DIETING UNDER DURESSE
At the onset of the Corvid 19 self-quarantine for New Yorkers, a close friend, Eleanor Sigona, sent around a video which I found disquieting. It showed a handsome, hunk of a young Latino, bare chested, with tight jeans (ripped knees, of course) suggestively gyrating to a sexy salsa tune. I was shocked that Eleanor would send me pornography and wondered if I shut should down the video. Then, abruptly the camera switched to a heavy-set fellow wearing a porkpie hat with a beer belly hanging out over his jeans swiveling his hips to the same seductive beat. The message was clear: Don’t let this happen to you!
STAYING IN SHAPE WHILE INCARCERATED
Now that New York is at the epicenter of the pandemic and we are all cooped up in our apartments with limited periods of time allowed outdoors to exercise, the thought of gaining weight is of serious concern. Even more so as Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have just agreed on an extended stay in place through April. With that in mind, I thought a little distraction was in order. Why not a post on dieting?
Let’s face it. Americans are obsessed with the topic. Ever since I can remember, dieting has been part of my conscious and subconscious life. It’s like having a friend you don’t enjoy spending too much time with but periodically need to call upon for his or her expertise. I was a chubby child, so it fell to my thin mother to find ways to help me lose those extra pounds of baby fat. I was a human yoyo. As soon as I’d lose five pounds, I’d sneak into the pantry and eat a whole box of Fig Newtons as a reward. Afterall, what was the point of eating just two cookies when you could consume the entire container of evidence?
BECOMING A WEIGHT WATCHER ACOLYTE
By the time I was a young married woman, I decided to get serious about my plumpness and joined Weight Watchers. I diligently attended the sessions and enjoyed the leaders’ motivational pep talks. Not only did they address changing our eating habits, but they also gave us methods to built self-esteem. It worked for me as I gradually went from a size 14 to 10 over six months. Thanks to Weight Watcher’s maintenance program I kept those unwanted pounds off for quite some time. However, over the next ten years I slowly inched back to my Plus Size. Back I went to Weight Watchers, diligently followed their regime and eventually rediscovered a healthy weight for my frame.
While other diets have come and gone, Weight Watchers has always been for me the Granddaddy of weight lose programs. I asked my friend, Deborah Mintcheff—who worked for Weight Watchers for fifteen years and wrote over fifteen cookbooks for them—what the secret of their success and staying power was.
WW’S UNIQUE SUCCESS
“Who hasn’t heard of Weight Watchers? It’s been around since Jean Nidetch, a Queens housewife, founded it in 1961 after facing her own weight-loss struggles. She singlehandedly turned the frustration of dieting into a program where members zealously went to meetings where they were weighed in and inspired by the meetings’ leaders, where they dutifully weighed and measured all their food, bought the Weight Watchers cookbooks, and saw themselves shedding unwanted pounds and keeping it off. Decades later, Weight Watchers, now called WW, has continued to grow and evolve with the times to maintain its status as a great program for losing weight and keeping it off. Oprah will attest to that!
“The reason the Weight Watchers program has always worked is that it was never marketed as a diet. It was, instead, marketed as a way to maintain a healthy lifestyle while losing weight. It focused on eating delicious, good-for-you dishes at home, as well as giving you the option when eating out. The program consists of a Points system, where depending on your profile, you are given a specific number of Points to consume each day with each food being assigned a Points value of 0 on up. The more healthful choices you make, the more food you can enjoy. With WW, no food is off the table, something that is very appealing to members. It’s more a matter of making good choices while watching your portions. The program encourages choosing lean meats, poultry, and seafood, while enjoying plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains.”
THE FASHIONABILTY OF DIETS
Over the years, we’ve all seen diets gain and then lose popularity. It is only human to want a quick and, of course, a lasting fix for losing weight. Most diets, however, are like the latest fashion craze which rarely has lasting power. From the Atkins Diet to the Drinking Man’s Diet to the Grapefruit Diet to the Nothing White Diet to eating like a caveman with the Paleo Diet, they all have their day in the sun. Then, they are replaced with something even more appealing which promises quicker and longer lasting results. Ah, the lure of instant gratification.
A DREAM DIET
My all-time favorite was the Champagne Diet. Do you remember it? Back in late 80s when the book first came out, I organized a press lunch for its author, Dr. DeBetz. I was working for a wine importer who at the time represented Moët & Chandon Champagne. As you might suspect, this diet was mana from heaven for our public relations team. Dr. DeBetz was both a psychiatrist and a bariatrician, or a specialist in matters of weight control. Of course, counting calories was at the core of her diet but she added a critical element of human psychology.
