A Disappointing Study, but – Carry On!

“Mind What You Eat: Can ‘intuitive eating’ be as effective as calorie counting?" (Gretchen Reynolds for The New York Times Magazine, 11/22/15) got me all excited.    Reynolds cites a study conducted by Judith C. Anglin and published in Nutrition and Health that compared weight loss success between subjects who cut calories and subjects who ”practiced intuitive eating – a program, according to intuitiveeating.org, guided by 10 principles like ‘Reject the diet mentality,’ ‘Honor your hunger,’ and ‘Make peace with food.’”  At last!  I thought, and read eagerly, until Anglin’s blunt conclusion that sensitivity to internal cues alone will not keep weight off for the long haul. She says: “Calories matter.”

I beg to disagree.  Of course weight loss can be achieved without counting mathematical abstractions.  I published a book about this in 1971.  I completely revised and republished “The Anti-Diet: learning to be in the moment with food” after forty five years of maintaining a desirable weight just by listening to my gut.  

    

What’s wrong with Anglin’s study and others like it?  Well, for one thing, it was much, much too short.  It spanned just 6 weeks (with a follow-up at 9).  That’s hardly time enough to re-wire the brain for a discipline of focus rather than restraint, to undo years of ingrained guilt, to send the mental clutter of misinformation about what is good or bad for you to the recycle bin. It took me a good 6 months to make a turnaround back in 1967.  Fine-tuning awareness in eating (or any important human function) is a lifelong process.  It doesn’t follow a straight line, and it differs for every individual.
      

Anglin’s study was designed around Tribole and Resch’s well-respected program that systematizes many of the fundamentals I discovered on my own.  But, programs must be “followed,” and studies are inherently “controlled.” I can’t imagine doing the kind of thorough, quirky, and intensely individual work I did to revitalize my relationship with food while being scrutinized, interviewed, and weighed on a weekly basis.  You have to really want to give mindfulness a wholehearted try. It’s an inside job, an enormous lesson in self-trust and “letting go.” Signing up 16 distractible college students for 6 weeks (and maybe paying them a small stipend) is a set-up for negative results.  It couldn’t begin to measure the effectiveness of intuitive eating, as I understand it.
       

The results of my own, successful 45-year “study” strongly suggest that our innate capacity to know when, what, and how much we want to eat is actually sufficient, probably for most of us.  Hasty conclusions to the contrary only benefit the quick fix gurus and hucksters of often dangerous remedies that put overeaters even further out of touch.  They perpetuate learned habits of eating that are also promoted and reinforced by institutions we like to think of as reliable.
   

To understand how medical research, the food industry, and the government have contributed to mindless eating on a national scale, may I recommend NinaTeicholz’s “The Big Fat Surprise.” There is a link between this important book and the stubborn resistance to alternatives to conventional dieting like the ones Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (of intuitiveeating.org) and I offer.  And, while we wait for widespread acceptance of the simplest, most natural, most logical way to lose weight and keep it lost, enjoy Karen Wexler’s delightful book, “Having My Cake.”  Our day will come. 

Lynn Donovan McCann

   

Remember the Hypothalamus?

I’m thrilled to see the hypothalamus back in the news.  I've been intrigued for years with this pea-sized area deep in the brain that plays such an important role in our relationship to food.  Indeed, the title of a New York Times article that appeared on Sunday (April 28, 2013), “The Brain:  Our Food Traffic Controller,” echoed a title from the same paper I quoted in the late 1960s:  “Obesity is Traced to Signal Failure” (January 23, 1968).  Back then, long before the days of imaging, it was found that the hypothalamus provided “internal eating cues” to tell us when to eat and when to stop.  The mechanism might get out of whack and “set so high that normal amounts of food no longer satisfy.”  The old source proposed a complimentary theory that, without appropriate signals from within, people might become overly dependent on “external eating cues” instead.  To me, that meant diets, paying too much attention to other people’s idea of what we ought to eat.  And, I’m still convinced the stubborn, long-term and constantly escalating problem of overeating owes a great deal to this. 

An approachable synonym for the hypothalamus was coined in those days:  “appestat.”  I pictured a switch on the wall to regulate heat in the winter and thought the workings of the human brain had to be more elegant than that.  The term is defined now as:  “the neural center in the brain that regulates appetite and is thought to be in the hypothalamus.” My italics emphasize the difficulty in pinning down exactly what goes on in there when we eat.  And that’s what Kathleen A. Page and Robert S. Sherwin, authors of this Sunday’s piece, are working on.

Page and Sherwin call the hypothalamus a “primitive brain region” that evolved to support survival in a time when food was scarce and obtaining it was a lot more labor-intensive than a trip to either McDonald’s or Whole Foods.   As scientists and endocrinologists, they have been focusing on observable responses in the human brain to glucose and to fructose.  For example, they find that glucose – an energy source vital to brain activity – while calorically equal to fructose (no commercial pun intended), does not taste as sweet as its relative, and yet is associated with greater feelings of fullness and satisfaction.  Fructose, on the other hand, gets screened out somehow by the liver; not much of it reaches the brain, so the “appetite and reward areas remain active.”  Thus, the notion that sugar is sugar may be nutritionally accurate, but neurologically, it may be worth another look.

