Jane Brody’s Personal Secrets to Lasting Weight Loss

A place to get your questions answered from McDougall staff dietitian, Jeff Novick, MS, RDN.

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Jane Brody’s Personal Secrets to Lasting Weight Loss

Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:55 am

While we don’t always agree, I thought this article by Jane Brody contained some real pearls of wisdom from someone who has been a writer in the field for 52 years and maintained their own 40 lb weight loss.

Jane Brody’s Personal Secrets to Lasting Weight Loss
March 5, 2018
NY Times

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/w ... l?referer=

When The New York Times hired me to write about science and health 52 years ago, I was 40 pounds overweight. I’d spent the previous three years watching my weight rise as I hopped from one diet to the next in a futile attempt to shed the pounds most recently gained.

No amount of exercise, and I did plenty of it, could compensate for how much I ate when I abandoned the latest weight loss scheme. I had become a living example of the adage: A diet is something one goes on to go off.

Even daylong fasting failed me. When I finally ate supper, I couldn’t stop eating until I fell asleep, and sometimes awoke the next morning with partly chewed food in my mouth. I had dieted myself into a binge-eating disorder, and that really scared me. Clearly, something had to change.


...

"Ms. Divinagracia said, “I don’t believe in diets or any particular products. I believe in learning how to create a healthy lifestyle, and the formula is simple.” The most salient points of her well-practiced advice are these: 1) Stop eating crap, 2) Eat good food that is real, not processed, 3) Avoid drinking your calories, 4) Know what one serving is and do not eat more than that in a sitting, 5) Move your butt every day — even just walking is better than being a couch potato, and 6) Stop making excuses."


These 6 points are very close to my my 5 Pillars of Health, my Principleles of Calorie Density and my position on exercise.

Points 1 and 2 are basically the same and consistent with my definition of CRAP (Calorie Rich and Processed) and my Pillar on “minimally processed.” Point 3 is exactly the same as my point on “liquid calories.” I would change number 4 to calorie density instead of calories and “eat only when hungry and until comfortably full, not stuffed.” Point 5 is also in line with my position on activity/exercise and who can argue with point 6.

In Health
Jeff
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