When you understand your cravings better, the first thing you’ll likely notice is that sugary foods at the meal inflame your between-meal blip—making it larger and longer. Sugar stimulates an insulin surge, which whisks the energy reserves out of your blood and into your muscles and organs where (it thinks) you need it. After that happens, you feel like you’re low on energy again.
On the other hand, meals with natural fiber, protein, or fat guard against between-meal hunger. So when you have breakfast, for example, have something natural: apples are better than apple juice because the sugar is accompanied by fiber; normal milk is better than skim because it’s accompanied by a higher level of fat; whole-grain breads are better than sugary white bread … you get the picture.
PEOPLE ON THE PATH
Dear Dr. Clower,
I think I began doing sit-ups and sleeping with Teen magazine at about nine years old. That’s when it began. I proceeded to feel a little too heavy, specifically in my belly, for the next eighteen years or so. I tried hating myself, loving myself, starving myself, eating whatever I wanted, eating vegan, praying, head-banging … but to no avail.
So, when I happened to find out about this approach, something clicked. I didn’t know it right away, but life was sailing toward the land of quite fabulous.
I had slaved my way through South Beach and other such atrocities before I came to. I think it was during a downpour on a spring evening when I woke up: Life is not about dietary control. There is a way to live passionately and presently, whether it’s about food, work, men, or bills. I kid, but it’s true: at least on the topic of food…. The war is over.
The result? Size 6 or 8 from a 12 or 14. Yay! No more panic attacks over bloating! No more inner commentary! And for the first time since I was nine years old, a natural connection with food, my body, and unadulterated joy.
Take care,
Jennifer C.
P.S. My mother has started as well, and I don’t think she’s looked so fabulous since I was very young. It’s so much fun to have a partner in my lifestyle weight loss!
Why Snacking Makes You Want to Eat Even More: The Appetite Thermometer
The principle bears repeating. You respond to your body’s cravings by eating. But your body’s cravings are created by your eating behaviors. It’s a circle.
Every step we’ve taken so far shows how to retrain these behaviors to serve you—for your portions, drinks, and even your between-meal cravings. Now we’re going to give you the tools to track this change and push your overall hunger level lower with the appetite thermometer, or appestat. This idea has been around for at least fifty years (the first paper I’ve found on it dates back to 1952, and discusses the early ideas about the brain mechanisms of appetite regulation).
You don’t have to get caught up in too many details to understand how this works. Just remember that the appestat is simply all the body chemicals that get released after you eat, which sum up in your brain to create feelings of hunger and fullness.
You can think about your body’s appetite thermometer just like the thermostat you have in your home that controls temperature. When the air cools, the heater comes on until the temperature reaches the set level and then it cuts off. The same thing happens in your body. When your energy gets low, your hunger mechanisms kick in to make you eat until you pass the thermometer threshold. If your appetite thermometer is set high, you’ll be hungry for a lot of food. If it’s low, you’re one of those people who eats like a bird.
And, just like when your mother-in-law comes over and cranks the thermostat way up, your body has its own nefarious influences that can change yours (I’m sure I didn’t mean to associate nefarious with mother-in-law, I’m sure I meant wonderful). Although your mother-in-law may control your home thermometer, you get to regulate your personal appetite mechanism. In fact, the ability to dial it up or down empowers most people who live this lifestyle. Changing your level of hunger is the long-term lifestyle solution for ultimate portion control.
Turn down the appestat so your body will ask for less food. When you do this, you can eat all you want. You just want less. That’s the secret that explains this part of the French paradox.
Making the Measurement
At least for this week, keep a diary. There are only two measurements you’ll need to take: your eating volume, and the number of times you eat during the day. In other words, it’s the volume your body needs over time. If you reduce the amount you eat or increase the time between meals, you effectively dial down your body’s appetite thermometer. For you math-heads, here’s an equation to describe it:
Volume (portions) / Time between eating (minutes) X 100
(We just multiply by 100 to make it a convenient number to read.)
TIME BETWEEN ONE MEAL AND THE NEXT: This is easy—just add up the minutes. Start with breakfast and note how much time passes between breakfast and the next time you eat—whether it’s lunch or a between-meal snack. Did you make it from breakfast, ending at nine A.M., to lunch, starting at one P.M.? That’s four hours, or 240 minutes, without hunger. Did you have to have a snack between the two meals around eleven A.M.? Simple. In that case, you’d write down 120 minutes (2 hours) without being hungry.
Do the same between lunch and dinner. If you finish lunch at one, and then don’t eat until dinner at five, that’s four hours—240 minutes. If you have to snack at three, that’s two hours, or 120 minutes.
Now you just add up the two times: 240 minutes from breakfast to lunch plus 240 minutes from lunch to dinner. That’s 480 minutes total.
