Food, Glorious Food! What’s the Right Diet for You?

Most military members maintain a healthy weight.  But once you’re separated/retired from the military, or if you’re disabled, the pounds can creep on.  And once you reach middle-age, often they’re not creeping anymore – they’re double-timing!

Diets?  Chances are you’ve tried more than one: Cabbage soup; Atkins; Pritikin; Mediterranean; South Beach; Paleo; Juice fasts; etc.  We all know the drill: throw out the “bad” food in your house; buy all new “healthy” food; follow new regimen until you can’t stand it anymore; revert to old eating habits; beat yourself up over “lack of discipline”.

If you have a health condition, it can get more complicated.  Your doctor may recommend a specialized diet, or give you a list of foods to avoid, or send you to an allergist to be tested for food allergies.

For years I tried various diets, read labels to avoid certain ingredients, and was an annoying dinner guest.  I had some success with reducing my symptoms and lost weight a few times, but mostly remained overweight, bordering on obese.

And then a friend recommended a series of three BBC videos called “What’s the Right Diet for You?”  In this series, experts from Oxford & Cambridge universities explain new research that suggests that diets are not one-size-fits-all; instead, personalized diets based on your biological and psychological profile are much more likely to work for you.

The researchers illustrate by dividing volunteers into three groups, which they call “Constant Cravers”, “Emotional Eaters”, and “Feasters.”  According to the researchers, Constant Cravers have a genetic predisposition toward overeating because their genes disrupt the signals to their brains which normally tell someone that their fat stores are sufficient and that they should stop eating.  As a result, Constant Cravers are always hungry, because their brains are constantly trying to store up fat regardless of the actual state of their bodies.

Emotional Eaters, on the other hand, eat in response to stress or unhappiness, and tend to prefer foods that are higher in sugar and fat when stress-eating.  The third group, Feasters, tend to overeat because they have lower than normal levels of the gut hormones that signal to the brain that they are full and should stop eating.

There are short excerpts from the BBC videos that illustrate the three categories.  This is the one for Feasters:

and this one covers both Emotional Eaters and Constant Cravers:

Unfortunately, the actual videos are not available in the US & Canada, and have been pulled from YouTube.  But you can find more information at the BBC website  or the Oxford website.

You can also take an online test to help you determine if you fall into one of these three categories, and you can download diets for each of the three categories: Constant Cravers; Emotional Eaters; or Feasters.  Or you could download a free ebook from the BBC website that is interactive and explains all three categories, as well as techniques for each group for losing weight and maintaining a healthier weight once you’ve reached it.

For me, it was very helpful to learn the science behind why I tend to overeat.  When I failed at previous diets, I assumed it was a willpower problem.  But now I know I was fighting my biochemistry, with inadequate weapons.  I had had some success with previous diets, but this information helped me dial in which aspects of previous diets had been beneficial and why.

Instead of eating or avoiding certain foods because I “should” or “shouldn’t” eat them, I now know if I eat this, I will feel full; but if I eat this, I will keep feeling hungry.  So now I’m much less tempted to eat things that will lead to a negative result.  AND, by sticking to my new eating plan, I don’t have cravings (most of the time).  So I don’t have to fight the urge to eat things I “shouldn’t” because I no longer have the urges.  (Well, except for dark chocolate.  I still eat a few squares of dark chocolate from time to time.)

This research helped me sort through all the noise and conflicting advice (low-fat! low-carb! Paleo! Vegan!), and find a simple way to lose weight.  Perhaps it will help you as well.

 

 

 

 

Negative, Ghost Rider, the Pattern is Full – How My Quest Began

Have you ever read Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s novel about airmen in WWII?  Even if you haven’t, you’re probably familiar with the expression.  Catch-22 is a situation that presents a logical paradox – such as when, in the book, Major Major gives orders that people are only to be admitted to his office to see him if he is not there.

I experienced a Catch-22 situation with my healthcare recently.  After spending a great deal of time selecting an in-network primary care manager (PCM), I found out the night before my appointment that Tricare was not permitting patients to establish new relationships with non-Military Treatment Facility (MTF) providers.  However, the MTF near me was at capacity, and not currently taking new patients.  Thus, I could not go off-base for medical care, and I could not get an appointment on base.

Tricare’s solution was to send me to an MTF much further away, to a PCM who has no specialized training in my particular health conditions (unlike the network PCM I had selected).  Having no other choice, I saw this provider, and requested a referral to a specialist.  He denied my request and opted to treat me himself, prescribing two medications that are contraindicated for my condition, and could kill or further disable me.  Although I expressed concerns about the prescriptions both to the PCM and to the pharmacist, they both dismissed my concerns.

It’s difficult to describe the frustration of dealing with a chronic health condition that doctors can’t seem to get a handle on.  But after a decade-and-a-half of being prescribed medications that did not cure my condition and produced horrible side effects, I was simply not willing to gamble that this time would be any different and this provider would have the solution.  When I confirmed that the World Health Organization had issued guidelines never to prescribe to someone with my condition one of the medications that my new PCM had just prescribed to me, it was the last straw.

Faced with a debilitating medical condition and inadequate healthcare, I weighed my options.  I met with my PCM again.  He again refused to refer me to a specialist, and wanted to prescribe different medications.  And then I learned that Tricare has a procedure whereby complicated cases can be assigned a case manager, who will help advocate for the patient.  I emailed the MTF patient advocate’s office and requested a case manager, but they never responded.

While I was waiting for the response that never came, I found a blog that advocated self-sufficient living, including holistic self-healing using medicinal herbs, diet, exercise, and common sense. And I decided I had had enough of being experimented upon by PCMs who (mostly) didn’t care about my well-being for longer than the 20 minutes it took to get me out of their office. After nearly a decade-and-a-half of treatments that usually left me sicker, I decided to try naturopathic self-healing.

To me, this means utilizing evidence-based natural solutions when possible, such as using house plants to improve the quality of the air in my house, rather than buying an air purifier.  But it also means employing traditional medical procedures when necessary or beneficial, such as routine screenings, surgery, physical therapy, or psychological counseling.  The objective is to use all of these methods as tools, rather than being treated like one.