The "No Diet" Diet Plan? Riiiight...

Ok, so another person is getting some time in the spotlight for the latest spin on "healthy" eating. Now we have Professor Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University saying that you can eat whatever you want as long as you only do so when you're actually hungry and you stop when you're full.

Now that's the trick, ain't it?

According to the interview with CNN, Hawks surrounds himself with the unhealthy foods that he craves and macks out on stuff like chocolate chip ice cream for dinner sometimes. He says that as long as you follow the two rules above (eat only when hungry and stop when full), you should do fine. His logic is that if you don't deprive yourself, you won't gorge yourself on the stuff when you do get your paws on it.

He calls it "intuitive eating".

I do agree with some of what he says, which is to only eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. I do believe however that when you do eat, you should try to make it healthy foods instead of junk food. Junk food is more calorically dense and you have to eat more of it to get to the same feeling of fulness that you would if you ate "real" food (whole grains, fruit, vegetables, etc.). Therefore, it will take more calories to achieve the same level of fulness.

Now I don't know if this guy is blessed with some sort of magical willpower, but I honestly do not believe that his recommendation is going to help the average person lose weight. The average (already overweight) person will look at this as carte blanche to eat whatever they want in whatever quantities they like.

Of course then there are the nutritional aspects of eating junk food vs healthy food. I know that when I go through periods (like the Thanksgiving - Christmas time of year) where I tend to eat more cookies, cakes, chips, etc. than usual that after a while I just feel kind of cruddy. When I eat healthy I feel better.

And this guy is a professor of Health Sciences... yeesh.

Thanks to my pal Brian for alerting me to the original article.

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Posted by Vic on December 7, 2005 02:27 PM