Foodist Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my dad, for believing in me since before I was born.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Part I - Healthstyle

  One - “Diet” Is a Four-Letter Word

  Two - The Myth of Willpower

  Three - Healthstyle

  Four - Eat Food

  Part II - Getting Started

  Five - Know Thy Food

  Six - Shopping and Cooking

  Seven - Zen and the Art of Mindful Eating

  Eight - The Way You Move

  Nine - Recalibration, Troubleshooting, and Maintenance

  Part III - The Daily Foodist

  Ten - Home Savory Home

  Eleven - The Office

  Twelve - Restaurants

  Thirteen - How to Win Over Friends and Influence Family

  Fourteen - On Food and Values

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  About the Author

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART I

  HEALTHSTYLE

  “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

  —ARISTOTLE

  ONE

  “DIET” IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

  WHAT THIS BOOK IS, AND ISN’T

  “I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is two weeks.”

  —TOTIE FIELDS, COMEDIAN

  “I don’t like stuff that sucks.”

  —BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD

  “Life itself is the proper binge.”

  —JULIA CHILD

  Dieters are a funny breed and by many criteria could be classified as insane. Gleefully participate in self-inflicted suffering? Check. Restrict entire categories of edible, nutritious, and tasty food? Check. Do the same thing over and over again and expect different results? Check. Throw in a couple of face tattoos and straitjackets, and we’ll be ready for the asylum.

  Amazingly, there are very few of us who do not belong to the dieter tribe. Dieting, and specifically chronic dieting (bouncing back and forth between various diets, food philosophies, and, ahem, body sizes), is a popular hobby in the twenty-first century. A combination of supersizing and unrealistic beauty standards has forced most of us to question the way we eat and look, and the dieting industry has been more than happy to offer us thousands of weight-loss solutions every year. Bless their hearts.

  I would say it is unfortunate that their pills, programs, and bonus DVDs haven’t really worked out, but now that I’m a foodist, I see the failure of the dieting industry to make us thinner or healthier as one of the luckiest mess-ups of our generation. Just imagine if it worked. How horrible would it be if, in order to look and feel amazing, you had to deprive yourself of foods you love for the rest of your life, skipping birthday cake and Michelin-rated restaurants, just so you can feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror? Seriously, screw that. It isn’t necessary, even if you did have the willpower to pull it off (and you probably don’t). There is a better way, and all it takes is thinking about food, health, and weight loss not like a dieter, but like a foodist.

  If you’ve tried any weight-loss program in the past, you probably know from experience that dieters almost never eat food. Sure, dieters eat protein, fat, carbs (though they may try not to), calories, calcium, and omega-3s, but to them food is just a vehicle to ingest essential nutrients, not the ultimate reason for eating. I know this because I was a chronic dieter for most of my life, and over almost two decades I’ve tried nearly every weight-loss strategy under the sun.

  My dieting adventure started unintentionally. One sunny morning in sixth grade I walked into the kitchen to find my mother making what looked like a milkshake. Thinking I might have won the breakfast lottery, I enthusiastically inquired what it was. She explained that it was indeed a chocolate shake, but it was for a new diet that was supposed to help her lose weight. My eleven-year-old translation: we can have chocolate milkshakes for breakfast and not worry about getting fat. My mom agreed to share, and breakfast was never the same again.

  Over the next few years I went from SlimFast every morning to a diet almost completely free of fat (remember the 1990s?). By the time I got to college, it was nothing but meat, eggs, and cottage cheese according to Dr. Atkins. From there I moved to The South Beach Diet and started running marathons to burn extra calories. In other words, I was the perfect example of what Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and real-food hero, aptly describes as our “national eating disorder.”1 I embraced every new diet as if it had the potential to solve all my problems, following every ridiculous rule without question or exception.

  In retrospect the most interesting part is not that I tried all these diets (clearly I was not alone in my efforts), but that I was good at them. I was very thin (i.e., “successful”) on my low-fat regimen in high school—I was a ballerina and definitely looked the part. After I stopped dancing and put some weight back on, I had no trouble abandoning bread, rice, and potatoes for several years while I got back down to size 0 on the Atkins diet. I gladly woke up at 5:00 A.M. for two-hour workouts every weekday and clocked three-hour-long runs every Sunday for marathon training during my first few years of graduate school. Though my successes may have been fleeting, a weak will has never been the reason. The problem wasn’t me. The problem was that starving yourself of energy, nutrients, and pleasure is not the most effective way to attain—let alone maintain—the body you want. It is also no way to live your life.

  Chronic dieters believe that success comes from sacrifice. If only we could deprive ourselves a little more, punish our bodies even harder, then we could finally look amazing and, of course, be happy. But as someone who has tortured herself in every way imaginable, I can guarantee you that this path does not lead to happiness. Why? Because it turns life into a constant struggle. You never really win if you’re dieting. When you are constantly depriving yourself, happiness is always just out of reach. So even if you could confidently identify the best, most effective restrictive diet, why should this be your goal? Shouldn’t there be more to life than constantly denying yourself the things you enjoy? Now you’re thinking like a foodist.

