Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 13, Number 8, 1 August 1996 — ʻAi pono, e ola [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ʻAi pono, e ola

Eat right and live well

Diets don't work (and what does work)

by Dr. Terry Shintani Recendy, in the New England Joumal of Medicine, an article reviewing the long-term results of a number of weight loss programs indicated that after three years of follow-up, the rate of weight regain was rather dismal. They found that after three years, over 95 percent of people on weight reduction diets regained their weight. Other studies indicate that after 5 years, 99 percent regain their weight. These findings support statements made by obesity experts in 1993, at the Intemational Congress on Obesity in Ghent Belgium,

indicating that diets generally don't work. They even went on to say that dieting may even be a cause of obesity because of the "yo-yo" effect. Despite this information. dieting is a $40 bilhon business whieh is a 33 percent increase from $30 hillion just four years ago. Meanwhile our nahon continues to suffer a staggering toll in obesity and obesity-related disease. What's wrong with dieting? I beheve the problem is that for many years, scientists have looked at dieting so mechanicahy, that the inihal approach has been to get people to eat less. The typical diet is one in whieh calories are restricted and portion sizes are smaller. When we eat fewer calories in this way. the problem is that we're ignoring one of the most important facets about dieting and that is a hunger drive. If we eat less food than we are supposed to eat then we remain hungry and our instinct is to eat that additional amount of food to ffll our stomachs. The result is we end up eating less food but more calories. In other words, the problem is not that we are eating too mueh food. The problem, instead is in that we are eating refined and high fat food that actually winds up being too little food to naturally satisfy our hunger. The underlying cause of obesity is the kind of food that we have been eating in America has been so refined down over the recent years that its less and less food even though its the same amount of calories or more. Then we have a paradoxical situation where we're eating less and less food. What I want people to do is change the type of food that they're eating so that they eat more food, but still weigh less. How has our food changed over the years? What's different? There are three things that are remarkably different about our food supply today compared to what human beings have eaten for thousands of years. First, we're eating mueh mueh more animal products than we did in ancient times. Second, partly as a result of the high animal food intake, we're eating so mueh

more in the way of fat. In the old days, if you compared traditional diets, they ran from around 10 percent fat. Today we're eating somewhere around 36 - 42 percent fat. It's almost a 400 percent increase in fat intake. And third, so mueh of our foods are rcftned. We eat white flour and sugar laded products by the ton. What's wrong with these types of foods from the perspective of weight loss is the loss of the bulk value of the food. When foods are high in fat, they have a lot of calories for a Uttle food. This is because fat has the most calories per

weight of any food available at 9 ealories f)er gram. When foods are refined down, the bulk is eliminated but the calories are generallykept. Whathappens in either case is that such foods occupy so little space in the stomach that you remain hungry and you want to

eat some more. You simply try to fill your stomach but you wind up eating a lot of calories as a result. Let me give you a eouple of examples. It takes only 1.4 pounds of sugar or 1.8 pounds of white flour to give you a whole day's calories. In order to get one day's worth of calories ffom poi, it takes 9. 1 pounds of it. It takes over 12 cups of brown rice or 30 ears of eom to get one day's worth of calories. If you eat whole foods you have a mueh better ehanee of satisfying your hunger and losing weight at the same time. This is the basis of a diet that ean help you lose weight without dieting. What does work? A diet that is based on traditional eating pattems from cultures around the world that is high in bulk, high in unrefined foods, low in animal products, and low in fat (as low as 10 percent fat) ean induce weight loss without calorie restriction. It is a diet that human beings all over the world have eaten for miilennia and remained slim without counting a single ealoiie. You ean do the same simply by changing the type of food you eat. Next month, I'll talk about how your hunger system works and what ean help satisfy it without making you fat. For those readers on the mainland, I will be presenting this information in the Los Angeles area tentatively in the third week of September 1996. At that time, I will be presenting a half-day seminar on how to "Eat More, Weigh Less". If you want more inlormation, please eall Mr. Jack Ha'o at (808) 885^1389 or write PO Box 2677 Kamuela, HI 96743-2677.

We are eating refined and high fat food that actually winds up being too little food to naturally satisfy our hunger.