Diet Survivors™ newsletter June 2006

The newsletter for normal eaters

What is normal eating?
Visit our Diet Survivors™ group on Yahoo!
Subscribe to this monthly newsletter

Did you know that a few folks do succeed on formal diets? These folks are flexible and kind to themselves. They lead their diets. They do not suffer from black and white thinking. They do not have emotional food issues. They do not clobber themselves with their diet rules. But they're somewhat rare.

This newsletter is for disgruntled dieters who would like to learn normal eating, also known as intuitive eating. The Diet Survivors emphasis is on moving away from the diet mentality, and moving toward finding one's own internal food wisdom.

Unlike other normal eating materials you may have run across, we don't make hard and fast, black and white, rules about not dieting. Instead, we'd like to show you that you can be so in charge of your diet that you can take or leave the diet itself.

What falls into place when we take charge of our own eating is the Hunger and Fullness Method. Read an explanation of The Hunger and Fullness Method of eating. Using this method, we learn that we can eat real food in perfect portions.

It is with such a spirit that this issue of the Diet Survivors is written. We are not promoting any one diet; nor are we promoting dieting at all. But formal diets tend to have such a hold on us that it can help to see what it would be like to be in charge of your diet, rather than your diet in charge of you.

Find out how those rare flexible folks survive the South Beach Diet. Learn to think like them. Find out that your recovery isn't about the choice between dieting and not dieting. Instead, learn how to look within to find normal eating wisdom.

Then decide for yourself that a formal diet is nothing more than inconvenient. From there, you'll be on auto-pilot.

The South Beach Diet—What is it?

The South Beach Diet is good, sound nutritional advice. People can and do lose weight permanently on this diet. Remember, though, that you are in charge. Most of its principles are useful. However, a few are not and can be discarded or modified as you determine is best for you.

The principles of The South Beach Diet

Exercise is separate from diet. Though important for health, it is not necessary for weight control. (We agree.)
Simple carbohydrates, such as white flour, sugar, and potatoes, are causing the rising obesity in our country. (We agree that this is part of the problem.)
If you eat the right foods, you can eat all you want. (We disagree. Furthermore, this thinking is part of the problem, not part of the solution.)
High-fiber foods, proteins, and healthy fats are important for health and for weight control. (We agree.)
You can kick-start your weight loss with a more restrictive form of this diet for the first two weeks. (* See note below.)
A diet that is neither low-carb nor low-fat is best. (We agree.)
Eating only delicious foods is important. (We agree.)
"Cheating" causes damage, but it can be rectified by returning to a stricter form of the diet. (We disagree. There is no "cheating" if you are in charge.)
Snacks are required. (Snacks help maintain blood sugar but don't have to be a "must.")
Flexibility is important to success. (We agree.)

* As for the two-week kick-start phase, we look at it this way. It may be okay to do, but beware—dieters often take this to mean they can stretch the two weeks into three, four, or more and get even quicker results. There are many reasons why this will backfire, not the least of which is that it leads you down the extreme diet road, resulting in distorted thinking. If you have a history of "black-and-white thinking," it might be better to skip this two-week kick-start phase entirely. If you embrace the principles of small portions, incorporate the sound nutritional advice of The South Beach Diet, and tweak it to keep it satisfying, you will lose the weight.

How can I survive The South Beach Diet?

People who are trying to lose weight seem to like saying they are on this or that diet. Perhaps this reflects a "club" mentality in which the dieter feels less isolated while trying valiantly to lose weight. So if your friends are all on The South Beach Diet, and you'd like to be on it too, go ahead. Here are some things you can do to make it work for you.

Keep in mind that you are in charge, not the diet, and not the creator of the diet, Dr Agatston. The basic nutritional guidelines are sound, but you don't need to wade through the science to understand it. Remember that a few generations ago, when fewer Americans were obese, there were also fewer foods available that were made from refined flour. Moreover, your grandmother or great-grandmother probably was not on a quest to "eat more food." Big portions seem to be thought of today as belonging to the realm of "rights," while a few generations ago, they belonged in the realm of "greed."

No matter how perfectly you engineer what you eat, quantity matters as well. There are two reasons for this. First, a mentality of "eat all I want" often leads to increasing portions over time. While the dieter is reinforced in his belief that eating a lot is good and desirable, his body, mind, and appetite gradually and insidiously increase the demand. In the long run, you will still have to pay attention to amount, so you may as well start out that way. It is better to set out at each meal to attain a minimal sense of satisfaction, eating only enough food to hold you until the next meal.

The second reason that quantity does matter is that it's the rare dieter who can stay so strict about avoiding the "bad" foods. And who really wants to? We've discussed in previous newsletters the rightful place of table sugar in your regular diet, and we continue to maintain that sugar has a positive psychological effect on your sensation of satiety, if not an as-yet undiscovered physical effect. It is already known, in fact, that sugar aids digestion. So by allowing a few of the higher glycemic foods in small amounts, such as sugar and potatoes, you are declaring that no food will cause you guilt.

Instead, tune in to your hunger and satiety signals, and keep your portions small. And for heaven's sake, eat some fruit. Think of fruit as something meant to be sliced and stored or thrown away. You don't have to eat an entire piece of fruit at a time. Just eat a few slices, then toss the rest. Fruit slices with a meal or separately are satisfying and contain plenty of anti-oxidants. Canned sweetened fruit is great too. Fruit in heavy syrup? No problem. Remember that the goal, even on this diet, is to eat only what you find delicious.

