The One One One Diet

CHAPTER ONE

Who Tells You What to Eat—And Why Do You Listen?

Everybody's got an opinion.

I can guarantee that hundreds, even thousands of people are eager to tell you exactly what to eat to lose weight. Your mother-in-law. Your skinny best friend. Your sister. That friend of a friend who just lost 50 pounds. Your doctor, who maybe had a single nutrition class in medical school. The guy sitting next to you on the plane, who just started the Atkins diet, or that vegan girl who works the front desk at your gym and wears T-shirts stating she doesn't eat her friends. Ask "What's the best way to lose weight?" at a party, and the discussion could go on for hours because so many people think they know.

Other sources are more than happy to charge you for the information. The latest issue of your favorite magazine. Diet doctors. Book authors. Diet doctors who are also book authors. Celebrities who know you wish you looked the way they do. Food product manufacturers. Weight loss companies that produce diet meals, ready to ship to your door or your grocery store's freezer case. The diet industry is huge and profitable, even when the economy is down, because no matter how anything else is going in life, everybody wants to be thin.

In the world today, a whole lot of people have experience with dieting and weight loss—or have heard about someone else's experience and are happy to pass along the information. If you struggle with your weight, it's amazing how many people are ready to jump in and "help" you.

But there's a big difference between experience and expertise.

Your neighbor, your trainer, and your mom may have experience losing weight, but they don't have expertise about weight loss or nutrition. They can tell you what they did, but they are only telling you what they did. What worked for someone else doesn't necessarily apply to you. You have a completely different body and metabolism, plus different exercise habits and dietary preferences. Maybe you aren't a big fan of meat, or you think a life without cheese sounds barren and depressing, or the idea of weighing yourself at a meeting in front of everybody seems too embarrassing to contemplate. Just remember, when someone tells you about her diet that worked wonders, that's anecdotal. There is a reason anecdotal evidence doesn't count when a drug is being scrutinized by the FDA for approval. It's not an objective measure of what works for everyone.

In fact, studies show all kinds of diets work for certain kinds of people, but they don't work for many others. Some studies have shown that people who are insulin resistant do better on different kinds of diets than people who are insulin sensitive, and others suggest that DNA determines which diet may or may not work for you. A recent study that got a lot of media attention celebrated the Mediterranean diet as the healthiest, not because it was the best diet but because it was the one people were most likely to stick to. And then there's this little interesting study: A company in the United Kingdom wanted to determine whether customized diets were more effective than standard diets. It put 15 people on a weight loss plan that met each individual's preferences, such as wanting cheat days, not wanting to exercise, wanting to cook, etc. They all lost more than 10 pounds in 6 weeks. When the same people were put on a generic diet, only two lost weight, while five gave up and eight people gained weight! From my point of view working with hundreds of people who come to me after diets have failed them, the bottom line is that preference and personalization likely have everything to do with sticking to a diet. If you don't stick to your plan, it can't work for you.

Even so, for some reason, people love to copy what other people do. They do it with such hope and optimism. They tell themselves, "I can become this now!" or "I'm going to look just like her!" or "He's my new idol." They convince themselves they can take on somebody else's habits, schedules, tastes, and ways of eating and exercising, even if those things don't fit into their lifestyles. You don't have someone else's body type, or taste, or schedule, or personality, or life. You have your very own life, so shouldn't you have your very own way of eating, too?

In my practice, I find that people often have extremely unrealistic expectations about what they can really do over the long term. I think this is why so many diets fail. And even though people know the odds are against them, they really don't believe it. They say they do. "Oh yes, I know, diets don't work, blah blah blah," but deep down, when they hear about a new one, they think that this time it will be different, that this diet will finally work. They believe that "miracles" have happened for others-- celebrities in particular, who are seen as different from the rest of us, like supernatural beings--and that with just the right secrets or tips or tricks, those same miracles (which probably didn't even happen the way they've heard) will happen to them. They begin each new diet passionately, believing that, like a new love interest, This is the one!

It's not realistic, but more than that, it's not sustainable. Most people revert back to their old habits and preferences after the thrill of pretending to be somebody else wears off. A week or a month or a few months later, disillusionment sets in. Either the plan was too hard, or it didn't yield the expected results. "But the book said 30 pounds in 30 days!" "But I missed eating bread/cheese/sugar too much!" At this point, people tend to go back to eating everything they love and more, as if they were getting revenge on that nasty diet for lying to them. They gain back all the weight they'd lost and lose the good habits they might've picked up. They are through with dieting--that is, until the next new diet inspires just as much hope. Maybe this one is the answer. Maybe she knows what will work for me. Maybe Dr. So-and-So really gets it. And the cycle starts all over again.

Here's the problem, as I see it: You are you. There are particular reasons why you have gained weight, and there are particular ways that you like to eat, and there are particular ways you can improve your diet. There are weight loss rules that won't work for you, and there are rules that will, but there is absolutely no way to know which is which based on what anybody else tells you. You are completely different than anyone else who ever lost weight on a diet. You are entirely unique.

