Why you will lose false fat

Donna didn't look fat, at least not in the leggings and long sweater she was wearing as she entered my office. Her legs looked slender and fit, and her sweater hid the rest. But she felt fat.

`I've got a guy's type of weight problem,' she said as she sat down. She was animated and energetic, but obviously frustrated. 'Women are supposed to collect fat in their hips and thighs — aren't they? — but mine sticks right here.' She patted her stomach. When she was sitting, I could see that it bulged, even under the thick sweater. 'I hardly ever overeat,' she said, `but since I've hit 40, I get no forgiveness from my body. It's like my metabolism took early retirement. I take two bites and I can feel the fat cells around my waist start to expand. Literally. I pinch my love handles, and they're thicker before I even get up from the table.' She looked at me expectantly, as if I might not believe her. 'My last doctor,' she said with a sour look, 'told me there's no way that food could make me fat that fast. But I can feel it happening.' Again, she searched my face for reassurance. She had an upbeat personality, but she was almost ready to give up. She ate carefully, exercised hard, and still carried 20 extra pounds.

`It's not your imagination,' I said. 'That feeling of instant weight gain happens to a lot of people. But it's not fat you're gaining. It's fluid retention and bloating, and you're probably getting it from food reactions. A lot of the swelling and bloating from food reactions occurs directly in and around the gut.

That's why you feel it in your midsection right away.'

`If it's not fat,' she said, 'why doesn't it leave as fast as it comes? I look like this almost all the time.'

`Your biochemistry won't allow it to go away, because your body is trying to protect you. When you eat reactive foods, your body sees them as foreign substances, almost as poisons, and it goes all out to protect you. It can take two to three days to stop reacting to some foods.'

Tut it's not like I eat junk. I'm an old-time you-are-what you-eat type. I was eating granola before they even had a name for it.' She smiled, but I could see she felt cheated. For many years, she'd followed all the rules — but the rules had been wrong.

`People can become reactive to healthy foods,' I said, 'even granola, if you eat it all the time. Do you eat a lot of non-fat and artificially sweetened foods?'

`Now that my metabolism has slowed down, I've got to.'

`I hate to say it, but some of those "lite" foods may be doing you more harm than good. If you're reactive to a food, it can be virtually calorie-free and still make you gain weight. Even diet soda can cause bloating and swelling.' She looked surprised. Most people these days are so accustomed to counting calories and fat grams — the quantity of their food — that they forget about the importance of quality.

`I don't think you're eating too many calories,' I said. 'And I don't think your age is the real problem. Your metabolism is slowing down just 5 per cent every decade, and that's not enough to cause what you're experiencing. I think you've just developed some food reactions over a long period of time. When you resolve them, you'll lost your weight.'

Tut I was tested for allergies and they didn't find any.' `Did they explain that not all food reactions are allergies?' I asked.

`No.'

I wasn't surprised. Most doctors don't really understand food reactions. They usually have an all-or-nothing attitude; they think that you either have a classic food allergy, with hives and wheezing, or you have nothing at all.

I gave Donna a brief rundown on how food reactions work and how they cause bloating and swelling. I explained it out of respect for her. Some doctors think it's acceptable to tell patients what to do, without telling them why, but I object to that approach. If patients are willing to change their lives by taking my advice, they deserve to know exactly why these changes will help.

As I gave all the details to Donna, she listened attentively and took notes. Over the next few weeks, she eliminated her false fat foods — one of which was oats, a primary ingredient in most granola — and dropped about 15 pounds.

Now I'll give you the details on how food reactions get started. Then we'll look at how they cause bloating and swelling.

If you're going to make changes in your life, you deserve to know exactly what's going on.

I'm sure some of this information will hit home. Often, when I tell patients about food reactions, they say, 'That's me you're describing.'

Fat trapping in perspective Part 1

While on the subject of supplementation, I thought I'd mention one of the most intriguing crazes, fat trappers, and how just about every dieter is joining the stampede to buy them.

Although there are several different kinds of fat trappers available, what is important to know is that there are basically only Iwo kinds of dieters: the perpetual dieter and the desperate dieter. Once in a while, a dieter comes along, diets furiously and sheds all her excess fat. She usually keeps it off. But she's the exception. The rule consists of perpetual and desperate dieters and they are the ones who find the idea of fat trapping so exciting and liberating. Let us briefly examine the motivation and aspirations of the two main groups of dieters.

