Healthy ways to banish belly fat
Posted: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 10:00 am
Belly fat is often considered more of a cosmetic issue than a health issue. But few outside of the medical or fitness communities may know that belly fat is not only unsightly but unhealthy as well. Excessive belly fat can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and even certain cancers, including breast cancer and colon cancer.
So while many people may want to reduce their belly fat for cosmetic purposes, they can also use improving their overall health as a motivating factor when attempting to trim their waistlines. The following are a few healthy ways to reduce belly fat.
Adopt a healthy diet. Belly fat is often the first victim when men and women adopt a healthy diet and begin to lose weight. Researcher Kristen Hairston, MD, an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Wake Forest School of Medicine, found that people who ate 10 grams of soluble fiber per day but made no other changes to their diet built up less fat over time than others. In addition to fiber, you should include fruits, vegetables and lean proteins in your diet. These foods will help you feel more full, which will curb your hunger and, as a result, reduce your caloric intake.
Get some rest. A good night’s sleep, which is at least seven hours of sleep each night, has been shown to reduce fat over an extended period of time. Though the exact relationship between sleep and belly fat is unknown, a lack of sleep can force men and women to look to sugary beverages or snacks to provide a boost during the day. Such drinks and snacks can cause weight gain, especially among those people who routinely fail to get a good night’s sleep.
Get off the couch and exercise. Exercise is another effective way to reduce belly fat. Numerous studies have shown the positive effect that daily, vigorous exercise can have on overall health. For example, a study conducted by researchers at Duke University found that 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise, which includes jogging or working out on a cardiovascular machine, such as an elliptical or a treadmill, four times per week can reduce fat and slow down the buildup of fat over time. Those who want to reduce belly fat will likely need to emphasize vigorous exercise. While those hoping to prevent the buildup of belly fat should know that studies have shown, when coupled with a healthy diet, moderate activity, which includes anything that raises your heart rate, three times per week may be enough to slow down fat buildup.
Posted in
Medical guide spring 2013
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013 10:00 am.
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Duke University, Researcher Kristen Hairston
Healthy ways to banish belly fat
Posted: Friday, December 21, 2012 11:06 am
Belly fat is often considered more of a cosmetic issue than a health issue. But few outside of the medical or fitness communities may know that belly fat is not only unsightly but unhealthy as well. Excessive belly fat can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and even certain cancers, including breast cancer and colon cancer.
So while many people may want to reduce their belly fat for cosmetic purposes, they can also use improving their overall health as a motivating factor when attempting to trim their waistlines. The following are a few healthy ways to reduce belly fat.
* Adopt a healthy diet. Belly fat is often the first victim when men and women adopt a healthy diet and begin to lose weight. Researcher Kristen Hairston, MD, an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Wake Forest School of Medicine, found that people who ate 10 grams of soluble fiber per day but made no other changes to their diet built up less fat over time than others. In addition to fiber, you should include fruits, vegetables and lean proteins in your diet. These foods will help you feel more full, which will curb your hunger and, as a result, reduce your caloric intake.
* Get some rest. A good night’s sleep, which is at least seven hours of sleep each night, has been shown to reduce fat over an extended period of time. Though the exact relationship between sleep and belly fat is unknown, a lack of sleep can force men and women to look to sugary beverages or snacks to provide a boost during the day. Such drinks and snacks can cause weight gain, especially among those people who routinely fail to get a good night’s sleep.
* Get off the couch and exercise. Exercise is another effective way to reduce belly fat. Numerous studies have shown the positive effect that daily, vigorous exercise can have on overall health. For example, a study conducted by researchers at Duke University found that 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise, which includes jogging or working out on a cardiovascular machine, such as an elliptical or a treadmill, four times per week can reduce fat and slow down the buildup of fat over time. Those who want to reduce belly fat will likely need to emphasize vigorous exercise. While those hoping to prevent the buildup of belly fat should know that studies have shown, when coupled with a healthy diet, moderate activity, which includes anything that raises your heart rate, three times per week may be enough to slow down fat buildup.
