<p>I suggest to anyone that they read Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. He does research, mostly at Cornell, into how people eat. He’s the guy responsible for those 100 calorie snack packs. His work shows you how to avoid making basic over-eating mistakes. There is a website which has links to some of the papers. </p>
<p>A few simple tricks from Wansink:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use small plates. As in, switch to a salad plate so you have to refill it. The extra step of refilling means you’ll eat less. </li>
<li>Put things out of sight. Even a short walk to get a snack discourages. If you beat a path to that spot, move the spot. Out of sight is somewhat out of mind.</li>
<li>Always portion. If you take a bag of chips, you’ll eat many more than if you portion yourself a number of chips. They did this research with popcorn so stale it had to go in hazardous waste bags … and people ate it if it was at hand in big containers.</li>
<li>Do little things to make your food taste better and more appealing. Truth is he can demonstrate ambience matters a great deal in what you perceive as good. If you dress up the presentation to enjoy food, you will also eat less. </li>
</ol>
<p>I also recommend looking at Mark Bittman’s writing about the centrality of meat on American plates and how you can switch your diet by changing the emphasis of your plate. This is more difficult for people because they can’t imagine how to present broccoli except as a steamed thing in a pile. So for example, we roast vegetables - fennel is great - keep them in the fridge and then add them to lettuce so a salad is not the same 3 things each time but becomes a refreshing dish. A little bit of meat makes a meal.</p>
Wait. I thought this was the middle age middle bulge thread :o I think we are in the right place ;)</p>
<p>Bottom line, if you burn more calories than you ingest, you will lose weight. Want to eat a lot? Work out. Want to be a couch potato, eat less. It is absolutely about moderation and portion control. Still, though, I advocate healthy eating. A high sugar, low protein diet isnt good for one’s system.</p>
<p>WNP - I do still have peanut butter, which I love, just not every day. Since I did not really crave breakfast anyway, I figured that it was the best place to cut back a few calories so that I could lose a few pounds. Once in a while I’ll have peanut butter on whole wheat for lunch. If I do wake up starving - very rarely, perhaps when I’ve not had much for dinner the night before - I’ll have eggs and toast, or the peanut butter and toast. I agree with the other posters that even though I watch my diet, I never go hungry - it is impossible to sustain a starvation or severely restricted diet. I don’t really like fried, greasy, or fatty goods, so I don’t feel particularly deprived by not eating them. A big treat for me is a slice of pie - any type of fruit pie, especially cherry or apple (it has to be really good, though). For me, I guess, the secret has been to eat lean and sparingly as a rule, but splurge frequently enough that I don’t feel deprived. That said, it’s a lot easier to maintain an acceptable weight than lose a large amount of weight.</p>
<p>What helps me a lot is NOT to deprive myself. I purposely take mini portions of desserts but at least try it so I know how it was & can compliment it (the 1st bite tastes the best anyway). This prevents me from feeling like I need to treat myself and possibly over-indulge later. I got the idea from my SIL. We have been able to enjoy a wide variety of treats at buffets & elsewhere while not feeling guilty because we carefully minimize portion size.</p>
<p>Also, we eat out of saucers, not salad or dinner plates for meals. It works every well and helps us recognize when we’re full. Even the kids eat off of saucers most of the time. H also likes eating out of tiny Chinese soup/rice bowls (the kind they serve your soup in at Chinese restaurants). </p>
<p>For me & my family, we do much better if we eat fairly regularly instead of trying to starve of severely restrict eating (the latter makes us feel deprived and like we need treats).</p>
<p>"in my hotel mini bar
You probably can’t AFFORD to eat them’</p>
<p>That is true, but…I did manage to suck down that $25 puny half bottle of wine in the refrigerator. And though I wondered why they would put red wine in the refrigerator, it still tasted good. They put these tasty items at ridiculous prices in full view, knowing that in a moment of weakness you will scarf them up without considering or caring about the price. But I stand by my chromium/alpha lipoic acid, a sugar addict is cured! The chocolate is still here.</p>
<p>Thought you guys might find this interesting. The reason that women suddenly start to gain belly fat for the first time as they approach menopause:</p>
<p>Elevated insulin causes fat cells to store fat by activating an enzyme in fat cells. Estrogen works to counter this by suppressing that same enzyme. High levels of estrogen in younger women work to prevent fat storage and it’s location specific. Estrogen tends to block storage of fat above the waist, not so much below the waist. This is why women tend to gain weight in the hips while men tend to store it in the beer belly region.</p>
<p>As you approach menopause, estrogen falls and the mechanism that blocks insulin-driven fat storage is reduced. This results in the sudden arrival of belly fat.</p>
<p>For the women on this thread- How have hormones played a role in your weight?