  As simple and logical as this sounds, I know from experience that ending deprivation is tough for chronic dieters. “No pain, no gain” is fundamental to our psyche—don’t we deserve to suffer for being so fat? Most of us have been victims of a vicious, convoluted feedback loop through which we are rewarded for our sacrifices with temporary (but often dramatic) weight loss at the beginning of each new diet. This creates the illusion of success. But you have to ask yourself: shouldn’t real success be defined as lasting—not temporary—weight loss?

  Nutritionists and M.D.s haven’t helped much either. Virtually all weight-loss experts tell us we need to eat less and move more to lose weight, with the obvious implication being that we need to diet (deprive ourselves) and exercise (suffer at the gym) to achieve our goals. You can’t break the first law of thermodynamics—it’s science! But this line of thinking neglects the reasons we are compelled to overeat in the first place and doesn’t give us the tools we need to actually implement their simple “eat less, move more, lose weight” equation. It also implies that failure stems from a lack of willpower (why aren’t you eating less, like you’re supposed to?), rather than from a plan that fails to account for the nuances of the human psyche. How many people do you know who eat solely for fuel? All the thin people, right? Not a chance. Sure, we all sometimes eat because we’re hungry. But the specific foods we choose and how much we eat are largely influenced by our habits and environment. In other words, it is not the concept of eating less to lose weight that is wrong, but
the idea that we can lose weight and keep it off without accounting for why we make the choices we do.

  My own experiences convinced me that willpower was not the missing piece of the equation. After all, I was following all the rules, but maintaining my weight was still a constant struggle. At the time I didn’t know what I was missing, but I was confident that humans have not always had this problem and that something about the current weight-loss paradigm must be wrong. It wasn’t until my second year of grad school that I realized I finally had enough training in biology to go directly to the scientific literature for answers. Before, I had relied on diet books and magazine articles to fumble my way through different weight-loss strategies. Now that I had the knowledge and lab experience to read and understand the science, I wanted to see the data for myself.

  Not surprisingly, even at this stage I went about my research all wrong. From my chronic dieter’s perspective I was looking for the perfect diet, partially expecting some version of low-carb to be the answer (this had been the easiest, after all). So in the beginning my findings were very discouraging. The first thing I learned is that for the most part, diets don’t work for long-term weight loss. In fact, going on some sort of weight-loss diet is actually a significant predictor of weight gain.2 D’oh. That said, you can lose weight, at least for a little while, on any diet. Compared to low-fat diets, low-carb diets tend to have a more dramatic effect on weight loss in the beginning, but the weight will usually creep back on within a year. Five percent of the population does manage to keep weight off permanently after dieting, but the method they use to get there doesn’t seem to matter. These people have somehow managed to integrate healthier habits into their lives and make permanent lifestyle changes.

  What about people who are naturally thin or never get fat—what do they eat? Once again the data show that macronutrient (carb, fat, and protein) ratios have little impact on whether a person or population becomes overweight. People can thrive on low-fat diets, high-fat diets, low-carb diets, and low-protein diets. As Michael Pollan explores in his book In Defense of Food, the most consistent predictor of weight gain and poor health is how much processed food people eat.3 Whether it’s low-fat or low-carb, industrially processed foods are more likely to hinder rather than help with weight control.

  But what you eat is only one part of the equation. How and even why you eat also have a significant impact on your long-term health and body weight. Habits such as chewing thoroughly and eating slowly are more common among normal-weight than overweight individuals. Cultures that encourage eating for enjoyment (e.g., the French) and health (e.g., Okinawans) have a lower incidence of obesity than other industrial societies. In other words, the science tells us that it is more important to focus on habits and overall healthy eating patterns rather than carbs and protein. Moreover, psychology and food culture can be as crucial as the types of foods you eat in determining your long-term success.

  When I first realized the implications of the science, I hesitated. You mean I should try to be healthy instead of skinny? I should give up my protein bars? I should eat breakfast? I can eat carbs?! And, strangest of all, I should stop dieting? I didn’t see how any of these things could do anything but make me gain weight. But I trusted science more than Cosmo, or even Shape magazine, and decided to give it a try. I figured if it didn’t work after a couple of weeks, I could go back to my cabbage soup and grapefruit and get back on track. So I took a deep breath, stopped counting calories, and started eating food. Real food. And for the first time in my life, I lost weight effortlessly.

  The first changes I made were pretty simple. I added regular breakfast, intact and whole grains (the difference will be clear soon), and seasonal produce from the farmers market. I also included more legumes like beans and lentils. I stopped drinking diet soda and eating energy bars and other diet foods artificially high in protein and fiber. I also cut my cardio workouts down to thirty minutes (from sixty-plus minutes) and focused more on strength training and free weights. Not only did I lose weight when I incorporated these changes, but the proportions and shape of my body transformed into what I was striving for all along: one that was more slender and toned, rather than muscly with trouble spots (don’t worry, boys, because you have more testosterone, becoming a foodist can also help you build muscles).

