The Inside-Out Revolution - Book Review - POSTED ON: Apr 30, 2015
Michael Neill, the author of The Inside-Out Revolution
(2013) is an established well known radio show host, transformational coach, and best-selling author of other self-help books. What makes this book distinctive is what he describes as an "Inside-Out Understanding". He says that our Society has an "Outside-In" mindset: "The prevailing model in our culture is that our experience of life is created from the outside in - that is, what happens to us on the outside determines our experience on the inside. People or circumstances `make' us happy, angry, sad, fearful, or loving, and the game of life is to find, attract, create, or manifest the right people and circumstances in order to have more of the good feelings and fewer of the bad ones." The book is based on The Three Principles. These are:
Mind. There is an energy and intelligence behind life. Consciousness. The capacity to be aware and experience life is innate in human beings. It is a universal phenomenon. Our level of awareness in any given moment determines the quality of our experience. Thought. We create our individual experience of reality via the vehicle of thought. Thought is the missing link between the formless world of pure potentiality and the created world of form.
Neill says that the difference in making a change in one's mindset in how we view things can unchain us from the limitations we feel bound in, and he quotes: "A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push." He says to remember that you're only one thought away from happiness, you're only one thought away from sadness. The secret lies in Thought. Thought is the missing link that everybody in this world is looking for. Each of us has a selective choice …by way of thought …whether to experience happiness, something positive and meaningful, or, negative and sad, dragging us down emotionally. Neill quotes his mentor, Syd Banks, on a transformative moment: "When you are ready, you will find what you're looking for. I don't care who you are. I don't care where you are. If you're in the middle of the Sahara Desert...and it's time for you to find the answer, the right person will appear in the middle of the desert and let you know." The author points out: “The moment we see that every feeling is just the shadow of a thought, we stop being scared of our feelings and just feel them.”
Below is an entertaining video describing the concepts of the book.
Ditching Diets - Book Review - POSTED ON: Mar 01, 2013
"Ditching Diets: How to lose weight in a way you can maintain" (2013) by Gillian Riley, is a revised and updated edition of “Beating Overeating (2009)… which was a condensed, revised, and updated edition of the original, longer book: Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating (2006).
Ditching Diets is the third edition of a book containing advice of the author, Gillian Riley, who is an addiction counselor in the UK. It disagrees with the conventional Intuitive Eating advice ‘to eat when hungry and stop when full’. She uses the three core issues of Choice, Motivation and Temptation to introduce a way of different thinking about eating food and losing weight.
Cognitive techniques are explained in terms of brain function, showing readers how to work with what happens in the brain, instead of against it. The aim is to raise awareness of the addictive nature of overeating, creating a healthy, relaxed and realistically imperfect relationship with food.
The hope is that sustainable weight loss will be achieved through the elimination of overwhelming and persistent cravings, obsession with food, feelings of deprivation and rebellious rule breaking. Success with the plan would be successful weight-loss and maintenance while eliminating the need for “diets” – which Ms. Riley defines as restrictive eating plans devised by others.
The author, Gillian Riley, feels that the best way to lose weight is by developing a personal style of eating that one can live with, because such an eating style will be flexible and probably unique to that person.
She attempts to teach people to stop eating so much by changing their thought processes because she believes that the prohibitions normally involved within a “dieting mindset” contribute to the problem. Gillian Riley Disagrees with advice such as:
Because:
None of this takes into account what happens in the brain when one’s natural, survival drive to eat (and eat and eat) becomes activated. The purpose of this drive is to get one through the next famine, but in times of plenty the drive causes disaster. Therefore, nutritional advice often makes little difference. One can know what’s healthy, but can find it impossible to stick to “healthy” eating.
The author attempts to help people discover:
The author believes that this manner of thinking will eliminate:
I bought "Ditching Diets" (2013) on my Kindle, and after reading that book through, and reviewing articles on the author’s website, I also purchased a hard copy from Amazon for future study, and ordered her CD and a copy of the original edition, Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating (2006). I have not yet reviewed the CD or the first edition of the book, however, I've previously read the other books which the author recommends at the end of "Ditching Diets".
Frankly I was a bit surprised that I missed reading Ms. Riley's original book, however, in retrospect the year 2006 was when I reached my own personal weight-goal, and my focus was successfully working to maintain my weight-loss through conventional means. A few years later, when I began updating my reviews of various books, I suspect that I avoided it specifically because I clumped it together with the many “Intuitive Eating” books on the market, and later when I updated my research of books on Intuitive Eating concepts, I did not run across it.
