Trying to lose weight at the buffet

The other morning I was at a breakfast buffet, and the first thing I noticed on the sign promoting this contained, very prominently, the words "ALL YOU CAN EAT". Hmmmm... that sounds like a challenge! Pay one price no matter whether you eat a small amount of food or stuff your belly so full that you have to unbutton your pants before you leave.

Well, true to form, I observed the eating behaviors of most people who were in the restaurant. Heaping plates of eggs, pancakes, bacon, french toast, toasted bagels, etc... (oh, yeah, I did overhear some of the people ordering a diet soda as their beverage.) It wasn't over at that point...another food station contained pastries, cakes and donuts, and wouldn't you know it, most people were attacking that table too!

My point here is this: If you are trying to lose weight, never put yourself in the position of testing the very foundations of human nature. "ALL YOU CAN EAT" is what our ancestors did when the kill occurred, because the primitives probably didn't know when the next "kill" would be. Observing people's behaviors on the buffet lines made me think that an "all you can eat" scenario will mentally push us to "eat all you can, even if you are not hungry anymore."

If you are in a weight losing mode, I suggest you stay away from buffet restaurants and instead, pay al a carte...you may find yourself eating less amounts of higher caliber foods.

Weight Loss and Prepackaged foods...Watch out for Kirstie, Dan and Tony

We constantly see new patients in our weight loss program that have previously used one of the prepackaged food weight loss plans. The marketing of these plans are usually incredibly effective. Usually, they pay some over the hill athlete or movie/TV star big bucks to lose substantial weight with their plan, and then run TV commercials and print ads. (Most recently I noticed the Tie a Yellow Ribbon guy on one of these and I wonder how many gigs at the Boyton Beach retirement home clubhouses did he have to cancel to film the commercial.)

They also usually show you foods such as lasagna, brownies and other staples of our American diet, and tell you how you can eat all of these foods and still lose weight.

Pardon my New York vernacular, but as I sneeze, you may hear an audible "Bull S---"

Please remember that for long term success in losing weight AND KEEPING THE WEIGHT OFF, prepackaged foods are not the way to go. You must learn how to eat "real" food differently in order to have a chance at keeping the weight off. "Artificial" plans that utilize a prepackaged caloriuc-controlled dietary plan will produce short term success but as soon as you go back to eating "real" food, if you haven't learned how to change your previous patterns of eating, the weight will come back on.