Letters to the Editor
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At the family dinner, try a different method...
Instead of the "buffet"-style food layout at the next family gathering, why not try plating everyone's food for them? Assign three people to do the plating, and deliver the composed plates to each guest. This will give everyone an equal, moderate amount of food, and make it less convenient to get too much, or go back for seconds. Ut also makes it easier for the cook to plan their quantities needed. If it's buffet-style, people tend to prepare too much. It's only natural. And then people feel compelled to eat, so that the host doesn't feel bad...
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The McLean Deluxe
One of the things that led to its failure at the McDonald's where I was working (at the time of introduction) was that it was replacing the McDLT (a quarter-pounder in a special box, with the burger on one side, and lettuce/tomato/onion on the other so there was a little assembly required, and the produce wilted more slowly).
So not only was one moderately popular sandwich phased out, the replacement was drier, used the other toppings (reconstituted onions & shredded lettuce rather than sliced onions and lettuce leaves), and...
...was silently served up if anyone ordered a McDLT.
So if you said "I want a McDLT", we were told to ring up and serve a McLean.
Let's just say that engendered a certain amount of customer hostility towards the sandwich (and the employee).
Then there was the whole "this sandwich sucks" part. It was dry, the concept of seaweed in a sandwich didn't do well, and the taste was a little off (probably due to the low fat content, which also resulted in it cooking a little oddly).
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Thank You
This was a very useful, well-conducted interview that could truly help a lot of people.
Much appreciated.
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I liked the McLean!
tasted fine to me. Being a guy I'll speak only for guys in saying one reason guys overeat is that, as a guy, there is pressure to be "big". It's part of the American masculine image - big cars, big trucks, big bodies. In clothes it might not look too bad when they are younger - think Paul Tuetal - but it is unhealthly and especially as guys get older you see the effects of maintaining too high a BMI as they go nova.
In the end i realized despite all the situps in the world the only way i could see my abs was by dropping my weight down to a BMI of 21.8 - only 145 lbs at my height - yet I had been as heavy as 156 lbs and didn't feel overweight, I felt i was a nice size for a guy. It took some readjustment of my attitude to accept being smaller. So guys have to contend with a form of reverse anorexia that is so imbuded in US culture that a guy will choose to be as thin as he should (for health and clothes off aesthetic reasons) about as likely as he'd choose to drive a small hatchback over a SUV.
Women have it easy, they just have to be thin. A guy however has to worry about being too fat OR too thin.
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Whatever you do don't go on a fad diet
I don't know anyone who that has worked for in the long run.
I've lost about 40 pounds this year (starting Jan 1st), and just as the article says, I don't feel I've deprived myself at all!
Where I disagree with the author, to a some extent, is that I attribute my weight loss largely to my cutting processed crap almost completely from my diet. There are some types of food that, in my opinion, there is no correct portion size of, and should only be eaten when you've seen a good amount of success in your lifestyle change, and can handle indulging a little. Certainly portion sizes are important as well, but you know what? You go ahead and eat as much green beans and carrots you want. Make the the entree portion reasonable (read: small) and pig out on veggies. I like them so for me this wasn't a big hardship.
Corn syrup is a beast, and the amount of it that Americans drink per year comes out to several wheelbarrows full of sugar, per person. Just stopping that might help you lose 10 pounds or so, in a couple months. That is, if you don't compensate by pigging out more. Learn to like the taste of diet drinks if you don't already, or better yet, drink water, it's way better for you anyhow.
Secondly, yeah, go ahead and have that occasional burger. Nix the fries. Yeah, it kinda sucks, at first. You feel like you didn't eat enough because you're used to eating fries with burgers. About 10 minutes after you eat the burger, you won't be hungry any more. Eventually you won't feel you need the fries at all. At THAT point, go ahead and have some. :)
Take your lunch to work with you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know it's a pain. Here's what I do: I set aside Sunday afternoon to cook lunch for the week, throw 4 reasonable portions in some ziplock containers, and eat out on Friday. Whatever is left over I freeze lunch portions of, and I have a backup of some great food when I don't have time or the inclination to cook. You'll save money and lose weight.
Don't think of it as dieting. Think of it as a permanent lifestyle change. Whatever you do, stay away from south beach and atkins, they are fad diets that are unhealthy, that you won't be able to keep up for too long anyway, and then the weight comes back.
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Portion size vs portion interval
Yes, one can fairly easily manipulate the amount anyone eats at one time. However, in most cases eating more at a meal causes us to either eat less at the next meal or to delay it altogether. Actually, it is more accurate to say makes us WANT to eat less at the next meal and WANT to delay it. Unfortunately, because we eat regular meals at regular times with regular serving sizes, we often find ourselves sitting down to meals we don't really want to eat...and we then eat them anyway...for reasons discussed in the article.
Sensible weight control thus requires portion control at each meal and control over when meals are eaten and some way of varying the size of meals. Needless to say, this is not easy to do.