I find this stuff fascinating.  New technology allows even the layperson an appreciation of the elegance and complexity we all know is there.  According to Page and Sherwin, the hypothalamus constantly monitors blood glucose, hormones, and various contributors to metabolism that are intricately involved in energy maintenance, appetite and satisfaction.  The “integrated circuit” they outline includes “brain areas that control taste, reward, memory, emotion and higher-level decision making.” They question how this wealth of new information can be used to help combat the epidemic of obesity, but seem in no rush to judgment.  The work is just starting.

Dr. Norman Jolliffe at Columbia University’s School of Public Health wrote a piece available on the web entitled “How to Reset Your ‘Appestat’ and Reduce Hunger.” I cheer the following quote from his first paragraph: “Infants do not have the natural ability to overeat. Overeating is a learned behavior that needs to be unlearned to reduce hunger.”  Wow!  I couldn't have said it better, and I’m so glad he did.

Then, he loses me – fast.  “Eat less food more often to reduce hunger;”  “Choose lean proteins and healthy fats to keep your appetite at bay;” “Skip simple carbohydrates that cause sharp drops in blood glucose and cravings for more;” “Exercise often, but not for weight loss;” and “Skip the scale.”  There is not a single suggestion here without merit – even though 7 meals a day absolutely does not work for me, and I personally find the Atkins diet onerous.  What I do object to – have always objected to – is the list of guidelines that are nothing but “external cues” as far as I can see.  Jolliffe makes an exquisite case for each item on his programme.  Clearly, it works for him.  But, how can one re-activate one’s own primal, evolutionarily-tested internal cues while following someone else’s?  Sorry to criticize, but I think that’s the wrong way to go.

It’s not going to be so quick and easy to glean solutions to overeating from what we have begun to learn about the brain, I think Page and Sherwin would agree. One statement in particular suggests to me an area in which more study would be useful.  They write:  “When food is restricted, the hypothalamus sends signals that increase your desire to ingest high calorie foods.”   Wow!  I knew that.  My body knows that.  I couldn't have said it better, and I’m so glad they did.

So, how about doing a bunch of studies that follow brain activity under dietary restriction?  Does restriction trigger deprivation signals all by itself, without regard to what is forbidden? Let’s see what the brain does in the context of diet regimens of various kinds.  Let’s take a closer look at the mechanisms of desire. In those gorgeous scanned images of indigo, gold and magenta, could we observe the mechanism in the brain that makes going off a diet a sure thing?

  

I want to know what happens in the hypothalamus when one is made to feel chronically guilty or afraid about food choice.  How do we store in our memory and constantly reinforce the admonition that foods are fattening, unhealthful, or bad?  For example, would the phrase “Sugar is indeed toxic” trigger a stronger or weaker signal in my brain to eat more or less of it?  I only quote Mark Bittman here because he’s one food writer whose opinions I truly value.  Conversely, does a sense of self-righteousness about healthful choices affect satisfaction levels in a positive or perhaps in a negative way?  Do these effects last?  How are satisfaction levels affected by limited or unlimited choice?  Could we study how hypothalamic activity is conditioned, as well as the reversal of it?  Could we examine conflict of interest arising between “internal” and “external” cues?

I don’t think we’ll ever free up the channels to our “Food Traffic Controller” until we answer some questions like these.  They may not be tops on the agenda for endocrinologists, but they are certainly relevant to the issue of obesity, to health and to pleasure in eating – which is of course the object of the exercise. 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/its-the-sugar-folks/     

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-reset-appestat-reduce-hunger-8097866.html  

http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/appestat

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/the-brain-our-food-traffic-controller.html

You Really Got a Hold On Me. I Don’t Want You, But I Need You…

Can this be? Is my passion for dark chocolate cooling? What’s that half-eaten bar of 80% cacao doing on the shelf? Do I really think a date – I mean the fruit – would do as well? I’d prefer a baked apple? What’s happening to me? This feels like a major life change. There’s a ripple of something like grief! “Oh, Lynn,” I scold myself, “you’re so dramatic. Cut it out!” But, no. There’s a little lesson here worth teasing out. The lecture to myself continues. “You assume that you’re forever bonded to dark chocolate and that no day is complete without it. You’re so convinced of this that it’s become automatic to reach for the after dinner treat. You probably don’t even taste it anymore. As in the case of all great loves, my dear, your relationship with chocolate is changing. And as in the case of all lifelong relationships, you may need a little distance, a rest to permit re-flowering.” It does not take very long.

To learn more about The Ant-Diet by Lynn Donovan McCann, please click HERE

Original Anti-Diet: Are you secretive about eating? Do you always clean your plate or never skip meals? What do you forbid yourself?

Try not to judge; just observe.

