Carole Carson

Three Simple Tips to Manage Cravings

When I decide to lose weight (or just maintain the weight I’ve worked so hard to achieve), managing cravings is the first item on my “to do” list.

But what happens when those cravings are powerfully intense, bordering on addictive? (My cup of coffee in the morning qualifies in this category!)

Here are three simple tips to cope with those sometimes overwhelming cravings:

1.      Manage your hunger proactively by eating several small meals throughout the day. When hunger reaches a dangerously high level, our basic survival instinct can easily overpower our good intentions. Under the influence of intense hunger, the decision to consume any available food—whether it’s healthful or fattening—will dominate. Keep your hunger in check by eating at regular intervals throughout the day.

2.      Include protein in your mini—meals. Even a small amount, such as a tablespoon or two of nonfat cottage cheese, will stave off hunger a few hours longer.

3.      Eat what you are craving but in reasonable amounts. From past experience, most of us know that diets create a sense of deprivation, which in turn triggers an impulse to indulge in forbidden foods. Figure out what you really want. Eat a modest portion, staying conscious and enjoying every bite.

If you’d like to learn more about the psychology of cravings and the danger of dieting, click here. Arming yourself with knowledge can help you win the battle of the bulge.

Where to Begin: Taking the First Steps on the Path to Fitness

If you are to reach your fitness goals, you’ll need to learn, grow and practice. In that spirit, pick one, two or all three of these assignments to experiment with this week.

 

F: Fix and eat a vegetarian meal one or more times this week, and replace white rice with brown rice. Researchers report that simply replacing white rice with brown rice reduces the risk of diabetes by one-third.

 

I: Introduce a new form of exercise into your routine. Without making a long-term commitment, decide to try something new and invite a friend to join you. Approach the exercise with an open mind—you are just going to see if you like it.

 

T: Target the one habit that most undermines your fitness and weight loss goals. Examine the habit in detail. Once you get the habit under your microscope, decide how to modify, abandon or replace the habit with a healthier one.

 

If none of these assignments appeals to you, create your own list. Improvising is always encouraged. Whatever you do, begin and then continue.

 

Weight Loss: Simple Changes Make the Difference

If it’s true that any solution to a problem changes the problem, then a few simple changes in our eating habits can make big improvements in our health and lower the number on the bathroom scale.

Here are simple changes we can make today:

• Instead of butter, solid margarine or lard, try olive or canola oil, or margarine without trans fats.

• Instead of cream-based sauces, try tomato-based sauces.

• Instead of refined cereals, try whole grain cereals.

• Instead of white pasta, try whole-wheat pasta.

• Instead of smoked, cured, salted or canned meat or fish, try fresh or frozen meat or fish, without added salt.

• Instead of sugared soda or juice, try water or a mixture of juice and sparkling water.

• Instead of fries or onion rings, try roasted vegetables.

• Instead of dips high in saturated fats, try hummus, peanut butter or seasoned low-fat yogurt.

• Instead of chocolate chip cookies, try graham crackers or oatmeal cookies.

• Instead of fried foods, try grilled, broiled, steamed, poached or roasted foods.

• Instead of skipping breakfast, eat oatmeal, whole-grain breads or bran cereals.

These easy-to-make changes can make a big difference in your own health and vitality as well as that of family. Bon appétit!

Photo courtesy of Pontus Edenberg

AARP's FAT-TO-FIT WEIGHT LOSS CHALLENGE

AARP’S FAT-TO-FIT WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM
CHALLENGES AMERICANS TO LOSE 10,000 Pounds

“Fat-To-Fit” Program to Track Weight Loss and Lifestyle Changes over Three-Month Challenge

Today (June 21, 2010), we launched AARP’s second annual “Fat-to-Fit Summer Weight Loss Challenge,” an online program challenging people to make positive, permanent lifestyle changes to improve their health. The Fat 2 Fit challenge will be hosted on AARP’s website (www.aarp.org/fat2fit). I will lead the Fat 2 Fit online community members through the summer-long program.

Studies show people are more likely to stick to exercise plans when they have support, and the Fat 2 Fit program will focus on personal interaction with both me and other participants through the Fat 2 Fit online community, which already boasts more than 4,600 members. Here participants will be able to access free diet and fitness tips, informational articles, videos, recipes and more.

Unlike diets and other weight-loss programs, the Fat-to-Fit Challenge is intended to help people make permanent, positive lifestyle changes–not just drop 10 pounds and then return to their old habits. Our hope is to help people break the diet-relapse cycle for good.