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Community
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Friday, December 21, 2012 11:06 am.
Article source: http://www.pikecountydaily.com/community/article_f243b8f8-a5c7-5854-9321-4802195a7d4c.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Duke University, Researcher Kristen Hairston
Bottom line: aerobic activity burns fat best
Aerobic exercise is the best form of activity to burn fat when compared to resistance training and a combination of the two, according to researchers at Duke University.
Their study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, is the largest randomized trial to monitor changes in body composition from the three modes of exercise in obese and overweight adults without diabetes.
“We want to offer clear, evidence-based exercise recommendations that will truly help people lose weight and body fat,” said lead author Leslie Willis, an exercise physiologist at Duke Medicine in Durham, N.C.
Researchers were concerned with recent exercise guidelines recommending resistance training such as weightlifting as a means of helping people lose weight by increasing their resting metabolic rate. While resistance training is great for creating muscle mass and improving sugar levels, the studies on its effect on fat mass have been inconclusive.
As a result, researchers wanted to compare resistance with aerobic training such as running, swimming or walking.
They started with 234 overweight or obese adults who were randomly assigned one of three exercise regimens:
Resistance training three days per week, three sets of weightlifting per day, eight to 12 repetitions per set.
Aerobic training, about 19 kilometres per week.
Combination: resistance training three days per week, three sets per day, eight to 12 repetitions per set, plus about 19 kilometres per week of aerobic exercise.
All exercise was supervised and in the end, 119 participants completed the study.
According to the researchers’ findings, those who only did resistance training did not lose weight. They gained muscles, which did make them weigh more, and they did not reduce their fat mass.
The participants in the combined group lost weight but not a lot of fat mass.
The bottom line, say the researchers, is that aerobic activity, overall, helped people lose both weight and fat mass significantly.
“Our study suggests that aerobic exercise is the best option for reducing fat mass and body mass,” said study co-author Cris A. Slentz, a Duke exercise physiologist.
“It’s not that resistance training isn’t good for you; it’s just not very good at burning fat.”
The authors of the study emphasized that weight training is important for older adults to reduce muscle atrophy but not as important for younger people.
Article source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/bottom-line-aerobic-activity-burns-fat-best-180836039.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Applied Physiology, Duke Medicine, Duke University, Leslie Willis
Why your couch may be making you fat
Firemaster 550 is a fire retardant used on many couches and other furniture.
Jason deBruyn
Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal
Your couch may be making you fat. And not just because you sit on it too much and don’t exercise.
A new study from a couple of North Carolina universities has found that chemicals in a flame retardant used in some furniture caused severe weight gain in lab animals, Triangle Business Journal reports.
A lot of research out of major universities only interests other researchers or scientists, but the new study by N.C. State University and Duke University has implications that could affect regular folks all over the country. It shows that a fire retardant used on many couches and other furniture “causes extreme weight gain, early onset of puberty and cardiovascular health effects.”
The retardant is called Firemaster 550 and was developed by Chemtura Corp. (NYSE: CHMT), a $3 billion company headquartered in Philadelphia.
Triangle Business Journal has more on the issue here.
Jason deBruyn covers Health Care, Higher Education, Nonprofits and Sports Business. Follow him on Twitter @jasondebruyn.
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Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/blog/2012/10/why-your-couch-may-be-making-you-fat.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Duke University, Health Care, Higher Education, Triangle Business Journal
Going to the fat farm with dad – Sarasota Herald
By Dawn Lerman
My dad was a brilliant ad man in the “Mad Men” era, responsible for such iconic slogans as “Coke Is It,” “Leggo My Eggo,” and “Fly the Friendly Skies of United.” He also was extremely overweight.
When I was 10, he got his big career break as the international creative director at a top ad firm in New York City. The only wrinkle was his weight. His appearance was not what the agency wanted to project, especially since he would be working on high-profile glamorous accounts.
His bosses sent him on a six-month paid medical leave to Duke University’s “fat farm,” where he was expected to drop a significant amount of weight. He left in March, and when summer break hit, we flew down to Durham, N.C., to join him. Family members were expected to be supportive, which meant my mother, my younger sister, April, and I would be eating in the dining room with my father and the other dieters, even though none of us were overweight.
