By: Jean Johnson for Reflux1
Part Two
On our grandmothers’ and mothers’ watches overeating often escaped the same classification as the vices of smoking or drugging or drinking too much. Even now, lingering at the table over a second dessert or grabbing one too many candy bars is often dismissed as an innocent pleasure unlike evils of tobacco, alcohol and drugs. Still when Eric Clapton belts out the bluesy lyrics “before you accuse me, take a look at yourself,” might be an idea whose time has come.
Mounting statistics, however, show a less innocuous pattern. Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Approximately 127 million people in the U.S. are overweight, with 60 million obese and 9 million severely obese.
According to the American Obesity Association, overweight and obesity gets progressively worse with age and increases the risk of illnesses from 30 medical conditions. Overweight and obese individuals often develop adult-onset or Type 2 diabetes and are at higher risk than normal populations for impaired mobility. Similarly, people with weight problems experience social stigmas and are discriminated against in employment and academic situations. Morbidly obese people have life spans that are 20 years shorter than average.
That said there’s no time like the present to address the question of food factors – hopefully in a different way than folks have historically. According to Frances M. Berg, author of the book, “Underage and Overweight,” that means “stopping all diets, meal skipping, chaotic eating and restoring normal eating as a priority.” The question is, though, when our eating habits have gotten squirrelly how do we begin to bring them back into line?
“My problem was that I was so far gone that the idea of eating like a normal person seemed impossible,” said Susan Lowell. “Even though I struggled for 40 years with yo-yo dieting, nothing really worked until I did two things.”
Lowell’s recipe for success was in part the same as Berg’s. She quit dieting and playing the numbers game on the scale. Instead she worked out a weighed and measured food plan of three meals and one snack a day. She also found the strength to, as she put it, “divorce my beloved sugar. All those creamy, buttery sweet nothings that used to enslave me.”
Without sugar cranking on her blood sugar levels, Lowell found that over time she learned to read the signs of true hunger in her body. She also discovered that it didn’t take huge portions to fill her up and keep her satisfied until the next meal rolled around. Now, instead of packing around the 70 extra pounds she used to carry with every step, she weighs in on the low side of the normal range for her height. “To get to where I am, I was very careful to focus on my eating and skip the weighing part. Besides you don’t need the numbers to feel your clothing growing first loose and then simply so big you have to put it in the charity bin.”
While there are many food plans around, one easy approach is to think in terms of threes – three servings of protein, three starches, three milks, three fruits, three fats (with one being one serving). Beyond that go for four to eight servings of vegetables, and don’t spare the fresh herbs, garlic and ginger when you’re slicing and dicing. Finally, steer clear of processed food. Even though steaming up a pot of brown rice or baking a nice potato might take longer than microwaving packaged fare dosed with fat, enough salt for a horse, and sugar, you can use the wait time to play with the dog.
Continued in Part Three
