Meg
01-30-2005, 07:39 PM
Key To Success #4: Accept The Food Facts
Key #4 moves from the weight loss phase (Key #3) to the maintenance phase of keeping the weight off for life. The critical point of this chapter is that maintainers:peacefully accept their new way of eating: they know that they can’t eat whatever they want, and know that they can’t go back to their old food habits. (p 97) I agree that this is the fundamental truth of maintenance – there’s no going back. Ever.
Just as there are many ways to lose weight, there are many valid ways to maintain a weight loss. Maintenance is going to be as personal and unique as the way you lost the weight in the first place. However, the book (pp 102-120) comes up with eight universal truths - ‘food facts’ - that successful maintainers have discovered and these make up the heart of the chapter:
Food Fact #1: The masters stop seeing the way they eat as dieting. 'Diet' has become a dirty word these days, but all it means is ‘a way of life’, from the Greek word diaitia. Your new way of eating has to become a way of life because it’s going to be for the rest of your life. In reality, the ‘diet’ is never over.
Food Fact #2: The masters survive the transition from weight loss to maintenance. How to adjust your eating plan once you reach goal is a matter of trial and error.
Food Fact #3: The masters see the beauty of low-fat eating. 90% of maintainers say that they follow a low-fat diet, with about 20-30% of total calories coming from fat.
Food Fact #4: The masters develop – and enjoy – new tastes in food. Successful maintainers find ways to enjoy what they eat, through ‘eating big’ strategies, trying new recipes, or simply re-learning how good healthy food can taste.
Food Fact #5: The masters develop consistency in their way of eating. Successful maintainers eat regular, frequent, planned meals. NWCR members report eating on an average of five times per day. 96% eat breakfast.
Food Fact #6: The masters keep track of what they eat. Keeping a food diary continues to be an important weight control tool, even in maintenance. Maintainers still have to exercise portion control.
Food Fact #7: The masters indulge themselves but spend their calories wisely. Many maintainers chose to occasionally indulge in their favorite foods but still control access to tempting foods and make trade-offs about how they spend their calories.
Food Fact #8: The masters try to listen to their bodies. Maintainers try to eat only when hungry but at the same time try not to let themselves get too hungry.
I thought of our Karen (MrsJim) when I read the next section: It Gets Easier With Time (pp 122-123). The book confirms what Karen’s always told us – maintaining a weight loss gets easier with passing time. A NWCR study found that those maintaining losses for 6+ years report that it takes significantly less effort to maintain that it does for those who are two or three years out from goal. And the pleasure derived from maintenance was actually found to increase over time! There’s evidence that it’s a bit harder for those of us who have lost a lot of weight to maintain the loss, but the good news is that the longer we maintain, the more likely we’ll be able to keep the weight off. In fact, the book says that maintaining a weight loss for 2 to 5 years decreased the risk of subsequent regain by more than 50%! More good reasons to stick around here. :D
No one interviewed for the book regretted any of the effort that it takes to keep the weight off. They all seem to take the ‘whatever it takes’ attitude that we’ve discussed here at Maintainers.
The chapter continues by profiling the lifestyle transformation of Graham Kerr, TV’s Galloping Gourmet (pp 124-126). Like many of us, he had a health epiphany and has devoted his life since then to creating food that is healthy and tastes good:Today, as he chooses his daily foods and designs his recipes, Kerr’s guiding question is, “what can I put in my body that will give me the most vitality and P.S. can it taste good, too?”
The end of the chapter is a review of low-fat eating (pp 126-128 and 139-149) and then it sets out a six–week ‘nondieting weight-control plan’ (pp 128-138). The six week plan simply takes the (old version) food pyramid and focuses on each of the six blocks in it for a week. It suggests ways to make small weekly changes in your eating to make it healthier without it being a ‘diet’ (back to the idea that ‘diet’ is a bad word). I’m not sure why this section isn’t included in Chapter 3 – which focused on weight loss – rather than this chapter, which more focuses on maintenance of a loss. Perhaps it would have made Chapter 3 too long? In any event, these sections don’t really add anything to our knowledge of maintenance skills, in my opinion.
What are your 'food facts'? What truths have you learned about maintenance? Was it a surprise to you that the diet is going to last forever? (it was to me!) Is maintenance getting easier for you over time? Can you ever see yourself going back to your old way of eating and gaining the weight back? Let's talk about maintenance!