“I watched other women pick at their dainty portion while I loaded up my fork, and wondered why the standard four ounces never satisfied me.  Standard schmandard!  Stomachs, like other parts of our anatomy, come in different sizes.  I still tend to eat big meals but no longer eat to excess.  Please don’t urge me to eat when I don’t feel like it!  I don’t care if it’s “time” or if it’s “good for me.”  My afternoon snack may become dinner.  I may graze in one major food group for a whole day.  Some people might think my current eating habits are a bit strange.  So what!” 

The Anti-Diet: Let Go, Eat Everything You Want and Look Great

Imagine how good it would feel to let go, eat everything you want, and look great – to have your cake and eat it, too.      

If the idea of abandoning restraint fills you with horror, it suggests that you do not trust yourself in regard to this fundamental human need.  So, you accept restrictions in many forms, almost anybody else’s idea of what’s good for you.   Minimum daily requirements, high protein, high energy, high fiber, low carb, low fat, low calorie, and a balanced diet (which no one can agree on) – you feel you must stick to standards and guidelines set by others without stopping to consider first of all:  do I want it now?  Will it taste good to me?

Original Anti-Diet: Sneak Peek at a Book Excerpt!

Way – way  – back in the late 1960s, I wrote a book called The Anti-Diet: the new “pleasure power” way  to lose weight. The good friend who provided a sounding board for my project called it a manual for living disguised as an innocent little diet book. When The Anti-Diet was published in 1971, it didn’t change the world, but I began to get thank-you letters from  all over the U.S., England and Canada. People said my idea worked for them where other weight loss solutions had failed. 

The Anti-Diet proposed that the wonderful apparatus we all have to nourish ourselves and maintain appropriate weight might work better than any diet. It said:

* A fundamental reason why we overeat is lack of awareness about when we are hungry, when we are satisfied, what we really want to eat, when, and how much. 

* Rules, restrictions and other interventions put us further out of touch with our needs and desires. They tend to make the problem worse. 

* You can lose weight and keep it off through self-awareness rather than self-control. Pleasure is your greatest ally in this process.

The Anti-Diet also introduced an unconventional how-to format for its time: no rules, no measurements, no menus or recipes. No impressive degrees or credentials appeared on the cover. The author, then in her late twenties, offered only the personal experience of a chronic overeater and dieter who learned, literally, to trust her gut.

I am now a slender, vibrant septuagenarian – did I really say that? This fully revised edition of my book draws on nearly half a century of following and developing its principles. It retains much of the original text with its youthful perspective, but speaks to a far wider audience than originally envisioned. I promised no miracles then and promise none now; however, I’m living proof that The Anti-Diet works. I’m not the most willing, consistent, determined, or sane person in the world.  But, I have what it takes. We all do.  We are born with fantastic equipment to deal with the elemental need for food. This complex biological, neurological and psychological system is sturdy, adaptable, and has withstood the test of survival since we rose up on two feet. The hardware is built in and the software innate. I discovered, with a little experimentation and thinking outside the box, that the whole thing runs elegantly, given half a chance.  

Click HERE for more information about The Anti-Diet by Lynn Donovan McCann

When You Feel Guilty, You Don't Process The Food

I print out the Anti-Diet for final proofreading. As I’m swiping my credit card at Staples,
a pretty woman eyes the manuscript on the counter. She couldn't be a day over 25. I
wonder what she’s thinking.

“How interesting . . .” she points to the title.

Here’s an opening I’d be crazy to ignore. I’m supposed to be networking!

“Have a look.”

My tone is casual and I linger at the register. By the time the receipt has been tucked
away, she’s on page 5.

“This is true!” Her voice expresses personal conviction. “When you feel guilty, you don’t
process the food.”

It took me years to figure that out and she already knows it. I feel a surge of hope that
young people today are really going to get what I have to say.

I add a name to my mailing list, and expect to see her. at a book signing event in my
neighborhood.

Anti-Diet Author Lynn Donovan McCann

Born before the boomer generation, Lynn Donovan survived mid-1950s adolescence, graduated from Bennington College with a major in Dance, and settled in New York City, for good.  Her early career included work for stage, TV and film.  In the late 1960s, she took a day job, and her star rose as a copywriter at the ad agency that helped launch Ms. Magazine.  Shortly after publication of the original Anti-Diet (1971), Lynn earned an M.S.W. degree and for several years maintained a private practice as a counselor/editor for writers whose projects were stalled en route to deadline.  She won several editorial awards for her contributions to a medical publication.  To support an abiding passion for theatre, she trained as a COBOL programmer and consulted for 25 years in the banking and brokerage industry. This enabled Lynn to devote considerable time and energy to an off-off-Broadway theatre repertory company.  Recently, she’s appeared in Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Ensler.  An accomplished singer, Lynn continues to perform at a weekly workshop among her peers.  In addition to this fully revised edition of The Anti-Diet, other books-in-progress reflect this author’s diverse creative, professional, and personal journey.  Married at age 56, still a freelance editor, and currently teaching writing at a small, urban college, Lynn McCann considers herself a late bloomer. There will be no unused portion to return to the manufacturer.