I don't need a calendar to know that a new year has begun. I can tell by the deluge of new diet books that arrive in the office mail — more than two dozen since mid-December. On a whim, I weighed them all: over 25 pounds of mostly bad advice, about as much as many readers hope to lose before they have to shed the concealing garb of winter.
Choices include a low-carb plan that promises a loss of "up to 15 pounds in two weeks" in "The New Atkins Made Easy," or the Paleo diet in "Cavewomen Don't Get Fat." One Dr. Mike Moreno recommends occasional fasting "to power boost your weight loss" in "The 17 Day Diet Breakthrough Edition."
Perhaps you're more interested in unearthing the secrets of the world's leanest people in "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle," or learning to identify and curb emotional eating as described in "Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much" and "Overcoming Binge Eating for Dummies." How about activating "your body's ability to burn fat and lose weight fast" via "The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet"?
It goes on and on.
I know about the new year, too, from comments in the Y locker room: The holiday splurges are over, and the day of reckoning has arrived. Overheard on Jan. 1: "I'm going to work out every day. I've got to get rid of these pounds."
But neither the plethora of diet books nor annual resolutions are good predictors of permanent weight loss. First, if any of the scores of diet plans published in recent years had resulted in lasting weight loss for the growing legions of hopefuls, there would have been no need for yet another batch, including the ones that inevitably will arrive next December.
Second, as one middle-aged Y member, who has maintained a 20-pound weight loss for several years, responded to the locker room workout pledge: "Exercise by itself won't do it. To lose weight, you have to eat less."
She learned that, she said, at Weight Watchers after nearly wearing out her body by trying to lose weight through exercise alone. Not only does she now eat less, she also eats differently, having replaced many foods and snacks high in sugar and refined starches with more nutritious fare.
Another Weight Watchers success, a friend in his late 70s who shed 25 pounds, eats the same foods he always did but now eats less of them. He learned to recognize satiety — a feeling that he's had enough — and to rely on that instead of a feeling of being stuffed to signal the end of his meals.
Clearly, there is no one pathway to permanent weight loss that works for everyone. The latest guidelines for physicians, who are repeatedly exhorted to help overweight and obese patients lose pounds and keep them off, emphasize that a reduced-calorie diet should be based on individual dietary preferences and combined with "comprehensive lifestyle interventions" that would best include participation in a professionally led program for six months or longer.
Radical, abrupt dietary changes rarely stick. People soon tire of the restrictions and revert to their old dietary habits. Habits are not acquired overnight, and you should not expect to inculcate new ones overnight, either.
John P. Foreyt, director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, advises would-be dieters to first become aware of their bad eating and exercise habits, and then to figure out ways to slowly change them into healthier new ones.
Small changes can end up making a big difference. One is to avoid skipping meals. Eat a nutritious breakfast every day and a wholesome snack or meal every few hours. I snack on nuts midmorning and have a digestive biscuit (70 calories) with café con leche midafternoon. The idea is to avoid becoming ravenous and losing control over your intake at the next meal.
Eat slowly — it takes 20 minutes for your brain to register satiety — and on smaller plates filled with one-fifth to one-third less food than usual. Fill most of the plate with foods like vegetables and salads that are rich in nutrients rather than calories.
Choose nutrient-dense carbohydrates like beans and whole grains over refined ones. If, however, you think a meal is not a meal without potatoes, rice, bread or (heaven forfend) dessert, by all means include them — but in controlled amounts.
Drink water or a calorie-free beverage with your meals. If you drink alcohol, limit yourself to one drink a day.
I crave something sweet after a meal, and fruit doesn't always cut it. My dessert favorites include a graham cracker (65 calories in two squares) and two dark chocolate Bahlsen Afrika biscuits (45 calories).
If, like me, you have an oral fixation, try chewing sugar-free gum. Or eat a fruit like an apricot or prunes with pits, then suck on the pits for the next hour or so.
Make physical exercise a daily activity. Decide each day what to do rather than whether to do it. The 4,200 members of the National Weight Control Registry (members have lost an average of 67 pounds and kept them off for six years) typically exercise for 60 to 90 minutes a day, often broken up into several smaller sessions; walking is their most popular activity.
Registry leaders report that those who have successfully maintained their weight loss typically eat a diet low in fat (25 percent of daily calories) and high in carbohydrates, with 56 percent of their calories from carbs like whole grains, beans and vegetables.
Perhaps most telling is that registry members weigh themselves regularly. Many (like me) get on a scale every day. A weekly weigh-in, as recommended by Weight Watchers, is probably best while losing weight. But to maintain weight, a daily check can provide an early warning to cut back a little when you gain a pound or two. Five extra pounds that make pants too tight are a lot harder to shed.
Registry members readily admit that, contrary to the claims of many diet books, effective weight loss and maintenance are not easy. Most, like me, became successful when they gave up "dieting" and adopted a sensible eating and exercise plan they could stay on comfortably for the rest of their lives.
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