more proof SBD really works!
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| Fri, 04-25-2008 - 11:31am |
I found this interesting article that sounds pretty much like the SBD way of eating.
Kathy McManus, M.S., R.D.
Director, Department of Nutrition, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Weight Loss Researcher, Harvard School of Public Health
Vital Statistics: 50 years old, 5 foot 3 inches, 112 pounds
To hear what Kathy McManus has to say, you find yourself awake at dawn and scrambling to keep up as she takes her regular five-mile morning run. The pace never lags as she breakfasts, meets with patients in Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital obesity clinic, brainstorms with a team of Harvard researchers, and teaches dietetic students about the role of nutrition in weight loss.
One of the architects of a landmark study on the importance of healthy fat in a weight-loss diet, McManus has witnessed time and again the fruitless efforts of motivated people who simply cannot lose weight and keep it off. She has also watched diet after trendy diet come and go, leaving behind a wake of frustration.
Q. You're famous for a study in which fat became the key for people trying to lose weight. How was this groundbreaking?
For so long the presumed way to lose weight was to cut back on fat, an idea that took hold without much data to support the premise, especially in the long term. Our study helped demonstrate that people could eat healthy fat and still lose weight. In fact, the fat was what helped them stick with the regimen. Half of the volunteers spent 18 months on a typical low-fat diet (20 percent calories from fat). The other half followed a Mediterranean-style diet (35 percent calories from fat) in which monounsaturated fats (olive and canola oils and almonds, for example) were featured.
People lost weight on both diets, but after six months those in the low-fat group dropped out of the study at a greater rate because they couldn't tolerate the restrictions. By the end of the study, even after we offered them $100 to come in simply to be weighed, many of them had completely abandoned us. In contrast, the Mediterranean group found the diet enjoyable, and many of them stuck with it after the study ended.
Food has to taste good. People who came into the study had been struggling unsuccessfully with their weight for a long time and had not eaten a nut or peanut butter in years. In the Mediterranean diet they could eat nuts, they could eat full-fat salad dressings, they could eat avocados—healthy, high-calorie foods they had been denying themselves. The key to their weight loss and follow-through was in portion control and including healthy fats.
Q. What about snacking? How do I determine how many crackers are too many?
Pay attention to the serving size on the side of the package. Oftentimes what's helpful is to combine a little bit of lean protein with the whole grain or the fruit: for example, have a little bit of low-fat tasty cheese, like string-cheese mozzarella, with an apple and a couple of whole-grain crackers; or have a little peanut butter or hummus on either fruits or vegetables or whole-grain crackers. Nuts also have protein, fiber and healthy fat.
Q. What does the combination of protein, whole grain and fat achieve?
It helps people, when they have that energy dip at 4:00 in the afternoon, to bring blood sugar up a little bit, but it's not going to spike it—that's good in the long run. If you have more-refined snacks you're good for a half hour or hour but then you're hungry again—you're on that vicious cycle.
A day's menu for Kathy McManus
Breakfast: Oatmeal or cold cereal (Kashi GoLEAN), with 1% milk, often a few almonds, pecans or walnuts, and I always add fruit (strawberries, melon, oranges, banana). Sometimes whole-grain toast with peanut butter, but no butter. Two cups of tea and at least six 8-ounce glasses of water (throughout the day).
Lunch: A large salad of spinach leaves, vegetables, cottage cheese or a hard-boiled egg, dressed with oil and vinegar, with nuts sprinkled on top. Yogurt for calcium, and a piece of fruit, usually an apple.
Snack: An ounce of peanuts (28 peanuts).
Dinner: A big stir-fry of veggies, frozen and fresh, with tofu and olive oil. Whole-grain pita, bread or brown rice, and maybe another salad. I also make a lot of soups. In the summer it may be a cold squash soup or a gazpacho. I may have a glass of milk.
Dessert: A few times a week I'll have some ice cream or a piece of dark chocolate.
