Cook Yourself Thin – lovely presenter, but an outdated approach.

I watched an episode of Cook Yourself Thin the other day, its on Channel 4 and features a chef cooking low fat recipes for someone who had battled with their weight for many years. Needless to say the participant lost weight and said that they felt wonderful, but I couldn’t help wondering what happens next?  I am prepared to bet that in her history of dieting she has tried many low fat diets ( impossible not to ) so why will this one be different? My heart sank when the presenter, who was gorgeous and stylish, showed us  how to make a lemon drizzle cake with fewer calories than a store-bought one and presented her cake as a way to lose weight. I don’t claim to know all there is to know about nutrition and successful weight loss, but this much I do know – you wont lose weight be eating cake.

My problem with Cook Yourself Thin is that it has one premise – low calorie food. When cooked from scratch this is no bad thing, but my concern is that low fat isnt everything.  The background to low fat diets is simple in as much as one gram of fat contains 9 calories whereas one gram of protein contains 7 and carbohydrates only 5. Therefore taking fat out of the diet reduces the calorie intake accordingly.  Surely that’s obvious and the right thing to do?

No.  Like protein, the body breaks down fat slowly and its conversion to energy is equally slow.  Carbohydrates break down easily and quickly which leads to elevated glucose levels. As the cells cant actually absorb much glucose at any one time the excess is stored away, which adds to fat stores.  So eating cake leads to weight gain, not because of the calorie content, but simple because of the carbohydrate content.  Furthermore, eating low fat food isn’t satisfying and so shortly after eating it, we are hungry and have to battle with cravings and ‘I shouldn’t eat, I am trying to lose weight and I just had a piece of cake’ type thinking. In other words, having low blood glucose levels makes us hungry, that’s quite normal, but asking someone who wants to lose weight to be hungry for a lot of the day relies upon their willpower, and we all know that willpower is limited. Sooner or later we crack, and then its harder still to get back on track again.

Check out How Not To Get Fat (Quadrille, £9.99) to find out the truth behind successful and easy weight management.

Hunger and how to reduce it without going hungry.

 I watched a couple of hours of television last night and noticed several commercials for foods that contained a certain amount of calories that would stop one from getting hungry. Highlighting a problem and offering your product as a solution is a tried and tested way of selling something, but since when was hunger a problem? You may know that this really bothers me as hunger is an entirely normal condition, not one that has to be fought against. Hunger is not the enemy when it comes to eating and we should respond to it,  yet the signals that tell us we are hungry often get ignored and, for many people, are simply there to be beaten.

When we are hungry, we should eat, but as eating can be so fraught, the signal to eat can be confusing if not alarming for so many people. One of the most effective ways to market any product is to offer it up as a solution to a problem, and food marketing is no exception. It seems obvious that eating food will allay hunger, and so the methods that food manufacturers use to get us to choose their product are complex and varied, but rarely have anything to do with hunger.  

But why? What is wrong with being hungry, and why do so many people fear it? It may seem obvious, but I feel that for many people think that if hunger can be conquered, then eating can be controlled and weight can be lost – isn’t that the Holy Grail when it comes to food sales?  Food becomes a battleground, and the signal to attack is hunger, so no wonder it’s something to be conquered.  One could argue that this is all the wrong way around, as if there were any issues with eating, then responding to the very first sign of hunger would get rid of the feeling which would mean that one needn’t eat. But in practice, people who want to control what they eat, or are on a diet to lose weight, or worried about gaining or regaining weight will often try to muddle through until the next scheduled meal rather then respond to a hunger signal.

If we look at the language of being hungry, the word hunger is most often followed by ‘pangs’, which means ‘ a sharp feeling or spasm of pain or emotional distress’. If this were true, and it is for a large percentage of the population, then we might be able to see why the issue of hunger is a minefield. The signal to refuel is triggered by several things, perhaps the most notable is low blood glucose levels. In the next section I will detailing how to eat so that blood glucose levels can be maintained at an even level, which avoids extreme and true hunger, but we should explore what happens to the average weight-conscious person when they do get that biochemical signal that says ‘feed me’.

That signal to eat may come from a basic physiological need, and whilst our ancestors may have responded appropriately, had there been food available, these days our hunger is clouded by several issues, not least what we do or will weigh if we eat – our emotional life gets in the way and in no small way influences our decision.

One of the problems with hunger is choice; we have so much choice that we don’t know what or how to eat, and hunger is the gateway to all that potential confusion. If you aren’t hungry, then the struggle is minimised, that’s obvious. One of the reasons that strict diets are successful is that they remove choice, and so when you get hungry, you have to eat X or Y, a prescribed food, one that feels ‘safe’. There is no choice, no confusion and no argument. The internal dichotomy ( ‘should I, shouldn’t I?’) simply doesn’t happen and this whole area of conflict is removed. After the diet, or even if you have never been on one, then of course there are unlimited choices, and given how much commercial interests influence what foods we think of, we may eat in a way that doesn’t really serve us that well.

 Low calorie food may quash hunger for a short while, but as the glucose the contain lasts for a short while and so the hunger returns and the cycle begins again.  Following The Food Doctor way of eating means that hunger is gentle and easily managed, and so the food choices one makes lead to longer lasting energy alongside slow and sustainable weight loss.

To find out more see How Not To Get Fat ( Quadrille Publishing, £9.99 ) or order via http://www.thefooddoctor.com

My Big Fat Diet Show. Lovely show, but misguided advice ( in my opinion ).

