Diet books, exercise books and fitness books fill row upon row in bookstores across the country. Each book promises that it will change your life, give you rock-hard abs, help you shed unwanted pounds while eating the yummiest foods and show you the way to the fountain of youth. I couldn't decide which diet book to buy, so I thought I'd ask other people what they thought.
"Which diet works?" I asked John Denney. He's a retired cardiologist, so I figured he would know. "Is it the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet, the Mediterranean diet, the Beverly Hills diet -- which one is it?"
Dr. Denny smiled knowingly as he replied, "They all work. They will all take off unwanted pounds. The problem is, most people can't sustain the weight loss over the long haul. When they finish dieting down to their desired weight, they go right back to their old eating habits. 98 percent of people who diet to lose weight put it all back on - and then some - within two years."
"Oh," I said. "So you're saying that they all work in the short run, but in the long run, none of them work."
"That's right," Dr. Denney nodded. "Diets don't work because people think they're temporary. We should just stop using the word 'diet' -- it's a four-letter word in most people's minds. Who wants to be on a diet? No one. We need to use a more positive concept -- maybe 'food plan,' or 'plan of eating.' We need to establish long-term healthy eating habits and give up the notion of diets and quick fixes."
Dr. Denney's comments made me think about people I know who've lost weight and kept it off. I decided to find out how they'd been successful.
I asked Ron Gottesman, an English professor at the University of Southern California, how he had lost weight. He smiled as he replied in true literary fashion: "I chew less and eschew more." We both chuckled.
I asked Julie Hill, a literary agent, how she had shed unwanted pounds: "I eat everything I used to eat before, but now I just eat half as much of it." I liked her answer -- it seemed like a nice, simple approach.
Michael Hateley has chosen mindful eating as his way of dealing with weight. "I spend about 15 minutes before each meal thinking about what I want to eat. I listen to my body. I do some deep breathing and quiet my mind so that I can really tune in to what my body needs for nutrition. I ask myself, What would make my body feed good right now? What will make me feel good AFTER I eat it? Rather than just grab what's convenient or easy, I slow down and consider my choices. I'm cultivating a new habit -- mindful eating."
I asked Sam Beasley, a successful businessman, what his weight loss method was. "I go out to eat a lot," Sam explained. "So when I order my meal, I ask for a take-home container at the same time. When my meal is served, I immediately cut it in half, putting half in the box and leaving half on my plate. I eat only what's on my plate and take the rest home for dinner."
"That's a creative solution," I said.
"Well, I learned through trial and error that if I try to eat just half while all the food is on my plate, I can't do it. If I wait until the end of the meal to ask for the doggie bag, it's too late. I'll have already eaten more than half."
I asked Steve Ross, an attorney, to tell me how he keeps his weight down.
"I started changing my eating habits years ago," he replied. "I began with very small changes. For instance, I decided to stop eating red meat, and to eat only chicken or fish instead. I liked how that felt. Once it became a habit, then I'd make another change -- like not eating sugar anymore.
"Each change was an experiment. I'd see if I liked the change and if I felt good physically. If the change felt positive, I just kept it up. If it didn't feel so great, I'd let go of the change and resume eating what I'd given up. Nothing was set in concrete -- I just sort of made a whole series of experiments. Today, the way I eat is a result of dozens of experiments with giving up certain foods and adopting new ones. The experiments turned into habits. So, eating the way I eat is now effortless for me -- I've just built up a bunch of good eating habits."
Habit -- that is the universal word that everyone used when I asked about their weight loss, health and fitness.
Karen Cutts told me how she cured her carpal tunnel syndrome. She's the managing editor of a monthly publication and her work involves long hours at the computer. Several years ago she developed a painful case of carpal tunnel syndrome and her doctor told her it required surgery. "I really didn't want to have surgery," Karen told me, "especially when they said it would only reduce the pain somewhat, but not cure the condition. I decided to look for other solutions.
"I did extensive research on the Internet and found something called the Wristwand® -- it had been developed by a guy who found that people who work as bottle turners for wineries in the Champagne region of France don't get carpal tunnel syndrome. These people have to turn thousands of wine bottles every day, giving each bottle a half-twist to keep the bubbly wine fermenting properly. Their secret to healthy hands is the exercises they do several times a day with a special stick. Some American guy learned about this stick and developed his own version - he calls it the Wristwand. I bought one over the Internet, did the exercises several times a day, and over a period of time, I cured my carpal tunnel syndrome.
"It simply required a small change in my daily habits. Instead of sitting and typing for hours at a time, I set a timer and stopped every hour or so to spend five minutes working with my Wristwand. It didn't take too long to become a habit -- a habit that I don't even have to think about anymore. It's just automatic now."
"That's an impressive story," I said. "One small little habit can make the difference between debilitating pain and/or surgery with no guarantee of results, and healthy, pain-free hands."
I alleviated my own carpal tunnel problem by simply switching my computer mouse to the left side of my keyboard. I'm right-handed, but I figured I could train myself to be left-handed with the mouse. It felt awkward for a week or two, but now it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
My right hand is now healed and pain-free. The carpal tunnel healed itself because switching my mouse to my left hand gave my right hand the rest it needed to heal.
Marianne Vargas told me how her simple change in health habits led her to become a marathon runner. "I started small," she said. "I began by just going for a walk in the morning before breakfast. At first it was just a block or two, then it was several blocks and then it became a mile. That was a big milestone for me.
"Then I invited a girlfriend to join me and one mile turned into two, three and four miles. It's amazing how starting with something so small as a morning walk can, over time, turn into something much bigger. Now my friend and I are training for our first marathon -- who would have imagined that!"
As I talked to person after person, it became clear that establishing a new habit -- no matter how small -- can lead to big things. Training yourself to adopt a new habit (although any major change should be cleared with a physician first) is the first step toward a strong, slender body, vitality, resiliency and good health.
BJ's recent book is Why Don't I Do the Things I Know Are Good for Me? (Berkley)