Beginning today, visitors to www.AARP.org will be invited to join the Fat-to-Fit Summer Weight Loss Challenge. Participants record their weight and activity and strive to lose pounds. Every time a user updates his or her weight, the Fat 2 Fit site shows how much weight he or she has lost since joining and how many pounds the Fat 2 Fit community has lost collectively. Participation in the Fat 2 Fit online community is key to the contest. Participants are urged to post frequent updates and to exchange ideas, encouragement, recipes and moral support.

The challenge will run through September 6, 2010. Throughout the challenge, I will select weekly prize winners, and when the challenge ends, I will select the top five overall winners. Winners will be selected on three criteria: serving as a role model for the entire community, facing and overcoming challenges, and demonstrating the principles of the Fat 2 Fit program. The first-place winner will receive a one-year Gold’s Gym membership, with six months of personal training, and also receive a trip to Orlando, Florida, where the winner will participate in a health session with me at AARP’s Orlando@50+ National Event and Expo, September 30-October 2, 2010. Official rules and details are available at www.aarp.org/fat2fit.

Trivia Question: Is Patterned Eating Wrecking Your Weight-Loss Goal?

More than half of the adults in the United States consume more calories on weekend days than they do on weekdays. How many extra calories are consumed by these weekend food warriors?

1. 84 to 411

2. 45 to 85

3. 210 to 502

The correct answer is number1: 84 to 411 calories. The extra calories consumed on holidays is even higher―340. To keep weekend and holiday eating from wrecking your weight-loss effort, try these tips:

• Wake up at your regular time on weekends and eat breakfast (instead of sleeping late and consuming a heavy brunch).

• Weigh in on Friday morning and Sunday night.

• Keep a journal and record your food intake.

• Minimize alcoholic drinks; their empty calories pack on pounds.

• Increase your exercise time on weekends.

Bathing suit season is around the corner. If you manage your eating on weekends and holidays, you’ll be ready to bare arms.

Make Pasta a Little Healthier

Some of us love pasta yet want to lose surplus pounds. The good news is that we don’t have to give up pasta entirely as long as we focus on reasonable portions and prepare healthier versions. Here are four tips:

• Use whole grain pastas

• Add vegetables (peppers, onions or mushrooms)

• Choose lean sources of protein (chicken or tuna)

• Create your own low-calorie sauces

A simple tomato sauce can be made from chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs and spices. An easy non-tomato sauce can be made from a little olive oil, pureed red peppers and seasonings. And pasta alfredo can also be made with yogurt in place of sour cream. As Julia Child used to say, “Bon appétit!”

Photo courtesy of Zsuzsanna Kilian

Is Sugar Evil? Is Sugar Your Recreational Drug of Choice?

Demonizing particular foods and specific categories of foods, such as carbs or fats, is a peculiarly American trait. If you are over 30 years old, you watched margarine dethrone butter only to be dethroned when butter was restored to its former glory. You watched eggs disappear from refrigerators only to be welcomed back as an excellent source of protein. Remember when fat-free diets were promoted? A few years later when the Mediterranean diet was introduced, we learned that all fats were not evil. Some, in fact, were good for us.

Is sugar the latest food to be demonized? Is it addictive? Do you crave a sugar fix?

As a nation, two facts are undisputed. We are getting heavier, and we are consuming more sugar—in fact, 30 percent more than in 1970. The average American consumes 350 calories a day in the form of sugar, mostly in sugared beverages. According to researchers, even drinking one 12-ounce can of regular soda boosts the risk factors for heart disease by 25 percent.

If you’re going to locate all of the sugar you are consuming, you will need to become a very clever food detective. Sugar is hidden in processed foods, such as breakfast cereals, bread and spaghetti sauce. And it regularly is masked under different names, for example, sugar, brown sugar, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, malted corn syrup, barley syrup and molasses. And although federal regulations require listing the main ingredient on products first, you won’t necessarily find sugar listed even when it is the key item. Listing the different kinds of sugars as separate ingredients effectively circumvents this requirement.

Even when we know we are consuming sugar, we have a hard time resisting. In The End of Overeating, author David Kessler asserts that foods that combine fat, salt and sugar (and are, incidentally, accessible on a 24/7 basis) alter brain chemistry and trigger an impulse to eat more.

