Jennifer Sygo: Diet books you can trust? Gimmick-free? Yes, it’s possible, and here are two prime examples
Chris Roussakis/National Post filesSuccessfully juggling the elements of a fad diet doesn't guarantee weight loss over the long haul, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says, because the changes you make have to be manageable when the restrictions end.
For the past two years, I’ve been working on a book. The final product, titledUnmasking Superfoods, is now in wide release. While the road from concept to completion was long and at times daunting, I actually enjoyed the process more than I expected to, and the things I discovered changed the way I look at food.
Yet somehow, surprisingly, right around the time I was being given a chance to publish a book with a sane approach to nutrition, others were being given the opportunity to publish similar books on weight loss.Throughout the process of writing, however, I found myself tempted to write in a loud and highly opinionated — some might call obnoxious — way a voice heard often in diet and nutrition books these days. Bestsellers tend to be full of sweeping generalizations, us-vs.-them thinking and, perhaps most irritatingly, cherry-picked research, all to support the author’s grand claim. There’s also the common theme that “this” is poison, or “that” is the reason we struggle with our weight — though “this” and “that” can vary with each book. It was hard to know where my way of thinking fit in.
“Are there any good diet books out there?” is a question I would often get asked, and until recently, I had few options to provide. Finding a well-written book dealing with weight loss using evidence and sanity, rather than by hitting you over the head with a hammer, saddling you with guilt, or filling your head with plain old foolishness, often felt like winning the lottery.
Fortunately, we can now add The Diet Fix, written by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, and Lose It Right, by James Fell, to the list of “good books” on the topic of weight loss. Both authors have worked in the trenches of weight control for years, and both follow the rarest of rare paths in their writing on weight loss — or more aptly, weight management: They use real research, not pseudoscience, along with a healthy dose of common sense gleaned from practical experience. If their names sound familiar, there’s good reason: Freedhoff is a renowned obesity expert based in Ottawa who most recently made headlines for positing during a debate that Canada’s Food Guide may actually promote obesity. Why? Because it considers fruit juice (which is not as nutritious as fruit, and has been associated with weight gain in some studies) as a fruit, and because the serving sizes in the Food Guide are based on outdated portions that were much smaller even a decade ago. (Freedhoff once blogged that even eggs are bigger and heavier than the food labels suggest.) Outspoken in real life, Freedhoff takes a softer tone in his book, one that might surprise those who follow him regularly in the media. Fell, on the other hand, is a joker: The syndicated fitness writer from Calgary, whose Twitter account boasts “I drink six-packs of beer and have four-pack abs. Close enough,” had me in stitches — and yes, it’s a weight loss book. Amazing!
So what makes these “non-fiction diet books” (as Freedhoff likes to put it) so different from most of the rest of what is on the market? To start with, both men focus on a key component of weight loss that is often overlooked: The importance of being well-organized, setting small goals and thinking ahead. Secondly, instead of ripping the Band-Aid off and banishing dozens of foods from your diet, both books examine very important reasons behind our collective inability to control our weight, including our free access to highly palatable food (read: muffins, hamburgers, chips and cookies), our social and work environments, and yes, our emotional attachment to food. Because as easy as it might seem to say “just eat less,” food is often intrinsically tied to how we feel in the moment, and how we deal with our emotions throughout the day. Failure to address the way a person views food and eating can make any weight loss attempt, for all practical purposes, futile.
The one thing that The Diet Fix and Lose It Right don’t provide, however, is a quick fix: Unlike the umpteen rapid-fire diet books out there — whose content Fell refers to as “male bovine droppings,” they wisely steer clear of raising expectations that you’ll lose any precise number of pounds per week. Instead, you’re looking at gradual weight loss, and sometimes no weight loss at all, but instead a meaningful change in your health and possibly your physique. Wisely, both discourage self-deprivation. Freedhoff, in fact, routinely writes prescriptions for chocolate: After all, he says, if you can’t see yourself living this way for the rest of your life, how do you see yourself sticking with the program?
So, how did these books get published during a time when sensibility seems to be out of fashion? Freedhoff believes the tide is starting to shift.
“I think there is an appetite for the truth, in a manner there wasn’t five to 10 years ago,” he said in an interview.
And I am cautiously optimistic that he might be right.
-Jennifer Sygo, MSc., RD, is a registered dietitian and sports nutritionist at Cleveland Clinic Canada, and author of the newly released nutrition book Unmasking Superfoods, (HarperCollins, $19.99). Visit her on the Web at jennifersygo.com and send your comments and nutrition-related questions to her at info@jennifersygo.com.
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