Dr. DeBetz developed two techniques to help her followers change their eating habits. One was called the “Touch Control 20-Second Stopper” whereby you would delicately touch your face (a real “no-no” now!) and repeat to yourself three “Stoplines”:
1) For my body, overeating is an insult and a poison.
2) I need my body to live.
3) I owe my body this respect and attention.
The other part of the equation was the “Touch-Control Support Boost,” sounding a bit like a NASA countdown to blastoff. This involved visualizing your overweight body and asking yourself:
1) How hungry am I right now?
2) How much have I eaten so far today?
3) What am I going to eat for the rest of the day?
The rest of the book offered healthy recipes with a guideline to limit yourself to 1,200 calories a day. But here comes the reason why I gave daily thanks to the gods as a publicist for the world’s No. 1 Champagne brand. Dr. deBetz allowed a daily 3-oz glass of Brut Champagne at lunch or dinner. Mind you, the normal size Champagne flute holds 5 to 6 ounces, so we are talking about a very modest serving. But the idea is the opposite of most diets which are based on deprivation. It certainly made for happier dieting, too, which ultimately improved your chances for sustaining the program. Plus, you were drinking my “Mo.” What could be better assuming, of course, that readers were loyal to our Moët & Chandon?
TREATING YOURSELF WELL WHILE DIETING
Fast forward and twenty-five years later a 31-year-old, MTV executive, Cara Alwill Leyba, created her own version of the Champagne Diet. It must be stated that the author was very clear her concept was not a diet but rather a lifestyle choice of eating. Her premise was based on selecting what she called “classy” foods and treating yourself well. (For example, smoked salmon on a bagel half instead of burgers and fries.) This included enjoying one or two glasses of Champagne at day. Leyba’s method claimed that you are less likely to cheat and binge eat things which are bad for you if you were kind to yourself. But there were still certain restrictions. Back to basics: The daily calorie count was the same 1,200-1,400 calories as most other diets.
As Leyba’s Champagne regime was gaining in popularity, doctors around the world weighed in on the health benefits of her concept. Elisabeth Weichselbaum, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, confirmed that consuming a glass or two of Champagne daily fell within the drinking guidelines put forward by UK’s Department of Health. She did warn, however, this would be at the upper limit as “Women should drink no more than three units of alcohol or two small glasses of Champagne in one day and no more than 14 units in a week.” (In the UK they use a system of “units” which measure the volume of pure ethanol in an alcoholic beverage.) Using this system, 14 units is equivalent to nine flutes of Champagne a week. In our country, however, weekly consumption for women tops out at seven glasses. Even with two glasses less a week, this concept of adding Champagne to the weight loss process definitely increases your chase of adhering to a diet.
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF DRINKING CHAMPAGNE
Much to the delight of Champagne producers, there have been multiple studies linking the consumption of a regular flute of bubbly to everything from lowering rates of heart disease and bad cholesterol, to decreasing your risk of Alzheimer’s to preventing strokes. Sign me up and pour me a glass of bubbles!
The idea of abandoning guilt and deprivation in dieting was at the heart of Mireille Guiliano’s book, French Women Don't Get Fat, first published in 2004. I read the book when it first came out as part of my love affair with all things French. Additionally, as the author and I had worked together years earlier, I was curious to learn what Mireille had to say.
VERIFYING WHY FRENCH WOMEN KEEP THIN
As typical of my very unscientific fact checking method for writing my posts, I reached out to someone else who might know something about the topic. I asked my longtime friend, Christine Lumb—who was raised in a French family in Mauritius—to corroborate Mireille’s findings. Without referring to Mireille’s book, I asked Christine why French women are rarely fat. Here are the tips she proffered, all of which had appeared earlier in Mireille’s best-selling book.
Here are some of Christine’s tips for remaining thin:
1. Small portions are essential.
2. Never take seconds. If you wait a bit, the desire will pass.
3. Eating slowly helps.
4. Do not eat in between meals.
Christine—one of the kindest, most self-effacing people I know—was quick to disclose that doing as the French do, is not always that easy. “Now if I followed all of this, I would be a reed of a model. I am always sorry for people who are seriously overweight. It can be demoralizing I know, and not fitting in your jeans puts you in the worst of mood.”
PUTTING SKIN IN THE GAME TO SUCCEED IN DIETING
Not fitting into his jeans is exactly what provoked my financial advisor, George, to try out Noom, one of the current “diets du jour.” While I recognized the name as Noom advertises on PBS, its method was a mystery. George eagerly expounded on the diet’s concept. “I have been working with Noom on my health journey for several months. On a daily basis, they have me tracking my caloric input and reading 3-5 snippets on personality traits/behavioral tendencies and personal goals. I have found their system to be quite helpful and over a 10-week period I have lost 14 pounds. It has not been easy, but Noom allows you to not be perfect. I believe that this is a great plan for someone who likes accountability and truly wants to find out why they make bad choices on their lifelong health journey.”