The increase in sugar consumption and sugar’s possible link to the epidemic of obesity have triggered questions about the relative virtues (or vices) of corn syrup versus natural honey versus white sugar. Because results are inconclusive and in some cases conflicting, some of us have simply tuned out the argument and are switching to sugar substitutes. If life gives us lemons, we say, we can still make sugar-free lemonade.

To be fair, sugar substitutes are not without their critics, but here are the current options if you are determined to avoid the evils of sugar:

• Stevia is made from a plant leaf and is considered generally safe. Product names are Truvia, PureVia and SweetLeaf.

• Sucralose is made by chemically altering sugar molecules. It is considered the safest sugar substitute by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Product name is Splenda.

• Aspartame is used in desserts, yogurts and beverages. Recent research on rats raises questions about safety. Product names are NutraSweet and Equal.

• Saccharin was one of the first sugar substitutes. Long-term studies indicate it is safe to use. Product names are Sweet’N Low and Necta Sweet.

• Acesulfame-K is a calorie-free artificial sweetener. Some recent studies on rats suggest this product is not safe. In some people, gas and bloating have been reported. Product name is Sunett.

We can be assured that if we remove sugar entirely from our diet, we won’t be missing any essential nutrient. Except for blackstrap molasses, which contains a modest amount of calcium, iron and other nutrients, sugar lacks significant nutritional value. For this reason, calories consumed as sugar, while boosting our energy, are frequently referred to as empty calories.

At the same time, humankind is not likely to live by whole wheat unsweetened bread alone. An occasional sweet treat brightens our day. For some of us, though, occasional is a word that does not appear in our sugar vocabulary. Sugar is to us what one drink is to an alcoholic. We can’t stop with one cookie or one scoop of ice cream. Consequently, we find it easier to abstain entirely than to eat sugar in moderation.

Whatever your strategy, be prepared to pay more for sugared treats. Several giant food firms are predicting a shortage that may drive prices up. Besides paying more, you may have to adjust your perspective on sugar as new research challenges our current thinking. If history is our guide, we can be certain of only one truth: sugar fashions, just like clothing fashions, are subject to change. Until we learn otherwise, however, minimizing the sugar in our diet is highly advisable.

Three Tips for Eating Right: Feed Your Nose and Shrink Your Stomach

Too often, the problem with eating right is that it is not as satisfying as eating wrong. Our food preferences often stem from our training from birth to enjoy overly salty, sweet and fatty foods. For example, who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie? But who can stop with just one? The combination of the three flavors (salt, sugar and fat) is hyperpalatable, according to Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.

When we change to a more healthful diet with less salt, sugar and fat, we initially don’t enjoy our food as much. Gratification is delayed until we see a slimmer self in the mirror or start to feel more energetic.

Besides the preference for this unhealthy trio of tastes, another piece of the puzzle involves how eating triggers specific mechanics that translate into feelings of satisfaction, hunger and pleasure. Researchers have concluded that satisfaction is initially registered in the brain rather than the stomach. Although the process seems counterintuitive, the way to trigger a sensation of satisfaction is through the nose.

In one research study of 1,436 subjects, noncaloric crystals were added to food to stimulate satisfaction. The results were astounding: the average weight loss was 30 pounds.

Olfactory nerves are directly linked to the emotional center in our brain, so an appetizing smell activates a specific part of our brain. Brain scans can measure and monitor the degree of activation. Messages sent to various parts of the body from the activation tell us whether we are satisfied or want to eat more.

The research has major implications for food manufacturers, who are keenly aware of the impact of aroma. The development of aromas and additives in foods is an $18.6 billion industry. Clearly, food manufacturers understand the link between smell and satisfaction.

Most importantly for us, however, this scientific research suggests that aromas can be used to fight obesity. Here are three tips in using aromas to trigger satisfaction and become more FIT: 

F: Focus on adding aromatic spices to your dishes as you prepare them. A little basil in a soup or fresh mint on a piece of melon adds fabulous flavor. A couple of fresh herbs and spices growing on the window ledge of your kitchen can make the difference between a drab meal and a meal that your family will ask you to prepare again.

I: Ingest your food first through your nose. Talented wine tasters perform their best work with their noses. If you sniff your plate and don’t say wow, then chances are good that you won’t leave the table satisfied. And remember to make the plate aesthetically appealing as well.

T: Take the time to really appreciate food. Food is culture; food is life. Too often in our day-to-day lives, we eat mechanically—for example, when distracted by television. Cultures that enjoy a healthy relationship with food emphasize the daily pleasure in and enjoyment of food. Find a middle ground.

