Unlike other diet books that make big promises, Eat More, Weigh Less, by Dean Ornish, MD, soft-pedals the health claims for this diet for the masses, adapted from his regimen to reverse heart disease. Ornish is well known in the medical community because of his success in reversing blockages to the heart, once thought impossible without surgery or drugs. Ornish also runs his own health and diet site here at WebMD which can give you additional details about his plan.
Unlike other books that are full of scientific-sounding theories and explanations without clinical studies to back them up, Ornish’s explanations are simple and well supported. His main point is that eating a high-fiber, low-fat vegetarian diet will not only help you stay healthy, or get you there, but also will help you lose weight
This is accomplished, according to Ornish, by a combination of diet and exercise that allows the body’s fat-burning mechanism to work most effectively.
Eat More, Weigh Less: What You Can Eat
Ornish counsels that we will find success not by restricting calories, but by watching the ones we eat. He breaks this down into foods that should be eaten all of the time, some of the time, and none of the time.
The following foods can be eaten whenever you are hungry, until you are full:
Beans and legumes
Fruits — anything from apples to watermelon, from raspberries to pineapples
Grains
Vegetables
These foods should be eaten in moderation:
Nonfat dairy products — skim milk, nonfat yogurt, nonfat cheeses, nonfat sour cream, and egg whites
Nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products –from Life Choice frozen dinners to Haagen-Dazs frozen yogurt bars and Entenmann’s fat-free desserts (but if sugar is among the first few ingredients listed, put it back on the shelf)
These foods should be avoided:
Weigh Less
Meat of all kinds — red and white, fish and fowl (if we can’t give up meat, we should at least eat as little as possible)
Oils and oil-containing products, such as margarine and most salad dressings
Avocados
Olives
Nuts and seeds
Dairy products (other than the nonfat ones above)
Sugar and simple sugar derivatives — honey, molasses, corn syrup, and high-fructose syrup
Alcohol
Anything commercially prepared that has more than two grams of fat per serving
That’s it. If you stick to this plan, you will meet Ornish’s recommendation of less than 10% of your calories from fat, without the need to count fat grams or calories. Ornish suggests eating a lot of little meals because this diet makes you feel hungry more often. You will feel full faster, and you’ll eat more food without increasing the number of calories.
Ornish’s regimen is more than mere diet, he claims. He is a stickler about incorporating at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, or an hour three times a week, and using some kind of stress-management technique, which might include meditation, massage, psychotherapy, or yoga.
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Ornish suggests that our metabolism was set back in Fred Flintstone’s era, when we didn’t know where our next meal was coming from and there were times when little food was available. The body naturally wanted to hang onto all the energy it could and would try to store any extra energy as fat. Nowadays, most of us have almost continuous access to food, but our bodies haven’t adapted to this new way of living.
Because the rate at which you are burning calories can decrease when you consume fewer calories, you may hit a plateau soon after you began a new, lower-calorie diet. For most of us, the pounds seem to melt away for a delightful week or two, but then that scale doesn’t budge. Our weight stays the same, sometimes for a week, sometimes much longer.
But Ornish argues that with this eat-all-you-want, eat-as-often-as-you-are-hungry routine, your metabolism stays the same, or better yet, even increases. The high-fiber content also slows down the absorption of food into the digestive system, so you feel full longer with small portions than you would eating calorie-restricted small portions. The complex carbohydrates don’t cause your blood sugar, the level of glucose in the blood, to yo-yo. It remains more stable, and so do you.
Ornish gives more than a passing nod to physical activity, encouraging long, slow exercise that uses body fat as fuel. Moderate exercise done on a regular basis revs up your resting metabolism, while some have suggested that short periods of intense exercise decrease metabolism.
Although he doesn’t claim that meditation will make the pounds dissolve, his regimen incorporates it as a way of quieting your mind, increasing self-awareness, and coping with stress. He calls it food for the soul. “When your soul is fed, you have less need to overeat,” he writes in Eat More, Weigh Less. “When you directly experience the fullness of life, then you have less need to fill the void with food.”
Eat More, Weigh Less: What the Experts Say
Mostly, the Ornish diet gets kudos from the medical community for his highly restricted diet and healthy lifestyle routine. His documented studies showing a reversal of coronary blockage are indeed impressive. Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says: “His diet is one of the only popular diet plans that is firmly rooted in science. It not only brings weight loss without counting calories, but it also brings good overall health. It reverses heart disease, cuts the risk of cancer, makes diabetes and hypertension more manageable, and sometimes even makes them go away.”
The drawback is that the plan requires learning completely new eating habits, which many consider drastic. Barnard, the author of Food for Life and several other books on health, adds, “But after the first week or two, the plan becomes self-rewarding, because the weight loss is virtually automatic. People have better energy and they just want to stick to it.”