I think that's pretty cool, actually.

So what will work for you? It might sound strange for me to rail against all these so-called miracle diet books in my own diet book, but here's the difference: Despite what the cover says, The One One One Diet isn't actually a diet. It's a strategy. It is customizable. It belongs to you. I won't tell you that there are things you cannot eat, because you can eat anything you please. I refuse to tell you that you have to eat something, because you don't have to eat anything you don't want to eat. However, I will tell you how to eat, because this is where it's all going to happen for you. And not only will I tell you how to do 1:1:1, but I will tell you how to make 1:1:1 yours.

Start-Now Strategy

I'm sure there are plenty of foods you don't want to cut out of your diet, but start thinking about the things you eat out of habit that you don't care that much about. Where could you trim back right now? If you love cheese on your turkey sandwich, have it! But if you snack on unadorned popcorn because you think you should and eat 6 cups of it because it's not satisfying you, replace that with a snack you enjoy more and you could end up eating a lot less.

This is a strategy for life. It is something you can do forever because you make it fit you. And that makes all the difference in the world.

However, before I get into the details about exactly how 1:1:1 works and how you can make it work for you, I want to be sure you truly understand why diets and even so-called miracle weight loss secrets are not what they appear to be. I don't want 1:1:1 to be just another diet one-night stand. I want you to truly and fully internalize the notion that there are a lot of people out there telling you what to do, and that none of that matters. You get to decide what makes sense for you and you need to be able to tell the good advice from the bad. I want you to understand when you are being fed hype and PR, and when you are actually being fed true information. I want you to understand at a deep level the difference between experience and expertise. Here are some examples:

. Your best friend calls, excited to tell you that she started drinking her body weight in ounces of water every day and lost 10 pounds. Okay, let's think about this. If she was dehydrated, that could have really helped her. If you're not, it won't do anything for you. You might already drink enough water. If you don't, by all means, drink more water. But water alone is not going to solve your weight issues. Plus, drinking your weight in ounces of water per day could actually harm you. If you weigh 175 pounds right now, it's not healthy to drink 175 ounces of water. That's almost 22 glasses! That might keep you too full to eat much (and cause you to spend most of your day in the bathroom), but you could also dilute the sodium level in your blood too much, which could lead to health problems.

If you drink a lot of soda and you swap it for water, you might lose weight because of the calorie decrease--a 20-ounce regular soda has 240 calories, and that can really add up. But if you don't drink soda, sipping from a water bottle all day long probably won't make the pounds melt off your body. This is what I mean by experience--weight loss was your best friend's experience, but that has nothing to do with you. It might work for you. It might not. I just want you to see that it might not.

Food for Thought

Are you obsessing about drinking water all day long? Chill out. You probably don't have to force down all that water. If you are sufficiently hydrated, more water is not going to help you lose weight. Most adults need 8 to 12 cups of fluid every day (women are closer to 8 or 9 cups), but it doesn't all have to be water. Soup, tea, coffee, and juice count, too.

Of all the beverage possibilities out there, water is certainly the most healthful. And yes, research shows that water can help some people slim down. In one study, scientists from Virginia Tech recruited 48 overweight men and women aged 55 to 75 who were following a low-calorie diet and asked half of them to drink 2 cups of water before every meal. In 3 months, the water drinkers lost an average of 15.5 pounds, compared to the non-water- drinkers, who lost an average of 11 pounds. However, this is just one small study, and the researchers didn't find a similar effect in younger adults. If you aren't between 55 and 75, overweight, and on a low-calorie diet, it might not apply to you at all. Some people don't digest their food as well if they drink too much water. Instead, choose water over sugary drinks (not only is water calorie free, it quenches your thirst better than sugary beverages) and sip it throughout the day, whenever you think about it. Be sure to drink before, during, and after exercise. Add a slice of fruit to your water to make it taste more interesting, if you want to, and enjoy it.

Your sister brags about how easy it was for her to lose 15 pounds in a little more than a month. All she had to do was eat more fruits and vegetables. A miracle, right? Eating more of anything to lose weight sounds like a pretty good deal. However, this will not help everyone. If your sister wasn't getting enough nutrients and fiber before, this might have been a great solution for her. Her health probably benefited. She also may have swapped sweets for fruits and replaced other not-so-good-for-you snacks with vegetables--all good from a nutritionist's point of view. However, if you already eat enough fruits and vegetables, increasing your intake isn't likely to help you lose weight. In fact, you might even gain weight because you'll be increasing your calories, assuming you don't change anything else about your diet.

A lot of my clients feel like they have to force themselves to eat more salads and piles of cooked vegetables, even though they don't want to. Vegetables are great and people who don't eat enough of them should certainly try to eat more, but adding them to an already balanced diet isn't necessary, and eating a big salad with dressing and cheese and croutons in addition to your regular meal is like eating two meals. So once again, this was your sister's experience, but I want you to gain the expertise to see that it may or may not work for you.