Michael Koen is a Hearty Portioner, and he’s not ashamed to admit it. In fact, the 57-year-old, recently retired Chicago business owner loves telling people he’s a Hearty Portioner, as well as a No-Time-to-Exercise Protester and an Unrealistic Achiever.
Because those name tags, which embody the defining characteristics of Koen’s personality, have helped him to look at–and lose–weight in a whole new way.
For four months now, Koen has been following “Dr. Kushner’s Personality Type Diet” (St. Martins Press, $23.95), an individualized weight-loss prescription that helps people determine whether they’re an Unguided Grazer or a Deprived Sneaker; a Hate-to-Move Struggler or a No-Time-to-Exercise Protester; an Emotional Stuffer or a Can’t-Say-No Pleaser.
Developed by Dr. Robert Kushner, medical director of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Wellness Institute and a board-certified physician in internal medicine and nutrition, the personality-type diet explores the three dimensions of health–eating, exercising and coping–and encourages followers to identify and address the behavioral patterns that may be preventing healthful behaviors.
With Kushner’s plan, Koen has evolved from a steak-and-potato man to one who fills up a picnic-style plate with loads of salad, plus smaller portions of meat and pasta. For breakfast, he has traded in his cheese omelet, heavily buttered toast and orange juice for protein-rich cereal, high-fiber toast and fresh fruit.
He sees a nutritionist monthly and started working with a personal trainer. He wears a pedometer and aims for 10,000 steps a day. And he has lost 22 pounds.
“I’d tried every diet under the sun,” he said, including the Scarsdale diet, the grapefruit diet and Atkins. All worked–in the short run. But it wasn’t until after meeting Kushner that Koen learned his problem: He was, among other things, a Hearty Portioner. From that point, things started to make sense.
“It wasn’t so much that I ate the wrong things, I just ate too much,” Koen said. “I sort of knew it all along, but this put it into a more balanced framework.”
How it works
“Dr. Kushner’s Personality Type Diet” is based on two decades’ worth of observing thousands of individuals trying to manage their weight. Co-authored by wife Nancy Kushner, a nurse practitioner, the book is directed at people living in an “obesogenic society,” where meal portions have mushroomed out of control and time demands suck the energy from even the best intentioned of dieters. After completing an in-depth personality profile, readers of the book determine their personality pattern for each of the three dimensions of health.
“Everyone develops, over time, a very unique and identifiable set of behaviors and lifestyle patterns that in large part determine what they weigh and what their health is,” Robert Kushner said. “By targeting these patterns, we are able to give them a sense of control.”
The names, he said, are self-explanatory and fun, so the meaning resonates immediately.
“When I tell someone they’re a Nighttime Nibbler,” he said, “they immediately know what I mean.”
Such a tailored approach offers followers an advantage over cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all diets, he said. With those types of plans, “it doesn’t matter what your patterns and goals are, they just tell you what you should or should not eat, like you’re one of a million people.”
Followers may initially drop weight, but as time progresses, it grows harder to comply with the monotony or restrictions.
For example, a Mindless Muncher can embark upon a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet, Kushner said, “but that doesn’t address the fact that they’re walking around the office all day long, dipping into the candy jar . . . or a mother taking bites of food of her child’s plate. You’re putting a round peg into a square hole. Old patterns creep back into their life and the weight goes back on.”
He continued: “I’m trying to alter the national debate off of the plate and look at the dieter who’s pulling himself up to the table. It’s moving from protein and carbohydrates to exercise, coping and food.”
For instance, a Hate-to-Move Struggler and a No-Time-to-Exercise Protester both have difficulty exercising, but the strategy to get those two people moving differs. Kushner might have the former incorporate physical activity during the day, like walking to a co-worker’s desk instead of e-mailing, or choosing the stairs over the elevator. For the latter, the plan might focus on asking others, such as a spouse, to help with errands so the dieter can carve out time to exercise.
Or Kushner might promote multitasking, such as scheduling a business meeting during a walk or playing a book on tape while on the treadmill.
Kushner’s approach entails collaborating with nutritionists, sports-medicine experts and even mental-health experts such as Brad Saks, a health psychologist at the Wellness Institute.
“Many people trying to lose weight don’t need a major overhaul,” Saks said. “They get tripped up in one or two major areas of their life over and over again. When they recognize their maladaptive eating, exercising and coping patterns and are presented with strategies to address them, they tend to lose [weight].”
Nutritionist’s view
Kushner’s diet has struck a chord not only with the public but with nutrition and health professionals as well. Asked to review the book, Christine Palumbo, a registered dietitian in private practice in Naperville and Food News columnist for Allure Magazine, acknowledged that although “the book has a gimmick, it’s a good gimmick.”
The plan, she said, is based on sound nutrition principles and motivates people to “do some homework, thinking and reflection.”
“Awareness is the first step before you can change,” Palumbo said. “Most overweight people are experts in calorie counting, and they know they should exercise. But they can’t quite get themselves to do it. This book helps people become conscious of why they are overweight.”
The personality types are on the money, too, she said. In fact, she sees Hearty Portioners, Fruitless Feasters and Nighttime Nibblers in her practice every day–usually men who “will very commonly sit down with a big bowl of ice cream in front of the television at night and be appalled at the number of calories they’re consuming when I tell them,” she said.
(Women, she added, tend to be Deprived Sneakers, Mindless Munchers or Unguided Grazers.)
Palumbo was especially appreciative of Kushner’s thesis that coping with life is critical to getting on track with nutrition.
Kushner’s book and the 66-question quiz behind it have landed on the pages of Glamour, US Magazine, SHAPE and USA Today. And Koen has made great strides with proper eating and exercising. Koen will be remembered at his job for trying to outlaw eating at desks and encouraging co-workers to bring fruit, not doughnuts.
“I’m worse than a reformed alcoholic or a reformed smoker,” he joked. “I’m ecstatic because I’ve been able to move food, which was very high on my list of importance–maybe an 8 out of 10–down to a 1 or 2. For me, the key is, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change, so I don’t have to buy into dieting.”
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Take the eating mini-test to determine your eating personality:
Are you an Unguided Grazer?
You do not plan your meals or eat on a set schedule.
Are you a Deprived Sneaker?
You eat good foods in public but sneak the decadent ones in private.
Are you a Fruitless Feaster?
You eat few fresh fruits and vegetables.
Are you a Mindless Muncher?
Hungry or not, you munch on foods throughout the day.
Are you a Nighttime Nibbler?
You eat little during the day but you’re ravenous at night.
Are you a Hearty Portioner?
You put too much on your plate, usually finish it, and feel stuffed.
Are you a Convenient Consumer?
Most everything you eat is food prepared outside of your home.
Are you an Emotional Stuffer?
Instead of letting your feelings out, you push them down with food.
