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The Skinny on Dieting |
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5 ways to start losing weight–and keep it off
DR. SAN DIEGO
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? It’s an old joke and the answer will teach you a great deal about dieting.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one ... if the light bulb is ready to be changed!
So it is with dieting. Do you have any idea how many diet centers, diet doctors, diet nutritionists, diet programs and dieters there are in our city? Pick up the phone book and take a look. OMG. So with the hundreds and hundreds of dieting opportunities in our town, I was shocked to find a little-known statistic hanging around the Internet.
According to Men’s Fitness magazine’s 2009 “Fittest and Fattest Cities,” San Diego is not among the top 25 fittest. Sadly and surprisingly, we are among the 25 fattest cities in America.
They rate our sports participation as a D+, our fitness centers and sports stores as a C and our city recreation facilities as an F.
San Diego? F in our recreation facilities? Is this possible? I checked it out with the publishers and they assured me it’s true when compared with other cities.
But the worst part of all in this survey that showed Salt Lake City to be the fittest and Miami to be the fattest, is what they rated our “motivation.” Folks, can it be? They gave us an F in motivation. Even Kansas City, which is the only city below us, got a B- in motivation. They also rated our commute as an F.
So how can a city that is an outdoor mecca, that has the best beaches, the finest golf courses, ocean-hugging jogging paths and so many weight-reduction programs and specialists be among the fattest cities in America?
It all comes down to why diet programs fail. Lack of motivation. Perhaps that’s one reason behind California’s effort to step up its campaign against bad diets, bulging waistlines and clogged arteries with three new laws dealing with restaurant and school food.
California will become the first state in the nation to require restaurants to disclose how many calories are in their standard menu items. Schools will be barred from serving fries, baked goods and other dishes made with oils, margarine or shortening containing trans fats and, on top of it all, high schools are not able to sell sodas to students any longer.
When I was the chief psychologist of the San Diego Police Department many years ago, we discussed an initiative of taking candy and soda machines out of the building and replacing them with fruit and healthy drink machines. Everyone thought the idea was too fruity.
I guess they believe that we need to be protected from ourselves. When we buy the ads that promise effective ways to take the weight off and keep it off, we are delusional. When we succumb to promises of structured, personalized and easy-to-follow weight-loss programs, we are delusional. And when we go under the knife with the promise of losing huge amounts of weight, we are also delusional.
Know why? Because without our own motivation, not one of the many, many wonderful weight loss programs out there can or will work. The truths about weight loss, diet pills and diet programs are unknown to most of us, because we do NOT want to face such truths. There is no diet program in San Diego or anywhere that will result in permanent weight loss unless you are willing to keep yourself highly motivated.
The New York Times recently discussed research that found that “Losing weight is so hard you cannot even pay people to do it.” The researchers reported that perhaps the amount wasn’t enough. And one Yale psychologist, Kelly D. Brownell, also in the Times, said simply that what matters most when trying to lose weight is motivation — not the pill, the center, the program, the food, or the pay — only motivation.
So stop throwing away a lot of money to lose weight. The New England Journal of Medicine in February compared four diets and found they all produced similar results. After two years dieters all lost an average of nine pounds, but those who attended more counseling sessions lost a bit more — motivation?
The lifelong process of keeping weight off may need a kick-start of motivation that a program, pill or other diet plan can offer. But without personal motivation, permanent weight loss is not possible no matter what the ads promise. There is no easy way.
Here’s the skinny: The more committed you are, the less you will need to spend on dieting and the more successful you will be, no matter what the ads promise. Who doesn’t want to save money these days?
Here are five methods to help you with ratcheting up levels of structure to help you jump-start your midsummer weight loss, according to the Yale study:
1. Reduce calories and increase exercise — it’s up to you.
2. Buy a diet book. The South Beach Diet or The Best Life Diet are two good ones, although I also like The End of Overeating, which is getting a lot of attention.
3. Join a group — Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig to name the most successful.
4. Try a hospital program. Every major medical center in San Diego boasts of their weight-loss programs.
5. Keep it off? The National Weight Control Registry says you need 30 to 60 minutes a day of exercise, and the help of friends and family.
Setting realistic goals, going slowly, expecting setbacks, avoiding perfectionism, using a buddy to help, being patient, rewarding yourself and having a long term exercise maintenance plan all will help. If…
Like the light bulb, any of this works only if you are ready to change. And if you think a balanced diet means a cookie in each hand, it’ll take a whole lot of psychologists to change that light bulb.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Mantell has successfully been bringing upbeat, friendly and helpful psychological insights to individuals, families and businesses in San Diego as a clinical and corporate psychologist in private practice. He's been a regular on Good Morning America, KFMB-TV News 8, has appeared on Oprah, Larry King Live, the Today show, authored two best-selling books and speaks regularly for audiences throughout the country.
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Reader Comments:
Dr. Michael,
I've read everything there is to read on dieting, been on the dieting yo-yo (as my husband calls it), have lost and gained more weight than most people weight, and have dreamed of having enough spare cash to do the gastric by-pass surgery someday.
No doubt, in your blog this week you wrote the most sensible, straightforward, and as always wise, information about dieting yet.
You have a way of putting it out there whatever the topic is, that just always makes so much sense to me.
For the price of logging on, I have my own shrink!
I'm going to dig into my motivation instead of my wallet for my next diet go-a-round. I believe in what you say here, and I'm onto looking inside of myself instead finding yet another costly program full of "take it off and keep it off" promises--that just don't work.
Thanks for changing my light bulb sir.