Going Mental

What happens in your mind usually goes off without any help from you.  It's not until we've been made aware of something that we begin to take control of the things that happen in our minds.

Let's look at a couple of detrimental thought processes that will absolutely kill your progress in dropping fat.

Thought Process #1 - Clean Your Plate

Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday.  Mom used to tell me, "There are starving children in Africa, and you're going to leave all of that perfectly good food on your plate.  Clean your plate!"  Effectively shamed into submission and despite feeling full, I begrudgingly ate the remainder of my mashed potatoes and corn so, presumably, the poor starving kids in Africa would live another day.

Further, my father was a pretty tight-fisted kind of guy when it came to money.  Throwing food away, he claimed, was akin to tossing dollar bills in the garbage.  He brought that military mindset into the house - "Take all you want, but eat all you take."  So rather than scrape the last bits of uneaten food from our plates into the garbage, we found ourselves eating in excess when our eyes were bigger than our bellies.

Having this message imparted to us day after day, is it any wonder that my entire family (3 children and both parents) have at one time or another struggled with being overweight?

"Clean your plate" is a TERRIBLE message.  Basically it's saying, "Ignore your body's cues and eat beyond necessity." The feelings of guilt that were thrust upon us as children are unfounded - after all, will throwing away 2 ounces of baked potato and the last bit of chicken REALLY cost an African child his life?  Eating every morsel of food from your plate isn't honorable or moral.  It's counter-productive to your weight and fitness goals.

If you haven't quite figured out portion control, then just paying attention to your body can save you a LOT of unnecessary calories.  It works like this: If you can feel your belly bulging - even slightly - then you're done eating.  It doesn't matter if there's still half a chicken breast and a few green beans on the plate.  Feeling full means you ate too much, so stop before you reach that point.

You don't have to clean your plate.  Eat until you are satiated, and not a crumb more.

Thought Process #2 - Get Your Money's Worth

I do enjoy the opportunity to go to the local buffet restaurants.  I don't do buffet very often, but when I do, a measure of self control is in order.

We have a little tradition in our family.  When one of us has a birthday, the celebrant gets to pick a restaurant for lunch or dinner.  As fate would have it, both my younger son and younger daughter chose buffet restuarants for their birthday meals. 

First, my son chose Chinese.  At $7.99 per adult, it's often tempting to say, "I'm gonna make sure they LOSE money on me."  That is a very, very dangerous mentality to have.  My daughter chose Golden Corral.  $8.99 per adult for dinner.  That represents an even bigger challenge.  It's as if the pricing is challenging our ego by saying, "Ha!  You'll NEVER eat $9 worth of food," to which the more determined mind says, "Oh, yeah?  Just watch me."

And the self-abuse begins.

Businesses like this are going to make money off of you.  Unless you stay for hours and eat every piece of shrimp in the building, it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to out-eat the bulk-rate pricing restaurants get for their food.  The only rewards you'll receive if you do manage to out-eat the menu price are a stomachache and more girth.

There's no prize for beating the cost of your food at a buffet restaurant.  Years ago, I used to think it was funny when I said, "They're not going to make money off of me!"  Now I realize what I was really saying: "This restaurant is out of my price league, so I'm going to eat until I'm sick to make sure I get every penny's worth."

If you find yourself having this thought upon entering a buffet restaurant - the thought that you're going to out-eat the menu price - then do yourself a favor.  Save the money and eat a meal at home (all the while remembering to avoid Thought Process #1).

Hopefully being aware of these mental processes will help you take control of your eating behaviors.  Be well!

Starvation Diets

A friend recently told Alice that she is on a calorie-restrictive diet in order to lose weight.  Basically, this friend is consuming about 1000-1200 calories per day in an attempt to reduce the number she sees on the scale.  Just last year, I had a friend tell me that she was eating 3 salads a day - less than 1000 calories - as her regular diet.  The most extreme example of a starvation diet was the acquaintance who told us that he was limiting himself to one apple and one banana per DAY.

It's apparent that there is a pervasive mindset in our culture that causes people to believe that starvation is a viable means to dropping pounds.  People appear to believe that restricting calories is good, so restricting MORE calories is better.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Myth - It's the number on the scale that is important - the smaller the better.
Reality - Weight and fitness are independent measures of overall health.  Thus, a smaller number on the scale isn't automatically an indicator of better health.  When a dieter restricts calories as in the examples above (an apple and a banana??), they will see a smaller number on the scale, but not as a result of fat loss.  Muscle depletion is an inevitable result of caloric deprivation, making the body feel weak and sluggish.  As more and more muscle mass is depleted, the scale weight will go down, but at the expense of overall wellness.  If weakness and fatigue are your goals, then a calorie restrictive diet is the way to get there.  Otherwise, a balanced approach to eating and exercising will yield a much better result.

Remember, starving third-world children and victims of amorexia would see small numbers on the scale.  No one would mistake their conditions for being healthy.

Myth - Calorie restrictive diets will get me to my goal weight faster.
Reality - Calorie restrictive diets slow the metabolism to a crawl, resulting in slower weight loss.  The body is an efficient machine that is very perceptive of its environment.  When calories are restricted to starvation levels the body switches into a mode that will get the most benefit possible from the reduced calorie intake.  In other words, the body shuts down to a crawl in order to utilize as few calories as possible.  The result is near-impossible weight loss and extreme fatigue.