On the other hand, Robert H. Eckel, MD, chair of the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association and a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is doubtful. He suggests that only the most committed will stick to Ornish’s routine: “Because it is so rigid and doesn’t allow a lot of food choices for those used to the Western diet, not many people will stay on it for the long term. Many people get tired of eating food with such a low fat content.”
Frank Hu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health, is critical of how severely fat is limited on the diet. “The data from numerous studies show that it is the type of fat, rather than the total amount, which is related to cardiovascular health,” he says. “Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils actually protect against cardiovascular incidents, but Ornish doesn’t distinguish the good fats from the bad fats — such as trans fats, which come from margarine sticks and cookies and crackers, and animal fats.” For example, Hu says, Ornish advocates limiting the consumption of fish and nuts, and Hu adds, “There is strong evidence that the fat in them is protective against coronary heart disease in both epidemiological studies and clinical trials.”
Eat More, Weigh Less: Food For Thought
Vegetarians, or those willing to become so for the long term, may be the only dieters who will find success with this plan. The recommendation to eat smaller, more frequent meals requires that dieters change their eating schedules, which could be difficult for some. Other than that, this plan has what it takes to lose weight and keep it off, and receives high marks from nutrition experts.
Eat More, Weigh Less Review
Authored by Dr. Dean Ornish. Eat no more than ten percent of your daily calories in the form of fat and eat lots of high-fiber and fresh vegetables. It is basically a vegetarian diet, which will lower your cholesterol, blood pressure and risk of heart disease.
Eat More, Weigh Less is basically healthy and far superior to low-carb diets, but many would argue that perhaps a more balanced diet with more good fat would be better. The real issue that lumps this diet in with all the others that fail so miserably in the long-term is sustainability. One must always ask themselves: can I follow this diet regimen for the rest of my life?
In my opinion, Eat More, Weigh Less is far too restrictive for the average person to follow. It is difficult enough to make small changes in your diet, but a comprehensive and fundamental shift in what you consume? Basic nutrition (Food Guide Pyramid), recommended by most registered dietitians, along with addition of daily exercise to your life is really the only thing that works in the long-term. I am a much bigger fan of lifestyle exercise activities such as tennis, hiking, walking, cycling, dancing, climbing, etcetera… These are the types of activities that you don’t think of as exercise and sustain themselves in the long-term. Add a basic food program or one of the simple and inexpensive online programs for structure and support, and you have the best possible option for success.
Eat More, Weigh Less
One of the most basic tenets of weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume. It’s not terribly complicated, but it can easily lead to one of the most common weight-loss misconceptions: The less you eat, the more you lose.
This truth does apply to a certain extent — if you eat more calories than your body needs to maintain your weight, you will gain weight. However, if you suddenly drop your caloric intake too low, your body will think you’re starving and go into survival mode. If you don’t eat enough, you will sabotage your weight-loss efforts.
A healthy diet generally won’t drop your caloric intake below 1,200 calories, but you will need to find your “magic number” for optimum weight loss. Research suggests that women who consume less than the optimal amount see their resting metabolic rate plummet by as much as 45 percent.
“Don’t be surprised if you need to adjust your calories several times throughout your weight-loss journey, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose,” says registered dietitian Nicole Bengtson, LD/N. “Your calories will need to be adjusted to account for your changing weight, activity level and metabolism.”
The best way to lose weight is to keep your metabolism firing on all cylinders by eating enough calories, which can be accomplished by following these simple steps:
Always eat breakfast. I know, I know, there’s no time for breakfast, you’re not hungry and you can save some calories by skipping it, right? Wrong! While you’re asleep, your metabolism slows down, and it doesn’t pick back up until you eat something. Eating breakfast is crucial for boosting your metabolism first thing in the morning and burning more calories all day long. It doesn’t need to be a hot-cooked breakfast that takes long to prepare, either.
“Even if you just grab a piece of fruit and a string cheese on your way out the door, you need to at least eat something to get your system going in the morning,” Bengtson says.
Eat more often. That’s right, eating every two to three hours will not only keep you from gorging at meals because you’re starving, but it also keeps your metabolic rate higher because it takes more energy to digest food. Shoot for eating smaller meals and snacks — yes, you can snack! Aim for 200 to 400 calorie mini-meals every few hours and keep your metabolism stoked.
Plan your meals. It does take a little work to learn to plan ahead, but once you get into the groove, it’s a piece of cake. You’ll find that by knowing what and when you’re going to eat, you have more energy throughout the day and you’ll have a steadier stream of nutrients supplied to your body. The other key is to make sure you have proper snack foods on hand, like whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts — anything that’s high in fiber is helpful, too.
Once you get your body used to a regular healthy routine, you’ll be on your way to serious weight loss without the starvation associated with it.