EATING STRATEGIES

People use hundreds of ways to lose weight and then devise hundreds of reasons to throw those plans out the window, inevitably regaining the lost pounds. The keys to getting and keeping the body you want are time and consistency, and that means eating in a way you can live with rather than bouncing from diet to diet. I've condensed my nutrition philosophy and program into 10 core principles that are crucial for sound, healthful and realistic weight loss. If you've been struggling to lose weight, use these guidelines to stop the diet cycle and make food a pleasure in your life rather than a burden.

Bottom-line program:  10 steps to success

1. Eat According to Hunger.
As simple as this seems, most people who want to lose weight could do so by just eating when they're hungry and stopping when they're comfortable. For a variety of reasons, this is easier said than done.

First, we're living in a super-sized world, eating too much and moving too little. Portion sizes are huge: often three to four times what's needed to satisfy our hunger. And as Brian Wansink's oft-quoted studies from the Food and Brand Lab at the University of Illinois, Champaign, demonstrate, we eat more when served more.

Second, many of us are "emotional eaters," turning to food when we're bored, sad, mad - you name it.

Third, women trying to lose weight will often think of hunger as a good sign - that their body is burning bodyfat for fuel since they aren't eating. Instead it's just the opposite: When you're starving you're more likely to overeat later. Plus, consistently depriving your body of what it needs will make your body adapt to that lowered caloric intake. That means a lowered metabolic rate and a tendency to gain weight more quickly once you're off the diet.

I recommend that my clients use a hunger scale to help them with their eating patterns and identify when they're eating for emotional, rather than physical, reasons. I've included a sample hunger scale to get you started, below.

Basic hunger/satiety scale

0 Starving and beyond.
1 You're so hungry you want to order everything on the menu.
2 Everything on the menu begins to look good. You may be very preoccupied with your hunger.
3 You're hungry, and the urge to eat is strong.
4 A little hungry. You can wait to eat, but you know you'll be getting hungrier soon.
5 Neutral: not hungry, not full.
6 No longer hungry. You sense food in your belly, but you could definitely eat more.
7 Hunger is definitely gone. Stop here, and you may not feel hungry again for 3-4 hours.
8 Not uncomfortable, but you've definitely eaten a belly full.
9 Moving into uncomfortable.
10 "Thanksgiving full." Very uncomfortable, maybe even painful.

Reprinted with permission from Gaesser and Kratina's Eating Well, Living Well: When You Can't Diet Anymore (Wheat Foods Council, 2000).

Nutritionist Sheri Albert, MPH, RD, recommends staying between 3 and 7 most of the time. That is, try to eat before you're so hungry that you can't think straight, and stop eating when you feel satisfied and you're no longer eating to satiate your hunger. Remember that anytime you eat more than your body needs at that time, you'll store the excess calories as fat, whether it's too many apples or too much Ben & Jerry's.

2. Get to Know the Burning Theory.
There's one truth about losing weight: You have to burn what you eat or you'll store the extra fuel (food) as fat. To try to explain how your body uses various foods, I like to use the following anecdote of burning a wood fire.

a. Newspaper: These are foods your body burns quickly and efficiently, just like tossing a pile of papers on the fire. This category includes most vegetables and fruits (except avocado). An athlete would never rely on these foods before an event because they'd burn through them too quickly, but they should be a staple for those looking to lose weight.

b. Kindling: Like your basic twigs and wood fragments, foods that are high in protein, moderate to low in carbohydrates and low in fat burn less quickly than newspaper but still get a raging fire going. They include skinless poultry, shellfish and low-fat fish like orange roughy, sole, snapper and whitefish. Legumes (beans, peas and lentils) are also included here because they're high in protein and fiber but low in fat.

c. Logs: Like the slow-burning log in your fireplace that takes hours to burn, these are the starchy carbohydrates athletes stock up on before a big event. Yes, you'll burn them if you're very active, but if you're settling in for a long nap they aren't the best choice. "Logs" include pasta, bread, whole grains, rice, cereals and low-fat muffins.

d. Wet Logs: I think of fats that take your body a long time to burn as wet logs. The name says it all. Wet logs include oil, butter, ice cream, whole milk, cheese, nuts and seeds.