In some non-Western cultures, food (especially spices and herbs) is considered medicine and may be the sole source of healthcare. If food is medicine and obesity is the illness, then we need to replace the unhealthy trio—sugar, salt and unhealthy fats—with herbs and spices.

Make the time to give your body the nutrition it needs and the satisfaction it craves. When you do, you’ll find that your pleasure in food—rather than your iron discipline—will eventually shrink your waistline.

Love Where You Are—That’s the Critical First Step

While easy to understand, the above maxim above is difficult to execute. I’m five pounds up from my usual weight. Eating too well and too much, I’ve rationalized the extra calories by noting my vigorous lifestyle—running around with grandchildren during their summer visit and lots of tennis.

After putting on clothes that felt surprisingly tight, I couldn’t kid myself any longer. The scales were truthful—I was the one who was engaging in deception, self-deception at that. Fat, not retained water, was the culprit.

Am I happy about backsliding? Do I love where I am? Let’s just say “love” isn’t the first verb I’d pick. Quite the opposite. Instead, I berate myself for losing the ground I’ve worked hard to gain.

My first instinct is to become punitive towards myself—to go on a strict diet. Wrong! This solution comes out of the same box (the yo-yo cycle of deprivation and decadence) that created the problem in the first place. Instead, I accepted the situation I found myself in and began looking around for opportunities to make positive changes in my life.

With acceptance came a kind of excitement. For me, facing a challenge and conquering it is emotionally satisfying. I had now turned on an important mental switch. Instead of hating my situation, I was embracing the opportunity to recover lost ground and get back on track.

The first step was to return to basics.

I resumed the practice of making entries in my food diary for everything I eat, a habit I’d dropped during the busy summer months. I do so knowing that not keeping track of what I eat is as foolhardy as writing checks without recording the amount in the checkbook.

Next, I removed calorie-dense and nutrition-poor foods from the pantry and refrigerator. I also cooked more consciously—removing extra calories without compromising taste—and monitored portion size.

To prevent making regressive decisions under the influence of hunger, I prepared several low-calorie, nutritious entrees and desserts to keep handy in the freezer. I made daily personal meal plans, eliminating “empty” calories (candy, wine, etc.). To give myself perspective, I set weight loss goals (2 pounds a week) until I reach my regular weight.

Realizing I was distracted from my fitness goals by having too much to do, I finished a sewing project, organized my house and exited from an extraneous project weighing heavily on my mind.

Instead of being in a state of freefall, I’m back in charge of my regimen. By taking a few practical steps and resuming former good habits, I’m once again grounded. My body is my friend instead of betrayer. Food is back in its rightful place—enjoyable but not at the center of my universe. Exercise, especially tennis, continues as a source of healthful entertainment.

Weight maintenance, I’m discovering, is a different skill than weight loss and perhaps a harder one to master. In light of its difficulty, what’s surprising is how little attention it receives.

One remarkable exception is Weight Loss Forever, a program developed Dr. Henry Chang, a Sacramento physician. Dr. Chang doesn’t let his patients lose weight until they have learned how to maintain their weight.

Only then are they are allowed to lose 5-10 pounds. Repeatedly and intentionally, he interrupts the weight loss process so the patient can stabilize before resuming. Success stories by the dozens speak for his effectiveness in teaching the maintenance skill first.

In retrospect, my weight loss period, while demanding, was like a honeymoon—lots of drama, excitement and attention. Maintenance, on the other hand, is like marriage—great moments, for sure, but mostly regular life.

Can I be happy while I’m busy recovering lost ground? Can I transform the threat of failure into useful insight? Can I learn to love where I am, even when I am struggling?

What helps is to remember that there is no destination on the path to fitness. There is only the next step, and then the next, and then the next.

Whether you and I are fat or fit, progressing or regressing, can we love where we are? Ironically enough, admitting an unpleasant truth sets us free to make the changes we need to make.

Yesterday’s lower weight on the scale is gone and tomorrow’s numbers are out of reach. Today and now is all we have.

Only through accepting, embracing and loving our condition are we able to move forward to realize our fitness and weight loss dreams. And if you think about it, learning to love where we are is a skill we can apply, not just to weight loss, but to all areas of our lives.

Scientists Versus the Obesity Epidemic: Who Will Win? Will They? Or Will We?

It’s a grim fact that only a minority of Americans―one adult in three—enjoys a normal weight.