My Big Fat Diet Show starts this evening on Channel 4. I am sure it’s a wonderful show, and the presenter and production company are fine people, but it is misguided to suggest that you should lose a dress size in two weeks, and so all this is is yet another diet. The plan suggests 1200 calories a day with only main meals and minimal eating between meals. Inevitably this will lead to hunger and fatigue and whilst weight will be lost, how will you feel during the two weeks? And after then two weeks, what then?

Focusing on calories and only calories proves that diets work in isolation, i.e cut energy in and increase energy out and weight will be lost. That’s true, of course it is. But it ignores the simple and vital fact that human beings were not built to lose weight and gain weight at a level that suits us or a television show.

If the body is forced to give up fat too quickly the metabolism will sense that famine is coming and the very next time there is a surplus of calories, and there will be, especially after a low calorie plan, then food is laid down, as fat, ready for the next famine. In my opinion the most successful way to lose weight is with a plan that prevents hunger, does not lead to weight problems in the future and breaks this ridiculous, maddening, miserable and misguided cycle of diet and weight gain, feast and famine.

There are 10 Principles to healthy, consistent and practical weight management – find them in The Food Doctor Ultimate Diet. Or find out all about how to eat well so that you never have to diet in How Not To Get Fat – out now ( you can order it online here – http://www.thefooddoctor.com/How-Not-To-Get-Fat-by-Ian-Marber-The-Food-Doctor-Abooks_hntgfbk/

Government advice for weight control over Christmas – go for a walk.

The Department of Health are suggesting that we take a walk after lunch on Christmas Day to burn off the calories that we might eat that day.

Gillian Merron ( the Public Health Minister ) is reported to have said: “Whatever the weather, a traditional festive walk is a great way for families and friends to avoid that sluggish feeling and have a more active Christmas. Being more physically active can make a real difference to your health – taking that extra walk is something we can all enjoy as a family.”

I like the idea, for sure, but one would have to walk pretty fast and for quite a long way to get anywhere near burning off the extra 1500 calories that we might eat. Not that this should put you off at all as a good walk, as long as we don’t fall into the trap of believing that exercise allows us to eat more as we ‘burn it off’.  Exercise shouldn’t be seen as a ‘get out of jail free’ card, or a licence to over eat.

When excess calories are stored away as fat the human body has no idea whatsoever that you are planning to be active later on today, or are going to join the local gym in the New Year. Nor does is know that it’s Christmas, or your birthday or that you are going on holiday soon. The human body functions in a dispassionate way and trying to force it to let go of fat simply because we have deemed it convenient won’t work either. Strict dieting followed by periods of indulgence (  typified by “sod the diet, I deserve it”) alert the body to famine which in time can influence the way that glucose is stored.

It’s a hard lesson to learn but this type of eating, ricocheting between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, feast and famine, leads to weight problems in the long term.

So rather than overeat and burn it off with a walk or a strict diet, why not learn How Not To Get Fat?

Quadrille, £9.99 available from booksellers or via www.thefooddoctor.com

Obesity, kids and How Not To Get Fat.

I was interested to read about obese children rejecting weight loss surgery ( “More than half of 100 children, who are on the government backed Carnegie Weight Management Programme, say they view gastric bands as “cheating””.).

Added to this, some 60% of the children in the group “felt they do not get any support in overcoming their weight issues at school”. What stands out for me is that this story is about weight loss, and not weight gain. How did these children become obese in the first place? Yes, they ate too much of the wrong things and weren’t active enough, but how did the adults around them, parents, family and school, allow things to get this far?

You can see the full story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8299555.stm.

Surely prevention is better than cure as understanding how not to get fat in the first place is preferable to even having to consider weight loss surgery?

Think of the misery that obesity is causing for these kids. Some 42% of the group that were surveyed said that they had been bullied because of their size. When I work with overweight clients they often tell me that despite being adults, in employment, qualified and experienced in life, they would suffer jibes and sneers from strangers about their size.

I have a new book out in January, How Not To Get Fat ( Quadrille, £9.99 ) which looks at how to eat so that we don’t gain weight rather than how to lose it after we have. No-one else has taken this approach before, as I maintain that we know how to diet, but we don’t know how to eat.

Details can be found here, http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Not-Get-Fat-Marber/dp/1844007901/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255338204&sr=1-10.

The press release reads “If all diets work, why is it such a problem for us to maintain a healthy weight while still enjoying life? And why do we fall into the trap of sending ourselves on an endless rollercoaster of boom and bust, dieting and overeating, which makes us feel bad or ashamed about ourselves? In Ian Marber s long-standing experience as a nutritional therapist, most people want to eat in a way that satisfies their hunger, enables them to enjoy good food, minimises cravings, and works with even the busiest work, or social, schedule all without gaining weight. We do not always understand how our bodies work and therefore how and what to eat. Ian explains how to ensure that the food we eat is enjoyable and converts to energy rather than fat. And we do not always think about ourselves, and food, in a positive way. We often see food as the enemy, and engage in a battle that we feel we will always lose. Or attitudes from family, friends, colleagues, and the media about our weight, or how we should look, lead many of us to try extreme diets, buy low calorie foods, or over-exercise. We learn how to diet, not how to eat, and when we treat ourselves the weight creeps back on and another cycle of emotional guilt and self-denial begins. In this revolutionary but commonsense book, Ian tells the reader how to eat so that they will never get fat. This is not a one-off diet book, it is a way of life…that works! Radical yet realistic, packed with quotes and scenarios that the reader will recognise, informative yet humorous, Ian Marber delivers us from dieting”.