Here are some things overweight people often tell diet experts about weight loss:
1. My genes make me fat.
2. I would be thin if I had time to work out.
3. If I could only give up (fill in the blank: carbs, fat, sugar, beer), I would be thin.
The dieting world is full of myths: that carbohydrates are bad; that only people with speedy metabolisms get to be thin; that once you have a kid, go through menopause (again fill in the blank), you have a choice: pizza or your favorite jeans.
The world is full of diet books that tell us to eat like a South Beacher or a svelte French lady, but they leave out the part about plastic surgery (as is common in South Beach) and smoking like a chimney (as is common in France).
But two new books seek to bust myths that pervade the belief systems of chronic dieters and hopeful losers everywhere. Each suggests that what we believe about diets might be as vital as what we do or don’t eat.
In Weight Watchers’ “Weight Loss that Lasts,” cardiologist James M. Rippe teams up with Weight Watchers International’s chief scientific officer, Karen Miller-Kovach, to focus on what researchers have learned about successful, long-term losers.
“One of the things that has become apparent to us is that even though weight loss is based on science, that there are myths out there that are so powerful that they play a role, a very big role, in why people get derailed,” nutritionist Miller-Kovach says. “If, for example, someone believes at a gut level that they are destined to be fat because they have a slow metabolism, then that’s hard to get past.”
The truth, Miller-Kovach says, is that even a so-called big-boned lady from a family of big-boned folks can lose weight and keep it off if she cuts calories, incorporates exercise and makes some lifestyle changes.
Too many dieters, believe that weight loss is some mysterious puzzle that depends on being told what to eat, how and when, Charles Stuart Platkin adds. “You cannot believe how many people come to me and want me to tell them what to eat, precisely, in detail,” Platkin says.
He won’t do it. In his book, “The Automatic Diet,” Platkin focuses on science to urge people to work toward reasonable weight-loss goals by making adaptations that suit their lifestyle. His mantra goes like this: “If you like to eat in fast-food restaurants, you need to figure a way to make that work for you. If you like ice cream, you have to find something you can eat that tastes like ice cream that is going to satisfy you.”
The author, who lost 50 pounds several years ago and has kept it off, says successful dieters make changes they can live with. In his case, he gave up red meat and made a host of other changes, large and small, but says his methods wouldn’t work for every dieter with the will to lose.
“I tried every diet out there, Atkins, South Beach, you name it and failed,” Platkin says. He lost weight and gained it back time and again before realizing, “The only one that worked was the one that fit into my lifestyle.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