It’s not as if the majority of us aren’t trying to slim down. We spent an estimated $40 billion on diet-related products in 2009, yet the only thing we thinned was our wallets.

So if fad diets, weight-loss products and the latest exercise craze aren’t the solution, can researchers help us find the answer?

Responding to the urgent need for a remedy, scientists are exploring the chemistry and mechanisms of weight gain. Their research begins with an effort to answer key questions. For example, since so many of us are overweight, is it possible that certain foods are addictive? Are we programmed to overeat?

The notion that certain foods, like narcotics, are addictive and that this addiction explains the compulsion to overeat is gaining traction. Recent findings based on research with rats reported in Science News (November 21, 2009) provide support for this idea.

Rats fed a diet rich in junk food (processed cakes, sausage, bacon, cheesecake, etc.) quickly adopted the habits of drug addicts. They wanted more and more junk food and needed more and more to feel satisfied; they refused to eat regular food once they were hooked on the rich, sweet food, even if rejecting normal food meant starving; they continued to eat junk food even when consuming it triggered an electric shock to their feet; and once they went back to nutritious rat chow, their bodies took a long time to recover. In fact, some never did return to normal eating habits.

Tests on the rats’ brains and intestines during and after the rats consumed junk food showed biochemical changes. Researchers concluded that the rats’ brains and digestive systems had become captive of the chemical changes resulting from eating junk food—the very definition of addiction. And like drug addiction, junk food addiction can produce changes that are difficult to unwire.

If the experiment with rats is predictive of human behavior, then the chemical changes in the rats’ bodies and the rats’ addictive habits could explain the growing problem of obesity in the United States. As we consume more and more rich, sugary food, we want more and more, and we gain more and more weight.

That brings us to the next question: If overeating is inevitable, can we somehow avoid storing the surplus calories as fat?

Breakthroughs is a publication of the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources featuring scientific advances with far-reaching implications. The lead article in the fall 2009 issue, titled “Burn, Baby, Burn: Key Enzyme Tunes Fat Metabolism,” explains the findings of Hei Sook Sul, professor of nutritional sciences and toxicology, a scientist with a lifelong passion for understanding metabolism.

When explaining the mechanism of obesity, Dr. Sul’s research on one particular enzyme confirms what we all have observed: that some of us can eat whatever we want and stay lean while others of us eat very little and gain weight.

Dr. Sul, the principal investigator on the research team, reports, “We have discovered a new enzyme within fat cells that is a key regulator of fat metabolism and body weight, making it a promising target in the search for a treatment of human obesity.”

In their experiments, the investigators gave two groups of mice an appetizing buffet of tasty, high-fat mouse food. One group had the gene that expressed the enzyme; the other group did not. The presence of the enzyme did not affect appetite: both groups ate the same amount of food. But as the mice grew older, the group without the enzyme gained weight while the other group stayed lean.

For more on “Fat Mouse, Skinny Mouse,” go here.

If Dr. Sul and her investigators could work with drug companies to patent and market an inhibitor of this enzyme in a pill that I and others could take without side effects, we could eat whatever we wanted without fear of gaining weight.

My first question to Dr. Sul was, “How long will it be before this or an equivalent enzyme is available in prescription form?” Her answer was more prudent than I would have preferred: “We are far down the road from translating research on this enzyme in mice into an application for humans for the management of obesity. What works with mice doesn’t always work with humans.” Dr. Sul added that researchers across the nation are exploring different approaches to understanding the chemistry of obesity, and her research is only one piece of this larger effort.

My second question involved the difference between the metabolism rates of the mice that stayed lean compared to those that gained weight. Here, Dr. Sul’s insight was more hopeful: “The range is tiny.” But, she explained, the results are cumulative. Over time, even a small amount of excess calorie consumption will eventually result in excess fat. Conversely, because the range is tiny, we can underconsume a small amount each day and trigger a cumulative weight loss.

The dialogue with Dr. Sul was enlightening, even though her answers were not what I might have hoped for. Given her brilliant background as a leading researcher in metabolism, I shouldn’t be surprised that she confirmed the hard truth: there are no magic pills when it comes to fitness and weight loss—at least not yet.

I am, however, reassured that she and other researchers are exploring the mysteries of metabolism and obesity. Their efforts reminded me of a passage from T. S. Eliot that was quoted by another scientist to explain his passion for research:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

For those of us pursuing fitness and trying to maintain a reasonable weight, the place where we started and now return to (at least for the foreseeable future) is the same: exercise regularly and eat healthfully.