The perpetual dieter will jump from one diet to the other, dumping the most recent diet in a heartbeat whenever personal circumstances - such as a wedding or a dinner party, work stress or relationship troubles - require it. This is the dieter who originally wanted to lose lust a few kilograms' but refused to commit to certain lifestyle changes. She demands a diet that will produce quick results to 'get it over and done with'. This lady wants to return to her old lifestyle as soon as possible. She has seldom - if ever - reached her natural weight on any of her chosen diets, and usually dumps her diet the moment she starts looking 'better' than before, or whenever she becomes disappointed, frustrated or tired of it. Or when life takes a wrong turn for her and she reverts to what she regards as 'real' food for comfort. After every abandoned diet she regains her weight (plus a few kilos as bonus) and starts the next diet fatter than before. And even more determined that it should be 'over and done with' very quickly so that she can return to her 'normal life'.

This lady is playing a dangerous game with her body. She has the biggest chance by far, somewhere down the line - a few years from now or even a few decades - to come face to face with one of the hardest physical baffles of her life: The Bulge, plus perhaps its Morbid Medical Side Effects, By now you know what they are ....

The desperate dieter has a dieting history that looks much like the one I've just described - the one who perpetually dieted until she was hopelessly obese; severe, chronic and spiralling obesity being one of the most damaging results of perpetual dieting. But this is the dieter who finally has to commit to permanent lifestyle changes if she wants to reverse the damage caused by her perpetual dieting. She is the dieter who is emotionally desperate, who is suffering from a low self-esteem, and who is probably also suffering from one or more of the obesity-related diseases such as insulin resistance, high cholesterol, diabetes or hypertension. She is the dieter who needs more than just a diet. She needs a long-term plan of action and in most cases, professional intervention.

The complexity of obesity can never, ever be over-estimated and I believe one of the major complications is our need for instant gratification. We want to shed fat easily, quickly and painlessly.

Dream on Girlfriend, there is no such thing. To shed fat is tough, because doing so requires a drastic departure from what has become a way of life: eating fat-rich food, following an unbalanced diet and having very little physical activity. Emotionally it requires devotion, commitment, determination, tenacity and yes, permanence!

This is precisely where the marketing of diet products scores big time: you are vulnerable and stand emotionally naked before their lures and empty promises. The thought of throwing your weight - so to speak - behind permanent, comprehensive and successful slimming strategies has a sting: it is called change - something we humans have an innate fear of or a resistance against.

But here you are at a crossroads it were, and like us all, you too want to take the easy road; the fast lane to leanness. And what do you know? Just at that moment you happen to see an advertisement for an amazing diet pill or product or service with the promise that you can go on enjoying all the foods you love and still lose weight. Yes, anything you can imagine, pizza, KFC, fish platters, steak, ribs, chips and everything else on the fatty menu. All you have to do is take these tablets or drops or powders or injections or whatever and your eating habits will have no bearing on your weight!

But not so fast. Just think for a moment how many over-the-counter diet products are sold, claiming some or other 'scientific' formula or theory. Theories that often cause more confusion (and in the long run, spiralling and chronic obesity) because of their incorrect - and often unfounded - claims. Yet, as you also know, obesity is on the increase at an alarming rate. Clearly, very few of these hundreds of products and services ultimately deliver on their promises of physical leanness.

But do men need to be taller?

Biologists argue that women stop growing at an earlier stage so that they can get on with what they are supposed to do: reproduce. It is argued that girls cannot waste energy on growing when this energy is needed to produce children, and that growing and reproducing at the same time would place too many demands on the body's reserves. Montagu has pointed out that, for the first few years after the start of menstruation, girls are rarely fertile, even though they may appear so, and it is at this time that the remainder of their growth occurs. This suggests that we are responding to a history of shorter life expectancy, and that we should reproduce as often and as early as possible. For men, this pressure does not exist and so they can grow for a longer period of time. In addition, anthropologists argue that men need to be taller in order to compete for female partners.

As a result of these biological differences men do tend to be taller than women. In America the average male is five inches taller than the average female. However, improvements in diet and living conditions in the western world have meant that not only are western women frequently taller than men from other areas of the world, but there is also a greater overlap in male and female heights within the same community. Ten per cent of women are taller than 10 per cent of men and 5 per cent of women are taller than the average male.

So tallness means maleness. Even though women can be tall and men can be short, tall things are masculine and short things are dainty and feminine.

This association comes from a biological difference but is also used and perpetuated by social expectations and media images. The media, with phrases such as 'man-size tissues' and 'man-size portions' and images such as 'large cars are for men', promote this association. It is also obvious in our traditional behaviours such as 'a man holds the umbrella over the woman' and 'a man puts his arm around the woman's shoulders'. Princess Di is only half an inch shorter than Prince Charles if she wears flat shoes, yet in the postage stamp commemorating their wedding she has shrunk to such a degree that she looks up into his eyes. Either she was crouching or he was standing on a box!

