Dieting Done Right: Healthy Weight-Loss Strategies

Oh yes, this is it: the last few days of the holidays, meaning that after midnight Wednesday, when the New Year rings in, several tens of millions of Americans will start thinking about how to take off the pounds they started putting on back in November -- or before that.

When I googled "diet" just now, I got more results than there are people in this country. No surprise that weight loss is pretty much "everyone's No. 1 resolution," said Dr. Jennifer Slovis, who leads the weight management program at Kaiser Oakland. She joined a discussion about weight loss on KQED's Forum Monday morning.

The first thing they did on the show was dispatch the idea that fad diets can work for you long term. "We really only support evidence-based therapies," said Katie Ferraro, a registered dietitian and professor at the UC San Francisco School of Nursing. "Unfortunately, those are kind of boring: 'Eat less and exercise more' are not the sexiest messages out there."

While you should avoid fad diets, the Forum guests all agreed that individuals have flexibility in how they get to "eating less and exercising more."

"The most important thing when it comes to diet is to find a diet that works for you, that you can maintain," said Dr. John Morton, chief of bariatric surgery at Stanford. This may be limiting carbohydrates or limiting fats. But a big strategy is portion control. Portions should be about the size of your fist.

Slovis pointed out that in 1950, a dinner plate was 9 inches. Today it is 13 inches. If you're filling your plate, it's a lot more full today than in 1950. "It's hard to keep track of what you're eating," Slovis said.

A 2,000-calorie-a-day diet is "a good, happy medium for most healthy adults," Ferraro said, but then she burst the bubble when she said most Americans eat 3,000 calories a day. It takes only an extra 500 calories a day to gain a pound every week. (I think I might go buy those smaller dinner plates right now.)

There are easy things you can cut to strip a lot of calories from your diet. Morton talked about eliminating soda, juices, alcohol, fruit drinks and coffee drinks. "These big coffees can have as much as 800 calories. That's like a Big Mac in a cup," he said. And soda has "no nutritive value."

The Power of Exercise -- Especially If You're Over 40

While exercise by itself is a really difficult way to lose weight, it's critically important if you want to avoid putting those pounds back on. To lose one single pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories. Morton said he works out on an elliptical machine and, on a good day, might burn 300 calories.

In yet another insult of aging, once people cross 40, their metabolism starts to slow down. But don't despair, because you can rev it up through exercise. "Dieting is only half the equation," said Ferraro. "You have to be doing the activity on the other side of the equation."

It need not be a fancy gym membership, the experts agreed. Just walking will do it. "Anything is better than nothing," Morton said. "It's like putting money in the bank. A little now means a lot later." Best is an hour a day, several times a week, but Morton, as many others have said, argues for starting where you can: 10-minute bursts, three times a day, works, too.

Real World Weight-Loss Stories

Near the end of the show, a caller asked where she could see the research for herself. Slovis directed her to the National Weight Control Registry. It has stories of people who have lost at least 30 pounds and have kept that weight off for at least a year. But the average registry member has lost 66 pounds and kept it off more than five years.

The registry tracks more than 10,000 people. Here are key components of how they achieved their goals:

• Low-fat, low-calorie diet
• Exercise -- average of an hour per day
• Breakfast every day
• Weigh at least once a week

It's worth reading some of the success stories from registry members. The National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine also have good information about healthy living, including strategies for children's nutrition.