FOOD VOLUME IS JUST AS EASY: Approximate and add up the volume of food you eat in a day. Don’t worry, you don’t have to calculate grams or carry around a scale or anything silly like that. Just estimate the portions on your plate by using a measurement, such as the size of a deck of cards or your fist as one portion, as listed in our portions chart in Step 5 as a guide.
For example, if you have an egg for breakfast, that’s one portion. If you also had a bowl of oatmeal (about two-thirds full), that’s one portion. Add one piece of toast with butter, that’s three portions at breakfast.
Do the same with lunch. If you have a serving of meat, a veggie, and a starch, that’s three portions. Add a dessert and you’ve had four portions for lunch. Get the idea? Then if you have four of these portions for dinner, you’ve had a total of eleven (three at breakfast, four at lunch, and four at dinner). That’s all. The math’s pretty simple, too.
Example: Kim’s Appestat Reading
Kim ate at mealtimes and didn’t snack.
Volume in portions:
2 (breakfast) + 4 (lunch) + 4 (dinner) =10 portions
Time between meals in minutes:
240 (4 hours from breakfast to lunch) + 240 (4 hours from lunch to dinner) = 480 minutes
Appestat reading:
(10 portions / 480 minutes) X 100 = 2.1
Example: David’s Appestat Reading
David snacked on a doughnut between breakfast and lunch, but then didn’t eat until dinner. He had dessert.
Volume in portions:
2 (breakfast) + 1 (snack) + 3 (lunch) + 4 (dinner) + 1 (dessert) =11 portions
Time between meals:
120 (2 hours from breakfast to snack) + 240 (4 hours from lunch to dinner) = 360 minutes
Appestat reading:
(11 portions / 120 minutes) X 100 = 3.1
When you snack between meals, your appestat goes higher. I guess a better way of saying this is, when your appestat is higher, you snack between meals. In these two examples alone it went up from 2.1 to 3.1.
Let’s review this for the mathematically disinclined. As you can see, all we’re doing is adding up the amount you eat through the day. That’s your total intake. We compare this to how often you have to eat. Thus, it’s your body’s food volume over time. And this feeding rate amounts to what your body is asking for—your basic appetite threshold.
Don’t Be Exact, Just Be Consistent
Ever
yone who’s ever been on a diet panics when I tell them to estimate portions. Is the mashed potato portion about the size of a deck of cards, or a shade larger, or maybe it’s a regulation deck of cards, or, or … I was overseas once, and they have cards that are longer and thinner … ?
Don’t worry—you don’t need to sweat the details. However you estimate portions is fine, as long as you consistently use the same estimations each time. The appetite thermometer is just helping you track the changes and push the bar lower.
Interpret the Appestat Reading
The reason that you don’t have to be an accountant with your portions is because your appetite thermometer reading is a relative number. It has meaning only when you see how it changes, week by week.
I’m not going to tell you how many portions you should have. Just have the amount you’re hungry for, and then watch that amount change over time as you dial down your appestat. I don’t have to dictate your portions as they do on standard diets, because your current hunger level (or appestat setting) is not important whatsoever right now. What is important is that you move the setting in the correct direction—down, not up! So you can be at peace with where you are right now, and move your body’s cravings in the direction you want them to go.
Remember, this is about the process of putting your body in training to relearn healthy eating habits for life. As with anything you would train for, you cannot start at the end, and the training process takes time.
So when you add up your appestat reading, start from a week’s average value. Don’t worry when your daily readings fluctuate dramatically. These micro changes don’t matter as much as the larger changes that happen from week to week.
Dial Down Your Cravings
Identify key areas that push your appetite lower. These include the number of portions at a sitting and the tendency to snack between meals. Everyone is different, but here are some suggested portion values you will work your way toward: breakfast, 2 portions; lunch, 3 portions; dinner, 4 portions; snacks, 0.
WHAT DIALS DOWN YOUR APPETITE THERMOMETER?
Every time you eat small.
Every time you stop eating when you are satisfied.
Every time you push the portion bar lower.
Every time you go between meals without snacking.
Every time your meal includes food with natural levels of fiber, fat, and protein.
Every time you take your time and enjoy your meal.
Every time you solve the clean-your-plate problem.
WHAT TURNS YOUR APPETITE THERMOMETER UP?
Every time you rush through a meal.
Every time you eat sugary foods.
Every time you eat when you’re stressed.
Every time you graze through the afternoon.
Every time you eat so much that you feel stuffed after a meal.
Own Your Own Health
In the last three steps, we talked about how to solve portion distortion so your eating habits control eating volume for you. And now with the lessons learned in this step, you can master chronic overeating as well. Put these together and you have a clear message of hope. No longer will you diet over and over only to regain weight. You really can change what your body asks for so it asks for less and leaves you healthier in the process.