And as women we promote this idea. Being five foot ten myself I am well aware of the traumas of having shorter boyfriends. I have spent many an evening slouching, walking in the gutter and working out which way the pavement slopes so that I can make myself that little bit shorter. I also know the embarrassment of having a boyfriend put his arm around me, resulting in his left shoulder being wrenched nearly out of its socket. As women, we expect men to be taller, and men perceive this expectation.

At the extreme end of this preoccupation with height, Erving Goffman in his book Stigma examined the effects of height on

men who are well below average height. He discusses how such men are either excluded from enjoying normal lives or can play the traditional role of short men as 'jesters' or 'favourites of well-to-do ladies'. It has been observed that if short men marry short women the 'mating sequence' is often accelerated, with the dating, engagement and marriage taking less time than usual. Goffman concludes that short people marry short people because they have found an opportunity at last, and because they are expected to do so.

Men worry about their height. It is a weakness in some ways comparable to that of women and their weight, but does it have the same damaging effect on their self-image?

There are certain props available to the man who wants to be taller, such as built-up shoes and tall hats, yet these tend to be regarded as slightly ridiculous. They appear desperate. Unlike weight, which it is possible at least to attempt to change, changing your height is not a physical possibility. Perhaps, because of the absence of feasible alternatives, men simply have to get on with their lives and cope with this disagreeable area of their physical appearance. If the medical profession were to develop a means of adding extra inches or perhaps to suggest that a certain combination of foods would solve the height problem, then maybe men would become more preoccupied with their height, which would develop a more central role in their self- image. The absence of possible change reduces the importance of the problem.

Are there other physical characteristics which are specifically important to men?

A study in 1973 asked a group of men to rank a list of physical characteristics in the order that they felt they were important in determining their physical attractiveness. From a list consisting of characteristics such as chest, body build and face, the men rated hair texture second only, to facial complexion. Facial complexion appears to be of significance to men in their teens and early twenties, with the fear of acne and concern about degree of facial hair. However, hair texture and the fear of baldness appear to play a central role in determining body-image.

Eat Local, Eat Seasonal

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato."

The whole idea eating local foods becomes especially alluring if we think in terms of seasonal foods. Start by refusing the tasteless, bloated, and artificially dyed grocery store strawberries that have been picked far away—unripe so as to travel better—in anticipation of the mouthwatering local ones that will be ripe late June and early July. They will be especially delectable if they are organic and free of the chemical pesticides and fertilizers that concentrate in the flesh of thin-skinned fruits like strawberries. I can no longer eat any other kind of strawberry.

When I was young we had no option but to eat those things that were in season. We waited eagerly for the first green beans or the first brussels sprouts, vegetables that came just once a year. We couldn't grow much in the sandy soil of Bournemouth, but we did grow runner beans and some other vegetables. In the summer my grandmother Danny made gooseberry fool, rhubarb and apple pies, and blackberry and apple pies with custard, and blackcurrant jelly. Uncle Eric used to make chutney with green tomatoes—his own special secret recipe. In the autumn Danny bottled fruit and made jam. We could never lay out appl_es to dry because of the salt sea air of Bournemouth, but I used to taste them when I went to stay with friends. They became more and more wrinkled but sweeter as autumn gradually changed to the long, dark days of winter. Today, fewer and fewer people lay in stock for winter days—for now foods are packaged and shipped from all around the globe so that customers can buy just what they want, just when they want it. Only when we decide to return to eating more local foods shall we regain our appreciation for the gifts of the different seasons and once again live in harmony with nature's cycles. Then, even as we grieve the last, now tough and stringy runner beans, we shall be eagerly anticipating the first of autumn's plums that are soon to be ready for the picking.

Nutritionist Joan Dye Gussow, an esteemed pioneer in the local foods movement, tells the story of walking out of her front gate one snowy February day in her upstate New York home. On the ground, peeking through the snow, she saw a bright orange-red object. The color was so out of place in the winter landscape that she leaned down for a closer look. There she found a nectarine with one bite taken out of it. "I thought of how it probably came from a foreign country," she said, "and was picked unripe, then put into a refrigerated shipment, and ripened artificially as it was hauled all the way up to New York state where someone bought it at a supermarket, bit into it, and of course finding it tasteless, mushy, and disgusting, just thoughtlessly tossed it away. In that one nectarine I saw all the waste and senselessness of our travel-dependent food supply." If only that person had simply waited until local fruits ripened on the trees—there is nothing quite like biting intothe sweet flesh of a fresh, utterly ripe nectarine. So succulent that the juice is sure to run down your chin.