(Read Dawn Lerman’s previous article: “Growing up with a fat dad.”)
By the time we arrived, we had not seen my dad for several months, and we were amazed to see he had lost close to 100 pounds. He said he thought about food all the time but felt great. I remember feeling relieved that maybe traveling with him now wouldn’t be so difficult. He normally took up two seats on an airplane or a bus. He definitely looked as if now he could fit in one seat.
He appeared healthy, happy and tan, and was swimming and writing his award-winning slogans from the pool. It looked like he was having a ball. His fellow dieters included a who’s who of comedians, actors and bigwig business people. They were bopping around in the pool and visiting the local malls where they walked laps wearing pedometers. Nighttime felt a little more desperate, as the dieters looked for amusing ways to avoid thinking about their growling stomachs. I remember one comedian swapping apple juice for urine in the specimen containers that were required to be left outside the door at night.
It was the fanciest place my sister and I had ever stayed. Every meal was a special occasion. Three times a day, people dressed as if they were going to an event. My sister and I just wore sundresses and sandals, since they were a little lax on the dress code with children, but there were no exceptions to the menu. We ate the same meal as everyone else. Breakfast was a bowl of white rice with either a piece of canned peach or pineapple. With lunch came a bowl of white rice with three ounces of dry chicken and a little bit of stewed tomatoes. Dinner consisted of — you guessed it — white rice and three ounces of fish with no seasoning.
The white rice gave me a stomachache, but I quite liked the plain fish and chicken. It was a low-sodium, low-fat diet. Nothing had salt or oil, and it made a huge difference in my health. Whenever I ate something salty, I swelled up. “I’m dizzy and my toes are popping out of my shoes,” I would tell my mother. But she was skeptical. “You’re being picky,” she would say. Maybe she didn’t want to change our meals at home, which mainly consisted of salty prepackaged frozen foods or greasy fast food.
But at Duke, I talked to a dietitian about my strange symptoms and she diagnosed my iodine sensitivity. I have never added salt to my food since.
Although I was fine with the strict fat-farm food, my mother and my sister were getting sick of it. Once a week we went off campus to a restaurant that Duke University had approved. I remember my father putting some kind of weird stick in his soda to make sure it was really a diet soda. The stick turned colors if the beverage contained sugar. I remember one meal when we ordered grilled mushrooms and grilled white fish. It was the best meal my family ever had together, then and now.
There are two things I remember most about my month on the fat farm: the validation and relief I felt when the dietitian diagnosed my problems with salt, and the experience of sitting down to three meals a day with both of my parents at a table. That had never happened before.
When we came back from the fat farm, my mother was horrified to learn she had gained 10 pounds. She immediately went back to her usual pattern of eating one small meal a day while talking on the phone and pursuing acting jobs. Although my father’s weight eventually crept back on, he learned some healthy eating habits that he was able to maintain for a while, and for the first time in his life, he was able to shop in a regular department store.
My sister and I started a new school year with lots of stories to share and a new appreciation for what was missing from our lives. We pinky-swore that when we were grown-ups, we always would eat with our children — seated at the table.
Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father will appear on occasional Fridays on Well in June and July.
Article source: http://health.heraldtribune.com/2012/06/26/going-to-the-fat-farm-with-dad/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Dawn Lerman, Duke University, Magnificent Mommies, Read Dawn Lerman
Going to the Fat Farm With Dad
Dawn Lerman and her younger sister spent the summer of 1974 at a “fat farm” with their overweight father.
My dad was a brilliant ad man in the “Mad Men” era, responsible for such iconic slogans as “Coke Is It,” “Leggo My Eggo,” and “Fly the Friendly Skies of United.” He also was extremely overweight.
When I was 10, he got his big career break as the international creative director at a top ad firm in New York City. The only wrinkle was his weight. His appearance was not what the agency wanted to project, especially since he would be working on high-profile glamorous accounts.
