Expert: Keys to losing weight are planning, persistence

By Marilyn Chohaney

Special to The Capital Times

August 28, 2003

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I've been receiving so many questions about the Atkins diet and other low-carbohydrate diets that I've decided to devote this month's column to some dieting answers.

Q. I've failed at every diet I have tried. How can I succeed at a low-carbohydrate diet?

A. Planning. The secret of success is to plan in advance, and to do so carefully. Do your homework, clear out your refrigerator or pantry of useless items, and figure out how you will supply yourself with good healthy foods on the run.

Take a good week or so to check out books, find some little reference books for counting calories, carbohydrate grams and glycemic indices, and go online. Suggested Web sites: www.atkinscenter.com, www.southbeachdiet.com, www.weightwatchers.com.

Q. Why do you lump all these different diets together?

A. I think of them as similar, because they all emphasize a lifetime dietary change, rather than a one-time weight loss challenge. They all include daily exercise to burn calories, quell appetite, and convert fat into energy-efficient muscles. They also all focus on foods that are converted to simple sugars in the body, s-l-o-w-l-y.

This avoids fast, big releases of insulin in response to high blood sugars, and the resulting plummeting of blood sugar that stimulates our desire to eat more. Remember, sugar that isn't used by our body within an hour or two gets stored -- as FAT.

The main difference between Atkins and South Beach diets and the Weight Watchers diet is that the Atkins and South Beach diets "jump-start" your weight loss for the first two weeks with a more restrictive approach before liberalizing your food choices. The Weight Watchers program introduces dietary changes at the beginning that don't vary much throughout your lifetime. Weight Watchers also includes a behavior support system of meetings. You need to choose which approach would work best for you.

Q. What do people snack on when they're on a low-carbohydrate diets?

A. An important secret to successful dieting is to avoid hunger. Do so by eating high-protein and/or high-fiber slowly digested foods in reasonable quantities about every 2 to 3 hours.

Start with a high-protein, low-carbohydrate breakfast that includes eggs (or "Egg-Beaters," if you must). Plain hard-boiled eggs, deviled eggs, or crustless quiches ("frittatas") baked in small foil cupcake wrappers are especially handy for breakfast "on the fly."

Nuts are a terrific snack; 15 almonds or cashews or 30 little pistachios are satisfying. Sausage sticks, beef jerky, and cheese curds are other easy options. After the initial two weeks of the diet, most people can begin eating a half cup of berries or vegetables as a snack.

What do these things have in common? They are generally not available at fast-food restaurants, gas stations or vending machines. You must purchase them in quantity and pack them into little snack bags yourself.

Reminder: Prepare for this diet! Package your foods a week in advance in order to guarantee success.

The new low-carbohydrate diets represent a real advance in thinking about the ways our bodies use food, fats and sugars. Recent research has supported these diets' successes in weight loss and weight control. And interesting to me is that they all go back to the basics: low in refined sugar, white flour, and alcohol, and high in whole vegetables, whole grains, and whole proteins. Eat well, and good luck!

Marilyn J. Chohaney, M.D., is a family physician with UW Health-Physicians Plus Meadowood Clinic in Madison. If you have a question for her, please mail it to ASK THE EXPERT-CHOHANEY, The Capital Times, P.O. Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708, or e-mail it to savvy~madison.com.


Published: 9:00 AM 8/28/03