Myth - I can calorie restrict for a while to lose weight and then resume normal eating.
Reality - You can, but the bounce-back effect will actually cause weight gain.  When the body is starved, it powers itself by using available resources from the muscles.  This fuel is used to power essential functions like the heart, brain, and organs while leaving the muscles to wait for future resources.  Once normal eating resumes, the "extra" food fuel is grabbed out of the bloodstream and quickly crammed into every available space in anticipation of another famine.  The result (bounce back) is a heavier body with a slow metabolism.  To avoid this problem, a balanced approach to eating is required.

Myth - Calorie restrictive diets are generally safe.
Reality - Calorie restrictive diets can result in a variety of physiologic, emotional, and social disorders.  Dieters that have reduced their food intake to starvation levels may suffer from such problems as fatigue, sexual dysfunction, reproductive dysfunction, depression, moodiness, and a preoccupation with food.  Extended periods of starvation-level dieting can result in muscle depletion, which by extension may result in failure of the most important muscle in the body, the heart.

Eating to drop fat is not rocket science.  Truly good nutrition isn't any more difficult than starvation, but the effects of eating well will be far more positive in the long run.  For more information about eating for overall health, see our article on Eating for Fat Reduction.

Why Diets Don't Work

Throughout the history of weightingon40.com, I've struggled with keeping certain negatively charged words at a minimum in my writing. One of those words, to which almost EVERYONE has a visceral negative reaction, is 'diet'. In a website like mine, it's nearly impossible to avoid the use of the word 'diet'. The problem is that the word expresses ideas that most of us just disagree with: starvation, elimination, hunger, deprivation, etc. Because of that fact alone, I use the word 'diet' as little as possible.

It's worth discussing, then, why we should avoid using the word:

• "Diet" implies a temporary change. People go on a diet for a time in order to achieve a certain goal they have set for themselves. 'Bob' might go on a diet in order to lose 20 lbs, and he's very likely to achieve that goal as long as he stays dedicated to his diet. What then? If 'Bob' ends his diet and returns to his previous patterns of eating, he's very likely to gain the weight back (plus a few pounds). The temporary nature of the diet concept is a major failing.
• "Diet" implies starvation. Truth be told, most people haven't a clue as to what a sound nutritional program should involve. When 'Bob' starts his diet, the first steps he'll take will likely be reducing calories to ridiculously low levels by cutting portions, replacing higher calorie foods with low calorie alternatives, and eliminating between-meal snacks. The body's first reaction to this new plan is to feel hungry and urge 'Bob' via grumbling hunger pangs to eat. Because 'Bob' is steadfast in his diet, however, he ignores the pleas of his body. The diet works in terms of the initial goal (to lose weight), though not because 'Bob' is doing things right; he is forcing his body to consume itself, usually in the form of muscle depletion, to function. After a while, 'Bob' is tired of feeling hungry all the time, so he starts eating more and subsequently gains weight.
• "Diet" involves the wrong type of goal. As Alice pointed out in her article, "Why Do You Train So Hard," people who set weight-loss goals are setting themselves up for failure because that goal has such a narrow focus. My personal goal weight is in the mid-170's (I'm currently 184). I could stop eating today and reach my goal sometime next week, but that's not a healthy plan. A healthier approach is to set a different sort of goal - overall fitness, being able to perform certain activities (running distance, speed, etc.), weight training goals, and the like. With those types of goals, there's no defined end point at which we would psychologically (and physically) stop working to become better. If I can bench press 60lb dumbbells today, I can strive for 65 tomorrow. This is a better goal than saying, "I want to weigh 176 lbs."
• "Dieting" is martyrdom. People like the attention they get when they're on a diet. I've witnessed examples of people who order just a salad at a steak restaurant because they are "on a diet." Everyone in their party 'oohs' and 'ahhs' over the dieter's determination to lose weight, and the dieter's ego is stroked. However, since most diets cannot be sustained over the long term, the dieter eventually falls away from the "plan" and starts eating again. I've discovered that a lot of people notice me now because I'm nearly 40 and in pretty good physical condition. It's a bigger ego stroke (though I'm careful to keep my head on straight over it), and I'm not starving myself (literally) for the attention.
• "Dieting" does not achieve the desired fat-loss result. Dieters are often just people who realize the fact that they have excessive fat and want to do something about it. Their first course of action, then, is to "go on a diet". Since we already know that the "diet" concept usually involves calorie restriction, the first thing the dieter does is stop eating as much. It doesn't take long for the body to realize that there are fewer calories coming in. The body perceives a famine state and shuts down metabolism to conserve energy. Rather than go after fat for fuel, the body resorts to consuming muscle tissue while saving fat for emergencies. The dieter loses weight, but the weight isn't in the form of fat - which is what the dieter wanted to eliminate in the first place. Prolonged occurrences of caloric deprivation can be physically harmful or, at worst, fatal.

While it's sometimes impossible to avoid using the word 'diet', I think it's worth pointing out that we should refer to diet solely as a way of eating and not as a lifestyle choice. Wherever possible, we should refer to a 'nutrition plan', which doesn't carry the same baggage that "diet" does.

Be well!