My Eyes Bigger Than My Stomach? Really?
All my life, I've heard people talking about how their "eyes were bigger than their stomach" or warning their children against such a misjudgment. I always had to guess at what they meant. That's because for as long as I can remember, it never really applied to me. If it could fit on a plate, I could finish it.
Other than on days like Thanksgiving (and maybe one or two other days a year) I don't manage to approach that "full" feeling everyone else seems to experience at most meals until a half hour after I'm done eating, if at all. Unfortunately, I also get REALLY hungry (think "willing to walk miles to get food) fairly often, no matter how much I eat.
That, of course, coupled with a move from farming to sitting on my butt all day pretty much guaranteed that I would top 300 pounds, which I did a few years ago. That's when I went to a weight loss doctor and spent nearly a year on a weight loss program resulting in a loss of 60 pounds.
The thing that made that program work for me was the included an appetite suppressant you probably know from countless spam emails: phentermine. When I took those pills, it was amazing. It was as though rational decision-making was returned to my interactions with food. Instead of *needing* that food, I was just *wanting* that food: an impulse I had some control over.
Unfortunately, that doctor turned out to be a bit flaky. She went on "vacation" and didn't come back for MONTHS. That, of course, derailed my progress and eventually I gained about 10 pounds back. A few months later, I tried to start back up with this doctor only to have her disappear again after a couple of months.
Then, this summer, I decided to try to find another doctor and get back on the prescription. It's clearly the only thing that's worked for me. I headed in for a couple of appointments only to have the reality of keeping clients happy collide with getting to appointments.
When I missed my last one, I sat back to do some reflection. See, while the phentermine worked for me, it has always bothered me that I needed to be on a prescription in order to have control over my weight and appetite. I was never quite sure what the final exit strategy would be when I reached my target weight.
Obviously, I can't stay on that kind of prescription as a long term solution. That's why the last few days have been so exciting for me. I have been unable to finish any of my last 4 meals without any surgery or other drastic measures. The results I'm getting have every possibility of being permanent and for the rest of my life.
2 years ago, I read an article from the New York Times about a psychologist named Seth Roberts and his self-experimentation and interesting results in researching a link between flavors, appetite and fat storage. I bookmarked it and even bought the book.
It was interesting and, over the last 2 years, I gave the methods he describes a shot, with no results. Then, last week, in the midst of my reflection on this situation, I noticed that book on my shelf and pulled it out. I figured I'd give it one last shot, following it as strictly as I could.
Clearly, I did something wrong the previous times because, on the 2nd day, the effects kicked in and I'm getting a stronger suppression of of my appetite than phentermine ever provided and it's probably cost me less than $0.25 in the last 4 days.
The long and short of Roberts' research is that when we engage the following combination of conditions, a perfect storm is set up for storing fat and driving us to eat more:
- Strong flavor. This is distinct from taste. Taste is the basic sweet, salty, bitter, etc. and flavor is the rest. Taste is what you get when you plug your knows and eat.
- Quickly detected calories that get delivered along with the flavor.
- Repetition. The flavor is eaten often and always has the same caloric content.
- Similarity. The flavor is identical or very similar to the last time it was eaten.
That combination leads your brain/body to "mark" that flavor as being a great source of calories. The next time you eat it, it gets stored as fat and your appetite "thermostat" (which Roberts calls a "set point") gets adjusted to drive you to eat more of it.
Unfortunately, if you consider things like fast food, they hit this on all cylinders. You've got readily detectible calories in the fries and burger as well as strong flavors throughout, including the Coke. Because it all gets mixed together, even a Diet Coke contributes to the problem.
The key to Roberts' approach to controlling your weight is that if you consume calories that are missing flavor, it moves your thermostat in the other direction: making you less hungry and full faster.
The 2 items that he found work this way are: sugar and flavorless oils (like extra light olive oil). If those are consumed completely away from flavors (an hour before and an hour after), they kick in and move the thermostat toward less hunger.
To that end, I've been doing 4 Tablespoons of sugar a day, half in the morning and half at night. For the record, a 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew has 6 tablespoons in it, making many of the concerns about this "much" sugar for these purposes less than many of the foods that taking the sugar helps you avoid eating.
Like I said, the net effect has been amazing. Yesterday, I left food on my plate (up to HALF in one case) for the first time in as long as I can remember. At breakfast, I ordered my usual and actually added a pumpkin muffin as a test for myself (I love those things). When our server took my main plate, he left the half-eaten muffin instead of taking that too. That muffin sat there for another hour without me finishing it. That's astonishing.
Strangely enough, the hardest thing to adapt from life in order to follow the rules correctly is that, with toothpaste being a very intense flavor, the morning dose of sugar has to be very carefully timed. I'm taking it immediately after I get up, waiting an hour and brushing my teeth just before I leave the house.
I haven't weighed myself yet to see if there's been any progress on my weight, but past experience has shown that if I can control my appetite, just that little edge in the battle is enough to let my rational brain run the show for food and I can lose weight fairly easily.
The more I think about this theory, the more it seems to match reality. This explains those people who seem to eat very little but get "full" on it. Their thermostats are set differently. It also explains the whole idea of an "acquired taste". Flavor preference is a learned thing as your body matches flavors to calories.
Incidentally, that means that this theory could also be used to develop a liking of a food you think you hate. Choke it down with a chaser of extra calories a few times and you'll start liking the food.
We'll see how it goes, but right now things are looking very good for lifelong control of my appetite. Sure, it seems a little strange, but science is science, folks.