For those who have decided to take hormones do you find that it is easier to maintain your weight and are your cravings lessened?
I had dinner this week with about 8 women in the late 40 to late 50 range. Several women who have done hormone replacement felt that when they use less estrogen they are lethargic but don’t sleep as well and craze more carbs. Also one woman who is just entering perimenopause felt has gained a ton of weight this past year and feels like she is always craving carbs when she never done so in the past.</p>
<p>I’ve been in menopause for ~15 years or so. I took HRT for years until they decided that was a bad idea. Then, my bone density sank through the basement. so, we all decided I’d use an estrogen patch. I’ve been using it for around five years and I’m very happy. I do not have the thick middle that many women have – but I exercise like crazy and am very petite. My sister, w/o hormone replacement, doesn’t have a belly either, nor does she exercise like I do.</p>
<p>So, from this sample size of two, there’s no logic.</p>
<p>Well, I went through menopause very earl. Finished at 42. As is typical of younger women, my symptoms were insanely horrible. Night sweats, hot flashes, mood swings, insomnia…but it was right at the time that the bad press came out on hormone replacement and I refused it.</p>
<p>I haven’t noticed any difference in my appetite or my energy levels. Any fat that I accumulate finds my waist when it used to find my thighs, but i would still be considered petite and I still have more of a waist than most women my age, whether they have been through menopause or not (if I may say so myself, LOL).</p>
<p>Both of my sisters went through the change early as well. They both struggle a lot with their weight but they always have. It didn’t start in menopause.</p>
<p>Not middle aged yet, but I have had my share of battles with this issue! The only things that have worked for me are to not eat any thing I know I can’t resist, chips, ice cream, cookies, cakes etc. I do not even buy these things EVER because I know I will eat them all. I do not even take a bit because for me it is a slippery slope.Lucky for me I live alone and control everything that comes into my house. Yes, sometimes I feel “deprived” or like I am missing out but would I rather eat it or be thin?(different answers on different days lol).Also I try to exercise 1-2 hours of intense cardio a few days a week 3-5 depending on my schedule.</p>
<p>Before I hit menopause, I really thought the tummy bulge that “older” women had was due to a lack of restraint in eating or not exercising enough. As evidenced by some posts on this thread, that’s not an uncommon thought. i know though that I am not eating more then I used to, I don’t eat junk food, and I STILL have the bulge.</p>
<p>OP here. Sometimes I think this all is “relative” as well. In other words, I feel I have the buldge - cause of course, I see myself in the mirror without clothing! Someone else might look at me and think “you do not have a middle bulge!” And I know that I see many other women my age with a clear, undoubted bulge - all shirts are tight, side view shows a bulge - all that. </p>
<p>For me it’s a matter of looking in the mirror, being able to grab a couple inches in that area (yuck!) and realizing that if I didn’t have that excess around the waist, I’d really be smaller! I don’t have the…how do I describe this…the problem where if you look just above the frontal private area, the belly starts from there and continues until you it meets the girls!!! </p>
<p>There is a piece by Gary Taubes in the NYT - Sunday 7/1 - that reports on a small study which tries to isolate whether diet composition affects metabolic rate. In other words, same calories in but in different ratios of protein, fat and carbs, measure expenditure at same activity level. Only 32 people, partly because this was done in a hospital, and thus also fairly short duration. (If you read the study in JAMA, you see the flow chart that excluded so many.) Taubes focuses on the finding that a calorie is not a calorie: the study found a low carb diet burnt more energy per the same level of activity. So you know, this was a barely any carb diet compared to 2 others. The effect was about 100 calories per day at the max, as I remember.</p>
<p>As you may know, Taubes consistently argues for lower carb consumption. </p>
