Flexible restraint: it’s what’s missing from all fad diets

Enter the grapefruit diet. The Metracal diet. The cabbage soup diet. Twiggy’s vegetable diet. You name a fad diet – the Spanish girls and I tried it throughout our convent high school years.

We’d lose a few pounds. And then we’d gain them all back – plus a bit more. Then came college and the famous Freshman 15. Those pounds arrived and then departed over the next few years in time for my wedding day photos. By the time I was in my late 20s and had popped out Baby #1, I joined Weight Watchers, lost 27 pounds of baby fat, and became a lifetime member (that’s somebody who meets their goal weight and manages to maintain it).

I was a model lifetime member – mostly because I’d also started running while in post-natal exercise class at the Y. I kept running (taking occasional breaks for sleeping, going to work, and popping out Baby #2) over the next 19 years. That was the only time in my adult life I didn’t participate in some kind of regimented diet program. I became one of those annoyingly smug people that dieters love to hate. I could eat (and drink) whatever I liked because I exercised hard almost every day.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was following the advice of Kentucky cardiologist Dr. John Mandrola:

“You only have to exercise on the days you plan to eat.”

The first type of eating behaviour is called dietary restraint:

#1:  Dietary restraint is a term that describes how tightly food intake is controlled in an effort to manage weight.

People with high levels of dietary restraint are likely to add up the calories in every bite, read every label, and talk a lot about how they watch what they are eating. But high levels of dietary restraint are not associated with successful weight management and may lead to abnormal eating patterns.² People with high levels of dietary restraint are also prone to ‘on again/off again’ weight-loss practices.

Wow! They’re describing me and the Spanish girls back in the 1960s. We believed that carefully monitored deprivation was The Only Way to melt away ugly fat as we tracked each lettuce leaf that passed our lips.  Except that this relentless control only worked in the very short term. We were the undisputed champions of on again/off again fad dieting!

Meanwhile, the second form of eating behaviour is known as dietary disinhibition:

#2:  Dietary disinhibition is a term that describes the lack of control over eating.

A person with high levels of disinhibition will have frequent episodes of overeating, is likely to eat rapidly, have more symptoms of disordered eating, and higher ratings of perceived hunger.³  Not surprisingly, high levels of dietary disinhibition are associated with weight gain.⁴

Wow! That was me and our Spanish girls, too.  We seemed to be ravenously hungry at all times. We regularly swung from semi-starvation to binge-celebrating at the slightest provocation. During a late study night in the dorms, for example, nothing could cause more hyped-up frenzy than one of our dorm-mates unearthing a cache of Hawkins Cheezies after a long stretch of eating celery sticks or whatever was prominently featured in our latest fad diet. We’d go nuts with the Cheezies, our diet would go out the window, with nary a thought to those size 6 quinceañera ball gowns waiting at home for the Spanish girls. When the Cheezies had been polished off, and the fluorescent orange cheese-like powder licked off our fingers and swept off bed linens or PJ tops before the nuns called “Lights Out!”,  great remorse and shame would descend upon our dorm – at least until the next miracle diet started a few days later. As serial dieters believe:

“Nothing feels better than the first four hours of a new diet!”

Here’s what apparently lies between those two diet extremes of restraint and inhibition: The Right Balance, a.k.a. Flexible Restraint.

Flexible restraint means putting a moderate level of control on eating to manage a healthy weight.

An eating plan that incorporates the concept of flexible restraint provides enough structure to limit food intake to encourage weight loss, while avoiding fostering feelings of deprivation and tight restrictions.  Learning and practicing the skill of flexible restraint is a recommended strategy for lasting weight management.⁵

I long ago decided that certain things like Cheezies can no longer have a place in my grocery cart or kitchen cupboard. Ever. To do so would merely invite “dietary disinhibition” back into my life.  I realize, of course, that many people are not like me – hence the puzzling invention of things like resealable bags of chocolate chips.

I also come from a long line of emotional eaters. Our family ate when we were celebrating, we ate when we were worried, and we ate at any point in between those two extremes.  I’ve never understood people who say things like “I’m too upset to eat!” Do you recall those classic scenes from the old TV series The Golden Girls in which Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia – at every possible available opportunity – sat down together at the kitchen table in front of a fabulous (whole) cheesecake to solve their problems together? That was my family, too.

Dr. Brian Wansink, a behavioral scientist at Cornell University, describes what we often do as mindless eating. He explains, for example:

“We’re a nation of mindless eaters. We do so many things during the day that when it comes to food. we can just nibble and nibble and nibble, and eat and eat and eat.”

Find out more about Dr. Wansink’s work on why we eat mindlessly – and how we can help ourselves to pay attention.

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UPDATE:  As Toronto health journalist Julia Belluz wrote in her Vox column:

“The science about dieting is rather straightforward. What works is cutting calories in a way that you like and can sustain. That’s it. Fewer calories means more weight loss. It’s really that simple.”

¹ Bellisle F. Why should we study human food intake behaviour? Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2003 Aug;13(4):189-93.

² Rogers PJ. Eating habits and appetite control: a psychobiological perspective. Proc Nutr Soc. 1999 Feb;58(1):59-67.

³ Smith CF, Geiselman PJ, Williamson DA, Champagne CM, Bray GA, Ryan DH. Association of dietary restraint and disinhibition with eating behavior, body mass, and hunger. Eat Weight Disord. 1998 Mar;3(1):7-15.

⁴ Provencher V, Drapeau V, Tremblay A, Despres JP, Bouchard C, Lemieux S; Quebec Family Study. Eating behaviours, dietary profile and body composition according to dieting history in men and women of the Quebec Family Study. Br J Nutr. 2004 Jun;91(6):997-1004.

⁵ Westenhoefer J. The therapeutic challenge: behavioral changes for long-term weight maintenance. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2001 May;25 Suppl 1:S85-8.

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Q: What tips have you learned to maintain a healthy weight?

See also:

• Heart-healthy weight: secrets of the always-slim
• 5 surprising myths about excess weight
• What overweight women may have in common with drug addicts
• We know we should do ____, but instead we do ____
• Are you a mindful eater?
• Six steps to stop emotional eating
• How to stare down that plate of chocolate chip cookies
• Mediterranean Diet: it’s all Greek to me
• Mindless eating: 8 reasons women eat when we’re not even hungry

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