His bosses sent him on a six-month paid medical leave to Duke University’s “fat farm,” where he was expected to drop a significant amount of weight. He left in March, and when summer break hit, we flew down to Durham, N.C., to join him. Family members were expected to be supportive, which meant my mother, my younger sister, April, and I would be eating in the dining room with my father and the other dieters, even though none of us were overweight.
By the time we arrived, we had not seen my dad for several months, and we were amazed to see he had lost close to 100 pounds. He said he thought about food all the time but felt great. I remember feeling relieved that maybe traveling with him now wouldn’t be so difficult. He normally took up two seats on an airplane or a bus. He definitely looked as if now he could fit in one seat.
He appeared healthy, happy and tan, and was swimming and writing his award-winning slogans from the pool. It looked like he was having a ball. His fellow dieters included a who’s who of comedians, actors and bigwig business people. They were bopping around in the pool and visiting the local malls where they walked laps wearing pedometers. Nighttime felt a little more desperate, as the dieters looked for amusing ways to avoid thinking about their growling stomachs. I remember one comedian swapping apple juice for urine in the specimen containers that were required to be left outside the door at night.
It was the fanciest place my sister and I had ever stayed. Every meal was a special occasion. Three times a day, people dressed as if they were going to an event. My sister and I just wore sundresses and sandals, since they were a little lax on the dress code with children, but there were no exceptions to the menu. We ate the same meal as everyone else. Breakfast was a bowl of white rice with either a piece of canned peach or pineapple. With lunch came a bowl of white rice with three ounces of dry chicken and a little bit of stewed tomatoes. Dinner consisted of — you guessed it — white rice and three ounces of fish with no seasoning.
The white rice gave me a stomachache, but I quite liked the plain fish and chicken. It was a low-sodium, low-fat diet. Nothing had salt or oil, and it made a huge difference in my health. Whenever I ate something salty, I swelled up. “I’m dizzy and my toes are popping out of my shoes,” I would tell my mother. But she was skeptical. “You’re being picky,” she would say. Maybe she didn’t want to change our meals at home, which mainly consisted of salty prepackaged frozen foods or greasy fast food.
But at Duke, I talked to a dietitian about my strange symptoms and she diagnosed my iodine sensitivity. I have never added salt to my food since.
Although I was fine with the strict fat-farm food, my mother and my sister were getting sick of it. Once a week we went off campus to a restaurant that Duke University had approved. I remember my father putting some kind of weird stick in his soda to make sure it was really a diet soda. The stick turned colors if the beverage contained sugar. I remember one meal when we ordered grilled mushrooms and grilled white fish. It was the best meal my family ever had together, then and now.
There are two things I remember most about my month on the fat farm: the validation and relief I felt when the dietitian diagnosed my problems with salt, and the experience of sitting down to three meals a day with both of my parents at a table. That had never happened before.
When we came back from the fat farm, my mother was horrified to learn she had gained 10 pounds. She immediately went back to her usual pattern of eating one small meal a day while talking on the phone and pursuing acting jobs. Although my father’s weight eventually crept back on, he learned some healthy eating habits that he was able to maintain for a while, and for the first time in his life, he was able to shop in a regular department store.
My sister and I started a new school year with lots of stories to share and a new appreciation for what was missing from our lives. We pinky-swore that when we were grown-ups, we always would eat with our children — seated at the table.
Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father will appear on occasional Fridays on Well in June and July.
Article source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/going-to-the-fat-farm-with-dad/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Dawn Lerman, Duke University, Mad Men, Magnificent Mommies
Going to the Fat Farm With Dad
Dawn Lerman and her younger sister spent the summer of 1974 at a “fat farm” with their overweight father.
My dad was a brilliant ad man in the “Mad Men” era, responsible for such iconic slogans as “Coke Is It,” “Leggo My Eggo,” and “Fly the Friendly Skies of United.” He also was extremely overweight.
When I was 10, he got his big career break as the international creative director at a top ad firm in New York City. The only wrinkle was his weight. His appearance was not what the agency wanted to project, especially since he would be working on high-profile glamorous accounts.