The truth of the matter is that Noom—an app which offers personalized coaching and meal tracking—is not cheap. As George jokingly admitted, “When I have skin in the game, it matters more.” He also likes that the program focuses on making tangible, sustainable lifestyle shifts to help lose weight for the long run, not merely for a quick fix.
INTERMITTEN FASTING, A NEW WAY OF WEIGHT CONTROL
Last year I ran into a friend at a conference in Nashville and couldn’t believe how much weight she had lost. (She asked that I withhold her name so for this post, I am calling her Laura.) Laura explained she and her husband were following an intermittent fasting (or IF) in 16/8 intervals. When she saw the confused look on my face, Laura explained that “We eat pretty much what we want during an 8-hour period, but nothing during the remaining 16 hours. IF allows you to set the eating window at any time you like.” Laura’s window tends to be from 1 pm to 9 pm which suit her lifestyle as she gets up late.
A recent NYT article further elaborate on IF: “There are four popular fasting approaches: periodic fasting, time-restricted feeding, alternate-day fasting and the 5:2 diet. ‘The 5:2 Diet’ requires fasting on two nonconsecutive days a week.” Confused? I was.
Laura volunteered she was following IF not only because it guaranteed weight loss but also because of its multiple health benefits. She added, “As you know, my parents struggle with cognitive health and intermittent fasting decreases inflammation and increases white blood cells which potentially influences cognitive health. Also, your cholesterols improves significantly with this regime.”
IF is not for everyone as it is less easy to follow than a tradition calorie restrictive system. To learn more about IF’s pros and cons, including its potential medical benefits, read the full article at https://nyti.ms/2xHiArp .
DROP POUNDS, BURN FAT & BOOST ENERGY
Like IF, the ketogenic weight loss diet (or “keto diet,” for short) with its low-carb, high-fat system also offers many health benefits. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. A “typical” keto diet consists of at least 70 percent of calories derived from fat, less than 10 percent from carbs and less than 20 percent from protein. The goal of the keto diet is for your body to enter a state of ketosis through fat metabolism. In a ketogenic state, with low levels of carbohydrate, fats can be converted into ketones to fuel the body. If you are older, you might recognize this as a remake of the Atkin’s diet.
While selecting a diet to fit your needs remains a personal choice, now during the Corvit 19 lockdown, or later when this is over, you need to be aware of the risks as well as the promises. Bear in mind, too, that before starting a diet, it is recommended to first speak to your doctor. But, for a quick assessment of potential choices, here is an excellent article from US News which ranks diets: https://bit.ly/2UZkoDV.
EAT LIKE YOUR ANCESTORS TO STAY THIN AND HEALTHY
Not to be a spoiler, but they rank the Mediterranean Diet as #1. This involves a diet low in red meat, sugar and saturated fat and high in fresh produce, fish, olive oil and other healthful foods. It certainly could be is the basis for a book called Why the Greeks don’t get fat!
Jodi Daley, a top New York videographer takes the dieting issue with a grain of salt and a little levity. I ask her how she was surviving during the stay-at-home mandate. After a glass of wine her playful reply was, “I’ve eliminated all sugar. I get up later, drink more coffee, maybe have a banana for breakfast and then one meal a day. Of course, at 5:00 PM, cocktails start. I have eliminated any processed food but booze it still fine. My goal is to weigh less than before I did when this Coronavirus crisis began.”
MARSHA’S GAME PLAN
That’s the ideal goal. For me, a hybrid version of healthy eating plus plenty of exercise makes the most sense. I plan to steal from the various diets discussed in this post incorporating bits and pieces which seem workable given our current restrictions. Moving forward for the next four weeks (or longer?) here is what I plan to do:
1. Reduce the amount of what I eat.
2. Restrict my eating between the hours of 7:30 AM and 7:30 PM, plus no snacking in between.
3. Concentrate on healthy foods (fruits, vegetables and whole grains and limited red meat).
4. Allow myself a small quantity of “classy food” daily such as caviar, smoked salmon, foie gras or duck Rillette. (Incidentally, D’Artagnan has great on-line sales at www.dartagnan.com)
5. Start my happy hour at 5 PM ideally with a glass of Champagne.
We’ll compare notes when this is over, but in the meantime, for your dieting enjoyment, here is the video which started this whole discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol7wZCS7RdM&feature=youtu.be