<p>My concern about the study is that it may reflect the way carbs bind water. The standard method involves taking in “marked” and ordinary water and then checking to see what comes out. The lower carb diet may have eliminated more water because less water was bound, especially after the “fasting” stage of the study. I’m not sure that would translate into a meaningful difference over time. The study showed an increase in levels of stress hormones in the low carb patients, so it may also be this kind of diet is not healthy to sustain. (E.g., the Paleo diet takes in more carbs because you eat fruits and vegetables.)</p>
<p>As for me, I focus on avoiding sugar because it seems the body becomes attuned to sweetness and desires it the more you eat it. The effect seems to be worse if you drink or eat artificial sweeteners; the body seems to think it needs both more sweetness and more calories.</p>
<p>ellemenope, lipo will only remove the fat under the skin. It won’t remove visceral fat, the kind under the muscle - or of course any fat around organs. </p>
<p>To think of visceral fat, picture some of the Real Housewives of New Jersey husbands: those guys think they’re in great shape because they can see the outlines of their abs, but they have large amounts of visceral fat under the muscle that makes their bodies bulky. I hear this fairly often: my stomach is hard, I’m in shape, etc. No, you have a huge amount of fat under the muscle. Men dream of strengthening their stomach muscles so the belly won’t sag and don’t realize the muscle can’t hold in fat that’s under it so you can only hold the pose for a very short time.</p>
<p>The problem with sucking out the fat from under the skin is the body will make more fat cells and you will feel the need to eat to fill them up. That’s the worst news from science in a while: the body regulates the amount of fat cells and will make more if you suck some out. It’s thus hard to maintain weight and lipo might become a regular thing to keep the fat away, not counting that it doesn’t get at the fat inside.</p>
<p>I don’t think that would be an issue. They all ate the same restricted calorie diet for 12 weeks to lose 12% of their body weight. Then, they all ate the same diet at a higher calorie level for a month to stabilize their weight. Then, each person continued at the higher weight stable calories, but cycling for one month each on the very low carb diet, the moderate carb diet, and the high carb/low fat diet (they cycled in random order). Water weight and so forth is more of a short term thing, I think. These people had all been on the test diet for 2 to 4 weeks before the testing.</p>
<p>Also, it’s a little misleading for the media reports to say that cortisol increased on any of these diets. In all cases, cortisol (and the inflammation markers) were significantly improved compared to the start of the diet and in desireable ranges for all three diets. It was just slightly higher on the very low carb diet. On the other hand, the serious cholesterol markers for heart disease (i.e. triglycerides to HDL ratio) improved the most the lower the carbs went (a well-studied, well-known phenomenom).</p>
<p>To me, the interesting part of this study is not that anyone should eat “x” amounts of carbs or “y” amount of carbs (that is going to involve so many individual factors and choices), but that there was such a significant difference in energy expenditure on different diets in a very tightly controlled study. The actual difference was over 300 calories a day comparing the same people at the same calorie intake at the same level of activity eating a very low carb diet for a month compared to eating a high carb/low fat diet for a month. </p>
<p>That pretty much stands 30 years of nutritional policy on its head. The study was a Harvard study funded by NIH. I think the nutrition policy community is collectively saying, “Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark…”</p>
<p>Body fat is first on, last off. The first place you gain some extra body fat will probably the last little bit of fat you lose on the way back down. Men have the deck stacked against us on belly fat. It’s the first place we start packing it on and we can’t get rid of the last of it until extra body fat everywhere else on the body has been shed. It’s really hard to get lean enough for “six pack abs” after middle age. It’s possible (depending on genetics), but it takes very low body fat percentages, probably down in the 10% to 15% range.</p>