The author, Gillian Riley, has read many of the same books I’ve read, and on many issues, we share a similar point of view. Her online articles, Intuitive Eating 1, 2 and 3, are the first time I’ve seen a Professional Counselor precisely state many of my own findings, beliefs, and opinions about Intuitive Eating, and I will be posting copies of those articles here at DietHobby at a later time.
Ms Riley’s techniques are a bit different from those of a typical “eating disorder” counselor, although she appears to share the conventional negative definition and viewpoint of “Dieting”. My own personal definition is far broader and includes all forms of eating, including “unrestricted” eating. My own definition of “Diet” includes any “non-Diet” plan which doesn’t recommend specific amounts, or kinds of food, but still has recommendations on the issues of food and eating. Under that definition, I consider Intuitive Eating or Eating Disorder type plans as simply another form of Dieting. Ms. Riley recommends a focus on “healthy” eating. I do agree with her definition of a focus on “healthy” foods being a focus on how specific foods make one feel. I praise Ms. Riley for not pushing her own food preferences onto others, which I find unusual for an “expert” who espouses a “real food” or “paleo” way-of-eating/ diet / lifestyle. Ms. Riley recommends that people abandon the scale, calorie counting, or food restrictions. This conforms with the intuitive eating / eating disorder position – i.e. the belief that a calorie counting way of thinking/ eating causes a disconnect from one’s appetite and body, and makes an obsession with either eating or not eating. I disagree with that position, and think that weighing, calorie counting, and tracking food should not be abandoned by any person who is able to view these behaviors as merely useful and objective tools of measurement. Wishful thinking and Denial are often subjective side-effects of Intuitive Eating or Eating Healthy approaches, and the use of these objective tools tend to ground people in reality, and help them avoid Denial. For me, personally, the use of the scale and calorie counting has become a helpful and rather enjoyable habit.
I will be doing more research along this line, and plan to do some personal experimentation of Ms. Riley’s techniques. Of course, while doing this, I will continue to track my weight and all of my daily food intake in my software food journal… just as I have done successfully for the past 8+ years. I understand that these behaviors may not be advisable for those people who have never established them as enjoyable habits, however, I doubt that Ms Riley’s techniques and such habits are mutually exclusive.
In Defense of Food - Book Review - POSTED ON: Nov 15, 2012
In Defense of Food” (2009) was written by Michael Pollan who is a Professor of Journalism at University of California at Berkeley. Pollan is not a doctor, a scientist, or a nutritionist - he’s a journalist.
Pollan's message is:
Go back to nature, eat whole foods. Don’t diet. Don't overeat; instead eat slowly, and enjoy your meals. Our curse is processed food. Artificially 'improved' foods and natural foods have very little in common..
The best-selling, "In Defense of Food" provides a guided tour of 20th century food science, a history of "nutritionism" in America and a snapshot of the marriage of government and the food industry. It then works as a hard-sell for the “real food” movement. Pollan's arguments are basically:
In all this, Pollan insists that you have to save yourself. He says that the government is so overwhelmed by the lobbying and marketing power of the processed food industry that the American diet is now 50% sugar in one form or another, and calories that provide "virtually nothing but energy." Politicians are terrified to take on the food industry. And as for the medical profession, the key moment, Pollan writes, is when "doctors kick the fast-food franchises out of the hospital". Pollan is a not a scientist, and doesn't seem to find it very important to ground his assertions with unimpeachable facts. His book is based on notions of a romanticized past, and his advice can sometimes be contradictory ("don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize" but "eat tofu" - - If your grandmother didn't come from Asia, it's doubtful she would recognize anything made of bean curd) and he tends to cite sources that he likes, rather than sources he's really investigated.
For example, Pollan would never list a dairy-industry pamphlet as one of his sources, but he gleefully quotes some rather doubtful statements from an organic-food-industry pamphlet, and apparently didn't bother to ask even one secondary source to verify them.
He writes a compelling essay showing that nutrition and dietary habits are incredibly difficult for scientists to study, and implies that any information based on nutritional studies is flawed, yet quotes certain studies as if they are somehow immune to this problem. Pollan maintains that the American government's health-education programs are a major cause of the obesity epidemic, yet his descriptions of these programs contain many inaccuracies. Pollan's tone appears occasionally condescending. He seems overly impressed with some of his own statements, such as his claim that humans are the only animals that turn to experts to tell them what to eat. Even if one accepts that this is true, humans do a lot of things that animals don't do, and in many cases, we should be glad of it. Some people seem to reverence this book like the Bible. Personally, I found it an interesting book, but one that needs be read critically, taking Pollen’s "facts" with a grain of salt. I, personally, didn't actually find the book insightful. He made a lot of scientific claims, but failed to support them. A great many readers seem to greatly care about Pollan's personal opinions, however, I’m not one of them.
