• how do the different nutrients in food contribute to satiation and satiety by suppressing hunger?

• will the suppression of hunger reduce energy intake or cause a compensatory increase at meals eaten later?

• do different nutrients affect fat loss or gain?

Keep in mind that many of our ideas about the nutritional aspects of appetite control come from studies on laboratory rats. These can be far removed from the real world of takeaway pizza, so we need to be cautious when extrapolating these animal findings to humans.

Unlike excess dietary fat intake, which has a clearer relationship to gains in body fat, the various factors that influence appetite may vary greatly between individuals. Let’s look at the evidence for different nutrients.

Myth-information. Meal replacement biscuits are generally high in energy and fat. They would only work if they could control the intake of food later in the day—and they don’t!

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Get your facts straight: Be sure your daughter does indeed have an eating disorder, and isn’t just spending too much time in the bathroom combing her hair. If you have doubts, bring them up in a nonjudgmental way. Keep at it until you are satisfied that your daughter is not endangering herself.

Know the problem: Bone up on the subject. Become as well informed as your daughter is.

Know the solution: Find out about treatment facilities in your area and meet with caregivers. If you don’t like their approach, keep hunting. A list of resources appears on page 216.

Choose your words: Think about what you will say. Rehearse it. Imagine the conversation and prepare answers to any objections.

Set the stage: Decide when and where to confront her. Don’t act on impulse. Wait for a moment of calm, a time free from distractions-not, for example, ten minutes before Thanksgiving dinner.

Plunge in: Once you’ve made your plan, stick to it. Every day you delay, the disorder gets worse.

Show your concern: Make it clear how you feel. Tell your daughter you love her but are concerned. Tell her she needs help, and why. If she says, “There’s no problem,” you can say, “I don’t accept that. I’m worried, and I just can’t look the other way when I see that you are hurting yourself.”

Make “I” contact: Focus on how the problem affects you personally. Say, “I notice that you spend a lot of money on food,” or, “I’ve heard you vomiting after dinner, and I feel very concerned.” Show her how you feel. Doing so, rather than telling your daughter that she is “weak” or “bad,” can reduce her tendency to be defensive.

State the goal: Your goal is to get help; stay focused on this goal. Tell her, “I have looked into it and I know help is available. If you’ll see an expert, I’ll do everything I can to support you.” No matter how carefully you word it, however, an anorexic child will probably think you just want to make her fat. Reassure her that the goal is to overcome her fear of fatness and help her cope with difficult feelings.

Don’t criticize: Avoid commenting on her appearance. You may think you are making helpful statements, but she may take them as criticisms. For example, when you say, “You’re looking healthier,” she may interpret your remark as, “You’re getting fatter.”

Listen!: Listening is hard work. Your feelings may be so strong that you have to resist the temptation to interrupt or make judgments.

Acknowledge her fears: For her, gaining weight may be scarier than dying. She may be terrified of being cooped up in a hospital or of being force-fed. Don’t say, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Better to say, “I understand how you feel. A counselor can help you conquer those fears.” Denying her feelings is something she does too much of already.

Be realistic: Treatment won’t necessarily cure the disorder. It can teach other ways to think and behave. “Cure” comes as the patient applies those methods over time in different situations. Also, some anorexics fantasize that they can eliminate symptoms without restoring weight. Not true.

Keep plugging: You may not succeed at first. Be patient. Don’t let the subject drop. If you keep at it, you add to your chances for success. Sometimes the danger to your daughter may warrant taking increasingly serious steps. Cut off her allowance; ground her; keep her home from school. If this doesn’t work, you may find it helpful to get professional guidance to develop another strategy.

Stop “enabling”: If you’re not helping your daughter, then you are enabling her to get worse. Shift the responsibility to her. If she binges, she must replace that food. Make her pay for it, too. If she makes a mess of the bathroom, she must clean it up.

Make yourself available: Make sure she knows you are there to help. Open the lines of communication-not just about her disorder, but about anything that concerns her. Tell her, “I know you’re going through a hard time, I’m here for you, I want to help.” Of course, families who aren’t very supportive can’t change overnight. They may need therapy themselves. But it’s worth the effort.

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Instead, the 48-year-old Liverpool, New York, woman picks up a pair of 3-pound hand weights and starts pumping. For about a half-hour during her TV time each night, she hoists the weights up and down behind her head to exercise her triceps, then curls them forward toward her chest to work her biceps.

Because she has filled her days with healthy lifestyle choices like this, Lynn has shed 60 pounds in 2 years, dropping from a size 24 to a size 14.

Back when Lynn weighed about 240 pounds, she was growing frustrated over her failed attempts to slim down. One evening over dinner, two friends told her that they’d noticed her unhappiness. Along with their candid observation, they gave her a 10-week membership in a weight-loss group. It helped spark a change in her life.

Through the weight-loss group, Lynn learned how to eat healthier. Her portion sizes got smaller, and her food choices shifted toward fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. “But I don’t exclude any foods,” she says. “That only leads to bingeing.”

For exercise, Lynn joined a fitness program sponsored by the university where she worked. The program’s instructors advised Lynn to start doing aerobic exercise. Now each morning, before she heads to her job as a secretary in the university’s law school, she works out for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the university’s gym. Most of her time is spent on a rowing machine and elliptical stepper, though she lifts weights, too.