His bosses sent him on a six-month paid medical leave to Duke University’s “fat farm,” where he was expected to drop a significant amount of weight. He left in March, and when summer break hit, we flew down to Durham, N.C., to join him. Family members were expected to be supportive, which meant my mother, my younger sister, April, and I would be eating in the dining room with my father and the other dieters, even though none of us were overweight.
By the time we arrived, we had not seen my dad for several months, and we were amazed to see he had lost close to 100 pounds. He said he thought about food all the time but felt great. I remember feeling relieved that maybe traveling with him now wouldn’t be so difficult. He normally took up two seats on an airplane or a bus. He definitely looked as if now he could fit in one seat.
He appeared healthy, happy and tan, and was swimming and writing his award-winning slogans from the pool. It looked like he was having a ball. His fellow dieters included a who’s who of comedians, actors and bigwig business people. They were bopping around in the pool and visiting the local malls where they walked laps wearing pedometers. Nighttime felt a little more desperate, as the dieters looked for amusing ways to avoid thinking about their growling stomachs. I remember one comedian swapping apple juice for urine in the specimen containers that were required to be left outside the door at night.
It was the fanciest place my sister and I had ever stayed. Every meal was a special occasion. Three times a day, people dressed as if they were going to an event. My sister and I just wore sundresses and sandals, since they were a little lax on the dress code with children, but there were no exceptions to the menu. We ate the same meal as everyone else. Breakfast was a bowl of white rice with either a piece of canned peach or pineapple. With lunch came a bowl of white rice with three ounces of dry chicken and a little bit of stewed tomatoes. Dinner consisted of — you guessed it — white rice and three ounces of fish with no seasoning.
The white rice gave me a stomachache, but I quite liked the plain fish and chicken. It was a low-sodium, low-fat diet. Nothing had salt or oil, and it made a huge difference in my health. Whenever I ate something salty, I swelled up. “I’m dizzy and my toes are popping out of my shoes,” I would tell my mother. But she was skeptical. “You’re being picky,” she would say. Maybe she didn’t want to change our meals at home, which mainly consisted of salty prepackaged frozen foods or greasy fast food.
But at Duke, I talked to a dietitian about my strange symptoms and she diagnosed my iodine sensitivity. I have never added salt to my food since.
Although I was fine with the strict fat-farm food, my mother and my sister were getting sick of it. Once a week we went off campus to a restaurant that Duke University had approved. I remember my father putting some kind of weird stick in his soda to make sure it was really a diet soda. The stick turned colors if the beverage contained sugar. I remember one meal when we ordered grilled mushrooms and grilled white fish. It was the best meal my family ever had together, then and now.
There are two things I remember most about my month on the fat farm: the validation and relief I felt when the dietitian diagnosed my problems with salt, and the experience of sitting down to three meals a day with both of my parents at a table. That had never happened before.
When we came back from the fat farm, my mother was horrified to learn she had gained 10 pounds. She immediately went back to her usual pattern of eating one small meal a day while talking on the phone and pursuing acting jobs. Although my father’s weight eventually crept back on, he learned some healthy eating habits that he was able to maintain for a while, and for the first time in his life, he was able to shop in a regular department store.
My sister and I started a new school year with lots of stories to share and a new appreciation for what was missing from our lives. We pinky-swore that when we were grown-ups, we always would eat with our children — seated at the table.
Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father will appear on occasional Fridays on Well in June and July.
Article source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/going-to-the-fat-farm-with-dad/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Dawn Lerman, Duke University, Mad Men, Magnificent Mommies
Well: Going to the Fat Farm With Dad
Dawn Lerman and her younger sister spent the summer of 1974 at a “fat farm” with their overweight father.
My dad was a brilliant ad man in the “Mad Men” era, responsible for such iconic slogans as “Coke Is It,” “Leggo My Eggo,” and “Fly the Friendly Skies of United.” He also was extremely overweight.
When I was 10, he got his big career break as the international creative director at a top ad firm in New York City. The only wrinkle was his weight. His appearance was not what the agency wanted to project, especially since he would be working on high-profile glamorous accounts.