When discussing your diet with others, consider saying this, "I'm on my own version of The South Beach Diet that allows for some sugar and incorporates reasonable portions." Or another way to say it is, "I'm on the Low Food Diet™." A third way to say it is "I'm a South Beach Diet Survivor" and tell them about the Diet Survivors™ newsletter. Here's another idea: "I'm on The South Beach Diet, but I know some secrets that Dr. Agatston doesn't know."

What makes or breaks any diet are not the technical changes, but the adaptive changes. Technical changes are external, while adaptive changes are changes in outlook, beliefs, self-talk, and, as a result, lifestyle. The suggested adaptive change for this month is this:

Eliminate your belief in being "on" or "off" the diet.

Instead, make some changes to make whatever diet you're on work for you. Your new belief can be:

I'm just exercising good judgment every day.

If you allow for all foods to be okay, you are much less likely to latch on to the mentality of "on" or "off."

Questions and answers about normal eating

This month we'll answer some questions from Diet Survivors. Read about emotional eating, stress eating, portion control, and more.

Q. I'm not really an emotional eater or a stress eater. I just love food. Is there help for me?

A. Absolutely. Many of us are troubled by simply loving food a lot. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's a sad state of affairs that overweight people have been told they have to eat tasteless food for the rest of their lives, or they have to eliminate whole categories of food in order to control their weight. It's just not true. Food was meant for us to enjoy. And so the answer for us food lovers is both simpler and more complex than altering the food.

If you've been told you can't have delicious food anymore, you've been told a (well-meaning) lie. You can train yourself instead to limit how much you eat. That way, you can still enjoy full-fat foods, foods with carbohydrates, sweets, and all the ethnic, cultural, and family dishes you love so much. But it will be hard work, too, to change your attitude that you should be able to eat any quantity you want.

Q. I've always rebelled against the idea of portion control, because I figure that means I'll have to eat less than I do now, and that will mean I'll have to be hungry all the time. Am I supposed to walk around hungry?

A. No, and you've come to the right place. There is more to portion control than "just do it." There are basically five techniques.

Work at becoming aware of your hunger and satiety signals.
Reduce your portions so that you eat just until you feel that your blood sugar has been restored (your hunger signals have subsided).
Become generally aware of glycemic index so that you are not consuming too much refined and simple carbohydrate foods. Did you know that refined carbohydrates make you hungrier? In contrast, whole grains and complex carbs make you feel satisfied.
Work toward a just-right balance at each meal of carbs, fats, proteins, salt, sweets, fruits, vegetables, and even textures, according to your own personal taste.
Train your mind to accept or "embrace" stress, thus allowing stress to be tolerable. At the same time, train your mind to resist greed, thus helping you to stop in the middle of a binge without having to analyze your every motive or childhood pain! Instead, you can simply tell yourself, "I'd rather not be greedy now."

This may sound like a lot of work, but it's nothing when compared to the work of formal diets with their tasteless foods, rigid schedules, weighing and measuring food, and counting calories or fat grams.

Q. What is "rapid satiety"?

A. If you tune in to just what your body wants, you'll find yourself pretty much approximating the old model of the four basic food groups. Your body knows exactly what balance it needs at each meal of protein, carbohydrates, fats, fruits and vegetables, sugar, salt, and so forth. If you try your best to be true to the balance your body wants, and really enjoy your food without guilt, you won't have to eat much food before you are satisfied. Thus you will reach satiety at the earliest point possible during the meal.

Q. The most popular diets right now seem to eliminate sugar, including The South Beach Diet. Can I really eat sugar?

A. We all crave sugar. A just-right amount of sugar helps you achieve rapid satiety. In fact, sometimes it may be all you are craving. For example, after a meal, you might want something sweet, and if you were free of all food guilt, you might tune in and realize that you want an after-dinner mint, or a taffy pop. But in your food guilt, you either resist the craving with all your might, or give in, and eat something sugary but not precisely what your body wants, but rather, perhaps a big piece of cake. This mistake arises from the "all-or-nothing" mentality of dieters. They believe themselves to either be "on" or "off" their diets at any one time. As a result, the dieter has gotten the needed sugar, but accompanied by extra calories that he really didn't need at the moment. It would have been better to have the taffy pop.

Q. I've been trying to follow the food pyramid. Will that help?

A. The food pyramid is under revision at this time. The best replacement might be an updated version of the old "four basic food groups" wherein the carbohydrate category addresses glycemic index, and the fats category addresses the healthier fats. Still, the right balance for you might be slightly different from any chart, so it's best to tune in to what you are craving.

These Web pages provide sensible advice on healthy diets, nutrition, and weight loss. However, no advice given here is intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor when deciding to make significant dietary or lifestyle changes.

Direct all technical questions and comments about this site to webmaster

Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 07:12:48 PST Betterway Press
All rights reserved.

Book—How to
Survive Your Diet

Diet Survivors™
newsletter

Diet Survivors™ back issues

Solve your diet problems

Normal eating

About
our authors

About Betterway Press

Reprints

Contact us