  I also lost the cravings for sweets and heavy foods that I’d struggled with my entire life. Even on the various low-carb diets I tried, I longed for bran muffins and chocolate. Since I’ve started eating real food, sugar cravings no longer haunt me, and I enjoy desserts whenever I feel like it, which is far less often. Managing my portions is much easier. Meals are satisfying, and I am hungry at the appropriate times. The stress and anxiety I used to feel about food and my weight have completely disappeared.

  But that’s not even the best part of the story. Something else happened when I made that tentative commitment to focus on health instead of weight loss. After years of battling and sometimes even hating food, I discovered I loved it. I had recently moved from Berkeley to San Francisco, and some friends introduced me to the food scene. Until then I thought I knew what good food tasted like, but I was completely unprepared for the experience I had during my first truly spectacular meal. In San Francisco, ingredients shine. Yes, the chefs are innovative and brilliant, but what differentiated this food from anything I’d had in the past is the simple idea that excellent food starts with excellent ingredients. San Francisco opened my eyes to what was possible in the culinary world and, amazingly, it is based on the same principles that freed me from dieting tyranny.

  Before this time I had assumed, like most people, that healthy food tasted bad, or at least worse than anything people would actually want to eat. Of course, when you’re told rice cakes and protein bars are “healthy,” then this is true. It is even true of the soggy frozen spinach and mealy pink tomatoes that passed for vegetables when I was growing up. But just like delicious San Francisco food, the healthiest food is made from high-quality, peak-of-the-season ingredients grown with care by people who are passionate about their product. I had always thought a carrot was a carrot or a chicken was a chicken, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  Weather and soil quality are the biggest determinants of the nutritional value of agricultural products (including the animals that feed on the plants). They are also the most important factors in how food tastes. A tomato from your garden in the summer tastes worlds better than one from the supermarket in January, and the same rules of seasonality apply to broccoli and even meat. It makes sense when you think about it. Isn’t the quality of every product ultimately determined by the quality of its starting materials? What’s amazing is that this fact transforms healthy food from something unappealing into something delicious. Fortunately for me and my grad-student budget, I could get the same ingredients used by fancy San Francisco restaurants at the local farmers market for a fraction of the price. Once I made this discovery, I could never go back to mediocre food.

  It is difficult to quantify the impact of loving food instead of fighting it. Eating healthy becomes a joy, so weight loss comes naturally. Friends look at your meals with envy instead of pity. Your goals transform from burdens into fun new projects. Psychologically, one of the most important aspects of your life—the food you eat three times a day and the meals you share with friends and family—pulls a complete one-eighty and changes from stressful and difficult to joyful and delicious. The old way of dieting, and the suffering it brings, suddenly seem so unnecessary.

  Foodists do not diet. Modern weight-loss diets are temporary eating plans that emphasize single nutrients and restriction over real food and lifelong habits. Foodists, in contrast, focus on real, high-quality foods in order to optimize our quality of life. We understand that how you look and feel about your body is important, but that true happiness also comes from excellent health, a fulfilling social life, rich cultural experiences, and physical enjoyment. Don’t get me wrong, my goal is to help you lose weigh
t. But I want to make sure your success is permanent and that you don’t suffer in the process. Popular weight-loss diets sacrifice all the other aspects of life and happiness for the sake of dropping weight rapidly. But foodists know that being thinner does not solve all your problems, and if you neglect the rest of your life to get there, the weight will find its way back. As a foodist, I want more than a perfect body; I want an amazing life.

  For these reasons my philosophy on food has nothing to do with fat, carbs, or calories. I approach food and health with only one unshakable belief: that life should be awesome. What you eat should always enhance, and never detract from, your quality of life. You should be able to look and feel your best not just while starving yourself for a few weeks or months, but for as long as you care enough to try. Your food should taste delicious, whether it’s healthy or not, and you should never feel guilty for what you choose.

  Foodist is a training manual to make real food, and therefore real, lasting weight control, a permanent part of your life. Knowing what to eat isn’t the toughest part of losing weight. There are thin, healthy people everywhere along the diet spectrum, and most of us already know that broccoli is a better choice than cheesecake. What’s difficult is navigating a world that constantly steers us away from better food and better health. The challenge is actually doing what we know is best.

  Foodist will teach you how to overcome the daily obstacles and ingrained habits that prevent you from reaching your goals. Since we all face different challenges, it will also help you tailor your strategies for your own lifestyle and preferences, making sure the path you choose will work for you in the long term. You’ll learn the basics of both nutrition and psychology, so you understand not just what to eat, but also when, where, why, and how to choose foods that optimize your health and happiness. Our goal isn’t just weight loss. We want to make sure the effort you put in now gets you where you want to be, but more important is that it helps you stay there.