His bosses sent him on a six-month paid medical leave to Duke University’s “fat farm,” where he was expected to drop a significant amount of weight. He left in March, and when summer break hit, we flew down to Durham, N.C., to join him. Family members were expected to be supportive, which meant my mother, my younger sister, April, and I would be eating in the dining room with my father and the other dieters, even though none of us were overweight.
By the time we arrived, we had not seen my dad for several months, and we were amazed to see he had lost close to 100 pounds. He said he thought about food all the time but felt great. I remember feeling relieved that maybe traveling with him now wouldn’t be so difficult. He normally took up two seats on an airplane or a bus. He definitely looked as if now he could fit in one seat.
He appeared healthy, happy and tan, and was swimming and writing his award-winning slogans from the pool. It looked like he was having a ball. His fellow dieters included a who’s who of comedians, actors and bigwig business people. They were bopping around in the pool and visiting the local malls where they walked laps wearing pedometers. Nighttime felt a little more desperate, as the dieters looked for amusing ways to avoid thinking about their growling stomachs. I remember one comedian swapping apple juice for urine in the specimen containers that were required to be left outside the door at night.
It was the fanciest place my sister and I had ever stayed. Every meal was a special occasion. Three times a day, people dressed as if they were going to an event. My sister and I just wore sundresses and sandals, since they were a little lax on the dress code with children, but there were no exceptions to the menu. We ate the same meal as everyone else. Breakfast was a bowl of white rice with either a piece of canned peach or pineapple. With lunch came a bowl of white rice with three ounces of dry chicken and a little bit of stewed tomatoes. Dinner consisted of — you guessed it — white rice and three ounces of fish with no seasoning.
The white rice gave me a stomachache, but I quite liked the plain fish and chicken. It was a low-sodium, low-fat diet. Nothing had salt or oil, and it made a huge difference in my health. Whenever I ate something salty, I swelled up. “I’m dizzy and my toes are popping out of my shoes,” I would tell my mother. But she was skeptical. “You’re being picky,” she would say. Maybe she didn’t want to change our meals at home, which mainly consisted of salty prepackaged frozen foods or greasy fast food.
But at Duke, I talked to a dietitian about my strange symptoms and she diagnosed my iodine sensitivity. I have never added salt to my food since.
Although I was fine with the strict fat-farm food, my mother and my sister were getting sick of it. Once a week we went off campus to a restaurant that Duke University had approved. I remember my father putting some kind of weird stick in his soda to make sure it was really a diet soda. The stick turned colors if the beverage contained sugar. I remember one meal when we ordered grilled mushrooms and grilled white fish. It was the best meal my family ever had together, then and now.
There are two things I remember most about my month on the fat farm: the validation and relief I felt when the dietitian diagnosed my problems with salt, and the experience of sitting down to three meals a day with both of my parents at a table. That had never happened before.
When we came back from the fat farm, my mother was horrified to learn she had gained 10 pounds. She immediately went back to her usual pattern of eating one small meal a day while talking on the phone and pursuing acting jobs. Although my father’s weight eventually crept back on, he learned some healthy eating habits that he was able to maintain for a while, and for the first time in his life, he was able to shop in a regular department store.
My sister and I started a new school year with lots of stories to share and a new appreciation for what was missing from our lives. We pinky-swore that when we were grown-ups, we always would eat with our children — seated at the table.
Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father will appear on occasional Fridays on Well in June and July.
Article source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/going-to-the-fat-farm-with-dad/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Dawn Lerman, Duke University, Mad Men, Magnificent Mommies
Growing Up With a Fat Dad
The author on vacation with her parents in 1973.
I grew up with a fat dad — 450 pounds at his heaviest. Every week he would rotate to a new fad diet, and my family ended up eating whatever freeze-dried, saccharin-loaded concoction he was trying at that moment. By the time I was 9, I was an expert on Atkins, Pritikin and Weight Watchers, just to name a few. Did I mention spending four weeks at Duke University’s “Fat Farm” consuming only minuscule bowls of white rice, while my 10-year-old peers were home eating ice cream cones?