Clearly the grandmothers with which Pollan is familiar were different from my own. I’m over 65 years old, and my own grandmothers, who were both born in the late 1800s, spent a lot of time processing and preserving their food, and most everything they cooked, including vegetables, contained a great deal of added saturated fat, sugar and/or white flour and other starchy foods. Pollan’s “real” food arguments, and his assumptions about the eating histories of our ancestors, seemed a bit naïve; and his opinions appeared to be strongly influenced by his own personal educational, economic, and cultural biases.
I found the following food and health expert’s critique to be rather refreshing.
A Critique of Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” by Mike Gibney, 4/23/2012 Professor of Food & Health at University College in Dublin, Ireland.
Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food’ has been a global best seller within the genre of books on food and health. It appears to be extremely popular among journalists since it bashes conventional wisdom on food. Twice, correspondents for the Irish Times chose to feature this book and marvel at its wisdom. Pollan’s book is peppered with half-truths, circular arguments and highly selective supporting material. His fundamental point is that we should focus our dietary choice on foods and not bother too much, if at all, with all of this nutritional advice that abounds today.
Pollen’s belief that health is the driver of food choice in the modern era is a cornerstone of his argument. Take for example the statement he makes: “That eating should be foremost about bodily health is a relatively new, and I think, destructive idea”.
The interest in healthy eating is as old as civilization and this obsession is the pursuit of a relatively minor section of society. The vast majority chooses food that they plan to enjoy and, in making those choices, take care to get some level of balance as regards to their personal health. Every study that has examined the drivers of food choice have come away with the conclusion that the “go – no go” part of food choice is whether the consumer likes the food.
Pollan’s assumption that it is the pursuit of health that drives food choice is an opinion based his personal reflections and observations. However, our own research, published in peer-reviewed journals shows the opposite. In a survey of over 14,000 consumers across the EU, some 71% either ‘agreed strongly’ or ‘agreed’ with the statement: “I do not need to make changes to my diet as my diet is already healthy enough”. Figure that Mr. Pollan!
The putative obsession with food and health of modern consumers that Pollan puts forward arises from the dogmatism and doctrine, which he calls “nutritionism”. He argues that nutrition has reduced the food and health issue to nutrients. In his view, nutritionists see foods solely as purveyors of nutrients and summarizes their view thus: “Foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts”. He quotes his fellow food saviour and author Marion Nestle who says of nutrition: “…it takes the nutrient out of the food, the food out of the diet and the diet out of the lifestyle”.
Eloquent, but utter baloney! This needs to rebutted along several lines. In 1996, I chaired a joint WHO-FAO committee that issued a report entitled “Preparation and use of food-based dietary guidelines”. The notion behind this was that many developing countries did not have detailed data on the nutrient content of their food supply, that they didn’t have nutritional surveys and that we should encourage the development of healthy eating advice in terms that consumers can understand. Indeed, statistical techniques such as cluster analysis are widely used to study food intake patterns and moreover, there are many examples of systems that score food choice for their nutritional quality. To write a book based on the impression that nutritionists see foods solely in terms of nutrients is simply daft.
Let me go a little further with this. Take the disease spina bifida, which is one of several forms of neural tube defects (NTD) that occur early in pregnancy. Extensive human intervention studies have shown that an increased intake of the B vitamin, folic acid, will significantly reduce the re-occurrence of an NTD birth in women who have previously had a child with this condition. This research has led to a threshold value of folic acid in blood above which this reduction occurs and the research shows that in human intervention studies, it is not possible to attain this threshold with normal foods, naturally rich in folate. Such folate has a rather low bioavailability and the threshold can only be reached if the volunteers consumed foods fortified with synthetic folic acid. This has led to the mandatory fortification of flour in the US with folic acid leading to a dramatic reduction in the incidence of new cases of spina bifida.
What is laughable about Pollan’s approach is that he himself engages in his so-called reductionism because he devotes at least almost 11 pages to the argument for and against the polyunsaturated fats from plants (omega-6 variety) and the polyunsaturated fats from fish (omega-3 variety), ultimately favouring the latter and then ends up with the statement: ”Could it be that the problem with the Western diet is a gross deficiency in this nutrient?” Now Michael you can’t have it both ways. You can’t decry nutritionists for studying individual nutrients in relation to health and then proceed to do so yourself! And remarkably, this champion of foods over nutrients goes on to argue that older persons should take multivitamins. Don’t take a bow Michael. Just stop doing summersaults.
