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Dr. Peter Vash explains why people should keep a food journal and why and when women are most likely to overeat.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
Good morning! We are here at the Women’s Conference 2010. It’s EmpowHER Live. I am Dr. Archelle Georgiou and I am joined here today with Dr. Peter Vash. He is the Executive Medical Director of the Lindora Clinic. He is also a well-known author and his specialty is the whole spectrum of weight disorders and that’s what we are going to talk about today because of course 64% of Americans have a problem with obesity so we want to dive into that a bit. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Peter Vash:
It’s my pleasure to be here.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
So let’s just start with a question that I always ask myself is, why is it so hard for people to lose weight?
Dr. Peter Vash:
I think that’s a difficult question, but the real answer is that people confuse calories with why they eat. They are not eating because they are hungry; they are eating because they are using food as a way of coping. As I have mentioned before, more people overeat because of an empty heart rather than an empty stomach. They use food as an emotional coping mechanism. That’s hard to change.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
So are you saying that the root cause of most of obesity is an emotional issue that’s not addressed? It’s just a coping mechanism that isn’t healthy as opposed to not eating correctly?
Dr. Peter Vash:
I think a learning point here is that we focus so much on calories in and calories out we’ve misconstrued what it means to go on a diet. It’s dealing with your emotional issues, not using food, but trying to solve those problems without eating.
When you are anxious, bored, confused, depressed people tend to go to snacks, ice cream, cakes and cookies and what they will do is they will overeat in an attempt to solve their problems, wind up hating themselves further as they get fatter. It is not the primary cause but it’s a great cause for becoming obese.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
And yet when we hear the advertisements and descriptions about everything from Weight Watchers to Jenny Craig to Nutrisystem to name it, name it weight loss program, the focus is on food and exercise and so, at least from my experience and I have sort of addressed this issue in both a personal light and a professional light, many people don’t address it from the perspective of, what are you coping with that we need to address so that you can address the eating issue? Why is that we keep focusing on the food? I mean we are taught to believe that it’s the food.
Dr. Peter Vash:
Because I think it’s the easier thing to do is to focus on calories as opposed to focus on how you deal with emotional issues. Most of the diets work. Most of the diets fail. It’s when the individual focuses on why they are using food to cope with their inner emotional distress. Once they have the handle on that and they use other resources other than eating or drinking, they get a grasp on ityou’re your whole format here is to empower. Once a woman controls the caloric intake, realizes that she can control her body, control their weight, she truly becomes empowered.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
And that’s what we are here to talk about is being empowered. So what are some practical tips that can help some of the people watching on how to begin to understand why you are putting that food in your mouth even when you are not calorie-deficient, even when you are not hungry – what are some practical tips?
Dr. Peter Vash:
The best way to do that is most people don’t want to hear it, but if they keep a journal, a weight, eating journal, and to record when you ate but also why you are eating. Once you know that you are eating crackers and cookies, the cakes, because your husband gave you problems, you got a ticket, there’s some emotional distress, and that you can see the pairing between why you are upset and why you are eating, that gives you the ability and the power to make those changes.
I also say eat structure, use a structured eating pattern – morning, mid-day, evening – do not snack between meals.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
You know, I have to tell you a funny story. I got an email from my daughter this morning who is in Shanghai and she said, “Mom, I am so upset, I bought a scale. They never lie and gained weight,” and I wrote back, “Keep a food journal.” and she said, “I already started,” and so it’s just such a good first step to take, and there was a study recently that showed that people that keep a food journal lose twice as much weight as people who don’t. So you think that that is the first step to take?
Dr. Peter Vash:
Right, at Lindora we do several things. We try to educate the person, calories in; calories out, we try to give them support, we try to motivate and give them sense of encouragement and by understanding those three or four things they can take the power of their weight into their own hands.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
Let’s talk about something that is getting more attention recently and that’s that obesity is not that ‘one size fits all’ category; there’s different types of overeating. So there’s overeating where you just generally overeat; there is binge eating; there is night eating disorder that so many people have. Can you just talk about how important it is to figure out which of those patterns someone actually has so that they can address it in their diet plan?
Dr. Peter Vash:
I have had to say the great majority of obese people in United States is a result from overeating between meals and after dinner. If they would cut that out they will probably have a much easier time losing their weight. The eating disorders of night-time, binge eating – those relate more to the bulimic and the anorectic. That creates a smaller percentage of what’s causing the massive epidemic of obesity.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
Okay, so it’s really overall eating throughout the day which needs to get come into control.
Dr. Peter Vash:
Ironically most people say they don’t eat large meals and they don’t. They will have a moderate breakfast, lunch or dinner, but they will eat more, the majority of their calories is between the meals and a great majority of the calories after dinner, watching TV, when they are working on issues, when they are stressed, when they have to have a brief in the morning time, when they worried about phone calls. If they spot their eating after dinner they will probably lose their weight much easier.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou:
So the question for our audience and for our viewers is, why do you eat what you eat when you are not really hungry? Why don’t you think about that. Keep up food journal. Dr. Peter Vash, thank you so much for joining us here. We are EmpowHER Live at the Women’s Conference 2010.
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