Some Weight Control Basics

Let's Begin

    As we get older, many of us find ourselves on special diets as recommended by our physicians.  Some of us are on a low cholesterol, low fat diet, or a reduced calorie diet, or a Reaven diet, or a Mediterranean diet, or a low salt diet, or a plant-based diet, or whatever.  As Dr. Christopher Gardner discusses in our book, Heart Attack! Advice for Patients by Patients, diets are extraordinarily complex, and no one knows all the answers.  What is clear is that no single diet works for everyone.  Just as there are many different components of good health, there are many different diets with each being appropriate for different people at different times in their lives.

    Regardless of what kind of diet we are on, there are some very simple dietary guidelines for weight control that we need to keep in mind as we plan our meals.  Not only may we be limited by our diet as to the types of foods that we should and should not eat, but we also need to manage our caloric intake.  For our optimum health, the proper control of our weight is very important and may directly affect our blood pressure and our sugar and lipid levels.  (See below for the results of a recent NIH study on the effects of diet and exercise on diabetes.)

The Basics

    To begin, let's discuss the the number of calories that any man or woman needs daily to maintain his or her weight.  For an "average" person, it is approximately 15 calories per pound of body weight.  For example, an "average" individual who weighs 160 pounds must consume approximately 2,400 calories each day to maintain his or her weight ( 15 calories/pound x 160 pounds = 2,400 calories).

    Note that the example above was for an average person.  Furthermore, there are some things, which we don't have control over, that may affect the average.  And there are other things that we think should affect the average but have no effect whatsoever.  Let's look at at some of these things:

There are individual fluctuations that can be significant from causes yet unknown, as with many human physiological functions.  So, some of us may daily need only 14 calories per pound of body weight to maintain our weight; others may need 16 calories per pound.  The only way to determine our maintenance caloric requirement is to count over several weeks, daily and carefully, our total caloric intake; this should be done when our weight is stable.  One thing is certain:  if you are gaining weight, you are consuming more than your maintenance caloric requirement.

        There is one important thing we do have some control over.  Good muscle tone resulting from exercise may slightly increase our maintenance caloric requirement.  But most importantly, aerobic exercise directly helps our heart.  However, please remember that the number of calories which are burned while exercising typically are minimal when compared to our daily maintenance caloric requirements.  For example, a half-hour of aerobic exercise-bike riding may burn only 200 calories.

    Furthermore, don't be lulled into thinking that, just because we have a well-toned body, we will have a substantially increased maintenance caloric requirement.  Agreed, muscle is considerably more vascular than fat; but unless a muscle is actively working, it is not consuming any more caloric energy than fat.  Exercise is a proven requirement for good health; however, exercise is not an excuse to pig out at the table.

    What about the excess calories that we consume?  On the average, for every 3,500 calories that we eat over what we need to maintain our weight (regardless of how many days it takes us to do it), we gain a pound.  So if your maintenance level is 2,400 calories daily, and you are consuming 2,650 calories daily, you can expect to gain about a half pound or so per week ( 250 calories/day x 7 days/week divided by 3,500 calories/pound = 0.50 pounds/week).  It also works in reverse; for every 3,500 calories under our maintenance requirement that we don't eat, we lose a pound.  Furthermore, the last pound that we put on is typically the first pound that comes off.  So if we've put on 20 pounds and our paunch has gotten bigger as a result, losing 20 pounds will shrink it right back down.

    Finally, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.  It doesn't make any difference if the excess calorie comes from fat, protein, carbohydrates, or even alcohol or fruit juice:  excess calories from whatever source will put on weight if our average daily consumption is over our maintenance limit!

Wrapping It Up

    So, is our diet complicated?  You bet!    Is it difficult to change lifelong eating habits?  Definitely!  Should we throw up our hands and walk away?  No way.  Remember it's your body and your life.  Is your optimum diet going to be different from your spouse's?  Could be.

    A large clinical study, reported by the National Institute of Health on August 8, 2001, and summarized by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), found that even modest lifestyle changes cut the incidence of adult onset (Type 2) diabetes by more than half!  Exercise and diet were so effective that the researchers ended their work early and announced their findings at the National Institutes of Health.  In fact, exercise and diet were more effective than drugs in reducing the onset of this disease.  Diabetes is not a nice disease, often leading to cardiovascular problems, kidney failure, loss of limbs, and blindness.  So is our diet important?  You bet!

    How do we start to figure this all out?  In much the same way that we attack any complicated problem.  Start with your physician's recommendations, and then read as much as you can about the issues.  One reading we suggest is Dr. Gardner's chapter in Heart Attack! Advice for Patients by Patients.   His advice is up to date and his qualifications, as a faculty member at the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention, are impeccable.  And, of course, make use of the Cardiac Therapy Foundation's professional nursing and dietetic staff that is here to help you.

    A final suggestion from Dr. Gardner is that a healthy approach to eating needs to be one that can be maintained for life, and therefore it can't simply be healthy, but should also be colorful, aromatic, and most importantly, flavorful.

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