Key #4 moves from the weight loss phase (Key #3) to the maintenance phase of keeping the weight off for life. The critical point of this chapter is that maintainers:peacefully accept their new way of eating: they know that they can’t eat whatever they want, and know that they can’t go back to their old food habits. (p 97) I agree that this is the fundamental truth of maintenance – there’s no going back. Ever.
Just as there are many ways to lose weight, there are many valid ways to maintain a weight loss. Maintenance is going to be as personal and unique as the way you lost the weight in the first place. However, the book (pp 102-120) comes up with eight universal truths - ‘food facts’ - that successful maintainers have discovered and these make up the heart of the chapter:
Food Fact #1: The masters stop seeing the way they eat as dieting. 'Diet' has become a dirty word these days, but all it means is ‘a way of life’, from the Greek word diaitia. Your new way of eating has to become a way of life because it’s going to be for the rest of your life. In reality, the ‘diet’ is never over.
Food Fact #2: The masters survive the transition from weight loss to maintenance. How to adjust your eating plan once you reach goal is a matter of trial and error.
Food Fact #3: The masters see the beauty of low-fat eating. 90% of maintainers say that they follow a low-fat diet, with about 20-30% of total calories coming from fat.
Food Fact #4: The masters develop – and enjoy – new tastes in food. Successful maintainers find ways to enjoy what they eat, through ‘eating big’ strategies, trying new recipes, or simply re-learning how good healthy food can taste.
Food Fact #5: The masters develop consistency in their way of eating. Successful maintainers eat regular, frequent, planned meals. NWCR members report eating on an average of five times per day. 96% eat breakfast.
Food Fact #6: The masters keep track of what they eat. Keeping a food diary continues to be an important weight control tool, even in maintenance. Maintainers still have to exercise portion control.
Food Fact #7: The masters indulge themselves but spend their calories wisely. Many maintainers chose to occasionally indulge in their favorite foods but still control access to tempting foods and make trade-offs about how they spend their calories.
Food Fact #8: The masters try to listen to their bodies. Maintainers try to eat only when hungry but at the same time try not to let themselves get too hungry.
I thought of our Karen (MrsJim) when I read the next section: It Gets Easier With Time (pp 122-123). The book confirms what Karen’s always told us – maintaining a weight loss gets easier with passing time. A NWCR study found that those maintaining losses for 6+ years report that it takes significantly less effort to maintain that it does for those who are two or three years out from goal. And the pleasure derived from maintenance was actually found to increase over time! There’s evidence that it’s a bit harder for those of us who have lost a lot of weight to maintain the loss, but the good news is that the longer we maintain, the more likely we’ll be able to keep the weight off. In fact, the book says that maintaining a weight loss for 2 to 5 years decreased the risk of subsequent regain by more than 50%! More good reasons to stick around here. :D
No one interviewed for the book regretted any of the effort that it takes to keep the weight off. They all seem to take the ‘whatever it takes’ attitude that we’ve discussed here at Maintainers.
The chapter continues by profiling the lifestyle transformation of Graham Kerr, TV’s Galloping Gourmet (pp 124-126). Like many of us, he had a health epiphany and has devoted his life since then to creating food that is healthy and tastes good:Today, as he chooses his daily foods and designs his recipes, Kerr’s guiding question is, “what can I put in my body that will give me the most vitality and P.S. can it taste good, too?”
The end of the chapter is a review of low-fat eating (pp 126-128 and 139-149) and then it sets out a six–week ‘nondieting weight-control plan’ (pp 128-138). The six week plan simply takes the (old version) food pyramid and focuses on each of the six blocks in it for a week. It suggests ways to make small weekly changes in your eating to make it healthier without it being a ‘diet’ (back to the idea that ‘diet’ is a bad word). I’m not sure why this section isn’t included in Chapter 3 – which focused on weight loss – rather than this chapter, which more focuses on maintenance of a loss. Perhaps it would have made Chapter 3 too long? In any event, these sections don’t really add anything to our knowledge of maintenance skills, in my opinion.
What are your 'food facts'? What truths have you learned about maintenance? Was it a surprise to you that the diet is going to last forever? (it was to me!) Is maintenance getting easier for you over time? Can you ever see yourself going back to your old way of eating and gaining the weight back? Let's talk about maintenance!