing weight but it is hard to stick with a diet that is somehow a burden
- Palatability – no one will be consistent on a diet where the foods are marginally palatable once they stop losing weight, good tasting food is part of the joy in life
- Satiety – does this food hold you til your next meal or snack? If not, need a new one
- Energy – does the food or meal plan promote vitality or suck it out of you
- Weight – hey if you are not losing, why are you doing it?
- Blood sugar – for the diabetics and pre-diabetics out there, if your blood sugar is not controlled, you will continue to struggle with weight and hunger and cravings
So, next diet you try, or even food you are currently eating, assess with the list and see if there needs to be some revisions.
And try new foods!
Be specific
I would like you to consider three sayings:
- If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always got
- The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome
- Practice what you preach.
All refer to specificity of training, if you are talking about exercise. So, remember my running buddy that was sucking wind? Well she still is, and wondering why. She has picked up her exercise, but still is only running one day a week. My comment, “if you want to run better, you have to run”.
Same thing goes for your diet. You want to lose weight you have to take in less calories than you expend. Which means you may have to change some of the things you are doing.
Consider changing:
- Meal timing
- Total calories
- Exercise
- Caloric distribution
But one thing people are often hesitant to change is their foods. We typically eat the same 15 things over and over. We have an overall list of about 30 foods. But if these are the foods that are keeping the weight on, it is time for a change.
In our weight management groups last week, we taste tested some of the breakfast sandwiches available in the freezer section. This week we are tasting low fat cheeses. In two weeks we will be tasting protein bars. It is a great opportunity to try new foods without the commitment. (Interested in joining our weight management group? Go to http://nwendocrinology.com/Contact_Us.html) (though it is unlikely there will be a stretch of taste tests like this for a while).
Another place that I find new foods routinely, is in Diabetes Forecast. This month’s issue of the magazine features 6 recipes for preparing different spring greens (though some of these grow year round here In the Pacific Northwest, I had chard for dinner from my garden this past week). Here is the link to the recipes on their website http://forecast.diabetes.org/magazine/features/spring-greens-superfoods-that-are-low-cal-and-low-cost.
Be brave talk to friends, troll the web, find new foods. If you replace macaroni and cheese in your diet with the Two Greens Frittata from Diabetes Forecast, you are doing something to get you toward your weight goal. And maybe finding a tasty something that helps you to get toward your weight goal.