Slim choices

Now that the feasting season is over, it's time to get back down to size. Here's a menu of the latest diets.

By Ellen Uzelac

Special To The Sun

Originally published January 8, 2003

With the holidays over, we all might be carrying a few extra pounds. The sugar highs, the second helpings, the snacking. What were we thinking?

For six weeks, all we heard was: "Eat! Eat! Eat!" Now, there's a new message, "Lose! Lose! Lose!" But with dozens of diets out there, the question becomes: How?

There's God's diet and a diet for dummies. There's low-carb and low-fat. Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. There's the anti-inflammatory diet (lose weight and your wrinkles) and there's the blood-type diet. And how about this? A weight-loss plan that builds in McDonald's fries, Hostess Twinkies and Nestle Crunch Bars.

Low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets continue to be the most talked about - and researchers say both can be effective. The anti-inflammatory diet (think salmon) popularized by Dr. Nicholas Perricone in the best seller The Perricone Prescription and on public television has become something of a national phenomenon.

A companion book, The Perricone Prescription Personal Journal, just came out days ago. And the blood-type diet, first introduced in Peter D'Adamo's Eat Right 4 Your Type, has achieved almost cultlike status in health-food stores and at naturopathic clinics.

But before you decide what diet to follow, dietitians, nutrition experts and researchers suggest first figuring out why you eat - and, most important, what it is you like.

"What works depends on the individual. Basically, lower your calories and pick your foods to suit your own taste," says diet researcher Roberta Reed, a biochemist and associate director of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y.

"Someone who's a pasta freak and [couldn't] care less if they ever touched meat again would do better on a low-fat diet. Someone who likes cheese and dairy products and eggs for breakfast instead of cereal is more suited for low-carb. Just remember: There are no magic foods to melt the pounds away. The only way to do that is eat less, burn more."

The experts also remind us that losing weight isn't just about what we put in our mouths but the behavior surrounding our eating. Ask yourself: How hungry was I when I began to eat? At what point was I satisfied with the meal? Did I continue to eat anyway? And keep a daily food journal, logging what you eat, how you felt when you ate and your all-important physical activity.

"Many people have lost their ability to know when they are full or even when they are hungry. People eat mindlessly. Before running off to the vending machine, ask yourself: What does hunger feel like? A lot of people need to relearn to eat when they're hungry - to become natural eaters again," says Cynthia Finley, a clinical dietitian specialist at the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center.

Finally, keep your goals realistic. Joy Short, director of St. Louis University's undergraduate programs in nutrition and dietetics, says a loss of one to two pounds a week is optimum. And it is best not to let your calorie intake dip too low. Her advice? At least 1,200 calories for women, 1,500 for men.

Here are the highlights of today's most talked-about diets:

Low-carbohydrate

The low-carb diet has been popularized by Dr. Robert Atkins but there are less-restrictive plans, too - Protein Power and Sugar Busters, among them.

Under the Atkins approach, after a highly restrictive two-week introductory phase, the program generally allows 60 grams of carbohydrates a day, about half the daily minimum set by the National Academy of Sciences.

Favored foods include most meats, chicken, fish and dairy as well as leafy green vegetables, nuts, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus and broccoli. To be avoided: Just about anything white - sugar, potatoes, corn, bread, pasta, rice, flour.

Low-fat proponents have maligned the low-carb diet for years, but new research from Duke University and the University of Cincinnati has the Atkins camp feeling vindicated. Both studies found that the Atkins diet actually trimmed more pounds and body fat off of overweight people than a low-fat menu. (The Duke study was funded by the Atkins Foundation, the University of Cincinnati by the American Heart Association.)

Low-fat

For years, esteemed groups such as the American Heart Association and American Dietetics Association have been pushing a low-fat diet, which focuses on products that are fat-free or reduced in fat.

Lately, it's come under some heat. "The ADA and all of the medical associations are going to still say you need to lower your fat," says Bonnie Brehm, the University of Cincinnati researcher who conducted the low-fat vs. low-carb study made public last fall. "But I think Americans became so obsessed with lowering their fat that they forgot you have to lower your calories, too."

Forbidden or reduced under the plan are added fats such as butter, mayonnaise, sour cream and salad dressings. Fatty foods and fried foods are a no-no. Fruit and vegetables are encouraged. However, adherents need to beware of the so-called reduced-fat foods, which still contain a lot of the sugar that can cause weight gain.

Unlike a low-carb, high-protein diet that tends to fill people up, a low-fat program is sometimes harder to stay faithful to because you feel less full, researchers say.

Blood type

People who like this diet, which stresses organic foods, say it promotes healing as well as weight loss. Basically, it regulates the diet according to blood type. The idea is that blood type is an ancestral marker.

The O type, according to this program, originated in Northern Europe where the foods of choice were proteins and vegetables - not grains. Foods to avoid, therefore, are wheat and dairy products. Type A's, which developed in Asia and the Middle East, generally flourish on vegetarian diets. Type B's, traced back to the Himalayan highlands, like a balance of animal protein and vegetables - particularly "highly beneficial" foods such as lamb, rabbit, white fish and deep-ocean fish, such as cod and salmon, and a variety of dairy products.

Type AB's, a so-called modern-day mix, need some meat protein but should stay away from beef, chicken and all smoked or cured meats. Tops on their list? Dairy foods, especially cultured and soured products; olive oil, peanut butter, lentil beans, rice and alkaline fruit like grapes, plums and berries.

The books Eat Right 4 Your Type, Live Right 4 Your Type and Cook Right 4 Your Type outline which foods are good and which are bad for the four specific blood types. Generally, the diet favors organic produce and dairy products along with free-range meats.

Genetically altered foods, hydrogenated oils and artificial sweeteners should be avoided, and smoked and fried foods are not recommended. White flour and sugars should be eaten rarely, if at all.

Steve Sinclair, a naturopathic doctor at the Natural Medicine and Acupuncture Clinic in Frederick, has placed many patients on the diet - and Sinclair, a Type A, is on it himself.

"It's a great tool," he says. "Everybody who writes a diet book says one size fits all. But we all look different. We all have different requirements. This individuates it down to blood type and finds ways for food to help you instead of working against you."

Anti-inflammatory

Nicholas Perricone, a Connecticut dermatologist, promises that with his diet and exercise, wrinkles will disappear, the skin will appear radiant and mood will be elevated. All of this in addition to weight loss.

The hugely popular diet, rich in the omega-3 fatty acids found in flaxseed oil, walnuts and cold-water fish like salmon, offers a 28-day program for a total-body and face rejuvenation as well as a three-day nutritional face-lift.

What's good on this diet? Animal protein, salmon, dark-green vegetables, olive oil, berries and lots of water. What's forbidden? High-glycemic foods such as white rice, pasta, pretzels, candy, cake and other low-fiber starches. Perricone believes sugar is responsible for 50 percent of the aging process because it triggers an inflammatory response in the skin.

"I never focus on weight or body fat because that's a big error, a negative thought. Start focusing on something negative about the body and it sabotages you," he says.

"What we focus on is health. Then your weight will normalize. And after a period of time, you can have tremendous weight loss and look more radiant and healthy than you ever have." Still, Perricone says the vast majority of the e-mails he gets are from women who are astounded by their weight loss.

Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun

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