“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
Also the noisy restaurant scale There are high-caloric foods and low-caloric foods. You could easily make a scale of foods on which the calories of each food (let’s say, for one ounce of food) can be measured against other foods. On the bottom of the scale would be an...
For each day. It is reasonable for overweight individuals to want to become thinner, both for reasons of personal attractiveness and for reasons of health. The former motivates most people, but the latter is probably more important. Being fat has less of an effect on...
Preventing illness It is worth pointing out that many patients who are afraid of becoming sick and possibly dying nevertheless do not take those measures which are known to lessen the risks of cancer and heart disease and many of the debilitating diseases of middle...
Many different diets have been promoted for weight loss. Most of them seem to be based on the idea that certain foods control appetite better than others. These diets are peculiar in the sense that they deviate significantly from an ordinary diet. That is what makes...
How to live longer than normal. For many years now it has been known that many animals, ranging from simple organisms like yeast all the way up to mammals, can extend their life span, even their normal life span, by restricting their caloric intake. Mice, for...
There are loads of rules children learn in order to develop “good eating habits.” I think these rules have been made up by worried grandparents who want their grandchildren to grow up big and strong. In fact, everyone wants their children and grandchildren to be big...
THE FIRST FEW WEEKS of A DIET Usually the first few weeks of a diet go well. The dieter loses weight the first week, perhaps even more than she had anticipated. The exercise goals she had set for herself do not seem onerous. The particular foods she is concentrating...
Diets can fail in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, and not uncommonly, after the end. Most diets falter even before the beginning. People put off dieting. Even people who diet on and off for years put off dieting during those times when they...
The desire to be attractive is natural enough, in fact it is universal. Animals all the way up and down the animal kingdom invest a tremendous amount of effort making themselves attractive: putting colored substances on themselves and preening and so on. Physical...
Long ago and far away. One day, a long time ago, I found myself uncharacteristically eating in a Burger King. They were having a special on a steak sandwich. Me: (having reached the head of the line) I’ll have the steak. Medium. Young waitress: We only...
A feat of imagination Dieting successfully does not mean simply losing weight—it means eating and exercising properly so that it is possible to maintain a proper weight indefinitely. By that standard few people diet successfully. Most people consider losing weight...
It is possible to have too much of a good thing Individuals who suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) tend to see things in black or white. There is the proper way to do something—and there is everything else. So, some patients with this condition struggle...