The final piece in his jigsaw is to dismiss the modern processed food, as though bread, cheese, yogurt, pasta, wine, chocolate, coffee and the like are not processed. Their processing details were worked out long ago and so they don’t qualify for the derogatory tag of “processed”. The first sugar refinery was built in Crete in 1000 AD and that the Arabic name for Crete, Qandi, gave rise to what we today call “candy”. This process requires the sugar can to be pulped in water, the water filtered through muslin and the water evaporated in the searing heat of the Crete sunshine, which is why Crete was chosen and not Cork. And Pollan makes the inevitable mistake of the agricultural romanticist that organic food is nutritionally superior to conventionally farmed food, which is palpably untrue.
Pollan is a California food-head, and among the world’s few privileged elite. Most of the other High Priests of “Healthy Eating” and their “real food” followers tend to give great respect to his unsubstantiated opinions. Pollan’s best-seller status demonstrates that he has been very successful at “preaching to the choir”.
Although a fellow Californian, I am not a “real food” person, nor a Michael Pollan fan. There are many different ways to look at the world, and I see a great deal of cultural bias involved in the way that Pollan views it. As a well-known Journalist, Pollan’s writings have great appeal for educated, white, middle-class, environmentalists, … especially for organic-whole-food-“health-nut” people … many of whom are also employed by the media.
The End of Overeating - Book Review - POSTED ON: Nov 09, 2012
The End of Overeating (2010) by David Kessler is a compelling, in-depth analysis of why we eat the way we do. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner shares how our brain chemistry has been hijacked by the foods we most love to eat: those that contain stimulating combinations of fat, sugar, and salt.
Drawn from the latest brain science as well as interviews with top physicians and food industry insiders, The End of Overeating exposes the food industry’s aggressive marketing tactics and reveals how we lost control over food, and gives suggestions on how to regain personal control.
Kessler pores through the research and details the physiological and psychological reasons for why we are drawn to overeat, and the way that big corporations use this research to make food products that are guaranteed to tempt us to over-indulge. It all boils down to sugar, fat, and salt, and how companies spend millions of dollars developing recipes and chemicals that will entice us, to over-ride our natural "homeostasis" that would normally keep us at an even weight.
The first part of the book deals with the physiological research, then the psychology behind overeating, and finally, at the end of the book are chapters devoted to dealing with these triggers in order to help one get beyond the temptations and stay at an even weight. It is certainly true that the obese in our culture are in a Catch 22 situation. Marketing Interests in Society do everything possible to entice us to overeat, and yet we are also stigmatized by Marketing Interests in Society when our bodies become obese as a natural result of overeating.
Of course, … also … that stigmatization of our obesity creates even more marketing opportunities for those same food Marketing Interests as well as a for variety of others, in the form of “diet or non-diet” information and programs; a multitude of “healthy” foods, supplements and drugs; the “health” services of medical professionals, including surgeons, psychologists, nutritionists, trainers; as well as “health related or exercise” facilities and equipment etc
I was not impressed by Kessler’s “solutions” to the problem of obesity. This best-selling book’s primary value to me was its presentation of interesting detailed facts about how Marketing Interests use their best efforts to entice us to eat as much as possible.
Kessler’s presentation represents a popular theory about the current “obesity epidemic”, however, there are also opposing theories. Mike Gibney, author of a recently published book, “Something to Chew on”, (11/2012) says that when Kessler writes that the incidence of obesity soared from the late 1980s, he ignores the indisputable fact that the rise of obesity is more or less tracked by the industrial revolution.
Gibney goes on to say that this omission is of huge importance, because “If Kessler chooses to ignore the early origins of obesity, then he can be comfortable blaming the advent of foods high in salt, sugar and fat. Others can comfortably blame the advent of high fructose corn syrup, fast food, sugar sweetened beverages” Gibney continues: “It is a simple fact of life that obesity is one of the drawbacks of affluence where food is abundant and where labour saving devices (and slave labour) are accessible. This is not for one iota to play down the health consequences of obesity. It is simply of enormous importance in understanding the causes of obesity.”
No one book provides every answer to any issue. I found Kessler’s book, “The End of Overeating” extremely interesting reading, and recommend it. However, I did feel the title was a bit misleading, since the book provided very little practical insight or new help toward actually ENDING Overeating.
The Simple Diet - Diet Review - POSTED ON: Oct 27, 2012
The Simple Diet - A Diet Review
In "The Simple Diet" (2011) Dr. James Anderson, a professor of medicine and clinical nutrition at the University of Kentucky, shares his scientifically based nutritional plan. He says that he, himself has used it successfully, and that he has also used it to successfully treat many patients. Dr. Anderson considers his diet to be a budget-friendly weight-loss plan which he favorably compares with commercial diet plans like Nutri-system and Jenny Craig.
