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Jane Brody's Personal Weight Loss Secrets

lemurcat12
lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
Seems like it could start a debate, although it seems reasonably sensible to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/well/jane-brodys-personal-secrets-to-lasting-weight-loss.html?emc=edit_nn_20180307&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=7420786420180307&te=1

Highlights:

"When The New York Times hired me to write about science and health 52 years ago, I was 40 pounds overweight. I’d spent the previous three years watching my weight rise as I hopped from one diet to the next in a futile attempt to shed the pounds most recently gained.

No amount of exercise, and I did plenty of it, could compensate for how much I ate when I abandoned the latest weight loss scheme. I had become a living example of the adage: A diet is something one goes on to go off.

Even daylong fasting failed me. When I finally ate supper, I couldn’t stop eating until I fell asleep, and sometimes awoke the next morning with partly chewed food in my mouth. I had dieted myself into a binge-eating disorder, and that really scared me. Clearly, something had to change.

I finally regained control when I stopped dieting. I decided that if I was going to be fat, at least I could be healthy. I made a plan to eat three nutritious, satisfying meals every day with one small snack, which helped me overcome the temptation to binge in response to deprivation.

Much to my surprise, a month later I had lost 10 pounds — eating! Eating good food, that is, and plenty of it. I continued the regimen without difficulty because it was not a diet. It was a way to live and a healthy one at that. And I continued to lose, about two pounds a month."

So seems like she's saying it's the food, not the calories? No, not at all. (cont.)

Replies

  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    Absolutely agree, I do not like that word 'diet', it sets most people up to fail as they see it as temporary or something that has an end date. The difference happens when we make lasting changes. That's how it went down for me and 5 years later here I am maintaining my weight easily.
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
    All common sense stuff.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,285 Member
    Pretty similar to what I'm doing, except that I do count calories.
  • rhaffey
    rhaffey Posts: 1 Member
    This discussion made me go search my library because out of all the diet and nutrition books I have purchased hers is the only one I have kept “ Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book” 1988 edition. I looked up the first sentence I highlighted “Americans eat too much fat, too much sugar, too much calories, and even too much protein.” Even though we have made many scientific advances in the nutrition industry since then that phrase still rings true. The question I have to ask myself is this...has modern society developed better or worse nutritional habits considerering the increase of fast foods, processed foods, and a sedentary lifestyle?