In spite of being shorter and scrawnier than my classmates, I was eating calorie-free astronaut mystery powders and drinking diet sodas, which were the only staples in our kitchen. My dad was obsessed with his career in advertising and his fluctuating weight, which was fluctuating mostly in the wrong direction. Every new diet, no matter how stringent or odd, was the potential solution for his expanding waistline.
Michael Molinoff Dawn Lerman
My mother, on the other hand, never understood what the big deal with food was and ate only one small meal a day while standing up and chatting on the phone. She had no interest in preparing food. Most of our meals consisted of my dad’s diet foods, a meal replacement shake, a frozen dinner, or a bagel or pizza in the car. We never had meals together as a family; in fact, we never ate sitting down. At home, we never used silverware or dishes, only plastic forks and paper plates. My mom loved the fact that in India they never used silverware at all. Of course, she missed the part that Indian families actually ate together and sat down while eating.
What I remember most about those years is that I was always hungry — hungry for food, hungry for nice clean clothes, hungry for someone to notice when I ran away from home or hid in the closet for hours. I was just hungry — hungry for someone to care for me because I was a child and I yearned to be cared for.
But on Friday nights, I was never hungry. My maternal grandfather would pick me up for the weekend, and when we arrived at my grandparents’ home, the table was always set with beautiful china. There was always a pot of something cooking on the stove, a freshly drawn bath, and a fluffy, lavender-smelling nightgown waiting for me. It was at my grandmother’s house where I learned what true nourishment was. It is where my tears were dried.
When I walked into her kitchen, life transformed from processed packages of salty MSG instant soup to the delicious warm, fragrant smell of homemade chicken soup. Giant salads, fresh fruits and the aroma of just-baked muffins filled the air and my world. It was the only place I can remember feeling happy, safe and nourished. It was what I craved.
My grandmother, who was nicknamed Beauty, taught me how good it felt to be cared for, and how to care for myself and others through cooking. It was always about the ingredients for her. If I asked her how much celery to chop for a soup, she’d wave off the question. “Just use your creativity,” she’d say. “You can’t go wrong when you use fresh ingredients.” She’d throw a few carrots, sweet potatoes, a few veal bones — whatever looked best at the market that day — into a pot, and two hours later, it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.
My grandmother Beauty was always extremely skeptical of my parents’ wacky eating habits and reliance on processed diet foods, and made it her mission to teach me how to feed myself and my sister. My grandmother was my mentor and my savior. She poured love and stability into my life, one recipe at a time.
After my third-grade year, my dad landed a life-changing job in Manhattan. My mom, my little sister and I had to move away from our hometown, Chicago, and leave my grandmother and her beautiful food behind.
Leaving my grandmother was far scarier than the move to New York City. There would be no more special weekends at my grandmother’s house, no more homemade food, no more car rides to school. It was the subway, a latchkey, total independence and self-reliance for survival. In this new city, I felt extremely alone and lost, and I missed my grandmother terribly.
My grandmother knew just how I felt — and she knew the cure. Every week, she would send me a card with a $20 bill, a recipe and a list of what to buy at the market. It kept us bonded, and her recipes filled my body and soul.
Over the years, I have grown to better understand my father’s struggles with weight and the toll it took on him and those who love him. I have come to realize he was driven not by vanity or selfishness as much as by a deep pain. And in spite of growing up in such an unhealthy eating environment (or perhaps because of it), as an adult I found a passion and a career as a nutritional consultant.
Today, my father weighs 220 pounds and is a vegan. How he got there is a story I hope to share in the coming weeks. More important, food is no longer a barrier that keeps us apart, but a bridge that keeps us connected. There is nothing my dad enjoys more than talking with me about dietary theories and his weight-loss victories. And now I am the one regularly sending recipe cards to my father’s house, just as my grandmother did for me.
Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, a nutrition firm that provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father will appear on occasional Fridays on Well in June and July.
Article source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/growing-up-with-a-fat-dad/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Duke University, Fat Farm, Magnificent Mommies, MSG