The Simple Diet is a replacement meal plan, in which one eats only shakes and packaged entrees of one’s choice, together with any type of fruit (except dried) and/or any type of vegetable prepared without butter or additional fat.
The diet relies on frozen entrees and diet shake mixes … plus fruits and vegetables … to meet one’s nutritional needs, and Dr. Anderson doesn’t take issue with processed foods or artificial sweeteners. The diet requires the purchase of diet shake mixes like SlimFast or various Protein powders (to be mixed with water or fruit, not skim or soy milk); frozen dinner entrees like Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones; high protein snack bars like Luna (optional); some soups (optional); and fresh, canned, or frozen vegetables and fruits. There are a large selection of "diet friendly" meal options offered in the plan, most widely available in American supermarkets, and the diet does not allow for any foods (except those existing within the frozen entrees) which are typical household staples, like breads, pastas, rice, cereals or dairy products (nonfat plain greek yogurt is considered an acceptable protein shake substitute).
The rules of Phase 1 are to eat only 3 protein shakes … either a ready-made brand like slim-fast or protein powder mixed with water (soup also qualifies as a shake), 2 packaged frozen entrees, and 5 or more fruits or vegetables a day. Ordinarily one would have a shake for Breakfast; a shake mid-morning; a shake mid-afternoon; a frozen entrée for Lunch; a frozen entrée for Dinner; and fruit and vegetables at any time. One is to also drink at least 8 glasses of water or other non-caloric beverage. Coffee, tea, and diet sodas are acceptable. If necessary or desired, one can also have up to 1 protein bar daily, but this is additional, not a replacement for the shake or entrée. If a person is still hungry, additional shakes and more fruits and vegetables are recommended instead of adding extra foods, or eating additional bars. Phase 2 gradually brings in other foods.
The plan is based on the premise that by exercising a bit more and eating pre-measured low calorie entrees, diet shakes, occasional protein bars, and fruits and veggies, one will lose weight. This is a calories-in/calories-out plan, and one’s total calories depend on the specific food items that one chooses. Dr. Anderson provides guidelines for choosing shakes, entrees, soups, and bars; and when followed, the plan will provide between 1100 and 1600 calories daily.
This is a prescriptive plan, but does offer plenty of variety (in shakes, entrees and produce). The cost depends on where one shops and what one is willing to spend. If one goes to Target or Wal-Mart, most entrees will cost $1-2.50, and Slimfast is about $6-8. If one goes to GNC for shake powder, one’s cost can be $30. Snacks and meals are quick to prepare with a minimum of cleanup. “Simple” is the point of the Simple Diet, and it definitely meets that requirement.
The premise of Dr. Anderson’s book, "The Simple Diet"(2011), is that it is possible to lose weight easily in a relatively short period of time using foods that are readily available in any supermarket if you are following the right plan. Dr. Anderson promises that very obese dieters can lose up to 50 pounds in the first 12 weeks of their diet, and that the weight loss can be permanent. In addition to shedding unwanted pounds Dr. Anderson claims that (through weight-loss) this diet will help lower high blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure; that it can help reverse heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and a variety of other obesity induced conditions. The rules of the diet are fairly easy to follow and require little measuring or calorie counting, however, optional tracking of food and calorie counting will be helpful.
Since I am already normal weight with a total energy burn of less than 1200 calories (for details see my previous articles), I modified the diet to reduce it to a daily total of about 900 calories in order to make it a weight-loss possibility for me personally. I did this by being careful with my choices of fruits and vegetables, replacing the lunch entrée meal with vegetables only… having only one entrée daily, and by limiting protein bars.
My shakes were made from 1 scoop of Designer Whey protein powder at 100 calories per scoop. I made them with ice and 4 oz sugar-free Almond Milk which added 20 calories per shake. I occasionally added 1 fruit serving for additional calories. See my recipes for Chocolate Milkshake, and Strawberry Banana Smoothie. Fage 0% Greek Yogurt (6 oz container=100 calories); my homemade egg-white custards (50 calories); my chocolate protein cookie (50 calories); and my protein cream cupcake (substituting sugar-free vanilla syrup for cream) (100 calories) also qualified as shake substitutes.
I enjoyed my bit of experimentation with The Simple Diet, and liked the food choices far better than with Nutri-System, or Jenny Craig. I’ve no personal objection to eating processed food, and found that eating on the plan actually provided me with a more balanced, low-fat diet, than my normal maintenance eating. I plan to do additional experimentation with this diet sometime in the future.
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