“I’ve gone from somebody who could barely lift a 10-pound bag of potatoes to somebody who can bench-press 75 pounds five times,” she says. “It makes me feel powerful, and it’s the first time in my life that I’ve really felt physically powerful.”

WINNING ACTION

Turn your easy chair into a workout space. Keep a pair of small hand weights near the chair, couch, or other spot where you relax in the evening. As you unwind from your day, you can squeeze in more exercise while in a comfortable place. And keeping the weights there will serve as a reminder of your new, healthy lifestyle.

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Protein: Protein should be kept to about 10 percent of the daily calories.

Carbohydrates: About 70 percent of the daily calories should come from carbohydrates, almost all of which should be complex (not refined).

Some people believe that this combination of moderate protein, low fat, and high complex carbohydrates is the most difficult part of this or any other diet plan. But in practice, you will find it easier to achieve than you think. That is true for two reasons. The first is that, by the simple expedient of carrying some vegetables with you at all times, you are likely to eat more complex carbohydrates and commensurately less “other stuff,” including protein. The second reason is that many meats contain less protein than you might imagine. A lot of their bulk is made up of fat … and you’ve cut down on that with Chitosan. Even the remaining mass is only partially protein. The rest is water (which makes up much of its bulk) and a certain amount of carbohydrates, plus some fiber.

The good news is that if you have slightly more protein than the ideal mix, it probably doesn’t matter.

Fiber: Between 35 and 40 grams per day. Again, you help to achieve this automatically with

Chitosan.

Water: At least 8 glasses of water per day (do not substitute coffee or tea for water). This is an essential part of the program and you must adhere to it. More about this below.

Cholesterol: Less than 300 mg. should be taken in each day. Again, this is easier to achieve with this program than with any other since Chitosan cuts down on the saturated fat that causes the liver to make more cholesterol.

Salt:
No more than 1,000 mg. should be taken in each day. There is a lot of controversy about salt. While everyone agrees that too much is bad, there is a wide discrepancy about what constitutes too much. My view is that 1,000 mg. is ideal, but a bit more is probably not harmful unless you have, or are very prone to, high blood pressure.

If you love salt and wish to cut down, there is an easy way to do this, namely reduce your salt intake very gradually. As you do, you will find that your taste buds get acclimated to less salt. They become more sensitive, and actually taste salt as saltier. If you decrease the amount of salt very slowly, your buds will not notice: Food will taste as salty as before. However, gradually you will become more aware of other flavors. After a few months of this, you will greatly prefer low or even unsalted foods. Excess salt will seem unpleasant. If your doctor tells you to cut down on salt, you can win that fight—as you can the fight for weight loss—without really struggling at all.

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Assuming that every gram of Chitosan pulls 5 grams of fat out of your digestive system, here’s how many grams of fat— and calories—you’ll avoid if you take Chitosan within half an hour of eating these foods: Of course, if you use the more optimistic figure of 6 grams of fat pulled out of the body for each gram of Chitosan taken, the amount of fat and calories saved will be even higher.

Obviously, consuming fewer calories and less fat, while still getting all of the calories and nutrients your body needs, are significant steps toward better health. Chitosan can help you achieve these goals. But don’t use it as an excuse to eat even
more fatty foods. Obviously, if you make Chitosan the excuse to eat more fat, you will neutralize its positive effects. You may even gain weight. There is no point in taking 3 grams of Chitosan (which will absorb about 9 to 18 grams of fat) and then eating a Big Mac with about 45 grams of fat in it! No, even with Chitosan, a diet that is reasonably low in fat remains an important part of building lifelong health.

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More than 1,000 Americans die of cancer every day. Simple dietary changes may prevent an estimated 60 percent of those cancer deaths in women, and 40 percent in men. In other words, roughly half of those 1,000-plus deaths each and every day can be prevented by diet.

The exact mechanisms by which diet alters the path of cancer remain shrouded in mystery. But we do know that there are at least two steps involved: initiation and activation.

The nucleus of every cell in your body contains DNA. Short for deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA is a specialized protein that serves as the instruction manual telling each and every cell what to do and how to do it. Your DNA is also your body’s “master plan,” ensuring that all the cells in your body work in concert to promote health and well-being.

delicious-looking, high-fat foods.

To make matters worse, we’re eating larger portions than ever before. For example, yesterday’s regular order of french fries at McDonald’s is today’s small. The large fries introduced in 1970 are now called regular. And big has become really big, as in the popular “Big Gulp” size soft drinks, which can be as large as half a gallon! Incredibly, many of us seem to have no problem gulping down all that food, because we are lucky enough not to suffer from bad teeth, incurable stomach ulcers, various gastrointestinal
infections, or other ailments that might keep
us from eating our fill. Perhaps worst of all,
evolution works against
us.

We were genetically
programmed to want to
eat more than we
needed when food was
abundant. This way, we
could build up reserves
for times when food was
scarce. That’s why we
have a tendency to store
up excess fat and hang
on to it tenaciously. In fact, our bodies are willing to part with those fat reserves only if we are
close to starvation. The “saddle bags” on the upper thighs and / or the fatty bulges on the underside of the buttocks are especially difficult to reduce.

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