Category Archives: Strategies

Try Nourishing Yourself with Joy

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Today we’re talking about diets. To diet is to restrict oneself, to deny oneself pleasure. Well that sounds kind of miserable. No wonder diets don’t work. Who would want to do something that makes you feel bad?

Dieting is a logical consequence of the assumption that overweight is due to overindulgence. But there is a fault — a big, fat one — within this assumption: If it were true that overindulgence were the cause of overweight, then denial would be an effective and viable option for losing weight. But it is not, of course, which is why you have probably noticed that diets virtually never work. Continue reading →

Insulin: A Very Good Place to Start

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Here is why it’s important to use less insulin: The fact is that insulin is not your friend. You need it to live, but you want to use as little as possible. You want the levels of insulin in your bloodstream to stay as low as possible. Like sugar. The lower the better (within reason, say 80 to 99 for fasting blood sugars). When it comes to insulin, you want your levels to remain as low as necessary to do the job, not zero of course, but on the low side. Why is that? There are a number of reasons. Continue reading →

One Step At a Time

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Some time ago, Gene [not his real name] the computer guy showed up at my office for the first time in a while. Right away, I knew something had changed. I said, “You’re looking very well! How are you doing, Gene?” He responded with an uncharacteristic grin, and answered with an observation that all of us know, but few believe (despite numerous confirmatory personal experiences!). I sat up fast when he said, “Diets don’t work.” Continue reading →

Is Obesity an Overindulged State? NO

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I want to speak once again about a massive misconception, namely that obesity is an overindulged state. It is not. If obesity were an overindulged state, then diets would work. The reason that your appetite increases right along with your waistline is that the bigger you are, the more malnourished you become. And the more malnourished you are, the hungrier you get. Obesity is caused by malnutrition.

Have you ever said to yourself, “Why, oh why, did I drink so much olive oil?” Have you ever heard someone say, “Wow, I shouldn’t have eaten so much fruit salad!”? Of course not. Foods that are nutritious send signals to our brains to put the brakes on automatically when we’ve had enough.

In contrast, items without nutritional value send no such signal. So it’s easy to eat too much candy, too many potato chips, half a pan of brownies, a sleeve of Thin Mints, and two full orders of deep-fried whatever. Even on the same day.

That’s why the solution to overweight is not to eat less but to eat better. It’s why I want a lot of peanuts (or edamame or walnuts or almonds or chickpeas) in my salad. Because that salad is going to fill me up and stick to my ribs a lot more if I add plenty of nutritious oils and protein to that gorgeous, colorful salad. And I also want the salad dressing to be made with something rich and nourishing like olive oil or tahini, either of which will make the salad taste fabulous and satisfy me for hours. Fat-free salad dressing is not food. Neither is anything else made with corn syrup.

Portion control is a separate issue from nutritional density. Eat more nutritious food, and there is a good chance that your portions will begin, slowly, to take care of themselves. This means that portion control is not a solution, but rather a consequence of improving your nutrition. It happens by itself when you begin to eat in a way that supports your good health. The more nutritious food you eat, the better nourished you become, the more weight you “release,” the better your pants fit, and the more reasonable your appetite gets. What you weigh is a reflection of the choices you make. You don’t get to choose your weight. You don’t get to dial in what you want to weigh every morning. But if you begin to improve the nutritional value of the things you choose to eat, your weight begins to reflect the new choices.

Practice Makes Progress: Do the Math

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I sometimes imagine that I have a sign in my office, just above the door, that says “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” I am drawn to this idea a lot, especially when I talk with people who are hard on themselves, who discount their own small but sincere efforts as insufficient, or who, sometimes, describe themselves as lazy, incompetent, or unfocused. They are, of course, none of these. If anything, in fact, they are usually exactly the opposite. Hard-working, goal-directed and applied, they tend toward the belief that if they can’t give it their all, there’s no sense even trying. The thing is, that’s not true, not even slightly. Continue reading →

What to Tell Your Doctor About The Way You Eat

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You can probably guess that the obesity epidemic has changed the way medicine is practiced, but you may not know that this change has come about more quickly than doctors have been trained to address it. Ever wonder why doctors are clueless about how to address this problem? Because most of us are as stymied by the problem as the next person. If there was a quick fix, we’d all be better off. But there isn’t, and we’re all in the same boat. Continue reading →

Enjoy Your Meal, Taste Your Food

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I like to think that nourishing oneself is actually pretty basic, and I love Michael Pollan’s famous guidelines: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Instead of forbidding yourself an entire food group, or filling your grocery cart with the latest processed food-like sensation, how about just focusing on the basics? Meals were never meant to be about protein bars, diet sodas, fast food, or drive-thru windows. Meals are for taking a break, catching up, sharing food, experiences, stories. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just needs to be the point of the exercise. Not eating on the run, for example, but eating for purposes of eating. And I would add one more suggestion — enjoying every bite.  Continue reading →

Insulin: Like Money in the Bank

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Have you ever considered that the amount of insulin you are capable of making over your lifetime is limited? Maybe your pancreas can make, let’s just call it 1000 pounds worth of insulin, and after that it starts to have trouble keeping up with the demand? What would happen if you used up most of your supply by the time you were 40 or 50? Then what? Then your blood sugars would probably start to rise dramatically, and you would need to start taking medicine, whether to make your remaining insulin work more efficiently, to get your pancreas to make more, or to augment your existing supplies. Continue reading →

Practice Makes Progress

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Let’s lose the never-enough mindset.

It’s okay if you don’t walk as far as you wish you had.
It’s okay if you don’t stretch for as long as you wish you had.
It’s okay if you ate a bag of chips all by yourself last night.
It’s okay if you didn’t keep a promise you made to yourself.

You tried. And that is always good enough for me. Continue reading →