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Tackling Overeating
By Joan Pleuss, R.D., C.D.E.
Did you know that, over
the past 30 years, Americans have gained an
average of 19 pounds?
According to the report
The Preventable Causes of Death in the
United States, overweight contributes
to 216,000 deaths a year. Overweight may
lead to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and
certain cancers.
“Why
Restaurants Make You Fat”
Why are we eating more than our bodies need?
In her blog, Why Restaurants Make You
Fat, Dr. Susan Roberts, a nutrition
professor at Tufts University in Boston,
attributes much of our overeating to this
sequence of events: Eat out, eat too much,
feel bad, repeat. She calls this the
Restaurant Syndrome and goes on to describe
what she calls the Second Meal Effect: After
a particularly tasty meal at a restaurant,
we are hungrier and need to eat more at the
next meal to achieve that same satisfied
feeling.
To break this cycle,
Dr. Roberts recommends following an
indulgence with a low-fat, low-sugar, and
low-salt meal. She also advocates eating out
less often, micromanaging the food order
when we do eat out, and not starving
ourselves before going out to eat.
“The
End of Overeating”
A book that has recently hit the bookstores
is The End of Overeating, by Dr.
David Kessler, former head of the Food and
Drug Administration. He writes that
restaurant food is so irresistible because
it has multiple layers of sugar, salt and
fat. He believes this triple combination of
sugar, salt, and fat makes food “hyperpalatable”
and triggers the brain to release dopamine
and to stimulate endorphins. These effects
signal a pleasurable experience, creating a
cycle of what he describes as “conditioned
overeating.”
How do you tackle the
stimuli of the sight, taste and smell of
good food? Dr. Kessler gives six strategies
to put you on the offense:
• remove food from your environment
• create rules specific to you
• structure eating episodes
• find a more rewarding action
• enjoy the foods you can control
• rehearse your response to cues that result
in overeating.
Dr. Kessler describes
what he calls the moment of choice. This is
the time when one has the ability to refuse
the cue’s invitation to the brain to eat. He
states that we have control only at the
beginning of the cue. For example, when at
the shopping mall, your moment of choice is
the moment you either smell or see a food
that would cause you to overeat. That is
when you must decide how you are going to
choose to respond. If you don’t decide to go
in the opposite direction, you will become
more stimulated by the smell and sight, then
respond by stopping and eating, and then
become more stimulated as you eat. Before
you go to the mall again, you need to
rehearse what your response to the cues of
the smell and sight of that cue will be. One
response could be mapping your route so you
do not come near the smell or sight of the
food.
These new behaviors
need to be practiced so that you learn new
thoughts that become automatic. Practice
with determination and commitment, because
old habits easily reappear.
It is necessary to
become aware of situations that lead to
overeating and to know how much of a
response you, personally, have to stimuli.
It is impossible to have power over cues if
you don’t know they exist or to what degree
they encourage you to overeat. Keep a diary
of your overeating episodes and write down
the cues that led to the overeating. Then
you can start devising strategies for
preventing the overeating.
Write a set of rules
that are specific to each of the cues on
your diary to help you stop your overeating.
These rules should be very specific and
practical, so they are easy to keep in mind
and become an automatic substitute action.
Dr. Kessler reminds his
readers that conditioned overeating is a
biological challenge and a chronic problem
that needs managing. A change in attitude
toward food is required, and we need to
consider large portions the enemy.
Finally, he stresses
putting structure into your eating, eating
just-right, choosing foods that satisfy you,
and eating foods that you enjoy. “Putting
structure into your eating” means planning
when and what you will eat. A “just-right”
meal keeps you from feeling hungry for about
four hours, and a “just-right” snack has the
same effect for two hours. The “just-right”
meals are a combination of the complex
carbohydrates high in fiber together with
protein and a small amount of fat—selected
from the foods that you enjoy.
Based on the weight of
the food, the amount of protein, and the
amount of fiber, www.WebMD.com devised a
point system to rate 20 foods for their
ability to make you feel full.
Those that scored
highest were:
• bean burrito
• grilled reduced-fat cheese on whole-wheat
bread
• minestrone soup
• oatmeal made with milk
• 1 cup whole-wheat pasta with marinara
sauce and 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
In the middle range
were:
• raisin bran with milk
• sour cream potato
• fresh fruit salad
• Caesar salad with reduced-fat dressing
Not surprising, a candy
bar, potato chips, French fries, cheese
puffs, and a Twinkie scored very low on the
scale in their ability to make a person feel
full.
In 1995, Australian
researchers found 38 foods to have a higher
satiety rating than other foods. The foods
that had the highest scores for making
people feel full were:
apples
baked beans
beefsteak
whole grain bread
all-bran cereal
cheese
cod
Incorporate these
just-right foods into your diet (except, of
course, for the high-calorie, high-fat
chocolate shake!) and get started on your
game plan to “sack” the opponent.
As seen in
TOPS News, Feb 2010
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