Yesterday a co-worker told me about her husband who just found out he had high cholesterol as well as high blood pressure. She said he had gained about 20 pounds over the past 2 years and she wondered if that was the reason he was now having health issues. The stigma against body size verses health is one that can be very confusing. When we talk about a “health at every size” approach to weight, people often react and think we are crazy. Of course weight affects health, they say. To help clarify this confusion, I wanted to share this great post from Dare Not To Diet (dietitian GlenysO). As for my friend’s husband, he was told to start to exercise and to eat more fruits and vegetables. It sounded like his lifestyle was not too healthy, and the bottom line is even if his weight had not changed at all, he probably would have had his health issues due to the way he was living his life. If you are working toward being the healthiest you can be, but confused about the weight issue, be sure to check out this post! See link below:
What exactly does Health at Every Size® mean for my weight?
Source: Am I Healthy at Any Weight?
The other day another co-worker emailed me a link to her new eating plan. She wanted my opinion. This is where it gets hard for me, because I just want to say “please don’t waste your time or money” but that is not what I said. As a dietitian who has researched dieting, and wrote my Master’s Thesis on restrained eating back in 1996 I clearly remember how blown away I was by the proof I found about the failure of dieting, feeling outraged that this never made headlines. Well, now, when people talk about dieting, I keep my mouth shut……at first. I have learned that people will tune you out if you hit them all at once with the truth. I have learned that most dieters are very hopeful and truly think they can do it “this time”. Instead, I share my experience with my patients. So I may say “can I tell you what I have seen happen?” If they say “yes” that opens the door. I warn of “all-or-nothing” thinking, how going “on” something means you eventually will go “off”. And on and on and on.
Did you ever experience something that affects you so much that you remember if forever? I remember Nancy (not her real name), a sweet middle aged mother who had come to me for help with binge eating (and she wanted to lose weight). If you saw her, you would never know she had any eating or weight concerns. She certainly did not look like she needed to lose weight. She had always been a yo-yo dieter, gaining and losing some weight over the years, but bigger troubles emerged after starting Weight Watchers. She would basically restrict herself before her “weigh ins” when she went to her meetings, which meant eating even less than the diet called for. All she thought about was the reaction she got after stepping on that scale. She just had to get through that minute. If the number did not go down, she felt like a failure (the fact that they let her into a weight loss program with her weight scared me, but maybe it is different now?). Anyway, Nancy would leave her meeting with relief, proceed to the grocery store or fast food place and binge eat. All day. Because she did not have to be weighed for another week. And then she would purge, feel terrible, depressed and like a failure. But she would be back on track again a day or two later, just to repeat the process. She was stuck in the Weight Watcher’s trap, hold, spell, whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, Nancy was not the only WW casualty I encountered in my private practice. There were many more. Not all of them developed the eating disorder bulimia, but they all never learned how to eat healthily and happily. Some would lose weight, but then have no idea how to transition to a “real life” without “points”. It was the counting of the points that drove my patients to a place that was not good. After losing weight (by eating less, points, calories, counting carbs, it is all the same) there was no where to turn. What next? The patients I saw did not know and so either gained weight or transitioned into an eating disorder. Not all people who diet or follow Weight Watchers or count points develop eating disorders. I have known many friends and acquaintances who absolutely love the program. “It works!” they say. Every year, even after they have regained the weight again. Some people even maintain their weight loss for longer. But inevitably (in my experience, with the people I know), the weight is regained, there is a period of living “Outside of diet jail”-how I refer to it. Diet Jail is when someone is following a diet. When they can’t do it anymore, they break out, eat what they want, forget about it for awhile. They eventually remember the “success” (????) with Weight Watchers. They DID lose weight and they felt great. So they start again. I think people believe each time they restart the diet that it will be different. What I have seen (and I can only speak for myself, my experience with patients and others in my life) is that if fails them. They do not learn about themselves in any meaningful way.
I like to share the most recent news regarding anything to do with weight loss or dieting. Every month I receive the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) which used to be the American Dietetic Association (ADA). It was hard for me to get used to the new name as I am an older dietitian and for a few decades it has been ADA to me. Anyway, the journal always comes because I pay my fees and it has lots of articles, mostly research (not always interesting to me, I have to admit). But I just love when they publish a new Position Paper because many dietitians have reviewed years of research (not the most fun thing to do) and then let us know how we should do our job. As a Registered Dietitian, I don’t have time to do that ( FYI a Registered Dietitian is an RD or RDN, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, a newer designation I think recently added because people like the word “nutritionist” better than dietitian, and anyone, yes anyone, can call themselves a nutritionist, but only those of us who have gone through 4 years of college as well as a clinical training or internship and then passing a national exam can then call ourselves a “dietitian”). So when you are seeking advice about nutrition you really need to talk to an RD or RDN.
The month of December is typically a time of joyful craziness. Young parents are scrambling to get everything on a child’s Christmas list, co-workers are organizing cookie swaps, friends are wanting to get together to make a holiday toast, toy drives and food drives are happening, the malls are insane, and on and on.
Joanne Arena MS, RD 