But how do you get from where you are now to where you want to be? How do you make the transition from the engrained habits that frustrate your attempts at weight loss, and replace them with the success of the French approach? It starts by realizing what you can change, what you can’t, and what you have to be at peace with.
To Change Your Body, Change Your Mind
Some things must be accepted. Some things can be changed. Meditation can slow autonomic functions such as heart rate, or even blood pressure. Korean (Hae-Nyo) and Japanese (Ama) sponge and pearl divers have actually changed their physiology so they can hold their breath an incredible two minutes. Of course, there are limits to what biological knobs and buttons you can push and pull in your own body, but many more aspects are malleable than you think.
It takes just a minute to realize what this means. Our body may limit us, but we can push the envelope of those boundaries if we choose. Our urges may drive us to behave in unhealthy ways, but our behavior sculpts those urges.
For example:
Long-distance runners have great lung capacity, so they can run a
long way.
But they got that capacity because they run.
Brilliant singers have angelic voices, so they can sing.
But they got those voices because they sing.
People crave sweets because they have sweet tooths.
But they got those sweet tooths because they eat sweets.
You get the picture. You can nudge your own desires in a positive or negative direction, very easily grow sweet cravings by consistently eating oversugared foods, or create a huge appetite by eating tons of food.
But here’s the good news. If you find yourself within this pit of self-inflicted health problems, you can still get out of it through your own efforts. And don’t worry if it takes a while. You didn’t slide into this hole overnight; so don’t expect to climb out with one magic pill, fat-be-gone ring, or fad diet. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to have to ease your body dynamic back in the direction of health with your new behaviors.
Just like training, you’ll make a little progress every single day on the path toward your goal. Those incremental steps will refine how your body works, change your cravings, and ultimately produce consistent weight loss.
Don’t Forget, Don’t Diet
The appetite thermometer is perhaps the closest we come to a diet in the French approach because we’re asking you to keep track of your volume and how frequently you eat. But don’t get too hung up on the details of the measurements or you’ll slide back into the dieting mentality. Rather, focus on the point of the appestat: You can control the quantity and quality of the food your body asks for.
That basic fact is a freedom and a joy, because you don’t have to be driven to unhealthy behaviors. Everything you will need to own your own health is within your reach, and this step gives you the tools so you can see the changes happen, quantitatively if you want, over time.
When you’re adding your delicious ender to your meal, focus on the flavor and the enjoyment of the process. This will keep it in a healthy perspective. If you look at it like a magic hunger-be-gone pill, it will not work well because you’ll eat too fast and drive up the amount you need to achieve the same effect. Keep it luscious and use it to practice your sensual eating. That way it will remain healthy for you and you can enjoy it each day.
CHEAT SHEET: EAT ALL YOU WANT (YOU’LL JUST WANT LESS)
The ender is a lovely metaphor for the entire French style of eating. It represents the love of good food, the exchange of quantity for quality, the health benefits of eating small, and the importance of enjoying what you have in front of you. The promise of this technique is that you can finally own your own health and sculpt your cravings in a positive way. As a result, you’ll spend more time with less food, enjoy good nutrition without going overboard, and the calories you avoid will provide weight loss without even trying.
Wait ten minutes after your meal, and then have an ender: cheese, chocolate, nuts, tea, or coffee.
Keep the portion small: for cheese or chocolate, only two thumbs, no more. For a liquid ender, only sip from a small cup.
Make your enders last as long as possible.
When Finding Your Appetite Thermometer Threshold
Add up your portions in the way that makes sense to you. Just be consistent every time.
Eat at consistent mealtimes.
Foods with natural levels of fiber, fat, and protein will make it easier to end grazing.
Map your between-meal hunger blip—when it starts and how long it lasts.
The Results You’re Looking For
IMMEDIATELY
You will go longer bet
ween meals before getting hungry.
You will understand (and learn to control) the between-meal blip.
WITHIN A WEEK
You will have trained your physiology to be free from the constant expectation of more and more food.
WITHIN TWO WEEKS
You will have a good sense of how much your body craves and know how to dial down the appetite thermometer threshold.
WITHIN A MONTH
Your body will have lost your between-meal hunger blip.
You will find yourself at the next meal and you won’t really be all that hungry.
HOMEWORK: END BETWEEN-MEAL SNACKING
Try different enders to see which one you enjoy the most:
Foods such as cheese, dark chocolate, or nuts.
Drinks such as a small coffee or tea.
When you try these enders, note the one that takes you between meals without hunger. You may find that nuts like almonds work the best because they have fats, fiber, and calcium!
Track your appetite thermometer reading:
The French Don't Diet Plan Page 17
